Chapter 51 — Squeaky Toy Joy

Here’s to the inventor of squeaky toys for dogs!  May he or she make a million dollars.  Disclaimer:   I have no stock, financial interest or other potential financial benefit from the manufacture of squeaky toys.  I just know how much dogs love them.

And, please, keep the toys coming—there’s a local fan base that includes 4 Labrador retrievers, 1 Weimaraner and Greta, my duck tolling retriever.  The Weimaraner can take Squeaky or leave it, but shows occasional interest.  Josie, the Chesapeake Bay retriever who considers herself a furry person, is the only one too dignified to respond to the toy at all.

Describing  a squeaky toy as a rubber ball with two little feet and a squeaker inside doesn’t begin to convey  a dog’s  sublime joy.  Dogs chase  the ball, grab it, crunch it between their teeth and listen to it squeal for mercy.  Endlessly. http://s295641249.onlinehome.us/jwpet/dog/dog.html

Just as each dog in the local pack has a different  personality, each has a different approach to playing with Squeaky.

For Colt, the yellow Lab, the joy is in the chase.  Nothing brightens his morning like a ball rolling down the hill as he pumps his legs behind it until he grabs the prize, gives it a couple of good chews and returns the slobber-covered toy for another toss.

For Maya, the slender black Lab, it’s all about snatching victory—and Squeaky–from Colt’s jaws and racing away with it.  She has no plans to bring it back, although if she were left alone with it for an extended period, her jaws would probably get tired and she would drop the ball.  We will probably never know;  the other dogs have no intention of leaving Maya alone with Squeaky.

Maddy, the larger black Lab, takes a more casual approach.  She gets the toy occasionally and crunches it in her jaws, but she lacks Maya and Colt’s single-minded dedication to pursuit of  the ball.

Juno, the English lab, would like to retrieve Squeaky if the other dogs weren’t so much faster than he.  But he can’t worry about that, or anything else.  Juno is the quintessential Type B personality.  He’s just  happy being in the pack and ambling along with the others.  Juno is a well-educated retriever.  When he gets the toy, he knows how to bring it back, sit and hold it in his mouth until his owner accepts it.  But if days or weeks go by and he doesn’t get the ball,  he just shrugs and goes on.  Life is still good.

Greta doesn’t compete strongly for Squeaky in the pack, although she will snarl at others when she imagines some jostling or behavioral insult.   But when she is the only dog on hand,  she loves to swim out after the toy, grab it in her mouth and turn, her tail floating on the water as she paddles  back to shore.  At water’s edge, she tosses Squeaky in the air or drops it on the bank and studies the effect of gravity, her ears pricked forward, as the toy rolls down into the mud.

Squeaky in the water is fun.   But for sheer dog ecstasy, Greta finds that nothing beats rolling on your back in the grass while chomping down on the toy to make it squeal.  That, she can tell  you as she rolls over and lets her tongue hang out in a big grin, is the good life.

Tollers have short attention spans, which explains why there are three or four squeaky toys at the bottom of the local pond.  If Squeaky is floating six feet out on a November day, and Greta pretends to have no idea what I’m talking about when I point and say, “Fetch toy!”  Squeaky is probably doomed to a watery grave.  I would brave frigid water, mud and ice if my dog were sinking.  But for a $6.99 toy, no.    Sometimes we find Squeaky washed up at the edge of the pond a day or two later, its horns and feet muddy but otherwise undamaged.  Sometimes, it sinks.

Luckily for Greta, mouth feel on a new squeaky toy seems to be just as good as on the old one.  A few chomps in the back seat on the way to the park, a few squeals, a little dog slobber lubrication and lost Squeaky is forgotten.  New Squeaky is on the job.

© 2012 by Donna Engle

Chapter 50 — Green-Eyed Toller

 

Greta is suspicious.  From the  perspective of a mostly Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, the situation looks like this:  every Thursday afternoon, her person disappears for several hours and comes back smelling of other dogs.

Greta sniffs me over, and stares at me with her “Something is  going on here”  expression.  She’s right.  As I ease into retirement, I’ve done something I’ve wanted to do for perhaps 10 years: volunteer at the local Humane Society,  http://www.carr.org/humane/ .

I’ve become a reasonably well trained dog walker.  And in just a few short weeks, I’ve met a lot of nice dogs.  There was Daisy, a pleasant black Lab who had only a short stay at the shelter before she found a family of her own.  There was Baby Girl, a dark brown Lab mix who had come in as a stray, a shy, sweet dog.  She has now  found a home.  There was a little Welsh corgi, who trotted along at the end of the leash although it took him three steps to my one,  and Hanna, who looked like a Heinz 57 and was  so strong I wasn’t sure I could hold her.  Washington is still there, a German shepherd who looks like he could be purebred.  He is  a gentlemanly walker who could carry off a stroll in a top hat and cane with savoir faire.

