Searching and Rescuing

Before I get onto this post's topics, I would like to add a brief footnote from the last post. When I logged on to my news website today, this is the headline that greeted me "Spider Invasion Creeps out Western Washington". I rest my case. At least I am not the only squeamish fool with a tactical can of Raid I carry everywhere...

The title of this week's post refers to my happy anticipation of a full day of volunteering with King County Search and Rescue tomorrow. My liaison with KCSO has assured me I will both hide and track and I can't wait. I have been avidly pursuing all the various classes I will need, should I get to the top of the waiting list. To wit: First Aid (for me AND the dog!), HAM radio operation, GPS and compass navigation, avalanche rescue, river rescue (ha! do you have to be able to swim?) and knots and rappelling which I am kind of rusty on these days. I have already submitted my request to the City of Bellevue to pay for my tuition to become a certified EMT. In the meantime, my next priority is to attend the King County SAR Academy which is coming up. Alas, my dreams of rescuing another LGD for SAR work are fizzling as I gaze at my completely mellow, low drive, ball apathetic, low energy Maremma!

The other part of the title refers to the recent resumption of the rescue of the two remaining Akbash which I was working on earlier this summer. As we all knew would eventually happen, the dogs were confiscated last Friday by Animal Control. The neighbors reported that they were running loose and are extremely aggressive. They ended up down in the Kent Animal Shelter and I went down yesterday to bring them treats and visit them while their fate is decided.

I am not sure who was more traumatized - me or them. While the people at the shelter were very nice and clearly care about all the animals, the shelter is old, dank and full. The din in there was deafening and of course, due to the areas the shelter serves, a large majority of the dogs were pit bulls.

Our two Akbash were in poor condition - they were visibly shaking out of sheer terror. No more barking, growling and aggression...they were absolutely beaten down by the noise, the run, the foreign environment and all the people. Because they have never been socialized, they are extremely fearful of people and other dogs. Achilles in particular was a mess. He brought a tear to my eye while I fed him treats and more tears on the way home thinking about him cowering in the back of the cage. I was able to walk Aris but he was nothing like the dog I once knew. Myself, the woman who runs Akbash rescue and the woman who runs Anatolian rescue are all frantically coming up with options for foster, boarding etc.

It was decided today that animal control will not give the dogs back due to their extensive history with the owner. However, there is still an appeals process to get through if the owner chooses to use that option instead of signing them over to us. That means the dogs could be there for 45 days which breaks my heart. A very sad and complex situation all the way around but I am still holding onto hope that we will eventually get the dogs and rehome them. Achilles' brother now has a wonderful life in Sequim with people who love him and he has adjusted beautifully. I can only hope the same will be true for Achilles. So we continue to search and rescue...

Speaking of rescue, now that 2 years have passed and I am not so overwhelmed by all the behavior and training theories I initially read in order to help the Polar Bear, I decided it's high time to continue reading the myriad other books I never got to on my list. Thus the following:




This is the most scientific of the books. I haven't finished it yet as it is a little dense but I really like Coren's writing and there's all sorts of cool factoids in it.





At first I thought this was a kid's book but Dr. Ian Dunbar is famous for his writings on dog behavior and he is amusing to read. This one isn't too in depth but is a quick read with a lot of great info', especially for the uninitiated dog owner.






This is my favorite and I wish I had read it way back when as I was struggling with the beginning days of the Polar Bear. Nicole Wilde writes really succinctly, uses great examples and anticipates all the problems you may have and gives solutions which I could have used on many an occasion. I would highly recommend this book for anyone with a dog, not just a fearful dog as her suggestions will aid any dog with just about any issue.

I have many more on the list, most specific to SAR work. Unfortunately, the King County library is currently doing some fancy upgrades and merging to their on line system which means I can no longer place holds via the internet. Which means I have to get my butt off the computer chair and actually go to the library, look up the card catalog number and find it myself instead of finding it already selected for me under my last name. How dare they make me work?! So it could be awhile...

