Celebrating Sgt. Thomas Tibbs

 

My sweet boy died on Friday. I started crying Thursday, midday, during my phone call to schedule an appointment with Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice, and didn't stop fully until.... Well, that hasn't happened yet, but at least I'm having long moments without tears. Not right now, though. Right now I'm crying.

Of course I've known for months this day was coming; his health issues were worsening, his arthritis pain becoming more and more difficult to manage. He wasn't comfortable... but he was still enjoying treats and cuddles, so he lived with discomfort, and I lived with anticipatory grief... a lot of anticipatory grief....

So I'm trying to let that go, now, and just celebrate his life. My god, the boy started out (at intake with Upland shelter) looking like this:

He was six years old, covered with mange, and starving. The shelter had him from June to January, treating his medical issues and trying to get him to engage with humans. Then I brought him home. At first, he was frightened of everything, even the cats. Except his bunny. He loved his bunny.

In the first couple of years, he spent a lot of time curled in a ball--much like Maya did when I brought her home. His recovery was very gradual.

I walked him every day, sang to him every night, and showered him with love. Finally, after five months, he wagged his tail at me. Two years in, he finally let me give him a belly rub. After I retired in 2016, he began to love other things--riding in my truck, going for hikes... and Purrl.

And of course, in recent years, Lamb Chop.

To me, he was a miracle. Ten years ago, he hated being touched, had no idea how to play with toys, and there was absolutely no joy in his life. While he never did learn how to play with toys, he did love chasing treats, and he gradually came to accept then welcome pets and ear scratches and back rubs. Oh, how he loved back rubs. And, up until his last days, his big tail wagged every day.

What a gift he was! My hiking buddy, my emotional support dog, my daily validation that love is indeed powerful. In fact, I learned more about true, unconditional love from Thomas than I have words for here. 

Thom's story is amazing, so of course I'm going to write a book about him. I started taking notes for that project last year. I will begin writing the book in early spring. I hope it honors him--and all those folks it took to get him out of the horrific situation he was in and safely into a shelter where kind volunteers never gave up on him. Bravo to them. And bravo to Thomas for overcoming so many fears. Good boy, Thom.

Losing Maya

 

*Spoiler Alert!* I found her again. But not without significant emotional trauma….

Just over a week ago, I took my darling girl, Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, pictured above, on a hike in the Cienega Canyon Preserve. It’s a wild area out in the hills southwest of where we live, and I’ve hiked there often with her. We both love it. She gets to sniff wild creatures on the wind and in the brush, and I get to watch for hawks, deer, coyotes, and other wild creatures.

On this particular morning, we’d gone less than a mile before looking up to see a very young bobcat playing in the trail about forty yards ahead of us. At the sound of my laugh, the big kitten bounded off into the sage and sunflowers, and a moment later we crept past that spot, Maya with her nostrils flaring, me with my phone out, camera app on, hoping to see it again. No such luck. We walked on.

"Mom! What was that big kitty thing?!?"

The morning was bright and already heating up at 8:00, and the trail we had traveled in the past had become extremely overgrown, so I was just making up my mind to turn around and head home when Maya began limping. She’d picked up a sticker in her left front paw.

This presented a problem. While it is no longer much of a struggle for me to touch her feet (to check them after a hike or to clip her nails) when she’s in her crate, she is still too wary to let me touch her paws or legs while we are out hiking. We obviously couldn’t go on, though, so I made her sit, and when she was calm, I reached down to check her paw. She panicked, jumped backward, and slipped right out of her collar. Then I panicked, telling her “Maya! Wait!” a bit too sharply. But she stopped. (Good girl!) Hands shaking, I grabbed her scruff, holding it tightly with one hand as I slid the collar back on with the other. I walked her forward, and in the tussle, the sticker had apparently been dislodged, as she was walking without limping. Whew. Safe. Or so I thought.

We turned to go home.

On a previous visit to the preserve, I had dropped Maya’s leash when we were about a half mile from the trailhead, and she had done beautifully, trotting ahead at times, but always stopping when I gave her the “wait” command. On this day, when we were still three quarters of a mile out, I decided to try that training again, but instead of dropping the leash in the dirt, I unhooked it. She trotted along beside me in the trail, never going ahead, just being with me. It was glorious. Until it wasn’t.

Because we’d seen the bobcat, and because the day was warm, my gaze alternated constantly between the trail up ahead (for coyotes or critters), the trail beneath our feet (in case of rattlesnakes), and checking to make sure Maya was beside me. We’d gone a quarter mile when I looked out, looked down, looked to my side—and she was gone.

I stopped and turned. She’d taken a side path, a single-track coyote trail that led toward a steep ridge, and those crazy long legs of hers were trotting as fast as she could stride. She was already thirty yards ahead of me. Panicking again, I called her loudly: “Maya! WAIT!” To no avail.

Here’s the thing about feral dogs: You can’t chase them. In Maya’s first life, the one she spent in two successive, awful rescues, they handled her by chasing her—out of her kennel, then back in. When she sees anyone behind her on our walks, she immediately becomes anxious and strains on the leash, trying to run.

In this situation, I had to pursue her, but I knew I couldn’t run. I walked as fast as I could, repeatedly calling her. She ran up a hill so steep, I questioned whether I could get up it—but I did. I had to. As I topped the ridge, I saw her, now fifty yards ahead, still trotting. She disappeared down a slope, and all I could do was follow, hoping she didn’t leave the trail.

