Roxie Goes to BAT

A friend of mine told me that once in a while, she pines for a dog. She misses having one, and she wants her young son to experience the same joys she did growing up with a canine buddy.

Then she thinks of my dog Roxie. And just like that, she said, she's cured.

Mitch and I joke that Roxie has been more work and worry than all our other dogs combined. It's one of those jokes that's not really funny, because it's true. I'll be honest: the first few weeks after we brought Roxie home, I didn't love her. Worse: I wasn't sure I even liked her. This dog, with all her unexpected issues, wasn't what I'd envisioned. She wasn't what I'd wanted. I was prepared for training; I wasn't prepared for an unpredictable, socially embarrassing, hugely stressful project. And I hadn't the slightest clue how to make things better.

Enter dog trainer and overwhelming force for good, Allison. When she told us Roxie has leash reactivity, we asked: Is there anything we can do for that? What we really meant was: Are we ever going to get our lives back? 

Allison is a pro with people as well as dogs. I'm sure she noted the glaze of desperation in our eyes, the edge of hysteria in our voices.

We can help her, she told us. And then she introduced us to BAT.

BAT--Behavior Adjustment Training--was developed by Grisha Stewart of Ahimsa Dog Training in Seattle, WA. The premise is pretty simple. A reactive dog like Roxie gets anxious approaching other dogs on leash.  Barking and lunging makes the other dog go away, which eases her fear.* What BAT does is teach the dog a different behavior to get the same result.

It didn't take Roxie long to learn that if she simply looked away from the other dog, we immediately retreated out of sight. Not only did she get the same reward--the source of her anxiety disappearing--but by staying calm, she also earned highly delectable treats.** Now, Roxie may have issues, but she ain't dumb. And she luuurves her treats. She improved so fast, we became BAT junkies. On our daily walks, instead of avoiding other dogs, I actually started seeking them out so that we could practice. The first time Roxie successfully passed another dog across the street without barking, I about busted with pride. The way I bragged about her later, you'd think my dog had single-handedly saved a small village from ravening werewolves.

Because by then--and we're talking only weeks, not months--Roxie had truly become my dog. BAT is a dance of trust between canine and human. In learning the steps to that dance, I stopped seeing Roxie as a bundle of problems and instead started appreciating how smart she is. How sweet, how much she wants to please. How fun she is to play with, and how finely attuned she is to my smallest move.

Even more importantly, I let go of the dog of my imagination. The dog we might have had instead, the easy dog with no issues. How unfair to living breathing Roxie, to compare her to that dog. So I opened the door and I let that imaginary perfect dog run away. If you're lucky, maybe you'll find him.

Of course it hasn't been all kibble and biscuits. Sometimes it seems for every step forward, we slide half a step back. We joke (another not-so-funny ha-ha) that someone gave Roxie a list of dog vices, and she's diligently working her way through every single one. Digging: check. Cat-harassing: check. Random senseless destruction: check. (Exhibit A, below). We still have frustrations and not-so-great days.

But on our 2-mile morning runs, her going ballistic is a thing of the past. Other dogs are met with an interested look, then she turns to me for praise and a treat. Her fearfulness and anxiety are hugely diminished. Instead, she meets the world head-on, ears up and eager. Watching her bloom into confidence has been worth every hour of BAT, every class, every training walk. In the past year, Roxie has discovered that she's braver than she knew. That there's nothing to be afraid of. And that a dog's life is actually pretty fun.

Especially when feather pillows are involved.

For more information on BAT and other positive, reward-based training methods, visit Grisha Stewart's website. Next up for Roxie, her hardest challenge yet: group walks with other leash-reactive dogs. It'll be an adventure!

*A leash-reactive dog looks like he'll rip other dogs to pieces if given the chance. But in most dogs, the behavior is caused by anxiety, not aggression. Like Roxie, many of these dogs are darlings off-leash.

**Key for Roxie was finding a treat she couldn't resist. For her, that's chicken. She only gets it when she responds calmly to other dogs on our walks; we never use it for anything else. That keeps it super-special. And surprisingly economical. Some processed treats at the pet stores are $7 to $15 for just half a pound...or less! In our area, chicken tenders run about $7.50 for 2-1/2 lbs. Microwave 3 frozen tenders for 5-6 minutes until fully cooked, then dice into pea-sized bits. Voila! A treat worth being brave for.

