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Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
by Katerina Bryant “Why have Mummy and Daddy brought you in today?” she asked, her smile reflecting on the aluminium bench top. Moments earlier I’d stood mesmerised in anxious silence. My thoughts were interrupted by the vet declaring what was previously unbeknownst to me, that I was a parent. “Her stomach is kind of sensitive,” Mat aka. Daddy replies. We were nervous. After the last visit, the vet had suggested that we might have to reconsider Suzie’s future in our family of four. This time we had taken her to a new vet. She expertly slipped on a glove that looked a little too thin for my liking, asking her assistant and Mat to hold Suzie. I looked into Suzie’s eyes as she whined and squirmed in a how-could-you-betray-me kind of way, the whole time keeping her teeth out of sight. “There’s a lot of pus. She’ll need to take two tablets a day for a few weeks to clear up the infection.” “How could this have happened?” She’d spent the last two weeks making it very clear that my new Sheridan sheets were hers. “This is quite a common occurrence, especially for small dogs or dogs who have been sitting a lot on concrete.” “She’s a shelter dog. Her pen was concrete.” We approach the counter to pay the second lot of vet fees in two weeks, my wallet full of receipts and little else. So Suzie was feeling sick, maybe that could explain it. We hoped so anyway. # “Well she was sitting outside the kitchen, firmly planted on the ground but looking a little lost. I gently shook her collar to coax her into the other room… and then it happened.” “She bit you?” “She jumped up and lunged at my face. She nipped the side of my cheek, here.” Mum pointed to the soft patch of skin between her right eye and hairline, which days earlier had a distinct pink tone. We were at the RSPCA talking to Alex, one of the resident animal behaviourists, about how best to address the problem. “Well there are a few things, first when she is sitting stiffly like you described it’s best not to try to move her. You can tell a lot from Suzie from how her tail is positioned. It’s a common misconception that if a dog wags their tail they’re happy.” We all were nodding, in time, silently and solemnly listening to her advice. “If it’s lowered and in between her legs that indicates fear. If it is a broad, sweeping wag positioned medium to high that is a friendly gesture.” This was the first incident, an event that brought Mum’s grief of losing our pocket-sized cavalier to the forefront of her mind. The night Suzie had bitten she had said quietly to me, “It scared me. But we forgot that Suzie was fragile, that’s all. She doesn’t trust me yet. But she will and we will work it out so it doesn’t happen again.” # My hand plunges into the faded couch cushion, uncovering the body of a tiny sliver of blue plastic. “Maaaaaaaaaaat. I found another one.” I call out, my voice travelling down the hallway. “Where does she get them from?” he replies, strolling into the sun lit room. “I don’t know, but I’m sick of fishing fritz packets out of the furniture.” The way the pink crumbs of meat stick to the shiny white plastic unsettles me, particularly as a long-term vegetarian. “He must be sneaking them to her.” “Don’t say anything to him, okay? He sees her looking so thin and wants to feed her.” “She’s a staghound, they’re supposed to be thin.” “Don’t say anything? That’s just how he is.” I loosely grip what is left of the chewed up fritz packet and drop it into the kitchen bin. It’s the only meat in the house, much to the chagrin of my farm born father who sees schnitzel as its own food group. I don’t know how much fritz she’s been eating. The two of them could be sharing the meat tubes, like a scene from Lady and the Tramp. Or maybe she downs it in one chomp leaving the red and blue plastic as the only evidence. It has been this way since the first day Suzie came to our home. Dad took a couple of hours off work to drive Mat and I to the shelter. We barely slept the night before, cleaning and making her a den to call home. She later decided she much preferred furniture to a lousy foam mattress on the floor, despite my well-meaning throw cushion flourishes. When we arrived, we were escorted through tall mesh gates into the isolation area. Suzie had a case of suspected ringworm and wasn’t allowed to see other dogs or go on walks until her results had come in. They ended up being negative, but that didn’t stop me from Googling what a ringworm rash looks like on humans. Hint: it is circular and disgusting. “Wait there,” Jade the resident dog behaviourist told us as we began the adoption process. She walked two hundred metres down to where the dogs lived between walls of grey cement. I could see that the metal cage doors were starting to rust and the cement had hints of being stained, despite the regular hose downs. The shelter was worn, which isn’t surprising considering the 10,000 dogs the RSPCA cares for a year. Jade told us that the brown Labrador Suzie had been surrendered with had been euthanized for unmanageable aggression. A fifth of all surrendered dogs share the same fate. We were glad Suzie would be joining the half who found new homes. Suzie trotted towards us, as only large thin dogs can do. Her grey pointed face looked at me and as she approached, I could begin to see beard-like whiskers protruding from her cheeks. She sat down at Jade’s command and we patted her, introducing ourselves. As she rolled on her back, my hand reached down to stroke her belly. Her white fur thinly stretches across her ribcage, forming a harsh triangular shape. “That’s a sign of submission,” Jade said as my hand hovered over the pyramid of her belly. “You can still pat her, it just means she wants you to know she isn’t a threat. See how she is fooling around as a puppy would? That’s called a Passive Defence Reflex or PDR.” She continues turning my previously unshakeable knowledge about dog belly-rubbing upside-down, as I keep stroking. “She sees you as a higher-ranking member of the social group. Her past owner was… heavy-handed. She feels threatened around