Tag: dogs

We knew very little about kennel cough until yesterday, when we picked up the pups. So we hit the trust internets (or is that the interwebs?) and found this:

‘Kennel Cough’ is the term that was commonly applied to the most prevalent upper respiratory problem in dogs in the United States. Recently, the condition has become known as tracheobronchitis, canine infectious tracheobronchitis, Bordetellosis, or Bordetella. It is highly contagious in dogs. The disease is found worldwide and will infect a very high percentage of dogs in their lifetime.

The symptoms include

a dry hacking cough sometimes followed by retching. Many owners describe the cough as having a ‘honking sound.’ A watery nasal discharge may also be present. With mild cases, dogs continue to eat and be alert and active. Many times, there is a recent history of boarding or coming in contact with other dogs. In more severe cases, the symptoms may progress and include lethargy, fever, inappetence, pneumonia, and in very severe cases, even death. The majority of severe cases occur in immunocompromised animals, or young unvaccinated puppies.

Part of me wishes I hadn’t read this — the worst-case scenario is difficult to get out of my head. But it is best to know what we are dealing with.

She’s on antibiotics — both of them are — and we’ve boiled up some chicken and rice to see if she starts eating tomorrow. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

The dogs (Sophie to the left; Rosie below and to the right) are home and they are amazing — and a bit perplexing. We have a pen set up in the living room constructed from eight 24-inch-by-36-inch metal grates and the two have been tumbling around, napping and playing with their toys.

We fed them and have been trying to train them using a book by Tamar Geller, The Loved Dog, that our friend Carol recommended. It argues for training your dogs in a non-violent or aggressive manner, eschewing striking the dogs or shouting in anger. The idea is to praise them and encourage them, getting your dogs to behave because they want rather than because they fear misbehaving.

It seems a logical approach, one that contradicts years of assumptions about punishment. Geller likens most training methods to the kind of abusive approaches used in prison to control dangerous prisoners — an approach that hasn’t worked as a criminal justice tool, so there is little reason to believe it will work with rambunctious, fun-loving puppies.

It’s only been a few hours, of course, and we have no illusion that this is going to be easy. But we’ve been won over by these amazing little mutts and look forward to the effort.

It’s been 11 weeks now since we lost our longtime companion, Honey the Wonderdog. Readers of this blog know her story and know how devastated Annie and I were when we had to put her down.

We’ve been in mourning since then, and pained by the empty house. You don’t realize how important those seemingly mundane things are — the greeting at the door, the nudge in the morning to get me out of bed, the way she’d watch me as I cooked or would jump up and sit on Annie like she was her personal throne. We feel that loss and the gap that it has created in our lives every day.

I think we always will, on some level.

We’ve known from the moment the horrible decision had to be made that we planned on getting another dog. We wanted to wait, to give ourselves a chance to grieve and also to get past the holidays, to allow our house to return to its normal state.

Annie started looking at Petfinder.com a few weeks ago, checking out the pictures and beginning the process of finding the right rescue group from which we could adopt a new dog. While surfing the site, she came upon a group called Puppies and More in Marlton, which is run by a friend of ours. (Carol used to live across the street from us, but moved to Marlton about a dozen years ago and we’ve kept in touch the way people do — sporadically.)

Puppies and More rescues dogs from what are known as “high-kill” shelters down south — Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia — fosters them in local homes and then places them. She e-mailed us last week to tell us she had a group of dogs coming in and we arranged to visit her house on Sunday. There were about eight to 10 dogs there — not including her four. Several were too small for our taste (meaning they wouldn’t likely grow very large), but several were likely to grow to between 50 and 80 pounds.

She brought us over to a 10-week-old dog she called Rose and there was an immediate connection — not to mention a bit of Kismet, as they say. We’d been out to dinner the night before and we were talking about our impending trip to South Jersey, comparing pictures that Annie printed from Carol’s Web site — one of the dogs, with perky ears and piercing eyes caught our attention — and tossing around potential names. Our friend Myra suggested Rosalita — we are huge Bruce Springsteen fans, after all — and we laughed.

That night, Annie was checking Carol’s site and found a picture of the dog we’d grown partial to and called me into the office.

“Take a look at this,” she said. “It’s that puppy — and look at the name.”

Carol had named the pup Rose — which seemed a sign.

When we got to Marlton the next morning, we met several of the dogs before being presented with Rose. Annie picked her up and the pup promptly fell asleep on her shoulder. A second dog from the same litter was in the pen Carol had set up in her kitchen, a dog she named Lola. I went over to Lola, who rolled onto her back seeking a belly-rub. And there you have it; we were sold. After a couple of hours of watching them play together (see above video), we made it offical.

Annie had been asking me all week how we’d choose. My answer was that we wouldn’t be choosing. The dogs would. And they did.

So Rose, now Rosalita, and Lola, who we have renamed Sophia, will be coming home on Friday. And the house won’t be so empty any longer.

And we can’t wait.