Author Archives: JackiSkole

Guest Post: The best pet of all!

Posted on by JackiSkole

Today’s musing comes courtesy of my eight-year-old daughter via a third grade writing assignment that asked students to write an essay about their favorite pet.

***

A dog is my favorite pet, and why? You are probably wondering. This is why. First because they are cute and cuddly. There are so many different kinds that when you go to the shelter to get a dog, you don’t know which one to choose because they are all so adorable. Also, because they are fun to train. When we got our dog after the first died, she was such a pleasure to have for a new pet.  And we played a lot with her. She was very energetic, so we took her to Doggy Daycare, and it changed everything.  We also didn’t have to teach her to sit. When someone held up a treat, right away she would sit. And lastly, because they are the best things to help you cheer up. My dog always cheers me up when I cry.  And when we were at a New Year’s party, I was fooling around with a pool ball with my friend, and the pool ball hit my finger and it hurt badly. Lucky for me they had a dog. And she cheered me up plenty. Dogs are my absolute favorite pet so I am thrilled to have one. Do you have a dog?

***

I love this essay for so many reasons (beyond the obvious maternal pride in a daughter’s creativity and near flawless grammar and punctuation.) But what struck me on first read was her declaration that people adopt dogs from shelters.

Not pet stores.  Not breeders.  Shelters.

Did you pet a dog today?

Posted on by JackiSkole

The horrific tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, that took the lives of twenty children and six educators, has families hugging one another a little tighter, and pundits and politicians talking (again) about guns, mental health issues, and media violence.  In the midst of all the news coverage, however, was a story you may have missed, about a special group of dogs and their visit to Newtown.

Lutheran Church Charities photo

Lutheran Church Charities photo

Barnabas, Chewie, Chloe, Hannah, Luther, Prince, Ruthie and Shami – all golden retrievers from the Chicago area – are comfort dogs with Lutheran Church Charities. The day after Adam Lanza’s rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School, the dogs traveled to Newtown to do what they’ve been trained to do: comfort the bereaved and grief-stricken.  They do their job well.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Lutheran Church Charities launched its comfort dog initiative in 2008, after a gunman killed five students on the campus of Northern Illinois University.  Just this past October, the group’s dogs were not far from my New Jersey home, comforting those whose homes and lives were devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

After my dad passed away a few weeks ago, I found myself sitting with Galen and petting her.  The activity had a meditative quality to it, at once both relaxing and rejuvenating. Usually I walk by Galen and simply give her fur a quick brush of my hand – I’m busy with kids, job, running a household; at night, though, I usually do take a few seconds to pet her as a means of winding down my day.

I’m not surprised about the increasing use of dogs to console people in times of tragedy or simply times of stress.  After all, therapy dogs have long brought comfort to people in nursing homes and hospitals.  Just last week, the owner of the daycare center I take Galen to suggested I train her to be a therapy dog.  “Galen has just the right temperament,” she said.  (I’m adding Galen’s training to my ever-growing To Do List.)

Recently there has been a spate of news stories about universities from coast to coast bringing dogs on campus to help students deal with the anxiety that can accompany final exams.  The Huffington Post even reports that Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School have resident therapy dogs in their libraries that can be “borrowed through the card catalog just like a book.”

There’s science to back up why petting Galen lifted my spirits, and why Lutheran Church Charities has seen its comfort dog initiative grow to sixty dogs in six states to meet demand.  According to WebMD, it takes spending only 15 to 30 minutes with a dog to feel less anxious and less stressed.  That’s because in that short time with the dog, the level of cortisol, a stress hormone, goes down, and the level of serotonin, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of well-being and happiness, goes up.

Perhaps a take-away here is that whenever we need a pick-me-up, be it because of a minor stress or a life-altering tragedy, man’s best friend can also be man’s best medicine.  I’m not naïve enough to think that in times of tragedy hugging a dog will turn everything right.  But thank goodness tragedies are rare; feeling stressed out is not.  So when you are stressed, you might ask yourself, “Did I pet a dog today?”  If you didn’t, add that to your To Do List.

