Dogs on My Mind: Part 7

 Walking lots of dogs early in the morning is a little like speed dating:  you interact with each dog for a very short time for a very specific purpose.  That's where the analogy ends: in speed dating one is not intent on getting the subject to pee and poop as quickly as possible.  With dogs, at least with the dogs we know are house-trained, they have been inside for 12-15 hours and they REALLY NEED TO PEE!  Some get five feet outside the door and pee becomes a certainty.  (Poop takes a little longer.)

It's always a gamble when I arrive at 7:00 on Wednesday mornings to see who is still there and who has found their home. Stan, the frisky one-year-old I mentioned previously, has found that home, thankfully.  There are my old favorites, of course, like Shiloh, who I hope gets a home soon because he is such a love. Nora and Clover have been at the shelter for a few weeks and are doing well. And there's a new dog, Penny, a mix between a Pitbull and Catahoula, neither of which are on the small side of dogdom. 

Penny is beautiful and so gentle. She will take a cookie out of my hand like she is whispering to it, just a little tiny movement of her mouth. She walks on a leash perfectly and is spirited but responsive and respectful. If I had the space, I would take this dog home with me in a second.

Nora is another newish dog, a cross between some sort of husky and maybe a German Shepherd.  She's not too big and she is a great walker, plus she knows how to play fetch and is happy tossing the ball into the air and playing with it like a cat.

The SPCA has acquired a few other dogs and some are so endearing that I know they'll be gone in a week or two. I try not to fall in love each week, but like with speed dating, it's difficult to ignore the great qualities I see in some of these dogs. Not a Wednesday goes by that I don't drive away thinking "... maybe.  Maybe."

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All the good dogs: Part 6

 It's a guessing game as I get to the SPCA at 7:00 in the morning: which dogs will be there and which dogs will have magically vanished?  I want my best dogs to be there but at the same time I want them to be gone, to have been adopted in the seven days since I walked them.  So it's always a bittersweet morning.

There is a lovely young (one year old, a bouncy puppy) black lab and pit bull mix, named Stan. (Come on, you gotta love a dog named Stan.) On the early shift we try to walk the dogs who are house trained first, because they have been waiting for at least 12 hours (more like 15) to pee and poop.  Stan is jumpy when I squeeze my body through the door, holding a piece of a hot dog in my hand to distract him from trying to bolt out the door. Stan wants to get escape, definitely, but at this hour he just wants to pee.  We get out, he walks about ten feet and he pees. And pees.  And pees. Seriously, he pees for about 45 seconds, which is a lot of pee!  Stan calms down a bit. We go to one of the large yards where he can be off leash and he zooms around like a crazy animal (!) and then, whew!  He poops.  (I know, TMI)  And now he is totally just a dog. Not a dog with huge needs, just a dog. Stan doesn't fetch, he cares nothing about a ball being tossed. He just zooms.  And then he jumps on the structures and waits for me to come over and I pet him and his entire body just relaxes into the petting. That's really what he needs: love.

And don't we all? 

Then Stan and I go back to his cell.  He gets some sliced hot dogs that I bring from home, he still wants to escape from  his cell but he fetches the sliced hot dogs that I toss across his little habitat and I scoot out the door.

Next is Shiloh, an older pit bull mix, the one that looks like a piggy bank, white with big black spots. Shiloh has been there for a while, like five months. It's difficult to figure out why he hasn't been "chosen" because he's so cool, so calm, such a lovely older dog. He also goes out, walks  20 feet and then pees a lot. Shiloh is so happy just walking around, so happy to be out of his cell. An easy walk, a romp in the play yard, back into his cell.

And so it goes. Some new dogs, a couple of huskies that are actually lovely, not as hyper as huskies can be. A small, older chihuahua mix that needs to get out to pee but you can feel the distain radiating off of her, like she knows she must do her business but she would rather 1) do it without someone watching her, 2) do it without being on a leash and 3) she would rather be anywhere but here. All she wants is to be on someone's couch, in a warm home and be loved all day. She cares nothing about me, and no offense is taken.

So many other dogs: I walked eight dogs on Wednesday in two hours..... and covered almost three miles doing so. It was a good morning.

A Coach for Everything in My Sad, Small Life

It's not that I want a coach for anything in my life but perhaps I am missing out on an opportunity to totally turn my life around! Like those ads you see on Instagram or on the back of cheap magazines that promise instant money, instant weight loss, instant success in everything, coaches now seem to be the answer to every prayer, all day, 24/7. Life coaches, pet coaches, dating coaches, baby coaches, kitchen-bathroom-patio coaches:  they are swarming around every single aspect of your life. These coaches can do anything you want: make you money, get you laid, train your dog or your kid, fix your marriage, teach you to cook, curb your addictions and help you find Jesus or Allah or Jehovah.  Or Satan, I suppose.

Not that this is a new phenomenon, but I didn't realize how prevalent this coaching thing is until a friend told me that a friend of his was using a "dating coach" to help write personal on-line ads on some platform like Bumble or Grumble or match.com. Seriously, if you are looking for a mate you should be able to write your own ad, unless you are looking for a fictionalized version of your life. If that's the case, it should be totally easy: "Hunky guy with black curly hair and blue eyes looking for a cute dolphin with sleek lines and a slim tail who loves swimming in the ocean under the moonlight and eating tiny fresh fish."  How difficult is that?  You need to pay someone good money to write up a lie? People are paying $250 a shot for a good ad.  Hell, I would do it for $25, a bargain! And I would guarantee results! I will go out and get those tiny fresh fish myself!  And feed them to you ! 

And a coach for your kid to get that kid to sleep through the night? Read a parenting book, let the kid cry a couple of nights and done!  Same with a kitchen coach: watch youtube and find everything you need for free!  I actually found a coach who will teach you, if you pay her, in two days, how to make and maintain a sourdough starter! Two days! For a loaf of bread! Holy cow.

I want a coach who will do exercises for me, clean my kitchen, finish the jigsaw puzzle that has been sitting on the table for a week, steal my knee pain and make it theirs, tell me the meaning of life and make me really good cocktails. I am willing to employ an intern for this purpose, an unpaid intern, and will give them a glowing line on their resume.

Just saying.  Man up. Do it yourself.  DIY, right?