Apocalypse 1984

To engage in a little understatement here, it was probably not the best idea for me and Karen to move to Los Angeles in 1984. We didn't know anyone in L.A. and we had no jobs at a time when unemployment was at levels comparable to today. We were thousands of dollars in debt to student loans, which were taken out at 17% interest. Really, all we had that was worth anything was each other, and Lyric, Karen's Seeing Eye dog, and Holden, our little mutt.

Twenty-five years later, it's hard for me to imagine what we were thinking. We had one bachelor's degree between the two of us, a junker car, and absolutely no plan. Nevertheless, we rented a house in Glendale that we couldn't afford, and we set out to conquer the world.

These were great times for Lyric and Holden. Karen was going through a phase of custom cooking for the dogs, and homemaking biscuits. We had a huge yard they could play in, and we lived a few blocks away from a massive dog park that we took them to daily.

One of the reasons we got Holden in the first place was so that when Karen got back from training with Lyric, there would be a playmate waiting for her. Lyric adored Holden from the start, and once he got used to her, Holden reciprocated. Lyric loved spending time with Holden, and even took to grooming him daily. She knew he was still basically a puppy, and she loved mothering him.

The mothering didn't extend to the dog park, though. Lyric lived to go to the park. She would chase sticks endlessly and also just run with the exuberant energy of a German shepherd in the prime of her life. While she was doing this, Holden would leisurely wander the park, mainly sticking to the perimeters. Holden wasn't a dog who enjoyed vigorous exercise. For him the park was mainly an opportunity for a good sniff, followed by a poop, which he always took while as close to the road as possible, so he could look at cars as they whizzed by and be sure the drivers were looking at him while he produced his little masterpieces. But I digress.

There was just one problem. Almost every time we went to the park, at one time or another, Lyric steamrolled Holden.

This is another example of what I would call a dog's sense of humor. Lyric thought it was funny to see Holden at a distance of 25 yards or more, when Holden was sniffing and paying no attention. Then Lyric would charge him like a bull, and just smash into him, sometimes at full speed sending him flying and sometimes at a glancing angle simply knocking him down. Holden would get to his feet, dazed and confused, while Lyric laughed like a maniac and pranced away.

She never injured Holden, and he didn't hold it against her, long-term, anyway. It took him completely by surprise every time, which is why Lyric thought it was so funny. There was nothing mean-spirited in this steamrolling game, and at home, after the park, Lyric would gently groom her little brother before they both enjoyed their dinner that mom had made them.

At the same time, Karen and I began exploring L.A. In 1984, at least, there was a definite air of the apocalypse to Los Angeles. The summer Olympics were in L.A. that year, so the city was jam packed. It was also the year crack began appearing in cities. AIDS was still new, and seemed like a possible plague precursor. Unemployment in LA was higher than 10%, and it seemed that an air of sinister violence hung over everything.

We were out in Hollywood one hot and sticky weekend night. The street was full of weird, scary looking, people. A young Hispanic man was shouting to a soft drink vendor, "Put plenty o' coke in that Coca Cola, man!" and it seemed violence might be eminent if he didn't. There were bright lights and 80's clothes and music everywhere, and the air stunk from pollution, patchouli and piss.

I don't know what it was about that particular night, but it affected both Karen and me profoundly. It seemed impossible that Armageddon wasn't right around the corner, perhaps as close as Burbank. We saw that night, as if for the first time, just how bad people could be, and what a fragile hold "society" had over them. The world seemed violent and dangerous and full of people we didn't want to be around, or, worse, become.

Lyric and Holden brought us so much happiness, and society was letting us down. We decided to get another dog. We rationalized that Holden wasn't really a suitable playmate for Lyric, who was so much smarter, bigger and faster than he was. We thought it would be nice to get a third dog, one who could keep up with Lyric. Holden wouldn't get steamrolled anymore, and, we asked ourselves, are three dogs really any more trouble than two? (The answer is, "No." However, it's a slippery slope. Four dogs really aren't any harder than five, and so on. That's how we eventually ended up with six at a time).

There is one difference in having three dogs instead of two that we didn't know about, but which wouldn't have stopped us had we realized. When you have two dogs, you have pets. Once you hit three, though, you're part of a pack. That summer of 1984, in a strange city, repelled by humanity, we added a German Shepherd/Australian shepherd mix we named Chelsea to our family, and the group of dogs I refer to as our first pack was completed.



© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Dog Torture at 30,000 Feet

(Over the next several days, I'll be telling a more sustained story than I normally do. My goal for this site has always been to have every story stand on its own, independent of anything previously published. The chronology of the next four or five days entries will be sequential, comprising a larger narrative, though at the same time I hope they will each stand on their own merits, apart from the larger arc.)

It was late spring of 1984, and it turned out that Big Brother wasn't in charge after all. Ronald Reagan was. To a couple flaming liberals freshly graduated from college, this wasn't necessarily preferable.

Karen and I were living in Bloomington, IL, the town we'd gone to college in, with Karen's first Seeing Eye dog, Lyric, and Holden, a generally worthless cur whom we nonetheless adored irrationally.

For reasons too convoluted and stupid to go into here, we decided that it would be a good idea to move to Los Angeles to begin our adult lives together. We didn't have jobs, didn't know a soul there, but with Randy Newman's, "I Love L.A.," echoing in our obviously hollow heads, we knew without doubt that it was going to be the Promised Land for us.


We just had to get there. We were working on a tight budget, so we had to get there as efficiently and economically as possible. It was decided that I would drive from Illinois, in a Chevy Malibu stuffed with our belongings, and find us a place to live, and then Karen, Lyric, and Holden, would fly out.


Because this is a web site of dog stories, I'm going to skip my nightmare solo trek across the continent, involving major engine trouble in Denver. Bad as my trip might have been, it was nothing compared to poor Holden's.

Karen and I always considered the dogs to be ours, jointly. But Lyric was Karen's first Seeing Eye dog, so there was a special bond, and Holden was my special boy, because…well, because Holden needed to be someone's special boy, didn't he? Not every dog can be a Seeing Eye dog, or handsome, or smart, or consistently housebroken. I won't argue that Holden had any intrinsic or objective worth, just that every dog, A.K.C. champ or lowly cur, deserves to be someone's special boy or girl.


Initially, we considered me driving to L.A. with Holden. The difficulty there was Holden was a terrible traveler. He was alternately carsick and disruptively buoyant, with a hound's howl that he could keep up for hours when he was unhappy, and at that stage of his life, car rides made Holden unhappy. Obviously we knew he wouldn't like the experience of flying more than driving, but at least it would be over for him much more quickly.


We had used acepromazine successfully on Holden before. Acepromazine is best described as knock-out drops for dogs. If you wanted to date-rape a dog, acepromazine is what you might want to slip it. I know now that acepromazine is not absolutely safe for all dogs, but our vet at the time said it was, and none of our dogs has ever had an adverse reaction to it. One little white pill, and Holden would sleep peacefully for a two-hour car trip. Two pills, and we had the bio-equivalent of a dead dog on our hands. For his cross-country voyage, it was decided that Holden would have four acepromazine tablets.

As a Seeing Eye dog, Lyric was, of course, entitled to not only fly in the plane's cabin, but to board first with Karen. As a worthless mongrel, Holden was lucky the airline let him fly as a piece of luggage. A special crate had been purchased for Holden, and furnished with his blanket and Myron, a pink, stuffed, pig that was Holden's favorite toy. He had been given one acepromazine for the two hour drive to the airport, and slept like a contented baby for the entire ride.


Upon arrival at O'Hare, Holden's sweater was put on him, he was placed in his crate, and given the rest of his tranquilizers. Karen reported that he was doped up to the gills. Then Karen brought the crate to the guys who would load Holden onto the plane, and extracted promises from them to be extra careful with him.


The second Holden was transferred to the custody of the airport crew, he woke up and began to scream. His screaming got louder as he was carried away from Karen and taken to the plane.


I wasn't there, so I'm not sure how Karen did this, but after she and Lyric boarded, she had a chance to ask a crew member how Holden was doing.

"He's making an awful lot of noise," she was told.


Five or six hours later, the plane arrived in L.A. Karen and Lyric were the first to disembark (ah, the perks of being sightless!), and we hurried to the area where we were to pick up Holden. We were there waiting as the crew member carried Holden in his crate out of the baggage area. We knew it was Holden because we heard the screaming as soon as the door to the luggage area opened.


The crate was set down in front of us, and Holden grew quiet. I was on the floor, opening the crate to let my poor boy free.


Holden half crawled, half staggered, out of his crate. His eyes remained on the floor.


"Holden, my good boy!" I exclaimed, petting and hugging him. He continued to look at the floor, and turned away. He didn't seem to have any idea who I was, or Karen and Lyric, for that matter. Never a bright bulb, the light behind Holden's eyes was completely out.


