Don't Dump The Dog (8 page)

“D
iaper Genie” and “pumpkin seat” are extremely foreign words to me, and when I called one of my volunteers for definitions—a woman named Sandy with small kids who screech in the background like wild animals in trees—she told me, between several threats to the heirs, that, “Duh—a Diaper Genie is a little man who lives in a bottle whose sole purpose in life is soil management.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, and a pumpkin seat is ... hang on a minute ...
Be QUIET while Mommy’s on the phone
... a pumpkin seat is a giant magic squash that you put kids in when they won’t be quiet, which flies away to a magic planet. Hang on a minute ...
I SAID, be QUIET
... and doesn’t come back until you get off the phone.”

I guess I should have gotten the hint and called her back in eighteen years, but instead I asked if I could come by and talk to her about how she coped with three rescued dogs and two kids in one house.

“Sure,” she said, and then cupped her hand over the receiver so that all I heard was a few muffled, unprintable threats, “but come armed.”

I grabbed my can of pennies and headed for the door.

Have I pointed out that I do not have human children? The last time the subject came up was when my partner at the time, Jean Claude the Annoying, suggested we adopt a baby from China or Costa Rica. He made a big production of it: rosemary martinis before dinner; pinot noir with watercressstuffed chicken for dinner; and warmed Grand Marnier with coffee and lemon wedges after dinner. I was thoroughly enjoying a cigarette and second snifter of Grand Marnier when he popped the question, and after clarifying that he meant a bipedal hominid as opposed to a puppy, I downed the rest of the Grand Marnier and lit another cigarette from the burning stub of the first.

At first, I argued about the financial costs associated with raising a kid (he’d get a second job), followed with time commitments (he’d quit his second job), and after exhausting a move to the suburbs (“an adventure”), making friends with Republican neighbors (“multicultural expansion”), and the purchase of a Volvo (“one small sacrifice”), I finally argued the obvious.

“But
who
would actually take care of it?”

“The Volvo?”

“The heir.”

To which he had no response.

So, when I arrived at Sandy’s house with the can of dependable pennies, I rang the doorbell with the knowledge that I had no knowledge about how one copes with both dogs and children in the same house. My mission of going straight to the source for answers, however, turned south the minute she opened the door.

Dogs bayed, children howled, somewhere a television blared. The chaos overwhelmed me, and as I stepped in and tried in vain to get my bearings, a phone rang in another room. Sandy handed me one of the midgets and then disappeared.

The midget smelled like a skunk. I held him/her out in front of me at arm’s length, and the second he/she got a good look at me, he/she screamed. This got the dogs all excited about a possible game of Grab Dangling Sock from Baby’s Foot, and as they danced in circles under his/her wildly flailing legs, I danced in circles in the opposite direction, engrossed in my own game of Keep Feet Attached to Baby Until Mother Returns.

I ran out of breath before the inevitable. The sock was lost to Mitzy, a small black-and-white street dog we’d rescued several years before, and as she raced around the room with her new prize, I couldn’t help but compare the before and after.

My assistant Jenn and I had found Mitzy huddled under a trailer at an abandoned worksite, shaking from cold and starvation. Her rescue should have been an easy one. She was small for a street dog, too weak to run and too scared to bite, but as we tried pulling her out from under the trailer, she dug her nails into the frozen ground and held on with the stubbornness of a pit bull.

“Come on, sweetie—no one’s going to hurt you.”

With a pit bull, you can grab their dense muscles with the strength of a vise, but this little thing was so thin and frail, I worried I’d break every bone in her body if I pulled too hard.

“No one’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

Her tenacity surprised me. Usually the small dogs we rescued were victims of abuse, and while their fear of more pain might cause them to run, if cornered, their only defense was no defense, so they usually cowered submissively in acknowledgment of their size. This little girl, though, directed every ounce of strength left in her body to her clawing nails, and she clung with courage to her spot. Even the hot-dog lure, which no starving dog can resist, didn’t work.

In the end, we resorted to using a noose, and as we pulled her out, thrashing against its hold, the reason for her fight appeared: two dead, frozen puppies underneath her, which she had tried in vain to keep warm.

Her whimpers for them, which turned to gut-wrenching yelps the farther we walked away, haunted me for weeks.

So, I let her keep the sock.

As the other two dogs chased Mitzy across the couch, under the coffee table, and over the chairs, Baby wailed so hard in my outstretched arms that snot bubbled and spewed from his/her nose like lava from a hyperactive volcano. Meanwhile, out of nowhere, Sandy’s other child entered the room in a round baby-walker thing, and when, lost in their frenzy, the dogs bumped into it one by one, the walker and its inhabitant spun in circles with the centrifugal force of a carnival ride.

With the dogs out of control and both children now screaming, I decided the best thing to do was leave. I maneuvered Baby through the dogs to the couch and plopped him/her down.

“SIT.”

Then I uprighted the overturned baby-walker thing.

“STAY.”

Then I grabbed the sock from the mouth of one of the bigger dogs and gave it back to Mitzy.

Then I headed for the door.

This letter of advice might have ended abruptly here with “Don’t have children,” had I not seen the can of pennies, which must have dropped out of my hands during the first few horrifying minutes of my arrival.

I use the can of pennies—about twenty does the trick—as part of my EZ dog-training system for overall rude and/or rowdy behavior.

