Hurt Again!

Arg! This is driving me crazy. Bella did something to her back foot again and is putting no weight on it. We have checked it multiple times for thorns, but cannot find anything. There are no cuts. I've extended and contracted her leg to see if there is an issue there. I've moved her toes and her foot around. All of these are coming up with nothing. I'm beside myself with worry. She isn't licking any part of her foot or leg, but she also isn't moving around. FOOTNOTE: There is a local retired vet in the area and though we did not intend for him to look at Bella, we sought his opinion on whether we should take her into town. He was kind enough to give her a brief examination and determined that she had probably sprained her toe. Luckily nothing was broken and there were no thorns. It was one of those head-slapping moments that when shown both her back paws, it was obvious one toe was quite a bit larger. My vet had sent me down here with some anti-inflammatories and he suggested I give her some for a couple of days. After a quiet day yesterday and one pill, she's doing much better today. Although still favoring the foot, at least she is putting some weight on it. I didn't take her on the morning women's walk, but will take her on one short one today and maybe two small ones tomorrow.

How to Speak "Dog"

I am always surprised when a parent allows their child to run up to pat my dog without first asking me if my dog is friendly. The child's pell-mell approach shows lack of training on how to safely approach an unknown animal. Bella is patient and tolerant, but every dog has a limit. When I see a child approaching, I intercept and explain the proper way to introduce oneself  to an unfamiliar dog. Rarely do I get thanks from the parents. My guess is the information is new to them also.

Recently there have been a plethora of articles on the Internet regarding the bite incurred by Denver's KUSA TV anchor, Kyle Dyer. Here is an individual who is purportedly a dog lover, so we assume that she'd be knowledgeable about handling a strange dog. Apparently not. An article in Huffington Post by veterinarian/animal behaviorist Dr. Sophia Yin, goes through the progression of errors that were made by both the owner and the anchor. In another article, author Michael Curran goes a step further. In his blog entry, he states that in a series of articles, he hopes  

...to answer some of your questions, pique your curiosity in regards to dog behavior and communication, discuss why dogs bite, and finally how to be a friendly stranger and more responsible dog owner. 

Mr. Curran gives some background information (number of dogs that annually fall through the ice in the Denver area) and more details about the specific bite incident, including how the TV channel and animal behaviorists handled the situation after the fact. He brings up some very good points and I look forward to reading the rest of his series.

Depending on the sources you read, annual dog bites in the U.S. is a big deal. One site, dogbitelaw.com, states:

In 2010 there were 34 fatal dog attacks in the USA. More than 350,000 dog bite victims are seen in emergency rooms every year. Approximately 800,000 victims receive some form of medical attention annually. Based on data collected in the USA between 2001 and 2003, the CDC concluded that there were 4.5 million dog bite victims per year.

The American Humane Association has a long list of bare statistics that on their own are quite staggering. However, the National Canine Research Council (NCRC), counters with how difficult it is to gather accurate information. (Is it a playful nip from a puppy or an unprovoked, angry bite that breaks the skin? What is the difference between a good Samaritan being bitten helping a dog or a police dog stopping a criminal?) Adding to the confusion on gathering accurate bite statistics, the NCRC states that for animal control, the impetus is to assess if the biting animal is current on shots rather than the circumstances surrounding the bite itself. They go on to say:

[A] form used to record an animal exposure, probably called a bite report, will usually include space for a description of the circumstances. Did a dog scratch his owner during a playful romp? Did a dog chase and bite a child riding a bicycle?

Unfortunately, when animal exposures are tallied up, they are released to the public as simple bite numbers. The circumstances of the incidents have been stripped away. In consequence, bite numbers are not an accurate representation of canine aggression, which is, in itself, a general term that is applied to range of different behaviors.

This leads me to believe that we are woefully ignorant of the signals our pets are continually giving us. We expect them to understand us, but too many of us—even those of us who have always owned a dog and feel we "understand" our pet—are clueless at truly comprehending them. Wouldn't it be nice if new pet owners had to take a class on doggie communication? How about teaching people (of any age) how to approach a strange animal? Wouldn't you think parents would consider this a mandatory lesson for their child?

In writing this post, I came across a site called Doggone Safe that has good information about dog communication and recognizing signals given when a dog feels stressed or frightened...or ready to bite. I urge all of you—particularly any of you with children in your home—to look at this site and learn to recognize a dog's signals. The information isn't terribly in depth, but it is a good start in understanding our pets. We all suffer from miscommunication at times, but the more we are able to speak "Dog," the safer all of us—including our dog—will be.

Let me add one more thing. Here's a great cartoon poster of some dog signals from Dr. Sophia Yin. It might be worth printing out for your kids and posting on the fridge!

