Why I refuse to vomit in Gizmo's face

        While driving the dog to the Dog Park, I began listening to the audio CD of “Inside of a Dog,” by Alexandra Horowitz.  It is subtitled “What dogs See, Smell and Know,” and her research began when she took her dog to a dog park and observed the behavior of humans and dogs.   I decided to follow in her footsteps and thus the return to the dog park.

         She wrote that, when a dog licks your face, it is not actually showing great love.  Instead, it is imitating puppy behavior.  When a pup likes his mother’s snout after she has returned from a hunt, this might convince her to regurgitate some half digested rabbit so the pup can have breakfast.

         I vowed that, no matter how much I loved Gizmo and no matter how vigorously he licked my face, I would never knowingly vomit into his mouth.  Of course, if I have drunk too much and then heaved on to the floor, missing the bucket or toilet to some degree, Gizmo is welcome to that offering, if he sees it as a gift of love.

         Horowitz, who has studied the behavior of humans, rhinos, bonobos and dogs, also explored the issue of raincoats for dogs.  We had a yellow Nor'easter slicker for our previous dog, the much-mourned Beowulf, the Shih Tzu.  I thought the dog looked more than a little embarrassed when we put it on him.

         (To say little about my concern when we dressed him in a brown bomber jacket with a fur collar, which somewhat matched my leather jacket sans fur.  We were living in a predominantly gay neighborhood at the time.  Passing gays on the street encouraged their many comments, praising the jackets and gently asking if I’d like to warm up at their apartment.)

         Horowitz wrote that, if the dog reacts with excitement to the appearance of coat, jacket, vest or cape, it is less than joy at the costume and more because those items of clothing predict a nice long walk.

         Furthermore, if the dog struggles against the raincoat, only to suddenly stand quite still and submit, it is not because of sudden calm.  It is because, within the pack or between mother and pup, being on top of the dog is a demand for dominance.  It is a way of signaling who is in charge.  The coat, because it covers the back and sometimes includes a hat or hoodie, becomes an example of mommy dog telling the young one to behave or of the pack leader indicating that he is the boss.

         That was why I was anxious to get back to the Dog Park and observe the dogs and owners there.  The first thing that I noticed (and had missed during the previous visit) was that the park was fully equipped with a hydrant for the dogs to relieve themselves upon.  Naturally, the dogs completely avoid voiding on this seductive device.

         A large group of small dogs came over to sniff Gizmo.  Then, after a short, but respectful time, he sniffed them.  Then they began to run, tiny cockers and smaller Chihuahuas forming a pack for the purpose of running from one end of the park to the other, stopping only to urinate on trees and benches at either end.

         There was a small, long-haired, black-and-white Terrier puppy that wanted to play.  He and Gizmo would get down on their front legs, tails madly wagging, then they would run, Gizmo close behind.  If he ran too fast and got in front of the smaller dog, it would stop.  Then it would roll over on its back, indicating complete submission.

         Gizmo would give the pup a quick sniff, as if acknowledging the Fine Gesture.  Then the pup would flip over and return to running, finally laying down at its mistresses feet, panting.  The pup was pooped.

         Then, I decided to try the section of the park for the larger, over 25-pound dogs.  They, of course, had a huge, fenced in field, equipped with its own, unused fire hydrant.

         As soon as Gizmo entered the park and I had removed his leash, the sniffing began.  He was surrounded by German Shepherds, wolf hounds, collie mixes and, oddly enough one pug who was a refugee from the small dog section.  His owner explained, “He got bored over there.”

         After Gizmo got accepted, the running began again.  The big dogs with their longer legs covered a lot of distance rather quickly, but Gizmo, who is built much lower to the ground, merely entered some sort of doggie warp speed, his runty legs reaching out to make longer strides.  He kept up with the Big Boys and often got ahead of them.

         Furthermore, while they got tired rather quickly, laying down for a tongue-lolling rest after only a few minutes of running, Gizmo was ready to continue to play, jumping in front of dogs twice and more his size, encouraging them to return to The Run, even occasionally growling at them as if to say, “Come on, the fun isn’t over yet.”

