Late Santa

Birds of a feather

Soon after I got Stella I realized I wasn't the only one who was ignorant about her breed. Several people (including my mother) suggested that I save myself and the lives of countless four-year-olds and give the dog away as soon as possible. I'm sure each one of those well-meaning advisors had a different picture in their mind of the guy they thought would (or should) own such a dog.

Six months later, when Stella had to have her knees operated on Mom and I were talking on the telephone one night and knowing it would be a huge financial burden, she declared: "You need to just have that dog put to sleep." A few cold seconds went by and she added, "or give it away before you get attached to it."

That is when the Patron Saint of Irony airlifted a dog out of some neighbors yard and set it down right on my mothers back patio.

A month went by before she mentioned it.

"There's a dog that's been hanging around here but we aren't keeping it," she said.

"What kind of dog is it?"

"Well we don't know yet but she looks a lot like Stella, in her body."

"I don't think it's a pit bull though", she said adding:

"It doesn't matter because we're not keeping her."

"What's her name Mom?"

"Dolly."

Well of course Dolly stayed and she's even allowed in the house now and I never miss a chance to tell Mom that maybe she ought to have that dog put to sleep before she gets too attached. Now she shames me for suggesting such a thing. Dolly has exactly Stella's body. It's almost a mirror image although the thing about Dolly is that she gets most of her exercise CHASING DEER through the woods. Her muscles are more well-developed than Stella's. They're a perfect match for each other although I believe Dolly might be the product of a Boxer and a Jack Russel Terrier, which if you think about it in relation to the pit bull, is a similar combination of genes. Willful, hard-headed, strong, tenacious dog. They met briefly back in the winter but had never officially hung out together until last Saturday and their friendship got off then to a rocky start.

When I get Stella out of the car, there are three adults and a dog on the patio waiting for us to walk between two Biggie-sized cars. Think of the view (not to mention the exhilaration) athletes get running out of the tunnel onto the field and you see where I'm going with this. Eight pairs of eyeballs, one if them a strange dog, all trained on her. And basically, because everybody thought they were going to fight - they felt compelled to. There was a lot of trash talk but no puncture wounds. We got them apart and mom announced that Dolly was going to have to be put in the basement for the rest of the day.

"No," I said, "Dolly is NOT going to be put in the basement. If we do that, then they'll hate each other forever. I think we should just keep them on their leashes and give them a chance to sniff around and figure each other out."

I can't remember who did the play bow first but right after that, it was on. I let Stella off her leash first and after a few minutes Dolly was also liberated. It turns out they both like to wrestle. Over the course of the day, they had six or seven different rounds of Smackdown. It was so easy to see how a bunch (idiot) humans could have cajoled them into a real fight. People sometimes get nervous about this particular style of play because it's rough but the dogs always seem overjoyed to find one another. Stella's only encountered a few playmates who really fit that description, one of them was the German Shepherd, Sampson, another a white Labradoodle named Zoe. Both really gave her a run for her money and they ended up exhausted and lying in the dirt next to each other. Dolly fit the bill too and I think it's safe to say that she and Stella are officially BFF's.

Fresh Kittens

It took about six hours in all, which is pretty standard, and of course it didn't start around lunch time. It was about eleven o'clock last night.

As I said in last night's post, Domino went into the kitten box (in my office closet) and our girl Stella took to her crate, all on her own. She [Stella] stayed there until about two-thirty and then went and got into her bed. When she came into the office this morning, her nose went straight up to the ceiling and she followed it right to the closet door whereupon I took on the role of midwife/mama cat and said something to the effect of: "Git." And she did.

I'm glad it was Domino and not me. She had full on labor for about two and a half hours (I really think two of them, the black one and the one that looks just like her) were fighting to get out at once. Finally, the black kitten was expelled and she jumped out of the box, leaving it lying on the bottom of the box, helpless and alone. I think that may have been the only moment where my attention may have actually helped in some small way. I immediately put her back in the box and she looked at me stunned for a second like "Holy crap, what is that thing?" Then she understood. The other two went pretty fast relatively speaking. Her belly is still pretty big so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of another but for now, there are three kittens, one tired mama, and one moderately confused pit bull.

