Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you

We like to say that we got Maggie from a door-to-door boxer salesman.  One pleasant fall day about 10 years ago, JC and I were working in the yard when a pickup truck pulled into the driveway.  “Are you the people with the boxers?”  The couple who hopped out of the truck were barely seventeen, raggedly dressed, and the young woman had a baby, well fed but ill washed, balanced on her hip.  “Well, yes, we have boxers.”  “You want another one?  My uncle gave this one to us, and we can’t afford to take of it.  If you can’t take it, we are just gonna have to turn her loose.”

Ohmygoddeepsigh, this is exactly the kind of thing that drives me crazy.  I said, “Well, please don’t do that.  There are rescue organizations that can help you.  You might have to keep her for a while, but we can help you to get her placed.   Let’s go take a look.”  And with that, they loaded into their truck; we hopped into our truck, and followed them around the corner to their trailer.

 The young woman pointed out their other dogs as we got out – a pregnant pit bull getting ready to give birth on the porch, a Samoyed or spitz-type in a doghouse in the front – both well fed but dirty.  On the side of the house a dog was tied up.  This one made me shudder – I can only think of it as a “ghost-dog”.  A large white hound type, it was excruciatingly emaciated, in the way that only dogs suffering from diseases like cancers or dogs deliberately held and starved are emaciated ; even street dogs generally do not look like this.  The kids told us they found it running the streets two nights prior, felt sorry for it and brought it home.  They asked our advice, and we recommended they turn it in to a shelter where it could get care or be dealt with humanely.  Then we went around back – to a yard filled with filth – bag after bag of rotted garbage and huge piles of debris.  Tied to a tree, with no swivel on the tie, wrapped completely around the tree and unable to reach her water, getting frenzied as soon as we appeared, was the most pitiful excuse for a little brindle boxer I had ever seen.  Just 35 lbs. (she is now a healthy 55), and as turned out, filled with hookworms, roundworms, tapeworms, and high positive for heartworms, milk not yet dried from her last litter – she was pathetic.  “Her name is Sugar.  She’s a real good mama,” the girl said, “My uncle bred her with his pit bull when she came into heat the first time and she had a whole lotta puppies.”  Poor thing, not quite a year old, and just about used up!

JC took a deep breath, looked at me with “the look”, and said to the young man, “Put her in my truck.”  “Can you get her unhooked?” the kid asked.  It seems they were scared of her.  JC unhooked the poor girl from the tree, picked up her tiny little body, carried her to the front, and deposited her into the F150, where she rode in my lap, licking my face and covering me in fleas.  We decided to rename her to reflect her new start in life, so Sugar became SugarMagnolia AKA Maggie.

We have a saying Chez Vasak:  “A free dog costs $800.”   By the time we were finished deworming, spaying, heartworm treatment, et. al, I think Maggie may have nudged us closer to a grand.  To their credit, the young couple came by a week or so later.  They told us they had taken Ghost Dog to the shelter,  and asked after “Sugar”.  When they learned about all the vet care she would require and what it cost, they were a bit crestfallen.  “Oh… wow.  Then we really couldn’t afford to keep her.”  I like to think they learned a little that day – if they had as much sense as they had heart, they’d be an asset.  Maggie took two months to build up enough to treat for heartworm. Her treatment was traumatic for everyone.  She is a dog who panics at being crated and gets hysterical during storms.  Dogs being treated for heartworm must be kept quiet to prevent potential deadly side effects from embolism and shock resulting from the death of the adult heartworms.  Upon being crated, Maggie panicked and rocked the crate physically of the floor until she exhausted herself.  The vet gave us 40 mg of valium daily to keep her calm.  It DID NOT work – she was still frantic.  We would have been better served, I think, reserving the valium and taking it ourselves, since, by this point, we were also frantic.

We did, however get through it, and were left with a completely physically healthy, totally neurotic dog.  She wanted to spend every minute climbing into our laps.  She couldn’t bear to not be touching us.  She shrieked through weather events (Hurricane Ike was fun.)  When reprimanded or faced with new or stressful situations (and most things were stressful) she urinated.  And yet for all that, she really WAS sweet as sugar, loyal, loved children, gentle and kind.  One day early on, we let her outside in the yard.  A few minutes later, I panicked – “Oh my gosh, JC, I think I screwed up – I didn’t close the gate!”.  I rushed to the door, opened it, and Maggie fell over the threshold, from where she had been leaning on the front door.  I commented to JC that “Just letting her go, as the young couple was planning to do, was clearly not an option in our case.”

Obedience classes helped a great deal.  Her submissive urination was virtually eliminated, and she learned to stop climbing our laps and just lean against our knees.  She was not ever going to be an intellectual, but proper training and high levels of attention turned her into an animal we could live with.  It was particularly helpful that we had other large dogs that loved her and guided her.  Dolly, our boxer-pit cross, was her companion and helped her build confidence.  Later, after Dolly passed away, Cheyenne took her place.  Today Maggie is near-blind and Cheyenne serves as her guide dog as well as her companion. 

Maggie is eleven now, ancient for a boxer, and her head has turned completely grey with age.  Physically, the vet tells us, she is in excellent condition.  Mentally, she is in decline and suffers from canine cognitive disorder.  She gets lost both in the house and outside if Cheyenne is not by her side.  She is getting needier.  She is regularly forgetting her housebreaking.   Worst of all, her crate panic has returned with a vengeance, making the housebreaking issues MUCH more of a problem.  She has completely eating through several kinds of kennels, panicking and breaking welds, ripping out fasteners, etc.  We resolved this temporarily by confining her to one (tiled) room with baby gates, but she has started to treat the entire ROOM like a kennel, whining crying, panicking, and busting out the gates. 

We are hesitant to have her put down – as long as she is not locked up she is fine and has decent quality of life, and physically she is perfectly healthy.  But oh my gosh, this is stressful on everyone.  My friend and coworker Bonnie told me about a tool her vet suggested, called a DAP collar.  DAP stands for “Doig Appeasing Pheremones.  My first thought was, “Hey this has got to be new age bunk.”  For an old new-agey hippie chick, I can be quite the skeptic.  Then I did some research and found some pretty compelling research that suggested the collar was worth a try – so I risked my 20 bucks and ordered one.

Maggie Takes a Kennel Nap

We received our collar on Thursday, and put it on the dog yesterday.   It smelled rather perfume-y and had a bunch of white powder that immediately crumbled onto my hands and they dog, but we persevered and got it on her.   My initial response:  THIS IS AWESOME!  Thanks, Bonnie Bee – you might have saved a good dog’s life!  We put her into a nice new kennel this morning (one that DIDN’T have the doors chewed off).  She napped quietly in her kennel for SIX HOURS with no sign of stress.  I am looking forward to maintaining a lower stress environment for everyone.  Excellent product, well worth a try.