         The bigger dog would slowly and with dignity get to his feet and then, with no warning, would dash off in the direction that allowed for the longest possible run, Gizmo joyously on his heels, running alongside him, paws up high in the air as he enjoyed the exercise.

         After about another half hour of running, Gizmo came when called, sat when told to and accepted the leash with no hesitation.  Then, just as we were about to leave, another dog that looked like the results of a midnight mating between a dalmation and a sheep dog, entered the park.

         Gizmo pulled on the leash and I released him.  They set off on a longish run, actually dashing from one end of the park with a quick return to the new owner, who was sitting on the bench near the entrance.  His dog lay down at his feet, quite content because some of his energy was spent.

         Gizmo came over to me and sat down, telling me that, yes, it was time for a leash and a ride home.

         When we got home, after a quick sip of water, Gizmo was ready to play again.  He brought me both his squeaky toys: the football and the frog.  I tossed them, he ran after them and then ran away from me – or ran towards them, but left them on the floor where I had tossed them.  Clearly, his heart wasn’t in playing fetch at this time of night.

         He quickly ate his dinner and then lay down and slept until it was time to sleep in his cage.

"Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in?  I think that's how dogs spend their lives." --  Sue Murphy

Gizmo: the babe magnet

         During Gizmo’s two mile walk this morning, two women exercising their dogs stopped to say how “cute” and “adorable” Gizmo was.  If Gizmo was in my life when I was 17, I might have lost my virginity a lot earlier.  As it is, he is becoming a conduit for meeting the people in our neighborhood. 

         Yesterday, he forgot that we wanted him to urinate on the path behind the palm trees above the pool.  Both Grace and I took him there, but he merely went briefly into the path and then ran off to signal that it was TIME FOR A WALK!  

         When I called him back and insisted he spend some time on the appointed path, he went on it, sat down and stared at me with his bright, expectant, beautiful eyes as if to say, “You piss on this path if you want to.  I want a walk.”

         So we went back to square one and, after the walk (yes, I gave in, but I wanted a walk, too), I took him out to the path about every hour or so.  The first three visits resulted in Gizmo sitting or lying down and looking at me in a most open, yet quizzical manner.

         Our fourth visit was pay dirt (pay-shit?), with Gizmo urinating and defecating in the appointed place.  He was then praised and petted, and given a treat, which he immediately accepted in his mouth and then released at the beginning of the path – there’s no telling when Gizmo might like a treat and enjoy finding his released treasure on that path.

         So, after the briefest of retraining, after being released from his cage, he ran to the path this morning and quickly urinated, standing still for only a moment of petting and praise, after which he dashed to the back door and his expected, deserved walk.

         The lesson: to re-train a good dog one needs eternal vigilance for only a few hours.  Gizmo got the idea much, much faster than any of our three children, each of whom resisted toilet training in their own way.  Perhaps we just needed a path behind the palm trees and a leash. 

"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down." --Robert Benchley

What Gizmo Taught Me # 1

        Today I learned about life from Gizmo, my dog.

         People generally believe that there is nothing to learn from a dog or any other animal.  This confirms them in their stupidity (there I wrote it).

         When I look at Gizmo, I see a beautiful creature with amazing skills that I could never learn.  For instance, he knows enough to survive.  That is no small achievement.

         He was in a cage in a shelter hours from annihilation when we stepped forward, based on a nervous call from our friend, and a bedraggled picture of Gizmo – he looked like a prisoner awoken early in the morning and about to be brought before a judge – and yet there was enough in him to save his life.

"Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant."  --Unknown

  

What Gizmo Taught Me # 2

           I walked him this morning, along Mesa View in front of our gated community.  And he was prancing, lifting his front legs as if he was a show dog in the center ring of Madison Square Garden.  When he looked back at me, his eyes were bright, his head was high, his ears were happily flopping with his pace and the wind.  He was one happy puppy.