Then there’s Appleton.  Appleton is a black Lab/chow mix who has  all the enthusiasm and energy that only the young have, whether they’re young canines or young homo sapiens.   I believe Appleton wakes up every morning and shouts, “Hello, World!” because  he just knows that today is the day he’ll find his human.   Here’s the link to his photo:  http://www.carr.org/humane/dogs.htm    Appleton  is a leash tugger,  but we’re working on that.  I told him how old I am and how slim  the chances were of my running anywhere with him.  Appleton was not impressed, so we’re working on a program whereby if he  stops tugging, we go forward.  If he tugs on the leash, we go nowhere.  Next week, if he’s still there, we’ll try it with treats as well as social rewards.

I reminded myself sternly before I got into this that one dog is  all I can handle and that the resident queen of the household gets along better with people than she does  with other dogs, although she is much more canine-friendly than she was when we first met. She also gets jealous when I pet the cat, so she would try to dominate a new dog.  But if I were going to adopt just one, Appleton would be the guy.

Greta’s expression said she doesn’t think much of this idea that I go out and play with other dogs.

“Look,”  I said, “six years ago, that was you.  You were spending your days in a kennel at the animal shelter, waiting for someone to love you.  I hope someone came and walked you until we met.  You would hate it if you didn’t get your walk every day.  Dogs need that for stress reduction.”

I did not mention that dogs also need walks because many of them would much rather poop on grass than in their kennels,  because they need exercise and a chance to sniff the breeze and know what goes on beyond the walls of the shelter.

And then I took Greta for a walk around our subdivision.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 49 — Greta’s Human Wears Down– Part III

From the patient comfort perspective, University of Maryland Medical Center http://www.umm.edu/  was getting better.  Yes, you could still stick a martini glass in the electrophysiology lab where the operations were performed and the glass would be chilled to perfection in 30 seconds.  And yes, the gowns they give you  still couldn’t be any uglier.  And yes, you could still ring for help,  be told that someone would come,  and sometimes,  someone would.   But this time, the default dinner of vegetable lasagna and steamed plain zucchini wasn’t quite as cold as it had been the first time. To get something better than lasagna and zucchini, you have to stay in the hospital long enough to be allowed to order from a menu.  Not worth it.

The electrophysiologists, http://www.umm.edu/heart/arrhythmias/ep.htm  didn’t have to work much on improvement.  They were already good at what they do.

We had taken Greta to the kennel the afternoon before the scheduled surgery.  She was uncharacteristically nervous and agitated when we arrived at the kennel.

“Dogs know,” said the kennel owner.  “They don’t know exactly what’s going on, but they know something is wrong.”

There was no way to reach across the dog/human language barrier to explain, so we  scratched behind her ears and left her there.

On a cold, cloud-covered  Valentine’s Day morning in Baltimore, I took off my clothes and put on the grim gray and merlot gown, and they stuck IVs in both arms.  Then, we waited.  The resident came by to make sure I understood that I was there for a biventricular pacemaker and no, I don’t smoke, and yes, I drink a glass of wine with dinner on the weekends and am allergic to sulfa drugs.

My guy  Mike had pretty much run out of jokes after three hospitalizations in three months, although he was still able to come up with a few bad puns.  An hour crawled across the clock.  A nurse came by and said they were running late in the electrophysiology lab.   Another hour crawled by, marked by the infernal regular  beep of the heart monitor.

I remember kissing Mike good-bye and being trundled off to the windowless lab room with its computers and monitors above the narrow bed–what do they do for obese patients, whose bodies would hang over the sides?  Is it like the airlines, where you’re required to buy two seats if you can’t fit into one?

I woke up.  They rolled the stretcher to an elevator and then to a room with a view of a multi-story glass atrium.  There was no one in the other bed, which meant I could read my Kindle without a TV show blaring its way between my ears.  Why is it that hospitalized TV watchers have the right to inflict their preferences on readers, but readers don’t have the right to a turn-that-damned-thing-off period?

The next morning, I was set to escape the hospital.  But first, a near death experience brought to me by Boston Scientific, http://www.bostonscientific.com/home.bsci.  The pacemaker technician sent to test the device decided to see how far she could slow it down and whether my heart would beat on its own.

First, I saw  the fuzzy grays that start at the periphery of your vision.  Then everything went black.  I must have slumped forward.

I heard, “Miss Engle, are you all right?”

Couldn’t answer.  She cranked the pacemaker back up, and the black receded from my vision.

“I won’t do that again,” she said.

Good.

By the time Mike came to pick me up, my heart was beating and I had been allowed to use the bathroom on my own and  put on my own clothes.  The sun was shining.   Life was looking better.

