Adventures in Puppyland (early August 2011 edition)

Last night (Aug. 6), I filled the pup's kong toy w/ kibble, sealed it with some puppy "stuffin" and secured it w/ a couple treats (I did this like 2 days ago so the stuffin paste had dried). He seemed to have trouble eating this new way to serve dinner and I offered to help. He bit me instead. And I instituted a social isolation on him to show him who's boss...but found it to be extremely difficult to feed him w/out giving him any commands. He is so accustomed to sitting and waiting for me to give him is "okay" before he approaches his food bowl that it was impossible...also, what happened today totally broke the isolation and make it impossible.

Today (Aug. 7), my mom found that he may have stepped on some poop he concealed on the dark stone tiles of our entry way, that my dad probably stepped on on his way out to Lowe's or Home Depot to find some mosquito repellent for the yard. My mom was dressed like a bee keeper when I went down to see the mess the dog made. She had on grey sweat pants, a light blue rain jacket w/ a towel covering most of her face with the hood pulled over the towel on her head. And the puppy was dangling from her arms, wanting to get down but not sure what he could do. I got her the rubber gloves she wanted to use to pull out the waist-high thistle plants that have taken over her vegetable garden.

Dressed like a bee keeper w/ make-shift protective gear against the mosquitos, she took the puppy dangling from her hands out to the backyard while she pulled weeds and I cleaned up. Fine, this is "my dog" so I guess his poop is my domain. It's not like I don't do this a minimum of twice a day. (If anyone reads this, and knows how to get a dog on a pooping schedule, I'd like to know. He does NOT keep to a schedule no matter how regular I keep his meal times and bed time.) B/c the entire entry way reeked of dog poop, I sported some rubber gloves, pried the dried and smeared dog poop pieces from the stone, wrapped them inside the glove and spill large puddles of the dog pee cleaner w/ enzymes and bacteria-killing stuff I got from the pet store (a half-gallon jug). I then got a new glove and a few paper towels to sop up the dog poop and dirt. I ended up doing this twice and wiping the bottoms of the shoes present...just in case any of them had poop on them. This was really exciting as I inched around the foyer/entry way wiping up dog poop and dirt and leaves shoes tracked in...that my dog was probably eating on his free time.

As I was finishing this epic clean-up effort, I hear the most shrill, pain-induced cries that is undoubtedly coming from him. I run outside in my pajama bottoms and run towards the sounds, and trace the blood-curdling shrieks to under our neighbor's deck. I have no idea how he got under there as the deck was sealed all the way around w/ brick flower beds and wooden boards making up a small step down into their yard. All I knew was that my puppy was trapped under the boards and he was dying. I finally found exactly where under the deck he was and my mom and I discovered the tiny space between the dirt and the board, behind some large evergreen shrub that he probably crawled under. Then, we stopped hearing his cries. We were sure he was bitten by some nefarious animal and has now passed out or died. I start frantically tapping on the boards and trying to revive him, then I heard him move and then he barks.

Relief.

So now that I know he is still alive, I feel the duty to work to get him out...I mean, that obligation felt stronger when I heard him than during the few minutes during which my mom and I stared at each other as two panicked women, thinking he has died. I was half relieved that the occasionally mean, biting and trouble-making pup had died and half fearful (and fully shocked) that he has died so quickly. I considered leaving him there, but then I considered the neighbors smelling his rotting carcass in a few days and thought it wasn't nice...that I should at least burry him in my own backyard. But then, he made noise to let us know he was living, and that's when I started to think of ways to get him out.

My mom still had those elbow-length rubber gloves on so I instructed her to push the shrub aside as I try to stick my fingers into the crevice and lure the dog out. It didn't work. I ran to my house and brought his treat baggie. I sprinkled treats at the entrance. Nothing. I tapped around until he barked again and dropped a few treats into the cracks where he was. I'd like to think he found them and got a few free treats out of this. My mom instructed me to throw more treats in front of the hole, yelling at me that I need to have more down there for him to smell it. We tried everything.

We were convinced he was bitten or injured or something. I yelled at my mom to go get a flash light. She ran home and got one. By then, the towel protecting her face from mosquitoes had been thrown on the deck and we were both being attacked by the world's meanest mosquitos. I wondered what the heck was my neighbors doing while we were making so much commotion in their backyard, pushing aside their yard furniture and their shrubs. She brought the flash light, I shined it in the cracks until I found the dog...and confirmed that it is indeed our dog and we can't give up and go look for our dog. I was partially hoping that it was someone else's dog in there so I could stop doing all that. B/c then I'd have the excuse of having to go look for my own lost dog. Right?

Well, I flashed the light into the hole to see if he'd come near it. I mean, there were at least 2 handfuls of treats in there! There was a light to show him the way in the dark, dark under deck! He did not come. By then, my mom and I were convinced he was trapped under there for sure. Maybe there were some supports for the deck that cuts off the direct route from where he is to the hole. Maybe he followed some squirrel or other small animal in there to catch it but he got lost in the maze and he is stuck in the small 3-ft area that we know he's under. I asked my mom if we had a hatchet...she said no. I was ready to bust that deck wide open to get my dog out. We decided we needed to remove at least 1 board to get to him and lift him out. I ran home and got my dad's tool box that he has all sorts of small things in, and I try to unscrew a screw of the shortest board we determined was closest to the crying pup. The screw would not budge...of course not, b/c they were drilled in w/ an electrical drill.

