Ramblings of a pseudo intellectual

I took the kids for a walk/jog today in our double jogging stroller.  Near the end of our jaunt we encountered an older couple with a beautiful black Labrador Retriever.  Lane, as she does, asked to pet the dog, so we asked the couple and they were happy to oblige.  We chatted for a few minutes and they shared that the dog is in training to be a guide dog for the blind, and is currently in the process of going through all the training and socialization and whatnot.  The dog is learning really well and is extremely obedient, except for one thing:  they cannot get her to stop jumping on people.  They’ve tried everything and are at their wits’ end.

Ahh, that sounded so familiar!  Bailey, our golden retriever, love that she is, was an avid jumper.  We tried EVERYTHING to get her to stop.  Her puppy trainer at PetSmart suggested rewarding her when she was calm… but when was she calm?!?  The ol’ bring up your knee advice had no effect, she thought it was a game.  No punishment was ever severe enough to deter her or to knock some sense into her — even the couple times I got so incredibly frustrated I actually punched her in the head.  (I hate to admit that, but it’s the truth.  She thought I was playing and jumped on me again.  Blockhead dog!)

Then, our epiphany.

Maybe someone told it to us, maybe I read it online somewhere — I cannot remember.  But wherever I got the idea, I am eternally grateful.  Bailey is a dog who craves attention.  Needs it, loves it, can’t live without it.  She loves people and wants to play.  She wants to be petted and loved.  She wants acknowledgment and acceptance.  So, we just started ignoring her when she jumped.  More than that, we stood crossed our arms and looked up and away from her, effectively withdrawing any semblance of attention.  It took a couple days of consistency, but the jumping abated.  We were amazed, we were thankful, we were in heaven!  We’d finally found the “punishment” that worked for our dog.

And it continues to work!  If she gets a little too exuberant with someone, we have them cross their arms and look up at the sky.  Bailey almost immediately will leave them alone.

I told these very nice people about our secret, and I think the light bulb went on for them too — it just might work.  I hope it does, their dog was otherwise beautiful and obedient and smart and well-behaved.

The kids and I were outside with Bailey yesterday.  She’s an energetic dog, and thus occasionally in the out-of-doors (and luckily, very rarely in the in-of-doors, since she is not a small dog) likes to go on a mad tear.  This basically involves running in a circle or back-and-forth as fast as her legs will carry her for about 20 seconds.  Then she’s good.

Yesterday, she got just a little too exuberant, and hurt one of her back legs.  I’m waiting it out right now, because even though she wouldn’t bear weight on it right after it happened which was a little scary, she was much more willing and seemingly able to bear weight after a minute or two.  She’s still favoring it a bit but seems to be OK.

In dog years, she’s now about 42.  Since I’m on the cusp of middle age, I can sympathize with her.  It’s hard to give up those youthful days when you could do whatever you wanted to your body and have it give you barely any negative feedback.  Oh Bailey, those days are gone for both of us, I think.  Now is the time of warming up and stretching, of pacing ourselves, of going to bed a little earlier, of rethinking that third glass of wine.  (OK, maybe Bailey isn’t drinking much wine these days.)  It’s sort of funny, once you know better, your body isn’t up to the challenge anymore.

Today is Bailey’s birthday. She’s 42.

Well, in dog years, anyway.

Bailey joined our family in 2002. I’d grown up with dogs but had never had MY OWN DOG, and Frank had never had a dog at all, so we figured we should get a dog of a breed with a reputation to be ‘easier’, as far as dogs go. We went back and forth and decided on a golden retriever. It seemed like a safe choice - smart, easy to train, good with kids.

I wanted to put a puppy picture here, but most of our pictures are in storage, and back then I was film-only. So this is the best puppy picture I can offer for now. The big black dog was my Grandpa Bill’s dog, Rocky.

Dog ownership has had its trying moments. Like for the while when we couldn’t figure out how to stop Bailey from jumping. (Somehow we got the idea to cross our arms, look up and ignore her, and it’s like magic!) Like when she had a spate of urinary tract infections - let me tell you, it is not fun trying to get a urine sample from a dog (but a pie tin, slid under at the right moment, works well enough). I lost more than one pair of beloved shoes to her puppy teething phase. And, as retrievers tend to be, Bailey certainly has her share of dependency affection and hyperactivity exuberance and destructiveness energy, but nothing anyone could call abnormal for a golden. She brought a bit of chaos to our generally quiet and predictable lives, and our days were better for it.

This is Frank and my brother, Mark.

But she has been a great dog. She is really smart, and was a cinch to housetrain. With just a bit of work she learned a lot of other useful stuff too, like sitting and staying and crating up. She’s a great dog for car trips, she isn’t at all anxious in the car, and stays relaxed throughout the trip (with occasional bouts of excitement to be going somewhere).

And then the kids came along, and she has proven her great-dog-ness in spades. In her they have a playmate, a jungle gym, a pony, a confidant, a partner in crime, a pillow, a teddy bear, and a guardian all in one big, furry package. She tolerates every bit of toy stealing and ear pulling and being sat on and and stepped on and laid on and jumped on with the patience of a saint, and still all she asks for return is an occasional cuddle and bowl of food.

With Lane when she was a week old.

With Lane last month.

As fitting for a family member, we will celebrate her birthday in a small way. We ordered her this ‘cake’ - it was Lane’s idea. She picked out the design, too.

