Separation Anxiety

(The pen shown above is the actual one that Abby had bit into in one of her baby-girl fits one day when she was left alone.)

If there was ever a dog that had separation anxiety, it was Abby. The way she showed her separation anxiety depended on how mad Abby was and who she was mad at. Normally, Abby would be the maddest at the last person to have left the house. That is, the person who she thought left her alone. My mom was at the house most of the time while I was away most of the day so Abby got mad at my mom most of the time that she was alone since she thought it was my mom who was abandoning her.

It may sound silly that we would attribute Abby’s anxiety being directed to someone in particular, but all I can do is give anecdotes in support.

My mom loved to read novels by authors such as Stephen King or John Grisham. She would go through a book a week while sitting on the couch in the den while Abby lay on the floor keeping her company. Abby was very observant and would notice things if they were out of place. For example, if we moved a piece of furniture just a few feet, the first thing she would do when she came in afterwards would be to do directly to that moved furniture and sniff it. Abby paid attention and noticed everything. I would not doubt it that Abby noticed my mom using reading glasses whenever my mom read

There were many things Abby could have chewed up and destroyed while she was unsupervised during our absence, but she almost inevitably took the reading glasses off the coffee table and mangled the shit out of them beyond use or repair.

So, the person who last left the house was the one Abby targeted. My mom must have gone through well over a dozen reading glasses. Sure, she could have placed the glasses out of Abby’s reach and often she did, but often she forgot. I still don’t know why Abby didn’t go after the books themselves. Maybe she wouldn’t have received the satisfaction of tearing up that item like she did the glasses.

In the times Abby got mad at me; she would go back to my room, get something out of it and tear it up. Other times, she would go on the table beside my chair and grab something off of it. One time she snagged an electronic organizer (this was the mid 90’s) and chewed it up. She got a spanking for that. Another time she took a solid metal pen (Retro 51, a gift from my grandmother), bit down on it and dented this thing. She must have been very mad at me because these pens are solid. I’m surprised that she didn’t chip a tooth. I used that pen a lot and loved it. Abby knew it and was sending me a message when she did that.

I hated to spank Abby and the only times I spanked her hard was when she tore up that organizer and when she ran out into the street. Spanking helped to curb her destructive behavior, but we had to reinforce our punishments. For example, we would keep a pair of mangled glasses around, and when Abby wasn’t looking, we would place the glasses on the floor or coffee table. Later, when she came in the room, she did her best to ignore the item and that is when we would ask, “Did you do that?” while pointing to the object. Abby would get really quiet, try to look away and lick her lips. Then we would top it off with “Do you want a spank?” Abby responded by getting on her haunches and try to hug me. I would then get on the ground, hug her and tell her she was a good girl. It was so sweet when she did that. Sometimes I would say to her “you want a spank” just so she would huggy and kissy me. I know it sounds sadistic, but I loved it when she would lala me like that.

The spankings, constant reminding her of her naughtiness cut down on her destructiveness. By the time she was a year old, Abby had outgrown this phase. But she never forgot the word ‘spank’. Just mentioning the word brought fear and would guarantee that she would hug and kiss me. I may have spanked her once or twice after she turned one, and I think one time was for her eating chicken bones out of the trashcan. Some of her behavior change can be attributed to our discipline, some to her mellowing out as she aged, and maybe because of Andy coming on the scene. Abby hated to see Andy get spanked much more than actually receiving one herself. When we bought Andy, this seemed to change her and she matured because of her protectiveness of him.

Abby's First Swim

When Abby was young she hated swimming despite being able to swim. I don’t think she realized that she was bred for and was supposed to swim. One time I picked her up and put her on the top step of the pool. She immediately hopped out, went straight to the corner in the patio and starred me down for several minutes. She knew how to put on an ugly face if she wanted to express her anger. She sat in the same corner as in the photo of this entry except she didn’t have a cutie-pie face. If looks could have killed that day, I would be dead right now.

Something I noticed when I was going through old photos was that there were not many photos of Abby as a puppy swimming. That was because she did not swim often enough for us to snap photos of her in the pool.

