Funny about Money

Jestjack’s comment on last Saturday’s post, about the vet who opined that the wide-ranging pisser of a cat had “anger issues” (heeee!), reminded me of Anna the German Shepherd, a dog for whom “trainability” was an alien term.

Actually, Anna was highly trainable. But she was a working dog with a capital W and a capital D, and she had so much drive that she really needed a full-time doggy job to run off her bottomless reserves of energy. This was an animal that needed to herd sheep. Or cattle. Or camels. She was so strong that for many months I faced quite the challenge keeping her under control.

A woman who trained search dogs and drug dogs for the police had been the most successful of a largely unsuccessful lot of dog-and-human trainers. By the time Anna was about 18 months old, she was marginally leash-trained, despite daily efforts on my part. This police dog trainer favored a vicious pinch collar, something that just made me cringe…but I couldn’t afford to have the dog drag me into the traffic, or to have to let her go as she charged in front of an oncoming vehicle. Since she craved to bring cars and trucks down by their oil-pans, suicide by car was a likely end for Anna. The pinch collar at least put a damper on that activity. To a degree. A low degree.

One day I mentioned this to Jerry Jenkins, a now-retired veterinarian who over the years had become a friend. He said he knew a “dog behavioralist” that maybe I should try. Silently thinking “holeee mackerel, what next?” I took the guy’s phone number. In a moment of desperation, after having been dragged around the neighborhood again, I called him.

Now, you should bear in mind that another friend of mine, at the time, was a lady who claimed to believe in astrology and who was in the act of hanging out her shingle as a pet astrologist and mind-reader. No. Yes. She was serious. I think. Who can tell?

At any rate, you can imagine the eye-rolling over the “dog behavioralist.”

So I call the guy up, and it turns out that under the silly psycho-babble veneer, what he really does is teach owners (not dogs) how to behave. Abhorred by the stainless-steel pinch collar, the first thing he did was demonstrate how to get Anna to heel using nothing more than a leather leash and her ordinary everyday rolled leather collar. It wasn’t very difficult. The trick was, you had to do it several times a day. Didn’t matter whether you did it in the house, did it in the backyard, did it on a sidewalk, or did it in the park. You just had to do it for a short period, over and over, every day.

Here’s how to do it:

Get a rolled leather collar (it’s better for long-haired dogs and it will work better for your purposes). Get a sturdy leather leash (not nylon). Place the collar on the dog and hook the leash to the collar. Have the dog sit next to you. Step forward with the dog at your left side. Each time the dog surges ahead of your knees, say “HUP!” and give the leash a sharp jerk. Always precede the jerk with the “HUP!” sound. Never jerk the leash and then say “HUP.” Walk steadily and confidently forward. Never let the dog get past your knees without going “HUP” and giving it a jerk.

This won’t hurt the dog, but it will get its attention. Reward the dog with friendly noises for heeling correctly over brief periods. You may heel and sit, heel and sit, heel and sit if that’s necessary to underscore the idea that the human walks the dog, not the other way around. Do not fail to do this for a few minutes at least three times a day — five or ten minutes per session will suffice.

After awhile, the dog will start to expect a jerk whenever you say “HUP!” You can then use the word “HUP” to mean, approximately, “heel.”

It works.

The other day Cassie flew into the air, chasing Ball up the driveway, and came down wrong on a hind leg. She yelped once, licked her foot, and then went on about her frenetic business.

She seemed OK. Maybe a little sore but not enough to slow her down. She’s still racing around like a rocket, lobbying for doggy walks, and throwing stuffed teddy bears, stuffed vultures, stuffed Angry Birds, and tennis balls at the human in an unceasing campaign to get all of the above airborne.

And yet…and  yet, she’s been off her game a bit. Instead of harrying the human every waking moment, she’s taken to moping in the back room or the office. Her enthusiasm for trotting outdoors at the drop of every hat is limited.

A close inspection of the offended foot reveals a worrisomely lopping toe.

Notice how that toe on the inner side of the foot on the left looks deformed? The corresponding toe on the other foot looks straight and smooth, and it lies tight against the foot. The bent toe is loose and stands away from the other toes.

Looked this up on the Internet and came away abhorred: vet bills running into the thousands of dollars; dogs wrapped up in casts under which any number of infections and mildew grew; dogs who ended up having to have infected legs amputated; dogs developing gangrene under too-tight wrappings; dogs ripping their own foot off trying to remove the damn cast; dog owners reporting that casting the leg in such injuries appears to be a scam whose main purpose is to milk the owner’s bank accounts; dog owners reporting that some vets say to just leave the dog alone and let nature take its course; dog owners hacking off casts themselves, to find the dog was just fine without it and healed up with no problem when left alone…. Oh, shit.

Well, by this morning she didn’t seem great. So I took her to a vet M’hijito found by way of his father’s current wife. This lady practices in a part of town called “Little Mexico,” where most of the shopping consists of Dollar Stores and Goodwill outlets. Which is to say, she doesn’t cater to a clientele with deep pockets. The vet I’ve been using, referred to me by La Maya (who has an actual income and a partner with an actual income), is what we might call a thousand-dollar-a-day vet. She’s close, and that’s nice. But she knows how much dog lovers living in the $400,000 to $1.5 million houses that populate North Central can be persuaded to pay.

Vet looked at the dog’s foot and opined that it was either broken or dislocated. In either event, the best course of action was to leave it alone. She said she would try to pull it back into place if she were sure it was dislocated, but without an X-ray, she didn’t want to do that — because it could, after all, be broken. She thinks the best thing to do is let nature take its course. Gave me an anti-inflammatory, handed me a $58 bill, and said good-bye.

In six days, I can afford to have the dog X-rayed (can’t just now, unfortunately: am at the end of the budget cycle and all is pretty much spent). I may call again then and ask if they’ll X-ray her, just to see what the story is.

Maybe not, too. The vet said the dog will recover. Maybe less really is more.

You know, consumers have to be careful with veterinarians. It’s no less true that you should get a second opinion when a vet recommends some pricey procedure than that you should when a dentist does the same. Yesterday I talked to a young fellow who came by to provide an estimate for pruning a hugely overgrown carob tree in M’hijito’s front yard. By way of chatting, we found we each had wounded small dogs. His family’s lab had landed on their chihuahua during a frolic. Whacked the little dog’s leg.

Wife took the lap-dog to the vet, where several hundred dollars’ worth of X-rays ensued. She was informed that the dog needed $1700 worth of surgery “to round off” a hip bone, and that was just for starters. When he recited this story, I said, “Look. Really: get a second opinion. I had a German shepherd that a vet said needed dual hip replacements, to the tune of thousands of dollars. I took her to another vet for a second opinion, and he said the X-rays the first outfit had done were not good enough to diagnose anything about the dog’s hips, and that the dog most certainly did not need surgery.”

This tale got his attention. He said he would do that before giving the go-ahead for this elaborate procedure.

Most vets are good people who do not want to cheat you or inflict unnecessary treatments and pain on animals by way of fleecing their owners. However, there’s no question that some of them are in it for the money. In general, U.S. and British pets are over-vaccinated, over-examined, and over-treated.

Caveat dog owner…