A Tail of Two Sisters

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The following article has been written specifically for Cyber-Pet. All copy rights are held by Cyber-Pet and any reproduction of this material in whole or in part is prohibited without the express written consent of Cyber-Pet.

A Tail of Two Sisters

by Aimee Froling 1st Annual Cyber-Pet Writers Contest Winner, 4th Place
Copyright© 1997

Being newly-weds, my husband, Gary, and I decided that we didn’t have enough challenges, so when presented with the opportunity to acquire two Black Lab puppies, we rose to that challenge and said YES! I don’t think that there were two more excited prospective parents than we were! Books by the casefull were purchased, instructional videos were watched, an impressive (yet aesthetically pleasing) fence was constructed to protect our little darlings from roaming neighborhood strays, and of course the necessary entry ways were installed (read - dog doors). Because we were getting our puppies in January, provisions had to be made for warmth and security. Gary, the consummate handy man, constructed an elaborate lean-to-like shelter, complete with roof and windbreak, in a cordoned-off section of the garage with a dog door to the back yard. Old carpet was laid down and I, being the softie, purchased a puppy bed filled with fragrant cedar chips to complete the new habitat. All was in readiness - or was it?

We brought our furry bundles of joy, who we had christened Shadow and Chessie, home on a blustery, snowy day in January - SuperBowl Sunday to be exact. The parting from their mother was particularly traumatic and as we drove home to a stereo of whining, whimpering, and yapping, I started to get the first premonition of what stretched out before me as a first-time dog owner.

Black Labs, I was told by many, are very clever and have an admirable, if not maddening, penchant for getting into things and destroying these very same things. Infused with the false sense of security that all those books and instructional videos had given me, I was convinced that OUR Black Labs would be obedient and only destroy items that WE ALLOWED them to. Needless to say, I was in for a very rude awakening!

My first mistake was assigning any sort of human logic to them. I reasoned that they would not destroy items that brought them comfort or that they "needed". Ha! The image of Shadow and Chessie curled up together on their new puppy bed is still vivid in my mind. Chessie with her monster paws demurely covering her snub puppy nose and Shadow sprawled out beside her sister, her already lanky legs flopping every which way. They were so small, so cute, so innocent...so deceitful! The puppy bed lasted 3 days. Actually I should say a week, with one repair job in-between. When I first looked into the puppy pen, I initially thought that the bed had somehow exploded or spontaneously combusted! I could barely make out the two furiously wrestling black shapes amid the haze of cedar dust and cloth shreds. My anger quickly dissolved as those two adorable faces looked up at me as if to say "Look Ma, we’re playin’ like big dogs now!" Little did I know that this was the beginning of a trend that still continues today...

Once they graduated from their puppy pen, Shadow and Chessie were given "free reign" of the garage and the back yard (within the fence, of course). Naively, Gary and I thought that we could "puppy-proof" the garage and environs. A whole weekend was spent moving destructibles to a "safe" height. I’d like to add here that items we deemed indestructible did not always prove to be so. At last all was in readiness for their graduation. With some trepidation we left for work that first morning, not knowing what decimation we would find upon our return that evening. None. Nada. Nothing. That’s what we found that evening - not a single trace of mass destruction as we had feared. Sure, there were a few spots in the yard where they had dug some shallow holes, but nothing in the garage had been destroyed. Remember when I said that Labs were clever, well did I mention conniving? How about pre-meditated? Those little miscreants lulled us into a false sense of security for about a week. Oh, but we were puffed up with ourselves! What great animal trainers! Those monks at New Skete couldn’t hold a candle to us! You know what they say about pride? Well, we fell and we fell HARD.

While we were house-breaking them, we would keep the puppies crated at night in our bedroom and Gary would let them out when he got up. I would then check on them when I got up about 30 minutes later. By this time we had a morning ritual where, when I opened the door to the garage, they would rush at me, tails wagging so hard they almost did 360s on the floor. I would sing them one of the silly good morning songs that I (and probably all doting pet owners) made up for them and they would wriggle between my legs as I scratched them along their backs. I loved (and still love) this ritual and it was the high-point of my mornings. All mornings except one.