Note: Not sure if I've mentioned it lately but we here at Carny Dog advocate the regular spay and neuter of all pets. Rest assured that Domino and her new family will adhere to that policy as well, from this point forward.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. Meow :)

Mama Cat and her practice baby

I don't even know what to say about this. Except maybe that my roommates are a bunch of freeloaders and I could really use some new dish cloths.

Face hugs & the head mare

Yesterday I took Stella with me to pick up our friend Walter. We went from his house to get some coffee and then on to the downtown library. Stella couldn't go in these places and Walter is somewhat disabled so I left them both in the car a couple of times and Walter (when he wasn't spilling coffee in my floorboard) noted that when I went into a place Stella never took her eyes off the door until I came back through it. I asked him if she cried or whined. He said "No, she just stands with her front feet on the console and looks through the windshield."

Normally, if we don't have any passengers, when I return to the car, she and I have what I call a face hug. I reach under her chin and pull her her head to mine from the outside. Her left cheek pressed against my right one (with her still standing on the console) the two of us thank our lucky stars that I made it back and that she was there when I did. As soon as I let go, I tell her to back up and she returns to the back seat planting herself next to a window. On rare occasions we manage to charm some nice person who happens to witness this little ritual from a nearby car proving yet again that warm fuzzy dog love is in fact, contagious.

Dog park update: I mentioned at the end of January that Stella had a bad day at the dog park, a bad day in that she was a bully to the other dogs for the first time since her puppyhood. We returned a day later and she did great. This past Tuesday we tried again and Stella ran all the big dogs and their owners out of the park with her loud vicious growling and bullying behavior. There was no biting but it was so pushy and mean, you wouldn't know she was trying to play; even the dogs were intimidated. Once the big dogs were gone and she was left with the little ones, she was happy as a clam. My friend Christine calls it wanting to be the "head mare" but according to the literature, one doesn't get to be the head mare via tyranny in fact, quite the opposite, so darling Stella has a ways to go. I tried taking her back yesterday (different park) and the same thing happened only this time the owners were a little more forgiving. I disciplined her by putting her on the leash and making her sit but I'm not sure she got the message until I actually caught her by the scruff of the neck once as she was tearing by me. She promptly fell down on her back and showed me the goods. I probably wouldn't have chosen the alpha roll myself but she was so busy being a menace and since she did it herself, I decided it was better than nothing. I definitely had her attention. So we had a quiet little chat right there in the dirt. All the other dogs (the ones she'd been roughing up) came by and smelled her up as well and once I let her up and brushed her off, she was a more polite version of herself. As of today, we're ramping up our exercise program and looking for big brave dogs to hang out with who will not put up with her nonsense. If anyone has any other suggestions or stories about your own dominant/ trouble-making/ bully dog I'd love to hear them. I'm not sure I'd use the word aggressive yet but she's definitely running the offense (despite the innocent pinup girl pose shown above).

Raising awareness

Last Saturday was National Pit Bull Awareness Day and as I mentioned earlier in the week, Stella and I followed our noses across town to the festivities. I admit that I kind of dropped the ball on some of it photographically, but we were busy celebrating & making new friends. We missed some good shots, I'm sure of it.

We started the morning off with a long walk and a trip to the dog park. I've mentioned before that Pit bulls (or any dogs that resemble a Pit bulls) are banned from the city's dog parks in Nashville. There's a sign on the gate with the rules of the dog park and that's the very first rule. People from other, more civilized cities are pretty much horrified by it but we've always been surrounded by xenophobes in this part of the world so it comes as no real surprise that one (non-fatal) incident would set the stage for everyone else. It'll take a younger, smarter generation of council members to kill it though, so we wait. The up side however, is that the people who passed the ordinance generally aren't the same people that go to the dog park so for the most part, people overlook it. Yes, we've made a couple of people nervous but more often (in my limited experience anyway) they're charmed by the Pit bulls who do show up. Sometimes, as in our case, they aren't even sure they're Pit bulls until someone asks. Bunch of outlaws.