***

In our social media age, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Barnabas, Chewie, Chloe, Hannah, Luther, Prince, Ruthie, Shami and their fellow comfort dogs have their own Facebook page, Twitter account and email, so they can keep in touch with people they meet.  Each dog also carries an old-fashioned business card.  (Thanks to the Chicago Tribune for these fun facts.)

I want to be my dog

Posted on by JackiSkole

There are many times in my life that I would have liked to be my dog, but perhaps none more than right now.

In high school it would have been nice to be Sammie, my West Highland White Terrier, instead of a teenage girl navigating her way through the tumult that is teenage relationships. While I picked apart my looks and longed for a boyfriend, Sammie guarded our house from the squirrels that dared to climb our trees. She’d position herself on my bed, staring out the window at our front lawn until a squirrel appeared. Then, barking, she would dash down two flights of stairs to the den’s sliding glass doors to get a closer look at the invader. Alas, those doors led to the backyard, so she would dart back up the stairs and onto my bed. If the squirrel was still there, back down she would go… up and down the stairs, never distinguishing the front yard from the back. I’m sure Sammie thought those squirrels were taunting her, but I can’t imagine their teasing was more hurtful than finding out that the boy I liked didn’t like me.

This October, after Superstorm Sandy slammed into New Jersey, it would have been nice to be Galen. My family was lucky; we may have lost electricity, water, and about a dozen trees, but our home’s structure is as sound today as it was before Sandy blew through. All I have to do is drive around town or watch the news to know we got off easy. But the day after the storm, as I huddled with my husband and two daughters in front of the fire burning in our wood stove, concerned about friends and family, unable to flush a toilet, fearing we would lose all the food in our refrigerator and freezer, Galen was the picture of happiness. And why wouldn’t she be happy:  On what other Tuesday would her family be home with her? I remember thinking, “At least the dog is enjoying herself.”

And most recently, after losing my dad to cancer, it would be especially nice to be Galen. Then I wouldn’t feel the pain that’s waiting to greet me once the numbness goes away.

A Simile I Can Believe In

Posted on by JackiSkole

“Dogs are like tattoos.

Ask folks about their tattoos and they can tell you exactly what was going on in their lives when they got them, how the idea came to them, why it seemed, at the time, a good thing to do… They mark their owners permanently with a visual memorial of the past.  Like dogs do.

I’ve never had a tattoo, but I’ve had many dogs, and all of them have left their own indelible marks on me.”

I wish I could take credit for that passage, but those words belong to Ken Foster and are from his book The Dogs Who Found Me:  What I’ve Learned From Pets Who Were Left Behind.  It’s a compelling story about a man who had the misfortune to be living in downtown New York City on 9/11 and in New Orleans during Katrina, and the dogs who found him during those in-between years.

When I read the passage I had to put down the book and contemplate the three dogs that have graced my life:

  • Sammie, a West Highland White Terrier, who joined my family when I was thirteen.  She was a peace offering from my parents who had just announced they were splitting up.  It was sort of like, “On the downside, your parents are getting divorced, but on the upside you are finally getting that dog you’ve always wanted.” (Apologies to mom and dad if that’s not the message you intended to send.)
  • Gryffin, a Retriever-Chow mix I adopted from the Humane Society in Georgia, when I was living in Philadelphia but working for a company in Atlanta. My girlfriend had adopted Gryffin’s brother and was crusading to save the entire litter. In uncharacteristically spontaneous fashion – I am one of the least spontaneous people you will ever meet – I quickly got okays from my fiancé, from Delta airlines (to let the puppy fly coach with me to Philly), and from the Humane Society (which had to approve my adoption request). It was the best, if only, spontaneous decision I’ve ever made.
  • Galen, a Labrador retriever-Australian shepherd mix my husband and I adopted just two months after Gryffin’s death.  We had planned to wait to adopt another dog, but the emptiness in our house was too much for me to bear.  So with heavy hearts and plenty of urging from our two daughters, we showed up at a local rescue group’s adoption day. That’s where Galen squirmed her cute little puppy self into Kevin’s heart. I had assumed we were looking for a male to replace Gryffin and to even out the uneven gender ratio in our home (one Kevin to three females), but Galen had him hooked.  She still does.

