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Time for a summer haircut
RESPONSIBILITIES Next
of kin, nuclear family, dependents….. The attentions to the pups' bodily needs are growing further and further apart as they mature. I still must take them out to "potty" a time or two of an evening. Since they will probably always be small enough to fit under the gate I keep them on leashes when we go out to the back yard. A few weeks ago I had them to the vet, and I mentioned that Carille is less vigorous than Cody is. The vet said, "Let's do a blood test." She drew blood from Carille's front paw, and that was when the tiny poodle heart raced madly, pumping blood out of the needle hole, staining her fur. The vet finished drawing the needed blood from Carille's juggler vein. A couple of days later Dr. Medina called and told me that the pup was "suffering kidney failure." We went back in for further tests. They again drew blood from her neck, and I can tell you how to make a puppy pee in a specimen bottle if you want to know. They then shaved her belly up to her rib cage for an ultrasound, and two of us held her as we all looked inside her at her internal parts. All
of her tests came back normal this time. Had she eaten anything
unusual, the vet asked. Well, until I restricted their potty area,
there was this great big mushroom growing in the back yard that
they seemed fascinated with…Puppies gobble any and everything
just as human babies do. We may never know why Carille suffered
what the vet termed, "a kidney crisis," but I must tell
you that having my little girl given a urinalysis for drug abuse
was not my proudest moment. So many of the trials of parenthood
with this little family resemble the human family problems that
people experience, and as is true for my people next of kin the
love they give back is real
LION HUNTER Rumor has it that poodles were first developed for the purpose of hunting. Lion hunting. I have researched their history, and although I do not find the lion-hunting element there, I can see how the rumor got started. The traditional poodle haircut resembles the one nature gave lions. Logic follows the history I read today on the library of the 21st Century, the Internet. The German name for "poodle" is "pudel" meaning, "to splash in water". Hence, a water dog that helped with hunting things in the water such as ducks. Cats, lions among them, do not like water. I am currently involved in an intense relationship with a little bitty poodle, intense because of the need to impart knowledge about human history and human needs concerning the bodily functions of animals that cohabit with us. I have, because of this training program, observed the behavior of this baby poodle and by inference, her ancestors. I am "crate training" her, meaning I keep her caged up in the space where she sleeps and take her outside to the yard when she whines. Dogs, particularly smart dogs such as poodles, prefer not to soil their beds. It works surprisingly well, and since the puppy-training manual says that dogs are den animals, one must not feel sorry for them for staying in their den where their mother in the wild would also leave them. Do not, the manual says, leave them for long periods of time, and vary the crate time with feeding and interacting with them, human to dog. Fair enough. Carille's crate opens at the end or at the top. I usually keep her beside me as I work at the computer or in the shop or in the living room as I work foiling glass at the table and watching TV. I open the top of her crate, and I talk with her. Following her trips outside I know she will not soil my carpet if I let her down on the floor for awhile which I am beginning to do for longer periods. The other day I let her out onto the floor here in my office, and I shut the door so she wouldn't wander out and get into trouble. I didn't at first realize that I had also shut Simon the Siamese up in the office with us. Carille found him, and she turned into a whirling Dervish. She pranced, whirled, jumped straight up, found her bark (at last) and tried to communicate with him using that.
Simon was not having any of it. He retreated here. He retreated there. He seemed to forget that he could hop up onto the cupboard and get close to the ceiling. He may not have realized that she couldn't follow him if he did. At last she had this twelve-pound cat cornered, and all two to three pounds of her cranked it up a notch. I realized that, weenie though he is, if cornered he may hurt her. I scooped her up, and I opened the door to allow Simon to escape. Which he did out into the hallway. Where he promptly vomited. I
still don't know for sure if Carille's ancestors hunted lions. Or
if Simon's relatives met Carille's during those hunts. After the
scene in my office I can almost believe that they both have some
sort of cellular memory of poodles behaving as though they were
a whole lot meaner and fiercer than lions.
