Pure Joy (8 page)

Minnie in her “bumblebee” costume
Samantha Traina

There are of course other alternatives to traveling with your dog, if you don’t want to take your dog with you, or feel you can’t. You can leave them at a dog sitter’s, or with a friend, although friendships have ended over dogs getting hurt or lost while in a friend’s care. And nowadays there are some amazing boarding facilities for dogs. Several of my daughters travel a lot for business and occasionally have to board their dogs when they leave town (or leave them with each other if possible). And there is a whole new market for “dog hotels” in big cities, for young working people who can afford them. (There have always been caring reliable kennels that board dogs. And some you want to be careful of.) But the new breed of dog-boarding facility is mind-boggling.

For “regulars,” they get a badge (like airline personnel) with their photo ID on them. And the owner gets to choose from a dizzying array of options. They ask you if you want your dog to have “group play,” or be exercised, and played with alone. Do you want outdoor walks for them or keep them inside the facility? Do they have “friends” or “relatives” staying at the dog hotel you would like them to play with, and if so how many times a day? Dog bones, chew toys, special diet, grooming? It’s like dropping a kid off at camp. And I know that when my “grand dogs” stay there, they room together, play together, are allowed to sit in the window for a certain
amount of time, eat the menu my daughters choose for them, and get their hair done before they come home. Frankly, it sounds like a vacation I think I’d enjoy, and the dogs come home happy and looking very pleased with themselves. I’m afraid Minnie will never know the luxury of camp for dogs, since she travels with me. But it’s also a comfort to my daughters to know their dogs are happy when they’re away.

I am lucky enough to travel with Minnie, who is definitely an international dog. We speak to her in French, Italian, and English at home, and she responds to all three. Clearly, not only is Minnie well dressed, she is a genius! What a perfect dog!!

Minnie
Victoria Traina

One thing that makes life simpler, if you have a dog, is having a good vet. I seem to apply a lot of the same principles to my dogs that I did to my kids. That probably sounds odd, but as I said, I am a “kid person” above all, even more than a dog person, and most of my life experience is with kids. That’s probably better than if I were applying dog principles to my kids, although maybe that works too, as long as you’re responsible and love your kids and dogs.

Before I took Minnie to Paris, I asked a friend in Paris for the name of a good vet. And she gave me the name of not a good vet but a great vet, with his own veterinary hospital, which is open 24/7. You don’t want to be searching desperately
for a vet or a pet hospital in the middle of the night if your dog has an accident or is seriously sick.

On the other hand, in Paris there is something called SOS Médecins (SOS Doctors) for when you feel too lousy to go out, aren’t sick enough for the emergency room, but need medical help. They come to your house and are a very useful service. And they have the same thing with vets. But I feel better going to a vet I know and who knows my dog.

And the vet my friend recommended is fabulous. Not only medically, but he is kind, warm, terrific with my dog, and has a sense of humor, which always helps. He is a really nice person. In San Francisco we go to a very competent pet hospital two blocks from my house, which is great to have so nearby, but they have many vets, and I rarely see the same vet twice. So while their medical care is top notch, the personal touch is missing, and the vet on duty may not know my dog. In Paris, going to the same doctor who knows me and my dog is an added bonus.

The first time I took Minnie to her Paris vet, she had been making funny snorting sounds. As I said earlier, I’ve never had a dog with a proper nose. My pugs as a child, and my griffs as an adult, all have squashed noses. Minnie is my first dog with a real nose. And she took to snorting (which I think is due to the steam heat in the apartment). I was sure she was
fine, but I wanted to be reassured that the snorting sounds were normal and not something like asthma. I diligently described to the doctor what she’d been doing. It was the first time we’d met. And much to my amusement, he imitated what I’d described, asking if that was the sound. It didn’t seem like the right sound, so he asked if a second noise he demonstrated was the one. That didn’t sound like it either, so he offered a third option, each time acting out the sound. And by then I had forgotten the first sound. I thought it was snort number three, but wanted to hear snort number one again. Straight faced, he went through the repertoire again, and after he did that several times, I decided that snort number three was it, which he said was called “reverse sneezing,” which apparently Chihuahuas do, and some other breeds as well. Forevermore I will always think of him demonstrating the three snorts, without batting an eye. We became friends after that.

