Another Uplifting Post about Death to Brighten Your Day

I think I have started to emerge from the dog-themed funk I was in for a few weeks, as Star's adopters are clearly committed to her. 

Lady's relaxed, happy, low-stress style, the ease of walking her, and the abundance of kisses she bestows in exchange for a bit of attention have certainly helped. 

She does this thing though, where at night the place she really wants to be is in the back yard. Probably fed up with Lamar snapping and snarling at her as long as she's in the bedroom, and not wanting to spend the night alone in the living room--or maybe just in search of a cooler, fresh place to snooze in peace--when I leave the dog door unbarricaded she slips right out there. 

And when I followed her with a flashlight, what I found was kind of magical, kind of beautiful, and a little bit haunting. Of all the places she could find to rest in the great big backyard, she chose the slightly hollowed-out nook under the azalea bush where Tashi died, almost exactly two years ago. The bush is in bloom just like it was then, and I found Lady resting under there just like Tashi did her last two days on this planet.

It is haunting because I miss Tashi, and I wish I had taken that day off from work so that I could be there with her when she passed on. 

Lady reminds me of Tashi in a lot of ways. Even though she is reportedly only 6-7 years old, she moves like Tashi did when she was near death. When she gets up from lying down, or comes up stairs, she moves with a hobbling, bouncing gait probably due to her obesity and long nails--although on walks, she trots along like a happy, healthy girl. 

Then there's her chow-shepherd-brown dog looks, and her spotted tongue. 

Lady's similarities to Tashi are a huge comfort, and I've been enjoying each chow-flavored kiss and taking time to remember what a special girl my crazy dingo-chow was. 

I've brought Lady to visit Tashi's grave, where a beautiful peach tree has been in blossom. 



























 



I've been talking to Fozzie and Lamar about Tashi, making sure that they remember her too. 

Remembering the dead serves an important purpose for the living. I would like to make death rituals a more important part of living, rather than denying death and trying to forget it. 

On a related note, I read an article recently about Green Burial, which told about a man who knew he was dying so he resolved to make his death meaningful; he produced a documentary to raise awareness of the alternatives to the toxic way we bury people now. Maybe I can get someone to just put me under a peach tree when I kick off. 

And if I haven't thoroughly bummed you out, don't forget to VOTE for the picture of Fozzie impersonating an elephant in the NOVA Dog cover dog contest!
 
What better way to affirm life?

Sleep

I have struggled for my entire life with insomnia, and much of the time have required some sort of prescription medication just to get me to sleep.

It's an odd malady, not being able to do this most basic of things that seems to come naturally to everyone else. Certainly, it has always come naturally to everyone I've ever slept in the same room with.

From Mom, to every college roommate and commune-mate, to every boyfriend up to and including the current one. Every dog, from the hyper pittie puppies to the anxious shepherds and the stiff older dogs and everyone in between--all have slept like the proverbial log. 

Over the years, I've heard every variation of deep breathing, nighttime grunting and mumbling, and snoring--sometimes for hours on end-- as I've struggled to get to sleep. 

There have been periods off and on when I've done better--years ago, when I camped and slept outside in Arizona and Utah during a six-week backpacking program on the Colorado Plateau, and more recently when I traveled in Guatemala and slept using only an occasional Benadryl. 

And for the past few days, as we've settled into a rhythm with Sandy and gotten used to having a tiny female pit bull packet snuggled in between us. 


It's not that I don't love my other, larger packets of sleeping joy, or that they don't bring me comfort.


It's just that there's something about this particular package of warm breath and snores that allows my mind to be at peace.






Maybe it's that she's so tiny, and sweet, and vulnerable.


Maybe it's the well-being that comes from knowing that we very probably saved her life, and feeling how worthwhile that is.











And maybe its the comforting sensation of again having a compact muscular little red girl dog around. A red girl dog who reminds me with her spunk and her spirit of Tashi, whose ears and breath and snores I have never stopped missing since she passed away in April. 


Tashi is now in the midst of a long sleep, or maybe she's already entered a new life as a grumpy little grizzly or a spunky salmon swimming upstream or a Buddha incarnate whose growls bring instant enlightenment. 