She didn’t. As I reached the bottom of the downhill slope, I could see her topping the next hill. On we went in that fashion, with me losing, then gaining sight of her, willing myself to breathe deep, save my oxygen and strength.

I topped a hill, and there she was, exhausted, lying in the shade under some brush.

“Maya! Wait!” I snapped. And she was off and running again.

I slowed my walk, thinking, as the sun rose higher and I realized I’d brought no water with me, I might have to follow her all the way to the far end of the preserve, which was three miles along the ridgeline—and a block from Interstate 10.

“Breathe, Kay,” I told myself. “What would Cesar Millan do?”

Well, he would adjust his energy, stay calm, and not utter a word.

I did these things, as best I could, topped another ridge—and there she was again, lying in the dirt, panting. I stood in the trail, breathing and sweating and hoping, not saying a word. Slowly she rose to her feet. I didn’t move. She walked toward me. Quietly, calmly, I said, “Maya, come,” and I turned toward home. She followed, right at my heels. After a moment, she moved beside me on the trail. Ever so slowly and gently, I reached out a hand and took her collar, stopped, and snapped on the leash.

When I knew I had her, I sank to my knees in the trail and sobbed. If she’d been lost in those hills, she would not have survived. The coyotes would have made a quick meal of her.

How I found her--without the leash, of course.

The long walk back in the hot sun, descending those steep hills on shaky legs, took an agonizingly long time. Maya was overheated and kept trying to lie down in every little bit of shade she found. I would have carried her—all thirty pounds—but on those treacherous descents, it would have been too dangerous. If I’d sprained or broken an ankle, our day would have gone from bad to really quite awfully terrible.

Friends, I believe I have learned more from the mistakes I’ve made with my dogs than all the YouTube videos and episodes of The Dog Whisperer (or Cesar’s other many shows) I’ve ever watched. How did I fail Maya? By not realizing that, while I had quickly moved on after the sticker-in-the-paw episode, she had not yet shaken it off—how I’d grabbed her, speaking sharply and holding the back of her neck. The trust of a feral dog is always tenuous. With Thomas, it still is, even after nearly ten years. Yes, we have our sweet moments when I brush him or clip his nails or simply sit and rub his belly, and he is blissfully happy. But then I might do something he sees as threatening—slap a mosquito or pick up my guitar or print out a document—and suddenly he is terrified, running through the house and seeking safety somewhere away from me.

That’s what Maya was doing, seeking a safe place to hide. Eventually, she came to see that she could run forever—or she could choose to trust me again. Boy howdy, did I get lucky this time.

Training feral dogs is not for the faint of heart or for those with little patience. The journey is often two steps forward, five steps back. The Universe gave Maya back to me. I will be much, much more careful with her in the future.

Contemplating the long walk back to the car.

Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, Nine Years In

I know. I can’t believe it, either. This fuzzy boy has been with me for one year shy of a decade. Amazing.

If you don’t know his background, clicking here will give you some perspective. And if you also read the post from January 4^th, 2014, you’ll have a more complete picture of how far this dog has progressed from the frightened feral creature he once was.

Now, when I post his picture on Twitter or Instagram, I get far more “likes” for his cute mug than I do for anything I post about myself, whether that is some bit of wisdom for writers or a photo of the hills where I hike. Thomas has the GQ good looks to get him noticed—even though he still hates having his picture taken.

At fifteen, my boy is an old guy now, with arthritis in his shoulder and hips and back. Last year I spent a thousand dollars on tests to try to discover, once and for all, what initiates the on-going issues with his sensitive gut. Turns out he has Irritable Bowel Syndrome due to his chronic anxiety. So now he has multiple meds for anxiety, IBS, and arthritis. Some days are tough, when his belly hurts. Some nights are even tougher, when we’re up four or five times—especially in winter—going out to the yard. Good thing I’m retired and I can nap during the day….

Last year around this time, I wrote about how Thomas has come to love our bedtime ritual, wherein we sit on the floor of my bedroom and he is petted, massaged, and/or brushed before it’s time to say goodnight. A year ago, it was Purrl getting in on the attention. Now, with Purrl gone, Jenny has stepped in, insisting that she, too, be the recipient of all this love and affection.

And Jenny has made up her own bedtime ritual for Thom. She loves to ambush him. When I tell them it’s time for bed, she runs ahead toward the bedroom, but ducks into the guest bathroom, hiding there in the dark until Thom comes trotting down the hall, at which point she jumps out at him, batting him with soft paws. He has no idea that this is a cat game, and that he is supposed to react by jumping in the air and chasing after her. So he just ignores her. Which he pretty much does all the time anyway. Even though she loves him and rubs on him.

Thomas was six when I adopted him. I told him then that I just wanted him to live six years, to have as many good years of safety and love as he had starvation and abandonment. I was surprised and happy when he reached that landmark. Now we’re three years past that. In some part of his brain, he still remembers the awful time; he still occasionally cries out in his sleep as if he’s being wounded. But as the years go on, those times are fewer and farther between.

May he never have another bad dream. 

Progress

My dog made me cry today.

I took Maya to a very large dog park. I used to do this with Thomas from time to time in the first years after I adopted him, take him to a dog park very early in the morning when no one else was there, then let him off the leash just to see if he would come back to me. Nope. He'd trot away to the farthest corner, then huddle against the fence. I knew if he ever got away from me, he'd just take off. Not until I'd had him nearly three years, and I'd retired and had much more time to spend out in the hills with him did I finally trust him to be off leash. Sort of. One day on a hike, descending a steep hill as we made our way back to the truck, I simply unhooked his leash, and he stayed right behind me, picking his own way down. I was very, very proud of him that day, as he stopped and waited when I asked him to so that I could hook him back up. But he has always felt safest when he's connected to me, so that's the way we keep it most of the time.