On that particular morning I flung open the door, waiting for that wonderful wriggly greeting, and none came. I stepped into the garage and looked to my left. They were there, munching on something, but I couldn’t tell what is was. Then I noticed Gary’s brand new motorcycle helmet (yeah - the one that he had worn only once, and that was when he tried it on in the store). The helmet had "somehow" come out of its protective drawstring bag, which had come out of a sealed carton, which had come off of a shelf in the "safe" zone! For what seemed like forever I stood there trying to comprehend the scene before me. At some point, I’m not sure when, Shadow and Chessie noticed me and came tumbling over. It was then that I recognized what they had in their mouths - Gary’s brand new leather motorcycle gloves which had been in his brand new helmet, which had been in a drawstring bag in a sealed carton on a shelf in the SAFE zone!!! Actual it was only one glove. We never found the other one. I suspect that it was ingested and its remains are somewhere in the yard disguised as a pile of, well, you know... On a positive note, the gloves distracted them from the "delicious" foam padding inside the helmet and the helmet came away relatively intact - only a few scratches to show for its ordeal.

The litany of victims is endless, but here are a few of the more interesting items that they have either eaten, or that I have pulled from their maws:

While certainly amusing, the above list pales in comparison to the disgusting (and traumatic) tale which follows.

It all started with the radio fence...

Shadow, the more svelte and industrious of the sisters, had discovered how to dig under the wooden fence. Her sister Chessie, being stockier (NOT fatter), could never fit through the holes that Shadow dug and had to remain content with simply observing her sister’s machinations. The two are inseparable and this is a good thing, because otherwise Shadow would have roamed much farther afield after her escapes. Instead she simply loped around the outside of the fence, taunting her sister. Well, to make a long story short, we decided on a radio fence as the best way to discourage Shadow’s excavation activities. Braving searing temperatures and tenacious ground bees, Gary and I installed the radio fence on an impossibly humid Saturday afternoon in September.

The radio fence worked as advertised. Shadow soon learned that to be near the fence (within 18 inches) was an unpleasant experience and her tunneling stopped. With a big sigh of relief, Gary and I rested on our laurels and were convinced that life would settle down now. Ha!

To this day we’re not sure if it was one of those pre-meditated scenarios (you chew my collar off and I’ll chew yours off) or whether it was born of some out-of-control wrestling antics, but I came home from work to find Chessie’s collar missing. I searched the garage and back yard, with the two suspects innocently following, and only came up with the radio fence transmitter (thank goodness!). Gary looked around again when he got home, but with no luck either, and we surmised that they must have buried it or flipped it over the fence. It wasn’t until the next morning that some light was shed on this mystery...

As usual, I got up and took the dogs downstairs to go out. Nothing seemed amiss. About 5 feet from the back door Shadow started making those charming heaving noises that every dog owner dreads, especially in the middle of the night. I did the only thing I could think of - I clamped her mouth shut with one hand and pushed her towards the door with the other. Thinking it was another toad-eating episode, image my surprize when Shadow barfs up part of a much-chewed and partially-digested red collar! Ugh! After purging herself, she looked fine and ate her breakfast without so much as a bat of a beguiling brown eye. Thinking that was that, I left for work. For a fleeting moment, I did wonder where the rest of the collar might be...

When I got home from work that evening, my husband greeted me with some concern on his face. "Shadow’s really drooling and breathing kind of funny". Rushing to the garage, I stopped in my tracks. "Really drooling?" I realized that I was married to the master of understatement. What was coming out of this dog’s mouth could only be described as thick ropes of foam! THIS was NOT drool and her breathing sounded like she had a rattle stuck in her throat! I went charging back upstairs and naturally asked, "How long has she been like this?!". Gary informed me that she’s been like that since he got home - about 3 HOURS AGO! At which point I screeched something like "Are you insane?! Why haven’t you gone to the emergency clinic?!" Helpless mutterings from my spouse and I was out the door with my heart in my throat and a slightly dazed dog in the back seat.

Endless waiting at the clinic. I’m tormented by unvoiced, panicked utterances like "Can’t you see this is an emergency? My dog is DYING here! Hey, that dog with the gaping wound and innards hanging out can wait - MY DOG IS DYING HERE!" The smiling (how can she smile when my dog is dying?) receptionist wants to know some mundane details like address, method of payment and casually mentions that they accept all major credit cards. Whoa! Credit Cards? That snapped me out of my trance! It occurred to me for the first time that there could be significant financial ramifications to this episode! "Hmm... maybe she could sleep it off after all... No, what am I thinking? No expense is too great - I mean, MY DOG IS DYING HERE!" (This mindset proved to be valuable later when I got the bill for $260.)