I’ll have to ask my friend Shari about the indelible marks her dogs have left on her.  When I met Shari in Atlanta, she was living with Hank and Lou and at least one cat.  These days she lives in New Jersey, and while Hank and Lou past before she made the journey north, she did bring along Penny.

Little Miss Penny

Penny is a princess with a mean streak who keeps her recently adopted brother, Calvin, in line.

Calvin

Both Penny and Calvin are rescues.

If you own or have ever owned a dog, I hope Foster’s words inspire you to take a walk down memory lane… with your dog, of course.

***

If you rescued a dog (or dogs), send me a picture (or two). I’ll post the pictures on shesadork.com. And if you have a story to tell about your dog, send that along, too. –Jacki

Dogs are Teachers, Too

Posted on by JackiSkole

I never stop being amazed at how many people I meet in the Northeast who have made a dog from the South a member of their family.  And now I know someone for whom one just wasn’t enough.

I’m taking an online non-fiction book writing course, and it is through this course that I met Loren.  We have much in common: a background in television, a yearning to write a book, and a love of dogs, but where as I have only one canine companion, Loren has three.  They are her children.

I’ve said many times that my first dog, Gryffin, prepared me for motherhood, and I believe that Galen, in all her quirkiness, is inspiring me to write. Loren — in her introduction to our classmates — noted that despite having both graduate and undergraduate degrees, “My dogs have taught me more than I learned in college.”  Amen.

Here are pictures of Loren’s beautiful dogs.

Orry

Orry Maine, a Tennesee native.

“He was named “Monty” which he clearly had no interest in acknowledging, and we played Rumplestiltskin until he perked up at this most unlikely choice.  Not sure why absolutely no one remembers this, but it was the name of Patrick Swayze’s charter in North and South, which seemed very appropriate.”    -Loren

Stella

 

 

 

 

Stella, from Alexandria, Louisiana.

Pete

 

 

Pete, from Austin, Texas. “The product of the best rescue we have encountered.” -Loren

Orry and Stella

“They blend together so well that it is impossible to imagine them existing apart.  This morning, they were laying side by side and I saw Orry casually put his arm over his sister’s back, where it lay for another fifteen minutes of sleep. The magic of rescue.” -Loren

If you rescued a southern pup, send me a picture (or two).  I’ll post the pictures of your pooch, too. -Jacki

Miss Independent

Posted on by JackiSkole

My little girl is growing up.  Yes, it’s totally cliché – bad when voiced and worse when written, but it’s true. Galen will turn two in October, and according to the famed Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, that means she’s pushing 21.

A post on Milan’s blog states that the oft-cited “multiply by seven” rule to determine a dog’s age is a myth. Apparently, dogs mature fastest in their first two years and then age an average of four human years each year thereafter.  Admittedly, I was one of the misguided. I thought Galen was just now entering her teen years, but apparently we’ve already lived through them. I can only hope that when my human daughters reach those potentially tumultuous years that they navigate them with as much grace and as little drama as Galen did.

Galen’s physical size exploded seemingly overnight.  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise – all large dogs grow quickly – but still, the transformation from soft, sweet-smelling puppy to full-grown dog happened much too fast.

Galen entered our lives at eight weeks old, the size of an adult Chihuahua, and in less than nine months she was pushing 50 pounds, her legs had grown long and slender, her snout pushed forward, and her blue merle coat had lightened. I love that the bronze fur that topped her floppy ears as a puppy still covers them today.

Galen, about 13 weeks old, on the two-inch thick dog bed in our kitchen.

However, the biggest change from Galen then to Galen now is in her personality. She came to us so needy. I spent a good many hours over the course of a good many weeks sitting on a two-inch thick dog bed on our kitchen’s hardwood floor; Galen would curl up on my lap and gnaw a bone, chew her stuffed hedgehog, or nibble on my fingers with her teeny razor-sharp teeth. She needed human contact in a way that our previous dog, Gryffin, rarely seemed to want. Gryffin had entered our lives as an aloof puppy, and he remained that way his entire life. My husband and I took to calling Galen the anti-Gryffin.

