|
Lupdate: Sunday, November 16, 2008
Our Ellie
Ellie is a little, seven to eight pound fluffball of moderated pleasure! A Toy Poodle, to be specific, apparently pure bred. She’s an older lady, rather laid back and opinionated now that she's acclimated and taken over the household and its occupants as her own. That includes by the way, two other dogs and 5 cats. She has some funny little quirks, but she's a dear, and it was her picked out my wife, not us picking her out. My wife is a volunteer at the SPCA and somehow this little yapper managed to catch her interest.
When she came to the Shelter, she was quite a mess. Yellowed, loose teeth, losing her coat, anal-sac infections, and looked pretty much like she didn't care whether she died or not and probably would have preferred to. She wasn't all that far from it when she was found on the street and brought in.
Dwell, they took care of her, fixed up her mouth and other problems, and made her as presentable as they could, just in case someone came along. Apparently they also gave her a course on "How to Capture a Human's Heart" because she managed it quite well.
She’s a straight-eared little dictator! The other dogs, about 40 pounds each, listen to her and get out of her way when she "asks" them to, and the cats, well, one's a friend, another is OK, and the rest keep their distance. And, she's a great pet! A little too lap-happy sometimes, but hey, she deserves it; she's a healthy, good looking old gal now.
I got the answer to my wonderings about her "quirks" the other day, too. Her history prior to coming to us by way of the Shelter is pretty much a guess. There were some guesses that she was an an aged-out breeding dog because there were some of those also picked up about the same time she was found. She just never quite fit that mold though. We finally decided that she actually came from a loving home at one point, probably an older person, and through whatever twist of fate, ended up roaming the streets.
We’ve vacillated between the two possibilities for some time now, and finally have settled on the prior loving home and somehow losing her owner through a move, death, or whatever. There were just too many inconsistencies for her to have been a breeder dog. I guess none of it really matter though, because now she’s with us, relatively healthy and happy.
We’ve never had a poodle of any kind before, so she’s been a learning experience. She’s a lot different than any other dog we’ve ever had.
When she’s happy she mimics Dumbo, the flying elephant with her ears; they go straight out horizontally, and she gets a sparkle in her eyes. She never plays as one would expect a regular dog to do, preferring instead to root noisily and happily into some nice, soft blanket. She’s been with us about a year as of the time of this writing and now sometimes, not often, sort of nuzzles us with her near-toothless mouth when she’s happy. I guess she’s too much of a lady for that toothy, yappy kind of play we expected <g>.
Communicating with her was hard to learn. Most any dog will communicate if you pay attention to them, but for the longest time we didn’t think she did. So we started out to teach her some words. It turned out she understood “Shhhh” with a finger to the lips, as be quiet, so that was a start.
I didn’t think she was catching on to any of the words we were trying to teach her, such as the all-important “want to go out” and such. Then one day when I figured she should have been recognizing “chair” when I meant the chair here in my computer room near me, and “out” of course, and “couch” when I meant she had to go to the couch (all alone!) on her own. We have a little bed there for her, and a ramp so she can get up onto the couch. She can’t jump any longer; too old and weak.
Anyway, eventually I noticed that when I’d hold her while I said those words, she would turn her head toward whatever word I was saying. “Out” and she’d do a tiny, almost unnoticeable dance, and “couch” and “chair”, she would turn her head toward where they were! It’s the only communicating we’ve been able to do with her, but as she continues to learn new words, she is communicating well now.
We thought we were going to lose her not too long ago. She has congestive heart failure and she got very sick very quickly. The vet however determined that it was a virus and not her heart, so we started giving her medicines to s
 ee if they would help. I’m happy to say she recovered in a week or so, and is her old self again! She’s on Lasix twice a day for her heart, but she’s doing well and living happy.
That’s her friend Yahoo there, checking her to be sure she’s healthy again! Oh, would you be surprised if I said she was a lap dog?
|
|
