It just so happens as I write this we are parted from the beautiful boy himself. However, I’ve been blessed with photographs and videos sent from afar, showing how happy Angus is. One such video Matt sent us was of Angus paddling at the beach!
Paddling! In water! Joyous as this was, we felt like we had ‘missed baby’s first steps’ … Our boy normally runs in the opposite direction to water and quivers at the thunderous sound of the waves.
As is typical of all babies/children – furry ones are no different – they play up to your sympathies when you’re around. They manipulate you into cuddles and affection with sad eyes and heart-wrenching whimpers. They lull you into thinking they can’t possibly survive without you.
And then they go off into the big wide world without you and they are perfectly fine! They paddle in the water, they play nicely with other children (uh hem…dogs).
As with children though, this is the sign of a happy, secure individual. The ones that run off without a kiss or a wave at nursery when mum’s standing at the door a shaking, crying mess. You did a great job. They are confident. They are safe. They are happy.
It’s at this point I remember. One year ago today we brought him home. A tiny black mysterious bundle of teeth and ears. Happy Adoption Day Angus. I hope you have had the best year of your life – so far
Next door’s chickens decided they wanted a change of scenery today. We found them pecking around in the long grass under the fruit trees quite oblivious to the ducks who had made camp further up the bank near the Macadamias.
I had a Reiki client and Peter was on a call. Angus was asleep in the house so all was well. Tranquil you might say.
Two hours later I was standing on the deck sipping a cool glass of water. With my client gone I wanted to take a few moments to give thanks for the energy that had flowed and the healing that had taken place. But my eye was drawn to Angus who had somehow found his way down to the fruit trees.
What is he doing? I watched in amusement as he seemed to be doing his downward facing dog routine. To my horror, I realised he was crouched down in front of a huge orange ball of feathers. Oh my God, Angus. Please – not the chickens …
I mean who could blame him? It’s only instinct after all …’Peter, that’s a chicken down there,” I yelled over my shoulder. “I’m going down.’ My heart was in my mouth. I didn’t particularly want to see the gory innards of a chicken, but if my boy had acted as nature dictated then I wanted to be the one who dealt with it. I felt a strange maternal urge to want to ‘protect’ Angus from what he had done – even though the notion repelled me.
I prepared myself for the worst case scenario. Guts, feathers, a glazed eye and lolling head as Angus tore into his kill. My heart was pounding …Oh please Angus, please don’t be a killer … I don’t want to have to be that neighbour that turns up holding a murdered chicken in their arms and a gleeful panting dog by my side, feathers still in mouth.
As I approached, Angus turned and wagged his tail and then he bowed down in front of the chicken again. He leant forward with his nose and oh so gently nudged the big orange bird. She responded with a few disgruntled clucks before looking at me, blinking. Angus backed away. He was doing all his best ‘play bow’ moves and was so gentle with the clucky girl it took my breath away. He cocked his head when she clucked, he gently reached out with his paw and backed away again. Every part of him was saying ‘play with me’.
The chicken stared up at me and then resumed her clucking as if she was tutting at the intrusion. I didn’t allow relief to sweep through me just yet though. I picked her up.
Now I should explain something here. I have never picked up a chicken in my life. Never. I’ve never even touched one when I think about it. Somehow nature took over though. Before I knew it I had the chatty girl cuddled into me and I swear she was happy. She chatted away as I strode up to the house. Better just giver her a once over before I take her home I thought.
A couple of weird things happened at that moment. A huge whoosh of love for Angus. My boy just wanted the chicken to play. He was so gentle with her. I mean, I have never seen a dog behave like that with a bird – and especially when those particular chickens normally flap and shout at him from across the boundary fence. That’s got to say something about his gentle nature. Of course, I’m not naive – at any moment he may have ‘accidentally’ stunned her with his massive paws – but his ‘intent’ was not to kill her. But more than that – I felt a huge surge of emotion for this big fat clucking hen. She seemed to actually enjoy being lifted up and carried. She had some weight to her too. Out of nowhere, I felt this huge affection – for a chicken! For goodness sake …
So turns out she was absolutely fine. She loved her adventure hanging out in my kitchen until I was 100% sure she was fine. Angus hadn’t harmed so much as a feather and the bird seemed totally fine. Fearless in fact. Satisfied all was well I took her back home. ‘Off you go now’ I said gently guiding her on her way. She called out to her fellow hens who all came rushing to see her – all eager to hear about her adventure no doubt.
