[Willy-chu will get his own occasional updates. Originally the idea was to train him as a service dog, now one wonders if he might be a therapy dog instead. This dog enjoys people! Hopefully you all out there will see why... eventually!]

May 7, 2009

‘Tis the time of year when the fruitless mulberries make a lot of non-fruits stuffed with allergy activating green pollen -- plenty on my two backyard trees to make the whole neighborhood not only sneezy, but grouchy. So on days when the wind piles the nasty little catkins in drifts at the back door, I wonder if Willy-chu will live to see the start of summer. Maybe that’s not fair to the sweet fellow sleeping behind me now, but...

As I write this, I await from this massive pup the presentation of what was once a section of lovely teal cashmere from a vest he shredded yesterday. May be a wad of Hawaiian shirt fabric in there, as well. These items were “safe” behind a closed door. The excretion of half a plastic bag showed up several days ago, earlier a section of mylar packaging from a bag of dog goodies and bundles of large splinters from sticks of firewood he has consumed in his four months with us. He regards used facial tissue as a light snack, his eyes light up when somebody carelessly tosses a q-tip in an open wastebasket and an empty foam egg carton waiting to go into the recycling bin makes his morning. In his early days here he dissected gloves and thinned my shoe collection -- that’s where we learned to keep many things behind closed doors, trash in tightly covered wastebaskets. It is a wonder that this dog is still grinning and wagging.

If he didn’t so much resemble a gleaming black teddy bear within easy reach, high enough to hug when one is sitting, and if he didn’t have soft, innocent puppy eyes with fuzzy ears flopping over atop his sleek head it would be easier to object. His endearing habit of following me around, curling up two feet away when I work, heaving a happy sigh as though life could offer nothing better, doesn’t hurt. We owe the renewed sparkle in the eyes of the old German shepherd dog, Oso, to the young upstart, and that counts in his favor also.

Hard to believe it’s the same dog when he forgets his weeks of training to go rip snorting around indoors -- bounding in five foot leaps across a room, slamming into furniture, skiing madly across a smooth floor aboard a slithering dog bed. Just when we think he’s learned, wham! In his glee at our return home one recent evening, for instance, he jolted the dining table with sufficient force to topple everything on it. It took a few rounds of counting to ten, but he’s still breathing.

Rolling gently past a group of church goers at the Nazarene facility down the street one recent Sunday, Willy-chu prancing along on his black and white paws, I stopped long enough to greet some of the flock. Willy merely turned his head over his shoulder three or four times as we moved off. Head collar and all. Carefully fitted head collar... While gently returning his attention to the road in front of him, I reflected on the solid progress he’s made over the last four months here. He’s almost as good as I thought he was when I first met him late last year! But service dog potential?

On one of the first walks we took together he bounced along happily, red tongue hanging out, feathered tail sweeping the winter air, then sank to a boat-anchor halt when a family on bicycles turned in front of us from a ditch bank. My power chair kept going. My arm recovered ... later... After 20 minutes we re-encountered the family in an aerodynamic manner -- the small boy shot his bike off a sidewalk right by us, causing Willy-chu to levitate his near 80 pounds a foot high, spin in mid-air and leap away from my hand with the leash to try for a better view of the child. Imagine the effect such rapid-fire antics might have on the human arm, and you will appreciate the degree of ... irritation...

What’s in a dog like Willy-chu that makes suckers like me so attached to them? Affirmation of hope? Seeing in them the wild child that we had such fun being, ourselves, long ago?

He arrived here from the Valencia County Animal Shelter shortly before Christmas, 2008, said to be a whisker under a year old. My daughter and I walked a number of dogs there, and selected this one for his easy going temperament, gentle reaction to people jumping out of their vehicles in the parking lot, agreeable attitude with other dogs and for his height -- his withers are even with my knees when I’m in my wheelchair. The plan I had in mind was to start training a likely candidate as a service dog, to carry items in a backpack for me. Also, since most of my animals have been rescues, I liked the idea of adopting a Big Black Dog (BBD), since those are the ones most often put down in shelters.

Noble? Optimistic? Hmmmmm...

