Something chewy and delicious that makes Mistress have not nice face May 24, 2011
This happened at the end of the winter and it took me a really long time to make all the cartoon frames, which is why you’re not seeing it until now. I have received some requests to keep this blog going, so I am going to do my best to keep it up. You will see more regular posting after June 18th (the wedding). I have more to post soon, so stay tuned!
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One night, Lu was fixated on a footprint in the snow. She was sniffing it obsessively. The normally easily distracted ADD dog wouldn’t respond to anything I said. She was completely and totally consumed with intrigue and obvious temptation. After a few deep inhales of snow in the hole — each promptly followed by a loud, dramatic sneeze that made snow dust shoot out of her nose — Luna frantically thrust her snow-dusted snout into the hole.
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It was about this time I suspect she knows she is onto something good. Good and naughty. Lu is glued to the this hole now, on a mission that could not be interrupted. As she digs her head further into the hole, she begins urgently pawing at the snow to dig deeper. I call to her, curious what she is so busy doing (normally she doesn’t stay in one spot longer than the time it takes to do her business, then she’s off prancing and running laps in the yard), and normally she would obediently respond, but my call to her only made her dig with more urgency, trying to discover her fragrant treasure before Mistress comes and ruins everything.
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“Luuuuu! What are you doing, silly pup?!”
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MUST….FIND….TREASURE!!!!!!!
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I soon notice her munching on something that looks very chewy. She is chomping rapidly, baring her teeth like a child chewing bubble gum for the first time. She again ignores my call to her and is now staring directly at me through the dark , eyes glowing with reflection from the porch light and tongue flipping something over and over in her mouth as she claps her chops together in the most exaggerated manner. Could she actually being chewing gum? Judging from her body language – hunched low to the ground, prepared to run at a moment’s notice – I know she must have something really good and she must know that Mistress would not approve. I decide to put the kabosh on this before it gets out of hand. She has obviously found something naughty to chew on like a poopsicle (which she knows is a no-no).
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The pace of her child-like chomping increases and she lowers her head further to the ground. Now it doesn’t matter what she has, it is NOT okay for her to not respond to Mistress like this. This is not like her.
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She’s now pretending she can’t hear me and looking off into the distance.
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“I can’t hear you, la la la laaaa….”
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Then it dawned on me that she could have an animal in her mouth! She could have caught a cute little field mouse and is now crushing it’s helpless little furry body in her jaws! Blood could be everywhere! How would I get a mouse away from her?! Many people probably don’t find this to be a very big deal, but if you know me, you know that my heart cannot handle the killing of any of God’s creatures, especially the cute ones. My heart starts pounding as I became more and more certain that Lu has snatched a cute little mousie and is now tearing it apart like a savage! My sweet little girl is suddenly a feral killing machine! What has happened to my little baby?!?!
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I react instinctively.
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YOU DO WHAT I SAY, DOG.
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DO IT.
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She realizes her prize must have incredible value if Mistress wants it this badly.
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As I take a step forward to cross the yard, she makes her move, slinking away, trying to evade my pursuit, certain that if Mistress reaches her, this delectable find will be snatched from her forever, never to be tasted again. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! She trots away, staying low to the ground, a cautious eye on me. Her pace quickens as I approach her more intensely. For Luna, this is now a full-out 007 spy mission and Mistress is the enemy!
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I keep giving her commands in vain as she trots across the yard, slinking around in the dark, eyes glued to me, trying to read my next move.
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She’s trying to make sense of what is going on here. “Mistress wants what I have….and I’m being pursued….which can only mean one thing…..”
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Light bulb goes off in Luna’s head.
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” IT’S A GAME OF CHASE! TRY TO CATCH MEEEE!!! WEEEEE!!!”
“COME GET ME, MAMA! COME CHASE AND RUN AND PLAY! TRY TO GET MY YUMMY! YAAY! FUN!”
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I pursue her in a panic, imagining this helpless little mouse struggling to breath from punctured lungs and broken ribs. This isn’t happening!! It’s up to me to save this poor defenseless creature! I start imagining myself nursing this battered, barely-alive mousie back to health and re-releasing it into the wild to rejoin it’s happy little mouse colony!
