Affection-Seeking

My dear New College alum, most dog-forward friend Colleen Powell just adopted a dog, a cute, smallish (about 40 lb) pit bull, Josephine (named, as I understand it, after Jo from Pride and Prejudice—Colleen, please correct me if I'm wrong.).

(Edit: My law librarian comrade and mentor and comrade Mary Whisner texted me immediately to tell me that it was Jo from Little Women, and that the heroine of Pride and Prejudice was Elizabeth. As Mary said, "Guess you weren't socialized as a girl!")

(Also edit: Catherine got anxious that I wasn't paying her enough attention, even though she's half asleep. so she's shifted herself around to make sure I'm paying attention to her. Witnesseth:)

(Picture dark because taken with Night Sight.)

(Colleen, could you please give me a picture of Josephine to add here? I would love to do that; I'd be happy to edit the post.)

Colleen was very specific about wanting a dog that was smart, but not so smart that they would cause trouble in order to be rewarded/incentivized to stop the trouble, as with a treat. 

Catherine (as always the subject of my blog posts) is a very smart dog, with her own approach. (Assertiveness, maybe a bulldog thing.)

She craves affection. Perhaps it's because of, or part of, our bond. As I say a lot, I would not have adopted a bulldog—but she adopted me. That's how I wound up adopting a dog from our neighbors across the street. I dogsat Catherine during the day 5 days a week, for almost a year before I adopted her. (Perhaps I needed the dog sitting more than Catherine did.)

So this afternoon, after breakfast [sic[, Catherine growled, as usual, telling us she wanted to go outside and poop. When we came in, I sat down again. As she came down our front hall, she was growling, and barked softly a couple of times. Then, when I could see her, she looked at me, and barked. Not an angry bark, not a guarding bark, but a happy bark. (I know her well enough to know this.) Not softly. 

She doesn't do this at meal times. She just guilts us. And when we feed her from the table (yes, I know, but it's fresh fruit, or peanut butter—I always check the AKC website first) she'll growl a little, then give up. 

So anyway, Colleen, count your (secular) blessings. 

(Capitalization, punctuation, and other errors due to using speech-to-text dictation, and inability to edit on my phone with one hand on Catherine, throughout.)

Late-Night Adventure

I take Catherine out at around 11:30, for the last time at the night. I take her on longer walks when its cooler—we're both pretty sensitive to heat. Usually, when she needs to go, even if she needs to poop, she does it in our mulch-filled atrium. We do her major exercise, collaborative with me, indoors.

Last night, she went into the mulch, she went over to Poopsville—what I call the corner she prefers—and then walked out, facing towards our front gate. 

This meant she wanted to go on an adventure, as call it, at 11:45 at night, only wearing a collar, when she's supposed to be walked only with a harness—because of her multifocal osteoarthritis (that is, arthritis in every joint including in her spine).

She won't let me put her harness on at night, probably because she's tired and in more pain than earlier in the day. She gets 300mg of gabapentin and 150mg of tramadol three times a day—a lot of pain meds. She also gets a newish monoclonal antibody "biopharmaceutical" called Librela, specifically for her osteoarthritis. Librela is a miracle drug. Before Librela, she was hobbling. I don't know what quality of life she would have right now. Now, though, she walks normally, can exercise, and even rush across the street—with one of her beloved treats as inducement.

Also, I wasn't wearing a shirt, and I didn't have those treats. I often need them to get her moving back to our house. Catherine loves me, and often does what I want… but I leverage how food-motivated bulldogs are. She's on very short rations—a svelte bulldog lives longer, a big priority here.

So I went in, put on a shirt, grabbed the adventure trip "belt bag," locked the door, and we set off.

Except, Catherine then didn't want to go. She sat right at the open gate, and looked at me. I talked to her, as I usually do. I said, "Catherine. it's up to you but you need to poop." She sat. (She had "dropped anchor," as my very dog-forward friend Colleen puts it.) And no harness, so no boosting. Reaching under and lifting her, a big rescue-dog no no, with her. I said "Come." I used the beseeching tone of voice that usually gets her going. 

Finally, I had to use the high value treat—the only one one of those I had—to get her out of the gate and going. 

So we went out. We walked around in the rain-soaked grass and pooped. (Well, she pooped.)

Then, sort of as usual, she insisted on being bribed to go back in. I only had one high value treat left in the belt bag. I didn't want to use it. so I grabbed three pieces of kibble, and said "This is the usual exchange rate—let's go." She went. 

I put the poop bag on the poop disposal depot—four bags, it'd been a busy day; I kept not having time to dump them. And we went inside.

Uneventful, huh? 

This dog, I tell you.

(Written late last night while I was sitting and petting her, and edited and posted tonight—all on my phone! Sketch of Catherine by talented law librarian comrade and friend Mary Whisner.)