Finally, Stabitha and Dexter would like me to solicit some sympathy on their behalf. They went to the vet today for their yearly shots and check ups. We learned two things. They are both FAT because they went to stay with grandma while I was in Spo-Compton and she free fed them and secondly, the needle required to put their microchips in was what we call *large gauge*. They were not happy. The vet told me that as a result of the shots etc. they may have a decreased appetite and be pretty lethargic. Hallelujah said I. That solves two problems in one go. Can we just give them a shot a day? I am perfectly ok with giving shots on my own. But she said that would be unhealthy or unethical or some such blather. Oh well. We tried.

I'm sorry. Were you speaking?

Post vet appointment. While Stabbers did indeed crash on the sofa as seen above, no such luck with Dex. Somehow I knew he would not succumb to the shots...

Foot Dragging Tired

PB and I are both exhausted. I am tired because of a bed bug infestation in my house. I don't know where they came from - my guess is the Spo-Compton hotel - but when they come, they don't want to leave. We had the pest control guy out this morning and you wouldn't believe what one must go through to get rid of these little bastards. I have washed and dried everything I own on hot cycles, paid a ridiculous amount of money to have my local dry cleaner dry all my duvets and bed linens in their huge dryer on high, obsessively showered, compulsively picked through PB and the cat's fur like some kind of demented baboon to be sure this really isn't fleas and mostly made offerings to the gods that this pest control poison I will now be sleeping in is going to work.

I can heartily suggest bed bugs as an effective psychological torture device. Although they don't carry diseases and mine I cannot even see - in fact the pest control guy is dubious as to whether I really have them as we found no signs - but I can assure you that when I go to bed, I can feel the buggers crawling on me and I wake up with bites all over me. For someone who is mildly OCD about things being neat and clean, this is intolerable. Hence I have not really slept for days. This really sucks in every sense of the word, especially when you work nights and you're tired all the time anyway. But enough of the woe is me...

PB is also very tired but for a much better reason.

Screw you.

Last Friday, I had to go into work for a meeting and I decided to bring the Polar Bear with me since it was a short meeting. I took him running with me beforehand as it was a nice day and I thought he would enjoy seeing some new scenery and running through the nature park we haven't visited in awhile. I now know he would have preferred to see that scenery from the car. Once PB realized we were actually going to run THE WHOLE WAY, he put on the brakes and would not move. It took me forever to get him going again and I had to stop every mile or so and let him walk and rest because his porky self is out of running shape. Granted it was almost 6 miles and I didn't want to injure PB but nevertheless, walking every mile for a a few hundred meters is rather pathetic for my noble boy. But walk we did as he put on his face of misery and acted like I was killing him. Kind of like this face when Dexie woke him up later that night:

I'm sure she has a leash for you, orange menace. Next time YOU run 6 miles.

After the run, I gave him a raw bone to gnaw on in the car, a big bowl of water and his huge squishy bed to lie in while I went to my meeting. When I returned, for the first time ever, I stood at the open window looking in on him and he was sound asleep despite all the foot traffic past the car. Finally! A solution to the barking! Poor PB was dead to the world and I promised him I would not make him run again.

Did you amputate your own feet Polar Bear?

We got home and he went out into the yard and immediately posed for the first picture on this post and that's where he remained for the rest of the day.

PB graduates tonight and we are excited. Or at least I am. PB was so stressed by the pest control/bed bug killer man that I had to break out his bandana and DAP spray for the first time in ages. PB was not impressed.

Go ahead. Invite him back.

I even had to put on his doggy suicide music because he was so wound up. Hopefully he will be calmer by this evening. As you can see, Stabitha has become accustomed to strangers in the house due to people looking at the house to buy so she is completely unfazed. Poor PB. It's been a tough week for him but he will no doubt recover when the treats come out tonight. Assuming I don't put on my running shoes before we go...

The Monthly Roundup

This whole inconvenient employment thing is seriously curtailing my blog writing time! So I am reduced to a monthly summary right now.

First off, the Polar Bear has one more Reactive Rover class to go before graduation which is next Wednesday. I am so very proud of him. He has done remarkably well in class, is always the demo dog and seems to have come to really look forward to his time there. (This *may* be related to the hot dogs, cheese, liverwurst and other tasty delicacies...) His reaction to the other dogs has been pretty muted and we have had no Tasmanian episodes. In fact, he has been so well behaved that I constantly fight the urge to tell everyone, "He is reactive! I swear it....Just not here for some reason!" Actually, I suspect it's due to the three men in class. His fear of them trumps his reaction to the other dogs but regardless, it's been very useful for us in terms of desensitizing him to the dogs AND the men.