Stay Tuned! April 23, 2011
To my loyal readers,
I know I’m not the most regular/reliable blogger in the world. I wish I had the time and energy to post regularly. I have a cartoon to post that is almost finished, plus videos and many anecdotes and pictures to share. We have been incredibly preoccupied with wedding planning and I haven’t gotten around to the blog lately. Once things slow down in the next week or so I will get back to posting. I’m sorry to leave you hanging, but I’ll make it worth the wait!
Susannah
We don’t rip our friends’ heads open. January 25, 2011
Luna with her moose, “Moosey”
This is Luna with her stuffed moose, “Moosey”. I got it from a Christmas clearance shelf at Petco for $2 and it has squeakers in all its limbs. Lu was very, very, very, very excited to receive Moosey when I handed it to her. Unfortunately for Moosey, Lu figured out how to tear open Moosey’s head and rapidly withdraw Moosey’s stuffing and head squeaker within 90 seconds of being given Moosey. Once Moosey’s stuffing was promptly removed, Lu attempted to devour Moosey’s head-squeaker. Moosey underwent emergency cranial surgery and stuffing reinsertion, as well as head-squeaker replacement surgery, and was in intensive care for a good 10 minutes. Things were not looking good for Moosey initially and Lu showed her concern by trying to grab Moosey out of the surgeon’s hands before the cranium was fully reclosed. At work we say to the children “We don’t hit our friends” or “We don’t say ‘shut up’ to our friends”, so I explained to Lu that “We don’t rip our friends’ heads open”, and she appeared to understand, feeling great remorse, I’m sure.
Lu sat by whimpering in concern for Moosey and watching the surgery intently. Luckily, Moosey made a full recovery and was back to being the object of Lu’s spastic attention and jaw-clamping, tossing-in-the-air, pouncing-on activities in no time. Unfortunately for Moosey, just 12 hours after fully recovering from massive cranial and head-squeaker replacement surgery, Lu split Moosey’s head open again, this time creating a lateral tear on the TOP of Moosey’s head. This injury was discovered when Lu happily and proudly presented me with Moosey’s head squeaker and sat down at my feet waiting for my praise and approval. Moosey is now on top of the refrigerator awaiting cranial surgery #2. The doctor is holding off surgery due to the frequency of Moosey’s head trauma, in combination with the doctor’s irritation with the constant squeaky sounds emitted from Moosey’s every limb and head. Also there were some billing issues with Moosey’s insurance company.
Moving Day Part 1
I have been gaining more subscribers, which makes me feel pressured to keep this bloggy updated! I have to tell you about our experience moving from our apartment to a house, Luna’s first romp in our fenced-in yard, and her melodramatics on moving day. Overall, she did great! For this post, since I don’t have a lot of time today, I will tell you about her first experience in our new house. Later, I will post about her melodramatics during packing and moving. Sorry it’s backwards.
We sent her to the babysitter on moving day, which helped a LOT. We then had time to rearrange the battlefield of boxes disassembled furniture and random belongings that littered the floor space of the ENTIRE HOUSE. When we brought Lu back to the house for the first time, you could tell she was disappointed when we turned off the highway earlier than she was expecting, which meant we weren’t going “home” to the apartment. She sat up and watched out the window alertly, trying to figure out where we were going “NOW where are you taking me?!” She reluctantly got out of the car and I led her inside, though she walked slowly and exhaustedly like the drama-queen she is “Why are you making me do thiiiiiis?!! Why do we have to go visit more peoplel?! I want to go hooome!” She had been at the house a few days earlier when it was empty and she had no problem visiting the space at that time, so we figured at least she wasn’t terrified of the place. When we got inside, I took her coat and collar off and Chris and I took our shoes and coats off and we went about our business, keeping an eye on her out of the corner of my eye. She did NOT get it. She stood there by the door with this blank look, like “…uuuh….what am I supposed to do?” After about 2 minutes of standing by the door waiting for us to “take her home”, she looked around a little, trying to figure out what was going on: “Okay. This isn’t funny anymore. Where are the people you’re going to make me greet at this house? Let’s just get it over with so we can go home.” She stepped carefully around the living room a little, knowing that something was up that she wasn’t understanding. Chris and I just went about our business and I went into the back bedroom where her kennel was but I was peeking at her down the hall in the living room sniffing the room like crazy, trying to figure out why all of the stuff in this person’s house smelled like HER house. She would sniff-sniff-sniff-sniff-sniff and then stop abruptly with her ears perked – confused. She slowly crept around the house a little and went into the back bedroom where I was and leaned on me and let out a heavy SIIIIGH: “This is confusing, mama.” Time elapsed at this point was maybe 4 minutes. “Where are we and when can we go hooome??”
