Fifteen Golden Years

Fifteen years ago today, a litter of Golden Retrievers was born. Seven weeks later we chose a blond female from that litter and brought her home to join our family. Chardonnay is my first pedigreed dog and our oldest pet.

2-month-old cuteness

I blogged about our dog Chardonnay on her tenth and fourteenth birthdays and realize how fortunate we are to still have her in our lives on her fifteenth. Cancer is very prevalent in Golden Retrievers, so much so that Chardonnay participated in a study being done on her breed and cancer. It is hoped that her blood contribution from a non-cancer patient will help scientists figure what she has that the other Goldens do not.

However, this past year has been even more challenging for the old girl; mostly because her hind legs are so stiff they barely bend. Falling down is common and getting up takes time and effort. We started having laser therapy done on her a couple of months ago to make her feel better and that has helped her mobility some. The walks in the woods are less frequent, but she enjoys them at her own pace. Her hearing is almost gone, she has cataracts and seems to have dementia as well. She has had three seizures although they are spaced over a couple of years and not our major concern right now.

The one sense that still works with incredible accuracy is her sense of smell. Chardonnay still trolls for chicken droppings and poop left behind by herself or our other dog, Cory. Cory chooses to poop in the woods, however Chardonnay manages to sniff it out, even if she didn’t witness where Cory went in the midst of all the leaves on the ground. So the coprophagia instinct is still alive and well with her. Great. Chardonnay’s nicknames are Chardy, The Golden Goof, Blondie and Shithead.

Yesterday we had both kids, Tyler and Kelsey, and their significant others over for Easter dinner so we took advantage of the family gathering to celebrate Chardonnay’s birthday. I went a little bit over the top. When you realize you’re on borrowed time, you have an excuse to make the most of it. Last year, I took Chardonnay shopping at Pet Supplies Plus for her fourteenth. This year, I had picked up a small cake (about 6 inches in diameter) at Stop n’ Shop and had them write “Happy Birthday Chardonnay” with matching icing on it. I got numbered candles. And to honor Chardonnay’s true dining habits, I arranged three Tootsie Rolls in the shape of her favorite food on top. And before anyone criticizes me for feeding my dog junk food or chocolate, I'll defend myself; it takes an exorbitant amount of chocolate to hurt a dog, Tootsie Rolls have very little actual cocoa in them, and at her age Chardonnay has earned the right to eat cake. She eats crap, for Pete's sake.

Her very special cake, complete with Tootsie Roll turds

We all sang and presented Chardonnay with her very own birthday cake, candles unlit. I expected her to try to wolf the entire cake down, but she surprised us by licking the icing, unamused at the fake turds. Sorry, Old Girl, real ones were not an option.

Chardonnay enjoys her birthday cake

 

Curse of the Skunk

Warning: this blog contains gross descriptions.  Do not read if you are eating.

When one is a parent, pet owner, cat breeder or just responsible for the care of others, there will be no shortage of challenging moments or messes to clean up.  You learn to go with the flow, accept the yin with the yang, cuteness and poop.  As pet owners, we sacrifice a bit of cleanliness, money, and orderliness for the love and completeness we feel by sharing our homes with furry creatures that have different agendas.  Raising children is similar up to a point; hopefully a child will continue to develop beyond the simple commands of “sit” and “stay,” learn to clean up her own messes, cost a lot more money, but in the end move out and live independently. 

We have two dogs; a 13-year-old Golden Retriever, Chardonnay, and a 3-year-old Shar-pei mix, Coraline “Cory.”  Cory is a high-energy gray bullet with a strong prey drive.  As a large, geriatric dog, Chardonnay moves more slowly and takes many naps, but still enjoys adventure in moderation.  Although her knees are weak, her hearing greatly diminished and her mind seems to have dementia, Chardonnay’s worst quality is that she has never lost her desire for coprophagia; she eats poop.   

