Desert Dog and Rain

It rained in our area for almost 8 hours yesterday. This time it was a real rain, not the usual spit of moisture and dust that leaves a film of dried mud on everything. Wunderground.com reports 16 mm, consistent with data from local Aramco weather stations.

I have stopped the dogs’ pre-dawn walks again because the feral dog pack has been getting more aggressive and I don’t want to take the risk of being stalked and attacked in the dark. So I try my best to rush home from work, throw on some walking clothes, and take the beasts out for a good long walk while we have a bit of daylight left.

There was no daylight yesterday and in fact it was raining steadily but I decided to walk the dogs anyway. It wasn’t that cold, only about 53 F. Harry and Mimi have experienced much more challenging conditions. But the main reason I decided to walk them was to give Azza her first experience with rain. She’s a year old and while it did rain a tiny bit in February and March of this year, she’s never seen real rain.

Mimi spent the walk hunched over trying to look as miserable as possible while Harry trotted along as if it was just another day.

As an aside, Harry adores his daily walks. I reach for my shoes and the leashes and he starts doing what I call his “walkie dance” in which he shuffles and hops from foot to foot, so excited he can hardly contain himself. He only stops dancing long enough to get close to me so I can snap his collar on.
I quickly discovered a rather interesting design flaw in desert dog Azza: her ears. Those enormous upright ears become rain scoops. You could almost hear the drops plinking into them. She squinted and tilted her head and held first one then the other ear down to sort out these new sensations. (She has extremely fine control over her ears and is able to independently rotate them almost 180 degrees from upright to flattened back against her head.)

Then she discovered the rain itself. She slowly looked up and realized that something was falling from the sky. Naturally she began to leap up into the air again and again trying to catch the rain drops. She was so joyful and excited to learn about this wonderful new thing in her world. She splashed through mud and puddles as if they weren’t there (Harry and Mimi walk around puddles). I let her get just as wet and dirty as she wanted because she’s got an easy-care coat like the terriers.

When we got home, they all got a good rubdown with the towel I had strategically left by the door and after a bit of zoomies around the living room, a roll on the Persian carpet, and some dinner, all settled down for a nap.

Fun House Ride

Whenever I get a mid-morning phone call from Upul, I always feel a tiny flutter of anxiety because my morbid imagination immediately takes over with visions of various disasters. His calls usually turn out to be more amusing than alarming, though, and this morning was no different.

It rained in Dhahran today (a whopping 2.2 mm but that still counts as rain). Upul rides a scooter so he of course has a rain coat, a bright yellow one. He called me to tell me that when he arrived to walk the dogs and came in the house in his yellow rain coat, Azza lost her shit (my words, not his). She lunged at him, bit at her crate walls and door, barked and growled. I think that response meets the standard of "losing one's shit." Of course Mimi and Harry offered their usual joyous greetings. Upul said that he went back outside and left the coat with his helmet. When he came back inside and spoke to Azza, she was more or less normal. But he said that when he let her out of her crate, "every hair was straight out!"

I've seen her in a state of extreme fear arousal before and she can indeed puff up like a cat. This enormous puff of hair forms over her shoulders, along her back, and across her hips. Even her tail gets fuzzier. She can vaguely resemble a poodle with a formal show cut, little puffs and balls of fur here and there, since the rest of her coat is so short and flat (but much softer than the terriers).

I told him to bring the coat into the house and put it on the stool and let her approach it and sniff it on her own terms. He did this while we were talking and reported that she puffed up again ("every hair is straight out, ma'am!"), approaching his coat only once then backing away growling. I told him to ignore her and let her get used to it, and to walk her only if it wasn't raining too hard. I didn't get a second call so he either walked her successfully or decided not to walk her at all.

Loosely related to these events was the walk that MW and Boodle and the dogs and I took this evening. It's very cloudy today and the normal dusk became rather gloomy with the early sunset. I think MW set us all off when she started and gasped at what at peripheral glance could have been a large cat but turned out to be a piece of wood next to the path. Things went downhill quickly.

There were indeed very real cats around every corner, crouched beside every palm tree, perched on top of every can and bucket. It was like being in a cheap fun house ride where shrieking clowns and moaning skeletons randomly fly at your head while bright lights sear your eyes.