Snuggling with Moosey (pre-injury #2) at the new house!
Then, suddenly, I kid you not, she noticed her kennel and did an actual DOUBLE-TAKE. She stared at it tensely as though it had just called her a dirty name – ears perked up in little teepees, head tilting, eyes wide, standing frozen, barely breathing. Then she slowly and cautiously leaned her neck out to get a snif. She sniffed her kennel…stopped frozen…sniffed again….then BING! LIGHTBULB! “Heeey! This is MY kennel! What’s my kennel doing here?” And she sniffed it more rapidly in recognition. But then she noticed her toys in the kennel: BING! “These are MY toys!” But she still had not fully understood what was happening until she caught a glimpse of our bed across the hall in the bedroom. Then it clicked. “I LIVE HERE!!!!!” She took off and dashed around the room, stopping for less than a second to smell things and would celebrate after discovering each new thing: sniff the lamp, “THIS IS MY LAMP!”, happy dance and leaping, sniff the clothes on the floor “THESE ARE MY CLOTHES ON THE FLOOR!”, sniff the bed, jump up onto the bed, “THIS IS MY BED!!” Then she went tearing into the living room full speed and began sniffing everything frantically, her nose snorting in air so fast that it made her sneeze a few times. With perked ears and jumpy, dancy movements she dashed through the house “This is my couch, and this is my chair, and this is my bed, and this is my tv, and this is my bookshelf….” Then she tore around the house in spastic Luna fashion, celebrating by running in circles and visiting each room as she ran around “THIS IS MY COUCH AND THIS IS MY LAMP AND THIS IS MY CHAIR AND THESE ARE MY CLOTHES AND THIS IS MY BED AND THIS IS MY DISH…..” She leaped and danced and tore around the house, wagging her whole body, mouth wide open with her dopey tongue hanging out the side, rearing up like a horse “WE LIVE HERE! WE LIVE HERE!”
She finally relaxed and when we were on the couch she confidently strutted right up to the couch and sat down on the ground (her way of asking if she can come up on the piece of furniture we are on) and she jumped up when she was invited, so happy and confident “I know exactly how THIS works, guys! See? It’s the same as before!” She then lounged and slept most of the evening as we watched TV and bedtime was pretty seamless. I let her on the bed like she usually does while we read and I brushed her teeth and she obediently jumped off the bed to her own dog bed once we said “Okay” with a finger-snap. We tried to stick to the same routine for the first few days so she would have an easier time, which was an excellent idea in hindsight. She did great and was extremely curious about every new thing she discovered, rather than being nervous. She has come so far!!
Best Friends!
The first time Chris went down into the basement, she saw him slowly disappearing over the banister and she jumped up and ran around through the kitchen to the door of the basement to see where he was going – she knew exactly where he had entered the stairewell – and she whined for him to come back from the depths of nothingness until he returned and she celebrated happily as though he had just returned from war. She still doesn’t really understand the basement, particularly because the steps are too narrow and steep and slippery for her to go down (once she gingerly tried placing a paw on the steps, torn between wanting to follow me and not wanting to go down the scary stairs). The furnace makes noises when it comes on – low thumps – and for the first evening she would perk up when she heard it “WHAT’S THAT?!” and she still perks when she hears new noises from the basement, like the buzzer on the dryer, so we just tell her that there are monsters that live in the basement and that is where the “bad dogs” go. I think she gets it.
Adopt-a-Greyhound.org
I found this PSA today while looking around online. It is SO adorable and gives a website called adopt-a-greyhound which allows you to look up an adoption agency in your area. How cool is that?