The problem with making such rules is that the dogs they're trying to keep out, the aggressive, unruly, apt to eat a Pomeranian-type dogs aren't on their way to the dog park any time soon. The dogs they're trying to keep out are unfortunately chained to a tree somewhere. They're sitting on a wet cardboard box wishing they were at the dog park or anywhere else for that matter. They're busy shredding a plastic two-liter bottle their owner just lobbed in their direction for six seconds of personal entertainment; right before they go back in the house for that next PS2 round of Grand Theft Auto. Don't get me wrong, there are some drawbacks to the dog park culture and occasionally, those dogs do show up, they generally don't last very long - but just like people, they come in all shapes and sizes. But I digress.

The event on Saturday was fun despite the fact that we missed the parade. Again, I got distracted for six seconds and everyone left without us which was too bad since that's the photo I was really hoping for. There was some great art to look at and a ton of wonderful dogs (only one clueless owner it seemed, in the whole bunch). We'll probably go back next year. Maybe they'll have it right outside the dog park :)

This beautiful creature (below) was in fact, spotted at the dog park. He's a Basset Hound-Dalmatian mix. There was also a Pit bull - Dalmatian, a great match for Stella, but I didn't get a good shot of him.



And here are a few from the Pit bull Awareness Day celebration.









Finally, here's a video (it wasn't from the Nashville event although there were some folks with video cameras there - I'll keep looking)

The Exception

The rule in our house is dogs don't sleep in the bed. It works out great because Stella knows that occasionally I'll invite her to lie on my bed during the day or under certain circumstances but when night falls, her bed is hers.

When we went to Baltimore and Atlantic City last month I didn't even take her bed along with us so all bets were off and we shared the bed. One day we hiked (not very far, I think it was a mile and a half) up to the home of Edgar Allen Poe. It was hot as Hell and included buses, construction, big noise and hordes of people going to and from work, not to mention at some point, all the accoutrements of ghetto sidewalks (broken glass, syringes, beer cans, used condoms and the like). I doubt Stella even noticed any of this but without so much as a band-aid on me, I certainly did. It was a tough three miles brightened only by the fact that we made it back without injury or dognapping. I don't know how many of you (goofy-ass white women) have strolled through the ghetto lately with your pit bull but the locals, though extremely friendly, had a look of disbelief on their faces usually reserved for things like mirages - or ghosts. Had it not been for the dog, I would've spent a lot more time up there and made pictures of them all but it was clear early on that we were in dog fighting country. I felt at the time, it was best to keep moving so we pressed on. Unfortunately, the Poe House was closed when we finally got there but I did take a photo of it. I'll put it in the next post.

When we returned to the hotel I left Stella for a bit to go and get something to eat. I made a point of getting back as soon as possible thinking she'd be pacing the floor and feeling abandoned in this new strange place.

Uh - negative. When I returned this (above) is how I found her. She didn't even notice I was gone.

On the morning of our departure we took a vote and decided that the beds in Heaven couldn't possibly be any better than the ones at Hotel Monaco.

Snacks & Kisses

She barks in her sleep.
Likes to eat that grass pâté the yard guy leaves behind.
After a particularly good walk I bought her a rubber duck (like the ones they have at the carnival).

She chewed its head off.
Took three minutes.

A couple of weeks ago a little girl we'd never met, four years old, grabbed her by her muzzle with both hands and planted a big ol' kiss right on her mouth.

Me and the woman with the child nearly fainted on that one.

We went to a craft fair last weekend.
It was very crowded with people and dogs.
There was a couple walking behind us and the man started talking
about how he didn't trust "those" dogs.
They were "violent" he said, and "dangerous".

He rambled on as if I couldn't hear him.