Or maybe just a little bit of her spirit is making its way to us through our little foster dog, bringing her mom comfort and sleep at long last. 

Gender in Companion Animals

A couple of excellent blogs such as Rescued Insanity and 24 Paws of Love have recently featured questions on the topic of dog gender.


My own experience these past couple of years has been largely with male dogs, as I've worked with rescue groups and taken in whatever foster dogs most urgently needed taking in, and these have happened to be mostly boys. Whether there's any good reason for that--like whether adolescent boy dogs happen to get into more trouble than their sisters and so are more frequently surrendered to shelters--or whether its just random, I don't know. 

My longest-running canine companionship was with a female dog. This was Tashi, my little heeler-chow of 15 years. Tashi was anything but feminine. If there was a cow poop, a dead thing, or anything really abhorrent to roll in, she'd be there. One time when I was camped out with a bunch of activists learning to protest timber sales in Southern Colorado, she rolled in cow poop so vehemently I had to take her to a self-service car wash. 


When she would wrestle around in a loving scrap with Lamar, she would be on top as often as on the bottom--maybe out of feminist motives, or maybe just because it was fun that way.

Now Lamar happens to be named after Lamar Latrell from Revenge of the Nerds. I don't attribute this to any knowledge of his sexual orientation, or to anything other than my own warped imagination, notwithstanding all those mornings I've woken to find my sequined jacket rumpled and misplaced and Lamar sleeping like he'd had a rough night. 

I've since revised my suspicion that he was headed out to the local gay bar, as he showed what could not have been feigned interest in the little still-unspayed and in-heat beagle mix foster girl I had. All those times with the sequined jacket, he must have had a perfectly respectable gig as a lounge singer.











Aside from Tashi and Lamar's affectionate old-married-couple romps, the most amorous displays of doggie love I've witnessed have been between two boys, my foster lover-men Lars and Fozzie. Those two together were a nonstop humpfest. It was their love for each other that probably saved Lars' life, as I only found him because Fozzie broke out of my yard one night and when I caught up with him, he was panting and smiling with a skinny, filthy stray white shepherd panting and smiling a few steps away. Lars followed us home and the two were inseparable until I found Lars a home with a whole pack of white dogs and a mom who adores him. 

I don't really know if dogs have gender identity or if they think of each other, or us, in different terms according to our gender. I suspect that there's not a whole lot of gender sensibility going on in dogs' minds, but I do think that our human perceptions of gender have an impact on our dogs. The Washington Humane Society has a seminar coming up on "The Myth of Gender in Companion Animals and Its Effects on Spaying and Neutering"--what sounds like an interesting exploration of  how some humans' quest to define their masculinity through their dogs prevents them from having them snipped. 

Tashi delek, 1996-2011

Tashi delek, Dingo, Little Big Dog, Madame Grumplit passed away yesterday under an azalea bush. Her last days were not comfortable, but the vast majority of her 15 years on this planet were filled with adventure and enjoyment.

When I adopted Tashi from Taos Animal Shelter, I had been coming to the shelter for weeks, noticing this quiet, shy little dog with the satellite dish triangle ears. On this day, I asked where the little brown dog was and was told she was outside in her pen. It had just snowed the night before and the little brown dog was up on a mound of snow, barking at something in the distance. I came into her pen, kneeled down in the snow, and this little dog came around behind me and put her front paws up on my back in a playful hug.  

The shelter folk said that there was a connection between our spirits, and I do believe there was.

Those first years, she was a little spitfire, growling at everything that moved, getting into scraps everywhere we went. She was also a free spirit, and when we went on hikes I'd sometimes have to get back in the car and drive without her so she would run after me and tire out, before I could catch her and get her to go with me.  




Unfortunately, I didn't know anything about training and the popular "wisdom" at the time was all about dominance and alpha rolls. 

So she had to endure some of that, those first few years in New Mexico. I'm sure it did nothing but make her a more angry and a more rebellious young woman. Fortunately, by nature I am not very good at displays of "dominance" so Tashi never got much more than the light version.