Can Gently Falling Snow Give Your Dog Combat-Zone Flashbacks? Answer: yes. January 5, 2011
I recently discovered a very popular blog called Hyperbole and a Half, in which a girl about my age tells stories about her life and her dogs by using cartoons she draws in a software program called Paintbrush. Seeing this blog reminded me, “Hey! I used to draw cartoons with Paintbrush all the time! Why not put some in MY blog?!” And since the FAQ section of this girl’s popular blog assures me that it is NOT considered “copying her” if I put cartoons in my blog, I decided to go for it. But, as it turns out, even for someone who is savvy with Paintbrush, this is an incredibly time-consuming project, which has lead me to believe that this girl blogger probably has no life outside of her computer. So don’t get too used to the cartoons.
SNOW: FRIEND OR FOE
So Luna loves snow. She loves everything about snow. How white and perfect it looks before anyone has stepped in it, how fluffy it is when it gets kicked up in the air, how cold it feels on her feet, how it smells (especially the pee spots from other dogs!), how it tastes. In fact, she loves snow so much it makes her tail whip from side to side and she prances like a trotting pony and leaps around in it. When we take her out at night to potty, she frolics and does twirlies in the snow, trying to invite us to play with a friendly body check up against one of us. There’s only one thing Lu doesn’t like about snow: when it is actually snowing.
When it’s snowing outside in the dark, Lu prances around like a dopey, happy horse-dog with not a care in the world, completely oblivious to the flurries from hell that are swarming around her…
…until she approaches one of the many street lamps that line the property out back.
She suddenly notices a flurry of movement ahead of her (any unpredictable movement, especially near and around her, freaks her out in general) and stops dead in her tracks, startled by the movement
Soon she notices that it’s EVERYWHERE – COMING AT HER FROM ALL ANGLES, ATTACKING HER FACE AND BODY! She hunches down, sticks her neck out and braces herself for a full-on attack of the scary floaties.
Since her humans keep walking through the lit space where the floaty attack is taking place and she doesn’t have much time to decide what to do. She has no choice but to follow her leader, so she creeps through the war zone the way I imagine one would carefully step through an active mine field, and she twitches her head around in paranoia, ducking as she notices each snowflake – and there’s one!! – and there’s one!! – and there’s one!! – hoping the torture will end soon. I giggle at the idea that maye she is having flashbacks from combat and is hallucinating that each little gentle floaty is a menacing ball of fire – unpredictable and deadly – and it’s all an elaborately planned ambush against her alone.
But the moment she steps out of the light of the streetlamp and it is too dark to see the snow falling, she snaps right out of it, immediately forgeting about the firey floaties from hell and trots around with a whipping waggy tail, enjoying the snow that is safely on the ground where she can dominate it. And so she prances and enjoys the cold moisture on her feet and the crisp, dry air…
…until we come near the next streetlamp that is just 30 yards ahead of us…and 30 yards ahead of that one….and 30 yards ahead of that one….
The End.
Flip Camera Fun January 2, 2011
I have been taking videos with my new Flip Camera and making movies with iMovie and Flip Share. Here are my first ones. I will be posting more videos from now on because I have so many to share. Enjoy!
Overdue Update in Pictures. October 26, 2010
- Blogging Hiatus: Laziness + Ever-Accumulating Events = Apathy
- This is very overdue post. Too much has happened to sum it up and the thought of trying to sum things up was overwhelming, so I will just jump right in and continue as if I never stopped dog-blogging. Perhaps we can put my laziness-induced hiatus behind us and move forward. After all, we try to teach our Luna that we only look forward in life, never backward (we tell her this when she nervously looks behind her while on walks, if she hears a loud child or other scary noise – we just don’t let her look back and insist she move forward – but I digress).
- Modeling her new fleece from her greyhound BFF Annie.
The pink turtleneck part is called a "snood" and can be pulled up over the ears. I love greyhound coats!
Poser
She held this pose for about 2 minutes
Got chilled at the dog park, very minor "owie" on her foot. Wearing her coat to warm up and exhausted from a messy, wild trip to the park.
Evil Ceiling Fan: Luna decided recently that the ceiling fan is the devil, after not caring about it for 6 months. She goes out of her way to NOT walk under it, keeping a wary eye on it at all times, and she will shoot a suspicious, panicked look at the fan if there is the slightest noise in the room (a cough, a person upstairs walking, a book being set on the ground) and will even wake up and shoot a look up at it if she hears anything.