Cory, on the other hand, is the subject of this blog.  We adopted Cory for Kelsey, who begged for a puppy for her 16^th birthday.  She promised to take full responsibility for the puppy; housebreaking, puppy kindergarten, clean up any messes, etc.  Well, you can imagine how long that lasted.  Cory’s person of choice is Jay, my husband.  I am the mean one who doesn’t allow jumping up, pawing, barking, or other unpleasant behavior.  Jay tells the dog to get down while petting her and wonders why she still has bad habits. 

Jay recently went on his annual salmon fishing trip to New Brunswick with his buddy, Curt.  The day Jay left, I noticed that Cory had a large, hard bump on her jaw.  It was about the diameter of a quarter.  Even though Cory didn’t act like she’d been stung by rubbing her face repeatedly and the bump was much bigger than normally associated with a bee sting, I just assumed she'd been stung and didn’t think much of it.  

The next day, the bump looked the same and I mentioned it to Jay when he called from Canada to tell me about his first catch.  By late afternoon, however, the bump had tripled in size.  I had just come home from spending way too much money at Bed, Bath and Beyond for window valances when I realized that I was going to have to take Cory to the vet.  I had a sinking feeling that I was going to need to return my purchases in order to pay a vet bill.  I was right. 

My vet, Dr. Karen Brown at Stonington Veterinary Hospital, said Cory had an abscess on her jaw from where she had punctured it on something like a sharp stick.  It was too hard to drain so I was instructed to watch for skin color changes that might warn of a rupture, apply hot compresses and give her antibiotics.  Most of my summer I’ve had to deal with Levi the cat’s staph infection on his tail, which also formed an abscess, burst, was stitched, burst, and is taking forever to heal.  I joked that Cory and Levi were going to have to share a room where they can swap abscess stories. 

Cory with her swollen face

 

Cory clearly didn’t feel well.  She had a fever and the right side of her face was swollen uncomfortably.  I dutifully applied a warm washcloth to her jaw and babied her throughout the day.  Shortly before the dogs’ supper time (5 pm and Chardonnay starts campaigning an hour earlier to be fed), I let the girls out.  Living out in the middle of the woods has the advantage of not needing a fenced-in yard or having to walk the dogs on a leash; we just open the back door and let them go.  Since they learned the parameters of the yard from the invisible fence collars, they no longer wear the collar.  It works, most of the time.  This time, however, Chardonnay managed to find her favorite cologne, Essence of Bambi (deer poop) and happily applied it liberally to her face and neck. 

Great.  All I wanted to do was feed the dogs and relax and now I had to wash the stench off the old girl’s head.  I took a bottle of dish detergent and led Chardonnay back out to the garden hose for a lecture on hygiene as tried to wash off the crap.  That accomplished, I fed the dogs, but Cory didn’t come over to eat.  I found her hiding and upset because her abscess has started to ooze all over the side of her chest, leg and neck.  Not able to reach the hole from which the bloody pus originated with her tongue, Cory obsessively tried to clean what she could. 

I called the vet to see if this needed immediate attention.   The vet tech, Sherri, asked me to see if I could facilitate the draining by squeezing Cory’s cheek.  So there I was, phone tucked between my shoulder and face, straddling a nervous dog, holding a wet washcloth against her swollen cheek and trying to find the right pressure points.  Finally, a glob about the size of a dime came out of the small puncture wound. 

“Gross!  This is disgusting!  My husband should be doing this.  Cory is HIS dog and he’s in Canada fishing!”  Sherri laughed and reminded me that I had probably seen a lot more disgusting things as a cat breeder.  True, unfortunately.   Since it was already about 6 pm, Sherri asked if I could bring Cory to the office in the morning so they could suture a drain in the poor pup's face. 

As I sacrificed a washcloth to blood and mucus, I became aware of an aroma coming off of Cory’s face; skunk.  Seven months after her last skunk encounter, the water still activated the smell.  Anyone who’s ever had a skunked dog is familiar with this. 

