ChiKat

I am a terrible dog owner. My vet wants my dog to weigh 85 pounds. Every year, rather than lose any weight, the dog gains five pounds. He is up to 110 pounds. He weighs more than my MOTHER. I am horrified by this.

Since having my son and my husband taking the CTA instead of walking to work, the dog doesn't get the two walks a day we used to be so good about. But he still gets once good, long walk each day. It's not making a difference. He also eats decent dog food, and gets very few table scraps.

In other words, we aren't treating him terribly. But labs are prone to being chunky anyway, and we're not helping matters.

I have to improve things soon, otherwise people are going to start mistaking him for a horse.

The Beijing Olympics are in 2008. The official mascots are the five adorable creatures shown above.

When we were in Beijing, I totally feel in love with the mascots and bought a set of them for the baby (my first baby purchase!). That night, I pointed out to my husband that the mascots were called the "Friendlies", which I thought sounded creepy and a lot like friend-less.

The next morning, the China Daily reported that the government had changed the mascot name to the more traditional Fuwa rather than Friendlies, because "Friendlies" sounded too much like "friend-less".

My paranoid husband refused to talk in our hotel room after that because he was convinced that:
A. It was bugged
B. It was wired to the Chinese government
and most importantly…
C. They AGREED with me

I was thankful my luggage wasn't searched on the way out of China because I bought the five mascots for the baby, plus another five for the other kids in the family. When you opened my suitcase, they sprung out at you like some strange, Akira-like security device.

Once we were home, my dog "helped" unpack by pouncing on BeiBei, one of the mascots, and triumphantly carrying her out of the room. I could practically hear BeiBei screaming at the torture (in Mandarin, of course) as I pried her out of the dog's mouth. After ringing her out of all the dog drool, she seems to have recovered, but I'm starting to suspect the training for "baby toy" vs. "dog toy" is going to be hard*.

The dog is sulking in the other room and I'm feeling guilty about not bringing him back a toy from China.

* On me, not the dog.

China, China, China. We are gone. Our dog is going to be staying with my husband's sister, who has a TWO-WEEK-OLD BABY. Yes, that's how much she loves us. And yes, that's how self-centered we are. We're the type of people who ASK a woman with a two-week-old baby to dog sit.

In my family, I am the oldest. I always plan things, take care of things and remind my brothers to call my parents on birthdays/Mother's Day/Father's Day.

On my husband's side, he's the youngest.

Oh. My. God. It is so EASY being the youngest! We never plan anything! We never have to have an opinion on anything! We are told what to do. Occasionally, we do really irresponsible things, like ask a new mom to dog sit, and HIS SISTERS DON'T MIND. Because apparently, that's what younger siblings do.

I'm gone a week. I might post a few pictures while I am away, but only if the hotel pool is closed. And I'm not meeting "people who are good for my career".

I've come to the embarrassing realization that I hate volunteering at the animal shelter. I'm vegan for cripes sake, shouldn't that make me genetically disposed to feeling all warm and fuzzy at the shelter?

Apparently not. I don't have a problem with the employees there. No one was super friendly (including most of the other volunteers), but everyone seemed pretty dedicated (and extremely over-worked). But there were three factors that really made the entire experience less than ideal.

1. The dogs don't wear collars, so you have to use a leash as a lasso and hope to trap the dog's neck in the noose while the dog is bolting out of the cage. It was stressful trying to lasso the dog without hurting it, especially when the dog had figured out the system and was determined to dodge the leash. In addition, right in front of the cage door is a trough for all the spilled water, urine and other fluids. Workers spray down the cages and push all the waste into the trough. I can't tell you how many times I triumphantly leased a dog, only to realize the rest of the lease was trailing in the trough. Gross.


2. The dogs aren't trained. Which means I spend several hours being pulled about by 50 pound dogs who have never heard of "heel", let alone this strange notion of "training". It's tough work. I think I would be more willing for the physical strain if it's weren't for…


3. The people trying to adopt the dogs are so poorly prepared for a new pet that I seriously want to kick them. Questions like, "Will he like my cat?", "Will he bark?" and "Will he bite me if I hit him?" made me want to say, "Seriously? Why are you adopting a dog? Get out!" and then I would commence kicking them.

Thankfully I refrained from kicking anyone, but I finally figured out that the stress the volunteering was causing me just wasn't worth it. I feel incredibly guilty about that, because I have time available to volunteer, and I really loved the idea of the shelter. I just hated the reality of the shelter. So I'm on a hunt for new volunteer opportunities.