FINALLY we are seen. The Vet is WAY too calm. She doesn’t seem at all alarmed. It’s as if she sees dogs with ropes of foam coming out of their mouths all the time! There’s a mention of x-rays, probes, sedation ... I vaguely remember shaking my head yes, yes, yes. Shadow is led to the x-ray room and I’m banished to the waiting room where I wait and wait and wait. At about 11:00 pm the Vet tells me that the x-rays don’t show anything conclusive so they’re going to sedate Shadow and put a probe down her throat. They’ll have to keep her overnight so I might as well go home. She’ll call me as soon as they know something. I ask in a voice fringed with tears if I can say good-bye (convinced that this is the last time I‘ll see my marvelous mutt alive again). After a tearful good-bye, the gravity of which is completely lost on the dog, I drove home through a haze of tears. All the times I’d lost patience with her, didn’t give in to her begging for tidbits, kicked her off the couch for emitting those noxious fumes that only dogs have the ability to produce - all the perceived injustices that I’d done her weighed on me like a terrible mantel of guilt.

At 11:30 the Vet called. "Ha Ha...you won’t believe...incredible really..." I wanted to scream, "Just tell me!". It seems that the buckle from Chessie’s collar was lodged behind Shadow’s back molar! Relief is soon replaced by murderous thoughts - My DOG is DEAD!!! I’m going to KILL her!!! "You can pick her up in the morning before 7:00 am, Mrs. Froling." When the alarm went off the following morning at 5:30 a.m., I think I had slept about 2 hours, max. Chessie had never been separated from her sister and she whined the entire night. My husband slept like a baby, of course. Bleary-eyed, I showered and dressed for work with the intention of picking up Shadow, bringing her home and then zipping off to work. If I timed it right, I wouldn’t even be late! Ah, but the best laid plans...

I decided to take Chessie with me because I felt sorry for her and was concerned that the stress of being completely alone would be too much for her. She was more than happy to jump in the car with me and I reassured her that we were going to get "sissy". What a joyous reunion at the Vet! The sight of it helped ease the sting of my smoking credit card as I paid the ransom to free Shadow. As we headed for home, Shadow immediately conked out in the back seat and Chessie came up front to sit beside me. All was right with the world! My dog didn’t die and we were headed for home! My gentle feeling of contentment ended about 10 miles from home, going about 50 miles an hour. Chessie put her head over my lap in what I mistook as an invitation to scratch her chin. About the time I got my hand under her mouth she barfed in it. She then proceeded to barf in my lap, on my leg, on the stick shift and on the emergency brake. Shadow, hearing all this commotion and not wanting to miss out on anything, started trying to horn her way up front. I can laugh about it now, but at the time, going 50 miles an hour with one hand on the steering wheel and the other full of dog barf, all the while trying to maintain control of two unruly animals, I was not having fun. Somehow I managed to knock the car into neutral with the back of my hand and pull over. Irony is a strange thing and often unwelcome. Normally I have a gazillion (precise scientific term for "lots and lots") restaurant napkins in my car. On that particular morning, I didn’t have so much as a used Kleenex. Making do with some leaves and grass, I managed to clean up the car enough to drive home.

Needless to say, the mystery concerning the whereabouts of the rest of Chessie’s collar was a mystery no more! So much for getting to work on time...

Some people reading this might think me insane, or at least clinically masochistic. Why put up with all that? Well, I’ve never asked myself the question, but I know where I would get the answer. The answer lies in the unconditional joy and love that greets me every day when I get home from work; the wonderful, trusting, loyal brown eyes that look up at me and make it impossible for me to refrain from smiling; and the indescribable feeling I get when I bury my face in the silky fur of these animals, who take delight in following me around or receiving a scratch on the belly or behind the ear. Oh, and don’t forget those smelly kisses that make me wonder what they just ate!

I honestly can’t imagine my life without them. I know one thing for sure...it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting!

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