(**Aside: the saddest part of all this wasn't that my 6 month old rambunctious, trouble maker puppy was stuck under the deck and dying from a poisonous snake bite or had his eyse gouged out by a super-ninja squirrel. the real sad part was that while doing all this, I thought about trespasser laws and how this would, at least arguably, qualify as an "emergency" so my neighbor can't sue me for trespass...but that he is probably entitled to the cost of repairs to his deck after I tear it apart w/ my bear hands. yes, it was the bar exam and torts information coming at me during this time of extreme distress.**)

Continuing w/ the events of this afternoon...I finally run to my neighbor's house to 1) see if they have the tools necessary to remove a board, and 2) see why they haven't come out to yell at us or at least ask what the heck we were doing on their deck, tapping around w/ a mega-flashlight and screwdrivers poised to unscrew his deck w/ my sheer, brute strength. I ring their front door bell, I ring their side/back door bell. My neighbors weren't home, naturally. I run back to where my mom is, and her face was covered in bites, as were my elbows and her neck and our backs...those skeeters bit me through my shirt...wth.

We hear door slamming, so I run back to the side door and ring the bell, and this time, I open the storm door and rap loudly on the glass part of the door. Nothing...I run over to the front and my dad's car was in our driveway. I run over, tell him briefly that the dog is trapped under the neighbor's deck and tell him to come. He is able to unscrew 1 screw by hand using some tool I never thought to look at, then said we need a drill. By now storm clouds have, appeared and the sky thunders dramatically...Really? Is this for real? My dad tells me that we should go inside and leave the dying dog there. I run to the neighbor's house on the other side and ring the side door bell furiously. I finally hear the woman yelling at me but I can't hear what she is saying, but her husband isn't home, obvi.

My mom instructs me to run across the street to another neighbor's house and I ring their doorbell until the wife, her son and their crazy, yappy miniature pinscher who tries to eat me through the glass storm door, appears. B/c of the dog, I can neither communicate what the heck I'm doing nor hear what they are saying. Finally the son carries the dog further into the house and I explain to the woman (in her nightie, it appeared) why I was so frantically requesting their assistance. She tells me her husband isn't home and she doesn't know where the tools are, and to wait until her husband got home. I explain, again, that my puppy is TRAPPED under a DECK and that he is crying like he is injured badly. I ask her if her son would know. She calls him over and takes the dog. I ask him to please find his dad's tools. He asks me what's wrong and I explain to him what is going on and how my dog is crying like something is eating him alive. He finally relents and takes me to their garage, where there were all sorts of crazy tools in there. I mean, they could build a house w/ all the stuff in there. He tried calling his dad then opened a few tool boxes and pulled out an electric saw. I asked him if it would be possible to saw through the board w/out cutting up my dog, and explained that while that should be plan B, I wondered if he had a drill so we could try to remove the screws first. He then found the drill (he knew exactly where that was) and followed me over to where my parents were working on the dog.

And you wouldn't believe this...just as I appear w/ the neighbor with his electric drill, we see my dad pulling the dog out from under the deck. I thanked the neighbor profusely as I checked the dog for bites, ready to hop into a car and get him to a vet asap. And the damned puppy is FINE. He is, for sure muddy and smelly, but UNSCATHED.

Apparently, my dad of the longer arms, stuck his arm into that hole (scratching his arm up in the process) as my mom pushed back the shrubs, and when the dog came close, grabbed a paw and pulled. My dad was so mad. He said he could feel the dog's nose but the stupid dog wouldn't come closer or walk out towards the light. Idiot. 'Fraidy cat. Crying like an animal was eating his hind leg while he was still alive and kicking. Making us all think he was severely injured when he didn't have a drop of blood on him.

I gave him a bath immediately. By the time he was half dry, the 2nd neighbor whose door I banged on, w/ the wife home alone had come to see if he could help. The wife was apparently very ill w/ sever arthritis (I knew she was sick, but not sure w/ what) and took her some time to come to the door. But after speaking with my mom, had called her husband who was out of town and he rushed over to help. Their dog had died a few months ago...the dog who used to come over to our yard to poop/pee/steal food...and they were sympathetic. How nice of him...he said we could have called 911.

Of all the things that ran through my head, including tort laws and privileges to trespass to land, calling emergency did not enter my head. I thought 911 was for humans only. But our neighbor explained that there is an animal rescue place in Evanston, close to where we live, and that he had called 911 once when an animal got trapped in his house somewhere. They came and trapped it and took it away. That is why we pay taxes...and I never thought of calling for help. Instead, I ran around the neighborhood knocking on doors and asking for tools to bust open a neighbor's deck to rescue a dog that was uninjured and just being stupid.

He still smells funky by his head...like dead fish. Like the mud under the deck had some especially yucky, decomposing things and it rubbed into my dog's head as he squeezed into the hole and out of it.

And thus concludes today's episode of Adventures in Puppyland.