“It’s not a good time,” is an excuse quite overused in this society, whether the topic be something as joyful as having a baby or falling in love, or as tragic as someone dying or breaking a limb. Is there really a good time for anything?
The past few months haven’t been a good time for me to take in a dog. As much as I wanted to, and it pained me each time I had to turn one down, my house and I were simply not ready. Contractors were in and out completing floors and windows; I was rushing between them at the house and being back at the apartment packing up the last 15 years of my life.
And I was exhausted. I just couldn’t do it. It was supposed to be a joyous time of finally getting what I’ve wanted for so long: a house. But it was stressful at every turn: from securing the loan, to saying yes to the house despite its flaws, to then dealing with one flaw after another and wondering how anyone could possibly neglect and abuse a house in this manner over the years.
I had high hopes, but the money ran out quickly. Fixing the backyard just isn’t in the cards right now. I need the inside completed first. And when Katya emailed me early last week to take in a special dog she had met at South LA, my place was far from completed and it was simply "not a good time."
But how could I say No? I know about special dogs—dogs like Tia and Harry—the ones you don’t just love, but fall in love with. Such it was for Katya and this little beagle/spaniel mix she christened Lennon (after John Lennon of course.) I slept on it, and then replied the next morning that I simply couldn’t take him. The contractors still had to finish drywall and put up the casing around the new patio doors, and my place was a hazard for any being who likes to put inanimate objects in his or her mouth. Outlets didn’t have wallplates, screws and nails were on the floor, and my moving boxes were in various states of unpackness. I couldn’t even sequester a dog in one room of the house as I hadn’t put the doors back up yet, and the doors that were going up didn’t even have doorknobs to keep them shut.
In lieu of being Lennon’s foster, I offered to transport him to wherever he needed to go. And of course, she could put me as the very last resort because although my place was dangerous for a dog, a dog was less likely to be killed here than at the shelter.
Another foster came through, and I was lined up to transport. However, due to some fumbling of paperwork and whatever goes on at the shelter, Mary Ann at Tails of the City (the rescue Lennon was being placed with) found out that Lennon was pulled by another rescue. As it was, there were odd discrepancies in information: he was sick, he wasn’t sick so he could be neutered, and now he was just plain gone. I hoped for Lennon’s sake that he really did go to a good rescue.
The non-event of helping Lennon kicked me in the ass to get back on top of things and keep working toward a safe home. I had to overcome my exhaustion. I had to make this, at the very least, a safe place for canines. The yard would have to wait (I just don’t have the money for a new fence, deck, and driveway gate), but I didn’t have a yard at my apartment and that never stopped me.
It was simply ludicrous to me that a dog might die because I didn’t have doorknobs. So, I got to work on hanging doors, buying doorknobs, cleaning up the drywall dust, unpacking what I could and containing the hazardous material in safe places.
Then on Saturday morning, I got the call. “You’re not going to believe this: Lennon is back at South LA.” It was Mary Ann. The rescue he had gone to either didn’t want him or had received him in error.
The poor little dog who was sick, had been sent to a vet to get neutered, then to a rescue, then to who knows where, and now was sicker than ever and probably wouldn’t make it out again unless someone took him. Unfortunately, the foster Mary Ann and Katya lined up was now booked.
“Well, if he needs a place to go, I can take him for a week,” I heard the words coming out of my mouth before realizing I had spoken. Mary Ann had only asked if I could transport him, although she wasn’t sure where to quite yet.
“Really?”
“Well, I have doors now. And doorknobs. I just need some time to clean up and get situated. When does he need to be out?”
“Well if you’re taking him, any time is fine. They close at 5pm. Thank you so much! I just need some time to find a new foster for him. I can do that in a week.”
I hung up the phone and rushed around, putting the final touches on getting my house ready. My first canine houseguest, and I hadn’t even finished painting the interior or putting away my office. Not the best of times, but in truth, my house was way safer and less stressful than South LA animal shelter.
Four hours later, I was kneeling down on the floor of the shelter, smiling at the little boy who cowered and buried his head into the animal control officer’s chest. “No. No more adventure,” he seemed to say. He looked more exhausted than I had felt in the past month.
“Oh come on,” the officer said kindly petting Lennon. “The last place just wasn’t right for you. This is much better.”
Lennon let me put a collar and leash on him, and even allowed me to walk him out of the receiving area.
Once outside he took not one, not two, but three dumps, all of which contained little white squirmy worms, as if he had deposited little coconut-covered candy bars along the shelter’s walkway. So the runny nose and messy neuter job (his balls—not a pretty thing to begin with—were just plain wretched-looking), were not his only problems.
Once inside the truck, I gave Lennon the exemption card—the one that says he doesn’t have to adhere to the passenger seat only on his ride from the shelter. The moment I sat down, the kid crawled up my shirt, glued himself to my chest, and hung his head over my shoulder. I couldn’t drive in that position, but a modified situation was doable.
Once on the road, I wondered if the guy had played me. He looked all too comfortable and happy behind the steering wheel.
A trip to the vet to get some meds for that cough, snot, and oh yes the worms (he wasn’t going on my bed or couch until that much was taken care of), yielded other results. I had noticed that Lennon’s back leg was twitching. He was trembling all over, so I didn’t think much of it, but the vet took his upper respiratory condition and leg twitching as possible signs of distemper.