Yes, I know, it’s a cat - there was a dog picture in the flyer right next to it. I even pointed it out and said “Don’t you think a dog picture would be more fitting? Bailey’s a dog, after all.” Lane said, “Yeah, but she likes cats too - like I like cats!” I couldn’t really argue with that logic. So, tonight after dinner, we’ll all have a piece of cookie cake and we’ll toast Bailey’s health.

So, Happy Birthday, Bailey! And thank you, for being a great dog. I hope we have the pleasure of your company for another six years.

…and sometimes they, well, don’t.

Today has been one of those “don’t” days.

Got a call this morning from my friend Renee.  We’d visited them last weekend, during which there was a strong suspicion that Lane may or may not have accidentally or purposefully flushed a toy down their toilet.  She said something that sounded like she had flushed a toy down the toilet, but when asked to confirm, she denied.  So while we were there, the toilet flushed a few times and all seemed well.

Not so much.  They amassed a $200 plumber’s bill rectifying the situation.  Which of course I will completely pay back, but sigh.

Then, I had our New York State tax return to sign, and write a small check, and mail today.  I give it a once-over before signing and paying and mailing, and see something odd.  I’m being charged New York City income taxes on the return… but I don’t live or work in New York City.  Neither does Frank or the kids, as far as I know.  And as much as NYC thinks it is the center of the universe, I don’t think they have the power to tax us by sheer proximity.  There has been three phone conversations with the accountant and she still doesn’t seem to think anything’s amiss.  Does she even GET that we DON’T LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY?!?  And now since we’ll be out of the country the last week before the return is due, we may still have to pay, then file an amended return to get our money back.  Um, ARGH!!  The one redeeming thing here is that instead of owing $155 I’m pretty sure we’ll get back $17.  At least it mostly covers the plumbing problem.

Somewhere in there, Lane left the door to the bathroom open and Jake wet himself up to the shoulders in toilet water.

Since Lane is traveling out of the country with her grandparents, they need a notarized letter from us that they have our permission to take her out of the country.  I wrote the letter and arranged to have it notarized today.  Told Frank to sign it last night.  Guess what he forgot to do.  Lane and her grandparents leave on Sunday; luckily a close family friend is a notary public and was willing to notarize without Frank’s signature on the letter yet because she knows he fully intends to sign it and consents to the trip.

Got all the way to the store today and realized I’d left my purse at home.

Got a package, realized it was all wrong, had to send it back.

Consoled my son more times than should be necessary because his sister likes tackling, clotheslining, straight-arming, and otherwise knocking him on his keister.

But right now the kids are playing as cute as can be.  That helps.  And one of our errands today was to PetSmart to get dog food and they were having an adoption event, with some of the cutest, puppiest-smelling puppies you could imagine.  Hearing the kids giggle at the puppies and all those little puppy nibbles and puppy kisses is healing for the soul.  If we were in a house at this point, there was a puppy there who might have come home with us.  She was just sweet and calm and gorgeous and happy and the kids were just as smitten with her as I was.  She looked like maybe she was part yellow lab, and maybe part boxer?  I didn’t ask, maybe they knew.  But man, was she cute.

I haven’t heard too many details, but my dad and brother talked, and given what they heard from the veterinary surgeon, they have decided to not go forward with the surgery.  I haven’t heard anything about how much time Ginger might have left, but they seem to be operating on the belief that they have a decent amount of time, a few weeks or months.  My brother has plans to take her to their favorite park as much as he can, and to make sure she gets some chances to swim.  They just feel like it’s such a big expense, for an outcome that probably won’t buy her a ton of time and certainly could reduce her quality of life.

I don’t blame them one bit, but it’s still sad.  She’s a great dog.

I talked to my dad yesterday about Ginger. He’d talked to the vet, and what he found out isn’t great. Not the worst news imaginable, but not great.

The lump is definitely a malignant tumor. It is definitely in her jawbone. It is, however, a non-aggressive cancer, which the vet explained meant that this cancer wouldn’t get in her lymph nodes and spread all over her body. It would isolate itself on her jaw. There is definitely a viable treatment, which is to remove part of her jaw. They aren’t sure how much they’d need to remove just yet, but it sounds like we’re talking a substantial bit, like a third of her jaw or more. The vet says she should adapt to this just fine and lead a normal life. However, she naturally will be disfigured, missing part of her jaw and all, and there’s no guarantee that the cancer wouldn’t come back. And, since she’s ten years old, fairly on in years for a Labrador Retriever, there’s no guarantee something else couldn’t hit six months from now.

My dad is going to talk to the surgeon who would do the operation in a day or so, to really get some details cleared up, and ask some additional questions. Right now, he’s left with the tough decisions that many dog owners face: where does he draw the line? Should he go into debt to prolong Ginger’s life by what may be only a few months or a year? How much cost is too much cost? And is all of it fair to Ginger?

I’ve told him, were it Bailey, my dog, chances are, unless the costs meant Lane or Jake couldn’t go to college, I would probably do the surgery… but if the tumor came back, in three months or three years, I would not do it a second time. And at the same time, I told him Ginger’s getting on in years, she’s had a good, happy life, and if the surgeon tells him this surgery is going to cost more than his property taxes, that no one would blame him for deciding not to do it, and just letting Ginger live happily for the few weeks or months she might have before the lump starts to interfere with her ability to eat and drink.

Ugh, this is the part of dog ownership that nobody likes.

Dad’s dog Ginger ended up getting surgery today to remove what the vet is now calling a tumor, though we have not yet heard if it is malignant or benign.

Ginger’s ten years old so just having surgery presents its worries, but so far the word is that she did well in surgery and is doing well in recovery.

More news as it comes in.