National Train Your Dog Month, or: Baby, You're Just Getting Started

One year, one week, and three days ago (not that anyone's counting), we brought a new dog into our lives. Our lives have yet to go back to normal. In fact, normal is no longer on the menu. It's like saying, Just wait until this hurricane passes by, and then we'll get back to our tea and scones. Oh, wait... Crap, there went the house.

So when I heard that January is National Train Your Dog Month, I cracked up laughing. Train Your Dog Month? Around here, 2011 was Train Your Dog Year. And now that we're in 2012?

Welcome to Year Two.

I've been training my own dogs since I was 14. I once housetrained a Great Dane puppy during a Tennessee mountain winter, when all he wanted was run back inside and curl up next to his best friend the space heater. ("Why are we freezing out here?" he seemed to say, shivering, with plaintive puppy eyes. "You never use that corner of the bedroom anyway!")  I even taught a Siberian Husky to heel reliably off-leash. In case you didn't know, a husky off-leash is generally a husky headed lickety-split for the hills, all treats, commands, and prior training be damned. Bottom line: I'm no newbie. So when we fell in love with a completely untrained, fearful 10-month-old German Shepherd puppy, I actually had the nerve to think: How hard could it be?

What I didn't get: There is algebra. And then, there is quantum physics.

Meet quantum physics.

Our first clue that we were in over our heads came just a couple of hours after bringing Roxie home. We took her for a walk in her new neighborhood; it was a sunny day, birds were singing (OK, maybe not--it was December), but still, everything was going swimmingly. Then she caught sight of another dog a block and a half away. And she turned into this:

No, she didn't turn into a Border Collie (although that would've been a seriously cool trick.) But you get the general barking/snarling/lunging picture. When it was happening, somehow we never had the presence of mind to take the actual Roxie's photo for future blogging documentation. Instead, we were pulling on her leash shouting, "NO!" and "STOP THAT!" and (if other people were within earshot), "WHO IS THIS STRANGE DOG WHOSE LEASH IS INEXPLICABLY IN OUR HANDS?"

Worse, even after other dogs vanished from sight (people very sensibly getting the hell away from a 65-lb completely insane German Shepherd and her obviously incompetent owners), Roxie would still keep barking and lunging. For, like, minutes. Nothing we did could get her attention. She was quite simply bonkers.

At first, we consoled ourselves that it was just nerves. Roxie had spent the entire 10 months of her life at her breeder's, only to be whisked away by strangers to a completely new environment. We'd already discovered she was terrified of bare floors and stairs, two elements which make up approximately 90% of our house. We joked that she was like an orphan raised in a Catholic convent, and here we'd taken her outside the walls to meet Baptists and Lutherans for the very first time. There were bound to be rough spots.

But while her other issues got better, the leash reactivity (technical term for bonkers) never did. Weirdly enough, she did great at day care. The staff even told us she was one of the sweetest German Shepherds they'd ever had. But anytime we took her out on a leash, she exploded at the barest glimpse of another dog. All my dog experience, all the years I'd counseled my veterinary clients on puppy raising...nothing I knew made the slightest difference.

I was utterly gobsmacked. And upset. Our idea of a second dog had been some sweet darling to keep our older dog company, to adventure out with us to dog parks and on road trips to the mountains and the beach. Instead, here we were with a dog we couldn't even take for a walk around the block. What have we brought into our house? we wondered. And now what the hell do we do?

Taking her back to the breeder wasn't an option. If we--two veterinarians with decades of dog experience between us--couldn't work with her, then how could we expect anyone else to? Nope. Warts and all, for better or worse, she was ours.

Enter Allison, professional dog trainer and sanity saver. Leash reactivity is one of the most common behavioral issues dogs have, she reassured us. And yes, there's hope. If you're willing to do the work.

We had no idea what that work would entail. But we were about to find out.

Next: BAT. No, not the baseball kind. You'll see.