         A few moments before, I took him to his appointed spot to pee, the area between the path behind our little bridge and the adobe fence around our property.  He ran up there, sniffed around, then sniffed some more, taking only a few seconds to find the exactly right spot and then he urinated, lifting one leg, looking as if he were energetically concentrating on the task at hand.  Then he stopped and attempted to rush by me.

         The task I wanted him to do was over.  It was time for his walk and that meant a dash to the side gate, which, when opened, would lead him to freedom and the ability to run as fast as he wanted.

         But I stopped him because I          knew that what needed to be done was to praise his efforts to please me and to do his “business” (how many polite words do we have to disguise the fact that what I wanted him to do was to piss and shit where I wanted him to do it)?

         I petted him, I said, “Good boy,” so many times the words seemed false as they hit my tongue, and I gave him a treat which I remembered to take when he was still in his cage, whining a bit and anxious to get out.  I had forgotten the treat in the days before and had felt bad about that.

         If a dog finally did what I desperately wanted him to do where I wanted him to do it, all the books and all the advisers on housebreaking a dog say that he deserved and was required to have a treat.

         So I insisted on giving him a treat.

         His black eye-liner eyes looked up at me as if to say: do you really want to do this now when there is a walk through an amazing world waiting for us?

         He gently took the treat, in the form of a manufactured little brown bone-looking thing, into his mouth.  He did this almost reluctantly, saying by gesture: all right, I’ll do this for you, for you.

         Then he bit down on the fake, supposedly treat of a bone, as gently as he could, took it from me, turned his back on me, squatted down, applied one gentle bite and then left the treat on the ground to be found another time, and ran past me to the bridge he feared so much when we first came out of the kitchen and had to cross it.

         With the shortest of glances to make sure I both approved and was perhaps following him, Gizmo dashed away, running past the palm trees to the side gate, which is always closed.  There, he would wait for me, apparently patient, but actually quite excited for however long it would take for me to catch up to him. 

         Once he had attained the goal of standing before the side door, the gateway to the truly long walks we have taken, he would sit there apparently until Hell froze over (or the Cubs won the World Series, whichever came first.

         I caught up to him, attached a leash because the garbage collectors were in the neighborhood and Gizmo was less than perfect at obeying me if there was any distraction nearby.

         And off we walked.

         I went out the front gate, paused by his favorite palm trees for pissing because I knew that was what he wanted to do. 

And I watching him as he became a high stepping, ears-flopping, hair-waving, joyous dog enjoying a crisp, almost cold February morning.

He might have been upset because, with a leash, he wasn’t allowed to go exactly where he wanted to go when he wanted to get there.  He could have been angry because I insisted on taking him over the bridge and to the back of the property at a time when he desperately wanted to be elsewhere.  If my own children were treated that way (without the leash, of course) and they had the facility of language Gizmo will never have, I would not have ever heard the end of it.

But Gizmo was joyous.  He was prancing.  He was straining at the leash and loving being outside.  He was demonstrating what shrinks and psychologists and even philosophers have talked to us about for years – Gizmo was in the moment.

And there I was, a bit behind him physically and metaphorically, thinking about the last act of a play I wanted to write, pondering did I do the right thing when I got into an argument with Grace that neither of us wanted to have late the night before about planning a trip to France vs. working on selling our house (it was one of those almost but-not-quite fights which was not only ridiculous and stupid, and which any neutral observer would say “You’re both right, now shut up and go to sleep”).

And there was this dog, this lower, lesser, not quite as intelligent creature walking, prancing, grooving on the day and whatever freedom and joy he had. 

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." –John  Steinbeck

What Gizmo Taught Me # 3

Now I am usually a positive guy, usually on the possible good things that could happen no matter how dire events may seem.  I am not a Pollyanna because of my years as a newspaper and wire report.  I have learned that most people lie, that nice folks can do horrible things to others, that governments can lead us into unnecessary wars and become heroes to large segments of the population.  I know that evil is amongst us and it has nothing to do with the devil.  Evil is just there, foisted on an unprepared and unknowing population by those who want to do evil in the name of religion, patriotism or their own insistent madness.

Knowing that, I continue to wake up each morning feeling blessed with a new day, new possibilities and a chance to renew and exceed the pleasures of the day before. 