Holden ultimately recovered, mostly, but he was never quite the same dog again. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, his innocence was gone. Before his flight, he still had a puppy's outlook on life as an invariably joyful place. Then he'd been drugged, put in a box, taken away from his mom, and put in a small, cold, noisy place, alone, for hours. The dog that got off the plane in L.A. wasn't a puppy anymore. His flight had been a rite of passage, a journey into the existential void from which one can never fully return.

Meanwhile, the whole family had entered an existential void from which we were lucky to ultimately escape; we were the four newest citizens of America's Wasteland, Los Angeles.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

My Nightly Threesome

It's been raining all day, which is a big deal in Phoenix. Unlike a lot of the people who live here, I hate the rain, and don't appreciate it all the more for its infrequency. I'm not sure if Levi dislikes the rain intrinsically, or if he picks up a vibe from me, but when it rains here, Levi doesn't even want to get up from the couch. If it's actively coming down, Levi won't voluntarily go in it. I've seen him refrain from peeing for 48 hours rather than get wet.

When we lived in Illinois, Levi had no choice but to go out in the rain now and then, but he didn't have to like it. In Arizona, on a day with foul weather, Levi, and Erica are basically just waiting all day to go to bed for the night. The three of us sleep in a double bed, so it's close, but not tight.

When I start to make the motions of going to bed, Levi will hurry to get there first, so he can lie horizontally across the bed. I don't know why he does this. I would say it was a joke, but he isn't laughing, and isn't very happy when I have to adjust him to something like a standard, vertical, bed position. Levi isn't a dog who would ever growl at a person, especially me, but when I have to reposition him in bed the look on his face is as close as I ever hope to get.

Levi doesn't like to get under the blanket, and he likes to press his back against me while he sleeps. As we get into our positions, Erica comes to join us.

Erica sleeps on my head. She starts out our night by cuddling against the side of my face, while I pet her with my opposite hand, which is behind my head. She purrs, and if it's a cold night, she gets under the covers with me for a while, but only until she warms up. Then she creeps out, and positions herself around my head, like a Davy Crockett coonskin cap.

That's how we stay until morning, unless Levi goes into a heavy dream cycle. Watch this video and imagine what it's like when that's happening in bed next to you.








Hopefully this terrible weather will abate, and Levi, Rocky and I can get both of our daily walks in. On rainy days like this, when Levi's under exercised, he's at his most dangerous. Especially with his Howard Hughes nails.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

My Turn: You’ve Got to Stop and Smell the Urine, by Levi

Dad's web site is misleading. If you read what he writes about me, you get the impression that I do not like puppies. Of course I like puppies! I am not a monster.


Of course, when puppies are acting wrong, I do not like what they are doing, but I still like them. My motto, concerning puppies, is, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." 


Now that I have reached an age of maturity, my experience and accumulated wisdom can be offered to stupid puppies, so they can stop being stupid and begin their journey towards being good boys, like me. 

Teach these rules of life to puppies early, and they will stop being stupid and annoying sooner.

When you go for a walk, don't pull around crazily on your leash in every direction, puppy! Walk right! But don't forget to stop and smell the urine on the way. Often you'll find that your mom or dad doesn't understand the delight of a particularly piquant prior piss, (Levi loves alliteration!) and they will try to hurry you along. This is where you should expend your energy, in learning how to STOP, really stop, in a sudden and irrevocable manner, so you can take the time to really get to sniff your neighbors. This STOP might have to stop your mom or dad while they're jogging, so make sure you really know how to plant yourself like a tree. If you can pull your human off their feet, or make them swear at you, you know you're doing it right. And don't just STOP at the beginning of a walk. Mix it up. This is your time.

Regarding your peeing, three words: learn to pace yourself. If you are going on a walk, and you empty your bladder all at once, what's the point of even continuing? Here's a good rule of thumb. Figure you're going to need enough pee for about thirty squirts per mile, and never forget that the last pee, where you're just squeezing out three drops, is just as critical as that first pee, a comparative torrent. The person walking you might indicate some irritation at your frequent stops, as my dad does, but you know what? These are your excretory habits, and you need to be firm. I don't tell dad how to pee, nor do I permit him to tell me.