Closets and Recollections

So I'm cleaning out my closets, and this time I swear I'm going to be ruthless. It doesn't matter how cute something looks on the hanger. For once, I'm going to accept the fact that...

...I never got around to buying a top to go with these pants, and what's more, I never will.

...no matter how much I hope it won't, the red fleece sweater will always attract every dog hair within fifty miles.

...the '90s are never, ever coming back.

No rationalization. No denial. And it's working. The donation bags are getting full, my overstuffed drawers are breathing sighs of relief. Then...I get to the T-shirts.

I pull out this tank, squashed near the bottom of the drawer, and instantly I'm back in Italy. Hot blazing blue sky, turquoise water. White pebble beaches and crooked narrow streets. It was my first trip abroad. I was 22. That fall, I started...

...veterinary school, where I met...

...my sweetheart. Yellowstone was our first road trip. Every night, we had to find a hill to park on so that we could roll-start the VW van the next morning. VW vans have crappy electrical systems. On the upside, every other VW driver on the road will wave to you.

After we graduated, my sweetheart moved to Kansas, while I drove down I-5 to my first veterinary job in...

...Mariposa, just outside Yosemite National Park. I made a wonderful friend, Marybeth, and we went to the county fair and I got this tee promoting Mariposa County's Division of Alcohol and Drug Programs. I have no idea why. Anyway, the butterfly is pretty.

From thousands of miles away, my sweetheart sent me an Indigo Girls song:

"To let this love survive would be the greatest gift we could give
Tell all the friends who think they're so together
That these are ghosts and mirages, these thoughts of fairer weather
Though it's storming out, I feel safe within the arms
Of love's discovery."

Not surprisingly, soon after that we moved to Tennessee together...

...where, among other things, we went to Indigo Girls concerts. And then...

One by one, I lay the T-shirts out. They're old. Most of them I haven't worn in years. Get rid of them, the ruthless voice demands. They're just taking up space.

I smooth my hand over the worn fabric, the cracked designs. And then I fold them back up, one by one, and I nestle them back in the drawer.

Sometimes, the best memories aren't in photographs.

The Summer of the Book

Memories of certain summers taste of certain books. These are the summers that held A Book so memorable, I can never think of one without the other. To reread a particular passage is to bring back the bright sweltering day I first read it. Where I was. What I was doing. The colors and flavors of that time.

Anna Karenina. I was between my first and second years of veterinary school, supporting myself as a lowly tech in a campus research lab. The work was beyond tedious--it involved counting lesions on microscopic sections of rat lung, section after section, hour after hour--and every free moment I had, I dove back into Tolstoy. I read Levin's marriage proposal to Kitty on a lunch break. I was more than captivated; I was transported. I felt for Anna, but Levin--Levin to me was real, more real than almost any other character I've ever met. I felt as though he drew breath next to me, with his passion and temper and terrible longings, and the battles he waged within himself about what it means to be a good man.

Middlemarch. Oh, Dorothea... while you were in Rome, stuck on a joyless honeymoon with that empty husk of a husband (really, darling, how could you?), we were on a road trip through the Carolinas. I broke my toe the day before we left. The doctor told me to stay off it or it wouldn't heal. Instead, I limped with my sweetheart through the Biltmore estate in Asheville and up the spiral stairs of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. We swam in the Atlantic, explored Fort Sumter, walked the Battery in Charleston. We were newly in love, learning each other day by day. I felt sorry that Dorothea (and poor Lydgate) hadn't chosen as wisely as we. (A bit smug, was I. About the toe, too. The doctor was right: it never did heal.)



Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. My agent had sold my first novel that spring. I spent the summer working like mad on revisions. Every afternoon, I took a short break in the backyard sun and immersed myself in Susanna Clarke's incredible imagination. The world she built is so rich in detail and nuance, its characters so alive, that reading it is like a master course in fiction writing. Not to mention it's funny and heartbreaking as hell.



