Pets

Well, I finally managed to get Charley’s attention this morning. How? By flying into a stratospheric rage and yelling at him for about 30 minutes, that’s how.

He now seems to understand “NO!” “STAY GODDAMMIT!!!” “OFF!” “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!” and “STAY AWAY FROM THAT THING!!!!!!!!!”

The “NO!” part has been a long time coming.

During the week he’s resided at my house, he has pretty well dismantled a $5,000 irrigation system. This morning I caught him contentedly chewing on the fourth dripper sprinkler of the week (you can get little sprayers to attach to dripper hoses, which work a lot more efficiently than the stupid drippers that have to run 8 or 10 hours to put enough water on a plant to keep it alive in 110-degree heat). He loves those things. He chews them off the dripper hose and then carries them to a comfortable spot where he can lay down and chew them into plastic confetti, presumably swallowing a fair number of chunks of plastic in the process.

Did I mention the vet bills for his chronic digestive upset? Did I happen to talk about the extravagantly expensive special food and the future of having to prepare 14 pounds of dog food a week in the kitchen of whichever house he ends up occupying, now and forevermore?

Oh. No…I see I didn’t.

The dog has had intermittent diarrhea since M’hijito got him from the breeder. He’s been tested for parasites and infections repeatedly, always negative. Just before M’hijito left on vacation, the vet put him on one of the blindingly expensive Hill’s P/D canned diets and handed M’hijito an expensive prescription and an expensive bottle of probiotics and then told him to feed the dog chicken and rice after the P/D runs out. Permanently.

So on the morning appointed for him to leave for San Diego, my son showed up with the dog, the dog’s mattress, a crate of staggeringly expensive canned dog food, instructions to feed a full can each morning and another full can each evening, a lifetime supply of Costco chicken thighs, and a sack of bulk rice from Sprouts that needed a camel to carry it into the house. He handed me a hundred-dollar bill with which to purchase more lifetime supplies of meat while he’s gone.

So most of the week I’ve been cooking dog food, which Charley consumes at an incredible rate. He’s getting better (although if he actually has IBS, the least drastic of the possibilities, my yelling at him for half an hour or 45 minutes will give him a relapse), and I think he may have regained some of the 4 pounds (that’s 6% of his body weight!) he lost during the last episode.

Meanwhile he’s chewed up at least four sprayers and drippers and snipped off lengths of hose at the ground, making it damn near impossible to repair the damage.

Several of these things, I can NOT find. They were installed before the plants grew up, so they’re hidden underneath shrubbery, where Charley can insinuate himself but I can’t even see. To aggravate things, the water pressure in his favorite part of the system is weak to begin with, so when I turn the system on, I can’t spot any geysers that would tell me where the broken parts are. Underneath there, the break that’s closest to the main is dribbling away, and everything downstream from that is dry as a bone.

This means I won’t find the broken parts until my (established! years old!!!!) plants goddamn DIE.

After I yelled until my throat hurt this morning, I went out and fought with the system for an hour—at 5:30 in the morning it was at least relatively cool out there. Yesterday while I was running around the city I bought a dozen new sprinkler gadgets and so was able to replace the ones in the potted plants (sort of…he’d shortened the dripper hoses enough that I couldn’t position them where they’d get all the pots) and dig a dripper that was watering a spot where a cape honeysuckle had been removed and seal it off and bury the dripper hose (which Gerardo’s ignorant sidekick will soon dig up again…he pulls that stuff up from the crushed granite and then just leaves it sitting there, the idiot).

The drippers are as nothing compared to the late-model kitchen cabinetry, into which Charley has dug great gouges in spite of having been told OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF to the point of blueness in the face. Yes, he does know what off means. He knows what no means. He knows what stay means. He will do those things when it suits him. Problem is, it rarely suits him.

And when it doesn’t suit him, he simply ignores the human in question.

Anyway, one of the cabinet doors now needs to be replaced. God only knows what THAT will cost. Those are custom cabinets that Satan and Proserpine ordered from Home Depot.