I knew Maya would be a flight risk when I brought her home, and boy howdy, did I make sure to watch her every second, to check the gate every time the gardeners left, to tighten my grip on the leash when we left the house, to always be aware of where she was when a door opened anywhere in the house.

Not so anymore. A few months ago, I was walking her with Thomas, and as we neared the house, she shook the leash out of my hand. I tried not to panic as I watched her trot ahead up the street--and go straight up onto our porch. Whew. 'Okay,' I thought. 'She knows where home is now.' I tested this a few times, dropping the leash a few doors away, and she will always run right home.

But out in open spaces, yeah, that's a different story. Many's the time we've stood on a rise overlooking a long stretch of rolling hills, and she has leaned into that. I know if I unhooked her, she'd be in the wind, running for miles until she either denned up in the wild or a coyote had her for lunch. Scary, scary thoughts.

So today was somewhat of a test for her. Did I mention this is a very big dog park?

That black and white dot, center of the pic, is Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, off leash. As soon as we were in, I unhooked the leash, and off she trotted. Away, away, away, almost to the back fence. I didn't follow. I just waited. Finally, she stopped. Turned back. I walked to the middle of the park and stopped. She doesn't really know the come command. But she knows "Wait." So I gave her the hand signal and told her, "Maya, wait." And she did. She sat her sassy derriere down and waited for me to approach her. I petted her--something that she never used to let me do if it were outside the confines of her crate, but she has decided, in recent weeks, it's actually quite nice. So she got some pets and head rubbies, and then I said, "Let's go," and we walked around the expansive park some more, Maya sniffing and peeing and being a dog. Pretty fabulous. Of course, I had to stop for a while and wipe the tears off my face and blow my nose. This is huge progress for her. She's learning to trust, and I know, with everything she experienced in the past, humans have shown themselves absolutely untrustworthy. (I hear ya, girl.) But she's trying.

All this was after I had walked her through the kid part of the park, around the playground equipment, and then asked her to walk up this bridge with me:

It would require her to take a big step up, and I knew that the thing would probably move, but every time we hike, I ask her to do something difficult--climb up on a boulder or cross a small stream or duck under a fallen tree. She amazes me every time with her courage. So without hesitating, I asked her to follow me up and over, and damn if she didn't do just that. On the way back, we did it again, but this time we stopped in the middle for a photo op.

It's important to note here: For most of every day, Maya still stays in her crate, by her own choice. (The day is coming when I will close it off during the day and only allow her to den up at night, but not yet. She's not ready yet.) She doesn't interact with me or Thomas or Jenny the Cat. She listens to the household routine, emerging for potty breaks when asked to do so. She is still very shut down.

In fact, just this past month, she finally began taking treats from my hand. For eighteen months, she has gotten a treat for going outside--at least four times a day. But, just as Thomas did in the beginning, she would turn her head away as I offered her a treat, even if she had returned to her crate. In the first weeks after I brought her home, she wouldn't eat the treat--even if it was sitting under her nose--until I left the room. She still won't eat food from her dish or drink while I'm in the room. But miraculously, a few weeks ago, after I'd been sitting with her for a while, petting her, she finally took her favorite treat from my hand. Of course, I cried that day, too.

But these carefree mornings when I hook her up to a fifteen-foot leash and let her wander in safe, isolated places--these are healing for her. She gets to be a dog, but she is reminded that we're in this together. Someday, I hope, she will see our connection as a good thing.

Good girl, Maya. You are a very good girl.

Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, eight years in

 

I didn’t want to let January slip by without acknowledging that special “Gotcha Day” for Sgt. Thomas Tibbs. When I adopted him, my vet said he was “six-ish.” Oh my dogs, that was eight years ago….

My best boy is fourteen now. In the last four years, he’s been diagnosed with pemphigus, pancreatitis, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, and age-related bronchitis. He eats special food and has more medications stockpiled than I do. His eyes are getting foggier, and he is rapidly losing his hearing. (Turns out that last malady is a godsend; he never woke at all when the fireworks began on New Year’s Eve.) Although he can no longer hike with me, he still enjoys his daily ride in the truck, using a ramp to walk in and out of the extra cab.

With every passing month, his decline is more pronounced. Conversely, with every passing day, he becomes more and more in love with being loved.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same dog that hated being touched when I first brought him home. I had to leave his collar on all the time because getting close to him required herding him into a corner so that he had no way out. Once I had his collar, I could clip the leash on, and he would come along, but reluctantly. (It is exactly the same behavior Maya exhibits now, by the way, so I have every confidence that someday she will no longer panic when I approach her.)

He still hates going for walks, because he hates having the leash on. (“Something bad must be about to happen,” is what he thinks—the whole time. Always.) But he’s so happy now, that even though he still resists getting his collar on, he makes a game out of it. He does this every. single. day. Even if he’s not feeling well. You can see that crazy game if you click here. (I took the video for this post, so yeah, it’s him last week.)