But that paled in comparison with the way this dog, this allegedly lesser being, greeted the day and the walk we were having.

Gizmo pranced.  He pranced when all around him lurked danger: bigger dogs, swerving cars, an inattentive owner.  He pranced because life was good, because he was OUT, because shortly there would be a dog to greet, a perfect place to pee or shit, and life would be very good indeed.

And I thought: with all my sometimes hard-won positive outlook, Gizmo had surpassed me.  I could simply observe him and learn something.

I picked up the pace, nearly equaling his.  I did a lesser version of a human prance.  Life not only could be good, it WAS good and that was to be celebrated.

"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person."

--Andrew A. Rooney

Oh Cesar, we need so little help with Gizmo

   

Cesar Milan, on the Dog Whisperer, confronted a battling pack of two pugs and a Chihuahua mix, who would frequently fight, making their owners home a living hell of tiny, fighting, snarling, biting dogs.  Cesar immediately diagnosed that the problem was the owners, who were giving unequal love to their pets, favoring the pug who was the most demonstrative.  He said that a pack leader has to be equal in his or her affection or the others go nuts, or words to that effect.

         If one of the dogs resisted too much, Milan made a sound, “Sssst,” which told the dog to obey this human and usually calmed the dog.

         After watching several Dog Whisperer programs in which Milan used the same “Sssst” sound to calm them, I tried it on my wife, Grace.  She did not calm down in reaction to the sound.  In fact, at times, she got more excited.  Dear Cesar Milan: am I creating the wrong sound?

          Holding the pugs’ collars and sitting with them, he kept them at equal lengths from him.  The Chihuahua mix, which always joined the fights last and which merely bit the ears of the most aggressive dog, was attempting to return equality to this pack of miniatures.  Milan said that, if the Chihuahua mix were bigger, he would be putting the pug on its back in a completely submissive pose.  Being small, the Chihuahua mix did the best he could and bit the pug’s ear.

         The Dog Whisperer is a fascinating series, more so now that we have a dog of our own.  An earlier program concentrated on ill-behaved Chihuahuas.  One  pretty female owner just sat there when her Chihuahua leaped out of her lap and bit her son, after which the owner continued petting (and rewarding) her dog.  Milan declared that he couldn’t solve the problem of the attacking Chihuahua if the owner refused to exercise any discipline. 

         Cesar Milan seemed quite right in his analysis and response, but the owners are always the ones who are wrong and who need the training on The Dog Whisperer.  Maybe humans need a series in which the dogs are wrong.

"When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem."

--Edward Abbey

When druggists are too smart:

          During dinner at a fine local fish (and martini) restaurant) Marty, a former judge, told the story of his dog. 

A visit to the veterinarian indicated that the dog needed a steroid, prednisone.   Marty asked if it was the same pill given to humans and the vet said, yes, it was, only it was much more expensive when given to dogs.

Being a frugal buyer, Marty figured he’d pick up the prescription at a local drug store and attempt to charge it through his medical insurance.

           He went to druggist, claimed that it was for his son and presented his medical drug insurance card. 

 After looking at his computer, the druggist said, “I see, sir, and your son is named Rags?” 

Marty did not get the prescription through his medical insurance. 

Toilet Training

        The second time he went out, Gizmo ran over the small bridge to the back section of our property, where a path was cleared only a week ago and which apparently confused his carefully, calibrated house breaking schedule.  He quickly urinated, delicately lifting one hind paw to avoid splattering himself, for which we thank his mother or training. 

           Then, surprise, instead of dashing out to the exit door to await a long walk, he turned, turned again and again, and (praise be, hallelujah!) he released a large and, for me, very satisfying dump.  Gizmo pissed and shit where we wanted him to, where we were trying unsuccessfully to train him to for several weeks.

         I quickly petted him, said “good boy,” and gave him a treat, which he immediately spit out somewhere near the palm trees.  He wanted to get back in the house so he could be praised by Grace.