Interestingly, after this period of throat-scorching nuclear eruption, the dog responded to NO! by leaving it, by stopping, by not proceeding with whatever he was focused on doing. He responded to OFF! by sitting quietly with a contrite and respectful look on his doggy face. He responded to STAY! by actually staying long enough for me to dodge out the door. And he responded to STAY AWAY FROM THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! and to MINE, GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!!! by standing down from his contemplated exploit.

Temporarily.

I should be ashamed for yelling at a helpless dog. But I’m not. And he’s not.

Prince Charles recently discovered that he’s now tall enough to surf counters. Not only can he reach the top of a counter easily, with little effort he can grab things that are set way back from the edge. He also noticed desirable things often reside atop the dinner table.

This is what the Human calls “not a good development.” We might even say I hate that!

Loud exclamations of No! Bad dawg!! QUIT THAT!!! only add to the fun. A squirt in the face with cold water gets the dog’s attention…very, very briefly. Food trumps face-squirt, any day.

Luckily, the Human is not without resources. From deep in an old, dusty drawer came a tool I once used to get Anna the German Shepherd to stay off her favorite perch, a white sofa. It’s called a ScatMat, and it’s a strip of plastic-encased wiring that emits a mild shock—feels like that jolt of static electricity you get when you touch a doorknob after schlepping around on wool rugs. Here’s one available at Amazon: it’s longer than the ones I have, and I know I didn’t pay $60 for it, and so if you’re interested, you may want to check your local pet store or, if Skimlinks puts up a live link to that first mention, see if you can get one cheaper there. They come in different sizes and shapes—you can get them in rectangular shapes, for example, that might be used to guard an entire chair or block the dog from a floor or entry to a room.

These ScatMat things are awesome. They really work, and they don’t hurt the dog. No whapping with newspapers, no hollering, and best of all, no sandwiches or donuts carried off between canine jaws. They’re most effective when you catch the dog in the act and emit a firm “NO!” just as he’s raring up to explore the countertop. But because the mat is always on, it will deal out a reminder even when you’re not in the room.

Another device that I’ve used with mixed results is a shrill motion-sensitive alarm that squeals when the dog (or cat, or anything) touches the sacred piece of furniture. For the Ger-shep, I bought both the Scraminal and the Tattle Tale. They’re OK, I guess: they  make an annoying noise that’s probably more aversive for the human than it is for the dog, and I found they weren’t as effective at short-circuiting the counter-surfing and furniture-jumping as an electrified strip. To make these things work, you need to have already conveyed to the dog that jumping up on the furniture or counters is unacceptable. Otherwise, the animal doesn’t perceive the noise as a signal to quit doing that.

 * * *

Holy God! Somebody just tried to open the front door and Charley went BATSHIT CRAZY!

Hey, pal. You’re a freaking golden retriever,  not a pit bull.

He started the alarm and then Cassie went off, too. As I went trotting into the living room, I could hear someone messing with the outside security door…and OMG, the inside door was unlocked!

Flipped the deadbolt shut, grabbed the shilelagh that resides next to the door, and ran for the phone. By the time the 911 operator answered, they’d wandered into view of the front window: a couple of middle-aged women, neither of whom looked very bright.

Probably religious nuts or political canvassers, though they didn’t leave any propaganda at the door. Usually the fruitcakes will leave a Watchtower or some similar litter on your doorstep, and political shills will drop brochures or fliers.

Annoying. And stupid! To get to the security door, they have to go through an iron gate and enter a courtyard, which pretty obviously says “private property.” They probably were trying to open the screen door to knock on the interior door, since the two (!) doorbells (one outside the gate and one next to the front door) are often overlooked by the dim of eyesight or brainpower.

Well. Good dog! It’s amazing that he’ll do that at this young age. And reassuring: Cassie yaps—when she gets up a head of steam, she sounds like an enraged poodle. But when Charley barks, he sounds like something that means business. Honestly, when he gets mature enough to stay at M’hijito’s house all day, I may go out and get another one of that breeder’s dogs. Especially if she ever wants to get rid of one that’s grown and trained.

In the past, I’ve written about cooking up real food in the kitchen for Cassie the Corgi. Making your own dog food is really very easy, especially for a small dog, and there’s no question in my mind that it’s better for the dog than kibble, which is made from some very suspect products.

