"She" is Not Code for "Him"

Sam came with her name, which is a fine name, but not necessarily a name I'd give a pet. If I'd actually had the opportunity to name Sam, she would have been given a name generally reserved for pets, hillbillies or very old people, and it wouldn't have been anything like Sam or even Renee or Becky or Bobby Jo. On the other hand, it also wouldn't have been anything like Spot or Fluffy or Spike or Princess, either. The pets I've named include Jonesy (not named after the cat in "Alien", he was named after Indiana Jones - hey, I like Harrison Ford), Dakota, Sage (ok, ok, Kendra named Sage, but I had veto power), Puff (I was in 6th grade and he was white and fluffy, give me a break - I adored stuffed animals and thought Shaun Cassidy should grace more Tiger Beat covers back then, too ) and there was Sally, which breaks my rule, but I was 6, she was a guinnea pig and I gave her the second most beautiful name I knew at the time - the first being Ruthy and that belonged to my favorite doll (look, when you're limited to only reading Dick & Jane books on your own or the occasional Dr. Seuss, you'll find little Cindy Lou who's name hanging off your pet's ID tags, too). At least give me a few points for both Sir Gnawalot and Lady Nibblet, my regally named hamsters from 4th grade.

And really, the biggest beef I have with Sam's name is that most people tend to think she's male. At this point, Sam would like me to point out that she doesn't care, because she's not wrapped up in the pronoun game. She only cares about food and for that matter, she would add that she doesn't know the different between "he" or "she" when anyone is speaking, but she does know "Sam" and that sometimes follows with a little food and if food is involved, she doesn't care that you even call her "Sam" - whatever works for you as long as you hand it over, nice and slow - there's no need for anyone to get hurt.

Still, after seeing our fair share of specialists and their assistants and receptionists over the past few weeks, I find I say "she" every time they say "he" or I say "her" if they offer a "him" and there always seems to be a battle of wills until the conversation devolves into "she she she" versus "him him him" until one of us leaves with Sam in tow.

So, I want to clear up a little myth - not all dogs are male. I know, I know, it's hard to believe, but I have it on the best authority that sometimes dogs named "Maggie" are actually female. For that matter, not all cats are female. Get up and walk away from the screen if you need to take a break; I know I'm throwing a lot at you. You see, dogs and cats are mammals, not single cell organisms, so the whole asexual reproduction thing is completely out of the question for survival of the species. I think most puppy mills will back me up at this point (guys, step away from the racks of small cages and your AKC paperwork and help me out here). It's crazy, I know, but there are actually males and females of each species and sometimes these animals have gender neutral names like "Sam", which can be short for "Samantha" or "Samuel".

See, Sam came by her flat-ish tummy honestly. I promise, she didn't come up to us one day and say "mom, I think I'm a girl - can we consult a surgeon about making a change and load me up on some hormones?" Since Sam only knows "Sam", "sit", "outside", "bedtime" and "go to your room" she can't really manipulate those into a request for gender reassignment.

So, if you hear me challenge your "he" with a "she" when referring to my dog, just roll with it. I know she's got a goofy name for a girl, but it can be a girl's name, too. And even if I were batshit crazy and she was a male, just be nice to the crazy person and don't set me off - I might gum something you prize.

The Chronicles of Sam: Week Two - Milestones

I know you've been waiting around all week hoping for the latest Sam update and you're in luck. I know! How exciting! (We all know "shut up about the dog already" is actually just a thinly veiled plea for more beagle news. It's "code". I have it on the best authority. Mine.)

This week Sam lost the cone, lost her stitches and went for a walk on an underwater treadmill. Of course, for Sam the most important thing she got to do after cone (AC) was scratch every little bit of itchy face and ear that she could convince one beat up leg to scratch. This occasionally involved pitifully just waving the beat up leg past the spot, but it counted. See, her humans completely failed to properly address certain itches appropriately over the last couple of weeks and she grew a little frustrated because she hasn't quite figured out how to vocalize, "ok, just a little to the left, no there, there, OMG THERE! SHEESH you lame monkeys with your opposable thumbs think you're soooo smart and you can't even figure out LEFT" (she can really hurt a person's feelings when she puts her mind to it - like I would hold the whole opposable thing over her head or hover it over a door handle or a food container latch - I try to keep the opposable thumb thing eye level - I mean, she's short, to do otherwise would be cruel). The next thing she did - dig up all of her crate blankets (four of them), throw them over her head and sit there looking at me with the blanket at a rakish angle across her face. This is the "I have BLANKETS! How cute am I?" trick and let's face it, she looked terribly cute. It doesn't score food, which is always her fondest hope, but hey, it was worth a shot.