Angus looked up at me with his great tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. ‘Good Boy Angus. You’re a very good boy.’ And for the second time that day I thanked the Universe.
I always thought I was a fairly patient person, but I’ve had to become more so these last few months. Initially, I had to be patient because he was only 11 weeks and I had to wait until 12 weeks for his next booster. Then I had to wait until he was 16 weeks to get his final booster and then another 2 weeks before I was able to take him out to the dog park and the beach and generally be like all the other pupsters out there. Finally, after he was kitted out with every vaccination and worming and tick tablet under the sun he sustained a nighttime assault from an unknown beastie which caused him a certain amount of pain and suffering. We had to wait for the swelling to go down. When it didn’t we had to wait for the medication to work. Then we had to wait a long night until he could have surgery … before 10 days of cone head! More waiting. More patience required. Of course, I’m sure it was a lot worse for Angus!
He had to put up with numerous thermometers stuck up his backside (violation), various injections (stabbings), a swollen, cut and shaven face (assault from all quarters). through all of this my poor boy wags his tail, but looks at me with the saddest black eyes – it makes water leak from my own eyes.
The surgery, the stitches, the cone – they’ve all left their mark – but Halleluja – the day arrives when it can all come off!
We are none the wiser regarding what caused his swollen face. All we know was something either bit/stung him or something from his daytime foraging got lodged in his chops and cheeks – something caused an infection so bad that even the first wave of antibiotics and antihistamine did not help. No foreign body was found and the x-rays showed his teeth were perfectly fine (though he was in lots of pain from teething).
It’s at times like these I wonder if my heart can stand the pain that loving a pet can bring. But as my mum used to say, ‘think of all the joy and love they bring you and the joy and love they receive from you in return.’
Now his cone is off and he’s back to riding the lawnmower and watching the Parrots and Lorikeets intently (no doubt wishing he could just eat them). He still looks at me with his serious face and big black eyes, but I think he understands now that we would do absolutely anything for him – and I guess that’s how the bond of trust develops and the love – well that just grows with every passing day.
To alleviate the boredom of being a big cone head I introduced Angus to some scent games. I’ve noticed whenever he is out and about he is a ‘sniffing’ kind of guy so I thought I could use this natural aptitude to bring a bit of fun to his convalescence.
Even with a high energy pup, it isn’t all about walking to oblivion. Too much exercise can actually have the opposite effect you’re after, over-stimulating a sensitive pup. It’s as important, if not more important to exercise your pupster’s brain.
Sniffing is a great enrichment activity with the added bonus of bringing calm to a stressed out dog. So make sure you always allow time for some serious sniffing because this is how he gathers the low-down on everything that’s happening around him.
I’d read a fair bit about introducing scent games to your dog – there’s a whole world on the internet about this (and qualifications too, I found out).
One of our training games in the morning is ‘sniff the hand’ – I present him with two closed fists – one has a treat in it. I make him sniff each one and then he has to tell me which hand the treat is in. He is adorable at this game. He used to use his big heavy paw to pick the right hand, now he uses his nose to really sniff that treat out. So he already had a good grasp of the basics. We have variations on this with ‘find the food/treats’. He has to ‘stay’ while I hide some food and he has to find it. Again, he is excellent at this as he is very food orientated.
While he was recovering from his surgery I bought a bag of catnip from the pet store and picked some mint and rosemary from the garden. I also a got a bit creative (I’m not very handy with a needle and thread but Angus is not judgemental) and made some felt pockets for the herbs.
I introduced to him to catnip first and then the rosemary followed by the mint. He seemed to love the toy with the mint smell and easily located it. We mixed things up a bit so I could see if he was really using his nose or his memory to bring me the various scented pockets.
It’s early days but we might make a sniffer dog out of him yet. At least he forgot about the cone of shame for a while.
