Confessions of a First Time Foster

My, yesterday was anything but dull and uninteresting.

We got Angel back from the groomers. I honestly had thought she was an “apricot” colored bichon, because she was almond-colored all over.

Not any more. Turns out, that was dirt.

And she may well have lost half a pound. The groomer had to shave her, of course. I’m grateful she was able to spare Angel’s ears and tail — the parts of a bichon that are supposed to be especially long and fluffy. Angel obviously got shaved all over last November, so she isn’t any competition for Paris in the fluff department, but that’s still 6 months of growth they were able to save.

After we got back from the groomer we were late for our D&D game, so we had an action plan all worked out of “this dog & crate go here, that dog & crate go there, the third one gets collared for the car….” Somehow we ended up with a big pile of dogs outside the back door, one of whom had absolutely no leash. Luckily, that was Paris and luckily, no squirrels taunted her into chase. Okay, the first wasn’t really luck; Cognac and Angel always trail leashes at this point.

Anyway, we did get everyone sorted out and got going. When we got home again after a long D&D game, Papa took Angel out for a walk. Did I mention that she got shaved? Did I explain that that took her neck from something like 4″ in diameter down to less than 2″? Did I tell you that we’d gone out and bought a larger collar because she had a sore where the original collar had been galling her? I know I forgot to mention the part about picking her up at the groomer’s and resizing that collar down to its smallest setting, and still being able to stick four fingers under it. Well, she slipped right out of that collar.

I was oblivious for a time reading email, until Papa called for help. I quickly found out that a shaved dog is downright slippery, and that a dog who is shying away from us not just to keep the fun going but because she is scared is terribly effective at keeping out of reach. I thought to use the shying away thing to herd her toward the house, and discovered that I don’t make a good collie. And through it all Cognac was running around with zero interest in getting away for himself and a ton of altruistic interest in Angel’s well-being. We may be lucky in living next door to backyard breeders. It may be the fact that a stud had marked all over that yard was all that kept her nearby.

Fortunately, I finally blurted out something like “Don’t you want your dinner?” “Dinner” proved to be the magic word; Angel made a beeline for the back door. Unfortunately, Papa had picked that moment to close the door while he took Cognac inside.

I’m afraid when he came back I swore at him.

I tried calling out “dinner” again, but Angel was shying away now. I honestly don’t know how I closed with her and pounced, but I managed to pin her to the driveway. I hope I didn’t hurt her; I certainly surprised and scared her into a yelp.

We have a much more vivid picture of rescue now!

I’m jotting down a few notes before we go to our marathon Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) session. Angel is at the groomer’s right now, and I’m eager to see what she looks like after they shave her down. Unfortunately, she’s going to have to spend the D&D session in her crate; there’s just no alternative. I won’t leave her loose in the kitchen with Paris, in case the War of the Bitches breaks out.

The opening salvo may have been fired. Yesterday evening someone peed a big lake in front of Angel’s crate. We’ve got that in the kitchen, so it wasn’t a major hassle for clean-up. But I’d give a lot to know whether it was Cognac being chivalrous (in some doggy fashion) or Paris putting Angel in her place. They say that two females are the hardest combo, and a situation where one is spayed and the other isn’t is the worst. So far, the suspiciously-placed pee is the only indication of hostility; I’ve got my fingers crossed that Paris and Angel will get along okay.

The visit to the vet yesterday went well enough. We have to go back with a urine sample. Otherwise, the vet found a place where the collar had been galling her, so we bought a new collar, and an old scar of unknown origin, and generally sores where her mats have been pulling at her skin. But no open sores, and no horrible conditions like some of the recent rescues from puppy mills have had.

And we got good news, too — Angel weighed 8-1/2 pounds! Okay, the 1/2 pound may have been all hair, but still, that’s a huge improvement over the 6 that she weighed when the mill auctioned her off. It’s like a 5′7″ person who starts out at 100 pounds and gains 40 over 6 months; pretty terrific. That is the one thing that her previous owner gets full credit for.

No, That Woman also gets credit for some important socialization. Angel likes being held, even though she trembles while we’re doing it. By way of contrast, the recent mill rescues have been described as “feral;” they don’t want to look at anyone or be touched. Partly it’s that Angel won her release so young, of course. I’m convinced it was starving herself down to 6 pounds that did it. At that weight she almost certainly wasn’t coming into heat.

Keeping her weight up was looking like it might be a challenge; we went out and bought the food she had been eating, but Angel still wouldn’t eat yesterday’s dinner. But during the afternoon yesterday she did eat the dog-food sausage that we give the dogs as treats. (She wouldn’t take it from my hand, but would eat it if I put it down in front of her.) Lynn, the rescue coordinator, said feed her anything that she’ll eat at this point, so for breakfast this morning she got a mix of the Orijen that we feed the other dogs, the sausage, and her old food. She ate all the sausage and I think half the other stuff, so we have a plan.

We went to pick up a dog named Angelique, but I refuse to call her what THAT WOMAN did. It turns out that a lot of my initial assumptions were just plain wrong. The “rescuer” had this dog for 6 months and kept her caged for all but half an hour a day! And after an initial shave, gave her not a lick of grooming for all that time. Now I know what real rescue is all about. The little girl that we picked up has to know that she has a brand new life, starting today. So since her name used to be pronounced in the French fashion, it sounds really different to call her Angel.

We arrived home pretty late yesterday evening . . . with this shockingly neglected, apricot-colored bichon:

We put Angel in our outdoor ex-pen and then Papa went and got Paris & Cognac and we put them in too. After much sniffing of butts, we all went inside. Here’s the Welcoming Committee:

Angel has just started in heat, which means that we can’t spay her for at least four weeks. Which means she’ll be with us at least that long. And that Cognac in particular is desperate to be Angel’s very best friend. (He was only neutered in January, so he has retained “certain behaviors.”) We pretty much put everybody to bed right away, but Cognac did make the opportunity to bring Angel a toy!

Today I’ve found out that Angel doesn’t know how to walk on a leash, play with toys, jump up onto a couch, or climb stairs. She’s actually not too bad on the leash, although she has a tendency to run in circles around me, like I was a pivot. [An added note from Papa: My belief is that Angel is not okay on the leash yet. I have the same experience when walking her, and I recognize that she is constantly trying her dead-level best to get away. But when you’re on a tether, not coming closer to the center but not futilely trying to get further away means that you move in a circle. It breaks my heart that she feels she has to, but I understand it.]

But the main point is, Angel’s never seen toys, or a couch, or a set of stairs before. The fact that she’s 2-1/2 is irrelevant. The woman who bought her from the Amish auction last November kept her in a crate in the garage for all but 30 minutes a day, when she got her exercise tied out in the back yard. Finding this out horrified me, to the point that I insisted on renaming the dog, but the life didn’t horrify Angel. It was ordinary. Heck, the 30 minutes of yard-time probably counted as a major feature upgrade. I have to keep in mind that an hour of lying quietly on the couch with me and two other dogs is highly stimulating for Angel, leaving her in need of several hours of crate-time. Oh — thank you, Lynn, for the tip about putting her in baby diapers, or we wouldn’t have considered giving her the option of couch time.

Another priority for me has been giving Angel regular (as in every 2-4 hours) trips outside, so that she at least has the opportunity to pee outside. She seems grateful for them, so maybe housebreaking her won’t be as hard as I fear. But again, exploring an urban yard is highly stimulating for Angel, and we really can’t stay out very long.