The report from the vet is that she's looking good - her knee is "crunchy" due some arthritis in her knees, but in this case "crunchy" isn't necessarily bad. Her rehab gal measured her and declared she has skinny back legs, but they're mostly the same size and while she's not at an ideal weight, she's not as out of control as one snarky surgical tech would have you believe. The rehab gal then walked us through strengthening Sam's legs using a balance board (we're now the proud owners of our very own) and ended the first rehab session by placing Sam on a smiley face bouncy ball and bouncing her. Let's just say watching Sam dangle her paws over a gigantic yellow smiley face with her eyes half closed and panting almost made me laugh. This particular "exercise" allowed Sam to loosen up her back (after getting around on three legs and torqueing your spine, you need a way to just let go) and as a bonus each bounce comes with a back rub. The "exercise" also seemed to make Sam exceptionally happy; you could practically see the hearts pulsating from her eyes for the rehab gal. Our goal this weekend is to get our very own bouncy ball (may it be a smiley face) so she can adore her jailers just as much ("sure, we don't let you run around, but hey we have a bouncy ball! LOVE US!")

Sam is now a pro at "go to your room" and willingly bounds (err... more like gently hobbles, but you get the idea) into her crate. I really think having a mobile crate that allows us to haul her around from room to room makes all the difference to her being ok with the lengthy stays in there. We leave the top of the crate off for easy access to petting and puppy head kisses (I'm sure she's mortified - I even do this in public in front of her friends) and again, I think that helps things be ok for her. Not having the crate top on hasn't presented a problem since she can't leap out and quite frankly she hasn't shown any interest in trying that. She's even gotten so that she'll prep for zooming around the house by facing forward and sitting very still. I swear she tries encourage me to run over the cats who love to act as feline obstacles in the hallways. (This worked so well for them when she was ambulatory and now they're not quite sure how to impede her now that Sam has wheels.)

As week three begins, my hope is that the rest of the weeks normalize to the point I can comfortably come back and report that eight uneventful weeks have passed and our dog is reasonably normal and roaming the house. This, of course, means that I will have to find a new topic. Gads!

The Chronicles of Sam: Week 1

This first week has been about establishing new routines and I'm very glad to be on the end of that week and not back at the beginning. Taking a dog that used to have the use of four legs and free range of the house and forcing her to become one who lives with a gigantic and encumbering cone who gets to live in a mobile crate (lovingly referred to as "your room") was not exactly an easy or fun transition. We're slowly catching up on many missed hours of sleep (I think I worked all of mine in on Saturday) and discovering muscles we had no idea existed.

Our celebratory milestones have been simple:

Bodily functions - oh sure, you think this isn't a cause to clap and shout "good girl", but when you're rounding 12 hours and you're 100% positive they lobotomized your dog as a freebie to her leg surgery, this is quite exciting. I'm ok that the neighbors think I'm crazier than before after I cheered at Sam in the front yard. TMI WARNING: For the record, if you've ever had surgery where you've been lucky enough to undergo general anaesthesia you may have discovered that muscles that used to know how to work are on holiday and are basically giving the finger to all of your brain signals that are demanding "PEE!!!!!! Can't you hear those pressure receptors in your bladder screaming? They're not screaming a friendly hello, moron." (Ok, my brain signals may be ruder than yours.) If you're lucky, someone has taught you the water trick - that running water some how makes the whole body have that "ah hah, that's how we do it" moment. Well, I'm here to tell you, that works on dogs. Jay had his doubts as we stood with a pitcher in the front yard, but lo and behold "GOOOOOOD GIRL!!!!!!" (For the record, I'm pretty sure Sam looked us up and down and said disdainfully "freaks" in our general direction.)

Putting weight on the bionic leg - Sam has avoided using this leg for a good while, making all the instructions on how to ease her into walkiing with the leg rather pointless - none of them included what to do for days on end when your dog only hops on the three good legs. Of course, I've found a lot of encouragement on various Googled websites - namely, "your little dog hopper is going to tear her other CCL. Enjoy!" I made a call to the surgeon's and I was informed, "well, she's fat - she doesn't want to put weight on it, but in 7 more days if she hasn't, we'll address it". I sat stunned, because I was torn between "am I getting mad because they just insulted my dog or am I mad because they seem a little flip" (I can't take "flip" - it's up there among my pet peeves with "sass"). During all of this, I had contacted Ang, my DVM friend, and after many emails where she had to play counselor while reviewing photos of the Franken-leg that she had requested for my own sanity (further proof to Sam that I am a freak as I took various shots of her leg). Ang had me gently flex her foot and encouraged me to call the surgeon (where I got the "fat" news) and then I contacted the pet rehab place. Of course, Sam who works on her own schedule finally started placing some weight on it - gently tip-toeing on the very top of her pad and occasionally (but rather gingerly) putting it completely down.