The idea of making dog food came to my house during the late, great melamine scare, when unknown numbers of American dogs (possibly thousands) were poisoned by tainted ingredients from China used by almost every major American pet food manufacturer. At the time I had an aged German shepherd and a greyhound. With almost every brand tainted or suspect, about the only thing I could see to do was research what dogs need to sustain them and fix my pets’ food myself.

Well, the Ger-shep was very decrepit, indeed, by this time in her life. She could barely haul herself to her feet and hobble around the house; I didn’t think she had many more months left in her.

To my amazement, shortly after I started feeding her a mix of real food—meat, veggies, and starch—she began to pep up. After a couple of weeks on this regimen, one day she was able to chase her neglected ball around the back yard. It was as though she had bought back two or three years of doggy  life.

Well, cooking dog food for a big animal, let alone for two of them, isn’t very practical. However, for a smaller one, it’s very easy and doesn’t cost any more than premium commercial food.

Dogs, having evolved with humans for the past 16,000 years, thrive on approximately the same foods that we thrive on, with a few exceptions.

• They need a slightly higher proportion of meat to vegetables and grains: about 1/2 meat, 1/4 vegetables, and 1/4 starch
• They can profit from cruciform veggies such as broccoli and cauliflower
• Other root vegetables are good for them
• Dogs are not nuts about leafy vegetables, although a little spinach now and then is OK
• Some berries such as blueberries are well tolerated
• Whole grains like oatmeal are healthy and provide roughage
• Brown or converted rice is pretty good for them; potato is also good
• Most dogs love sweet potatoes (yams)
• This stuff should be cooked, not fed raw. It is not true that dogs are magically immune to pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli that live in raw meats.

Certain foods must be avoided, because they’re toxic to dogs. These include

→ Onions: DO NOT FEED!
→ Garlic: DO NOT FEED!
→ Chocolate: POISONOUS TO DOGS; DO NOT FEED!
→ Grapes and raisins: DO NOT FEED!
→ Bones, raw or cooked: DO NOT FEED!
→ Corn: Indigestible and allergenic: AVOID!
→ Fish: One of the most common allergens for dogs: USE SPARINGLY OR AVOID

With those facts in mind, just about anything else goes.

I usually look for the most inexpensive meat available—right now, chicken thighs are cheap, and it’s easy to remove the bones from thighs. Pork also often comes on sale. If beef prices ever come down (right now beef is too high even for me to eat, much less to feed to the dog!), some stores put certain roasts on sale, and you can have the butcher grind the meat into hamburger. This, BTW, is much tastier than the pricier burger that comes preground in packages. Ethnic markets are good places to seek out low-price but wholesome meats suitable for your dog.

Oatmeal, converted rice, and brown rice can be had very cheaply in bulk. Look in markets like Sprouts or ethnic stores that sell bulk products.

A mix of frozen veggies that contains no corn or onion is perfect for dogs. Costco markets such a blend in large bags as “Normandy Style” vegetables. In the wild, a dog would get vegetable matter from the gut of its prey, partially digested. Thus cooking vegetables lightly and then chopping them fine approximates the form in which this food should be most digestible for a predator that is not an obligatory carnivore (as is the case with dogs). Microwave the frozen veggies until they’re just barely cooked through—they should not be soggy. Then run them through a blender or food processor to chop finely.

Sometimes I combine these ingredients as we go, creating a fresh meal for Cassie each time she eats. However, the other day I decided to fix an entire pot  of ready-made dog food, containing all the ingredients in one product. It turned out surprisingly well—tastes like thick chicken stew and contains everything the dog needs.

Here’s how it went together:

1 large package of chicken thighs, preferably boned (about 5 pounds)
1 yam, cut in chunks
1 cup converted rice
2 or 3 cups mixed frozen vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots

Place the chicken in a large pot. Add the yam and rice. Cover with water, bring to a boil, and then immediately turn the heat down to a slow simmer. Cook until the yam is soft and the chicken is cooked through. Remove and discard bones.

Meanwhile, microwave the veggies until just slightly cooked and then chop them finely in a food processor or blender.