I chose the photo above because it was with those girls along with some of their friends not shown who whipped Abby into a frenzy for her to go swimming.(Edit: I decided against showing photos of the kids.) During the excitement, Abby just didn’t get in, she jumped in. I was doing yard work so I missed the event, but I could hear the splash when Abby had gone in and the girls yelling and cheering for Abby.

As Abby got older, she didn’t have to be so excited in order for her to get in the pool. Normally, she had to have company and she rarely went in the water alone without an audience. Examples of ‘company’ would be Nikki coming over or houseguests. Abby rarely went in during cold weather, but she did love going in during a hot summer’s day. Abby loved to show-off. When a guest would come over, she would slip into the pool, swim in a small circle, and look up at the guest in an attempt to catch that person’s eye. Many times, Abby was trying to entice the guest into joining her in the water. She often did this to me after I had moved out of the house but came back for a visit.

This is in contrast to Nikki or Andy who would get in the water anytime of the year. I’ve seen Andy try to break through a layer of ice to try to get in. As Abby grew older, the only times she would swim was when I was in the pool. Part of the reason for this is that she liked my company. Another reason she would swim only when I was around is that I was the only one she trusted to help get her out of the pool. In her later years, Abby was afflicted with severe arthritis and had problems moving around or getting up and down steps. Abby knew I could help her out, and sometimes, she really did need help getting out. Even in her advanced years, Abby could still swim well with a fluidity and grace. She would slip quietly in the water and use that powerful ‘otter’ tail to steer her way around the pool. That tail had a useful purpose in the water, but on land, that thing could swipe a table clean with one wag of it.

She Loves Me; She Loves Me Not Part II

When Abby saw me arrive home every day, she would be excited and want to play. It wasn’t from being isolated or alone. My mom was with her at home all day and kept her company almost all the time. But when I came home, Abby would wag her tail, run to me, jump up on me and start to play. I didn’t think about how much she really loved me. I wrote it off as boredom or excitement of something new.

(I showed the ‘aerial’ view of the backyard to show the relation of the pool’s edge to the fence and to the trampoline. From the edge of the pool to the trampoline was about 3 or 4 feet and the height difference from the pool’s edge to the top of the fence was about 3 feet.)
Even in my mid 20’s, I would often jump on the trampoline. One day after arriving from school, I greeted everyone, changed into my shorts as I usually do (in the lab I wore jeans) and went to play on the trampoline. Jumping on the trampoline meant not playing with Abby or paying her any attention at all which frustrated her quite a bit. On this day when I did this, this was too much for her to handle, and with my back turned to the fence while I was on the trampoline, I could feel something drop onto the trampoline. It was Abby. She had run down the pool’s edge, leaped completely over the fence and landed on the trampoline!

I couldn’t believe it. Even as a puppy, Abby was big-boned and stocky, so it was shocking that she had so much pop in her step. Looks were very deceiving in this case. It kind of reminded me of this 350lb Olympic weight lifter who could slam dunk a basketball.

Abby was so happy to be with me, and we started to wrestle on the trampoline. Abby would jump the fence a few more times in the weeks to come. The last time she did it, she clipped the fence and tumbled onto the trampoline. I guess that scared her a bit so she never tried it again, much to my relief. It was fairly obvious how attached she was to me. I wouldn’t realize how attached I was to her until later.

In the mean time, we owned two dogs that our fence could not contain. Father could climb the fence, and often did. As a matter of fact, that was his choice of getting in and out of the fence. He would not wait for us to open the gate for him when he wanted to get on the other side from where he was at. Although Abby could jump the fence, she never did except when I was on the trampoline.

This concerned my mom, so she bought a new fence. It was around 5-6 feet high, and its perimeter went around a wider area of the backyard than the old fence did which gave Abby much more room to play out back. Abby wasn’t able to jump the fence nor did she ever try. Father, on the other hand, could climb it, which he often did. There were days when he was tired where he went to gaps or weak-points between the fence and the ground and crawl under it. Fortunately, Abby didn’t try that method of escape.

She Loves Me; She Loves Me Not...

(Actually, Abby always loved me.)

Even though early on I did not view Abby as my dog, I had a lot of fun playing with her, and she was a good companion for me, too. In that year, my parents divorced, my dad had been arrested, two relatives died, my research was spinning in place and going nowhere, and a hurricane swept through the area. It was not a good year for me, and Abby was a shining light in an otherwise miserable time. There is a saying that if you want a friend in Washington, then get a dog. By extension, the same thing can be said about graduate school.