Week two promises even more fun. Sam goes to rehab, gets her cone removed (YAY) and then gets to enjoy the fun of the underwater treadmill. You know beagles, they're all about the water... or is that labs.

... and speaking of beagle traits - Sam would like me to add a general complaint about her cone. Beagles, as you know, are hounds and hounds really adore their sense of smell. A great day for Sam would be to stuff her nose down on the ground and snort every square inch of wherever she happens to be. Well, it turns out that cones are not exactly hound friendly. Sure, you can get the cone completely down on the ground and that's great if you just want to sniff that one spot, but pushing the cone forward with you is a bit of a pain in the snout for hounds. When we're outside, Sam treats us to the sound of plastic being pitifully dragged along the cement as she tries to make the whole thing work while promising that if we would take it off for a minute she wouldn't set about ripping out every stitch in her leg - honest - look at the eyes. Also, for the record, cones completely take away the joy of scratching your head and face - humans are great, but they don't quite get that perfect spot - and stills there's the matter of that paw that desperately needs to be licked - your humans never offer to lick the paws. If it weren't for the magic bowl of food that occasioanlly appears (though never enough), humans would be completely worthless.

Seven more weeks to go.

The Sam Chronicles: Surgery

As most of you know, today we start the lengthy process of getting our beagle Sam back on track to being the goofy, glad to greet the world, ever-starving, flappy earred mess that we love and adore. Sam recently tore her cranial cruciate ligament (CCL), which is a lot like your ACL - it's one of two ligaments that stabilizes her leg and, simply put, keeps her bones from shifting in ways they shouldn't shift.

Last night, the surgeon went in and examined her medial and lateral meniscus for tears (for you science nerds) and made the determination on how to address any that were seen, then they basically attached a piece of nylon that went from her femur (that nice big fat thigh bone) to her tibia (her shin for all practical purposes). This nylon cord will act as her new CCL where scar tissue will form around it and her knee will then become more stable. (Ang, if you're reading and I screwed up the basics or if you have any recommendations on how to better explain, let me know and I'll update.)

In about an hour, I'll call and find out when I can meet with the surgical technician so we can talk about our next steps. From there, I can bring one very sleepy beagle with a naked leg and a head in a cone home. Jay put together a new crate for her that's on wheels - since dogs are pack animals, she'll get to ride all over the house with the pack doubtlessly wondering where I learned to drive and cursing the person who didn't demand that crate pushers be licensed.

A huge thanks to her vet, Dr. Julien (and all the vets/staff in our little home town - they're a great group of folks) and her surgeon, Dr. Caplan. When I left Sam at Dr. Caplan's surgical center, I felt that she was not only in great hands and they were going to carefully monitor Sam through her recovery, but at the end of the end of the day we wouldn't actually have sucked Sam's soul out. (Soul sucking is a huge issue with me, because as most of you know, we adopted a pretty special girl who has her own issues. I really wish I'd known her previous owners so I could quite simply ask "what the fuck?") An even bigger thanks to Dr. Glasgow, who will always be Ang to me. From California, Ang helped me find the best of the best here in Austin and then spoke to her colleagues who happened to by friends with our surgeon (sychronicity) and who also spoke rather highly of her.

I have been very fortunate that I'm surrounded by very talented friends who excel in their chosen fields and thank GOD they have no taste in friends and occasionally slum so I can pick their brains for information.

... and that's all you're getting of "sane" me for awhile. Next up, a rant! My favorite!

Tenacity Prevails!

Sam Update

For you Sam groupies out there, here's an update --

We recently learned Sam loves chicken. Sure, as a beagle she lives for her nose and all the neat things it can snuffle out (rule of paw - the smellier the better), but food is food is food to Sam (and sometimes food can be clothing or backyard deposits - she isn't particularly picky, but she can be gross). So, eating chicken one night and having her chase the cat out of the room was completely unexpected. See, the cats still scare the hell out of Sam. If the cat is in the hallway and is blocking Sam from one of us, Sam will cry until we get up and stand between her and the offending beast. (She hasn't worked out that the whole barking thing horrifies them or that the pitiful whimpering never makes them move - only cackle and drum their claws while eyeing her with that particular ennui cats reserve for just about everything.)