Another thing puppies need to know is to be sure to take advantage of opportunity, whenever opportunity comes your way. Nothing gnaws like regret, not even a bulldog with a knuckle bone. Do you remember July 11, 2004? I do. On July 11, 2004, I had the chance to get a pan of eggs and cheese that everyone had forgot about from the counter, and I did nothing! "I'll go check the other room and make sure no one's coming," I thought, and then something was going on in the backyard, and the next thing you know, I was outside with Rocky! When I got back in, someone had moved the pan! Some of you puppies may not have had eggs and cheese, but take it from me, they will change your life if you can ever get them. They are good, like meat, but they are not meat! I love them, and I could have had a whole pan of them of July 11, 2004, but I made the mistake of not realizing that the window of opportunity will not remain open forever.

Also, puppies, hold your ears right! Most puppies let their ears flop down. That is not right! Hold your ears up proud, like I do! If you do not learn to hold your ears up when you are a puppy, then you will grow up to be a floppy-eared dog! You do not want to be a floppy-eared dog, because floppy-eared dogs look stupid, and you do not want to look stupid and have floppy-ears! So hold your ears up, puppies (except if you see me! Then put them down, submissively, or I will beat you up!)!


I have learned many things in my life, and these paltry tips merely scratch the surface of advice I have for young dogs everywhere, but they are a start. I will continue to offer life advice to stupid puppies, so they will love me and be grateful for me like everyone should be!

One last thing. Puppies, about that tail chasing stuff. It makes you look retarded, so stop it! I mean it. If I catch any of you doing it, I'll bite your ears and make you bleed! I'll…

Editor's Note: This is where I had to stop the dictation session. Levi was becoming very agitated at the thought of puppies chasing their tails, so I suggested a late walk to get his mind off the image. For the record, I think it's pretty cute when puppies do that, but that's not an argument I'm willing to have with Levi again. As usual, the dogman expressly distances himself from all of Levi's stated opinions. 

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Sunday Brunch

Welcome to the Dogman's Den. I hope everybody is having a peaceful and enjoyable Sunday. This week, the weekly recap of stories has been moved from Friday to Sunday, and this will remain the regular day for the week in review.

Monday, the virtues of old dogs were extolled. Puppies might be cuter, adult dogs might be more alert and accommodating, but if you ask me, there's nothing on earth sweeter than an old dog. Maybe their breath isn't the sweetest, but everything else is. If you need a dog (and everybody does) consider adopting an older one, not just because no one else will, but because they're the best! Read about old dogs here.

Next up was "The Impassable," a chilling tale about an early fear of Karen's first Seeing Eye dog, Lyric. To read, "The Impassable," click here.

Clothes make the man, and Holden's sweater made the dog. Sick, that is. An interesting look at the sort of things dogs train themselves to do, that perhaps provides some insight into their thought processes. Or perhaps not. What do I know? I'm just a simple Dogman. Read about "Holden's Sweater" here.


The Dogman had a problem at a large pet store this week, and got really peeved. Fortunately, the problem has been resolved, due to this posting and a letter sent to the large pet store in question's corporate headquarters. A lesson has been demonstrated here that you should attend to. When you feel your consumer rights have been abridged, when a retailer treats you in an unfair manner, make some noise and don't just take it. I'm one of the most confrontational people around, and even I don't like having to go medieval on a retailer, but now, instead of being out $35 I'm up $70, I won't have the same problem at that store, and, I daresay, none of my neighbors and friends who shop there will have a similar problem. So I guess that makes me sort of a hero. I can live with that.

Finally, this week, the most popular story from the Den, ever, was posted on Friday. I understand why so many people were reading it on the internet. It's a really good story. Read "Things to Do in Albuquerque When You're a Dead Dog," right here.

Tomorrow, being Monday, I will hand control of this site over to Levi, so he can present the latest in his "My Turn" series of opinion pieces. I've tried to get some idea of what he'll be writing about this week, but Levi's not talking. I guess we'll have to wait. In the meantime, this page takes you to all of Levi's previous columns.

Saturday News of the Dog

Actress Katherine Heigl saves 25 Chiuahuas! Here's the deal. Because of Paris Hilton and other such celebretards, Humane Societies in Southern California find themselves swamped in the little dogs whose fashionista moms (and a few gay dads, I'd reckon) considered them an accessory and have now moved on to another trend. Sadly, the poor little dogs have no choice in the matter. Heigl got the 25 little dogs flown cross country to New Hampshire, where they have a good shot at adoption. Celebrities might get too much attention in general, but Katherine Heigl's generous act should garner applause from us all. 

Chapman University, in Orange, CA, is having University sanctioned "puppy therapy" to help students deal with the stress of finals. OK, I'll come out and say it. Kids today are soft. I got through college without any G.D. puppy therapy. But, still, puppies! Check the story out here.