I think Tashi enjoyed the four months we spent in New York, after Taos and before Santa Fe. 

She always loved her grandparents, and she enjoyed going to Riverside Park and running with the pack. Those were the days that she used to tear across a big field, up and down a huge hill, leading a racing team of dogs in a happy chase. Where did all her aggression go? She did just fine with those New York pups.  I would come home from the park with bruises on my calves from her nipping at me like I was one of her bovine charges.   

She did mellow out with time, or maybe it was the addition of Lamar that allowed her to relax and enjoy more. I will always remember that first night I brought Lamar home, how he was lying on the brick floor of my little studio in Santa Fe, and Tashi came right over and stood on him, just put her little front paw on his shoulder. 

They have been a happy couple ever since. 


 












By the time we moved to Portland, Tashi was more well-adjusted and Lamar was more the problem child.

Tashi did well in the Pacific Northwest, running around the National Forests, connecting with our hippie friends, watching the sunset over the beach, checking out hot springs.

What a wonderful road trip companion she was, sticking that head with those antenna ears out the window, snuffing in the fresh breeze, always eager to check out the next place.













Loved the water, loved the desert, loved the forest.  Swam in the ocean, swam in lakes and rivers.

Ran around those big parks in Portland and got her face all scratched up in blackberry bushes, loving every minute.










Adored the ocean, though unlike her friend Lamar, was smart enough not to drink it.














Accompanied her mom back and forth on road trips 













to Santa Fe and all the way back to New York before I left for the summer in Guatemala

After Portland, Tashi had no problem adjusting to city life while her mom went to graduate school. A couple years of good food, cuddling with Grandma and Grandpa, and hanging out with the NYC dogs again. Summers upstate with the grandparents, long days lying in the sun

Then Mom got a job in DC, so it was off to the "Berkeley of the East Coast"--Takoma Park, MD and the house that Florian and I have worked on over the years to make it the ideal place for dogs.

 
More hikes, camping trips in the Shenandoahs and on the beach and in Berkeley Springs and in Fredericksburg.

Daily walks to our favorite unofficially off-leash wooded parks and streams that make this area even better for dogs than all those places we lived in the wild west--who would have thought?

Those summer days by Aunt Nancy's pool. Tashi's been just more and more mellow, but still with that spunky grumpy spark she's always had.

Right up until her last few weeks, wagging and romping a bit with Lamar,  

wagging and wiggling when her people come home, sniffing, wagging, and touching noses when we returned from a walk with the other dogs, that she could no longer go on.

She's been so patient with all the foster dogs--grumping and growling at them when necessary, but wagging a lot too.



When we got the diagnosis that she was not long for this world back in January, my hope was that she would make it until the spring so she could enjoy some days of lying in the warm sun outside like she loved. Yesterday was the first really warm day of the year, the sun was out and the birds were singing and flowers are in bloom. How auspicious that she got to die on such a day.

When I found her, her face was at peace, more at peace than it had been her last few days. 

Tashi delek, may you and all the Buddhas light up the Pure Land with the magnificent radiance of auspiciousness! Go easy on the squirrel bodhisattvas! We miss you my piglet but we'll always be together.

Tashi delectable

Tashi's full name is Tashi delek, which means auspicious blessings in Tibetan. I named her a few days after I adopted her in Taos, NM, where I was studying Tibetan Buddhism. Her name is used as a greeting and farewell among Tibetan Buddhist practitioners and I wanted to give her a name that would be a bell of mindfulness for her whenever she heard it...and a name that would help her achieve an auspicious rebirth when it was her time to leave this world.

In January, I took Tashi to the vet after a few weeks of coughing that was first diagnosed as kennel cough. The diagnosis this time was a grossly enlarged heart and a recommendation to euthanize as soon as possible.

We've had an extra two months of lying in the sun and going for nice hikes on the Potomac and along our favorite trails. Most importantly, we've had time to cuddle, connect, say the Amitabha mantra together, make peace with what lies beyond. 

