Walking along one of the main roads in the Edgemoor neighborhood, past a particularly plush row of homes, Jessie (my charge at the time – an aging Chow/Spaniel/Retriever mix) and I came upon a small female black lab, shivering in the cold rain and cowering on the ground between a low stone garden wall and the road. The address on her tag was that of the gorgeous, million dollar home that rose up behind her. The young lab was wearing an Invisible Fence shock collar. Guessing that she had crossed the Invisible Fence line, and couldn’t get back into her yard without being hurt, I took a chance and removed the collar. The young lab bounded with joy as Jessie and I led her back into her yard. While I took stock and looked for a safe place to possibly put the lab, Jessie investigated the smells of the front garden, and the young lab ran for her ball and began to beg us to play with her by employing extravagant verbal and physical measures. While the young lab pestered a very patient Jessie, I walked around the right side of the house. The wide side yard led to a park-like backyard with perhaps ¼ to ½ of an acre of lush green grass for the lab to run on, and a panoramic view of the water and islands beyond that afforded her all the smells that the ocean breezes sent her way.

As fantastic as the property was, and as lucky as the young lab was to have such a fantastic yard as her personal playground, an episode of “It’s Me of the Dog” immediately came to mind – “The Monstrous Mutts,” episode 8 from season one: “A TV presenter’s home is being destroyed by her dog and she is forced into buying two sets of furniture in order to hide the destruction from her friends.”

http://www.amazon.com/The-Monstrous-Mutts/dp/B0036D8LHC

While the initial focus of the show was on what was happening inside of the gorgeous house, Victoria Stillwell stepped back and took a wider look at the situation. The dogs were bored, and that’s why they destroyed the furnishings. One of Stillwell’s first suggestions was to provide more exercise for the dogs. However, the couple — feeling that their huge, beautiful back yard should have been enough to keep the dogs satisfied in terms of play and exercise – hardly ever walked the dogs or took them anywhere to run and play. I remember Stillwell standing in the fenced yard, looking around and saying something to the effect of “this is lovely, but even I would get bored if this was the only place I got to go.”

It seemed that the young black lab that Jessie and I encountered was bored out-of-her-skull. Her humans could have had the best of intentions leaving her in the yard alone, and I had no idea how long the dog had been alone. I also recognized that she was a young lab, and those of us who have worked with young labs know that they can have tons of excess energy. For all I knew, the dog could have been walked or hiked for several hours earlier in the day. However, from the look of things, I would have bet that she had been there alone all day long. The poor thing was batty with boredom! She needed more exercise and socialization.

After leaving a note for the people of the house, I walked Jessie home, feeling good about helping a young soul in need. Then, as I drove back by the lab’s house to make sure all was well, to my surprise I found her laying in the same spot that we had found her in – between the low stone garden wall and the street. My first thought? “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Invisible Fence did extend that far out.” A millisecond later, I noticed that the lab was different though. She was deliriously happy, and thrashing a red thing about in her mouth, surrounded by bits of paper, some of which were still floating down to the wet ground as the lab violently shook her head. My second thought? “Hey… I have a red leather wallet.” I checked my bag, then quickly turned the car around and parked by the side of the road. Feeling more than a little hoodwinked, I slowly walked up to the little scoundrel. She greeted me with a big smile and a thumping tail, apparently thrilled to have company again. She gently released the spittle spotted wallet into my hands, and then danced around me as I collected receipts, credit cards and torn dollar bills from the wet grass.

As I walked back to the car, the old saying “no good deed goes unpunished” swirled in my head. Yet, the predominant feeling I had was sadness for the little gal’s predicament. She craved attention. Perhaps Jessie and I were the only suckers to fall prey to her guise that day and spend a few moments with her. Maybe my wallet was the only “toy,” other than her ball, that she got to play with all day.

Was I wrong to have “helped?” even though it turned out that the dog really didn’t need the assistance I originally thought she needed? No, I don’t think so. I could be criticized for walking onto private property. I could also be criticized for momentarily removing the shock collar in the first place – after all, the lab could have bolted. However, I don’t think anyone would take offense at the fact that Jessie and I provided the dog with a little attention, as short lived as it was. Victoria Stillwell was right. A dog could have the biggest, loveliest yard to live in , but sooner or later, that yard – no matter how wonderful – is going to get awfully boring, especially if the dog (a pack animal by nature) is left all alone.

Toward the end of summer and throughout the fall in Bellingham, WA, novice hikers who decide to venture out on one of our lovely and less-travelled trails can be in for a nasty surprise. Just as the local flora is in full bloom and the sun is out long enough to dry up the trails, the flying insects that use those trails as their super highway and the spiders that eat the insects become more noticeable – quite literally in-your-face noticeable. Hungry spiders, busy bulking up and reproducing, span the trails with web like “strings” to catch flying insects. To the hiker’s annoyance, often those usually-impossible-to-see webby strands span the trail just at the face height of an average human. Also, if a trail hasn’t been used in a while, then the number of strands present increases. In some cases, just as the hiker has hit a strand, freaked out, calmed down, and wiped his head face and neck in the hopes that a spider isn’t scampering down his back, the hiker takes a few steps only to be assaulted again.  It’s bad enough to ruin what should have been a perfectly lovely hike.