Abby and I viewed each other as playmates, but when did Abby really become attached to me? I would say that the earliest sign I can remember was a little over a month after we bought Abby.

Before my mom went on vacation to her sister’s condo near Myrtle Beach, my mom decided that Abby would stay at my cousin’s house. Since I was gone most of the day, often from 8am until 11pm, leaving Abby alone for such a long time would be cruel to her. Besides, she was wild as hell, and there was no telling how much damage she would have done to our house when she would pitch a fit. And believe me; she did pitch fits when she was left alone for more than 5 minutes.

My cousin, Patty, had Nikki, a big yard, a young daughter and a pool, so Abby would always have company. Abby always loved company, and when she was young, she especially loved kids, so being at my cousin’s would be heaven for Abby. Of course, Abby always loved Nikki until the day Nikki died. As Abby aged and mellowed out, she would noticeably change whenever Nikki visited. Abby would revert to her old puppy ways and behave real silly and goofy around Nikki. Keeping Abby at my cousin’s was a good idea.

Anyway, at the end of the week, my cousin planned on going out of town herself, so she was going to drop off Abby at our place on Friday. When I arrived that afternoon, I saw a note on the porch. It was from my cousin. She told me how Abby had been that week and had gone into detail about it. The last line of the note read, ‘And Abby is out back in the fence.’ No sooner had I finished that last line than I heard Abby plaintively cry at the porch door. I hadn’t realized that Abby was in the backyard until I heard her cry out.

Abby immediately jumped up on me when I opened the door to greet her. When a dog wags its tail so real hard, the dog’s whole body starts to ‘wag’, shake and start to squiggle. Abby was elated to see me. I was happy, too, to see her and felt sorry for her being alone in the backyard, but her joy in seeing me far exceeded what I felt for her. I was happy to see her, there is no doubt about that, but I felt more pity that she was by herself. She hated being alone, and I knew that. At the time, I didn’t think she was particularly attached to me. I attributed her response at my arrival to being alone for a while, and the subsequent elation when somebody-anybody-came home to see her.

Horsey

(We never captured a shot of Abby being a 'horsey', so I have to settle for the next best thing which is a photo of the 'scene of the crime.' At the time Abby was going through this phase, the dining room above was carpeted and did not have the rug shown.)


“Horsey” was a description of something Abby occasionally did when she was a puppy, and it wasn’t a game or even considered playing. It was more of a catharsis for her. She would seemingly spontaneously run back and forth from the foyer, through the living room and into the dining room where she would go around the table, back to the living room and finally the foyer where she would do at least 4 or 5 more laps, all of this at full speed. We didn’t know exactly what triggered these events, or else we would have prodded her into doing it more often instead of having to wait for the moment to strike her to be a ‘horsey’. We thought it was funny when she did it and cute, too. We called it ‘horsey’ because she was running so fast that it was like she was galloping when she did this. The only sound she made during these events was a shrill whine because she was breathing so hard, but, she didn’t bark or growl.

We do know that she had to be excited to do this, but her being excited wasn’t enough to trigger one of these episodes. Houseguests always excited Abby. The most notable ‘horsey’ incident happened while my brother from Atlanta was in town along with his friends while they were over one weekend when they were going to go to a Carolina football game. (Carolina was good that year and ended up with an 11-1 record.) Our house is a around a 45 minute drive to Chapel Hill, so the place was close enough and convenient for them to stay and big enough to accommodate all the guests.

What made the incident so memorable was the torment and embarrassment it caused my brother, who is very self-conscious and embarrasses easily. A trip home for him with any guests can be a minefield for him with a family as eccentric as ours. On that weekend, Abby did not let us down. The last thing my brother wanted was a crazy dog running around the house, but that is just what he got.