Really?!?!
Distemper is—and don’t quote me on the specific percentage but I must be close—is about 90% fatal. The only dogs that get it are puppies not yet vaccinated. It’s as uncommon as measles in people—and in fact, is the canine equivalent. The virus attacks the respiratory, then gastronomical, and then hits the nervous system. It’s a full body shut-down and death in only a couple of weeks’ time.
Did Katya just have a knack for finding those about to die? I thought as I remembered Stella. No. This kid just has a cold. I was strangely calm. Granted I had known the little guy for about three hours, but seriously, he just had a cold, was stressed out, and maybe has a nervous twitch. Let’s give him some time to settle down and then we can start diagnosing fatal diseases.
Mary Ann decided to go ahead with the distemper test, and because that was a possibility his antibiotic wasn’t just a normal doxycycline that kennel cough kids get: it was some crazy broad spectrum antibiotic that although boosts the survival rate of dogs with distemper, could give me bone marrow cancer if I touch it.
Later that night, I looked it up online. Yes, it does cause DNA or RNA modifications, but guess what? It’s still given out to people in third world countries. A little precaution like not touching it with my fingers is acceptable but I’m pretty positive that not going end up with cancer for having it in the house.
Now that Lennon’s medical was taken care of (and I could ponder the distemper test for four days while we awaited results), it was introducing my first canine houseguest to the house.
Lennon appears to be an outside dog. He enjoys the outside, and enjoys looking at the outside when not actually out there. Once outside, he enjoys the art of lawn-diving as much as Harry did.
Inside, he learned about television and seems to enjoy it. When it was time to take him out for his before-bed bathroom break walk, I had to shut off the TV; he couldn’t be torn away from it.
I had to explain to him about dog beds. He tried to avoid them, perhaps thinking they were off limits. Although, perhaps given the extreme temps in the valley as of late and him running a fever, the hardwood floors were just way more comfortable.
Strangely, he appears to be housebroken. I don’t worry that he’ll piss on anything inside the house, and he always waits until he gets outside to do his business. In fact, after only a couple of days, he understands that the quick walk midday into the heat is just to pee at the far end of the backyard and then quickly run back inside.
Having him here has proven one thing: that the yard is indeed a priority over remodeling the interior of the house. My major project of converting a stand up shower into a laundry closet will be put on the back burner. Not having a washer and dryer has caused me two hours of annoyance by going to the Laundromat once in the past two weeks; but not being able to open up my sliding glass doors and allow a dog to go bounding outside to the backyard to pee, to chase a squirrel, or do anything—that irritates me about fifteen times a day.
Lennon didn’t know his name anymore than his namesake. Day two I awakened after a fitful night listening to him sniffling, reverse-sneezing, and trying to get comfortable on the beds and floor, to a name in my head: Norman. I looked over at the sleeping guy and said, “Lennon?” No response. I hesitantly then questioned, “Norman?” To which he raised his head. “Your name is Norman? Okay. Norman it is.”
And so, the peaceful Lennon became Norman... Norman the Nut.
As Norman regains his health he comes out of his shell more, but he still hasn’t quite gotten a hang of cuddling yet. He still prefers to lie next to me, rather than on my lap.
And no matter what happens, if he’s confused on what I want or he’s not sure how to get what he wants, then his default move is to simply show me his balls (or what’s left of them.) He likes to lie on his back, but the man needs some common decency sometimes.
Norman is quite smart, and now that he’s agreed to his name, he’s taking to training a bit. Hardwood floors do offer their own set of problems, but he seems okay with it. He walks well on them, but when he awoke the other day and instinctually shook himself, I didn’t even see his body fall through the air—one shake and boom, he was down on his side in a collapsed heap of canine. (He wasn’t hurt and recovered quite well.)
Now that Norman is no longer leaking green fluid from his nose or worms from his butt (and the distemper test came back Negative – yay!), I’m starting to take him out into the world. His first Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream went well. He watched, as he does with TV, or snoozed when things got boring. He didn’t bark as some other dogs did in the audience, and people commented on how well-behaved he was.
I did learn one thing: the boy needs boundaries. He has no qualms about trying to take a bite out of whatever you have in your hand while it’s also in your mouth. So, we’ll be working on that.
Oh, and of course there’s a change of plans. The fact is, moving a dog who’s been sick can lead to another bout of sickness. If I have no job (although I really really need one), there’s no reason I can’t keep him until Katya comes back on the 28th. He’s a super easy foster, and now that I have my own house, I don’t mind leaving for a few hours at a time. He’s not destructive, and since I haven’t finished unpacking, there’s not much out for him to destroy even if he wanted to. He’s proven to be a quiet companion for events as well we an easy dog to leave at home should I need to go out for a bit.
So the house wasn’t ready for a guest. It wasn’t a good time. But it was the right time. Because the right time, not matter if it’s good or bad, is when someone needs you. Norman needed me. And, let’s face it, I needed him.
Norman, congratulations on being the first guest in my house. May you be one of many in a long line of canine guests to find peace, solace, and fun, here on the Ave of the Beautiful View.
Here is the link to Norman’s ad on adoptapet, should you know someone who would like this nutty, yet peaceful, little guy as a companion:
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