My goldens, Jasper & Amos, have very good manners while they’re in the store. They sit to be petted. They never create unwanted puddles. And Jasper will even sit quietly beside the shopping cart while I load his 37.5lb bags of dog food into the cart — without me having to hold onto his leash.

Amos started life in a puppy mill. We fostered Amos and his littermate Casey together. They spent every weekend for 2 months — Amos for 4 months — visiting the Banfield veterinarian at PetsMart as we worked to get them healthy enough for adoption and socialize them. Casey found a great forever home and is living the dream. Amos chose to stay with us. That was a bit over 4 years ago.

Today, Amos has somewhat regressed back into his former fearful self when he’s out in public. He’s afraid of the automatic doors. He’s afraid of the shopping cart. He’s very uneasy the whole time he’s in PetsMart. It could be a result of the recent onset of his epileptic seizures, or it could be something else altogether. In any case, we find ourselves taking Amos out more than his brother Jasper.

But recently, during my last trip to PetsMart, it was Jasper that got to go. He was ecstatic. He likes to ride with his front paws on the console between the front seats of my little SUV and his back paws stretched out into to the back (with the rear seats folded down). Jasper was very patient during the car ride; but when we drove past PetsMart in our quest to find a parking place, he went nuts — whimpering, crying, jumping up and down — until he was leashed up, out of the truck, and pulling like mad toward the front door. But no, not yet. I walked him up and down the grassy strip and waited until he found just the right smell to relieve himself. Did you know, excitement creates urine? He watered an unsuspecting bush for what seemed like an eternity. Even Jasper had to put his leg down before he was done. When he was done, we headed for the front door.

Inside, his nose glued itself to the floor and he started tracking. First, it was the gerbils and bunny cages and birds! I had to pull him away from the display when he tried to use his paws to free them. In the dog food aisle we grabbed two of the 37.5lb bags — do pet food manufacturers really think we don’t notice the missing 2.5lbs? — and Jasper sat patiently beside the cart waiting for me to pick up his leash again. We wandered up the toy aisle as Jasper checked out each of the toys and tried to grab the everything that remotely smelled like food. Jasper is no stranger to food. When he was 1 year old, he tipped the scales at 107lbs. Golden retriever? Yes. Standard? No. Rescued because somebody didn’t want him 9 weeks old? Yes. Over the years, we struggled to keep Jasper’s weight from going any higher — low-fat foods, green bean diets, etc. It wasn’t until Cody passed away this past January that Jasper’s weight plummeted 18 lbs. Anyway, now we’re wandering up the toy aisle and Jasper would love to have a few food toys that would contribute to his waistline. And then there was the little boy, who came out of nowhere with no Mommy or Daddy in sight and sat down to pet Jasper. Jasper was the perfect gentleman — he sat for him and except for the occasional ear lick that would elicit a just the right amount of squeal from the little boy, he remained motionless. Jasper was in heaven — and I think the little boy was too. It wasn’t very long before an exasperated mother appeared at the end of the aisle looking for her lost son. She found him doing exactly what she said he does every time they come to PetsMart. Jasper was a bit put out when she walked her son away from his doggy prize. But I quickly redirected his attention in the treat aisle.

We like the little 10 calorie bone shaped puppy treats. You get a modest bag for $2.19 and it lasts a long time. But Jasper’s nose discovered a little 1-pint milk carton shaped cookie box with some kind of liver treats inside. He knocked the box off the shelf. I thought it was an accident, but every time I put it back on the shelf, he knocked it off again. Finally, I put it back on the shelf and pushed it back in a bit, and we went to another part of the aisle. But as we walked past the same spot a few minutes later, he knocked it off the shelf again. Okay, I understand. I put it in the cart. It was more expensive than what I like to pay for treats.