A Suitable Boy. By now, I was blogging. I wrote a whole post about this one. Picked it up by chance, read the first couple of sentences, and was hooked. A Suitable Boy remains one of my top arguments for bookstores. I'd never heard of this book; browsing shelves is the only way I would have found this sprawling, gorgeous novel. I spent that summer in the dust and heat and rain of 1950s India, following the lives of four families, dozens of characters, coming back always to Lata Mehra as her mother seeks a suitable boy for her to marry. Sheer reading joy...which I couldn't possibly keep to myself. To date, I've made Vikram Seth fans out of five friends. All of whom gasped when they saw the 1,348 pages, and all of whom loved it as much as I did. We've had some passionate debates about the boy Lata finally chooses at the end. (I still say she made the right choice, Laura, I don't care how hard you argue.)

And this year? This is the summer of fantasy series. I grew up with fantasy novels, read them all through college. And then, for some reason, I just sort of stopped. Now I'm catching up with a vengeance. I just finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and just started A Clash of Kings, second in the Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin. HP and the Order of the Phoenix awaits, and then A Clash of Swords, and then... It won't stop with the books, either. Then it'll be the HP movies, and after that, Game of Thrones when it comes out on DVD... *rubbing hands in delicious anticipation*

What about you? What book is keeping you up nights this summer?

This post was inspired by Melissa over at Writing With Style, who asked, "What are you reading this summer?" Which got me thinking and writing. Thanks, Melissa!

Chasing Giraffes, Part II: In Which Our Heroine Actually Chases Giraffes

When last we spoke of South Africa, our plucky travelers had been challenged to a foot race to determine who was the speediest among them. Alas--but not surprisingly--I finished dead last. Track star, I am not.

The need for all this speed?* Our first hands-on wildlife capture with Andre, game capture specialist and our tour leader/instructor.

First on the schedule for that day: observing a rhino capture. The rhino, a pregnant female, was to be transported to Moholoholo, a wildlife sanctuary and rehab center. Now, one does not simply walk up to a two-ton animal with a wicked horn and tendency to charge and ask her to pretty please get in a trailer...that is, assuming one can even find her. This is where modern technology comes in:

Once the rhino was spotted by helicopter, a veterinarian on board darted her with tranquilizers from the air.

Rhino down. That's Andre on the left. In front is our own intrepid Margot, taking a respiratory rate to be sure sleepy mama is doing OK. Just after this, her beautiful horn was sawed off, leaving only a stump. (Rhino horn has no nerves; the sawing was painless.) Rhinos are killed by poachers for their horns. The hope is that if the horn is removed, then any poachers who find her will let her live.

This strategy doesn't always work, Andre told us. A poacher who has spent three days tracking a rhino--only to find out that the rhino is hornless, and thus (to him) worthless--may kill the animal anyway. That way he won't waste more time tracking the same animal. And perhaps retaliation, too: the horn was stolen from the poacher, and so the poacher will steal the animal from the world.

Horn off, next came the tricky bit: the veterinarian partially reversed the sedation, enough so that the rhino could stand. Then the game capture crew--all experts, no amateur types like us--liked arms around the blindfolded, groggy creature and guided her onto the trailer. We crossed our fingers for her and her baby. And then we headed to our own adventure: the capture of three adult giraffes.

Our crew from left: Lindsey (veterinary student and Andre's intern), Brent, Kevin, Margot, Mitch (aka sweetheart), Tanya, and Ferris. (Our friend Dave isn't in this pic.) The adorable little truck is Andre's bucky.

Andre loading darts with etorphine, an extremely powerful narcotic sedative.

Giraffes spotted from the helicopter. (We didn't get to go aloft, alas. At this point, the eight of us are squished in the back of the bucky, awaiting directions.) For each capture, Andre darted one giraffe, had the pilot land the helicopter, hopped in the bucky, and drove us like mad over the veldt after the target. Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood movies, tranquilizer darts take several minutes to take effect; animals can run a looong way in that time.

Once we got close to the staggery giraffe, we leaped out of the bucky and started running. The footrace winners, armed with ropes, halter, and blindfold, took the lead. The rest of us followed in a mad dash, dodging acacia bushes, holes, and other hazards, while trying not to drop our own equipment. By the time we caught up, the giraffe was safely down.

