Harry had been scratching, but mostly his neck, which is where the new collar was, so I didn't think anything of it. However, seeing that one little black dot racing beneath his white blades of fur brought home the reality. How he didn't get some sort of flea protection prior to this moment was beyond me. Usually at the shelter they get it. Of course, it could be that it didn't work due to the antibiotics (I don't know if that can happen, but if being on penicillin makes birth control not work, why not flea control?). Or he might have been too young for harsh pesticides.
In contacting Christy and Katya, I learned the dangers of such pesticides (including one that actually ate a hole through Christy's hardwood floor). Looking online, some pet stores give links about the safety of these products and a buyer-beware of things that kill insects might also kill your dog. Katya recommended cedar oil. Some reviews say it work, some say it doesn't, but at least it won't change your dog's DNA or give your basement a skylight.
Christy was hesitant to approve me giving Harry a bath since, let's face it, he's been through an awful lot. I don't want to compromise his immune system anymore. I said I'd search out the cedar spray, and moved on to seeing if I could crate train this little puppy.
The problem with my situation is that there is no room for error. One bark, and the whole system comes crashing down. My upstairs neighbor opted to hand her dog over to her sister rather than just, say, I don't know, move to a place that allowed pets. I haven't spoken to her, but I'm thinking she'll be the first to bitch if she hears/sees/knows about a dog at my place, even if she doesn't understand the truth of it.
Harry easily went into the crate, no questions asked (it's an airline crate, not a wire home crate), and I locked him in. He whined for a minute and I told him to shush. He did. I then closed my bedroom door, walked out the front door, and sat on the steps to find out if his reaction, if any, could be heard.
Two minutes of silence was all I got before the first sound of alarm. I didn't recognize it as his at first. I thought it was down the street. I had heard him bark a couple of times, but not loudly, and certainly not this far away. I didn't think anyone was home in the building except me, but just in case, I went inside and released him.
An hour later, I tried the "roam free" tactic. Just walk out the door like I'm just going to check the mail, and then stay away for five minutes. Increase in small increments.
Test #1: Two minutes of scratching at the door. Then silence. I peeked through the kitchen window and saw him approach the big stuffed dog, nip his nose, and then Harry left my view. I came in, and found one sneaker in the middle of the floor. Five minutes with puppy teeth, my Nikes held up quite well.
Test #2: One scratch at the door then silence. I heard a cough. I waited seven minutes. I opened the door and there, on the coffee table, sat Harry, wagging his tail so hard he almost fell off. I told him to get down and after a brief pause (he had to take in the view one last time of course), he jumped back to the sofa and onto the floor.
Test #3: No scratching at all. I had put my shoes up on chairs and higher items. I removed my remote controls and anything else he could deem as "chewable". (There are two piles of toys which are chewable, right on the floor at his level and he hasn't touched any of them). I waited a full ten minutes this time. I walked in and I saw nothing out to place--wait, one Nike sneaker was dragged off its perch. Not bad.
I gave him hugs and pets and told him what a good boy he was. This was looking like I might accomplish being able to leave him alone even for half an hour. And then I looked down at my hand and saw blood.
Harry is a white dog. Whence the blood came should be easy find. But it wasn't. I even checked myself out in the mirror to see if it was my blood. I returned to Harry, who didn't seem to care that he was losing blood, and I checked him out thoroughly. Through his biting my fingers, I found the source: the base of one of his bottom canine teeth was bleeding ("canine" as in "long tooth on the corner", not "canine" as in general "dog"). I checked online and sure enough 3-4 months is when puppies start losing their teeth, including their canines. But it looked like the rest of his teeth were intact. The one time I leave him alone, and he might have just ripped his tooth out. Shit.
Christy made me feel better when she told me she's been picking up puppy teeth every week at the adoptions fairs. It happens. If he's not in pain, that's probably what it is. And it would explain why he wasn't eating a lot.