Then I had a thought; what if the poor skunk that had lost its life in Cory’s mouth last spring had cursed the dog with its final breath?  It could have planted an alien skunk seed under Cory’s skin which was now hatching.  I envisioned the dog as Sigourney Weaver impregnated by an alien, but this time a skunk head (I hoped not the tail) would emerge from the side of our dog’s face.  It would be an extra mouth to feed, but think of the money we’d make on the talk show circuit.  Maybe we’d even get our own reality show, “Cory and Stinky - Two Heads, Two Species, One Body”.

The next morning, I took our grandson to school, a kitten to my other vet to be spayed 35 minutes in the opposite direction, then came home to get Cory and drove her to Stonington.  A lot of veterinary chauffeuring, but I got it all done. 

When I picked Cory up after her procedure, her swelling was mostly gone and she had a rubber tube which protruded from two places behind her jaw, vertically up, through her cheek then out the bottom near to where her original wound was.  She looked a lot happier, but weird.  I had already told my vet about my alien skunk theory, but when I saw the drain, I started joking about blowing in one end so Cory could make bubbles in her water bowl or taking her snorkeling.  My vet has concluded that I have a strange sense of humor.  Poor Cory.  She had gone through hell week and all I could do was make fun of her. 

Cory with her drainage tube. Note the tube goes through her skin and exits below her jaw.

By the time Jay came home Saturday night, Cory’s drain had been removed and other than a couple of residual holes in her face, she looked normal and very happy to see her favorite human.  Just a regular week here in the land of fur and feathers.

Another Installment on Waste Management

Warning: Do not read this if you are eating or easily disgusted. Our dog, Chardonnay, is a beautiful animal with long golden fur sprinkled with gray, brown eyes and a happy expression. She makes you smile just to look at her. True to her breed, she very social, loving all people and animals. Some animals, like the squirrels, foxes, and deer which share our area are sport to her. She loves to give chase, but would be disappointed if she caused harm to come to one. When I first introduced the chicks to the outdoors this summer, Chardonnay was naturally curious and wanted the chickens to run so she could pursue them. I firmly explained that they were part of the family and after time, she became bored with them as playmates. When the chickens have their free range time, I often put Chardonnay outside with them for protection against any lurking predators. Even though the Golden Retriever was bred to hunt fowl, Chardonnay knows that the chickens are to be protected from harm, not chased. It is amazing how well she understands enough to overcome any predatory instincts she may have; not all dogs can do this. I trust her completely with the chickens even though they are still somewhat cautious around the dog, especially when she runs around the yard like a nut.

Chardonnay especially loves the new pullet, our Jersey Giant named Thelma. Thelma's personality is more Maine Coon cat-like around the dog and unlike the others, she is not intimidated by a 75-pound canine. This has led to a different kind of relationship between dog and bird. Chardonnay follows Thelma around the yard, nose to butt, waiting for a "treat" to plop out. Thelma is Chardonnay's Pez dispenser with a chicken head on it.

I've written previously on Chardonnay's obsession with poop. This behavior is common enough that it actually has a name, coprophagia. It means "one whose breath smells like crap". Down south, one would say a person with halitosis has the "zackleys" meaning their breath smells exactly like their ass. Seriously, the tendency to eat poop is pretty common in dogs. The theories dogs do it range from improper housebreaking, mother's instinct to clean up their puppies' smell, poor nutrition to boredom and stress.

When we had a rabbit, my research taught me that coprophagia is a natural behavior to them as well. The reason? Recycling. If a rabbit pellet is hard and dry, all the nutrients are gone and the rabbit leaves it alone. If the pellet is soft, they send it through again in order to glean every last bit of nutrients. Although gross, this instinct has probably kept many wild animals from starving. Rabbits, however, don't hunger for the poop from other animals. Dogs like poop from any creature it seems. Deer poop is the worst because not only will a dog sample it, they will also roll in it, picking up deer ticks and a stench like no other in the process. Although Chardonnay's brain rules over the hunting dog instinct, we have no such luck with her recycling nature. She's part of the family, but she's still a dog.