Carille Ten Dog Rules by Bill Johns Virginia's dog Rules 1. A 2-pound poodle can drink one thimble of water
and pee 75.
Left & Center-Carille Right-Tink
Baby Blues I was with Mindy the day she met her new poodle, Tinker. The woman who gave "Tink" to Mindy met us behind the dog groomer's building. She held a little silver colored bundle of curls, and she handed the little bundle to Mindy, telling her, "I hope you do better with her than I have. This dog has never bonded with me." Tink instantly pasted herself against Mindy's chest, ignoring both the woman who had owned her and me. It was love at first sight. A few months later Mindy told me she had seen a beautiful white poodle walking with its owner, and she had stopped to inquire about its gender as well as the possibility of matchmaking between him and Tink. Yes, he was a male, and yes he could be available for stud duties. "Oscar" was teacup size, smaller than Tink who is toy size A few weeks after that Mindy played midwife to Tink and a litter of five rat looking infants. Later they told me I could have the runt of the litter, a less desirable puppy than the handsome apricot and silver littermates. The little female had no curls, unlike her littermates. In fact, she had almost no hair. I agreed, telling them, "I just want a little dog who loves me." I began to visit the puppy so that she could come to know me and ease smoothly into home life with me and, hopefully, with Simon. Her name, I told Mindy, is Carille. I wanted a fussy femmie name for a fussy femmie little dog. The first time I visited her, Mindy told me to sit in the recliner, and she handed Carille to me. I have unusually small hands, but the little thing fit into my cupped hands with room to spare. I laid her on my chest, and she collapsed against me and fell asleep there. I thought I saw the beginning of, if not curls, at least some hair on her. Gradually Carille grew hair, and to my relief, her hair took on poodle curls. My suspicion grew that she may be the runt of the litter, but more likely than that was the possibility that she would be teacup size like her dad. Her hair became not white as he is but almost so and with apricot tones. "She is the pick of the litter," I told Mindy. The insecurities
set in. How am I going to potty train a puppy? I have always in
the past either gotten already trained dogs or kept them outside.
What am I to do if Simon doesn't like her? Will she remain so little?
If so, she will be able to fit under the basement stairs gate and
may tumble down. Will she get into trouble if I get teaching jobs
and leave her for hours? Will she forget her potty training? I think
I recognize these feelings. I have had them twice before, and those
two babies turned out fine.
TRAINING A CAT You can't train a cat, they say. This may or may not be true, and the suggested reasons for it's being true (if it is) are varied. Some say that cats are stupid compared with dogs. Others claim that cats are far closer to their wild ancestors and thus thousands (millions, knowing cats) of generations less advanced in their bonding with humans. One expert reported in a documentary I watched that dogs are pack animals while cats are generally solitary, so dogs seek approval from the pack leader who is the human in the life of a domesticated dog. Cat lovers will tell you that a dog reasons, "Humans take care of my every need. Therefore, they are gods," while a cat reasons, "Humans take care of my every need. Therefore, I am a god." Meaning that a dog seeks human approval while a cat just doesn't give a rat's patoot. When Simon the Siamese came to live with me he was already an old cat. Our co-habitation has proven to be a sweetheart of a deal because Simon craves a solitary existence except for the bare essentials of food, shelter, a litter box or two and scant human companionship, while I for the most part am preoccupied and appreciate his warm presence but expect him to entertain himself. The
lady who gave him to me told me, "If a salesman comes to the
door you won't see Simon for two days." I brought him home,
put him and his crate downstairs in the basement, filled up food
and water bowls, opened the crate door and left him to his own devices.
A month later I still hadn't seen Simon, never mind the salesman
at the door. Food and water disappeared, the litter box was being
used, there was no smell of a dead cat, and so I continued putting
out food for whatever was causing all of that. Gradually he showed himself; out at the food bowl but skittering away faster than I could tell to where; staying longer at the food bowl but skittering away if I approached; letting me put a soft hand on his neck to scratch him; and finally upstairs in the recliner and allowing me to pet him. Now he accepts me whenever or wherever I chose to interact with him although he is still a vanishing ghost for certain people if they walk, talk or appear big and scary.