         A quick dash back to the house, a big  celebration, another treat, more “good dogs”.  A Big, Big Deal.  Did I act this way when I was housebreaking (i. e. toilet training) my two boys.  Probably, but of course, as I remember, they never furiously wagged their tails when praised for going to the bathroom. 

Gizmo (or I) learn to fetch

I am going to teach Gizmo to fetch.

         With his predecessor (how difficult it is to write that word), Beowulf never learned to fetch.  Beo believed that anything that he could get in his teeth was his.

         I would throw a ball or his favorite object, the inner cardboard roll of a toilet paper roll, in his direction and he would, indeed, run after it.  When he caught it in his teeth, he would continue running in the opposite direction, going as far away from me as possible.

         I had no such problems with Gizmo.  We got him several stuffed animals which made apparently pleasing sounds of little mice being squeezed to death. 

         I held them in front of Gizmo and squeezed them, producing the seductive sound of painful death.  Then I tossed either the football or the stuffed turtle about 10 feet in front of him.

         And Gizmo would run after the toy, leaping into the air moments before he ran past it, grabbing it in his mouth and then bringing it towards me. 

         I emphasize “towards” me because he would run, stop and drop it about three feet in front of me, after which it would roll in my direction.  Like the analysis of a rocket attempting to intercept a fake enemy rocket in a military exercise trying to prove that President Reagan’s Star Wars concept was worth the billions spent on it, close was good enough. 

Gizmo Diary: from Abandoned Pound Puppy to Precious Pet

        He is our dog, but much more than that: he filled a hole in our lives we didn’t know we had or needed or wanted to fill.

         Gizmo was identified as a Shih Tzu by a vet.  At 30+ pounds, he is twice the size of any Shih Tzu that ever lived.  We call him Super Shih Tzu or Steroid Shih Tzu.

         His coloring is caramel and white with black strands on his ears and a short, but not push-in snout that looks less like a Shih Tzu than small terrier of unidentified heritage.

         His attitude is almost always gentle and joyous offering us great, bounding love and quiet looks of adoration.  He seldom barks and will whimper when approaching birds or a realistic statue of a dog, an indication that he might not be the smartest dog that ever lived.  He is cute enough to survive.

         We know little about his life before we took him in on a temporary basis when he was a year and a month old.

Introducing Gizmo: the loving good dog

           We didn’t want a dog.  Our beloved Shih Tzu, a black and gray named Beowulf, was “put down” two years before after many illnesses.  We got Beowulf as a puppy and he was with us for nearly 19 years.

Beowulf didn’t bark for the first year he was with us.  I would scoff at that and say that, if burglars were attempting to break into our Chicago apartment, they would say, “We can’t go in there.  There’s a dog wheezing in there.”

We had so many wonderful memories of Beowulf: running in larger and larger circles when we took him to Michigan and he was free of a leash, dashing ahead of us as we walked on a beach only to stop and look back to make sure that we approved of his distance from us, playing with a visiting cat and rolling up every rug in our apartment because of that, leaping out of six inches of snow to catch up with us as we cross-country skied in Michigan.

Our final memories of him were difficult as he aged and became nearly blind, walked with difficulty and incontinent to his great embarrassment.  His final whimpering and howling minutes of pain should have been avoided.  We had kept him alive longer than we should have and we intensely regretted that.

Diary of a Discarded Dog: How he went from pound puppy to good dog

Gizmo’s Diary:

The Good Dog Chronicles

         Gizmo comes bounding from the kitchen to the living room, ears flapping, front paws raised high, eyes which always look like Elizabeth Taylor’s make up artist applied eye liner to them bright, his lower teeth jutting out in a signature Shih Tzu manner (more of that later).  He leaps to our thighs, holding on with his floppy, furry front legs as if he is hugging us after we have returned from a long and dangerous trip when actually we have just stumbled out of the bedroom after a night’s sleep. 

         His greeting is joy unbounded, love without limits, an energetic celebration of our lives intertwined with his.  And it happens virtually any time we have been out of his sight for more than five minutes. 

         Gizmo’s joyous, leaping, licking celebration of our presence is far more energetic than I get from some of our children, most of our friends and all Republicans.