To escape the menacing ceiling fan, Lu hid in the closet and refused to come out, even for snuggles on the bed, which is a difficult temptation for Lu to resist.
She has a good view of the ceiling fan from there. Please ignore the laundry.
We were convinced that Luna would be too terrified to even step on the pontoon boat this October, but she blew us away completely when she hopped on like a pro, like she'd done it a thousand times before. Just goes to shoe that you can never underestimate your dog. You never know when they will decide to move forward in life and stop being so scared of certain things. She took a huge step forward that day and she has been a different, more confident dog ever since. I'm glad we brought her because we were very close to not bringing her at all. A little patience and persistence can go a long way with a nervous dog.
Loving the boat with Papa! Trying hard not to doze off to the gentle rocking of the boat.
Lots of yummy treats on the boat!
Pretty Girrrrrl
Showing off her fashionable safety harness
Look! A duck! (as we grab her by the harness)
Luna completed obedience 1 in July! She was able to be a good greyhound ambassador for all the other dog owners in class who were unfamiliar with greyhounds and her friends Annie and Maya even did the class with her. She will now sit anywhere, and initiates a sit on her own whenever she wants something (we taught her this as a way of saying “please”). Luna got great socialization and we really solidified out relationship with her as pack leaders. It was a great way for her and for us to learn how to communicate with one another (human to dog), and to show her how to communicate with us. She is a completely different dog after doing obedience and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a new dog, especially if your dog has issues with anxiety, nervousness, shyness or “selective deafness”.
The greatest thing that came out of obedience 1 was learning how to walk at a heel, which gives her an excellent psychological challenge on walks. If she is NOT at a heel on a walk, you can walk her for an hour and you might as well NOT have walked her at all with the way she acts afterward – it’s as if she never had a walk. A long walk at a good heel tires her out. It helps her to stay present, relax and follow the leader. She doesn’t have to worry about leading or where we’re going, she can just enjoy the ride. It helps to sometimes switch it up by suddenly walking very, very slowly, and then very quickly, to keep her on her toes and remind her that she is following, not leading. This is helpful when she starts to pull a little and wants to lead. The gentle leader has been a Godsend!
Lu is the funniest, quirkiest, most expressive dog you will meet. She is too smart for her own good, knows how to “work it” to get what she wants, has the funniest behaviors (e.g. snorkeling in her water dish – more to come of that next time), and 90% of the time it is very clear what she is thinking and/or wants. She has learned to communicate with us in ways I never thought possible of a dog. For example, to go outside she trots right to the door and waits by the door while gazing over her shoulder at us until we get the hint. If we don’t respond, she gets a little louder, even whimpering to get our attention. If we continue to ignore her attention-seeking vocalizations – which is very typical of greyhounds – she will come right up to your face and whimper as loudly as she can, and her voice will even crack out of exasperated force. It is pretty much one of the funniest things she does.
There are dozens of other little things she does and we have had so many experiences with her, including ups and downs of working through her anxiety (many triumphs and many frustrations and points of wanting to give up on her) and she has made us so proud, even if we get frustrated with her at times. I hope to continue sharing these stories and experiences with you, my readers, because apparently there were many people following the blog regularly and apparently it was helping some people to feel supported in getting through their own challenges with their own dogs.
I have video clips to post of Luna snoring and Luna snorkeling in her water dish. I couldn’t post them tonight because it was taking too long to upload them, so I will save that for next time, which I hope to be soon.
Remember that a happy dog is a well-exercised and well-lead dog. Never underestimate the power of a long walk with your dog at a steady heel. It’s important to exercise your dog’s mind (psychological challenges like heeling) WHILE you exercise the body. As Cesar says, “Exercise, Discipline, Affection”. Don’t doubt it, folks. Also, don’t doubt how easily your dog picks up your energy, stress, mood, worries, etc. If you are nervous and hovering over your dog, it will make your dog nervous. If you are ignoring your dog and acting like you don’t have a care in the world, your dog will feel relaxed. It is easy to fool a nervous dog into NOT being nervous simply by acting as if there is nothing to be nervous about and whatever it is you’re doing that’s scary is something you’ve done a million times before – no big deal. And most importantly for this method, ignore the dog (very important).
