Update: Our awesomely dumb acquisition

Ruthie in the wildflowers

You may remember that just about a month ago our family made the awesomely dumb decision to acquire Miss Ruthie Millicent, canine wondergirl. You may be asking yourself "Hey--I wonder how that is going?"--unless you are my friend on faceplace, in which case you are asking yourself "Another picture of that dog???? This lady needs to get a life."

The answer to the first question is: it is going (mostly) well.  I think we have finally reached a place where having Miss Ruthie in our lives feels like part of our normal. Certainly during our first few days together I had many a moment of panic: wondering if we had made a terrible mistake, wondering if the cat would ever forgive me, wondering if we could handle the needs of a young energetic dog AND two-soon-to-be-three kids.

Part of my panic came down to Ruthie being under 2 years old. She's a big goofy teenage dog--with lots of love and energy to spare. For the last FOREVER Sean and I have had old crotchety dogs. Even Archie (the three legged beagle) came to us as a late-middle-aged fellow, and now he is firmly entrenched in the pursuits of old-mandom (namely: eating, sleeping, eating, barking, sleeping). Whereas our-pups-now-passed were essentially furry paperweights, Ruthie is a whirligig. She can't be expected to spend all day napping with an occasional pee break.

And so we walk her four to five times a day. Some walks are short and business oriented, others are long and leisurely. As a result the whole family is out enjoying the neighborhood more. Ruthie is by far the least leash reactive dog we've ever owned. Her normal pace is a "loose leash" walk, and when she spots another pup she wags her tail and waits for the chance to pleasantly greet a potential new friend. This applies to dogs of all sizes: she has shown equal enthusiasm and deference to a 170lb mastiff and a 13 pound chihuahua.

In fact, if we spent all our time together walking around the neighborhood life with Ruthie would be idyllic.

But we do spend a good bit of time indoors. And that is where we have some more work to do.

Miss Ruthie's back story is that she was brought in as a stray--and it shows. In her first days with us she had no idea what to do with a dog biscuit, but would eagerly snatch any scrap of paper with food residue on it. It took about two weeks for her to become more food motivated. Now she loves her training treats.

Her response to dog toys was similar--they were completely foreign to her and she had little interest (no matter how exciting I tried to make them seem). But slippers? And chair legs? And raised garden beds? ALL DELICIOUS. NOM NOM NOM. It took a lot of redirection and training diligence to get her to learn to love the kong instead of slobbering all over my boots. She still is freaked out by frisbees and only yesterday did I convince her that sticks can be fun to crunch on.

In all of her attempts to nom on verboten items it has become clear that this dog has no idea of her breed. She comes from a bone-crushing pedigree (as an aside: my mom would be happy to email you articles about Ruthie's potential to rip all of our throats out!) and is all muscle and yet manages to barely nibble the object of her desire. She mouths them and gums them and gives them delicate nibbles (the way a mom dog would nibble her pups)--but does not destroy or damage them. The beagle can eat through a door in a matter of minutes (he actually did this once at our former doggy daycare center), but Ruthie can barely pulverize a milkbone.

We are now at the point where we leave her uncrated in the house for brief periods when we are out. This works well, and the biggest casualty to date has been a tipped over rocking chair that she stood on to to look out a window. Oh, and a soggy doormat that she nommed on. When we are gone and the dogs are uncrated the cat is put in her safe zone in the back of the house. The critters are separated by a door in the interest of everyone's safety.

Ruthie has come a long way in learning to live with our cat. At first she didn't acknowledge the cat. Then she went through a period of barking at the cat. So in an effort to desensitize her to kitty, we started "jackpotting" her. It worked like this: Ruthie was on a lead in the house while kitty roamed free. Whenever the cat got near her I would make her sit and started giving her a steady stream of treats until kitty left the space. We repeated this for a few days and eventually Ruthie learned that sitting quietly when kitty was around earned her rewards. Now everyone can roam free when Sean or I are there to supervise.

We have started attending an obedience class with Ruthie and hope that we can help her reach her doggy potential.

Challenges left to overcome: jumping on people and an aversion to getting in the back of the car.

Overall I'm very happy she's in our lives. We're not so dumb after all.

Kind of a big deal.

Well hello interweb friends. My goodness I've been scarce around this space this week. The new pup has me walking 6 miles before 12pm most days and my poor veal-like muscles are struggling to adjust to our new schedule. I'm completely wiped out by the end of the day which is actually a blessing--it's that kind of bone-tired that leaves no room for extra worrying. I keep telling friends and family that "A tired dog is a happy dog!" but really I'm talking about myself.

Today Ruthie-pup and I enjoyed a very windy walk around a local lake with a former student/friend, getting caught up on university gossip. As we walked we passed a man jogging and I said out loud, "Who does that? What kind of life allows you to run at 10:30am?" before I realized, oh right: I do that now. I live that kind of life.

It's been on my mind a lot this week.

I received a message from an old friend asking about my decision process in making this work/life transition. My friend had recently scaled back her work responsibilities as well, in order to spend more time with her family. She asked me how my transition was going and how did I feel about missing out on the challenges/professional benefits that no longer come my way?

