The Seichi Journals: Hitting a Wall

Seichi at the dog park

Sometimes we embark upon a new adventure with all the good will and skill in the world, and it just doesn't work out. The time may be wrong, or the clash of personalities may be overwhelming, or unforeseen, insurmountable problems may arise. This is as true for adopting a pet as for marriage, employment, or any of a host of other life changes.

When last I wrote, we had adopted Seichi, a 4 year old German Shepherd Dog, likely purebred, from a local shelter. She was young and bouncy, but intelligent and eager to please. She'd just been spayed, too. For the first few days, Seichi was subdued. Then both the delightful and exasperating aspects of her personality began to emerge. Playfulness, yes. Smarts by the bushel. House manners... not so much.

Very shortly, we realized she wasn't potty trained. Three accidents (all on carpets that now must be professionally cleaned) later, we embarked upon a puppy protocol. Seichi, to her credit, got with the program very fast and had no more accidents. Meanwhile, it was bare floors and gates all around.

The real deal-breaker came when we had to admit she was not only not cat-safe, she wasn't cat-workable (the difference is whether the dog can learn to leave indoor cats alone). We set up our usual procedures for introducing her to the house and the cats (initially behind closed doors, then her in crate/cats loose, then baby gate barricades so they could gradually smell and see one another, then supervised cat-on-tree approaches. At first, all seemed to be going well. The various species sniffed where the other had been and regarded each other curiously from a distance. We put Shakir up on the cat tree, out of reach, and let Seichi approach. A little hissing ensued. Seichi's response -- to continue to stare, which is threatening in both cat-speak and dog-speak -- clued us that she had not had previous experience living with cats. We kept an eye on them to see if they'd work it out. Several things emerged: one was that Seichi continued predatory behavior even when Shakir was giving very clear "back-off" signals (growling, yowling, hissing, pupils dilated, ears flattened). If he swiped at her with claws extended, she'd jump away, but then come right back. Worse yet was that any movement on his part would engage her prey drive.

The Seichi Journals: Welcoming a New Family Member

Back in 2014, we adopted a retired seeing eye dog, Tajji, and I began a series of blog posts about our life with her. She departed over the Rainbow Bridge  last December at age 12 ½, rather old for a German Shepherd Dog. We now welcome Seichi (or, as she might be called, Seiji Esmeralda McBoing-Boing for her bouncy energy). Her shelter name was Sage, but for various reasons we added on to it, keeping the S and long A.

Here is her shelter beauty pose:

The way she came into our lives was this. While browsing through the German Shepherd Dog Rescue website, I saw a dog on the private party page that looked really good. Going on the supposition that perhaps the universe was presenting us with our new dog, we called his owner. It turned out (a) someone else was already seriously interested in the dog; (b) he had serious noise phobia issues. Having wrestled with Tajji’s dog reactivity, we had been hoping for a dog that we could take anywhere, but as it turned out, the other person adopted this dog. However, the owner notified us that a friend of hers who worked at an animal shelter said they had a female GSD that sounded lovely. So, although the shelter was 90 minutes away, we drove up to take a look. Sage/Seichi was more than we’d hoped for. Only 4 years old, loving and sweet, bouncy and eager to please. We said yes. They had to keep her another couple of days as she wasn’t spayed yet, but she soon came to her new home.

Here's Sarah's video of Seichi loading up to come home:

We’re now in the process of letting her settle and then for her and the cats to get a peek at one another through safe barriers. We’ll get a better sense of her previous training, if any, and what motivates her (so far, love trumps food, but that could change as she calms down). Seichi did beautifully on her first neighborhood walk. Although clearly excited, she stayed close to “her people,” glancing back (“checking in”) from time to time, and she didn’t freak out about anything – dogs, tree trimmers with noisy machinery, etc. So begin her adventures – stay tuned for more!

The Tajji Diaries: Pet Insurance

Tajji

When we adopted Tajji, she was just under 10 years old. The life expectancy for her breed, German Shepherd Dog, is 9 to 12 years, although we’ve known dogs that made it to 13 or 14. Fifteen would be a far outlier. Our last GSD, Oka, made it to 12 ½, the last half year under treatment for lymphoma. We agonized over that treatment, since he was otherwise healthy and there was a good chance it would buy him another year of life. He tolerated the chemo well, as dogs often do, and until about 48 hours before he died (from leukemia, which lymphoma sometimes turns into), he was romping with his favorite blue horse ball. The thing is, we didn’t have pet insurance for him, and of course once he’d been diagnosed with lymphoma, that made it a pre-existing condition, which made it impossible. Our budget, already shaky, took a major hit.