PART TWO My
daughter and son-in-law installed a double door in the back wall
of my house, right beside the computer where I spend so much time.
The door was my Christmas gift, and it opened up my rather delightful
back yard for my enjoyment as I work. Simon adopted the door instantly,
sitting I have conducted a completely unintentional training program which has terrorized Simon and made the back yard off limits to him for long periods of time. It seems that about every other month I slide open the door to let him out after forgetting to disarm the electronic security system. Just as he takes a tentative step outside the alarm screams like a banshee, and I don't see Simon again for a long time. Back to the basement food and water bowls for him until he comes back up, spends a month building up trust in my intentions once more, grows curious about the back yard and goes out there for a few visits. Then, just as his cat memory of the banshee monster fails, I (in my preoccupied way) forget the security system again. Yes, cats are trainable, but I think that the life of a cat lesson is about two months, counting the time it takes Simon to tear downstairs to the basement, gradually work his way back upstairs, come back into the office, develop curiosity about the birds and other cats out in the back yard and finally take a timid trip out there. I haven't reminded my daughter about my mistakes with Simon. She has a darling little poodle puppy waiting to be weaned before moving in with me. I sincerely, fervently hope that I do not find out how a poodle reacts to the banshee monster and cause it to demonstrate any differences between the trainability of cats and dogs...THE END
Scooby Doo The Mother of All Tomcats He was born in our barn at the place in Vaughn. His mother was a little gray longhaired cat named "Smoky", but he grew up to look practically nothing like her. When Bill Johns sent the photo of Scooby Doo I saw our cat again, for he became a long, lean brown, black & gray tabby with circle markings on his sides. Lloyd was in kindergarten when Smoky gave birth to that first litter. The boy was endlessly fascinated by the goings-on of infancy and motherhood among cats, and he would gently pop the kittens off of nipples and tenderly hold them to his chest. Smoky allowed it, and the one tabby tomcat we kept grew accustomed to the rigors of love from a little boy, learning how to dig in and hold on as he was subjected to a wild dash around the farm atop the boy's shoulder. I gave the cat his name, inspired by his sprawling out over the bowl in an effort to keep his littermates from having any milk. Top Cat he became, and Top Cat stayed with us until his death at age twelve. The fierce competitiveness kept him alive in and out of the house, wherever a tomcat goes while humans go about their lives awake and asleep. He took on the markings of what the vet called, "an old street fighter", over the years as notched ears and scars across his nose and face appeared and stayed. One time I witnessed the behavior that must have contributed to his longevity when a puppy began yapping at him and darting toward his hindquarters. Top Cat did not run as most cats would have done. He simply turned to face the puppy, sat down and waited for an opportunity to unleash a fierce series of slashes and bites, which sent the little dog back inside with his tail between his legs. Warrior though he was, Top Cat was a gentleman. When we opened doors he would wait until we invited him inside before he entered the house. He would not demand affection, but he would allow it if we offered him any. He wouldn't have dreamed of stealing food from a plate left unattended or of leaving messes for us to clean up. If his one-word vocabulary of,"Mewp!" did not gain him the attention he needed, he would stretch up against me as I sat or stood, sink his claws into my leg and then calmly sit back down while I yelled. Smoky would always give birth to her kittens in the barn, and then when they were able to eat solid food she would bring them up to the house, settle them in and then abandon them. Top Cat handled the remainder of the cleaning and protecting they needed. One time we heard the sounds of a mother cat trilling to her kittens, and there, bringing the latest litter up the driveway to the house with mother cat noises was Top Cat himself.
Clyde had died in late 1986, and a few years later it was near Christmas
when Top Cat fell ill. With complete agreement from the family I
took him to the vet and spent most of our Christmas money to have
him made well again. As he aged he began to act confused at times,
but Lloyd would not agree to having him shut up. "Let him go,
Mom," he pleaded, "even if he gets killed out there, it's
where he's happy." It would be Lloyd who discovered Top Cat's
body in a neighbor's barn when he, himself, was a strapping big
boy. He said, his eyes bright with tears, "I buried him, Mom.