Best guess at the shelter as to his breed was Newfoundland/Golden retriever. The latter a nod, I suspect, to his sleek black coat, feathers on his front legs and tail, heavier fur around his neck and chest, fuzzy ears. He has white toes on all four paws, an irregular white patch on chest and belly, and white fur just under his chin. The vet who conducted Willy’s shelter exam eyed his wide brow and square back end, and observed there may be Rottweiler in there as well. Whatever, I love all those breeds.

Such were the criteria for springing him from death row, and hopes were high when Willy joined us in mid-winter. And then?

  • Scent marking! This boy went around the house for two days leaving his mark, me in his wake with paper towels, water, and a bottle of Fantastic. The behavior stopped fairly fast. Phwew!

  • A few days after his arrival, he and Pinta Bean, my older mixed breed who has chased cats for nine years but never hurt one, in the middle of the night tore after the older cat, pinning her beneath a desk. Luckily Beanie left off when I told her to, immediately, completely, and obediently. Willy, however, did not know the proper response to my commands, so I had to pull him away and down the hall to be locked into a bathroom. Good trick in a manual wheelchair, pushing backwards with one hand and dragging hefty canine with the other, breathing fire and determination every inch of the way. Never could have done it if he hadn’t agreed to be pulled along, I suppose. Going forward, the two cats got a dedicated cattery in the form of the guest room, and have the entire house to themselves when the dogs are outside.

  • Fence climbing! Over, under, around and through he went! But once on the far side, what did Willy-chu do? Why, trotted to the gate of the front courtyard, to stand with tail gently waving until I would arrive -- then he would take off slowly, keeping just enough ahead of my power chair at top speed that I couldn’t drop a leash over his neck. We had some grand tours of the neighborhood. People in their yards grew accustomed to having a wild woman roaring through their yards in a power chair, though I did smile, wave and announce that I was just after my new dog. Didn’t do much about the funny looks... Never before had I met so many neighbor dogs all at once, together, in leaping, tail-high groups! Lucky the part about him being good with other canines turned out to be true... Except:

  • Pinta Bean decided she didn’t much care for the new, larger, alpha dog in her house so there began a series of dog fights, speedily demonstrating that my pack leader skills were not what I had thought they were. Not by a long shot. Fortunately little harm was done to either dog in a dozen frays. Little by little my reading of poochy body language improved, voice control gained, a rule of not interfering with a fight once it got started was put in place, and things calmed down.

  • Then there is the bouncing a foot or two high from a standstill. Because of the fence climbing, when he’s in the back yard without supervision he’s on a cable. When I go through there to feed the donkeys further behind the house, he reaches the end of the cable and becomes an urban planner. You know -- when you can’t go outward, go upward? Leap! Leap! Leap! Squinty eyed, accompanied by excited barking. Even the donkeys are bemused to see this.

  • This athleticism really did not go over well on the day the vet arrived to do heart worm tests and check a donkey’s eye. I guess you could say it’s seldom a sign that people are admiring your fine new dog when the first words out of their mouths are: “Oh, my GOD!!!” Especially when the medical person approaches dog and he stands up on his hind legs as though to dance with her. Noooooooooo. So I have been introducing him to people at my house, often with a leash on him. Maybe by the time he’s three he’ll civilize?

As for the 80 pound boat anchor who nearly broke my arm, a Gentle Leader head collar proved the best solution for me, since it puts the control on his very front end. Willy is a forger, this collar interferes with that. As a dog trainer who runs a Yahoo dog list for folks training their own service dogs, Dana Lindauer, told me -- if you want a head collar, get the Gentle Leader because it comes with a video to show how to fit and use it. Improper jerking on a head collar can do serious, permanent damage to the neck of a dog. With this on, Willy-chu has encountered lots of horses, with and without riders, donkey carts, a number of roaming dogs, many small children racing out in front of us, a cat tearing by on a lawn, ATVs roaring by and a close encounter with an enormous coyoté. Gradually he has learned that he can turn his head just so far in response but he can’t do more without conferring with me first.

I am hoping that none of the neighbors gets a herd of buffalo.