I had him two years before Thom let me rub his belly. Funny how that happened. He only ever wanted to be outside, in a far corner of the yard, curled in a ball. (Again, this is Maya’s behavior now, only she’s in the den, not outside, and that’s where she stays all day, every day, except when we take potty breaks or go for a walk or hike.) At my vet’s suggestion, I made Thomas come inside for a while each day, and I gave him a soft bed to curl up in while he was there. I’d been watching some ridiculous daytime show that demonstrated dog massage, all of which I thought was a bunch of hooey, but while I was petting him, I just started doing it—massaging his head and the back of his neck. After a few minutes, he was so relaxed, he rolled over on his back. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to replicate the experience the next day, but he wasn’t having it. It was weeks before he did it again, and after that, only rarely.

But then I retired. When I did, our days hiking increased. Our time together increased. He began sleeping next to my bed at night (instead of outside or in the garage, as he had once preferred). If I wake in the night, I lean over the side and rub his back, just to hear him sigh that sweet doggie sigh of contentment.

Three years ago, I asked him one night if he ‘wanted brush,’ holding up his dog brush and setting it on the floor outside my bathroom as I finished brushing my teeth. He laid down on the floor and waited, and when I finished, I sat with him for twenty minutes, brushing out his fur and singing to him (and Purrl, because she’s always jealous and has to be in on everything, like all pushy cats). The next night, I stepped out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth, only to find him waiting in the same spot, looking up at me expectantly. “Seriously?” I said. “Okay.” I sat on the floor and brushed him again.

Thus began our ritual of “getting love” every night before we go to bed. I don’t always brush him. Sometimes I give him head rubbies or a back massage. But you know, I highly recommend the practice. It becomes like a meditation. Just fifteen minutes or so of quiet and deliberate relaxation and deep breathing before bed. With a dog, of course (or cat, I don’t discriminate—but if it’s a cat like Purrl, she’s going to climb up and claim your lap and then God help you when you try to get up). It still takes him several minutes of quiet brushing or back rubs to feel secure and relaxed enough to flop over on his side. When he does, he often dozes off now, sprawled on the floor, knowing that he is safe and loved, and that tomorrow when he wakes up there will be good food and treats (after his walk) and lots of soft blankies for napping.

It doesn’t take much to make a dog happy.

Come to think of it, we should all take heed of that.

How Maya is doing

                                                             

How we’re doing currently:

The painter arrived at 7:00a.m. yesterday to power-wash the outside of the house. He was here for about 45 minutes, running a compressor and shouting cheerfully with his buddy. Although I took Maya outside four times over the course of the day, she was so traumatized by it, she did not feel safe enough to relieve herself. Twelve hours later, at 7:00p.m., she finally peed.

I want to offer a brief explanation of what it’s like working with a feral dog. My friend Ann asked recently if giving Maya treats would help. I explained that yes, Maya does like treats, but she will not eat them until I’ve left the room. No matter how badly she wants them or how long I stand there. She will not eat or drink in my presence. Thomas was the same way seven years ago.

Here’s the thing: Domestic dogs are raised by domestic mama dogs. The behavior they see modeled for them is that humans are helpers who are (overall, we hope) kind and generous, offering good food and clean water, safety and security, love and affection. Feral dogs or dogs born in puppy mills or hoarding situations (as Thomas and Maya both were) are never socialized to trust humans. (I feel their pain, believe me; I have those trust issues myself.) In Thom’s case, he was left to fend for himself, running wild on four acres in the desert with over one hundred other dogs. In Maya’s case, the folks at the Really Terrible Rescue where I adopted her liked to boast that they ‘took her from a guy who had her for three years and didn’t do anything with her.’ They promptly took her to their rescue, put her in a narrow concrete dog run, and didn’t do anything with her for three years (except feed her and chase her out to run around with other dogs for ten minutes a day while they hosed out her kennel).

Here's how we were four months ago when I brought her home:

Petting her terrified her. She would simply cringe and tremble. Any restraint—collar, harness, slip lead, holding her—terrified her. She chewed through her harness on the trip home. She chewed through a leash in one bite that same evening. I couldn’t get near her unless she was confined in a small space, so taking her outside required leashing her, getting her to follow me (because a tug on the leash would compel her to bite it in half), getting her out the door where I would drop her leash and she would immediately hide under the patio table or chair or swing, tangling the trailing leash around chair legs, etc. Eventually, if she had to go bad enough, she would dart to the grass, relieve herself, and come back to the patio. When I approached her, she would trot away (she still does), but I could step on the end of her leash to catch her. Coming back in was easy after that. All I had to do was slide the door open and she would bolt for her safe spot. (Thank goodness I bought that anti-anxiety bed before I brought her home.)

As the weeks went by, I slowly shortened that nice new cotton leash, cutting off one foot at a time, so she wouldn't have so much slack whipping around behind her, which also frightened her. (I started with a thirty-foot leash. Good thing.) After she met Thomas and the two decided to tolerate each other (actually, she adores him to the point of annoying him, just as I did with my big brother—probably still the case), getting her in and out was easy. If Thomas is with me, she comes right along. If I take her out alone, I usually have to leash her. (Because if I go in the den and call her to come outside, she either doesn’t move a muscle or she sits up and gives me her best “What the hell are you going to do to me now, lady?” expression.)

After she’d been here two months, I started walking her around the house. Mind you, she is still so shut down that she spends 90% of her time lying on her side in her bed with her head under my desk.

Everything in this world is still new and strange and scary to her, just as it was for Thomas in the beginning. We had to start somewhere, though, so I began by walking her through the house every day, up and down the hallway (terrifying the cats, poor dears, who would hide under the bed the minute the crazy-eyed wolf dog appeared). We then graduated to walking through the garage, out to the driveway. Our initial attempt was disastrous, with Maya fighting desperately like a hooked fish at the end of the leash, biting it and spinning around in her terror. We lasted about 30 seconds out there. 60 seconds the next time. 90 seconds the next—but then a human walked by and she was beside herself with terror, pleading with her eyes for me to take her in. “Can’t you see we are in peril for our very lives?” she said. “No, baby girl, it’s just a person,” I told her. “He won’t hurt you.” But we went in.