Mimi's first response upon sight of a strange cat is to bite the dog that is closest to her, which is usually Harry. When prevented from doing that, she goes for Azza, who is usually looking for something to bite herself. I've gotten quite good at separately cinching up Mimi's leash and Azza's leash with one hand while leaving Harry's leash untouched and simultaneously herding each bitch to opposite sides of me with my other hand. I can do this in a fraction of a second because I've had a lot of practice at it. To get the full flavor, you also have to add in Azza's 100-decibel barking and Mimi's weird trilling bark, more like a bird than a dog. MW has her own issues with Boodle who does plenty of his own barking and lunging. Harry remains oblivious to all of this as he simply can't see or hear well enough anymore to get involved.

Once the dogs were all nicely on edge, we happened to see a guy walking his dog on the other side of the street. Good grief, the dogs just lost it entirely. That was like the part of the cheesy fun house ride where the little car you are riding in takes a dip then a sharp turn to the right, slamming you into the cold metal side.

CircusK9: the fun house ride that keeps going and going!

Rain...

I know my friends in central Texas won't appreciate this so much, but it has rained 5.25" here in the past 36 hours...and it's still raining steadily.

The weather system causing the rain is pretty large and I noticed that Austin did record an inch of rain on Friday. Boy, they need lots more than that.

I'd be happy to ship some of it south if I could. Even the dogs are making wet, squelching sounds when they walk around the back yard--we've certainly had our share and then some. (Since there's no thunder, I have been able to convince Dyna and Mimi to come out and play in the yard.)

It's crazy to even type this knowing how bad the drought is to the south, but my rain gauge only records up to 5" so I empty it every 12 hours or so.

I took Harry and Jack for a walk this morning. There was light drizzle and I knew we weren't going to be out in it for too long. The most exciting part was the stream crossing. The stream crosses a road in a large dip designed to hold the water flow, which is usually just a trickle. It dries up completely during the summer. The water was just above my ankles, cold, and moving swiftly. Small sand waves had accumulated on the concrete stream bed--the sand provided good footing on top of the algae slime that usually covers the concrete. Since I planned our route so that we crossed near the end of our walk, the boys and I just waded in. Socks and shoes will dry.

Health Worries (2)

Jack had 10 teeth extracted today. Yes, that isn't a typo. TEN teeth.

This traumatic dental event was precipitated when I noticed this past weekend that the tip of one of his canines was broken off. Really, it was more like half of the tooth was gone. He was acting like it hurt, and since these fox terriers are insanely stoic, if they act like it hurts, on the 1 to 10 scale, the pain has to be 11.

Jack went through an episode about 4 years ago where he tried to chew through a wire crate. I finally moved him into the plastic crate he still uses now but the damage had been done. He had fractured nearly all of his teeth.

If the fractures penetrate to the pulp inside the tooth, bacteria find their way in and eventually the tooth dies.

As a result of the wire crate incident, quite a few of his teeth (really, the roots of the teeth) had deteriorated beyond repair or salvage and the only option was to remove them.

Ironically, the broken canine was a healthy tooth with a healthy root and it took almost an hour to extract it. He was under anesthesia for a total of three hours which is a very long time even for a healthy 8 yr old dog like Jack (he will be 8 in almost exactly 1 month).

He's not in great shape right now. He did eat some canned food mixed with warm water for dinner (with his meds cleverly hidden inside). But he's leaving bloody drool wherever he lays his head. His eyes don't quite focus. He totters and weaves like a drunken sailor. He's in quite a bit of pain. His face is swollen and tender. He's having trouble staying warm.

In short, he's a mess.

Harry on the left, Jack's nose barely visible on the right. Jack is under three layers of fleece and on top of fleece covering a dog bed on the couch.

It's going to be a long night as I will probably check on him every half hour or so. (He sleeps on the bed anyway so I'll make him a cozy nest next to me.)

Of course, he will get to go to work with me for a few days, the privilege of sick and recuperating dogs. And he'll get to eat super special food for a while too--I bought one of those roasted whole chickens at the store on the way home from the vet.

In other news, it's been raining since 5:30 this morning. It is much needed and appreciated although we are not dealing with as severe a drought as they are in central Texas. It rained about an inch in 12 hours and has continued to rain steadily since I got home from work.


Post Script: Jack is doing much better this morning. Still pretty subdued and his face is swollen, but his eyes look clear and he's getting that fox terrier spring in his step.

Also, it rained another inch last night.