Posted Sept 30, 2008

My parents weren't terribly good with animals, but they'd both had their best luck with dogs. Daddy's family had had a Golden Retriever, I think, which had watched over his baby carriage when he was a small child, and Momma had had a rat terrier named Boots. So my first pet was actually a dog, a white spitz we got from the shelter and imaginatively named Whitey.

Whitey's tail never curled over his back because he had not only been abandoned as a puppy by an irresponsible owner, he'd been doused with boiling water with the intention of killing him. Despite that early trauma, he must have been a good puppy, for I remember being attached to him. Unfortunately, he developed a skin condition for which we had to treat him with a purple medication, and the sight of a white dog with purple spots was too much for the adolescent boys who lived down the street from us. They began throwing rocks at the poor dog, who naturally became testy. He bit my father's best friend and also the mailman, and when we moved to a new house the year I entered first grade, my folks used that as the opportunity to take Whitey back to the shelter.

After that I had hamsters, a pair of ducks, and a series of cats, and found myself as a cat person. When my friends would get dogs, I eventually learned to tolerate most of them, but even so it never once crossed my mind that I would like to have one myself.

The fact that Steve is a dog lover gave me serious pause when we began courting, and it didn't help that his father's dog, Mischief, was initially jealous of me. She's a very lively dog, a ten year old English Spriger Spaniel. She's a very gentle dog who doesn't chew on anything, much less bite people, but she has a bark that certainly sounds like she means business. Not only did she bark at me whenever I made an appearance, but if I sat on the couch, especially if Steve was there already, she'd jump up and crowd me. There was room on the couch for Steve, or his dad, and her - no newcomers allowed..

I confess I was annoyed by her attitude at first. Luckily my sense of humor kicked in the morning I walked into the living room and found her napping on the floor. I was going to make use of my chance to sit in the "human seat" on the couch, but the instant she saw me, she jumped up on the couch, turned around 3 times, and plopped down right in the middle of it, looking at me as if to say, "There! I showed you!"

I sat in the armchair with ill grace. She immediately jumped off the couch and returned to her spot on the floor, which tickled my funny bone. "Ok, you win!" I said to her, and slowly began to apply myself to getting along. In time I learned to give her treats, to throw the frisbee, and first of all to scratch her floppy ears, and we slowly came to accept each other, although I was relieved when we announced our plans to get married and Dad told Steve firmly, "Mischief stays with me!"

The great thing about Mischief is that she lives in the moment and is always happy. Whenever she's moving around, her tail is wagging, and she's always delighted to see one of her humans or to get a bit of attention from them.

The worst thing about her is that she can't stand to be alone. She'll beg to go outside, but if you don't go out with her, more often than not she'll immediately whine to come back in. If you shut the bathroom door on her while you do your business, she'll stay outside whining until you come back out.

She also has a habit that I found very unsettling, although I'm slowly getting used to it. She's utterly intrigued by light and shadow. On a bright day she will wheel around in half- circles, tail wagging, front legs stiff, head lowered and eyes fixed on her shadow. Occasionally she'll spring, but some days she just dances around for minutes at a time. Incidentally, I'd always assumed that Springer Spaniels were named for someone called Springer, and was surprised to learn that they actually do "spring" to startle birds for their owners.

After Steve and I got married and bought the house, I screwed up my courage one day and took her for a walk. It's about 15 minutes from Dad's house to mine, and I walked her over here, let her run around in the yard, and walked her back two days in a row. It wasn't as much fun as it looks like on TV, because even with a choke collar Missy pulls like the dickens. The first night I not only had shin splints, I hurt from my ankles to my hips. The second day I realized the pain came from holding her back, and I gave up walking her.

Things were moving at an even keel between me and Missy when Steve's Aunt Ann had a recurrence of cancer. Dad went out to Pittsburgh to visit his sister, and between us, Steve and I let Missy out every few hours, and Steve also went over to visit her every night. He taught me how to give her thyroid pill every morning, an amazingly easy process if you've ever medicated a cat. You stick the pill to your finger and coat it with peanut butter, and Missy happily licks treat and pill off your finger. I was a little afraid to put my hand in her mouth the first time, but she only licks, never nips, her tail wagging happily all the time. In fact, as I learned later, if you forget her medicine she'll gaze at you expectantly until she gets her "treat."

Dad returned, and things went back to normal until Aunt Ann died. I'd only met her the week she came out for our wedding reception a few months previously, but we all missed her. We boarded Mischief at the vet's, and the Illinois branch of the family came out in various ways (Steve and I drove by ourselves) and stayed with Dad's brother and his wife. Being the executor, Dad stayed behind while Steve and I drove back right after the funeral. The next day I rescued Mischief from Doggy Prison and began the great adventure of settling her in at our house. We bought an ingenious pet gate that had a cat door inside the main gate, so that if the cats were to come in when Missy was outside they could escape her if she followed them, and we brought her crate over from the other house.

The first few days I was completely off balance. Missy is accustomed to getting scraps, and the way she'd watch me while I was eating made me feel guilty. It drove me crazy to have her always by me, especially when she'd start "stalking" her shadow in the small kitchen, her wagging tail beating against the refrigerator door, and the only time she'd leave me was when I was in the family room and she had to dash back to the kitchen to see if the cats were in the window seat, so it seemed like she never settled down. Also, she was too excited about the new location to give me back the frisbee, which is almost the only toy she'll play with, so I couldn't play with her and I couldn't walk her, and the only way to give her any exercise was by sitting outside whether I wanted to or not and allowing her to run around the yard.

However, she got used to the house and I got used to her presence. There's even hope for her and the cats. The other day I was reading my e-mail at the dining room table, and she was waiting on the other side of the gate. Achilles ventured down the stairs, and she watched him without barking. I petted him, making a fuss over them both, and she didn't even bark when Merchant came down to get some of the attention. We reached the point where she'd lie down on her dog bed or on the couch when I was sitting indoors, and then I got a fortunate phone call from my friend Pat.

While I was complaining to her about Missy, she asked me, "Is she getting enough exercise?" I wailed that I couldn't walk her because she pulled so, and Pat told me about a special collar she'd seen on "It's Me Or the Dog", a show on Animal Planet. She couldn't remember the name of it, but from her description I found one on PetCo's website, and the thing works like magic. It's called a "head collar" and it's basically a halter for dogs. The main strap fits snugly right behind the ears, with a thinner loop over the dog's muzzle, giving you control of her nose - and where the nose goes, the dog follows. So now I'm finally getting my healthful exercise, and Missy's regularly getting one of her hundred favorite things, a walk, and she's much calmer and more likely to settle down and even take a nap. Also, my own focus has shifted, from the annoyance of being shadowed to an appreciation of Missy's amazing happiness, a constant reminder that life always rich if we just stay in the moment and let its richness wash over us.

Copyright © 2008 Ruby Jung