My policy is to stay away from ugly dog news on this site. This next story, while sort of ugly, is pretty darn interesting! From beautiful Valparaiso, IN: Mom's Dog Kills Son's Pet Hamster; Son Tries to Kill Mom's Dog. R.I.P., Senor Hamster, but at least the doggy is alright. The 25 year old son pulled a gun on the dogs, threatened his mother, stopped her from calling police, and then was found with weed and paraphernalia. He's facing 14 years, which is 946 hamster years. Read this delightful holiday story here.

If you're adopting a dog, consider adopting an old dog! They're the best, they need you, and, whether you know it or not, you probably need them. I'll say it again: If you're adopting a dog, consider adopting an old dog! Read this article!

And, finally, Michael Vick wishes he could have a dog! What a shame he can't. I'll bet Roman Polanski would like to have a Jaycee Dugard, but guess what? Sometimes we reach a point where there are no second chances!

Things to Do in Albuquerque When You’re a Dead Dog

The fundamental problem with stories about dogs is that so often they end, tearfully, with the subject dog expiring in an excruciating death scene. That won't be the case with this story. In fact, this story begins with the dog, in this case, Lyric, already dead, having passed away peacefully in her sleep at the ripe old age of 15. Adore her as I did, this story isn't about Lyric, per se, but about her earthly remains and their disposition.


Personally, I believe almost all of the rituals and traditions associated with death are insane. Of course, the remembrance of deceased loved ones sustains us, but the physical remains are just that, remains, of someone who once was, but who now exists only in our memory. If anything, it seems to me, ritualistic display, handling and disposal of the corpse of either dog or human is an affront to who they were before they became a corpse. Every dog or cat we had who died after Lyric was disposed of in the county dog hole, and I think that's as it should be.

The county dog hole is just that, a big pit for dead dogs and cats. I suppose it has a real name, but I like to think of it as the dog hole. It's loaded with corpses, then lime is poured, then it's loaded with corpses again. Lather, rinse, repeat, until you need to finally dig a new, or deeper, dog hole. Thinking about it, dogs and cats aren't lonely and scared in the dog hole, and they're with their own kind. If they insist on being dead, I frankly can't think of a better place for them to be than the dog hole. If there were something like a dog hole for people, I'd sign up, right away. Karen felt just as I did, and after her death we donated her remains to the New Mexico Museum of Anthropology. But when Lyric died, we were far less callow, and felt certain things needed to be done to the remains. So we tried to do them.

Before I get to Lyric's bodily remains, let me discuss her hair. Lyric was a long-haired German shepherd, and Karen brushed her thoroughly for the twelve years she was ours. During that time, she saved all of Lyric's hair, in white kitchen garbage bags. When we moved, we'd move the bags of hair with us. By the time Lyric died, we had more than thirty.


I will argue that Karen was not clinically insane. She actually had a reason for keeping Lyric's hair. Granted, it was a half-baked and ultimately stupid reason, but it was a reason, nonetheless. From the time she met Lyric, Karen had the fantasy of saving Lyric's hair, and one day having it spun into yarn and made into a sweater. It wasn't until after Lyric's death that Karen bothered to look into the feasibility of this plan. 


Karen consulted artisans, and learned this. You can make things out of dog hair, but you probably shouldn't. There's a reason we don't make things out of discarded pet hair. Apparently, anything made of the collected hair of Lyric would not only be hideous and overly fragile, but would also stink of wet dog all the time. Ultimately, the thirty-plus garbage bags of hair went to the dump.


Then there was the matter of Lyric's bodily remains. Naturally, we'd meet Lyric's spirit again at the Rainbow Bridge, but Karen was crystal clear as to what she wanted done with her body. She wanted Lyric cremated, and wanted to sprinkle the remains at a particular location in the Sandia foothills that Lyric had loved. It was a location we always imaginatively referred to as "the place." It was just a bit off a path, with a small stream, and it was pristine, and rugged and magnificent. It's where we wanted to let Lyric's soul fly free.

We hiked to the place, and I carried Lyric's remains in a canister that resembled an extra-large coffee can. My big girl felt so light in that can.


Once at the place, we sent our last earthly love to Lyric, and prepared to sprinkle her dust to the New Mexico winds, where it would be lifted and flown far and wide, so all of the Sandia mountains, indeed, all of the American west, would be imbued with Lyric's sweet essence. I don't remember, but I'm sure some beautiful words were said. Then I opened the canister so Karen and I could toss the fairy dust into which our girl had been transformed into the breeze.