I didn't want you to see him looking like that." It was a touchingly
respectful attitude toward an old gentleman of a street fighter
who had earned it.
APARTMENTS, COMPUTER COOTIES & A DEAL MADE IN HEAVEN I e-mailed all of you about the great transition from Bryburcon.com First Edition to BBC.com Second Edition. About how I switched to a new computer, from Windows 98 to Windows XP and then the web hosting service couldn't help me figure out how to get the website published. That was a trip through cyber hell but not the first one I have taken. I began flirting with cyber hell when I first attempted to keep a mouse pointer on a computer screen. Fortunately my employer needed to get us all up to speed on computers, so they sent me to school to learn, and that was a strain but not as hellacious as it could have been had I tried it without a classroom and a teacher. Those computers belonged to the school, and the school had people whose job it was to tend to computer cooties, strange illnesses that attack and scramble everything that works one time but not the next. During the time I lived in the apartment in Gig Harbor I decided I needed (wanted) a computer of my own. So I took my son, Lloyd, to the computer store with me. He was still a work in progress, a boy around twenty years old, but he was born in 1977, after the human race underwent a genetic mutation, and people began being born with a computer gene the older ones of us were not born with. So he could talk computer babble with the best of them, and we took back to Gig Harbor a great big black thing with …stuff to attach to it and a nice desk to hold it all. Lloyd got me hooked up to the Internet, and a wondrous world opened up. I had the sensation of finding where the rest of the humans had gone after they disappeared from libraries, banks, and mailboxes. Soon after that the cooties struck. The computer would tease me by working perfectly, and then it simply wouldn't work at all. I learned how to find tech support in a hundred different places - online, at work, at the supermarket…you name it. Still the problems persisted. As I struggled in cyber hell on most evenings up until around midnight adding to my misery was a horrible sound from just beyond the bedroom wall where my computer was... PART TWO It was sort of a "B-r-r-O-O-O-O!!" sound, and it was so jarring that even if I had been able to hang two thoughts together, forget that after something primordial announced its presence. I asked at the apartment complex office, and the manager sighed and said, "Oh, that's Matt's beagle, Humphrey. Matt works three to eleven, and I guess I'll have to tell him he has to get rid of Humphrey. Poor thing is divorced, shares custody of his daughter, and Humphrey is about all he got out of the marriage with. I guess his ex didn't want Humphrey along with the house." A day or so later I saw a young man walking toward the apartment entrance beside my own. With him were a little girl and a fat little beagle. I asked him, "Do you live in this apartment?" and he said slowly, "Oh, has he been barking? I'm sorry. He hates to be alone." Inspiration struck (helped along by the fact that Humphrey bounced up to me and wagged his tail). I said, "I moved into Gig Harbor from Vaughn, and I miss my dogs and cats. I'm usually home in the evenings since I commute a long way to work. I would be willing to babysit him until you get home at night." It became a deal made in heaven. Humphrey would sweetly follow me from room to room in his abandonment anxiety, but he didn't bark unless Matt arrived late to get him. He did really well riding in my car, so I took him with me if I wanted to go out. After we got to know each other I gave Matt my apartment key, and he would open the door where Humphrey would be waiting for him, never even disturbing me as I slept. I had his key from the beginning in order to collect Humphrey in the afternoon. (I had hesitated to accept the key at first, but Matt said, "Don't worry. I'm divorced so I have nothing to steal."). The apartment complex management silently (and probably gratefully) looked the other way over my having a dog every evening who by house rules was supposed to cost me a $300 pet deposit. Matt's
part of that heavenly deal was the fact that he was a Microsoft
certified computer tech, and during the day he would simply go into
my apartment, fix anything wrong with my computer and leave it alive
and well for me. I lived in Gig Harbor for three years. The entire
time after I offered to babysit a beagle I was free from that horrible
noise, and I had a computer that behaved itself.
