pet connection

Hi, I’m new here … kinda.

I’ve known the rest of the PetConnection crew for a long time, through the Dog Writers Association of America and because we all took a spin at VIN. When Gina and Dr. Becker needed someone to manage the new Pfizer database of free searchable articles, they asked me to take it on, since as long-time editor and writer I’m pretty good at managing projects. Of course, I was happy to agree!

But this is about more than my work. Like everyone here, I share a lifelong devotion to pets. In particular, I love shelter dogs.

In August, I adopted a 4-year-old English setter. Dodger was a nervous wreck when he arrived. He had been in three homes within a month before arriving at my house: his original home, the home they gave him to that didn’t want him and left him in a barn for 10 days, and rescue. He doesn’t eat when he’s stressed, so his hip joints were sticking out and his ribs were visible from a distance. He couldn’t sit still and paced like a crazy man; he ran up and down the backyard in a frenzy and chewed lattice. I couldn’t take him to the dog park to burn off steam until I got all of his paperwork and tags and permits.

Over the next few weeks, he calmed down a bit, although he was still a frenzied wild man in the back yard. He was quite well behaved, and when he’d been here for three weeks he relaxed a bit. I’d always heard that it takes three weeks for them to feel comfortable enough to stop being on their best behavior and act like themselves. Once he could stretch his legs and fly at the fenced dog park, his panicked energy subsided.

In mid-September, I took him to his first obedience class. The first session was a nightmare. He shut down and drooled from stress and could barely raise his head. He was sure he was going to be left there. I held Dodger’s face and told him that “Every day for the rest of your life, you will come home with me.” I wish he’d understood the words and not just the tone. After coming home with me that night, he really blossomed. Dodger was perfect at class: wonderful sits and downs, left treats on the floor until I told him he could have then.

However, the minute he’d been here for the months, he started testing his boundaries by humping other dogs at the park. He didn’t just hump for 30 seconds and walk away, oh no. Dodger is an obsessive humper, chasing the other dog around the park and stopping only when I leashed him. He only humped dogs that were more submissive than he is, which means approx .0007% of the dogs on the planet. I talked to my trainer friend Liz Palika, who said Dodger was seeing what he could get away with. I call it “The Butthead Phase.” I followed Liz’s suggestions: I leashed him at the dog park for a while and initiated a zero tolerance policy for humping. If he humped once, he got a verbal correction and we left. Meanwhile, in all areas I stepped up being in charge: waiting at doors, waiting to get out of the car, sitting for treats, that basic kind of thing. A few weeks later he returned to off leash status at the park; while he’s had one or two minor incidents, for which we left, he’s been good so far.

While he’s still on probation, I believe we have achieved the Butthead No More phase.

He needed a firm, patient hand to guide him through all of these changes in his life. Rescued dogs often don’t just become sunny and happy without a bit of help. It takes time for everyone to adjust and to learn to trust each other. I don’t mean a couple of weeks, but months. Dodger now trusts that he will always live here. Some bad Wisconsin weather has proven that he doesn’t have to have the same level of exercise he did when he arrived all stressed out; if he didn’t get it then, he needed to be scraped off the ceiling with a spatula. Now, we can miss a day or even two at the park when it’s just too cold to go. Not only that, but he may have gained a pound or two more than he should have and I’m cutting back his food a bit.

He is once again the sweet boy who finished obedience school in October, the boy I didn’t see for a bit while he tried to figure out what he could get away with. Now that we’ve ridden out the anxiety storm, he knows he’s here to stay and where his place is in our pack.

It just reminds me of what I want to say to you: Very few rescued pets, if any, will just settle in with no concerns. But your patience will pay off handsomely. That’s now true with my handsome Dodger.

I love San Francisco. I think Gina loves it too, because she keeps coming here. For instance, yesterday she showed up at my house, 30 pounds of bison meat in hand and adorable and incredibly perfect McKenzie on leash. I cut Gina’s hair (I have many skills) and then we went out to lunch.

It was the traffic day from hell in the City, at least, the part of it we were in. But McKutie just rode in the back of my van, calm and sweet with her face resting over the seat making sure I actually knew how to drive.

We went to one of my favorite restaurants, the very dog-friendly Park Chow. We sat in the covered, plastic-swathed, heated outdoor patio so that McKenzie could sit with us. (Yes, it was cold and wet, but we’ll do anything for the dogs).

She was absolutely perfect in every way. She lay down on the cement, but I took pity on her and ran back to the car for a thick, fluffy dog mat. She didn’t beg (although Gina did slip her some steak and fries). She was so good it was hard to believe this was one of Gina’s high-drive field ‘trievers. (Cue up memory of a New Year’s Day a few years ago when Heather decided she was tougher than any old undertow and tried to save a Kong toy from the raging surf off Bodega Bay.)

A day spent with Gina is always a good day, but nothing makes a good day perfect better than a good dog.