When the chicken, yam, and rice mixture is cooked (the rice will swell up and absorb most of the water), turn off the heat and mix in the chopped vegetables. If you used bone-in chicken thighs, remove and discard the cooked bones. Allow to cool before feeding to the dog, obviously.

Batches of home-made dog food can be stored in plastic containers or baggies and kept in the freezer for future use. The potful shown above will feed my 25-pound pooch for at least a couple of weeks, and probably more like three weeks.

The amount to feed depends on your dog, its age, its size, and its level of activity. Some sources advise feeding about 2.5% to 3% of the desired body weight. Determine what a normal weight for your dog should be (ask your vet). Then weigh the animal regularly to be sure it stays on that target. I feed the corgi about 6 ounces twice a day (morning and evening), or a little less than a pound a day. She’s neither sedentary nor overly active; her weight stays stable at 25 pounds.

The beauty of cooking your own dog food is that you know what’s in it and you know how it was prepared. If you feel any concern that your concoction may not supply all the animal’s needs, simply drop a dog vitamin pill in a bowl of food each day. Use veterinary vitamins, which are better proportioned for a dog’s needs than supplements made for humans. I rarely add them and have found the dogs thrive on real food with no added, expensive vitamins.

Cassie, late the beaten-down 25-pound victim of the gallumphing Charley the Golden Retriever Puppy, has come into her own. All of a sudden one day it dawned on her that even though he weighs three times more than she does, she’s bigger than him.

The astonishing thing is, he thinks so, too. She actually chases him around the yard, around and around the trees and back and forth in a great steeplechase. Haven’t managed any good photos of these antics, because they’re very fast and digital cameras are very slow. Cassie moves like a rocket; the only reason Charley can outrun her is that one of his strides equals about eight of hers. And, I think, she lets him outrun her—that’s part of the game. In any event, attempts to photograph them end in brown and white blurs.

Cassie cultivates an absolutely terrifying wolf-like growl. Addressed to a human, it would make you or me climb up the nearest tree. Charley thinks it’s hilarious. He rears back on his hind legs, assumes a goofy grin, and waves his front paws at her. This causes her to charge him, growling, roaring, and snapping. She never makes contact—clearly she has no intention of biting. But you couldn’t prove that by me.

In addition to the dawn steeplechase, we have the daily Bully-Stick Competition. Dried bull dongs are to dogs as diamonds and rubies are to humans. Except humans don’t eat diamonds and rubies. This morning I realized Charley is deliberately baiting Cassie with these things.

Usually I give each dog a bully stick (gotta be fair around here). Instead of one dog going off in one corner and the other to another corner to chew, Cassie drops hers on the floor and charges Charley, growling and barking. She takes his away from him. He walks over and grabs the other one. She drops her prize and goes after him again. He jumps up in the air and waves his paws around. And so it goes, loudly and boisterously, for 15 or 20 minutes. Often Cassie loses interest in the object and comes into my office to sleep under the desk. Charley then ends up with both of them.

Yesterday when he was here he left one of these pricey toys—which cost about as much as diamonds and rubies—in the back yard. So when he went out on the porch for his morning policing of the property (he has to be sure everything is still in its place), I handed it to him. Cassie was in the kitchen glaring out at him. He picked it up and threw it at her. Well of course she emitted a lupine roar and charged out the door like a wild beast in a Roman arena. A huge “fight” ensued, with much bouncing, barking, growling, and lunging. Ridiculous!

Sometimes these encounters end with Charley standing four-footed in front of her and emitting a long series of monotonous barks: warf! warf! warf! warf! warf! warf!… “SHUT UP, DOG!”

Apparently in Dogese “warf!” means “mine!” Or maybe “give it back!”

At any rate, from the Human’s perspective, it’s a relief to see that she now can hold her own with him. Clearly he’s not going to hurt her. And it’s interesting to consider how long it’s taken for them to come to this accommodation. Maybe it’s because he was such a young puppy at first…possibly female dogs have some instinct that prevents them from beating up on little pups. Or possibly a pup has to achieve some maturity before it learns how pack hierarchy works. Whatever, now that he’s about seven months old, she has unmistakably established her primacy.