It was 4 p.m., so Harry and I had one of our thrice-daily battles to get pills down his throat. I always give him a treat afterward, which he gladly accepts. After he was done, I checked in his mouth and to my horror, that canine tooth which had just been slightly bleeding, wasn't bleeding anymore but was lying on its side in his mouth! It was the stage where a little human kid would be flicking it with his tongue every two seconds until it finally popped out. (How were we okay with that? After a while you get used to having all your parts and can't imagine losing them. Man, growing up is traumatic).
Harry couldn't flick it, so instead he used the lightest color chew toy he could find and gnawed on it until it was good and red.
That is now officially Harry's toy. You bleed on something in my apartment, it's yours. A few minutes later as Harry was rolling about on the floor, I found the little canine tooth, not at all bloody. I should put it under his pillow (You know, that's another weird tradition: take a piece of your head that's fallen out, sleep on it, and during the night some ethereal creature takes it and replaces it with money. The more I hang out with dogs, the less humans make sense to me.)
So, since we've added fleas and losing teeth to Harry's repertoire, I thought I'd get rid of one thing: coughing. At the 4:00 pill fight, I gave him the cough suppressant. "Sedation" was indeed an accurate description of a side effect. He was worse than some people on Benadryl. He was either knocked out cold, or when he was awake, he couldn't function.
Sure he wasn't coughing, but he also couldn't string two thoughts together (I deduced that from his actions, not trying to hold a conversation with him). And by 10 o'clock I had a sneaking suspicion that he might have been hallucinating. Either that, or my living room is filled with winged and crawling creatures all over the carpet and in the air.
I have had dogs "track" things with their eyes in my living room that I cannot see. Although bizarre, I accept it. The most common one is something in the corner at the end of the couch. More than one dog, and on more than one occasion this has happened: the dogs appear to be locking eyes with someone at human height. One dog actually tracked this "something" with her eyes to the end of the couch where it appeared to sit down.
That's fine. I'm open to possibility. And if the dogs are cool with it, then I don't think it's anything malicious. But Harry's tracking was like he was sitting in a fairie glen as tiny sprites danced around him and flew over his head and across the room. To his credit, since he had been studying one spot on the floor for a full minute, I got down to his level, looked, and after a few moments I did indeed spy an almost invisible brown bug crawling across the beige carpet. I worried perhaps my whole carpet was alive with an insect civilization. Since finding one flea on Harry and killing it, a few more had shown up--on me. Or maybe it was just one. I never saw two together, and with how quickly they move, I'm beginning to believe they hold the key to teleportation.
I couldn't believe my living room was a cityscape of bugs. I got out the vacuum (which Harry luckily didn't bark at; perhaps he thought it was just a new part of his whole cough-suppressant-trip), and sucked up the invisible foes, real or unreal.
By 11 o'clock, the sedation/hallucinatory effects of Harry's drugs had worn off, but the cough suppressant had not, so that was a plus. On the walk, he dodged and weaved at the end of the leash as if practicing football plays. When we got back inside, as I promised, I let him off the leash and allowed him an all out romp around the apartment that left him panting. I know he's supposed to stay quiet, but the kid needs some activity.
After all that sleeping and grogginess throughout the day, I think Harry had insomnia. It felt like quite a long night to me. I didn't hear any coughing, but Harry resituated himself on the bed a number times, and I had to make sure he didn't lodge himself between the mattress and wall. Now that I'm used to his crazy sleeping positions, I don't worry about it when I find him contorted. He's like a rag doll, or one of those dog toys without the stuffing. I wish I had a dog bed for him, but he really does like to lay out straight, and that means one big dog bed. I measured him today--over two feet long from snout to back toes.
But before dogbeds are gotten, the first order of business today it to get rid of the fleas. My home is open to animals of all kinds--but I draw the line at creatures with exoskeletons, especially when they've snuck in with another guest.
No comments:
Post a Comment