What was in the can was not at all what we expected. It was black, and rocky, and had recognizable chunks of charred dog in it. Somehow, this relatively small can held a massive amount of matter, and though the can had felt light, the "cremains" were dense. There was going to be no letting Lyric float away in the wind. As we each tossed the first handfuls of her into the air, the charred mass dropped straight to the ground, as if it were iron filings and the earth were a giant magnet.

We were near the small, babbling, creek. We had imagined many of her remains would persist near the creek she had loved and romped through. What we didn't expect is that by the time the third and fourth handfuls of the black matter had been removed from the can, the stuff would begin to, literally, dam the creek. What had been intended as the liberation of a sweet, beloved, soul, had suddenly turned into an illegal biohazardous dumping with serious environmental implications.


We still had half a can of Lyric left. We dumped it into some foliage, and got out of the place, before some park ranger came up and arrested us for despoiling the foothills.


We laughed then, and I laugh now, remembering this. What was in that canister was no more Lyric than the bags of hair were a sweater, or what's in some drawers in a museum in Albuquerque is Karen, or whatever's buried in the cemetery is your grandmother. Whatever happened to the black sludge damming the creek that day, my Lyric will always be beautiful, always happy, and always on the arm of her Mom.


© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

The Impassable

After Karen got back to Bloomington with her first Seeing Eye dog, Lyric, she liked to work her for miles a day. Karen and Lyric would often walk from our apartment to Illinois State University, in Normal, a couple of miles away and back.


I've written about Karen's initial meeting of Lyric, but didn't have an opportunity to describe the kind of dog she was. A long-haired German shepherd, she had a delicate, absolutely feminine, beauty. She could speak pages with her eyes, and nuance her eyes' pronouncements with a nearly imperceptible adjustment of the angle of her ears. Everyone who knew her was awed by her beauty and grace, and sensed there was something of the ethereal to her.



After Karen's initial experience with her at The Seeing Eye, Lyric loved her more completely than I've ever known another dog to love a person. For whatever reason, Lyric loved me instantly, but, in general, it took a long time to get to know her. It wasn't that she was in any way unfriendly, she was simply deeply involved with the people she already loved, and, unlike most dogs, you had to earn Lyric's love and trust. Once you did, though, you had a beautiful, smart, athletic shepherd, who would adore you forever and make you feel particularly special for garnering her attention.


Lyric was also manipulative in some ways. Not being a dog with an insatiable appetite, Lyric found that she could mess with us regarding food. She'd refuse to eat kibble for two days, and we'd freak out. Oh, no, she's going to die! So, different foods were brought and rejected, or nibbled and discarded. Lyric loved Milk Bones, though, and managed to extort first two or three, and, before long, eight or nine large Milk Bones a day out of us. Of course she didn't need her kibble, she was living on cookies. When those would be cut back, she'd remain on strike against regular dog food, until we did something special, like pour milk on it.

Understand, Karen and I were young, and Lyric, along with Holden, was our first dog. Of all the dogs I've subsequently owned, or known, Lyric, in her prime, was far and away the most manipulative. She was also gorgeous, the first Seeing Eye dog I'd ever known, and had a magical presence about her. All these factors combined to cause us to spend several years, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, just bending over to kiss her ass. Not that she didn't deserve the best, but she was getting specially cooked chicken breasts, while we were living on frozen burritos.


After a few years, we managed to put an end to the food manipulation. Cookies remained prominent in Lyric's diet, but we got her to eat kibble by remembering the basic maxim, that no dog has ever, in history, voluntarily starved herself to death to make a point. All that seems kind of obvious now, but when you're in your early twenties and on your first dog, it's something you have to learn for yourself, I suppose.

As I've said before, Lyric had a quality that reminded us of a college girl, a co-ed. She loved campuses and quads, and with her long hair and serious minded ways, with those deep, searching, brown eyes that could still secretly dance with mischievous energy, I always thought of her as, perhaps, a graduate student in Comparative Lit, or maybe Renaissance Art. Certainly not in any discipline which would allow one to make a living if they were to ever leave college.


But back to the initial months with Lyric. Every day, Karen would work her for hours, and they both loved it. From the time they arrived home in late summer, they'd leave the apartment on their own every day, whether Karen had any place to be or not, and just walk. This was the time long before Lyric's hips started to hurt, and before Karen became engrossed in school, when they could really concentrate on being with each other and developing as a team. As I think back on it, those months might have been the happiest of Karen's life.