We pulled over to the side long enough to let them step ahead of us
and spent the next few minutes tailgating them.

Just for fun I gave Stella the same speech about middle-aged men in khaki pants.

Afraid Not

She's not afraid of trains. The other day we saw one weaving through the landscape in Brentwood and it kick-started her hyperactive prey drive. She's not afraid of straight pipes on Harleys either. She's not afraid of the school bus or airplanes or the FedEx man or even the vet.

Bugs. She's afraid of bugs. Have I written that? I can't remember. I can't get her attention but a tiny little moth can. The other night she shot out of her bed like a rocket and ran for the door.

"Stella," I said. "Babe. You're a Pit Bull." It gave her no comfort.

She flashed me a worried look and lay down in the doorway, refusing to come back in the room. When I finally turned out the light she gave it up and returned. Today she ran barking, from a silver fish and jumped up on the bed like a girl. It was hysterical.

I never get tired of looking at that face; had a cat like that once. Louie. He was so magnificent I couldn't replace him with another cat. I had to get a dog instead. Ahem.

p.s. You know those green caterpillars that have the capacity to level a nice perennial garden in about three days? This week - we're using those as treats.


Slobbery kisses from ‘man’s best friend’ aid cancer research

Dead Dogs Breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice

Book review: The Diamond Dog

Elliott Erwitt's dogs (and other wonderful things)

Note to self:

Some things to remember about this past weekend

1. First off, let me just say in my defense: it is impossible to pass a dog with a wig in your hand and NOT try the wig on the dog. If one should decide to photograph the dog however, it is imperative that laughter be kept to a minimum. Trust me, there will be plenty of time to laugh later. (same goes for people, btw)

2. One of Stella's best things is walking through a crowd. The Lawn and Garden Show was at the fairgrounds last weekend so we went over and followed the parade of visitors through the parking lots for fun. We also navigated the long lines of people who were waiting to buy tickets. She did great as always and we celebrated our success by running like mad women back behind the race track.

3. On sunny Saturdays, apparently it's fun to go over to (local coffee house) Fido where you can sit outside with your pup and enjoy a coffee. All the tables were taken so we didn't sit but according to the body language of one guy, we'll call him Stinkeye, Pit bull-type dogs (I'm being funny there, I love that expression, what is a "pit bull-type" dog?) may not be all that welcome anyway, so we kept moving. Stella did a little low key rubber-necking and I didn't mind. We probably walked a mile through Hillsboro Village, well past Vanderbilt and back again.

4. Then on to school where she had words with a shepherd mix who got in her personal space. Both dogs and owners recovered nicely.

5. Stella has almost no separation issues. At class we're up to two minutes. Out in the world, we're up to about fifteen minutes. I have more anxiety than she does when we're apart.

6. Beware of strange dogs galloping after you on suburban streets. Later, we went for a walk around the block and a good sized (maybe 75lb.) dog came running out from between two houses. It climbed all over Stella and then went from being over-excited to aggressive in the blink of an eye. It tried to bite her twice. I stepped between them before Stella could react and made the dog's options very clear. It went trotting off. Five houses down, a beautiful little French Bulldog came blasting out of yet another yard. It didn't try to start a fight though (thank God) and its owner retrieved it immediately.

7. If I haven't said it lately, Latina moms are way cool. We got out of the car at the ball park on Sunday and from a distance I noticed a Mexican family moving in our direction. There were two women and five little children of various ages. I moved Stella aside and put her into a sit. I was surprised to see that they didn't plan to go around us, they planned to stop and pet Stella. Naturally, they had a two year old with them who was terrified of dogs and they hoped to use Stella in the same way I hoped to use their other kids. As luck would have it, I had a pocketful of liver treats so it was win-win. We hung out with them for fifteen or twenty minutes and Stella ended up charming the frightened kid and getting more than one belly rub out of the deal. She walked away a different dog. I'm not saying it was permanent but she had a sweet look in her eye that told me she felt really good about it all. We celebrated with a swim in the creek.