Just Keep Smiling July 30, 2010
Luna has been testing our patience lately. We had our third obedience class tonight and she did well for the most part, but it is clear that she will not be graduating. For one thing, she refuses to sit her butt down on the cement when we are practicing “heel”. The class hasn’t been exactly what we expected, because I think greyhounds just have special needs, requiring a different psychological approach. The instructor doesn’t seem to understand this and often makes incorrect conclusions or judgements about greyhound behavior. He also has been approaching some subjects in a manner that comes off as criticism of the way the dog owners do things at home. For example, the instructor told us all to let our dogs drink water from the dishes he set out. Luna will not drink out of a dish unless it is HER dish (or travel dish), no matter how dehydrated or thirsty she gets, so we’ve been toting around her little travel dish. When the instructor looked at me with confusion as to why I was not letting my poor thirsty dog drink from his specially prepared dog dishes, I explained “She won’t drink out of any dish but her own”, to which he responded to Luna “Ooooh, do your mom and dad spoil you? Do they just spoil you rotten?” To which I wanted to respond “No, her mom and dad do not spoil her. She just refuses to drink out of a dish that is not familiar to her. She would rather go thirsty and dry than drink out of your water buckets.” I wanted to add a few other things after that but I’ll keep it appropriate here.
Mission: Desensitization
We’ve really been working hard with Lu on her shyness and anxiety, especially with scary things like skateboards, scooters, strollers and kids. We’ve been taking Lu on private (non-group) walks at Lake Harriet on non-group-walk days, which she finds to be much scarier than when she’s surrounded by the comfort of lazy greys moseying at a casual pace on either side of her. When she’s on her own with us at the lake, there are many more opportunities to rehabilitate her. We have really had to work hard on our own attitudes, too. At first it was too frustrating for us and we were just so embarrassed and frustrated with her that we had to take a break and talk it out together. We decided that we needed to change our approach. Instead of expecting perfection from her and thinking “Why can’t you be normal?!” we needed to meet her at her level, at her pace, and encourage her through things that are hard. So we armed ourselves with treats and catered to our little girl’s needs, which we decided was NOT coddling. It is more a way of just giving her what she needs to be successful. This translates to giving her space when a stroller or scooter is coming by, casually moving to the grass to walk, allowing enough distance between her and the approaching scariness. Another important (extremely important) tactic we used was to talk to her sweetly very frequently. I actually got sick of hearing my own voice. The key was to start sweet talking to her prior to a scary thing approach. If a jogger with a stroller was coming or a person was talking loudly on their cell phone up at the bench, we’d start the sweet talking well in advance so that while she was experiencing the “scaries” she was calm and being told what a good girl she is. We also rewarded her calmness with lots of treats. If she got jumpy, we either picked up the pace (even to a jog if needed) or just stopped to regroup. When we get done with our solo walks, I am so proud of her and I try to express this. I try to appreciate what she goes through and how hard she works on those walks – just as hard as I’m working to guide her through. Yesterday she did SO great. By the end of the walk she hardly reacted to anything scary and needed a lot less space from the “scaries” than she did at the beginning.
We did have one setback yesterday afternoon (before the walk) when Chris took her outside to potty. They ran into 3 kids playing football just outside the door, which startled her and made her flip into panic mode. She even peed on herself, which she hasn’t done since the day she came to us for adoption. It was really discouraging and I’m sure the frustration that ensued didn’t help deescalate the panic either. But all we can do is learn from it and move forward. We processed through it together and decided what we could learn and how we could do it differently next time to help her. It was hard to not focus on the embarrassment and frustrations of “We shouldn’t have to baby her, she should be able to face things like that!” But then we start “shoulding all over ourselves”, which is something I try to avoid in my life in general. So we remembered our new perspective – our new approach that has been so successful as long as we stick to it and stay dedicated to the outcome, doing whatever it will take to help her be the best, most confident dog she can be. But I digress. Generally speaking, it was amazing the changes we started to see in her and how much more comfortable and brave she got by the end of our walk around the lake, and it was all a result of just changing our attitudes.