Fast forward 22 months and in many ways Galen has taken on the personality of the brother she never knew. As I write this post, I’d love to say that she is curled up by my feet or sleeping soundly on the rug steps from my desk, a Norman Rockwell vision of the writer and her best friend. But Galen’s nowhere to be seen, because she has decided she is a yard dog. She spends her days sitting on our deck surveying the backyard or lying on the driveway waiting for either the postman – he usually tosses her a treat – or the school bus.

Yet even with this new-found independence, Galen still welcomes the girls home as only the most submissive dog in the world can:  tail wagging, rump pointing to the sky, head reaching to the ground, right ear scraping the driveway, whole body inching forward while sounds that resemble a horse’s whinny escape her mouth.

I don’t expect Galen’s submissive nature to subside in her lifetime, but I am enjoying watching her grow from needy puppy to independent adult. I can’t read her mind – though I attempt to all the time – but I see her autonomy as a sign she’s happy and secure in the love my family has for her. I hope to see a similar arc of growth and confidence take shape in my daughters.

We just have to survive their teenage years.

Louie, Louie

Posted on by JackiSkole

If Louie could talk, perhaps he’d tell us how he and two friends found themselves wandering along Franklin Blvd., the main thoroughfare through Gastonia, North Carolina, on a hot day in August. But since Louie is a dog, unless someone comes forth to claim him, all we know is that Louie is a stray.

Vet techs at Gastonia’s lone low-cost spay-neuter clinic, located on a busy stretch of the thoroughfare, spotted Louie and his two friends, a female Labrador Retriever mix and a male Australian Shepherd mix, navigating their way through parking lots and traffic. Three techs grabbed leashes and corralled the dogs into the safety of the clinic.

That’s where Louie and his friends said their good-byes.

Kathy Cole, a clinic employee and long-time animal advocate, had little trouble persuading Lucky Labs of Charlotte to take Louie’s female friend, and she placed the Aussie with a mixed breed rescue. But she couldn’t find any takers for Louie. Perhaps, she says, that’s because she first identified him as a Chow, a breed with a reputation for being aggressive. Kathy’s since revised her initial assessment and now thinks Louie may be a cattle dog mix, but without DNA testing, there’s no knowing for sure.

Galen

I met Louie when I was in Gaston County researching my own dog’s background. I adopted Galen almost two years ago in New Jersey, but she’s a native Gastonian. She and her siblings were pulled from the county shelter and transported north thanks to two women who devote much of their time and some of their own money to rescuing dogs and cats from kill shelters in the South.  My reporting led me to the clinic, which is the brainchild of the Animal League of Gaston County, a non-profit animal welfare organization.  The group hopes that clinic veterinarians will spay and neuter so many dogs and cats that there will be fewer litters, like Galen’s, that end up in the county’s shelter, where they have a better chance of being killed than adopted.

Louie, at the Animal League of Gaston County’s spay/neuter clinic

I’m no dog expert, so I couldn’t add much to the discussion of Louie’s lineage. The color of his thick golden-brown coat is as Chow-like as it is Golden Retriever-like, and he has a big block head with a line of white fur from his forehead to his snout.  His dark eyes lack the sparkle I so often see in Galen’s, and his demeanor is gentle, his facial expression sad.

When I first saw Louie, he was in the rear of the clinic in one of the metal cages that house dogs and cats recuperating from surgery.  The clinic was serving as a temporary shelter, while Kathy and the other vet techs called everyone they knew to find him a foster home.

If I found a stray dog in my central New Jersey neighborhood, I would have no qualms taking him to St. Hubert’s animal shelter. My town outsources animal control work to St. Hubert’s, which is a non-profit animal welfare organization, and I know the folks there would do all they could to find him a good home. First, per New Jersey law, they would hold him for seven days to give his owner time to find him. Then, if no one claimed him, they would put him up for adoption and work tirelessly to find him a forever home.

Kathy Cole won’t turn Louie in to Gaston County Animal Control, because, she says, he will be killed. Unlike St. Hubert’s, the county’s shelter is simply a holding facility and a very crowded one at that. As a stray, Louie would be held for three days, and if no one claimed him, he would likely be killed to make room for newcomers. It wouldn’t matter that Louie is neutered – Kathy had one of the clinic’s veterinarians take care of that – and that Louie has all his vaccinations – she took care of that, too.  In other words, it wouldn’t matter that Louie, who Kathy guesses is about two-and-a-half years old, is a perfectly healthy, adoptable dog.

