Well, 2019 ended up being crazy busy but hugely productive for me. After Rhea passed away at the end of 2018 I fell into a bad depression. She’d been with me for so much of my adult life, from New York to California to Arizona, and losing her hit me hard. I think because of that, I threw myself into volunteer work with the Arizona Animal Welfare League and SPCA, which drew me into volunteer work as a District Leader with the Humane Society of the United States. I also volunteered with the therapy dog program at the Phoenix Public Library. I absolutely love all of my volunteer roles. I also finished and published my next romance novel in the Infectious Rhythm series, Tremor. And I worked hard on getting my business plan together for opening the bookstore. So, throwing myself into my work has been a good thing. Hopefully I will accomplish as much in 2020, and hopefully that will include getting this bookstore off the ground!
But the biggest part of my year was taken up with a new dog I adopted.
After Rhea passed, I felt like Sofia, my chihuahua mix, who’d been Rhea’s bestie, took it hard too. For months afterward, she’d look around for her. I used to always ask her to find Rhea since Rhea was fond of hiding in cupboards, behind shoeboxes in the closet, or behind or underneath furniture, etc. And Sofia with her superb sniffer was always able to find her. Sofia knew she was gone but still sniffed around anyway. After Rhea’s scent had finally disappeared for good, Sofia would sit at the side porch window, where Rhea always tried to get out.
Katusha, our other cat, took it hard too. She didn’t eat a thing for two weeks, and began nearly living in the closet, clearly depressed.
I couldn’t really bear the thought of getting another cat. I felt like it might confuse and upset Katusha, and Sofia, being a terrier, is so hard to train to get along with cats. So I started keeping an eye out at the shelter for a dog that I thought would get along with Sofia and Katusha and would fit well into our family.
One day this rat terrier / chihuahua mix, Lucy, came in. She looked exactly like Sofia but was brown and was the same age and playfulness level of Sofia. And I knew she got along with cats. I called and told the shelter I was coming with my dog so they could have a meet and greet. My drive was only about 45 minutes but by the time I got there, Lucy had already been adopted. I knew that was likely to happen since Lucy was so cute, and I had other dogs in mind in case it did – all of them small since that was the kind of dog I was used to and the kind I felt would get along best with Kat and Sof.
Unbelievably, every single dog in that row failed their cat test with flying colors! I was so annoyed. “You people practically are cats!” I called down the row, throwing up my arms.
The adoption counselor suggested I leave Sofia in her room and walk around to see if there was anyone I might like to try from one of the larger dog rooms, since I was already there. I knew there were two labs in the back and I had some experience with labs and thought they might be good fit for us, so decided to give it a try. There was one yellow lab, five years old (can’t remember his name) sitting in a large kennel with this one-year-old Shepherd-looking person. The lab was lying down and looked up at me with tired eyes, while the Shepherd bounced all around pawing at the gate as if asking me to give her a walk. They were both brand new to the shelter and I hadn’t handled either of them yet. I thought I’d give the lab a try, but I distinctly remember looking at the Shepherd, named Irii, and thinking, “Sorry but no way; you’re way too high-energy for me!” Yeah, famous last words…
I returned to the counselor and gave her my sheet with the name of the labs. She looked at my application and said both were way too active for my lifestyle. She said I needed a dog the behaviorists had labelled “weekend athlete,” since that’s the time I’d mainly be giving the dog to exercise since I worked long hours during the week.
She looked at her list of “weekend athletes.” She found two, both cattle dogs: Jerry, and Irii. I recognized the latter name and thought she must be mistaken.
“Are you sure the cards aren’t mixed up and it’s the five-year-old lab who’s the more mellow one?” I asked. She shook her head. “Nope, Irii is the weekend athlete.”
First we tried Jerry but he growled at Sofia, which didn’t sit well with me. Sofia does tend to be possessive with me, so I knew I needed a dog who would just let her be the princess chi she was used to being and not demand my attention too much. So we decided to try Irii.
I laughed when they brought her into the yard, because, sure enough, it was the one I thought – the crazy bouncing Shepherd mix, which a behaviorist had labeled mellow enough to be content with few walks during the week. Unbelievably, she calmed down once in the big, open yard. She ran around a bit, sniffed Sofia, made easy friends with her, then sniffed me. When Sofia made it clear I was her mommy and she was number one, Irii backed right off. She was scared when going into the cattery so we didn’t get a good take on whether she would get along with cats. But she didn’t seem to NOT like them. The counselor told me she was a transfer from a rural shelter in Northern Arizona, and had likely been a stray, likely in the Navajo Nation. So she might be shy around me and other humans but would appreciate a dog friend.
So I decided to give it a try and do a weekend “slumber party.” The counselors put her in a dog carrier in the back of my Prius. I kept seeing her head bouncing all around with her curious eyes looking this way and that in the in the rear view mirror the whole ride home. I kept thinking, “Who is this German Shepherd you have in your car?” Cattle dog, Shepherd – made no difference to me – I had no experience with dogs like this. “What are you doing?” I wondered.
Once at home, she sniffed all around the living room, then found a corner and curled up. She spent most of the weekend there. She wasn’t very scared of me, but seemed overall not very confident in her surroundings. Which made perfect sense since she just got there. I led her into my bedroom, where I was keeping Katusha. When I carefully introduced them, Katusha got scared and hissed at her, and she whimpered and ran away, which I was told was a good response for a dog: meant she didn’t have a crazy prey drive and would respect boundaries.