Took the dog to the lake yesterday. Within minutes, he was blissfully happy and dripping in algae. That lake is so gross. I had heard that the beaches were going to start flying red/yellow/green flags to indicated water quality, but I have yet to see a flag. It’s a great idea. I’d love to have a better idea about the water quality on any given day.

The dog drank a ton of the water and he’s not vomiting today, so I’m assuming the water quality was pretty decent yesterday.

People love to watch the dog swim in the lake. We throw sticks to him and he fetches them. By the third or fourth throw, we usually have a small audience cheering him on. Yesterday, on one of the dog’s last runs, he swam past the stick without realizing it. And kept swimming. And swimming. I have to admit, my heart stopped for a little bit. The dog is not smart. He probably would have swum until he sunk. It was a little frightening. We started to yell his name, but he was pretty far out in the water and must not have heard us. Luckily, one of our audience members had a really deep voice, and he yelled out to the dog. That caught his attention, and the dog turned to look back at us. He saw us jumping up and down and clapping, so he turned around and started to swim back. Then he saw the stick that he had passed, and I could actually see his ears perk up as he got excited at the successful fetch. His audience cheered for him when he made it to shore and he rewarded them by shaking off all the algae water onto them. What a charmer.

When we’re down at the lake, we see more and more dads out with their kids, with no mom in sight. It’s really nice. It seems like it is more and more acceptable for a father to spend time alone with his children.

Ugh. I took my dog to the lake for a swim and now he smells like rotten algae. Gag.

Does this dog bark a lot? I mean, is he a barker?

Well, all dogs bark, but he isn’t a super noisy dog.

But will he bark is people walk by? Like, if he’s inside my house, will he sit at the window all day barking at the people on the sidewalk?

Well, that’s a training issue. You need to train your dog not to bark at disturbances, if that’s what you want.

Does he bark a lot?

From what I can tell, he doesn’t bark a lot. But I only spend about 15 minutes a day with each dog, so I can’t say for sure.

Hey! He just barked!

Er…actually, that was a yelp. I think you stepped on his paw.

So he does bark a lot.

***

Will this dog like my cat?

***

Is this dog good with children?

All the dogs are evaluated by a vet before being put up for adoption. In this dog’s case, the vets found no behavioral problems with the dog, so he should be fine with kids.

So he won’t bother my kids?

Bother them?

I don’t want him messing with my kids.

He is a gentle dog, so he won’t try to hurt your kids, if that’s what you mean. But I’m sure he’d want to play with them.

No, I don’t want him doing that. He’s my dog, not my kids’ dog. I don’t want him playing with them

***

He doesn’t sit when I tell him to sit.

He’s only 6 months old. He hasn’t learned “sit” and “stay” commands yet.

Ok, if you teach him that, I’ll come back and adopt him.

Uh...we don’t train dogs.

Well, I have to tell you, young lady, no one is going to adopt such a poorly behaved dog.

***

Are you a volunteer here?

Yes.

So you walk the dogs?

Yep.

That's all you do, you just walk the dogs?

Er...right.

Well, my dog was here because he ran away, which WASN'T MY FAULT, and he was locked up in that cage all day and I don't think you walked him.

Er---

He was here a WEEK and during that entire time, he was just in that CAGE. LOCKED UP. He would have been better on the STREET where he could run around.

Actually, the street is really hard on dogs. Here, he was safe, well-fed--

You people never should have picked him up! This is the second time this happened and the poor dog just gets LOCKED up by you--

This is the second time we picked up your dog as a stray?

That's right! TWICE now he's been locked up in one of this cages! The poor thing!

Well, I'm glad you found your dog...

Oh, I knew where he was the whole time. You people always find my dog. You just love locking him up.

First of all, why has no one told me about Grey’s Anatomy? I just watched the show for the first time last night (the two-hour season finale) and LOVED it. I spent the next several hours reading the recaps on TWOP so I could figure out who everyone was and what was going on. What an exciting, fun show.

***

I was at the shelter the other day, and this really nice guy came bounding in, ready to adopt a dog. He told me he had been there the day before and fell in love with a Husky that was there, but it was too close to closing time to complete all the paperwork and finalize the adoption. So he was back to adopt the dog. We went to the cage and the dog was there, but his nametag was gone. All the dogs have their names and stats in a holder outside the cage. If the tag is gone, that means someone else was in the process of adopting the dog already.