The daily walks continued, never less than an hour, as fall turned to winter in central Illinois, and I saw my two girls turn into a stellar team, never having a problem.


One day, though, in late November, Karen and Lyric left, and, a minute later, I heard barking down the street. By the time I got downstairs, they were back at the apartment.


"Lyric's freaking out," Karen said. "There's something around the corner, and she's just stopping and barking and refusing to take me past it." 

Seeing Eye dogs are taught to refuse to lead their people into danger, even if they are ordered to do so. It's called "intelligent disobedience" and is one of the fundamental principles of guide dog training.


"Maybe there's a big hole or something," I suggested.


"She'd be able to work me around that," Karen said.

Then we got around the corner, and there it was, the impassable. It stood, arrogant in its power over all it beheld. It was a snowman, and it was scaring Lyric horribly. She couldn't dare bring herself to pass it and drag Karen down with her, when the snowman attacked, or whatever Lyric imagined it would do.


Gentle words were used, and avoidance of the snowman was practiced until it was gone. I assume it was somehow the first snowman Lyric had ever seen, but given that we didn't raise her, I can't really know. Maybe it was the first, or maybe, while she was being raised by her foster family, a snowman had broken into the house and eaten the baby. You just never know.


To note again, I have virtually no photos of Lyric (or anything else). Except for the graduation picture, the other shots are purely decorative, and are of dogs with some quality or another that reminds me of Lyric. All the dogs shown here are beautiful, but I wish you could have really seen Lyric. Of course every dog is special, but, Lyric, she was really something extra special, and she was already getting old when the graduation picture was taken. She was still beautiful, but in her prime...

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com
 

Outraged!

I bought one of those retractable leashes for Levi a couple weeks ago for $35. Within ten days, it no longer retracted, but dribbled sixteen feet out of its plastic housing. Neither Levi nor I misused the leash, it was just badly made. Once Levi went to full extension, the leash never snapped back as it was meant to.


I went back to the large, national chain, where I purchased the leash, expecting no difficulty. With the economy as it is, and the fierce competition for every consumer dollar, I naively assumed that minimal standards of customer service prevailed. As I'm sure most of you know from your own experiences, they don't.


I brought the leash to the register and showed the cashier how it was malfunctioning.


"Where's your receipt?"


"I don't have it. I bought it almost two weeks ago and I didn't know it was going to break."


"We won't exchange it without a receipt."

I asked to speak to the manager. The cashier, "Cesar," told me that he was the manager.


"What's the problem," I asked. "You sell these leashes here."


"How do I know you only had it two weeks?"


Understand what's happening. "Cesar," the manager of the Scottsdale location of one of the largest retail pet food and supply outlets in the country, is calling me a liar. He is suggesting that I picked up a broken leash somewhere, a retractable model that he just happened to sell, and then brought it into his store to exchange for a new one. Then what? Did he think I'd sell the new one on the black market and make a cool $5 profit? I'm just saying, as a scheme for ripping off pet stores, the scenario "Cesar" was imagining was pretty low rent indeed.

It is true I didn't have the receipt with me. Would you keep the receipt for a dog leash? Regardless of your answer, consider this. This store I'm referring to has a frequent shopper program, with a card like you use at a grocery store, which was used to buy this leash. They therefore have internal records of everything I've ever bought there. A credit card was also used, which could have easily been checked if, indeed, "Cesar," had any doubt that I had purchased the leash as I had claimed. I don't think he doubted me, though. I think he wanted the store to hang on to its money, regardless of the quality of the merchandise it sold to innocent consumers.


"Cesar," the manager, instead of trying to resolve the issue, dug his heels into the unstated, but necessary, conclusion that I was a liar and a thief. Had he been suited to retail management, he might have looked at the activity on my frequent shopper card. I have, in the past, spent literally thousands of dollars a year at this store. I did tell him this, as I flung the leash down the aisle of the store.


"Don't you want that?" he asked, unbelievably enough.


"No! It's a piece of fucking shit!"


"If you're going to use language like that, I'll have to ask you to leave."


I left. I'm writing corporate today. There are a lot of people out of work these days, and "Cesar" needs to be one of them. If this company doesn't condemn "Cesar's" actions, and back up their words by firing him, I'll have no choice but to assume this outrageous customer service is company policy. If they try to in any way justify the treatment I received because I swore during the exchange, I will remind them that many of their customers swear, and that even those who don't, normally, would swear if they had to deal with an intransigent asshole like "Cesar." Then, if I have the opportunity, I'll swear at them.