Tashi along the Potomac in February

I disagree with the advice of that vet, and of many of my dog-loving friends who say that its better to end a dog's life too soon than too late. Tashi has no doubt endured some suffering these two months, but she has also experienced joy and comfort. She's gotten to do her favorite things, eat her favorite foods. Who knows what goes on in a dog's mind? Who knows what spiritual projects she is trying to complete in this lifetime?

Of course some of my reasons are selfish. After 14 years, how could I put myself in the position of ending this dog's life? It wouldn't ever be easy, but after these weeks at least I know I've packed as much joy into her life as possible. And I know that if I do assist her passing from this world, it won't feel quite so premature.

I don't know what this week will bring. Maybe she will pass peacefully on her own, or maybe I'll feel ready to make that decision for her. Until then, we are going to fill her life with the auspicious blessings that I hoped would adorn her years on this planet when I named her 14 years ago.

T-Touch and anxiety wraps

A couple of weekends ago Tashi and I had the privilege of attending a T-Touch seminar by Pam Wanveer of Woodside T Touch. Tashi is normally a jumpy young woman, one who hates having her paws touched, won't let you pull out a tick or a thorn without a lot of wiggling and hollering, and for the last few years, one who doesn't even seem to like to be cuddled very much. In her younger days, though, she was a very affectionate little dog who loved to cuddle with her humans.

Lamar in an anxiety wrap, still pretty anxious

In class, she was a complete disaster--I touched her and she jumped a mile, squeaked, and got as far away from me as her leash would allow. 


Pam suggested an anxiety wrap. Take an Ace Bandage, place the center of it flat against the dog's chest. Cross behind dog's shoulders, then wrap again under the dog's armpits. Tie on the dog's side. 


The effect is like swaddling a baby: gentle pressure, evenly applied, is comforting, grounding, and relaxing. 


A few minutes in her wrap, and Tashi allowed me to touch her all over. For the rest of the class we did little circles all over her ears and head.

Cosmo would only let me clip his nails with an anxiety wrap on

Since then, she's been much more like the Tashi of old--she lets me do little circles all over her, she rolls over contentedly instead of trying to get away, she seems happier to see her humans and spend time with us. I think that one session in class broke through to her and reminded her how pleasant contact can be.

The anxiety wrap is such a great tool--I'm going to bring one to class with me and use it for dogs who can't settle down. 

Tashi's orthopedic bed also seems to help her anxiety

new skills

Fozzie, Tashi, and Lamar went camping with us this past weekend, and Fozzie went swimming for the first time! It was so precious to see him wanting to join us out in the water of the Chesapeake Bay, off a gorgeous beach in Westmoreland, VA, but scared to venture out, then launching forward with paws a'flappin, swimming out, then quickly back. He didn't venture out near as often as Tashi and Lamar, but we were proud of him!

We left Lars here in the care of Karin, the one-woman rescuing machine who has been sponsoring the Lars endeavor since he showed up. The young man did well. I missed him, but could not have imagined having 4 dogs in the hippie van with us!

Last night, I put Lars in his crate for a time out from the constant romping with Fozzie. Lars settled in nicely for sleep, and Fozzie was pretty tired out too--but Fozzie lay down next to the crate and stuck his nose between the bars to kiss Lars. He then lay down next to the crate and fell asleep with his paw inside so he could be touching his friend.

Other new skills:

1. Fozzie has made some breakthroughs in loose leash walking. The other night we went walking with Tashi and Lamar, and just like I tell my students, every time Fozzie's leash went tight we just stopped in our tracks. Tashi and Lamar are natural loose leash walkers, so I think Fozzie knew that he was the cause of the holdup. Pretty quickly, Fozzie was looking back at me and relaxing his pull every time we stopped, at which he got a treat, a happy "Good boy!," and we proceeded on our merry way.
   
2. Lars had his first junk food! We shared an entire bag of Chex Mix with Tashi and Fozzie on the porch one evening. Well on his way to becoming a well adjusted all-American dog. Better he doesn't inherit all of his foster mom's countercultural tendencies....
   

Lamar swimming off Port Townsend, WA

These two...a lot of work but a lot of rewards too.