It’s a dog’s life

We retrieved Greta from the kennel and took her for a walk in the park.  She came home, ate some dog kibble and curled up for a nap.  I suppose it’s  hard to get a good night’s sleep at the kennel.  Someone is always barking.

©2012 by Donna Engle

Chapter 48 — Greta’s Human Wears Out — Part II

 

 

“I don’t want to live like this,” I said.  And repeated.   Listeners would nod, and say nothing.  I understood.  I’ve nodded when there was nothing I could do, no referrals, suggestions, ideas.  As the Main Line Health Center,  http://www.mainlinehealth.org/oth/Page.asp?PageID=OTH005747, and many other websites tell us, there is no cure for heart failure.  The healthy can sympathize, but it’s difficult to know exactly what someone else is feeling and living with unless you too have felt it.  Even spending 24 hours in a wheelchair gives you only a sample.  At the end of the experience, you can get up and walk.

Some of the hearers said I didn’t have a choice about living with a heart that doesn’t know how it will find enough energy for one more beat.  Wrong.  We all have a choice.  Whether we would or could exercise it is another matter.

At 3 a.m., when there’s not much else going on—at least not around my house—I  can lie in bed and think about how it would be not to be here.  I wouldn’t see the moon when it reaches full roundness and spills glorious white down over the trees and fields.  Lilacs would hang their perfume on the air, season would yield to season,  and I would not know.  My bike would rust in the shed, but the bike will rust in the shed anyway if I cannot  find a way to breathe while pedaling.

But I wouldn’t have to worry how much longer it would be before I could not care for Greta.  The advance arrangement I made for her care, just in case, would have become effective.  I wouldn’t have to ask myself how much longer before all I could manage of my day would be to struggle the few steps from the kitchen to the family room,  collapse in front of the TV set and watch people on television  announce they’re having an affair with their husbands’  best friends.

We had retrieved Greta from the kennel after the cardiac catheterization, which revealed no blockage that would account for heart failure.  I went home.  Each morning, I put Greta’s leash on her and drove her down to the park, where she could run and romp and play with her beloved squeaky toy.   On one cold morning,  I followed the dog up the slope that leads from the pond along a driveway to the woods.  Or tried to.  There was not enough air.  I bent over, gasping.  Greta stopped and looked back, staring at me.  At last, more air came and I could straighten.   My dog turned, and we went on.  Was she as scared as I was?

On my next visit for a pacemaker check, the doctor was having a rough time with a new patient tracking system that kept physicians glued to the computer screen rather than to their patients.  When he was able to wrestle the system into submission, I asked, “Could I benefit from a biventricular pacemaker?”

I had read about biventricular pacemakers on the Internet, http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/services/tests/procedures/biventricular_pm.aspx because one of the things you can do at 3 a.m. is to decide to research  and give it your best fight.  I love my guy and my dog, the full moon and the smell of woods in fall.  I love my children and grandchildren.  What’s an overnight at University of Maryland Medical Center with a dinner of cold lasagna and tepid coffee, and IVs irritating your arms,  if there’s a chance to be there when the moon turns full?

The doctor paused at my question.   “That’s a good question,”  he said.

Within a few days, I was scheduled for a biventricular pacemaker on Feb. 14.

“Valentine’s Day.  That’s a good day for them to work on your heart,” Mike said.

Greta looked faintly worried.

To Be Continued

 

©2012 by Donna Engle

 

 

 

 

Chapter 47 — Greta’s Human Wears Down

Chapter 47 — Greta’s Human Wears Down.

Chapter 46 — Dog Talk and People Talk

Greta speaks some limited English.  Most of her friends do, too, having picked up  enough to get by.  It’s the same situation we would face if we lived in Italy for a year and wanted to do a little better than pointing and gesturing every time we went to the local market.  Greta and I use English for the essentials of our communication–coming when called,  not eating found delights such as crab claws or soggy lunch meats, fetching her squeaky toy.  But there are times I wish I spoke fluent dog.

Greta and I encountered Bailey down at the park.  Bailey had a cone over her head to protect her eye after recent eye surgery, but her other senses told her clearly who was here, and she was not happy.  Her legs stiffened.  Her hackles rose.  Her tail moved slowly from side to side.

Greta and I had worked on being non-reactive around Bailey, just trying to give her space and ignore her.   It hadn’t been successful.  Greta’s tail and legs went stiff, her hackles rose, a growl rumbled deep in her throat.

If Greta is going to go into attack mode whenever she encounters Bailey, I won’t  be able to allow her off the leash to play Chase the Squeaky Toy with her friend Juno.