Her first walk on the street was equally disastrous. We went west (at 6:00a.m. to assure no humans would be present)—until a neighbor stepped out to retrieve his newspaper and saw her.

“GOOD MORNING, KAY! IS THAT YOUR NEW DOG?” he shouted. Maya spun around and began dragging me back home. “SHE DOESN’T WALK VERY WELL ON THE LEASH, DOES SHE?” he called to our retreating backsides.

Next time, we went east. We made it all the way to the corner—five houses down!—before our sweet neighbor, Linda, came out to get her paper. “Kay, is that Maya?” she asked quietly. “She’s so beautiful!” Whereupon Maya spun around and headed for home again as fast as her little legs would trot.

(Note to Cesar Milan, formerly known as the Dog Whisperer and still my hero: Yes, Cesar, I know that a dog that is pulling is in “a state of excitement,” but no, I can’t stop in the middle of the street and tell her to sit until she’s calm. She's terrified. And frankly, she’s nearly as afraid of me as she is of Linda. So yeah, I’m gonna let her drag me back to where she feels safe. I’m sorry if I let you down. Much respect, K.)

Where was I? Oh—note to self: Walk Maya even earlier than 6:00a.m.

Then I hit on the great idea of walking her with Thomas. Chaos ensued. But also: Dog joy. Pure, unadulterated dog joy.

Thomas, initially, was annoyed that he had to share his walk with his out-of-control little sister. Somehow, I got them both through the garage and out to the driveway. But Thomas—like any stubborn cattle dog mix—stopped dead when he got to the street (as Maya continued on, nearly pulling my arm off).

“No,” he said. “This is dog shit. First of all, we go out the kitchen door, not the garage. And I do my walk. Then treats. That’s all.” Thomas, by the way, does a killer side-eye.

“Thom,” I said, barely containing my laughter. “With me.” I tugged and he moved forward.

As soon as Maya saw that her brother was going to walk with us, she exploded in dog joy, hopping up and down on her front paws, her little ears flopping, and yes, wait for it—wagging her tail!! Tick tock, tick tock, back and forth it swung as she trotted proudly beside him. I was laughing and crying, watching her be not-terrified. Of course, the outing became a bit somber when we turned the corner. She’d never been around the block. But, although her tail stopped ticking tocking, she didn’t tuck it. She just kept trooping along beside him until we reached the driveway—at which point I made a giant mistake and unleashed Thomas, who kept right on going around to the front porch and kitchen door, where he usually goes in. Meanwhile, Miss Insistent dragged me through the garage to the back yard, so I had to abandon my boy out front until I had her secured in the house, then go back for him. (Good thing it was 5:00a.m. and no one was around to panic upon seeing an unleashed dog who slightly resembles a coyote trotting frantically up and down the street, from my porch to my driveway and back again.)

Whew.

Best walk ever (except for the dismount).

Full disclosure here (and probably TMI, sorry), I have seen Maya wag her tail before. Never at me, always at Thomas. Or after she poops. She gets ecstatically happy after she poops, then, within minutes, reverts to sullen, sad dog again.

But: She has now walked solo around the block a couple of times without incident. Oh—and she sits on command now. She’s incredibly smart, so every time she sat down, I would tell her, “Good sit, Maya, good girl.” She knows that the sooner she sits calmly, the sooner I take off the hated collar.

She also now tolerates getting petted, and she likes ear scratches (though she won’t admit it).

Her nails are still horrendously long, but she won’t let me touch her feet, much less hold a paw long enough to clip them. It’s going to take two people. Two very brave, very strong, very committed, very patient people. I won’t take her on any long walks until I can get those nails clipped, but it will happen, sooner or later. And then, oh, the places we’ll go! Because if I can walk her, I can fix her. We just need time and an open road.

Bonus content for those who are still reading (and if you are, thank you!): 

Maya’s DNA:

    29% Chihuahua

    23% Miniature American Shepherd

    15% Wolf

    10% Jack Russell Terrier

    7% Parson Russell Terrier

    7% Central Asian Ovcharka

    2% Dutch Shepherd Dog

    2% Puli

    2% McNab

    2% Rat Terrier

    1% Staffordshire Terrier 

Miss Maya on her first solo walk. Her tail is tucked because she doesn't understand why we aren't going back inside where it's safe.

        

  

Gotcha Day #7

 

I used to love going into Petco or Petsmart, reading labels, talking to dog and cat rescue volunteers on the weekends, browsing the cat toy aisle. Then the pandemic happened, and at my daughter’s suggestion, I began using Chewy.com. Besides saving me money and allowing me to stay home and stay safe, the folks at Chewy actually sent Sgt.Thomas Tibbs a birthday card. How cool is that?

I count his “Gotcha Day” as his birthday. Sort of. I have no idea how old he is, but he’s definitely a senior boy now. At his initial exam, I asked my vet his approximate age and he replied, “Maaaayyyybe six-ish…,” so that would make him at least thirteen. How those years have flown.