Perfectly healthy, adoptable dogs are being killed in Gaston County and throughout large swaths of the South because too many people cannot afford to, or will not, spay and neuter their dogs, and too many shelters are not equipped to be adoption centers for reasons ranging from a lack of money and staff, to old and decrepit facilities, to a fatalistic view by some shelter directors that there are simply too many dogs to save.

The good news:  There are people in many of these communities who will no longer accept the killing of healthy animals and who are taking actions to address the problem, people like the folks at the Animal League of Gaston County whose three-year-old clinic has already spayed and neutered more than 10,000 dogs and cats.

***

As I write this post on Sunday afternoon, September 9, Kathy Cole is driving the streets of Gaston County looking for Louie.  She found him a foster home a little over a week ago, but within an hour of being there, Louie jumped the fence and ran away; the foster found Louie sitting under a tree three days later.  Louie returned to the clinic and lived there until Friday, when again, Kathy placed him in a foster home.  Again, Louie stayed an hour before running away. At least now Louie is wearing a dog tag with the animal clinic’s name and phone number, so we can only hope that whoever finds him contacts Kathy, not Animal Control.

If only Louie could talk, he could tell us who he’s looking for and where he wants to go.

The Secret Service Agent and the Spy

Posted on by JackiSkole

If I had to describe Gryffin’s personality in one word, it would be “aloof.” He loved me and Kevin, but he didn’t have much use for anyone else. He lovingly tolerated his human sisters, but when they’d bicker, he’d dart to the sliding glass door in our family room to signal he wanted out. I truly believe he’d have been happy to be an only child.

Gryffin

Gryffin was downright rude to strangers. When we lived in Philadelphia, we would walk around Rittenhouse Square, and inevitably someone would stop us to comment on his good looks and ask about his breed.  My answer was always the same: “One hundred per cent pure mutt.” I would add that the shelter we rescued him from told us he was a Retriever-Chow mix. Gryffin’s response to the flattery was most un-dog like: No tail wagging.  No smiling up at the person with wide “please pet me” eyes. No, Gryffin would turn his back to the person, completely uninterested.

After the girls were born, I started calling Gryffin our Secret Service agent because he was always near us, just not next to us. He wasn’t one for cuddling, except for rare occasions early in the morning.  And sometimes the vibe you’d get when you’d sit on the floor next to him wanting to give him some love, was that he’d just as soon be left alone.  But he always had our back. In fact, we never installed an alarm system in our Philly home; we had Gryffin – loyal, loving and always on guard. Perhaps that was the Chow in him.

Galen, our Aussie/Lab rescue, wouldn’t make it in the Secret Service.  She’s more like a KGB spy.

Galen slinks around the house.  Her head hangs lower than her body, and her big brown eyes emanate guilt, like she’s done something wrong. She moves from room to room doing her darnedest to avoid our hardwood floors, so she takes circuitous routes determined by the layout of our area rugs. She never enters the kitchen.

Galen

Galen

Then there’s her unfounded suspicion that I’ve done something nefarious to her food. Every morning and night I fill her bowl with kibble and carry it outside – one of her many quirks is that she doesn’t like eating in the house; she prefers al fresco dining on our deck. (She even eats outside when it’s raining – her choice, not mine.) After I put her bowl down, she slowly backs away and looks at me. I put a single piece of kibble between my thumb and forefinger and hold it out for her to sniff. Ultimately, she takes it; then she stands beside her bowl and waits for me to leave.  She doesn’t like being watched while she eats.

We go through the same ridiculous routine when I buy new dog treats. She gingerly takes one from my hand only after she sniffs it, and it passes whatever test she’s putting it through.

I’ve long wondered what shaped Gryffin’s and Galen’s distinct personalities.  Is it the breeds that combined to make up their doggie selves?  Did being separated from their mothers when they were just weeks old impact their infant psyches? Did being raised by me and Kevin make a difference in who they became?