The name search continues - I was toying with Drift for awhile but PB's foster mom pointed out that it has negative connotations and she's right. I was thinking of it in terms of him always looking like a misplaced snow drift in my back yard but I don't want him to come across as aimless and some kind of "Beat Poet" dog! I have also been toying with Quasar and Quest but they haven't really taken my fancy.

A week ago I had PB out at my local Starbucks while someone looked at my house. We sat out on the patio and I clicked and treated for all the people who walked up to the door. He was of course, immensely popular and I spent the whole time telling people, kids and people with other dogs that he is in training and to please keep their distance or allow us to move away. Well over 80% of those people told me he looked exactly like a Polar Bear...if only I could find a name that reflects that. Polar Bear does not roll off the tongue for obedience purposes and I have looked up Polar Bear in a million different languages and none are very elegant for calling a dog. So the search continues...and suggestions are always taken!

On a different front, I have been absorbed with reading and studying up on good eating habits. In an attempt to eat a much broader spectrum of fruits and veggies, including those that I find repulsive (celery), I read two books recommended by my hiking friend Kristin. They are:




This has made me a devotee of juicing which I faithfully do every morning. I have added fruits and veggies to my diet that I can hardly even pronounce let alone recognize in the grocery store. In one fell swoop, my intake of fruits and veggies (always organic if you do this) skyrocketed across the board. In combination with the green smoothies recommended in this book:






I have felt immeasurably better. It took about 6 weeks for me to notice a really obvious difference in my health. I have no trouble waking up for work now as I once did and require only 6 or 7 hours of sleep to feel fully rested. I have a lot more energy and most of all I actually crave more of this stuff. One of the inevitable downsides to my job is the well known fact that at 2 in the morning on our schedule when you never know what's going to happen and sitting down for a meal is not always possible, you eat a lot of junk food. I have never been a big junk food eater but I have definitely been worse as my tenure at work has gotten longer. Now, I have no desire for carbs, never eat cereal and even sugar turns me off. For me that is the ultimate proof that I am not suffering from the placebo syndrome! If my sweet tooth is so ineffectual that I can turn down the chocolate, there is something to this fruits and veggies thing.

I would highly recommend reading these two books. You don't have to be crazed and obsessive about it - in fact chances are you won't follow through if you are obsessive. I've missed a couple days because call outs at work have intruded and there simply wasn't time to make anything but it takes only a few minutes a day, a little planning ahead for all the fruits and veggies but the pleasure you'll get from seeing how many of those good foods you go through in a day will alone, make you feel healthier. Finally, I also read the following book which was recommended by Shreve Stockton on her blog, thedailycoyote:



This isn't a book dedicated to a certain facet of eating like the preceding two books which come with recipes and lots of info' on nutrition content etc. This is a fascinating book, written by a journalist who did some excellent research and came up with an incredibly common sense approach to all the scientific words and phrases thrown around in the press regarding what to eat. In his words: "Eat Food; Not too much; mostly plants". The rest of the book explains what that means exactly but it's simple, easy to follow and, like the other two books, contains no weird fads or suggestions - it's pretty easy folks: eat fruits and veggies, real food made from scratch that avoids chemicals and preservatives and figure out different ways to make those same basic foods that people have been eating for thousands of years palatable. The first two books are great for taking the foods recommended in In Defense of Food and giving you tasty options for consuming things you might have a hard time getting into your diet. Just try it - the difference will be remarkable.

Now, a little humor to counteract my food soapbox. This has been a *terrible* year for spiders around here. I can handle snakes, rats, other bugs etc. Anything but those creepy 8 legged monsters. I have so many residing in my basement right now, you would think that I have a certified breeding program. Despite setting off foggers, sleeping with a can of Raid and keeping the basement spotless so I can see the buggers coming, they have invaded in waves this year. This reminded me of a humorous little clip we at work, who are easily amused, find immensely entertaining. I'd like to point out to my Canadian friends reading this, that it was our friends to the north who came up with this one!