Fast forward now to Tajji. Healthy, strongly built…but geriatric. Could we even get insurance for her and if we could, would it break the bank? After some looking we found a company* that allowed us to choose the deductible and percentage covered. I think there was an extra package that covered maintenance care, vaccinations, and the like, but what we wanted was catastrophic coverage. We’d gone the route of hoping for the best and then having to deal with a financial as well as a medical emergency. Now we made the assumption that in the few years we’d have Tajji something would go wrong.

This happened sooner than we imagined.

The Tajji Diaries: Rainy Day Dogs

First, a confession: the title is misleading. Every German Shepherd Dog we’ve owned has not cared at all about rain, even Oka, who thought water on the ground was poisonous. Puddles, lakes, the ocean – not going there. But water from the sky seemed to be unworthy of notice. It is, however, noticed by the resident monkeys, who have devised utterly senseless rules regarding what must be done before entering the house.

First, the rubdown. There is no need for this from the dog’s perspective. German Shepherd Dogs have double coats: an outer coat of long hairs that form a water-repellant layer, and an inner coat of soft, fluffy fur. (When bathing the dog, it takes forever to wet the inner coat and even longer to rinse it and even longer to dry it. Fortunately, GSDs “blow their coats” – explosively shed the under layer – twice a year, so there’s no need to bathe them often.) So the dog’s skin is dry and warm while the outer coat gets covered with drops of water. Tajji sees no reason why she must be massaged with a towel, but she enjoys it anyway. Then comes the belly and inner sides of her legs, also fine. Then lower legs and paws.

The Tajji Diaries: Alarm Clock

Dogs, like many other animals, are Creatures of Schedule. They seem to feel most secure when recurring events are predictable – the sun comes up, monkeys get up, we go walkies, then breakfast, then nap, then playtime…and so forth. They love rituals, like the one Dave has created for putting on the harness. It’s a version of Keepaway, with great romps through the living room, corridors, and open dining area. Her body language says it’s great fun, and she stands willingly when it’s all over. Interestingly, Tajji understands that this is a game to be played only with Daddy Monkey. Mommy Monkey is all business when it comes to gearing up, hence the harness is donned not in the living (Keepaway) area but in the mudroom.

To everything there is a season…

A time to pounce on cats, a time to be rubbed against,

A time to nap, a time to romp,

A time to cuddle on the monkeys’ bed, a time when doggies are not allowed on the bed…

A time to be lazily retired, and a time to impose order on the household.

Now that Tajji has settled into her new family, she feels it is incumbent upon her as the resident dog to impose some degree of order upon her monkeys. We noticed very early on that if either of us closed the door behind us and it did not latch, Tajji would very shortly poke her nose in, ascertain we were okay, and then withdraw. She was keeping an eye on us! (This was a little disconcerting at first in the bathroom.)

Monkeys and doggie do not always agree on what constitutes a proper daily schedule. Dave gets up quite early, but especially when I’ve had a rough night, I’ll sleep in, hauling myself out of bed between 7:30 and 8:00 am.

Tajji has other ideas.

Living With Dogs: A Sense of Order

We used to joke that one of the jobs our old German Shepherd Dog, Oka, had taken upon himself,

Oka herding his ball

was to break up any disputes – real or imagined – between the cats. One of our cats tends to bully the others, pushing them out of their favorite sunbathing spots and persisting in playing “wrestle” when they very clearly are not interested. Both are usually accompanied by hisses and yowls and small furred bodies moving very quickly. Oka would immediately place his very considerable (90 lbs) bulk between them. We imagined him saying, “Break it up! Break it up! Move along now…”
Oka, like all dogs, had a very firm notion of what was good, orderly behavior and what was not to be allowed. Dogs are strongly oriented to routine, which is one of the things makes them so trainable. They make very specific associations (leash = walkies; vet’s office = horrible things happening to doggies; “Sit!” spoken in front of the refrigerator = sit in front of the refrigerator and no place else). We monkeys like to interpret this as our dogs having fixed ideas about the Way Things Should Be.
Oka’s Rules (as interpreted by his resident monkeys) included:

• Cats shall not hiss at one another. Cats have razor blades on their feet and must not be closely approached.
• Deborah must be accompanied to and from the laundry area in the garage.
• The sole redeeming value of company is that the Evil Laser Bug comes out to play (therefore, Oka hung out in the living room, patiently watching the carpet for the first sign of the red dot.)
• The blue horse ball must be herded and barked at (see photo).
• Bodies of water deeper than a couple of inches are evil.