Sunday, November 26, 2006

Buried treasure

Last Wednesday evening, I stopped by the veterinary clinic that does most of our paid boarding (we don't have enough foster homes in rescue), to bring home a dog for the four-day weekend. Just a taste of home life for a few days. I chose Emma (not 'our' Emma), a cute 45-poundish long-haired blackdog that looks a little like a newf/retriever mix. She's gotten along well with the other dogs in care, so I was surprised when her arrival at home was most inauspicious. I let her meet Hunter for a few minutes through the glass door, and when I brought them together, she went after him ferociously. He was respectful and didn't respond, and even stood there wagging his tail slowly like "Hey, can't we be friends?" And even when put in the airline kennel her snarling was intense. Very uncharacteristic of her.

I wasn't sure how to keep them apart all weekend and achieve the goal of a nice weekend for her and for all, so very regretfully high-tailed her back to the clinic before they closed at 7, thinking to pick up some other lucky customer. Michele met me there with a Shih Tzu that's just come into rescue. At Animal Care & Control, it appeared to be one of those cases of an 8, 10, or 12-year-old dog that's never had any care - a horrid huge mass of tangles and mats, pinching the skin out in obvious tents - just awful. She'd taken shears and quickly cut off about a wastebasket full of hair. Enough to make an amazing discovery - this was a puppy barely six months old. I don't know how it even had time to have become such a rotten mess of tangles, or why in the world the clinic didn't shave him while he was knocked out for his neuter - that would have been the humane way to approach it. But there wasn't any Thanksgiving prep work at home that night (we were going out with friends for the holiday dinner, then making all our own turkey and trimmings on Friday), so I entrenched us both for four painstaking hours of clipping and scissoring and being bitten a dozen or so times, taking breaks and going at it again. He was incredibly tolerant, all things considered. This is what lay beneath. We named him Giblet.

And that was before I spent another two hours on him the next morning. He looks like an actual puppy now.

When I returned him tonight to go back into boarding care, I admit that I cried. It's not the right dog or the right time, but it's been forever since I had a baby in the house. And since my neck and back were killing me, it didn't feel like as much of a wasted weekend on the couch, alternating ice and heat packs, when I could hold this little guy. He had his playful moments but for the most part surveyed everything most implacably, with a calm Buddha countenance. Settled in every night next to my pillow. Hunter was just beautiful with him - never raised a lip or said anything to put him in line. Giblet is also a toe-hog extraordinaire and would set himself most assiduously at either Nana or me, and nearly swooned at the chance to do that straight out of the shower. Silly pup.

1 comment:

amy said...

Oh my! I want him!! :)
So glad he found his way to FOP!!!!