Seven years ago, I went to my local shelter looking for a 30-40 pound friendly female dog. I came home with a 60 pound feral problem child with severe fear and anxiety issues. The first time I actually touched him was the day after I adopted him, after he’d been neutered and I had to pick him up from the vet. In those first hours, I wondered if I’d lost my mind. He wanted nothing to do with me. I had to corral him in the garage in order to get a leash on him. He was afraid of everything—people, cars, motorcycles. (The sound of a motorcycle engine blocks away would send him into a panic.) Cell phones. The cats.

The first five days were challenging. Then he adjusted to the routine, allowing me to catch him and walk him (though he kept his tail tucked the entire time). For months, he spent his days curled in a tight ball in a corner of the back yard, and he spent his nights restless and pacing. We walked every day, and I sat with him at night before bedtime, petting him and brushing him, but he would flinch every time I touched him. So that he wouldn’t feel alone, I gave him a stuffed bunny my son had given me the previous Easter. She became his favorite companion, his emotional support friend. I lost track of the number of times he buried her in the back yard. She would sometimes remain underground for months. But like him, she is resilient, and while he no longer ‘hides’ her, he does get anxious when I wash his bedding and, once again, Bunny Tibbs disappears for a few hours, only to return smelling of that awful stinky laundry detergent.

He still flinches when I touch him. Every. single. time—except in the wee hours of the morning, when I lean over the side of the bed, reach my hand down and stroke his head if he’s having a bad dream. Then he sighs and settles, stretching his legs and drifting back to sleep.

About a year and a half ago, it occurred to Thomas that he actually liked being petted and having his back rubbed at night (something I’ve been doing just about every night since bringing him home). He realized that my bedtime ritual meant he was going to “get love,” and he started his new habit of plunking himself down on the bedroom floor just outside the bathroom, wagging his tail and watching me brush my teeth. When I finish, he moves his head excitedly from side to side, sort of pointing to his back with his nose, if that makes sense. When I sit on the floor beside him, he immediately flops over on his side. As I rub his back and scratch his ears, his entire body relaxes. Sometimes he falls asleep there on the floor. Sometimes Purrl gets jealous and bites his toes. Or the tips of his ears. Owww! She’s lucky he never retaliates, just sits up, looking crushed and startled, then lumbers to his feet and trots away.

Lately, we have been doing fewer walks out in the hills together. His joints are old and creaky, and he hates doing hills. (So do I, but they are necessary in order to maintain fitness. As a dog, he doesn’t care about all that.) I’ve started him on a new supplement, and I’m hopeful it will help him with that, but even still, he’s not enjoying the walks out there, so I’ve had to go by myself.

We still walk, though, every morning after he’s eaten his breakfast, usually around 5:30. Sometimes we leave the house late enough to see the first glimpse of the sunrise. We do a lap around the block, during which time he basically power-walks me so that he can get back home and get his Kong filled with peanut butter treats. In the evening, I take him ‘round again, just at sunset. He hates to walk when there are people still out and about, but he has learned that part of being a good boy is to tolerate what I ask of him, so he goes, but reluctantly.

After all these years, he never overtly shows me affection apart from wagging his tail when he’s happy, and he’s still learning to trust me. His medical issues—first pemphigus, then a bout with pancreatitis a year ago, then another day-long ordeal in the emergency room for stomach issues in December—have drawn us closer, however. He is always so relieved to finally return home and feel safe again that it strengthens his bond with me. He knows that when he hurts, I will help him.

Conversely, I know that when I hurt, he will help me. The past year, with its social unrest and political chaos, to say nothing of the pandemic, has been difficult at best and heartbreaking in the worst moments of it. In those times, though, I seek out my own emotional support friend, who lets me say as much as I need to, or cry if I need to. He never interrupts or cuts me off in mid-sentence to interject a point he feels is more important than what I have to say. He just listens. And sighs. And goes back to sleep. Even if his fur is dotted with my tears.

Six years in

 

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, please stop right now, just for a few seconds, and celebrate with us. We made it. Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, my quirky, wonderful, problematic, sweet dog and I made our goal of six years.

Six years ago I brought him home from Upland Animal Shelter. He'd been listed upon intake (by San Bernardino County Animal Control) as being five years old. When I told my vet his age, he smiled and said, "They were being kind."

"So... six?" I responded.
"Six... ish," he said.

So my deal with Thomas (of which I would remind him from time to time over the years, usually at night when I sat beside him, brushing or petting him to calm him before bed) was this: Give me at least six years, Pal. Six years to show you that humans really can be kind. You need at least as many years with kindness and comfort as you've had with starvation and deprivation and the stars only know what else you've endured.

As of January 4th, we've made it. Thomas has given me six years of daily walks, incredible hikes, contented dog sighs, floppy trotting ears, post-bath victory laps around the yard, and tail wags. (Oh, I am so grateful for all those tail wags, which took sooooo long to finally see in the beginning.)

He still loves Purrl, who was only four months old when I brought Thom home,

 and his stuffy friends

and riding in Cloud, my 2003 Ford Ranger,

an activity which is now a daily sojourn to pick up mail in the afternoon, but often it also means a mid-morning break to drive around the park and look for people out walking their dogs. Well, not the people--Thomas is only interested in spying on other dogs from the comfort of his man cave in the backseat of the truck. I think he is fascinated by how happy they all seem, trotting along in broad daylight with their people attached, seemingly without a care in the world. We still walk before the sun comes up, which is when he feels safest.

That is, unless we're going off into the hills to hike. If we head out where the coyotes sing, Thomas relaxes, trotting along the dirt trails and fire roads beside me, occasionally stopping to sniff--something that took years for him to feel comfortable doing.