new people and this is her way of showing her emotions.” It was that first night when the Schmackos and fritz began. Suzie was lying luxuriously on a pink foam mattress positioned in the centre of the sitting room, our floral stitched couches facing her. She drifted in and out of sleep, as though unsure of whether she could trust her new surroundings. She seemed very aware that all of us – Mum, Dad, Mat and I – were staring at her and not the TV. Dad had positioned himself on the mattress and her brown eyes followed him, her head still, and the occasional tail flick asserting a just-awake status. “Thank you for bringing her home,” Mum said. “Yes, you made a good choice indeed.” Dad’s voice had an unfamiliar note: he sounded sincere. He usually volleyed between giving strident lectures on the latest legal matters and telling dry long-winded jokes about 16th century French politics. I meditated on the strangeness of the small horse like creature, now ours, sleeping in our living room. So peaceful, so quiet and so suddenly biting Dad on the very hand that was stroking her. “Shit. Are you okay?” I asked. “You must have frightened her,” Mum said. “I’m fine. It was just a nip.” He was repeatedly touching his wrist where the skin was somewhere between pink and red. We started to notice that Suzie was different to our last dog, who was small and could be harassed no end. When Dad had carried Henry, our little white and burgundy bundle to his final vet visit he had cried. Something I can’t remember seeing before. Not even when I was sixteen and Dad put down the phone, turned to me, told me my grandmother had died and turned back around to continue playing computer solitaire. # “Did you know if a dog bites you playfully you should yelp?” I look up from the dogeared pages of Think Dog the bestselling guide to canine psychology, awaiting a response. “Mmm?” Mat replies, way less excited than I would have hoped. “That’s what puppies do when they’re young and all learning to use their teeth. Yelping means ouch that hurts. Humans can effectively imitate the sound with a high-pitched squeal.” “I’ll keep that in mind…” I’d been educating myself on dog behaviour and shelter dogs since another incident occurred a week earlier. Suzie had been sleeping on our bed. The rule had now been very clearly affirmed as “don’t wake Suzie when she is sleeping.” But what do you do when it’s 10pm at night and you want to settle down underneath some blankets and indulge in a little online chess? Mat firmly patted her backside, trying to wake her without getting too close. As his hand tapped her, she sprung forth. She barked declaring don’t you dare mess with me while her bared teeth thrust her entire body forward. I was at the edge of the room, decked out in flannels and struggling to comprehend what had happened. “Matty, are you okay?” He looked back at me with brown eyes, just like Suzie’s, and continued to look betrayed. His hand hovered over his red cheek. “Did she get you?” “The bitch bit me on the face.” Sometimes, in times of sadness, my face will cruelly form a grief expression that resembles a smile. I tugged back the edge of my lips as much as I could and approached the wounded man and the bitch. “I can’t believe she actually bit me… “ “It’s okay, she was frightened. She didn’t know it was you.” Whenever I have these conversations with bitten family members, I can’t help but feel I’m rationalizing what she has done. She has had a hard life. Shelter dogs often experience adverse behaviours like separation anxiety or food aggression from being in a dog-eat-dog environment for months. I still can’t help but defend her, no matter how hard she bites. “Lets get her off and go to bed” he mumbles back at me. I run to the other room, returning with a squeaky furry lion toy to coax off the angered hound. She follows me as Mat settles into the warm spot she has left behind. # After two months of Suzie systematically making every room with a cushy couch or a Queen-sized bed her den, we went away. Mum, Mat and I spent a week in Melbourne doing the usual eat, shop and catch the wrong tram spree. Dad stayed at home with Suzie and a heavy workload. “I can’t wait to get home to our fur baby,” I said entwining my arm around Mat’s on the last night in Melbourne and thinking about the way Suzie would press her nose against my arm when she craved a pat. When we arrived home, we left our suitcases at the door and sprinted down the hallway, checking all of Suzie’s haunts. Library couch? No. Nosing in the kitchen bin? Nup. We finally found her on the three-seater couch (she doesn’t care for the cramped two-seater) in the family room. “SUUUUUUZIE” Mat exclaimed. I’d never seen her that excited. She flopped onto her back, her tail wagging ecstatically as we stroked her wiggling body. I moved from kneeling on the floor to sit at the end of the couch. A suede cushion was still warm from where she had slept and I could feel its heat through my shorts. “Mat… Maaat… SHE PEED.” He laughed out loud and continued patting her. “I can’t believe it. She loves us THAT much!!!! Are you gonna pee on me too, Suzie?” “That doesn’t quite make me feel better,” I mumbled as I squirmed out of my shorts, which was no easy feat as the wet patches of denim insistently stuck to my legs. While house soiling is conventionally seen as a dog suffering from over-attachment anxiety, I took this as a compliment despite being covered in urine. As I put my shorts in the washing machine, I couldn’t help thinking about the past two months. After all of her neglectful, terrifying encounters with humans she was so excited to be reunited with her family that she lost bladder control. Her willingness to trust and heal was incredible. It is something many people are inspired by when adopting shelter animals. As the months went by, the incidents got further and further apart. Of course she will still nip at us occasionally, but only when we break the rules. Occasionally she’ll even sleep in my lap. But, on the whole, it’s best to let her lie. And they’re best friends now, Dad and Suzie. All it took was some fritz. |
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