I made the mistake, many moons ago back when social media platforms were just ramping up, to join several pages devoted to animal rescue. I routinely see posts from the Forney Animal Shelter, the Seagoville Animal Shelter, the Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake (where many noncity limit Forney pets are taken when picked up as strays, FYI), and rescue groups like Paws of Love where my beloved Poe the Super Ween was acquired. I see pictures of extreme sadness: animals not properly loved, those improperly fed, the discarded ones, and the injured. All seasons of animal abandonment are cruel. This season, just before the summer, affectionately referred to as puppy and kitten season, is especially sorrowful. I mean, it would be so easy to remedy this entire issue, just a simple neuter and, poof, all the unwanted babies would never have to face the horrors of a noisy shelter, or parvo, or distemper, or a bloated abdomen full of worms. But, that’s a story for a different day. Today we are talking about the misconceptions of pet ownership in other ways. And, boy do I have a story within a stor y to tell you.
I have a thing for dachshunds. There, I said it. I also have a thing for feral cats, goats, chickens, the occasional turkey, donkeys and mules, alpacas, raccoons, and, of course, the opossum, duh. But the dachshunds are my thing. I can’t explain the particulars. They just make me laugh, and that is enough. They run fast on those tiny legs with their Dumboesque ears flapping in the wind, or they do their sits with enormously long torsos and tiny T-Rex arms just dangling, and I am all a giggle. They are excellent sleepers, too, if you are ok with a 5,000-degree heater snuggled underneath your contorted body for 8 hours. And, mostly, though I don’t like admitting it, dachshunds attach to a single person. For Poe, that single person is me. I promise you, if I could eat him with a spoon, I would try. That’s a southern expression for loving something a whole, whole bunch. But, it’s not all roses and sunshine in the life and times of Poe. Dachshunds were bread as weapons of tiny mass destruction. Our last ween, Lucybird Johnson, spent the entirety of her 16 years eating the crotches out of all our britches. They rip things. They tear things. They are extraordinarily prey driven, since they are meant to ferret little animals out of incredibly small holes. They are virtually impossible to train. And, they bark. So much barking. All the time barking. The wind blows – bark bark. The blanket tickles their long nose – bark bark. You don’t look at them enough – bark bark bark. I have had to teach the grandchildren how to love a dachshund, too. Their backs go out all the time, so you can’t just whisk them off the ground and into your arms, unless one of your skills is juggling water snakes. And, just like with any little dog, they get overwhelmed easily with little stomping feet too near their faces. Plus, Poe was adopted as a senior dog with no clue to his experiences or history of ownership. He has a birth defect involving one adorably wadded up ear, a mole on his booty, and arthritis so bad that his back feet look like they’re on the wrong legs. So, if you paid me to wager which dog in my menagerie of canine pets would bite something, anything, I’d say…POE. Color me shocked when Poe was bitten by a dog last week. Enter the villain, Daisy the grand dog.
Daisy was my first grandchild. She was rescued by my son and his newlywed wife 9 years ago. Before there was a blue-eyed granddaughter named Chynna Rose, there was a Daisy. She has lived with me 3 times. She often comes and spends weeks at a time with me, anytime her parents go on vacation. I have watched her transform from a lab mix puppy no one wanted, to a juvenile headache of a dog that literally ate a board from my house once, to a sweet, gentle, grateful, beautiful companion. It has been a joy to observe. If the lab in Daisy tells us anything, it’s that at the age of nine, we are watching the last few years of her life unfold. Last week, as Daisy was lounging on my bedroom floor, surrounded by her favorite gang of friends, the wonderpoodles Tuck and Finn, I passed out treats to everyone. That’s our Saturday thing. My husband and I get up early, drink coffee, turn on the television, pass out treats, and get on Zillow to see what 1900 survivor home we will buy in Galveston when we win the lottery. We have lived this exact moment with Daisy at least 100 times without exaggeration. I heard a rumble. It was so sudden. It went from bark to snarl to all-out war in under 1 second. Daisy was on top of Poe, and Poe was missing a tiny chunk from his back. Kevin masterfully separated them. Daisy looked to be the most surprised of all the dogs. Poe is recovering nicely. No stitches needed. Dog bites are difficult to treat because there’s so much bacteria transfer straight into the blood stream and the edges are jagged. You can’t let the wound close until you are certain the body’s fluids have forced out the bacteria. More than that, what happens now?
Daisy and Poe are currently snoozing in my bedroom, not even 6 feet from each other. Daisy isn’t going anywhere. I noticed some evidence of cataracts when she came to stay with us this time. It’s become our teachable moment with the grandkids, with ourselves, and even with the other dogs. Fear of the unknown is something humans react to adversely. Dogs are no different. We have long known that Poe likes to wait at the edge of the food bowls to see if a poodle brother might accidentally drop a kibble chunk his way. Our standard poodles don’t mind. I am certain that he was doing the same with Daisy and her dog treat. “Perhaps she won’t like it and she’ll give it to me,” he thought. “Maybe I can just sneak in for a tiny taste?” And, Daisy, who isn’t seeing as well as she once was, decided it was well within her personal castle doctrine to defend herself. After all, the blanket she was laying on was an extension of her home, right? I see dogs abandoned daily, just like Daisy, who did something dogs are known, if not expected, to do. The fault lies with us. We get caught up in the adorableness in a puppy’s face and the smell of their breath, forgetting that there will be many seasons and many issues we will face with an animal, if we’re lucky. So, don’t worry Daisy. You won’t be singing Sarah McLachlan songs on TV. You’ll be sharing a treat free blanket with Poe as long as you’d like. This week’s cute tax is being paid by Poe in the form of a portrait. As they say on Instagram, bork on, borker.
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