I suppose with canines, as with humans, it all comes down to that mysterious melding of nature and nurture. In any case, we’ve been fortunate:  Our Secret Service agent gave us ten great years of love and devotion, and these days, the spy who lives with us slinks about our house bringing us joy and making us laugh.

In My Absence

Posted on by JackiSkole

It’s been a busy week that unfortunately left little time for writing. Among other things, I was finalizing plans for my trip to North Carolina, where I will get to lay eyes on Galen’s hometown and the shelter that put her on death row.  I leave this afternoon. But this morning, as I ate left-over waffles and skimmed my favorite newspaper, I came upon an article that spoke to me.  So since I have no story of my own to offer up, I recommend Four-Legged Reason to Keep It Together from the Sunday Styles section of today’s Times.  Happy reading!

Gryffin or Breastmilk?

Posted on by JackiSkole

I have extraordinarily healthy children.  My older daughter will enter fifth grade having missed just one day of school in five years.  My younger daughter enters third grade with a similarly stunning record.  My husband and I are fortunate:  We have two healthy, smart, beautiful girls.

I’ve always taken credit for the healthy part.  I recall rarely being sick as a child, and I think I, too, made it through whole school years without an absence.  But I don’t pat myself on the back because I passed on healthy genes.  I do it because I breastfed both girls, and to say it wasn’t easy is one of the great understatements of all time.

My older daughter and I got off to a cruel start, perhaps because of her unexpected entrance into the world via C-section. Each feeding brutalized my breasts more than the previous one; my nipples were so raw I cringed when the cotton of even my softest T-shirt brushed against them.  Being too stubborn and proud to give up, I kept at it, although I could never understand how something supposedly so natural, could be so awkward and, at times, feel so utterly impossible.

Ultimately, my body healed, and I nourished my child the “right” way, giving her all the benefits researchers say come from breast milk.  We got so good at it, my daughter decided she had no use for a bottle, and for six months I was her sole source of nutrition.  My younger daughter latched on more easily, but she decided to go bottle-free for nine months.  What were the chances of that happening again?

Needless to say, I always figured I was the reason I had such healthy kids… until I read this in The Week:

“Finnish researchers found that children who lived with a dog were 31 percent more likely to be in good health than those who didn’t. They were also 44 percent less likely to have developed an ear infection and 29 percent less likely to have needed antibiotics… The more time pets spent outdoors, the healthier the babies that lived with them were, which suggests that dogs and other pets may track in dirt and germs from outdoors that ‘stimulates the immune system’ of babies ‘to do a better job of fighting off infection.’”

While my breasts suffered the wrath of my babies’ gums, Gryffin’s sheer presence in our home may have been as beneficial as my breastfeeding!

I often refer to Gryffin as my first child.

Gryffin

Kevin and I rescued him from an Atlanta-area shelter when he was twelve weeks old, and we were living in Philadelphia. I doted on Gryffin:  He came with me to work, we walked around Rittenhouse Square together, and he slept on my bed many a night when Kevin’s medical training kept him at the hospital round the clock. My mother says Gryffin brought out my maternal instincts, and I agree.

I will always be indebted to Gryffin.  He taught me I was ready to be a mom, not just to a canine kid, but to human kids, too.  He was my protector in Philly, the alarm system that Kevin could count on to keep me safe when he pulled all-nighters at the hospital. Gryffin instilled in my children a love of dogs so strong that after he died, the girls persuaded me and Kevin to cut our mourning period short. Thus, we rescued Galen, whose name doesn’t start with “G” by accident.

And now it turns out, he may have given the girls the gift of health, via all the germs, mud, dirt, and grime he tracked in off the city’s streets and dog parks.  If I’m worthy of a pat on the back for the girls’ good health, Gryffin surely deserves a pat on the head.

***

When I’m feeling magnanimous, I share some of the credit for our girls’ good health with Kevin, who is a strong believer in the hygiene theory, which posits that exposure to viruses and bacteria in early life strengthens a child’s immune system.  Thus, he never panicked when one of our daughters took a toy from the floor and stuck it in her mouth – even after Gryffin, just back from the dog park, stepped on it.