Back in the summer of 2006, when I started the Placid Pet, webby strings on the trails was one of the first problems for which I needed to find a practical solution. The core of my work was, and still is, hiking with dogs, and I’ve always preferred to take dogs off the beaten path for more off-leash opportunities. Collecting webs in my hair, eyes and mouth isn’t what I consider a good time. So, over the years, I’ve experimented with a variety of “web catchers,” finally landing upon the requirements needed to optimize my hiking experience during the seasonal spider web problem.

The best web catcher is nothing more than a branch from a tree or bush that has fallen to the ground. Ideally it should be:

• Lightweight — light enough that carrying it with one hand for an hour or more won’t cause your arm any strain.
• Branchy – with at least three prominent branches that fan out, creating a barrier that is as wide as your shoulders and as tall as your chest to the top of your head.
• Adorned with a “handle” branch that is slightly curved so that as you hold the web
  catcher in front of you it collects the webs at least a foot or two before your
  head passes the same area.  The curve allows you to hold the web catcher comfortably with your arm folded at your side rather than uncomfortably extended in front of you.

Not everyone is as sensitive to the webby strings as I am. On several cold and foggy mornings I’ve seen runners, happy as they could be, with dew-covered web strands plastered to the front of their chest neck and heads, oblivious to the broken stringy ends floating gracefully behind them. However, I’m guessing that most folks are like me, and they can’t stand those darn webby strings!

The first time you use a web catcher, you may think/feel as though the web catcher is blocking your view and impeding your opportunity to fully enjoy the hike. However, after a few hikes, you’ll realize that the service a good web catcher provides is indispensible. For me, it has even become a ritual of regression. The first time I hold a web catcher I can’t help but recall the closing segment of Romper Room – a cheesy kids show that ran on PBS from the 50s through the 90s. At the end of each show, the host would look directly into the TV camera and pick up her “magic mirror” – a handle with a hoop covered in a brightly colored swirl design (at least, that’s what it looked like in the 70s when I watched the show).  The host would raise the “magic mirror” in front of her face, and recite a rhyme: “Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play?” While she recited the rhyme, the TV screen would nearly fill with a swirling special effect. Sometimes though, on the far edge of the screen, you could see the hand of the host switching out the first magic mirror for a second version that had an empty hoop so that the host could see through it. Looking through the hoop the host would call off names of kids supposedly watching the TV show at home:  “I see Bobby, and Jenny, and Sandra…” etc. Like I said…cheesy. Yet, I guess that’s what the web catcher has become for me – a sort of magic mirror that lets me have fun at play (I mean, at work) even during the late summer and fall when those enterprising spiders are at their peskiest.

In 2010, The Placid Pet added two questions to its New Client Questionnaire that deal with lifetime planning for pets. One of those questions is:

* Do you have a medical directive for your pet, filed with your veterinarian?

It sounds simple, but it can be a daunting topic of conversation to bring up with a client. Never-the-less, developing a pet medical directive is a subject we – the Placid Pet staff – now feel compelled to broach with those clients who have elderly or chronically ill pets. It hasn’t always been this way, though. It took only one incident to quell our hesitation.

Since 2006, each year we’ve been in business, at least one Placid Pet staff member has had the responsibility, and unusual privilege, of witnessing the death of a pet in their care. In all cases but one we were able to reach the client by phone, and it was the client who made the decision to either proceed with efforts to keep their pet alive, or to end the pet’s life. However, that one time – the one time a pet was clearly near the end of its life, in extreme pain, and we couldn’t reach the client — was enough to make us more proactive in asking clients about what they would want us to do, should a life-or-death situation arise, while they were out of town.

The staff member involved — Tresa — is a mature, experienced and competent individual and animal lover. The pet was an elderly cat that Tresa had taken care of several times over the course of more than a year, and who had been showing signs of probable maladies for months. The client was a good, well-meaning family who were in the mountains for the holiday weekend, at a remote location that was unreachable via cell phone.

The memory of that morning – the worry and determination in Tresa’s voice when she called me in route to the vet, my drive to the veterinarian’s office, the way the three of us (Tresa, the female veterinarian, and I) tentatively stood around the examination table; the dehydrated, weak and terribly sweet cat quietly lying on the table; the way the vet carefully held and stroked the dying cat while explaining the diagnosis, prognosis, and options; my need to try to reach the clients – knowing it was useless – just one more time; the moment the decision was made – a decision that really should have been the client’s decision; the way Tresa and I talked to and lightly touched the cat as she was being given the injections; the sheer sadness on Tresa’s face as she turned away while shedding tears for her charge – it all still haunts me, a little.

In the end, the client was extremely grateful for the steps we took, and the decisions we made, on their behalf, but it would have been so much easier – emotionally and in practical terms – if they had filed a medical directive for their pet before leaving town. If only we – The Placid Pet Staff — had been more confident and proactive in asking for a medical directive.

The Placid Pet has posted an example pet medical directive to our website that several clients have already used as a basis for their own documentation. While we don’t insist that our clients create a pet medical directive, we certainly encourage them to do so. It’s just the right thing to do…for the pet, the client, and the pet care provider.

This blog is dedicated to topics concerning proper pet care and responsible pet guardianship, with the community of Bellingham, WA specifically in mind.

If there is a topic you would like to see covered, please send an e-mail to info@placidpets.com and I’ll give your idea serious consideration.