I had a leash in hand, about to walk one of the dogs. All the dogs know that the leash means they might get their 15 minutes of outdoor time for the day, so they were spazzing out and barking like crazy. So my conversation went like this:

“I’m so sorry, but-”
“WHAT?”
“I’M SO SOR-”
“WHAT?”
“I’M…LET’S TALK IN THE HALLWAY!”

So in the (slightly) quieter hallway, I explained the situation. The guy was so obviously heartbroken. I felt bad, but I did point out that we had about 40 other awesome dogs in case he wanted to look around. He sighed heavily and dragged his feet back into the adopting room. I started my rounds with the dogs, walking a dog for 15 minutes and then bringing that dog back and walking another dog. Through it all, I kept an eye on the guy to see if he needed any help. He kept sighing dramatically and walking around slowly, shuffling his feet, with his head hung low. Finally, he said, “I, uh…guess I’ll see that black Chow mix over there.”

The Chow mix must have sensed that this depressed, dopey guy could be his ticket to freedom, because that Chow put on the BEST SHOW EVER. He pranced around, he rolled on his belly, he licked the guys face, he hopped up and down, he sat down when the guy told him to sit. It took all of 30 seconds for the guy to be saying, “This dog is AWESOME! It’s, like, FATE intervened and made sure I had this dog instead of the Husky! And Husky’s are dumb! I don’t want a dumb dog! I want THIS dog! This dog is BRILLANT!”

When he was leaving, he told me he was going to name the dog Fate. I swear, the dog looked at me with a look that said, “I KNOW! He’s INSANE! But he’ll feed me and walk me and I GET OUT OF THIS PLACE!”

So, a happy ending all around.

There is one woman who drives me nuts at the empty lot we use for a dog park. She brings her dog (dressed in an argyle vest) to the lot, but doesn’t want him to play with the other dogs. And she doesn’t want other dogs to play with his toys.

At a dog park, with a dozen dogs, you have to assume that any toys you bring will be played with by all the dogs. You can expect to get the toy back at the end, but it will be dirtier than before.

This woman will bring a squeaky toy, which my dog LOVES, and throw it to her dog. When my dog chases after it, she will start yelling, “BAD dog! BAD, BAD, BAD! You need a time-out! Stop stealing toys! That's BAD!”

I think I would have some sympathy for her if our "dog park" was the only place available to play with dogs off leash, but...well, first of all, it's not actually legal to play with the dogs off leash. And second, there are a ton of other empty lots, parks and public land available.

The other afternoon, she showed up with her dog and a baby stroller. But the baby stroller looked a little weird. I was across the lot, but even from a distance it looked too small for a baby. And it had a net all around it. On closer inspection, I learned that it was a cat stroller. She had brought her two cats. To the dog park.

I don’t begrudge cat owners the right to walk (wheel?) their pets, but why take them to a DOG park? At the time, there were about ten dogs playing. Thankfully, my dog was too busy chasing a butterfly to notice the cats at first, so I was able to put him on leash and haul him away. I glanced over my shoulder while we were leaving, and all I saw were the other nine dogs charging toward the stroller and the woman shouting, "Be NICE now! Everyone be NICE!"

My dog is 90 pounds. When I walk down the street with him, his tail is wagging in a desperate attempt to make friends with ANYONE WHO WILL PLAY WITH HIM. If someone tried to mug me, my dog would fetch my wallet for the mugger. If someone broke into my condo, my dog would greet them with a squeaky toy. The point is, my dog is the most submissive, gentle, needy, friendly dog there is.

But a lot of the neighborhood residents (adults and kids alike) have only seen guard dogs or fight dogs. Having a “companion dog” is an unheard of notion to someone who is living on food stamps. That means that when I walk down the street, people will randomly FLING themselves out of my way to avoid my dog. I will walk toward a huge, buff 6’ 5” guy and have him scurry across the street, looking back at me in fear (and being 5’ 5” and nowhere near buff, I know it’s my dog and not me that is causing the fear).

This is poverty in America. In our cities. A few miles from million dollar condos are people terrified of my slobbering, tail-waging, properly heeling dog. That breaks my heart. I don’t know how we’re going to fix poverty in the inner-city, but I’m pretty certain that what we’ve been trying for the last 50 years isn’t working.