ANGEL It was sometime in the late 1980's. Clyde had died in October of 1986. Lloyd and I were living in the great big house in Vaughn, doing the best we could to be a family and to take care of each other. That meant his going about the business of growing up and my going about the business of showing him how to grow up while I figured out how to bring in money, sometimes commuting long distances in order to do so. Mindy was struggling with monstrous problems of her own, taking care of two little kids and trying to earn a living. I told Lloyd one day, "I think we need a dog." He was wildly excited about the prospect of having a new friend, so we went to the Tacoma Humane Society. We walked along in front of the steel barred cages, talking to the dogs. One little buff colored mutt tried to slide sideways under the gate to get to us, so Lloyd said that was his dog. I said if he were sure of his choice I would then seek a dog for myself, a spayed female border collie. I had watched the border collies at work in the rural area where we lived, and I had been enchanted with them for many years. They seemed to be smart humans with four feet and thick black and white hair. I thought I would have to look for my BC in the newspaper as they command handsome prices. However, no sooner had I told Lloyd about my dog of choice than there in front of me was a tag on one of the cages, and it read, "Border Collie, Female, Spayed." I glanced into the cage where the little black and white dog sat, and she stared serenely back at me. I would learn later that border collies are known for their ability to freeze a flock of sheep with their mesmerizing stare. "Can I see that one out of the cage?" I asked the attendant, and she cheerfully undid the latch and snapped a leash onto the dog's collar and invited her out. She was splendid with the thick undercoat her kind sports. She fixed her attention on me immediately and tried to do whatever I asked her to do. Want me to sit? OK. Heel? OK. Shake? Lie down? "Can I take her?" I asked, and the attendant said sure, that she had been relinquished and was not a stray, so they did not have to wait to see if anybody claimed her. Lloyd's little mutt whom we named "Aroo" had been a stray, and we would return for him several days later, but we eventually gave him back because of incorrigible behavior problems which, among other things involved his being prone to breaking out of the yard and running the countryside. "Maggie", my dog, had been given away and jailed at the Humane Society because she dug holes in her master's yard. By the time I got her home I had renamed her, and for eleven more years she was a kind and gentle member of our family who lived up to the name I decided was more fitting for her which was "Angel". PART TWO Several nights after Angel came home with us Lloyd was sitting in the living room doing homework. Suddenly she approached him, tugged the pencil out of his hand and then stood there with it in her mouth, her tail wagging. "Oh, look, Mom, she wants to eat my pencil," he said. "Do you know what I see, Lloyd?" I asked. "I see a dog with a stick." So we went out into the yard where I found a real stick, and I threw it down the slope. Angel burst into action, tore down the slope and returned with the stick, bouncing with delight as she did so. Gradually she would show us many things that she knew, and she would study us to find out what we wanted from her. She was my love who showed obvious preference for me. Except when it came to the grandchildren. Then her allegiance changed. When Hillary and Nathan were with us she seemed in acute distress if she was separated from them. She would whine and prance around to be let out into the yard if they were there, and she carefully placed herself between them and anyone or anything else that seemed threatening. She walked circles around them, gradually…herding them into a tight little…flock…and then she would try to move them back into the house. I was never sure if she considered them sheep, her puppies or exactly what. She slept faithfully beside my bed unless they were in the house, and if they were there, before bedtime she would simply disappear. When we would take the kids upstairs to the room they always occupied we learned that if we looked behind one of the beds we would find Angel there. I still have a clear memory of glancing into the downstairs room where we had the TV and of seeing three kids sitting there watching cartoons. The middle kid had long hairy ears and a long nose. The first time Hillary and Nathan caught the school bus from the house in Vaughn I was off work, and I walked up the road to the bus stop with them. Angel was with us and on a leash. She was fine until that big yellow school bus swallowed up her kids and putted off down the road with them. She froze in obvious horror until she again found her voice, and then she broke into an