Speaking of wigs...

It doesn't bite (unless you're a chicken liver)

After what seemed like weeks of walking in below freezing temperatures, Stella got to go to the dog park on Friday. We're really not supposed to be there since "pit bull—type" dogs aren't permitted but occasionally if it isn't crowded, we go anyway. There were only a couple of dogs there but she played for a while with a beautiful Great Dane puppy named Clementine.

After that we went to pick up our friend Walter and I dropped her off at Barney's house while Walter and I had lunch at the diner next door. When I got back to Barney's his caseworker was standing outside the door peering through the glass and asking: "Does it bite?" I had to laugh. I think he met Stella once before but had forgotten and since I wasn't around, he didn't make the connection.

Barney's case worker wasn't really afraid, he was just being cautious but it reminded me of the people I've met who automatically assume that all pit bulls bite. The media (of which I am a card-carrying member) has seen to it that there's an unlimited supply of those people and while I might've fallen into that category myself in an earlier incarnation, I realize now how ridiculous it is.

Not so long ago, Stella and I were asked—no actually we were told in no uncertain terms—not to come back into the post office together. We'd gone in there six or eight times already but on this particular day, after three people had already petted her and she was lying at my feet (smiling at everybody), a woman came in the door and had what we here in the south call a hissy-fit. Her and a woman behind the counter made a big scene and Stella was the one who got thrown out. I had to smile and be polite because I knew that whatever I said would automatically transfer to Stella and pit bull owners and pit bulls in general. I don't mind telling you, it was a difficult moment. When you're unable to speak..that's typically when the most fascinating things come to mind. Now we just do our business in the lobby where that woman can't see us and I try to resist the urge to make Stella speak on our way out the door.

Thankful

It's been a funny week. Funny ha-ha, not funny strange, for the most part. Thanksgiving was a pretty good time. My sister-in-law, despite having a whole house full of guests, let me take Stella to her house on Thursday. Stella needed some kid time and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. There would also be dogs there but their owners made an executive decision to keep them away from her and/or the rest of the crowd. I was sorry about that but it was their decision to make. She had fun with the kids anyway and a few minutes after we finally got home, she collapsed in a way I haven't seen since her younger days.

On Saturday we found a new dog park that's fairly close to the house. Unlike Nashville, they haven't passed an ordinance to ban pit bulls from it yet which is great but it wasn't without challenges. First, there weren't any dogs there and when Stella goes into an empty dog park, she has no idea what to do with herself. Her nose is hyper-engaged which apparently renders her deaf so we always end up leaving. No ball tossing, no running around, it's like we're lost in a foreign country. I decided to take her for a walk and try again later on. When we came back there were two dogs, Midnight, a lab mix and Maizie, a beagle puppy who probably weighed oh, I don't know - five pounds. We stood outside the fence for a couple of minutes and both dogs ran over to greet Stella. They touched noses through the chain link and Stella did the play bow like she always does. We approached the gate and I watched the blood drain right out of the faces of the puppy's owners. I can't say I blamed them, I would've been concerned too. They stood up and walked straight over to us and asked me point blank what kind of dog Stella was. I sucked it up and told them the truth. I didn't want to but I also want people to learn that she's not scary or dangerous or bad. It turned out they were a brave young couple and when Stella headed off with the other (bigger) dog, they decided to stay. Fifteen minutes later, the beautiful and, as we were about to learn talented, Maizie was ready for her turn. She ran up and body checked Stella much the same way Stella does to the biggest dog in the dog park.

Never one to turn down a romp, she got up and launched off after the puppy. Cue the cartoon chase music. The next few minutes were hysterical. The five pound puppy out ran the pit bull. Turns out, she had moves. She'd dive under a bench and do a one-eighty, lie down flat and look at Stella, then take off running again. Stella loved it. L-O-V-E-D it and all four of us adults, paralyzed at first, were charmed right out of our brains. It was magical. It was like five hundred dollars worth of mood elevating pharmaceuticals, crammed into six minutes.

