Almost three years ago, I did something really off-base for me, something I had never thought I would do- I went into the Upper Credit Humane Society about a dog they had advertised in the Georgetown edition of the Independent and Free Press. I had shown the article to my husband, who simply nodded and said ‘poor guy’ and then gave me that ‘look’- the one that says, ‘Don’t even think about it!’

Well, it shouldn’t have been too great a surprise.  I mean, it was a German Shepherd!  Our last dog had been a beautiful Shepherd who was so smart, he trained himself.  Everyone who met him loved him, even the ones who were scared of dogs.  This poor guy in the picture that went with the article was almost as handsome.  And he’d been rescued from a very bad life situation.  I never have understood why anyone would get a dog if they didn’t intend to love the animal. Anyway, I asked a few times if we could drop in to look at the dog, but my hubby nixed that idea. Then one day, it happened that we were just about to drive past the Humane Society site and I said , “Come on, just let me look at him.  What harm can that do?”  So my husband gave in and drove into the parking lot. 

As it turned out, this was the best place Wolfie had ever lived in.  The entire staff, paid and volunteer, loved him to pieces.  They  gave him toys to chew up, bathed him for the first time in his life, cooked special food for him, and one even made him a scarf that had a red heart and his name embroidered on it. Apparently, Wolfie had been tied to his doghouse on a very short chain for years.  It had taken the Humane Society workers five years to finally get the courts to agree that the owners were never going to provide adequately for him and thus permitted the Society to remove him from the premises.  He was terrified, of course.  He had never been off the chain, so it was sort of a security blanket for him. When they got him to the vet, he weighed in at 56 pounds. An un-neutered male Shepherd should be around 90 pounds.  You could see every vertebra and his ribs stuck out like relief carved on a frieze. The grit from the site and old feces were ground into his back end and tail.

Somehow, though, this dog had kept his sunny nature intact.  He loved people.  All people, really.  We eventually figured out that the reason he barked at people and nipped some was that he hated it when anyone seemed to ignore him or looked as if they were leaving him.  He was starved for companionship as much as for food.  He was labeled by the Town as a ‘potentially dangerous’ dog after he nipped an adolescent boy who rode his bike through a small group of my neighbours as we were chatting near the front of my house. Wolfie was beside me on a short leash, just enjoying being with people outside in the sun.  When the boy rode through (we all had to move out of his way), Wolfie jumped and caught his jacket – and a little of his love-handle too. After investigating, the Town employee charged with the job said she had to label him. I was so upset. Why don’t kids who disobey rules of the road not have to be labeled too? The kid was as big as me!

But I did eventually understand that a dog who has been treated the way Wolfie was can never be totally trusted because his new keeper has no idea what the dog’s triggers are.  So even now, when he is so much more secure, I still hold him back from people until I am sure that he and the person who wants to pet him are ready for each other. 

People stopped to say hi to him all the time.  His face was so friendly and happy.  The other evening, a neighbour a good way up the street looked at Wolfie and said, “What a beautiful dog!” followed immediately by, ‘What’s wrong with him?”  You see, Wolfie had come to us with a lot of problems. So many that Andrea, the worker who processed Wolfie’s arrival, decided that we could have him on a long-term ‘foster’ arrangement, but we could not formally adopt him.  And she was right.  We would have found him a costly pet without the help from the Humane Society. They covered most of his medical expenses.

Wolfie was totally untaught when we got him. He knew no commands, not ‘No!’, not ‘Sit!’, and “Come here” was totally foreign for the longest time.  Even after almost three years with us, he only obeyed it if a cookie was involved or if he feared my husband’s wrath.  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t smart.  He knew exactly how to get around everyone, even my husband, whom he recognized as the ‘alpha male’ in our house.

When we got him. he did not recognize dog food. He had been fed with kitchen scraps, mostly pasta, and relied on his own feces to fill in the dietary gaps.  (Even after three years, I wouldn’t let him out in the yard if I hadn’t yet had time to pick up his scat.)  In the process of trying out different types of feed for him, we found out that one of the reasons that he had perennial diarrhea was that he was allergic to food dyes. Even foods designated for his breed didn’t completely solve his digestive problems.  Eventually, we had to give in and buy the expensive dry food from the vet for dogs with poor digestion. But the wet food we added was the inexpensive store brand, thank the Lord.  But, almost three years after bringing him home (he was about twelve, we think),  he was getting sore and miserable enough that we prepared ourselves and our friends for the reality that, soon, we would have to have him ‘put down’.  He had hip dysplasia but he also suffered from some degenerative illness of the hip and back that caused his back end to collapse every so often. He turned his toes under and dragged the foot of the bad leg.  In pain, he whimpered often whenever he was not sleeping. The vet clinic which looked after his medical issues provided him with medication but it only helped somewhat.  Stairs became impossible to master on his own , and he had to rest a few times on our walks up the block and back. 

The time finally came when his body had too many problems, and he was reverting to some of his patterns of behaviour from before he was rescued. It was like he had doggie Alzheimer’s. So, with advice from friends, family, the vet and the folks at the Humane Society, we realized that Wolfie’s days included many hours of discomfort and fear. He was afraid of falling and hurting himself again.  He had done so numerous times in the first weeks of the 2008. So, we finally got up the courage to face the loss and took him in to be put down.  The vets were very understanding of our distress and very kind to Wolfie.  It was very hard. Never do anything like this without a lot of Kleenex on hand.

Nonetheless, I am glad we took the time to drop in that day to see this sweet-tempered animal that the Upper Credit Humane Society people were all in love with. He’s been a lot of fun and good for all of us.  He’s been the babysitter for the kids of our younger friends when they visit. He’s been better than any psychologist or any pill when any of us have been feeling down.  I was never afraid to walk late at night because I knew his huge canines could bite through just about anything and would do so if he thought I were threatened. (His favourite toys were huge, empty, plastic containers that he would bite on and throw up in the air.) I met many people in my neighbourhood just because his sunny expression invited them to stop to learn more about this gorgeous animal. I know I will miss him for a long time.  

Lynette

Georgetown,

Feb 13, 2008