absolute hysteria of barking. I realized that the leash had been a good decision. Lloyd would sometimes hold Angel in his arms on her back the way one would hold a human infant. She allowed it, but she would look at me with worry lines between her eyes as if to say, "Mom? Tell him to put me down." Neither the groomer nor the veterinarian ever had to restrain her in order to work with her. She simply stood for them, but she would give me the familiar worried look as she did so. Everything and everyone seemed to love and respect her She was a rare creature in whose presence everything seemed to behave better. Even the cats that sometimes hated each other loved her and competed for her attention. One day she and a cat were sitting side by side in front of the double glass door that leads off onto the side porch. I was on the porch, and when I opened the door the cat that had been on the porch with me darted into the house to rub against her. Cat #1 spat and raked the intruder with its claws, sending him back outside. Then cat #1 proceeded to gently rub against Angel. Generations of kittens found her bushy tail the perfect toy, and she tolerated their climbing her, but again the worry lines and the pleading looks in my direction. She never growled or barked at a baby, be it a kitten, puppy or human. It was not uncommon to see her asleep on the porch with three or four cats curled up asleep all over her. The time came when I turned the house over to Mindy, Tad and the kids, and for a while I lived in my motor home on an RV pad I had poured down the slope. Angel lived with me, and we lived in absolute harmony. In the morning she stayed in her spot on the console between the driver's and passenger seats until I picked up my car keys. Then she stood up and walked to the door. Weekends her old lady dog friends, Annie and Sadie, scratched on the motor home door, and the three bounced around while I had coffee on the concrete RV slab that extended out far enough for me to have a patio. I looked at corral, pasture, flowers, garden; and I rediscovered the sky. In
1997 I moved to an apartment in Gig Harbor. I knew that Angel would
be in misery there,
so I left her in Vaughn. Mindy would tell me how she would sense
illness in the Our once brilliant border collie would wait in front of a blank wall to be let outside and grow confused about why she had gone outside after Mindy would gently steer her over to the door. Mindy checked the driveway whenever cars moved down it after Angel began sleeping there. One day Mindy first checked the driveway and then got into her car and began to drive away. She drove a few feet and somehow discovered that she, herself, had run over Angel, pinning her to the ground under the car. She yelled desperately for Hillary who ran to get the neighbor man. Mindy cried and sobbed and stayed in the house while they lifted the car enough for the man to slide Angel out from under it. Mindy had called Tad who rushed home, only to find Angel calmly drinking water out of her bowl. She had been pinned only by one of her long curly ears. They told me that she was showing signs of pain, and we must make a decision. It seemed I could always find the money for anything but for writing a check for the vet. Then I steeled myself and wrote it, and they called for an appointment. None of us could bear to be there the day the vet came except for Mindy who was determined that Angel would not die among strangers. She wrapped her in my pink fuzzy bathrobe so that she could have my scent, and then she held Angel in her arms while they gave her the shot. She described how she cried so terribly that the vet and attendant spent more time trying to comfort her than they did with the work at hand. "You are going to have to be the one to do it when Annie's time comes," she told me. It
has taken time, but at last I can view the videos I shot of a beautiful
young Angel romping with Lloyd, Hillary and Nathan. I send thanks
to the magnificent entity who inhabited that body, who walked along
with us for eleven years and showed all of us-cats, dogs, humans-
how to be better creatures.
Angel shortly before her death at age 15 IN MEMORY OF CODY & ANGEL Visit the page now by going to: A gentle and compassionate support website for grieving pet lovers. THE END
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and
sleeping in front of it, making cat trills at birds and other cats
that wandered by. He pleaded with his big blue Siamese eyes to go
out there, so at last I decided, clawless though he is, that I would
let him go. He didn't wander away and get lost as I had feared,
and he would shoot back inside at the first bird squawk or neighbor
noise. 
house
and would stay with the patient day and night. She lived until 2001,
growing gradually more slow, stiff and confused. The little black
dog, Annie, guarded her fiercely,
solemnly cleaned her face and slept beside her. 