The photos below are from a visit to a different dog park. Stella had fun that day too and even managed to briefly engage a Husky (which hardly ever happens, they don't usually have time for her nonsense).

Is she or isn't she?

Redheaded older lady, in curlers and a house dress, leans out her door one morning on our way by and declares that Stella is a really pretty dog. "Thanks," I say and she asks "Is it a Beagle?" I hesitate for a second and say "No m'am. She's a Pit Bull."
"Oh," she says, her voice skating on disappointment. "Well she's really pretty anyway." "Thank you" I say, waving goodbye. She waits for us to pass before leaving her porch to collect the paper. I wonder as we're walking if I should've just answered in the affirmative and let Stella be a Beagle for the day. She's been mistaken for all manner of dogs over the last ten-and-a-half months, Blue Heeler, Boxer, Catahoula, Foxhound, Great Dane. Beagle was a new one, rather charming but still erroneous. It must have been the white socks and matching tail tip that from a distance cued her thought. A very authoritative-sounding man told his son once that she was a cross between a Boxer and an Australian Sheppard. I had to look away to keep from laughing or having to confirm this notion.

As many of you know, it's not the easiest thing, being a Pit Bull, out in the world anyway. Other, far more qualified people have written about it extensively but the thing I find surprising is that so many people have been conditioned to fear a dog they don't even recognize (beautiful example here ~ poor Otis). I'm torn sometimes between educating the person and protecting the dog. Often they love her until the exact moment they ask the question. The worst of it comes when they're already petting her and she's in the zone and then they ask what kind of dog she is. If I say the word, their sparkling eyes go flat and they immediately stop petting her. They back off. Most of the time it isn't so subtle either. I could I suppose, say she's an American Staffordshire Terrier. While it's true, most people don't know that translates to Pit Bull.

Although I've told a few children that she's an American Daffodil Digger, I've refused the semi-popular cute names (i.e. Pibble). I've found that changing a word doesn't change a perception, however ill-conceived. For example, not so long ago (and still) a population of carnies wanted to be called showmen, for some of the very same reasons. To accommodate them (out of respect) I used the term now and again and it only served to confuse people outside that circle. The general public has no idea what a showman is and they never will. They know carny. Carnival worker. Public relations gurus the world over would likely disagree but from a sociological perspective, (IMHO) the only option is to recondition the spirit of the word. Educate people. Suck it up. Tell the truth. Set a good example, be consistent and patient. That's pretty easy to say; not so easy to do. Would love to hear your experience and/or thoughts on the subject.

Yesterday morning we went walking down along the river. We met a beaver and a homeless man. The man said he'd been feeding a dog that looked a lot like Stella.

"Don't know who it belongs to", he said.

"I do." I answered. "Who?" he asked me.

"You."

Here's a great audio-interview from Fresh Air (NPR) on training service dogs in prison.

Suds your Duds

Please excuse the graphic description I am about to include in today's post. If you think of it in a Lucy Ricardo sort of way, you will come much closer to the reality of the whole situation. No, seriously.

First the basics. I am a forty-seven year old woman. I weigh approximately 120 pounds. Corndog Stella - weighs fifty-seven pounds. That's like two twenty-five pound bags of dog food stacked on top of each other, with a couple of six packs of soda tossed on. Twenty-four ouncers.

Although her weight varied, from September to February, I gave Stella baths in the shower - with me. That thud you just heard was my mother's head hitting her printer stand on the way down. While I understand some of you may be repulsed by the thought of showering with a dog I assure you, we both come out better for it. The only thing that really suffers are the bathroom walls and my landlord's drain (bummer).

The tricky part isn't the showering, the showering is sort of zen-like to be honest, but it's getting the pit bull into the shower that's the real talent. It's a bathtub. I have to open the shower curtain, step one foot out of the slick-ass bathtub, pick her up NAKED, turn back to the tub and put her down standing, in the water. Typically I will then tell her that she's the best dog in the world and to Stay. At that point I pray that she does, sometimes I even pray aloud (note to Mom).