The Can of Pennies System:

• If the dog barks too much, shake the can of pennies and he’ll stop.
  
• If the dog stares at you while you eat, shake the can of pennies, and he’ll go stare at someone else.
  
• If the dog jumps up on you every time you walk through the door, shake the can of pennies, and he’ll run and hide instead.
  

I keep about twelve cans of pennies in strategic locations throughout my house, and if I even
reach
for one, halos appear above my dogsheads and they all but bow in my presence.

Slowly, to increase the surprise, I bent down and picked up the can of pennies at Sandy’s door. Then I turned and faced the rioters, which now included Mitzy and another dog playing tug-of-war with Baby’s sock on top of the coffee table, Baby on the couch howling as another dog licked snot off his/her face, and the child in the baby-walker thing spinning in circles and shrieking with outstretched arms for his/her mother.

With the stony calm of Lady Liberty, I raised the can of pennies above my head, inhaled deeply, and then ... I shook it.

Every head in the room jerked my way, each with dropped jaws, widened eyes, and its own version of WHAT-IN-THE-HELL-WAS-
THAT?
plastered across its face.

And just like that, complete silence.

From that point on, if one of the heirs scowled or squeaked, or if one of the dogs even thought of resuming their little party, I shook the can of pennies and restored quiet so that by the time Sandy waltzed back into the room, all five members of the uprising sat in a row on the couch like shiny little trophies on a mantelpiece.

“Wow,” Sandy said as she stared suspiciously, hands on hips, at the couch.

The only problem with supreme power, a.k.a. a can of twenty pennies, is that it doesn’t work on sneaky behavior—the stuff that kids and dogs do when you aren’t looking. It also doesn’t work on psychological issues and can, in some cases, make them worse. Sandy claimed, for instance, that if you shook a can of pennies at your kid every time he/she wouldn’t eat their broccoli, he/she would end up with an eating disorder.

“Could you spray the kid in the face with the water bottle instead?” I asked.

Spraying dogs with the water bottle is much like shaking a can of pennies in that it’s an unpleasant experience they learn to associate with certain behaviors. It works particularly well have a dog who eats turds out of the litter box (see chapter 5), all you have to do is add a little lemon juice or Tabasco sauce and
voilà
—marinated turds they won’t touch.

Which brings me back to the letter-writer’s first complaint:
Buffy knocks over the Diaper Genie and pulls out dirty diapers
.

Try this: Keep a spray bottle of water mixed with lemon juice and Tabasco sauce next to the Diaper Genie (whatever that is), and each time the apprentice pooper delivers a load, squirt the diaper with your special little marinade, and I guarantee the dogs won’t go near it more than once.

The squirt bottle (filled with plain water) is also good for when baby starts to crawl. One of the biggest complaints I get is that the dog steps on the baby once he/she is on all fours, and if you just yell, “Don’t stomp the baby,” and give the dog a squirt each time, he’ll leave the new plaything alone. You wouldn’t even have to leave the couch with this method.

Which brings me to the letter-writer’s second complaint:
Another problem is her licking. After feeding the baby, or when the baby is sitting in her pumpkin seat, Buffy will not leave her alone. She wants to lick her constantly. I find it disgusting and unsanitary
.

Well, you got the kid in the first place by swapping a little spit ... but I guess that’s irrelevant at this point. I suppose spraying the baby’s face with lemon juice and Tabasco sauce is off limits too ...

Try this: Whenever Buffy tries to kiss the kid, shake the can of pennies. It gets no easier than that.

If, however, you’re hell-bent on making this complicated, you can send Buffy to obedience class once a week. While I would have started planning this out well before the kid arrived, better late than never. An obedience class not only ensures that your dog is well behaved, but it also builds a strong foundation of socialization experience, because a dog who learns to handle himself in a crowded room filled with other dogs and people will also handle himself around the baby.

I’ve come to understand, though, via letters, e-mails, and phone messages, usually from moms who sound like Tony Soprano—“I don’t have [email protected]#!-ING time to take a [email protected]#!-ING shower. I haven’t had a [email protected]#!-ING shower in
SIX [email protected]#!-ING WEEKS
and you want me to take the [email protected]#!-ING dog to an obedience class once a [email protected]#!-ING week?!?”—that this suggestion may not be appropriate during your time of distress. (
Note to Self
: Send condolence cards to all new parents in future.)

So instead of leaving the house once a week without having had a shower in six, teach the dog to sit by placing a food treat on her nose. Then raise the treat over her head so that as her eyes follow it up, her back end drops to the floor. As soon as this happens, give her the treat. Whenever the dog wants anything—to be petted, fed, played with, let outside—she must sit first.

Next, spread a baby blanket on the floor and place a baby doll or stuffed animal in the center. Bring your dog to the blanket and tell her to sit, and when she does, reward her with a treat. Eventually, she will learn that when she approaches the blanket, she’s to sit near the edge no matter how interesting the object on it may be.

This approach obviously works better if you use it
before
the stork delivers the little bundle of stress, so if you’re in this lucky position, consider the following as well:

Get the dog used to baby items, including rattles, blankets, the nifty Diaper Genie, and the pumpkin-pie seat. In essence, desensitize the dog to anything associated with the baby, especially the nursery.

Start by keeping the nursery door closed more often, and always at night, and use the
sit
command before she can enter the room. Once she’s allowed to enter the nursery—if at all—make her sit by both the crib and the changing table.