On Saturday morning about an hour after the guys had woke up, Abby took off in the living room and started running like a bat out of hell. Just seeing my brother embarrassed was worth it alone. He turns a little red, and the vein in his forehead pops out a little, too, but he did not vocalize his discomfort. His friends handled it politely, though I’m sure they were confused at Abby’s erratic behavior. Some of them laughed, while one guy, Rob, kept turning his head back and forth as he watched the whole scene play out. He looked like someone watching a tennis match the way he kept moving his head from left to right and back again. Abby had an especially lengthy session of ‘horsey’ that day. She put on quite a show. Meanwhile, Father had already absconded from the scene because one of the guests had an especially deep voice which must have scared the shit out of Father when that guy greeted Father, so Father was either hiding in the woods nearby or hiding in my mom’s closet.

Heartworms: The Follow-upPart II

I chose the photo above to show the strength and vigor Father had after he had fully recovered from heartworms. He was strong, fast, and had quite a bit of pop in his step. Look at how far he got off the ground in that photo, and he was able to get to the ball first before dogs many years younger than he was.

A few months after Father’s heartworm treatments, I would realize how debilitating heartworms is. One evening, Father went running with me, and during this run, I thought back to the last time Father went running with me, which was weeks before his heartworm treatment. On that run, Father barely made it a quarter of a mile because he couldn’t keep up with me. He had to cut short the run, turn away and head back home. By no means was his inability to keep up with me because of my speediness. My days of averaging 6min/mile on a daily 6 mile run were long behind me, because of my being plagued with injuries. At this point of life, I was a slow footed 200 plus pound man. I attributed Father’s inability to keep up to Father’s age. At Father’s first vet visit, I had asked the vet how old she thought Father was, and the vet said around 5-7 years. Father was definitely middle aged.

On this day, many weeks after he was declared heartworm-free, Father was not only keeping up, but he was literally running circles around me. On our run, Father would often be distracted by something, take a look around, while I kept running down the street. Eventually, Father would scurry down the street to catch back up with me. Father was fast; he had always been fast, but he was even faster now, and he now had endurance. It made me happy to see Father get a second chance at life, and he had a jaunty step now where ever he went.

I didn’t realize how much the heartworms had debilitated Father’s health until he had made a full recovery. Father had been a very sick dog, and he had cheated death twice as far as we were aware. Father would never suffer again.

Heartworms: The Follow-up

(I chose this photo to show how much Father had recovered after being heartworm free. He filled out, and his coat looks really good.)


I took Father back to the vet several weeks after his heartworm treatment. This involved another lovely trip to Knightdale with Father puking and peeing the whole way. In the typical vet visit, we would check in at the receptionist’s desk, wait in the reception area, stare at the wood paneling (the place was built in the late 60’s / early 70’s, decades devoid of architectural advancements and abundant with tackiness), hope that Father wouldn’t try to kill another client’s dog, a trip to an exam room with a pit-stop at the scales in order for Father to be weighed, followed by some more waiting in the exam room, a pre-vet exam by a vet tech, followed by an exam by the vet his or herself.

Father and I were waiting in the exam room a few minutes when a middle-aged man entered the room. It was Dr. Kahdy, a partner in the practice. He himself was a dog owner (Great Danes, I think), and he owned horses, too. Father immediately tried to hide under my chair. It was sweet that Father would come to me for protection, considering that several months ago, all he would do around me was bark and growl. I was starting to gain his trust. Although Dr. Kahdy is a short guy and doesn’t look menacing, he does have a deep voice which must have scared Father more than he already was under the circumstances. Strangers, especially men, scared Father. We speculate that men in Father’s past may have abused him.

Dr. Kahdy could see how scared Father was, and when I told him that Father was scared of strangers, especially men, Dr. Kahdy said “OK” and left the room. A few minutes later, a female vet came into the exam room. She had dark brown hair, blue eyes and was petite and perky. I found her to be attractive. Dr. Lindsay, an associate vet at the clinic, stuck around for several years, but moved to Greensboro because of her husband’s new job. Whenever Father visited the clinic, Dr. Lindsay was almost always the vet who looked after him. With Abby or Andy, they were seen by any and almost every vet practicing at the clinic.

Father was heartworm free; the treatment worked. I knew that Father wasn’t going to die, but I didn’t know if there would be visible changes in him now that he was cured of this disease. A few months later, I would find out what a difference being free of heartworms had for Father’s energy level. He grew stronger and faster by the day. Of course, his gaining weight helped, but it wasn’t until later that I realized what a horrible and yet easily preventable disease heartworms is.