Angus saw out the New Year through a haze of drugs and a little less rock and roll. It must have been about 10.30 at night when out of the darkness came a frantic yelping. We ran through to his crate and comforted him while frantically looking around for the beastie, spider or (God forbid) snake that inflicted the bite or sting. Nothing. Had he eaten it? What the hell was it? He was still whimpering as though he’d had a bad dream but apart from that, there didn’t appear to be any signs of injury.
The next morning the whole side of his face had swollen dramatically. Whatever had caused him to yelp had attacked viciously but he still seemed to be his normal self so I didn’t worry myself unduly. Whatever it was he’d got his own back by eating it so hopefully, the swelling would go down in a day or two. That afternoon I took him to our usual pet store to buy food. The girls in there always make a fuss of him but there were treats aplenty when they saw his swollen wee face. One of the girls noticed a little orange fleck sticking out on his chop so she gently pulled it out. It was hard to say what it was but it looked like a tiny quill. She then pulled at a couple of other suspicious looking protrusions but they could have been hairs for all we knew. There was nothing obvious. He didn’t seem too perturbed and just wagged his tail in the hope for more treats.
Day two, however, was a different story. Mornings are normally noisy affairs with by me hiding under my covers until he finds me (Angus that is). It normally results in lots of flailing paws, play barking and general high energy shenanigans. This particular morning, he padded into the bedroom and rested his head gently on my bed and looked up at me with those big black sad eyes. He was in pain and making whimpering crying sounds. Even though the swelling from the lower half of his cheek had gone down the swelling under his eye had grown even larger.
The Vet was no help really. She shaved his cheek, stuck a needle in the lump to draw some blood and stuck a thermometer up his backside. Poor pup. He somehow managed to wag his tail through it all and just be a general amazing little guy. I felt the tears prick my eyes when I saw blood run down his cheek. Each time I visited the vet it was like taking my baby for a vaccination – you know that feeling when you’re the one holding them in position as someone else jags them with a big needle? We came away from the Vet a few hundred dollars poorer and stocked with antihistamines and antibiotics. The blood test had been inconclusive so she’d taken a biopsy to send away if the lump didn’t improve. We still had no idea what we were dealing with.
“Bring him back in immediately if his face starts to ooze,” was the final instruction.
Things didn’t really improve and to cap it all the lump had been itchy so Angus scratched the top of it to reveal a large weeping mess. Did this class as ooze? That night (on New Year’s Day) about midnight his breathing changed and he became hoarse and laboured … and that’s when I felt a lump on his neck. I went into panic mode again worried something else had bitten him and perhaps the swelling was closing his airway. Sitting in the Animal Hospital at Midnight on New Year’s Day was not part of the plan but poor Angus was struggling.
Again we were sent on our way a few hundred dollars poorer with instruction to take him to the Vet for surgery in the morning! The swelling was his glands kicking into overdrive to counteract the infection caused by whatever got him.
You have to understand during the whole sorry episode, I was stressing out about Angus as if he was my first born – I was well aware of that – I just couldn’t control the protective mother mode. On the other hand, Peter was being Mr calm, cool and collected and insisted Angus was fine (infuriatingly so). I was battling with knowing I was being overly protective yet wondering if I was actually right to be concerned and of course the continuous expense of the Vet was a stress building in my mind too. I suppose if we actually had a definitive answer as to what the problem was I would have been fine.
So the next day we trot off to the Vet again. Angus is still sad and whimpering so the Vet finally says, “I think it’s time we took a closer look. The swelling should have gone down by now”.
They sliced his cheek and flushed out his wound with saline. They examined his teeth and x-rayed the roots. And what did they find? Nothing! So they put two stitches in and left the wound open to help drainage in case there were foreign bodies trapped somewhere.
So now he has to wear the Cone of Shame and he looks at us like we are the cruellest humans that ever walked the earth. “You rescued me from the RSPCA for this? Thanks for nothing,” his black eyes seem to say.
I’m sorry little guy … I wish I could take the pain and the stitches and even the cone for you … but a few weeks from now I’m sure you’ll have forgotten all about it and you’ll be back to bounding all over me in excited fashion in the mornings.
Roll on the 12th January when we can get rid of the stitches and the cone – all in a oner! Here’s hoping!
Life with Angus has taught me patience.