And I gotta tell ya, this boy has hiked everywhere with me--up steep hills, over boulders, through fields so thick with wildflowers the trail was lost to us, across streams and past a very beautiful but amorous female coyote who thought Thomas was The One she'd been longing for.

We still walk every day, logging 350 out of 365 days for 2019. (Sciatica and a couple of short vacations out of state account for the 15 days we missed.)

With all that walking and the years gone by, has Thomas calmed down, grown out of his quirks? Absolutely not.

I still have to warn him when I'm about to print something, so he can trot out to the garage and jump into the truck, as the sound of the printer absolutely terrifies him. Not the sound of the vacuum cleaner or the garbage disposal or my blow dryer. The printer. And my cell phone, which is still always left on Do Not Disturb mode when I'm at home, as it sends him tearing through the house in a panic if it so much as quietly dings to notify me of a text message.

He still flinches when I touch him if I don't let him know in advance I'm going to do so.

Of course, he is showing signs of aging. We no longer walk miles when we hike together. He's good for a mile and a half, though. He will always have Pemphigas, the auto-immune disease, but it is currently well controlled, and only flares up when he is particularly stressed. Every few months, he has severe gastro-intestinal issues, so he's on a probiotic and gets tasty organic pumpkin added to his food.

Most days he is active and happy, and he has gone from barely tolerating my bedtime routine of petting and singing to him to eagerly anticipating it--so much so that, as soon as I begin my flossing and brushing routine, he camps out on the floor just outside the bathroom door, ears up and waiting for his ear scratch + back massage + belly rubs. Spoiled? Yes, absolutely. I can't begin to imagine the horror of his life before, having to scrounge for food and water in the desert, being literally eaten alive by mange--not for days or weeks or months, but years. Oh, my poor boy! But he's safe now. And hopefully, I have a few more years to spoil him.

 

Thomas, Five Years In

I’m happy to say that when I brought Sgt. Thomas Tibbs home in January of 2014, he did not look like the above photo. The shelter staff at Friends of Upland Animal Shelter had already been feeding him healthy food, treating him for mange and brushing him, so that by the time I brought him home, he had already undergone a metamorphosis into the incredibly beautiful dog that he is.

In fact, this is what his Merry Christmas photo looked like just before I adopted him:

If you’re a longtime blog follower of mine, you’ve read updates on how this once-feral dog has slowly been rehabilitated, learning to accept and trust humans (and cats). But I haven’t posted an update on Thom for a while, so I thought I’d let his fans know, he’s continuing to make progress—yes, even five years in.

Most notably, in the past year, he has finally given in and accepted Purrl as his buddy. She was a young cat, seven months old, when Thomas came to our home. Each night as I sat beside him, brushing him and singing to him, Purrl would creep to the doorway and glare at him. I’m not sure she’d ever seen a dog before. As time went on, she would belly crawl closer and closer to him. But if he so much as twitched an ear, she would shoot out of the room. At some point, though, she realized he posed no threat, so she set about to be his best friend. And boy, that girl kept working on it, rubbing up against him whenever he was captive on the leash, often trying to lie beside him in his bed, only to rebuffed again and again and again. Love is patient….

In May, when Sugar Plum died, Purrl was bereft. She has never been a talkative cat, but she cried daily at the door, wondering where Sug had gone and why she hadn’t returned. It was heartbreaking—for me and apparently for Thomas. If I left the house, I would often come home to find Purrl in Thom’s bed—and he had begun to stay and sleep beside her, whereas in the past he would have gotten up and trotted away to a different spot in the house. I am so proud of him for this, for taking on the role of the comforting big brother.

He even shares his favorite blanket with her.

Something else that has transpired in the past year is a game that Thom made up all by himself. When he first came home, he was difficult to catch. He had to be patiently cornered, and then he would drop his head and turn away from me while I tried to slip his collar and leash on. He still hates having his collar on. But finally, after all these years of daily walks, he almost sort of kind of a tiny bit looks forward to walking in the morning (most likely because he knows he gets a Kong toy full of treats afterward). So instead of getting anxious now when I get his leash, he has made a game out of it. He will trot away from me, but only a few feet. Then he looks back, wagging his tail, making sure I’m following.

“I’m gonna get you!” I tell him, and he’s off and galloping down the hall, sometimes spinning in a circle in the bedroom, dog bowing, his rump in the air like a mountain, flying the flag of his big beautiful tail. We play this game every day, but as he is still a bit camera shy, I’ve only been able to capture small bits of it. If you click on this link, you will find a very short video on YouTube of Thomas happily engaged in his game.

When he first came home, Thom was shut down, barely approachable, as sad as a dog could be. After some months, he had occasional moments in which he relaxed and wagged his tail, but he spent most days curled tightly in a ball, waiting for the “cloak of darkness,” as Shakespeare put it, to shield him from the world. He still prefers only to venture out at night, so taking him out midday is always a conversation that begins with, “If you want a cookie, you have to go outside and go potty….” But as long as he in the house (which he is all day every day), he is happy, for the most part.

And when he is anxious or fearful now, he comes to me. If he hears a car backfire or a firecracker—anything that sounds like a gunshot—he runs to me instead of trying to hide. When he does, I wrap my arms all the way around him and hold him, my face against his face, until he feels safe again. It works better than anything else I’ve found to calm him.