Here Mitch is supporting the sedated giraffe's head. (Brent provides a sympathy tongue loll.) Meanwhile, under Andre's direction, I was pulling up the dose of drug that would partly reverse the sedation. I may not be fast on my feet, but...

...I can hit a giraffe jugular with the best of `em.

Once the giraffe was up and walking, people took turns leading it the quarter mile to the parked trailer. Here Andre is guiding it up the ramp.
These three hours are among the most intense and surreal of my life. Looking back, what I remember best is the excitement. And the fear. Vaulting out of the bucky, my feet pounding across hard uneven ground. Concentrating, trying to block out everything else, as I pulled up drug doses and gave injections. Relief at the sight of blood curling into my syringe, the easy slip of drug into veins. The smooth dusty feel of giraffe hide under my fingers. The whole time, afraid that I'd mess up somehow. Let down the animal. Let down the rest of the crew. That fear kept me from taking a turn on the giraffe lead rope. I should have done it anyway.

And the others? If you've ever traveled, you know that in a strange country, in unfamiliar situations, people (ourselves included, let us be honest) are not always at their shiny happy best. But we didn't have time to be strangers looking askance. No time for ego or self-absorption. We pulled together as a team and got the job done. Three giraffes. Three smooth and successful captures. Nobody hurt.

We did almost lose Mitch once, when the bucky hit a particularly sharp bump and he bounced off the tailgate. He was literally in mid-air when quick-witted and quick-handed Ferris grabbed him and yanked him back into the truck bed. (Thanks, Ferris! I like my sweetie in one piece.) And I sliced my finger open on an acacia thorn. Acacias do not kid around.

The worst casualty was Mitch's photo card. Popped out of his camera while running through the bush. It's still on the veldt somewhere.

That night, back at the game lodge, sitting around the fire after dinner, listening to Andre tell wildlife stories...surreal, still, and perfect. The eight of us, most of us newly met, but already with stories of our own that bound us together.

And more to come...


*Apologies to Top Gun

Another Beautiful Light Lost

Three years ago, I was the only young-adult author I knew. I think of that time as Before: before I discovered how many other young-adult authors live here in Portland, Oregon. Amazingly talented writers who are passionate about their work. About the teens they write for. About the world of young adult fiction. And about each other.

We go to each other's book launches and readings. We celebrate successes, commiserate over writing woes, are outraged for each other when publishing doesn't treat us well. We laugh a lot. And lately, we've cried.

In February we lost one of our little community, Lisa Madigan, to pancreatic cancer. And then, last week, Bridget Zinn passed away.

Two years ago, Bridget was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. Shortly afterward, she married her longtime love in a ceremony at the hospital. Her agent sold her debut novel. Bridget went through rounds of treatment. She revised the novel. She and her husband bought a house. More treatment. More revisions. She died before her book could be published. She was only 33.

I didn't know Bridget as well as others in our little group, the Portland KidLit. But every time I saw her, I was in awe of how happy she was. She laughed so much. She seemed absolutely steeped in love. Brimming with it. Appreciative of every good in her life, no matter how small.

Her good friends and fellow Portland KidLit-ers Jone MacCulloch, Lisa Schroeder, Laini Taylor, and April Henry, and her agent, Michael Sterns, have all written about Bridget much more eloquently than I can.

I hope her book continues on to publication, so that her words live on after her, so that the world has the opportunity to discover her.

And I try to remember: Be grateful now, this moment, for all I have that is good.

Chasing Giraffes, Part I: In Which Our Heroine Sets Off on an Adventure

We are sitting in a small conference room with brick walls, blinds closed against the bright South African sun, listening as nurse Gillian Thompson describes all the possible ways we might vrek once we go out into the bush:

Puff adder bite (tissue death and gangrene).

Black mamba bite (respiratory paralysis).

Accidental exposure to etorphine, a large animal sedative (respiratory and cardiac arrest).

Animal attack (massive internal trauma).

If you've guessed that in South Africa, to vrek means to die, award yourself fifty smart points.

