human retriever envies canine reliever

Retrievers are supposed to be good swimmers. My golden retriever Sara runs away from the sea when we go to the beach. We tell ourselves she's afraid of the sound of the waves.

One time dog and owners were applauded by Japanese tourists standing up to their waists in the water. noisynotes had carried Sara into the sea until they were about 30 metres from land. Once he set her down into the water, she paddled straight for the shore and tore around the beach in a mad run to celebrate her escape.

Retrievers, as the name suggests, are supposed to be good at retrieving objects. If you look up the history of the breed, I think you'll find a narrative about their first fathers and mothers being adept at retrieving quarry.

Look at this face.


This is Sara - she who should have been named a golden reliever because she excels at relieving herself of her load. One of her owners, the one who is female like her and belongs to the retriever family, has the daily responsibility of going into the back yard to retrieve floor mats or chew bones or dog futons that have been dragged outside and duly relieved.

I like the spirit of relieving. But I can't embody it well enough. I relieved myself of a piano I owned for nearly 20 years last Thursday. That fed a delusion that lasted all of 3 days. On Friday I talked to ampulet Y about giving away books and CDs. On Saturday I daydreamed about holding a garage sale or peddling my books at a flea market. Today I opened two boxes of books to see what I could say good bye to.

Nothing.

Woof!

the greenie patrol

We took this photograph of Sara (left foreground), Mr Max (the white dog with closed eyes) and my mother's golden retriever, Cherry, about a year ago. They were waiting to be given their greenie bones. That's why they are in a group but each has an air of singlemindedness. Greenie bones - for the uninitiated, these are the canine world's equivalent of gummy bears: chewy, vegetable juice bones. It seems crazy, to think that dogs descended from carnivorous ancestors would even care to be near a bone that looks like and probably tastes like coagulated chlorophyll. Apparently not, judging from healthy sales of greenies in pet shops and the maniacal delight of our dogs whenever greenies are brandished. Milo, my mother's other dog, a labrador retriever mix, is unlike the other three; he roundly rejects apples, bananas and carrots.


But even he too is drooly deeply mad over greenie bones. Milo is the oldest and largest in the pack. He is also the alpha-dog. Which means he gets his greenie first.

Dogs are hierarchical creatures, Most of them are highly aware of their status in the pack. Alpha-dogs are confident and self-assured, they know they are at the top and they can usually be identified by their leader-like aura. Sara is the alpha in our home and Mr Max defers to her most of the time. He used to push Cherry around when she was a pup (At two she's the youngest.) He's stopped doing that ever since the big-boned gal began to tower over him.

We suspect that Cherry doesn't realize how big she's grown. In any case she seems happy being No. 4.

so much more than wags and woofs

We have two dogs, Mr Max (Max for short) and Sara Satchel Funnyface (Sara for short). Max is a Japanese Spitz. He is often mistaken for a Samoyed. He is currently on a diet. Sara is a golden retriever. She is as pretty as Audrey Hepburn and she likes to greet people with something in her mouth. It could be a shoe or her rug. Both dogs turned three this year. Max is the more vocal one and he has, for the most part, successfully trained the husband and myself to understand him.

Here is a sampling of his canine codes:

1. High-pitched barks in the morning, with an interval of 10 seconds between each bark, can be translated as:
"Hey, bipeds!" . . . "I'm here waiting!" . . . "Where are you!" . . . "I need you!" . . . "Time for my walk!"

2. One or two high-pitched barks in the morning, followed by silence:
"I've puked!" OR "Diarrhea!" . . . "I don't feel so good!"

3. Low growls followed by frenzied low-pitch barking at the sight of other dog(s) being walked past our house:
"Caution! Enemy approaching" . . . "Enemy in sight! Enemy in sight! Enemy in sight! All systems go!"

4. Scattered mid-range barks at the door:
"I need to pee/poo!"

5. Insistent mid-range barking at the door when someone familiar is outside:
"Biped company! Yay!"

6. Insistent mid-range barking at the visitor or returnee after the door is opened and the person enters:
"Yay!" . . . "Yay!" . . . "Yay!"

7. High-pitched whining with nose pointing at a toy or some desired object that's out of reach:
"I want! Can't reach! I want! Can't reach!"

The code I dread most is no. 2.

Sara is much quieter: I don't think I've heard anything apart from no. 4 from her. And even then, it would be times when she's really desperate to go. Otherwise she would stand patiently at the door, waiting in silence for you to notice that she needs you to let her out into the garden.

Recently I found myself wishing that she wasn't so silent. "If only she could speak," I said to the husband. "She could have told us that she has not been feeling well for months."

I was on the phone to him after I found out at the clinic last week that poor Sara has a lesion along her spine. She must have been in pain for quite some time. I had brought her to the vet because we suspected her hip dysplasia had worsened. The dysplasia was diagnosed two years ago and we have been giving her joint supplements for the condition. As far back as three or four months ago, we noticed her eating grass in the garden. We put it down to her bad hip. Then about a month ago she began to halt suddenly in the middle of our longer walks at the Botanic Gardens and she would have to be coaxed to carry on. On our twice daily neighbourhood walks I noticed that she was trailing behind me while Max forged ahead. This was odd - they used to walk side by side. We decided to take her to the vet, thinking that it was probably her hip and mentally preparing ourselves for the possibility of surgery.

The vet stretched out her hind legs, one at a time. She did not make a single sound. The vet said to his assistant who was keying in the notes at the computer: "No sign of distress when hind legs are stretched to extremity." He looked at me and said: "There is something wrong with this dog but it's not her hips." He listened to her heart: it was fine. He listened to her lungs: they were fine. Then he pressed his fingers on her back, applying pressure as he moved them down her body. When he reached the lower back her flesh quivered. The X-ray showed the lesion.

"Rest the spine," the vet said. So there are to be no walks for six weeks. After six weeks, she must begin her rehabilitation: she needs to swim at least three times a week to build up her back muscles. She has to lose at least 2 kg. There are more supplements to take. I have bought a pet ramp for her to get in and out of the car without jumping. The staircase has been cordoned off so that she won't be able to go up and down the stairs.

When the vet ordered that there be no walks for six weeks, I looked at Sara in dismay. "Not that she'll mind too much," said the vet. He's right. The rest and the medication seem to be working. She seems a subtly changed dog, especially in the evening. We had her pigeonholed as a mopey melancholic type, but since her convalescence and treatment started, she seems to have become more bright-eyed and waggier.

We are also seeing a lot more of her silly happy expression, which we used to think was the result only of a long walk or a good run. She's been wearing this expression for no reason at all these few days. I suddenly remembered the other night that one of our friends who is particularly fond of Sara always used to say when she saw her, "Why does she look so sad?" To which I always used to answer, "She's not sad. She just looks like that. It's a retriever sad look." In fact, poor Sara was in distress and she was showing it on her face. But I did not know her as well as I thought I did and I mis-read her.