So a few days ago, after a long hiatus I decide it's time for Stella to have a bath. To be safe (hah), I get out a pair of shower shoes, the old style flip-flops you get at the beach, and put them in the bathtub with me while I shower. At one point I step into them and immediately they suction themselves like a frog, to the floor of the bathtub. I almost fall down. Fine I think to myself, I'll just leave them off and stand in them later, after I get her in here. So here we go with the potential 911 moment and Stella hasn't done this in a while, so she's mighty tense (I'm told this is because I'm tense which would make her a psychic - no?) I step, left foot out of the tub, wrap my left arm in front of her chest, tuck my right arm under her rump and stand upright. Then I move my left foot back into the tub and set her down in it. When I do, her front feet go right into the flip flops and suddenly she's standing on one of them and wearing the other one like a bracelet.

Did I mention before that I am NAKED? In a shower? With a pit bull, wearing thongs? Now I get laughing so hard in there that she thinks I've gone insane and I wonder if maybe I haven't. And she's looking at me like: Are we gonna' do this thing or not? It is at this moment I realize that I'm not always forty-seven years old. Sometimes, when the planets are aligned just right, I still get to visit seventeen, this day thanks to Stella.



[Ed. note] Somebody recently asked if I was absolutely head over heels in love with Stella now that she and I had been through these surgeries together (savvy question, I thought). The answer is yes, of course. I loved her before she was ever injured but the day you find yourself bathing an animal half your size with a warm washcloth because she can't do it herself, you're pretty much done for.

We recommend Perfect Coat natural oatmeal shampoo and, if you should choose this method of bathing for your own big dog, a crash helmet.

The Long Introduction

We used to be a two cat family. It was me, Louie and Gigi. I was always Louie's girlfriend but Gigi loved him anyway. He made it known that he was merely tolerating her.

When Louie died it was traumatic for both of us but Gigi and I got to be better friends through our grieving. We watched Animal Planet together which was odd seeing that I'm not much on watching television. There aren't any cat shows on Animal Planet so we watched dog shows and talked about what dipnoids they were. The dogs, that is. Gigi always watched the screen, fascinated.

A couple of years before that she'd come face to face once with one of the neighbor dogs, Ginger. An overzealous puppy then, Ginger asked for and got herself a nose whipping that day. I'd never heard such bawling in my life from the dog but I found it interesting that Gigi didn't leave the scene of the assault. She seemed to want the dog around despite her violent outburst. I got in my mind, for no particular reason, that Gigi might actually be friendly to the right dog.
I don't think she was in any way, prepared for the dog that I brought home. A dozen pounds headed for sixty, this animal was not nearly so tolerable as the ones we'd seen on tv. For one thing, we couldn't turn it off and it seemed to suck all the air right out of the room. Then of course, she also had me, saying clever things to her like:

Gigi, it's probably a good thing you don't have a tail...

She became disgusted in a matter of minutes and went to the basement - for six months.

Fast forward to yesterday where we see the long arm of a tail-free cat, jutting out the crack of a door, jabbing punches at a teenage pit bull who hasn't been on a walk in eight weeks.



Note: Many thanks to those of you who have made a donation this week to Stella's Patellas. The website says she's at $590. but I've yet to add what's arrived in my mailbox (bringing the total to a whopping $1,020.00). You people rock.

Pit bull, viciously attacked by purple wiener dog

Thanks so much to those who responded (not only with photos of their carny/road dogs but also with directions on how to get there to meet them in person). I managed to make a little collection in the last couple of days as a result. The rest of you (if you're out there) get busy and send us a good picture. There's a site I saw recently where people can send pictures of what's left of their annihilated dog toys too. It was pretty hysterical and of course, I forgot to save the link but I'll keep looking.