The truth is, I feel bummed. It would be a lie to say that I don't think about the professional conferences I used to attend. Conferences where I saw my colleagues from around the country. Where I presented sessions and participated in professional knowledge groups. It would be a lie to say that I don't miss the annual international travel, or the feeling of pride and accomplishment when my students receive prestigious scholarships and grants. I miss the respect from my colleagues; respect that I worked for over a decade to establish.

And it sucks that for my friend and I making the choice to focus more on our young children necessitated that we take ourselves out of the "fast-track" to higher education administration glory. (Such that it is).

At the same time it is amazing to be able to walk my kids to school each morning. To volunteer in my son's classroom every Friday. To meet friends for "walkies and talkies" around a beautiful lake on a Spring morning. To sit and express myself creatively. To have no excuse not to take care of myself.

In the past I worked hard to make sure everyone in my field knew I was kind of a big deal.
Now I work hard to make sure that *I* know the blessings of this life are kind of a big deal.

Who gets to walk the dog for three miles on a weekday morning at 10 o'clock?
I do.

Sometimes we are dumb.

                                                                   Ruthie Millicent

We did an awesomely dumb thing this weekend.
We acquired a new dog.

She's marvelous. Beautiful, sleek, soft. Strong yet submissive, gentle on a leash, very soft mouth when taking a biscuit. Needs training. Needs confidence building. Needs attention. Likes to interact with children but isn't *too* interested in them. Lets an elderly three-legged beagle boss her around. Snores loudly.

She's a sweetheart of a pup who I think could go far--we're aiming to get her canine good citizenship and then hopefully get her into a special corps of therapy dogs of her breed. Trained and coordinated by a local breed rescue group they work with special needs kids/adults with autism/seniors...

We love her and she is bringing us much needed joy and distraction.

Notice I did not say that we "adopted" a new dog (although that is the language that rolls most easily off my tongue when talking abut getting a puppers from the city animal shelter.) I purposely did not use this phrase because I am taking some time to really think through questionable adoption language. What does it mean when I say we "adopted a dog"? What does it mean when I say it in front of my children (some of whom were themselves adopted)? What does it mean when my choice of words inadvertently reinforce the notion that anyone with a fist full of cash can go and adopt a child?

Adopting a dog is not the same as adopting a child. Adopting a highway is not the same as adopting a child. Adopting a law is not the same as adopting a child, nor is adopting a stretch of highway.

There is a good discussion of this topic going on at one of the adoption forums that I haunt. Lots of intelligent points of view being shared by parents who have encountered all manner of questionable adoption language. Parents who have been asked (as recently as last week) "How much did she cost?" by jovial passers-by looking to start a supermarket conversation. Parents who have been asked the details of their child's background history--in front of the child, but with no acknowledgement of the child as a person in and of herself.

So many of these statements and questions are made out of curiosity with no ill intent. I get that. But they are also often made with no real thought to the child involved.

A blogger who I much admire did a wonderful post on this subject not that long ago, and the comments on her post are well worth a read:
Just because the word is the same...

Lots to think about.

The aftermath.

The veterinarian and the vet tech knocked on our door in the early evening. They had been delayed due to an emergency case that came in just before the vet office closed. They were subdued and gentle with our fragile hearts.

We led them into the family room where Sheila lay curled on the new hot pink shag carpet. She looked confused and tentatively wagged her tail at the visitors. Archie (our three legged beagle) was outside on the deck, pushing his paws into the windows and baroo-ing to be let in.

The doctor explained to us what would happen as the vet tech rubbed Sheila's ears. I left the room to get handfuls of tissues. The vet tech told us they would probably cry too and we all laughed at our impending sorrow. The doctor got out her syringe and began to unwind the neon green bandages that secured the IV catheter to Sheila's leg.

It happened just like the doctor told us it would. The first shot made her sleepy. I held her head and whispered to her what a good dog she was. What a beautiful girl, what a gentle girl, good girl, sweet baby...

She looked at us and YAWNED mightily, then put her head down. The second shot worked quickly; we stroked her fur as her heart slowed, then stopped altogether. The doctor and the vet tech left us alone with her for a few minutes after it was over. As soon as the door to the family room closed we sobbed and sobbed over her tiny body, still warm to touch.

The vet tech let Archie inside and he came to sniff his friend. He figured out pretty quickly what happened and moved on to getting elaborate pets from everyone in the room. We told a few stories from Sheila's life, thanked the doctor and the vet tech profusely and ushered them out the door. They took Sheila with them and promised to call us when her ashes were ready to be picked up.

We left to get the kids from my parents' house a few minutes later. They were giggly and happy. Miss A asked "How is Sheila?" and we told her Sheila had died.

We let the kids stay up late watching "Project Runway All Stars" hopeful that Mondo and Austin Scarlett might ease their sadness. It didn't work; Miss A cried for hours past her bedtime until she was too drained to stay awake any longer.

The next day we moved slowly through our routine. Sweet Bubs told Miss A that he thinks that when a dog gets to heaven God looks at it really closely and then makes a cloud that looks exactly like that dog.