My first clue that this wasn't going to be your standard relaxing vacation had come months earlier, when my sweetheart sent me an email about a South African ecotourism trip. At the word ecotourism, I'd immediately pictured one of those safaris you read about in magazines: khaki-clad tourists snapping photos of wildlife from a rugged jeep, then toasting the day's sightings with champagne and chocolate eclairs. I eagerly skimmed the description:

"If you are physically fit, enjoy strenuous outdoor work and a high level of adrenaline, this is the course for you!"

Hm. Actually, I prefer lying on the couch with a glass of wine and a Jane Austen novel. Still, I kept reading.

"For safety sake, you are expected to be able to sprint short distances (100meters), run medium distances (200 meters), climb over 2 meter (6 ft.) fences, and have a great deal of endurance!"

Wait a minute. What about the jeep? The photograph-snapping? Exactly what kind of ecotourism are we talking about here?

"Depending on what captures are available...your experience may range from a nighttime lion capture to catching several hundred antelope in a day. Your participation in captures will be as extensive as possible...We will work with very dangerous wild animals in free-ranging situations."

The sprint-and-climb-fences thing was now starting to make a horrible kind of sense. But...surely there would be chocolate eclairs?

"You must be prepared to be up very early, working outside, in the sun, doing physical work most of the day. And you will have the time of your life!"

I'm going to shamelessly give myself credit here. To my sweetie's emailed question: What do you think? I did NOT shoot back, Have you EVER met me?

Next thing I knew we were in Hoedspruit, South Africa, about to embark on an intense, hands-on, 9-day course in wild animal capture. Our leader: Andre Pienaar, founder of Parawild, specialist in game management and conservation. Our companions: two friends, Dave (zookeeper) and Margot (zoo veterinary technician); Kevin (4th-year veterinary student); Brent (wildlife major and self-described professional river rat); Tanya (2nd-year veterinary student); and her boyfriend, Ferris (computer specialist).

Andre's original plan was to have us rough it in tents on the open veldt. Thanks to logistical difficulties, however, we ended up at Landela Lodge, a game ranch with private rooms, en suite baths and beautifully prepared South African cuisine. Here I am devastated at the unexpected change:

You may have noticed the decor. Something you should know about game ranches: While they welcome ecotourists, like us, their main business is providing hunters with animals to shoot.

More about that later.

We may have escaped roughing it in tents, but rising early was still part of the program. Most mornings we got up and breakfasted on the Landela patio while it was still dark, in order to be ready for a game walk at dawn.

Those were the days we got to sleep in. Otherwise, when we had someplace to be, we were up and on the road even earlier.

On our game walks we mostly saw animal tracks, which Andre taught us how to identify.

We also saw a lot of scat, which is either a style of jazz singing or wildlife poop. Ella Fitzgerald wasn't on the trip, so you can guess which one I mean.

Actual creatures spotted ranged from the very large...

...to the very, very small. These are pants. Each teeny, tiny little dot on the pants is a pepper tick. Thankfully, these are not MY pants.

After the game walks, refreshed, wide awake, and de-vermined, we headed inside for coffee and education. Before we got the chance to round up wild creatures, we had some larnin' to do. Over the first two days, Andre taught us about the history of game management and wildlife conservation in South Africa, as well as the physiology, pharmacology, and techniques of game capture.

Then came Gillian Thompson, explaining in her pleasant, lilting voice the many ways in which we might vrek. There's no LifeFlight in the South African bush; if something went wrong, all we could rely on was each other. Under Gilly's cheerful supervision, we practiced CPR and setting IV catheters in each other. Note Margot smiling as I stab her wrist vein. Margot can smile through almost anything. Plus she's a whiz with a hypodermic. If you are going on a trip in which you might vrek, these are qualities you want in a traveling companion.

After catheter practice, Andre organized a footrace to see which of us was fastest. Brent and Kevin, the top two finishers, were awarded a massively long rope. Then they got to run some more, chasing after Andre in a kind of dress rehearsal:

The rest of us were given our assignments, and Andre led us through the plan. Our time had come: the next morning, we would be assisting in the capture and transport of three full-grown giraffes.

Coming soon, Part II: In Which Our Heroine Discovers that Acacia Bushes are Sharp & Giraffe Hide is Tough, and Her Sweetheart Almost Fricks Off the Back of a Leaping Bucky.