I drove across town to this store's only real competitor and purchased a much nicer new leash for only $20. While there, I spoke to the manager, and told her my experience at the other store. She's the one who told me my receipt could have been simply obtained by the other store, via my frequent shopper card, or credit card. I thanked her, and told her that even though it meant driving a mite farther, she had a new customer who was going to spend thousands of dollars a year at her store. She seemed pleased.


You may have guessed the name of the store "Cesar" allegedly managed (I don't know if he was really the manager. The store was pretty empty, and he was a greasy, shifty-eyed, kind of dirtbag, so he might have been lying.) I'll give the name of the store after I talk with corporate. If they don't fire "Cesar," issue me an apology, and give me $35 back, I'll assume "Cesar" represents the larger corporate position, and I'll gladly name the company, and store location, and actively talk shit about them for the rest of my life, frequent their largest competitor, and try to influence my friends and acquaintances to avoid them as well. After all, if we customers don't stand up for consumer dignity, who will?

I hope this isn't giving too much away, but the competitor's name is PetCo, and they treat their customers very well.


Disclosure: PetCo is NOT a sponsor of this piece!

Holden’s Sweater

Do clothes make the man? In many cases, it seems they do. Police uniforms, priests' vestments, prisoners' orange jumpsuits, all instantly define their wearer. It's further been my observation that clothes can make the dog, or, I should say, that clothes can make the dog sick. I'm referring to Holden's sweater.



Holden was my first dog, and I've written about him at some length in the past. He was ostensibly a beagle-mix, a fat, dim-witted, coarse-coated fellow, foul smelling and ill humored. To make him even less appealing, he was something of a sickly puppy.

In his first year, the harsh Illinois winter made Holden sick, giving him a cough. Since his hair was fairly short, we bought him a red argyle sweater to keep his chest warm. Because he was big-boned (I'm joking; he was fat), the only sweaters that fit Holden were, in all respects aside from his neck and chest, far too big for him, so they would hang in the back, half-way down his tail.



That first year, Holden loved his sweater. It did minimize his coughing, and he managed to be a badly behaved, though generally healthy, puppy because of it. In those olden days, dogs would just be "let out." Of course, Holden was especially terrible about coming back when it was time. He preferred to roam the neighborhood, looking for garbage to eat or doing god knows what. Most of our neighbors didn't know my name, or Karen's, but everyone knew Holden, because we were screaming for him so often.

Once we left the house to go look for him, because he'd been gone for too long, and we were walking down the street calling for him. We came across some strangers. I asked them if they'd seen a little yellow dog.



"Oh, Holden?" they asked. "No, we haven't seen him tonight." These people might have been strangers to us, but they definitely knew Holden.



We walked a little farther looking for him, and ran into another stranger. We asked him if he'd seen a little, yellow, dog.



"Was he wearing a cape?" the guy asked.

"No," I said, "It's a sweater. It just hangs long in the back."



For that first year, whenever Holden started to cough, we'd put the sweater on him. In his second year, when he was no longer a puppy, we continued to do the same. By this time, though, when Holden was coughing and feeling poorly, he didn't have even his characteristic minimal energy. By the second year, if Holden was sick, and was wearing his sweater, he was feeling essentially incapacitated.



Though Holden was a low-energy dog, who liked to conserve his calories, he was still capable of being a bad boy, especially in new situations. We were renters, and it's always more difficult to rent with dogs, and we had either two (Holden and Lyric) or three (add Chelsea). So when we met potential landlords, it was imperative that we present as a well-behaved pack. Lyric, the Seeing Eye dog, was, of course, a perfect charmer, and Chelsea was always a good girl, but Holden was unpredictable and could be decidedly squirrelly.

Then we made the discovery that controlled Holden from then on, in situations where he needed to be controlled. I don't remember how we discovered this, but we found out that if Holden was acting up, and being a little wild, if we put the sweater on him he instantly became placid. Since he associated the sweater with not feeling well, a quasi-Pavlovian syndrome had developed. When the sweater was put on him, Holden instantly believed he was sick, and acted accordingly sedate. We were able to present him to landlords and pass him off as an elderly, sedate, harmless fellow, instead of the little tub of trouble he actually was.



I wish I had some pictures of Holden, particularly in his sweater, but you'll just have to use your imagination. He looked a lot like the second dog shown in this article, except a dirty yellow color. Aesthetically unappealing as he might have been, though, Holden will always be remembered, by at least one anonymous guy in Bloomington, as that dog wearing a cape, and that's an epitaph I think Holden would be pleased with.


© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com