I do have one bit of bad news where Stella's surgery is concerned and that is that a few days ago, she managed to blow out her other knee. When she was diagnosed with luxating patellas, I was told by my vet that she had it in both knees. The right one was the more severe (grade3 of 4). In small dogs, both knees can be operated on at the same time but for big dogs it isn't a good idea because of their weight. Now that she's favored her left leg for the last five weeks, the strain has caused her originally grade 1 condition in that knee, to progress to a grade 2, leaving the kneecap to slip each time she fully extends her back leg, which is - regularly. This probably means another surgery and another eight weeks of rehab. Her surgeon said: "You must tie this dog to the coffee table and not let her walk for the next three weeks."

I have no idea what insurance costs for a dog but I'm sorry I didn't sign her up for some last September. Oh, wait - I haven't done any research on it but I bet you can't buy insurance for a semi-stray pit bull. Especially not if they've been attacked by stuffed purple wiener dogs.

On the more positive side, I put an ad on craigslist.org a couple of weeks ago, asking for the use of someone's swimming pool (for her impending physical therapy) and some nice person answered it with an invitation. She said she has another dog that comes over too, a Lab that had spinal meningitis last year, which caused him to lose the use of his back legs. Swimming two or three times a week reversed it.

What you make 'em

The first couple of girls I'd passed on the midway that night also suggested she was a pit bull but denial blinded me to the possibility of it that first time. They had to be wrong. I decided this in a most friendly way and kept moving.

This woman though, she knew what she was talking about. I could hear it in her voice. Those few moments slowed way down in my head, like when you realize that you're about to skid off the road and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on. I asked if she minded if I sat down at the table and she motioned to the chair.

"Jesus," I said, "are you sure she's a pit bull?"

"Positive"

"So tell me what do I need to know about raising a pit bull," My own words echoed in my ears but hers didn't.

"They're what you make 'em," she said. She took a long drink from the beer and I found myself wishing for one too. "What else?" I asked. "I'm sorry I'm interrupting your dinner, but I have to know by tomorrow afternoon." She didn't seem to mind.

"Females are more easy-going than males are," she said, "and well, you might have to beat that dog once or twice" (I think I momentarily repressed a full-on head-bouncing-off-asphalt faint here), "just with a newspaper though," she added - "but once you've got her attention, she can be the best dog in the world so long as you don't tie her up in the backyard and walk away."

No problemo.

I thanked her and she wished me luck. The dog and I continued on, down the backside of the midway toward her truck which had been parked mostly behind the Starship 3000 for this last twelve days. I think Stephanie tied her back up when we returned as my head was still swimming in the fog of reality and my newly discovered prejudice.

Just the moment I start feeling all proud of myself in the ethics and morality department, a new prejudice, that I am completely ignorant of in myself, comes home to roost. Despite the fact that I felt completely ready to be a dog owner, never in a million years would I have gone off in search of a pet pit bull. Never.

N.E.V.E.R. And now I had one. The first dog of my adult life. Pit bull.

I've chosen to believe, looking back on it, that God was playing a little trick on me, not to mention my cat Gigi.


Stephanie and the puppy; Sunday afternoon

Our First Walk

Normally, I shoot pictures on teardown night and into the next day. We agreed that I'd pick up the dog on Monday, when it was time to move the truck.

After the show closed that Sunday night, I took pictures for a couple of hours, then asked Stephanie if I could walk our dog. "Sure" she said, "I'll untie her for you."

What she handed me at the end of the leash, was a dog that hadn't as far as I could tell, ever been on a walk before. This was an animal that within the first fifty yards of our walk, ate gum, snow cone wrappers, chicken-on-a-stick, the chicken-on-a-stick stick and Gravitron vomit right off the pavement, in front of my eyes.

We made it as far as Sammy Forbes' burger joint and a woman, thirty six ounces into a forty ounce beer, sitting at a table there said: "'Aint nobody breakin' into your house." She took another bite of her sandwich and I said, "What?"

"I said 'aint nobody breakin' into your house with that pit bull in there."

"Beautiful dog too, if you didn't want him I'd take him right now. I used to raise pit bulls and that one is gorgeous."