I took a bunch of photos of her and posted them on Facebook and Instagram and everyone of course said she was beautiful and hoped I’d keep her. When I went back to the shelter to formalize the adoption I was still a little unsure. We hadn’t really bonded yet and I still didn’t know much about large breeds other than labs. But somehow I just felt right about it, like it would work out and would be an experience to boot. The behaviorist gave me the numbers of a couple of trainers to call and invited me to sign up for group classes at the shelter. I did both right away. I named her Irina, only slightly changing the name the shelter gave her but to something I connected with. (Dance background, Russian ballet and ballroom dancers and all 🙂 )
I adopted Irina on March 15, so it’s been nearly a year. And it’s been a very a wild ride. The behaviorists were right in that she definitely is mellow, especially given her age and breed. (I later found out through Wisdom Panel that she is a mix but mostly Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd.) I can take her for a short walk and let her run around the backyard a few times and she will be quiet the rest of the day. If she goes to daycare during the day while I’m at work, she’ll sleep in the car on the ride home, then all night in her kennel. She’s very easygoing with children and has never exhibited any aggression whatsoever to anyone. At every daycare she’s gone to, the employees all tell me she’s very mellow, often lounges around all day, and is extremely gentle with the other dogs and with all the humans.
BUT. Having said all that… it wasn’t easy on me at the beginning. Initially, Irina suffered separation anxiety, which I now know is a common young Shepherd trait. When I left her at home for only minutes, she knocked down the gate I’d set up and tore apart the bedroom, tearing up books, the blinds, the door, everything she could find. I tried to keep her in a large kennel, but she escaped by tearing apart the latch. The trainer directed me to buy locks to latch her in more securely. That worked. But it didn’t make her separation anxiety better. She kept me up all night barking and crying in her kennel. I couldn’t let her sleep with us because she wasn’t getting along with Katusha. So I went out and slept on the couch, for months. After she was here a few weeks and became more comfortable, she started acting out toward the cat. Katusha was scared of her and continued to hiss, but Irina started barking back. I’ve gone through three at home trainers trying to get her to get along with Katusha.
Irina’s gotten out of her harness in the car and unlatched seat belts. Basically, high intelligence and emotion are a difficult mix, and I know now it takes an experienced handler to deal with them. One of my friends who used to run a white Shepherd rescue has helped a lot. But at first she begged me to take Irina back to the shelter because she thought I was simply in way over my head with such a dog. Two of the three professional trainers I hired told me the same. For some reason, I just wasn’t going to give up, even though, with all the trainers and daily daycare, I was spending thousands of dollars I really didn’t have. It’s taken me the better part of a year to really figure out how to handle her and and I’m still learning. Everyday.
I love this dog dearly and I’m so thankful she came into my life. She’s made a wonderful companion for Sofia and I’ve learned so much about dogs, and about myself. I’ve become a lot more social and made other dog guardian friends I otherwise never would have. We are still learning to live together though. She and Katusha are not entirely friends yet, and I can’t walk Irina and Sofia together because Irina gets too crazy when she’s with her sister – it becomes a competition of who can go faster or something and my shoulders nearly get ripped out of their sockets. I’m still learning to keep her from door dashing and bashing down the patio door. And I’m trying to alternate days between leaving her at home – her separation anxiety is almost gone – and going to daycare since I can’t afford daycare every single day. We still have a ways to go, but not anywhere near as long as the distance we’ve come. And I know now that I can do it.
This ended up being a far longer post than I meant! I meant only to explain why I’ve been absent for nearly a year from this blog. I guess what I really wanted to say is that, as I said, I’ve been doing a lot of shelter volunteer work and I hear shelter people all the time expressing so much anger at people who return their dogs. And I know how stressful it is to have another animal dropped off that you have to care for and find a home for. And I definitely have absolutely NO patience or respect for the person who dumps his dog because he’s a long distance runner and the dog is too old to keep up with him, so he wants to exchange this dog for a younger one. Believe me, we would NEVER adopt to that degree of loser. But there is a big difference between that kind of person and a person who tries very, very, very hard and simply doesn’t have what it takes to continue on with the dog they adopted. I could never have brought Irina back like some of my trainers suggested. She’s brought so much joy and experience to my life and and I’ve grown immensely because of her. And I’m pretty sure she’s happy here with her two sisters (even though one is still hissing at her – but what is life without a challenge?!), and her two-story house with the fun stairs and the big backyard. She is one of my three dearest friends and I love her beyond words. But, that doesn’t mean that every dog is for every person. There is absolutely nothing wrong with re-homing an animal if it’s going to be better for everyone involved, including that animal.
My two cents. Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. I will be posting more of my own animals’ updates, and definitely more books that I’ve read. In the top photo, Irina is posing with a picture of a book I just finished reading by Debbie Burns, who is now one of my favorite romance authors. Her first series is called Rescue Me, and all the books involve dogs who bring their humans together. Sweetness! My favorite so far is the one Irina is posing with, which features a husky as a main character, who narrates part of the story. It’s a really beautiful story. Find that book here.
Okay, I’m sure I will be posting much more on Irina!