The kids searched the skies all weekend long, trying to find the Sheila cloud.

Our first baby

                                                              Sheila Rose 1997--2012

In 1997 Sean and I lived in Berkeley with our two middle-aged mutts. On the weekends we liked to wander around 4th Street--we would stop into the Vivarium, grab some coffee at Peet's, poke around a bookstore or two and end the morning with a bowl of udon. It was paradise. One Saturday morning we were drawn in by a little girl who was helping out at a mobile adoption center staged by the Milo Foundation. The little lass held a tiny, blue merle puppy in her arms. She sweetly asked if I wanted to hold the puppy. (As an aside: YES. I ALWAYS WANT TO HOLD THE PUPPY.) I scooped the little bundle of grey and black fur into my arms, peered down at its amber eyes and knew we were leaving with that puppy.

We found out that the puppy was part of a litter born to an Australian Shepherd up in Willits--a town that played an important role in the epic "Story of Nora and Sean" (perhaps I will write that story some day...) I took it as an immediate sign that this pooch was meant to be ours. The puppy was a girl, about 3 months old. She had a delicate snout, lovely puppy breath and gleaming white "socks" on all four paws. Her belly was pink and round as a drum. I loved her.

We filled out the paperwork and took her home that day. We named her Sheila Rose as an homage to her Australian Shepherd-Blue Heeler heritage. Our elderly puggle was not thrilled with the new creature that leaped and swatted at her velvety puggle-ears. Our middle-aged bright red mutt took a liking to the puppy and began to give Sheila's ears a thorough cleaning. Wildfire soon progressed from ear licks to nibbles up and down Sheila's back, like a canine shiatsu massage.

                                               Sheila and Wildfire in our Vermont house

Sweet Sheila was the first dog we'd raised form puppyhood. She howled at night until we let her into the bed. She puffed hot little doggy breath onto my pillow as her paws twitched in complicated tempo against my back. The first time we left her alone and uncrated for a few hours she destroyed an entire futon mattress, gleefully flinging the stuffing over an entire floor. She peed with abandon in the kitchen.

She loved to run and be chased by other dogs. Her best friend was Dude--a black lab mix owned by two women who were students at the Pacific School of Religion. We would walk Sheila (also known as Lee Lee or LouLou or Sheila-lou) up the street to the PSR campus and let her and Dude chase each other at top speeds around bushes and religious scholars alike. They were oblivious to the view of the bay just peeking over the stone steps, and to the hushed theological conversations at play around them. All that mattered was running HARD and running FAST and collapsing in a panting heap on the cool grass.

When we moved to Vermont Sheila learned to love the snow. She leaped through drifts in playful bounds. When our first human baby came home she hung back, letting Wildfire (the big mutt) take the role of protector. When our second human baby came home, and the old dogs slipped quietly away from this world, Sheila assumed protector of the herd status. She patiently allowed Sweet Bubs to toddle after her, and pull on her fur. She let gummy little fists pet her a little too hard, and gladly cleaned the floor of any snacks that fell from the highchair.

                                              Sheila drinking baby soup in Texas

My favorite moment with Sheila happened in Texas, before we had human babies. Sean and I took all three of the dogs to Barton Creek to splash and play in the run-off from Barton Springs. Wildfire was a swimmer, and Molly (the puggle) hated to get her paws wet. Sheila paced nervously on the bank of the creek, wanting to join us and Wildfire but afraid to swim out to where we were. We ambled across some rocks and watched Wildfire splash into the water with great gusto. Sean jumped in to the cool waters as well. Suddenly we heard another splash and when we turned to look back at shore there was sweet LeeLee's head and paws chugging furiously through the deep waters towards us. She looked terrified. She reached us and kept on going, as if her body couldn't believe what it was doing and had no idea how to stop. From that day on she was an avid swimmer.

In recent years our Sheila slowed down. Thunderstorms terrified her and her anxiety grew. We got a kitten two years ago and the kitten fell in love with Sheila. Kitty loved to leap and grab Sheila's tail or to vigorously headbutt her snout for attention. Sometimes Sheila forgot we had a cat and would look startled when the kitty ran through the room. Sheila's passion for running and being chased gave way to hours spent snoozing on the carpet, waking to the sound of the kids coming home from school.

Last week she stopped eating. We took her to the vet and they determined that she was in kidney failure (both acute and chronic). We consented to give fluid therapy a try, but at the end of two days of treatment it became clear she wasn't going to recover. The vet graciously offered to come to our home in order to end her suffering. We prepared the kids the night before her passing and they wept angry tears at losing their faithful friend.

On her last day on earth she stumbled on spindly legs from the water bowl to the dog bed and back again. I stroked her ears with the lightest touch I could manage so as not to disturb her rest.  Her hip bones stuck out and her eyes were cloudy. I told myself I would not cry, I would hold my shit together for Sean and the kids. I told myself this again louder as the tears burned their way across my face.

She was my first baby. I can still feel her weight in my arms, the gentle rise and fall of her sleek puppy sides pressed against my forearms.