I’ve pretty much been a pet health insurance naysayer — albeit a totally hypocritical one, since I have health insurance for both my dogs. I signed them up after the death of another dog and the five-figure vet bill I got trying to save him. I thought about canceling the policies several times, and what stopped me was really nothing more than superstition. I knew the minute I did, one or both of them would come down with some horrible and expensive disease.

But after Kyrie’s long battle with drug-resistant staph, and a tumor we thought was a lipoma but turned out to be a spindle cell carcinoma, as well as Rebel’s single drug-resistant bladder infection (he seems to have caught Kyrie’s space alien germs), I’ve changed my mind.

Even if I weren’t ahead cash-wise — and I am — I can tell you that my decision-making process has become much, much easier lately. I mentally whack about half off all Kyrie’s vet bills, and all Rebel’s covered ones (he has two pre-existing conditions that are not covered), and in these scary economic times, I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is to not have to make my pets’ health decisions with my pocketbook instead of my heart.

I used to keep a credit card clear for vet bills, because like a lot of people I’m not in the habit of saving money for a rainy day. I’m not saying that’s a good thing; I’m just saying that’s how I’ve lived. But a lot of people I know, people with jobs and good credit and perfect payment histories, are waking up to find that their open credit has been canceled by their credit card companies, and that $5000 they thought they had for emergencies is gone.

That’s a lesson I’ll never forget, and from now on I intend to build a savings account for emergencies and not rely on credit that might disappear at any moment. But until then? I’m just grateful I didn’t have to deny Kyrie surgery because the economy went into the crapper. And when one vet suggested follow-up radiation that would have cost $6900, I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I was able to decide against it entirely on medical grounds instead of financial ones, since her insurance would have covered almost all of it.

I often see financial advisors saying we should simply put the premium amount into a medical savings account for our pets instead of buying insurance. I always used to laugh, because I simply don’t have that kind of discipline. But I have it now, and I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. But if I’d put Kyrie’s premiums in the bank every month since I got her policy, I’d now have only around $3000 — far, far less than I’ve been reimbursed for just her last year’s vet bills. And what if her expenses had come a month or two into the savings plan, instead of six years into it?

I’m sure pet health insurance isn’t for everyone. And I know not all pet insurance policies are equally good. I may come in here ranting one day about an unfair denial or some policy I don’t agree with.

But I no longer consider those premiums optional, or an expense I probably should cut as I tighten my belt in the new year.

What have your experiences with pet health insurance been?

If today is a sample of 2009, I like it already. I woke up, promptly broke my New Year’s resolution to do yoga first thing in the morning (maybe bedtime is better), played a little fetch with Harper and Twyla, and did some work on the galleys for the revision of my Mastiff book. Then we gave Harper a rare treat: a solo walk with us in Laguna Beach. I hung a clicker around my neck, stuffed a bunch of treats in my pocket, gave a couple to Bella and Twyla as solace for staying behind, and off we went.

Our favorite walk starts at Crescent Bay Point park and wends through pretty coastal neighborhoods until we hit Main Beach. There are always lots of people out walking this route, and I decided it was a good chance to work with Harper on not running up to strangers. She just barely passed that part of the Canine Good Citizen test (and flunked it because she was unable to walk by other dogs without greeting them). Just knowing that I have a clicker really holds her attention, so she did very well, even through groups of people and even past children. She still can’t resist those other dogs, though. We’ll work on that next time.

When we reached Main Beach, we were ready to eat. The Belgian restaurant where Jerry had hoped to order mussels was closed for the week. The next place had an outdoor table right next to the sidewalk but would have required us to tie Harper up not at the railing but across the sidewalk at the parking meter. Nah. Next door, at Pomodoro, we hit the jackpot: an outdoor table on a patio with a heater where dogs were allowed.

While we ate, Harper sat nicely in the corner, occasionally practicing her “Beg” move. She developed this on her own, mainly so she can get a better view out the screen door, and I’ve been clicking her for it. Now I just need to give it a name and teach her to do it on command. We tried to take a photo, but the lighting just wasn’t good enough.

We saw half a dozen Cavaliers on our walk and lots of other dogs, not to mention a man walking a Pug and a black cat. You see all kinds in Laguna; that’s what I love about it. And now, back to the Mastiff galleys.

I didn’t get to meet Sarah K. Andrew in person until the Breeders Cup World Thoroughbred Championships in SoCal last fall, but I have long been a big fan of her work. Since I first spotted her pictures on Flickr a couple years ago, she has grown so much as a photographer. Last year was remarkable for her both personally and professionally, with her losses and her triumphs all captured through her lenses. Brave stuff, a lot of it.

She has put together a post with her best images of 2008, including a few I know were very hard to look at again, because of the sad story of loss behind them.

The pictures tell the story, so I won’t say anymore except: Go see.