Since Sam has discovered that chicken is definitely worth a fuss, she now readily defends all forms of chicken from the furry tailess ones - food that a few months ago previously went unnoticed - from grilled to fried chicken, sandwich meat to Chik-fil-A - she'll bay and snap until the room is cat free, then she'll proudly pad back and fling herself down on her dog bed.

Since Sam doesn't get table scraps, our best guess is some little chicken loving synapse fired her beagle brain.

I can't wait to see what other surprises our little goofy beagle will reveal.

Sam

Sam Back Home
Originally uploaded by Beth Doughty

I picked up Sam first thing yesterday morning. As soon as she was moved from the kennel to the vet area in back, I heard her baying up a storm; she was so excited. She burst out of their area, pink bow flopping excitedly and ran around the lobby baying loudly (the sound normally reserved for "Oh MY GOD! I smell a FOX!!!! or is it RABBIT?!?! OVER THERE OVER THERE OVER THERE!" as one of the staff (a beagle lover) came out to say goodbye.

Once we got home, she ran all over the place giving every inch a good sniff and realized Jay was home, too. There was more baying and crying until she got Jay love.

Now she's near my feet snoring up a Beagle storm.

I'm glad we've got her back. She's my girl.

Security Alarms

So, this morning, I woke up around 2am to the sound of our first early warning system going off. Sage - making that sound that sounds almost like a baby crying - that high pitched "I'm flipping in circles by myself and freaking right on out" sound. My first thought was little Indie Orto was paying Sage a visit. One of his favorite past times is popping up on our little front porch bench and purring while Sage beats herself against the glass. Like a crazed furry moth with claws (oh c'mon, like you haven't seen one).

This triggered our backup alarm system... Sam, who started puffing - it's that pre-bark sound she does to prep those lungs for a good full blown baying. FYI - The other key to a good bay - pushing up with her front paws - see, there's some magical, little understood relation to how high you are in the air and the actual baying that comes from the back of your throat that I don't quite get. Maybe if I were bred to chase things down with 10 of my closest friends, I'd understand more. So, there she was popping her front half up a bit while baying... did I mention it was at 2ish?

Now, I tried to imagine there was a burglar, but even barely awake I knew that Sam would make a quite different noise for intruders. That happy, slurpy, feet scampering across the tile, tail thumping sound - bless her beagle heart, she's just not a guard dog. A pack of domesticated June bugs would be more protective; I bet they wouldn't even have to be mine - could be a neighbors June bug herd.

I got Sam calm once I realized she seemed to be barking at Hodi who was eyeing her with that "Sparky, I'll kill you" look while drumming her claws on the carpet. It's the same look Hodi gives us, too. Of course, ours is more "if I were bigger, I'd do you all in." She's not a very tolerant cat. We all live at her fluffy pleasure (and the fluff and big eyes will disarm you and make you think she's a sweet little thing). Sam is a tad naive when it comes to the warning signs of the cats so there she was barking and baying away as Hodi narrowed her eyes.

Finally, I got Sam to calm down and I flopped back on the bed when round two of baying erupted. This time I went to the back porch to greet any potential intruders and snapped on our cue beam that the previous owners had secured to the back of the house (it's one of those that when it pops on, it can make the beam emitting from the Luxor feel like an LED nightlight and it definitely makes our personal patio glow as the light reflects back off the concrete slab). There on the picnic table, we'd caught one of them 18-20 pounder cats. You had to admire the guy. He just lay there looking bemused at all the commotion surrounding his arrival and now he was bathed in light. I'm sure he felt like a little cat rock star.

Once Sam felt secure that I had indeed seen him - seen the little interloper who had the audacity to traipse through our yard - she felt satisfied and of course fell asleep immediately while I tossed back and forth.

I wonder if it's not too late to get an upgrade on these alarms.

Meet Sam!

Last week, you got to meet April so this week meet our new girl Sam!


Sam is a blue beagle we adopted from Hound Rescue. The cats want us to pass along that they're not amused and should she ever get brave enough to sniff one (she's all beagle) they have a surprise for her. They also want me to spread the word not to ruin the surprise as they've gone to a lot of trouble working out the details - Sage from underneath the bed and Hodi from the top of the couch. They're already drawing up their "Catz ONLY!! No Dogz allowed!" clubhouse sign for the bed (the way you know a cat wrote that is the heavy use of the letter "z" - cats are notorious for it - haven't gotten the hang of "s".)