I didn’t really expect Greta to understand the explanation about the leash.  That makes as much sense as sitting down with a two-year-old who is reaching into the wood stove and saying, “Now, if you continue to reach into the hot stove, you will probably get out a stick and drop it on the floor.  You may get burned, the floor will surely be burned and then we won’t be able to play Pull a Stick out of the Fire anymore.”

In lieu of the explanation,  Greta got a quick jerk on her collar.  The two-year-old would have gotten a loud “No!”  a quick carry to the other end of the room and a distraction.  The wood stove might have been reinforced with barriers.

Part of the difficulty here is that we humans can’t read or understand all the signals that passed between Greta and Bailey.  When first they met, before Bailey lunged at Greta and vice versa, there was doubtless some scent communication and  some cold, hard stares.  We would have missed that.

Left to their own devices, Greta and Bailey would probably fight it out until one dog gave the surrender signs: rolling on her back, paws in the air, perhaps urinating on herself.  Then, unless the victor was truly vicious, the issue between them would be resolved.  The loser would have to accept lower pack status, the winner would get higher pack status.  http://www.vetinfo.com/dog-pack-behavior.html

But we humans are in the way, imposing our social rules on our dogs.  We don’t want them to fight.  We have very good reasons for not wanting them to fight, as we’re the ones who foot the bill for care of wounded dogs, give them the antibiotics, and make sure they’re resting comfortably.

It’s a good outcome for the preservation of interspecies harmony and reduced pain and suffering for the animals who know only one way to resolve a dispute.  But from a dog standpoint, it has to be frustrating, rather like a standoff at the 38th Parallel without a clear victory or defeat.  http://www.army.mil/article/41294/

How do you say in dog, “Can the two of you just chill?”

Chapter 45 — Hospital Tales Redux

(Continued from Chapter 44)

Dr. Beatsme had no answer to why I couldn’t breathe and Nurse Ineptia was planning  to treat me without  knowing what was wrong when I left the hospital emergency room after four frustrating hours.   They had done one helpful thing:  I knew from the test results that the pacemaker was doing its job, the leads were in the right place transmitting the right messages.  Too bad I couldn’t breathe.

Here’s what happens on an emergency room visit to Carroll Hospital Center, according to the hospital’s public relations report:   “When patients come to the ED (Emergency Department), a greeter sends them to an intake area  that can accommodate several patients at once.  In this area, patients are assessed by a physician, physician assistant or nurse who determines where they need to go for treatment.”  http://www.carrollhospitalcenter.org/upload/docs/Publications/Annual%20Report/Annual-Report-10.pdf

What happens on an emergency room visit, based on actual experience:  a greeter sends you to a bench, where you sit for approximately 25 minutes before entering the intake area.  The greeter will not be impressed that the cardiologist from University of Maryland Medical Center advised you to make sure the greeter knew you were there for a heart-related problem.

Others also waited on the benches, wearing the blank, expectation-less faces of people in bus or train stations or airport terminals.  Some talked on their cell phones.   Some stared into space.   Eventually, I suppose, we all got to intake and got shoved into cubicles to wait for . .  .something.

Four hours into the experience,  I could think of no reason to continue it.  I still couldn’t breathe, but  Greta was waiting for me at home.  A neighbor had kindly walked her while I  lay in the emergency room cubicle.  When I got home, I apologized to Greta for the inconvenience.   She thumped her tail in acknowledgement.  No problem.

In a choice between home and hospital, home is better.  But even at home, I could not climb the stairs without stopping, breathless, at the top.  I let Greta off the leash on our park walks, so she could satisfy her need to run  in sheer joy, with the wind waving through her tail.  Then, when I could not keep up, I had to call her back.

January 1.  My sister wished me a Happy New Year, then got on my case about the shortness of breath.  No, I said.  No more emergency room, not unless I’m already dead.  If you’re dead, you don’t mind being held incommunicado in a cubicle for an hour or more at a time.  All right, I would call my family care practitioner.

“Go back to the emergency room,” my physician said, “and ask them to do a CT Scan.  Looks like they did everything else to rule out.”  He would call ahead and explain the situation.

I went back.  Got into the intake area promptly, got a competent, caring nurse who kept me in the loop with what was happening, got the CT scan—which leaves you feeling absolutely certain that you must somehow have just peed your pants.  It’s really hard to check that sort of thing when you’re being wheeled around on one of those mobile stretchers.

The CT scan showed fluid buildup in the lungs.  Well, no wonder I couldn’t breathe!  Will it go away?  Will I ever again run up the stairs or hike with Greta across the hills and fields of Hashawha or ride my bicycle?  I don’t know, at this point.  I do know that a future propped in a chair watching daytime television is a future I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Is not knowing worse than knowing?   Yes.

(c) 2012 by Donna Engle