I was particularly glad that I had established a relationship with a vet, when one night I happened to notice that Minnie had found a pipe in my kitchen that I’d never noticed before. It was a few inches above the ground, and it was severely rusty. She was licking it when I saw her and shooed her away, but I was worried that either the rust flakes on the pipe or maybe even the paint might make her sick. She seemed fine but two hours later was vomiting violently, and I was panicked.
It was three in the morning by then, and I had no idea if she’d been poisoned, or if she was just sick. But she’s so tiny that seeing her so sick was terrifying. I called the all-night number at the vet, and the relief vet on duty told me to come in. I bundled Minnie up, and she looked miserable. I called a cab (who took forty minutes to come!) and asked a friend to come with me to the vet. I didn’t want to be riding around alone in a cab at four a.m. with a desperately sick dog. They had already called poison control when we got there and thought it was unlikely that she’d been poisoned by the rusty pipe, although it was a possibility. They gave her a shot to stop the vomiting, we stayed there until six a.m., with impressively competent care, and they sent us home with two kinds of medicine to take for three days. Giving her the medicine with a dropper was an acrobatic (for me) adventure in itself. I was exhausted for the rest of the day, and Minnie was right as rain and hungry by noon. We later figured out that she’d eaten a piece of a toy, had gotten rid of it while vomiting, and was fine. But it was a huge relief to have a good vet to go to, who was instantly available.

We went back to see the regular vet the next day, and he put her on a special diet, which she loved. And the one time she got an upset stomach in New York, I called him too. Now I consult him about my other dogs as well. It sounds crazy, but
having a great vet is like having a great pediatrician for your kids. It’s a must, and if you don’t want to go to a high-end private vet, there are clinics for dogs too. And there’s no question, having a dog with health problems can be expensive.

I think, as with anything in life, you need to trust your instincts. The vet knows medicine better than you do, particularly for complicated issues. But you know your dog better than anyone. Speak up, if you’re not comfortable with the recommended treatment, or if their assessment seems wrong to you. Find a vet who will listen to you. Your knowledge of your dog will serve you well. Elmer, my basset hound, appeared to be dying of a mysterious disease and was fading away in front of me. Out of sheer desperation, and not knowing what else to do to make him comfortable, I took off his flea collar. He sprang back to life within hours. He had a near fatal allergy to the chemicals in the flea collar. (I made him a necklace of eucalyptus pods after that, which kept the fleas away. Sometimes more natural solutions work best.)

But if you feel your vet is overmedicating your dog, say so. I always prefer more conservative solutions to radical ones. It’s sad to say, but vet hospitals are a profitable business and can sometimes be overzealous about prescribing medications, or even minor surgeries.

Minnie’s only major medical procedure to date was getting
spayed. She looked traumatized by the experience and acted crabby and weird on the pain meds afterward, growling and barking at everyone, when she normally never barks. And she had to wear a plastic collar she hated. When the collar came off and we stopped the pain medication, she went back to her sweet self. I think she felt weird on the pain meds, which can happen to humans too.

And there is no question, medical procedures for dogs, and surgeries, can be shockingly expensive.

One of my friends has a dog with cancer, and the surgeries for him have been exorbitant. But if you can afford it, you do. We love our pets, and it can be a costly venture. There is medical insurance for dogs now, which may be worth looking into.

When my friend discovered that her dog has cancer, I was devastated for her and tried to think what I could do. There wasn’t much I could do, other than offer comfort and sympathy, and then I thought of something, which meant a great deal to her. I hired a dog photographer to take beautiful photographs of her dog, so that one day she would have all those pictures to remember him by. Fortunately, the dog is doing well, but she is very happy to have the album of photos. And I’m sure she will treasure them one day. It’s a nice thing to be able to do for a friend at a hard time.

Losing an animal we love is so painful. And we’ve been through that too, particularly as my children started to lose their childhood dogs recently. With much sadness, we just lost the last one. We remember them fondly, with great love for all the years we shared with them. We have a little pet cemetery in our backyard in California, with the rabbits the kids had as children, and our beloved dogs. The dog of the original owner of the house, Sugar, is still there too. We have little stone headstones to honor each of them.

One of the many things I am happy about with Minnie is that Chihuahuas usually live for a long time, some for close to twenty years. Longevity is something to keep in mind when you buy a dog, although I would have bought Minnie no matter what breed she was. When you fall in love, you fall in love.

Maxx’s Nancy: keeping busy in the office
Cassio Alves