On occasion one of us will get frustrated with her and we just hand the leash over to the other person while we take a few deep breaths and remember the new perspective we’ve adopted. This new perspective of patience, understanding and encouragement for success has been invaluable. It has made us more confident dog owners and it has given us a certain energy and demeanor that Luna feels more confident in following. We have become better, more trustworthy leaders, letting her know through our own behaviors that we are not going to force her to approach a situation that is too scary. I imagine she will become more and more comfortable observing things from a safe distance, and she will slowly warm up to “scaries” and be willing to get progressively closer. Also, she is still so young. She is not even 1 1/2 years old yet (she will be next month). We are trying to stay positive and trust that she will just keep progressing as she is, and at this pace she should be a new, mellow dog by the time she’s 2. It will take a lot of hard work from us and her. We can do it, though. We all have each other.
Dog Park Melodrama
On a side note, we had a pretty bad scare at the dog park. She was running, like she always does, but on this particular day she thought she would try to run faster and faster. She was running faster than I’ve ever seen her, but the problem is that she was never trained to run in the safe, efficient manner of a racing greyhound, so her clumsy horse gallop didn’t support the stability of her trajectory. Physics took over and she tumbled into the tall grass head over heals, summersaulting 2 or 3 times. At first we thought it was funny and we chuckled, as we have seen other greys tumble and pop right back up and keep running. But Luna popped up screaming. And I mean the most pathetic, piercing, crying, panicked scream of a howl you have ever heard. People were staring. If you have never heard a greyhound scream/cry, you can’t know how heart-wrenching it is. She popped up from the grass screaming and hobbled over to us on 3 legs, holding her front left paw up towards her chest and bent. Chris and I stayed very calm and when she sat down in front of us we just pet her and tried to soothe her with calm voices and coos of “It’s okay, baby. Shhh.” She cried for a very long 30 seconds, her head up high, eyes clenched shut, little quivering lips shaping the “Oh” sound of her painful cry. In those 3o seconds I quickly came up with a plan to get her in the car and over to the emergency vet. I also thought about how expensive it would be – maybe she’d need surgery, months of physical therapy to rehab her leg which was, presumably, cracked in half (in my mind). We kept calm and within about 30 seconds she stopped crying and calmed down, at which point I gently placed her bent paw in my hand and carefully inched my way down her leg, touching a little at a time and gauging her reaction. No reaction. When I finished examining her paw, she had had a few moments to calm down.
When I let go of her paw, she put her foot down in a normal fashion, as if she’d just finished giving a “shake”. She then opened her mouth into a wide, tongue-out, panting, dopey smile and trotted away to play and explore, perfectly fine. As if nothing had happened, she walked away completely uninjured. The damage with all psychological (for all 3 of us). We sort of looked at each other in shock and relief. She had only gotten scared with her tumble. She probably has never had a tumble before, unlike most racing hounds, and knowing her it was probably just really scary. But apparently she got over it really quickly. It took me about 2 weeks to fully recover from that scare and I still think about it occasionally – how much pain I thought she was in and how helpless I felt, as there was nothing I could do to ease her supposed pain. People at the park were asking us later if she was okay (it drew quite a bit of attention) but then we joined Seth and Jessica and Jess said “Was that Luna? I thought it sounded like a greyhound scream”, which made me feel better. At least she wasn’t the first greyhound to respond to a scare with melodramatics.
Looking back on it I am now finally able to laugh, especially when I think about how she just immediately clicked back into normal mode after I examined her paw, trotting off as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and there was something else much more interesting for her to attend to. It’s also kind of cute to think of what happened within the context of the fact that she is still a puppy and is still not completely used to her body, like an awkward pre-teen growing into a gangly, awkward body a little more quickly than expected. That also explains her clumsiness, like the time she was so excited we were on our way outside that she was looking back at me with that dopey open-mouthed smile, causing her to run right smack into the wall. She looked a little surprised but after about 2 seconds staring at the wall that ran into her, with perked ears and head cocked to one side, she then went along her merry way, continuing on down the stairs with her tongue-out smile, ready to go outside.
We sure get a lot of entertainment and joy from this silly girl. And what an absolute sweetheart. So trustworthy of her humans, allowing us to poke and prod her as we need to. She just enjoys being touched so much, it doesn’t matter how. We are so lucky.
Susannah
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