The Little Pack

For the next week or so I am sharing a favorite memory with each one of the animals. Tonight is Baby Titten’s turn and although “favorite” may not be the best adjective to describe this story, it is certainly one of our most memorable experiences, and one of the most telling of her kittenhood.

In the past, I may have mentioned the terror that was Baby Titten as a kitten. I called her a variety of names, the nice ones (if you get my drift) being Hell on Paws and Ninja Kitty. She was terrible. For example, she loved playing the under the covers game: specifically speaking, a game she made up where she would attack whatever moved under a blanket… Sounds innocent enough until you realize that what was moving was us… in our sleep… AND she had all her claws.

So we’ve demonstrated that she was a handful. She was extremely curious about her environment. And her way to learn was to interact with her environment, however violently that may be. At the time, we lived in a 3-story townhouse where the living area was open to the floors above it. There was a loft above part of the living area, and in the open area, 2 stories of floor-to-ceiling windows. One day she decided to “explore”. She climbed through the railing of the loft onto a beam and before we could stop her, leapt into the windowsill of the 2nd story window. The windowsill was only about an inch or so wide and she was trapped up there. She didn’t have enough room to turn around, and she panicked. Before my husband and I could get to her, she took matters into her own hands and jumped from the window, one story below into the living room. She was still very small and although she did land on all fours, she landed hard. Inevitably, she began limping badly so we took her to the vet. They took X-rays and we were relieved to find out that she hadn’t broken her leg. However, they determined that she had most likely broken all of the toes in her left back foot. She was still small and growing and all we could do is let them heal. Classic Baby Titten.

This week I am taking a look back some of the most memorable and hilarious stories with each of the animals. Tonight is Cheyenne’s turn and I find myself curious as to why all of our Cheyenne memories end in the word “incident”.

One day I came home thinking today was like any other day. Ha. I should have known better. I came across a cough drop—regular flavor and trust me, this becomes important—on the floor and assumed (incorrectly, of course) that Archie had found one somewhere and been playing little games with it all day. I walked a little further and found a second cough drop, again, regular flavored. Odd, I thought. But I still chalked it up to Archie. And then. I walked past the couch into the living area, and could not believe my eyes. I stood there staring for…ever… trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Tiny pieces of cherry cough drops everywhere. Partially eaten, sticky. Stuck in the carpet, and on the couch. Empty wrappers strewn about in piles. I followed the pieces of cough drops down the hallway and into the bedroom where I now found pieces of cough drops stuck to the bed, on the bedroom floor and in my dirty laundry.

I began gathering the items that would need to be washed into a pile, where I found a treasure trove of cough drops in a little pile underneath some clothes as though she was saving them for later. I picked up the pile of cough drops and Cheyenne, who up until now has been following my every move, steals several out of my hand and takes off running. So now I am chasing her, yelling at her to drop them and still in absolute disbelief and more than a little overwhelmed at the destruction in my house. Once we are back in the living room, I see the empty bag of cherry cough drops. It has been chewed open and I wonder how I missed this in the first walk through. My husband calls and I inform him what his dog did today.

I call the vet, who I just had to call the day before, because she ate half a bottle of Pyoben gel (don’t ask). I am, by the way, on a first name with all the vets at the practice. He laughs as I explain what happened, and I tell him the # of cough drops in the bag, and the amount of menthol in each cough drop. He tells me that although menthol can be lethal to dogs, she is in no danger for her body weight and the dosage she has consumed.

I realize that both a half eaten bag of regular flavored cough drops (found in tact with about the same amount of drops in it as before) and an entire, unopened, bag of cherry cough drops had been left on the dining table. Clearly, she sampled both and preferred the cherry to the regular. At the time, I blame Archie for knocking the bags off the table and assumed Cheyenne took over from there. This is, however, before we learned that she knew how to climb on top of the table. My husband comes home and we laugh and laugh, picturing the gleeful heyday she must have had when she found that bag of cough drops.  To this day, I can only imagine the play session that ensued when she realized the treasure was there, and I still laugh when I think about it.

One night while my husband was away on business, I got home late, let the dogs out and made dinner. Cheyenne stayed outside. I sat down on the couch after a long day. A thought crossed my mind to find Cheyenne but then I think, what’s the worst thing she could be doing? Digging to China? I decide to deal with it after I eat. Seriously, when will I learn not to tempt fate?

She comes back to the slider door on her own. Immediately, I assume my earlier fears were completely unfounded. I could not have been more wrong. I let her in, sit back on the couch and continue eating when I suddenly smell the worst smell in the world. I smell my food wondering if I somehow failed to notice it was rotten… it’s not the food.

Logically since Cheyenne is the only new element in the room, the smell must be coming from her. I smell Cheyenne but it doesn’t seem to be coming from her. I sniff the couch; it’s not the couch. I get up and look for a pile of dog poop, wondering if Jackson just had a bizarre case of explosive diarrhea. I see nothing. I make Cheyenne go outside to limit the number of variables. The smell is still around so I make Jackson lay down, and inspect him everywhere, if you get my drift, and although I see no evidence of this mythical diarrhea, I literally sniff his butt, ruling out gas and diarrhea in one fell swoop. I have set his neuroses into overdrive, and he hides submissively in the corner.

Now IO sniffs the exact spot Cheyenne laid in, and the smell, although still present, has dissipated ever so slightly. Cheyenne waits at the slider, and when I let her back in, the smell almost knocks me over. It is 9 o’clock at night and there is no way in hell that she can stay in this condition for any length of time. This is the worst smell ever. Since I see no evidence of poop on her body, and because no horses or cows randomly roam through in our yard, I deduce that a dead animal of some sort is probably the source of this aroma.