Does he still have issues? You’d better believe it. My cell phone is perpetually on “Do Not Disturb” mode as the tiniest “ting” of a text alert will send him flying out of his bed, trotting anxiously. Even the buzz of silent mode frightens him. If I have to print a document, I must first call down the hall, “Thomas, come here, buddy, I’m going to print,” at which point he sprints for the garage and stays there until several minutes after the printer has stopped making noise. Mind you, I can vacuum or run the garbage disposer or shred paper—none of those sounds bother him.

We still begin our daily walk before dawn, while it’s dark enough for him to feel comfortable, but even then things can get dicey if we see another human out walking. There are certain places here in the park he doesn’t like to go, because perhaps once—and it only takes once—he saw a human come out of a house or start a motorcycle or shout hello while gardening. If he doesn’t want to go, he sits down, and it takes a great deal of persuasion (and some perspiration) to get him to continue. Walking out in the hills, however, is another experience altogether. Since I’ve lived here, he has actually begun acting like a real dog if we’re on the trail—stopping to sniff and sometimes (Good boy, Thom!) peeing on a bush if it smells like coyote or another dog. He will walk miles with me out in the hills or in the mountains, even if that means crossing streams, and I am so grateful for this. I love having him with me when I hike.

As I write this, something is making Thomas anxious, but I have no idea what it is. For the past 30 minutes, he has been trotting down the hall, out to the kitchen, around the island, and back down the hall—non-stop, except when he comes to me for a few brief moments and lets me pet him to try to calm him. Maybe he heard a neighbor taking his trash cans to the curb. Or maybe my computer ‘pinged’ and I wasn’t even aware. Or perhaps he was sleeping and had a bad dream. (He still has nightmares on occasion, but nothing like what he had in his first year with me, when he would startle awake crying out or whimpering. Mostly now he emits soft sighs in his sleep, and I love hearing him if I wake in the night.) Guess I’d better go give him a hug.

Merry...

Sgt. Thomas Tibbs hates Christmas. I'm sorry. He does. That is not my snowman in that photo, but that is definitely Thomas attempting to, once again, slink away while I'm trying to take a photo. This is one of the downsides (really there are so few! Maybe a handful at best! Okay, honestly, the list is long, but who cares?) of deciding that a feral dog is your best buddy. First of all, he's never learned "sit." Telling him that and doing that age-old motion of pulling up on the leash while pushing down on the dog's hindquarters scares him enough to put him in That's-it-I-mistrust-you-again mode. He knows "wait" as a command when I drop the leash, but... yeah, he's only going to hold that wait as long as I'm close enough to step on the leash if he starts walking. That cute snowman is on my next-door-neighbors' front lawn. Their house looks beautiful, so I positioned said feral dog first near the sleigh... but no, he wasn't having it... then by the snowman... again, he was quite insecure about it. So every time I tried to back up into the street and take the iconic "Look! It's Christmas! Here's my cute dog!" photo, he would slowly start idling toward our front porch next door. I don't blame him. I understand. He fears the snowman. He fears all the bright shiny tinkling twinkling moving singing Christmas decorations.

And that's so sad. Because I love them. So, full disclosure here, I've been tormenting my best buddy every night by making him take long walks around my neighborhood so I (selfishly) can look at the lights and tell him (quietly) "Thomas, that's so cute, though! Why you scared o' him?" Poor guy.

The girls, on the other hand (Princess Purrl and Sugar Plum), are in love with Christmas every year. Mostly because of the wrapping. Also because of the ribbons. Definitely because of the fuzzy feathered catnip toys their Big Sister Nic brings them:

This is Purrl's favorite position in the morning, by the way: Bottom to heater. We've been waking to temps in the 30's, so I don't blame her. In this photo, she is jealously guarding this toy so Sug can't get it. Naughty....

On the upside for Thomas, though, I do have to say this has been a great year for him. Since I no longer leave the house to work, we've bonded even more, and we often take long walks out in the country where he feels much more comfortable than walking where there are terrifying things such as people and flags and Christmas decorations and ducks and other dogs and lawn ornaments.

What he likes most, though, is to ride in the extra cab of the truck, looking at everything from the place where he feels safest in the world. So yes, I'm still driving him around every afternoon when we go to fetch the mail. "Thomas, ride?" is all I have to say. He trots down the hall, out to the garage and jumps in the truck--if the door is open. If it's not, he dances, shifting his weight from one front foot to the other while shaking his head in delirious joy. Riiiiiiide!

And now he plays. He has created a game that he adores. I'm not sure how it started, but he will often run for the bedroom when he sees me getting the leash. (Yes, I know; he's the opposite of most dog-buddies.) It makes me laugh, and some weeks ago I told him, "I'm going to get you!" which made him laugh and wag his tail--and run away faster. So now it's a game. I pick up the leash and he gallops down the hall to the bedroom, spins around in a circle and does a dog bow. I follow, then I turn and run back down the hall and he chases me. I stop when I get to the kitchen, turn and say, "I'm going to get you!" and he tears down the hallway again, wagging his tail furiously. It's hilarious. And man, does it ever make me happy to see him happy.

Oh--there is that other game he plays. Possum. You know how most dogs get excited in the morning when their human gets up? It's time to go outside! Yes! Pee time! Hooray! Major sniffs and leg hiking and all that! Not Thomas. He waits for me to come and sit beside his bed and rub his back and scratch his ears and massage his head until he finally rolls over on his back and laughs and says, "I have the best life in the world!" as he wraps his front paws around my arm.

Yes, yes he does. The new year marks the end of his fourth year with me. He was living as a wild dog for at least five before he was rescued. So I tell him often: "You've gotta have at least five good ones, buddy, to make up for the five awful ones." We're working on it.