Glass and Paws

The house we are renting has a huge, fenced yard that is planted, with one exception, only around the perimeter. It doesn't make for a pretty yard, but it does make it pretty good for a game of chuck-it. There is no grass, which is not unusual here. Most yards, even those with fairly intense plantings are sand, and ours is no exception. Where people may mow their lawn at home, here people rake the sand regularly to clean up debris. I don't know how old this house is, but I think it's a fair bet to say the yard has seldom, if ever, been raked.

Waiting for the ball to move.

I haven't done much of a survey of the property beyond regular pooper-scooping and playing ball with Bella. But when she sliced open a pad on her back foot, I began to pay attention. The yard is littered with broken glass, rusted nails and wire, pieces of plastic and broken ceramic tiles. It changes each day as we drive across it or Bella runs through it. New debris surfaces regularly. Every couple of days, I'd make a circuit with a grocery bag picking up shards, nails and anything looking sharp. When Bella cut another pad, I declared war.

I found an old, rusted (what else?) rake and began raking the yard. With each small scratch of the surface, handfuls of glass appeared. It has been hugely discouraging. In five days, I have only covered a third of the yard and when I finish, I realize I'll need to begin again. And I am not the only one doing this. A good friend has come over three separate days and helped me for hours. My husband took over raking today and only did a small section. He was astounded.

I think when the house was built, the workers just threw their beer bottles into the yard. Because this is a rental, perhaps people coming through the neighborhood have recognized that the house isn't constantly occupied and have done the same. Perhaps the owners and other renters have tossed their bottles into the yard because that is culturally not an aberrant thing to do here.

But however they got here, the bottles have broken into zillions of tiny, sharp, paw-cutting, brown, green and clear pieces. Driven or walked over, the glass gets pushed into the sand. With Bella running around the yard, she's churning it back up. I'll finish raking and picking up a section only to have the light play over an area I have finished and it will sparkle with hundreds of missed shards.

My friend says I should leave all the bags for our landlord to see. I'd rather see the glass gone, but perhaps she's right. At least for now, they are a sign of progress for me. I am still hesitant to toss a ball for Bella, but feel slightly better that a very large portion of debris has been removed from part of the yard.

My poor girl. She gave little indication of what had happened. With the first slice, which was the deepest, she neither licked her paw nor limped, so I had no knowledge of what had happened to her until I spotted it. With the second slice, I knew. We cleaned her feet and applied Neosporin. She spent an unhappy day inside with her back foot wrapped up in a sock.

We haven't taken her biking in a week; tomorrow morning we'll take her on a small ride. Tomorrow afternoon, you'll find me back at raking and picking.

Puhleez!

Girls just want to have fun.

Bella has been on a long walk, a short walk, a medium length bike ride, enjoyed a moderate chuck-it session and still she says, "Puhleez! More playtime!"

Some Realities of Baja

Baja is beautiful in a stark and prickly way. There is no "lushness" in the area we are living beyond the  bougainvilleas and other flowering plants some people have added to their landscape. Even though desert plants can be beautiful, they all have a defense system with poison, prickles or spines. The wind is harsh, the sand, sharp edged, the terrain hot and unforgiving.

Culturally, recycling is a new idea and practiced by very few. There are only a couple of outlets where one can recycle and they are tiny and infrequently used. Litter is everywhere (oh the bane of plastics!) and though "No Mas Basura!" (No More Garbage) has an annual community pick-up day, it barely puts a dent in what is flying about. We watched a neighbor dutifully raking her sand yard of bags, cups and plastic bottles and depositing them in a garbage bin outside her gate. The next morning, the bin was tipped over and garbage was everywhere for the cats, dogs and cows to eat. It remained that way until later in the week when the garbage man came by to dump it in a designated arroyo.

In my thrice weekly walks towards the mountains with a group of women and their dogs, we joked, tongue in cheek, about finding our way by certain garbage that has blown into or placed on the cactus. A discarded and broken plastic chair, a worn backpack, a t-shirt tied to a branch, a dead cow. Seeing cow legs, hide or bones is not at all unusual. They are free range and have little to eat or drink. They look skin and bones anyway. Our neighbor's garbage must have been a boon.

Last week I took Bella on a walk different than our normal one with the ladies, but still heading towards the mountains. There, a ways into the bush by the side of the sandy road, tucked at the base of a cactus, was a large, dead dog. I didn't recognize it, but also couldn't approach it. It had not been there the day before. Was it hit and crawled there to die? Had it been poisoned and this was it's final resting spot? Had it died at home and the owner brought it here for the vultures to take care of? Any of those were possible.

The next day when we went by that spot, Buddy was with us. Buddy is the name we've given to a local, large lab/German Shepherd cross. She lives somewhere in our neighborhood and often appears out of the scrub to join us on walks or bike rides. She's sweet as can be and is obviously loved, though allowed to scrounge and roam. The vultures had settled in to their job of clean-up, but Buddy chased them off and I wondered if she did it to "protect" the other dog or for the fun of the chase. Either way, it reminds one of how humbling Baja can be.