Solutions start racing through my head. I realize I have one option only—the coin-operated dog wash down the street. I begin to literally pray (amazing how religious I become in times of need) that it is still open.

I herd her out the door, round up IO and Jack, find a towel and grab my purse. I load up the big dogs and realize I need to take off her electric collar, which I do and it is sticky and worse, now my hand smells like her head!!! Sick. I seriously want to go inside and wash my hands but I cannot leave her to rub her body all over the inside of my car. Besides, I reason that since I have to touch her to wash her I may as well just suck it up. Against all my better instincts, I leave the sticky smell on my hand.

Inside the car, I open the sunroof all the way and roll the windows down as far as I can without worrying about anyone jumping out (seriously the smell is that bad) and even though the windows are open and we are going 55 mph I can still smell it. We arrive at the car wash and God grants my prayers. The dog wash is still open.

Up until this point Cheyenne has been very excited about her little adventure. But she now knows where we are and she is not happy. She despises being wet. This must be the Basenji in her.

I coax her out of the car and into the dog wash. She refuses to walk up the ramp so I, ewwww, have to pick her up. I hook her to the safety chain and attempt to put my money in the bill collector.  It accepts coins only, and wouldn’t you know, I only have cash. Are you F-ing kidding me?? Desperately, I look around. I locate a bill changer—outside. Meanwhile Cheyenne desperately tries to escape by jumping over the edge of the trough. If I leave her alone she will hang herself. So, she will have to come with me. I unhook her, re-leash her, and yes, obtain $20 worth of quarters, exactly what I wanted. I take her back inside.

The second time around, she knows for sure she wants nothing to do with this process. She is even more unruly than before and fights me every step of the way. An enormous spider crawls up and down the wall. Normally this terrifies me, but, for once, it is the least of my worries. As I scrub her, I really try not to think about why her fur is sticky. She has the most forlorn expression so I remind her these are the consequences of her actions. When we leave, I can see she’s devastated by the loss of her hard-earned “perfume”.

On the way home Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” comes on the radio and I blare it, just laughing my head off and singing along. As strange as it sounds I thank whatever it is that I thank for this spirited dog. I feel a peculiar, yet deep sense of joy. When I close my eyes that night, I fall asleep right away in a contently tired way.

The next morning I am smart enough to keep her on the leash and she leads me straight to her treasure, a rodent of some sort with half of its hair licked off its body.

I thought that I knew everything about having a dog, that there was no dog I couldn’t train, nothing I couldn’t conquer. I trusted my instincts would see me through. Indeed, a lot of my identity was tied up in being great with dogs. Truth be told, I fancied myself a Dog Whisperer. And then, along came Cheyenne. Two and a half years later, Cheyenne’s only 2 “tricks” are “Sit” and “High Five”. “High Five” occurs without fail, because there is a treat. “Sit” occurs 98% of the time, and of the successful attempts, most of those occur with additional prompting, such as “What do you need to do?” and/or gentle tapping on her flank. Often “Sit” is successful because there is something that she wants involved, such as treat, her dinner, or to go outside. Other inconvenient commands such as “lay” and “come” have about a 50% success rate. It is not that she doesn’t know what they mean. She just absolutely cannot figure out why she should lay down when she is doing something else, like, say, pawing at my face, or chasing the kitty, or sitting. The best part is that my 2 perfect angel dogs have learned by her example instead of the other way around and frequently ignore my increasingly frantic pleas to listen. I have learned the truth and that is that the serene pack leader I once imagined myself to be was all an illusion, fostered only by the sweetness of my other 2 dogs placating my fantasy.  In retrospect, I suppose I had it, and by it, I mean Cheyenne, coming to me.

Let me start by explaining that I understand, or more accurately thought I understood, dogs with issues. Jackson, my Border collie, was an emotional wreck when I adopted him. He was terrified of everything, most notably stairs and riding in the car. I worked tirelessly to get him over both fears. I learned what motivated him, I encouraged him, supported, pushed and comforted him. We sat in the car without it running, I treated his motion sickness and I was patient and encouraging, and he not only conquered these fears but worshipped me in the process. I let his adoration go to my head. Looking back, I was probably quite smug; I thought I knew it all. I expected Cheyenne to react the same way, grateful, hanging on to my every wish, existing only for me. I had no idea what was in store for me or the ways that my life would change. The thing is that somewhere in between the many, and I do mean many, eaten shoes, chewed up couches, shredded blankets, books, pens, holes in the backyard, chases through the neighborhood, small rodent kills, and rolling and eating decaying creatures and feces, this little brown spotted dog has run away with my heart.

Sometimes I am convinced that Cheyenne lives solely to torture me. Tonight was one such evening. She smashed the cat out of boredom, pawed at me obsessively and actively failed to listen to me. She seems to have worn herself out and is now curled up in the smallest ball, head on a pillow, feet and legs tangled together, snoozing away. I’m betting that when it is time to go bed, she will pretend she doesn’t hear me. She will then roll over when I walk up to her as if it is some sort of punishment to sprawl out on a pillow-topped king sized bed with her own afghan. She tries this almost daily. As if we would ever give her free range of the house all night long. I can only imagine the trouble she would get herself into. So I will have 2 options: 1. Put her on a leash, yes, inside the house, and literally walk her to the bedroom, or, 2. Pick her up and carry her. Oh, the games that Shoo Shys play.