Finally, we’re done. It’s time to go up front and calculate the damage to my debit card. But wait, something caught my attention. Cheap toys. Cheap enough that it doesn’t matter that its life expectancy in my house is less than the time it will take me to put it in the cart. As I’m verifying that the price on the bin actually goes with the price of the item in my hand; Jasper followed his nose. He found a display of clothes for the very much smaller dog. Something has his undivided attention. And then horror of horrors!! Jasper, How could you? Jasper raised his leg and peed on the display of clothing. OMG. JASPER! I pulled him away from the display while telling him NO!; Put him in a SIT and DOWN and STAY and went back to survey the damage. Jasper knew he’d done something wrong. His ears were down; he hung his head; he was immediately submissive. And he stayed. Back at the display, I discovered that he managed to get urine on two garments and the floor. Thank God he didn’t have time to empty his bladder. I was embarrassed. My dogs NEVER do that. They know better.

I took the $12 worth of wet items and put them in my cart. On the way to check out, the cheap toys and the $4 milk carton box of treats found their way back onto their appropriate shelves. Hindsight has shown me that perhaps Jasper was just doing what came naturally. He wasn’t really going potty, but rather covering up another dog’s scent with his own. Ah-Ha! On the way out of the store, I petted Jasper and told him he was a good boy. He sat at the curb without pulling and without having to be told and patiently waited with me for the traffic to clear. All was right again in Jasper’s world.

The moral of this story? When buying items at a pet store, wash them before allowing your dog to play with them or chew on them. Not everybody is as good about buying the merchandise that their dogs damage. Judging by the reaction of the clerks when I told them, I don’t think anybody else would have removed the items, either, if I hadn’t bought them.

Can you find his love? Its there, right in the picture.

It’s the sunshine. Amos loves to lie in the sunshine, often baking himself nearly to the point of heatstroke. The picture above was taken today, on a deliriously sunny day of 88 degrees Fahrenheit and 51% humidity. He will pant and drool while lying there and then get up and go into the air-conditioned house and cool off. Nearly every day he will repeat this activity unless it’s raining or overcast.

To understand this behavior we have gone back to his puppy-hood. Amos, born in October 2004, is a puppy mill dog. He wasn’t one of the lucky ones that would get to go to the pet store to be sold to some poor sucker that would complain about getting a sick puppy. He wasn’t that kind of dog. Amos was the next generation breeding stock for the puppy mill. He would get to spend his entire life in the puppy mill. He lived in squalid conditions. He occupied a 36″ dog crate with 8 siblings. The bottom of the crate was buried in 4 inches of feces, and except for somebody occasionally tossing food into the crate through the bars, he and his 8 golden retriever siblings had never had contact with people — for four months.

All of the puppies were sick. If one puppy had an ailment, they all did: roundworm, whipworm, coccidia, eye infections in both eyes, ear mites, tapeworms, fleas, ticks, anemia, and scabies (a variation of mange.) Several puppies had scars and some had open sores, all presumably from fights among the siblings. And they were dirty, filthy, disgusting. They lived in a barn, with dozens of other dogs of various breeds in similar conditions. The current generation breeding stock was there too. More than 40 dogs were present.

And they were all rescued when the state of Missouri closed the puppy mill down for health code violations. They were transported to St Louis where Gateway Golden Retriever Rescue took in 5 adult golden retrievers suffering from various medical and mental problems and 7 golden retriever puppies. Somebody with the Missouri agency responsible for the rescue kept two of the 9 golden retriever siblings.

Each foster home got naming rights. None of the goldens, including the adults had names.

Amos was the sickest of the four-month-old pups and wasn’t expected to live. He was fostered by a family with medical training. Casey came home with me. He was sick too, but at least he wasn’t running out both ends as brother Amos was. A week later, Amos was much better and he came to live with my wife, me, and Casey and our two golden retrievers: Cody & Jasper. Casey went to a great home and Amos chose to stay with us.

A wise person once told me: “We don’t choose our dogs, they choose us.” I didn’t understand that until Amos chose to stay with us.

Today, Amos is 4 years old. He suns himself every day that it is warm and sunny. He will get up from a spot in the shade and move to the sun. If the shade moves and covers him, he will get up and move to the sun. We have talked with other families who have adopted Amos’ siblings and discovered that all the goldens from that litter exhibit this behavior.

The barn of his puppy mill home was most likely a cold place during the October through January timeframe. We believe that at least some of the time, the sunshine would find its way to their crate and warm the puppies. At that time, they learned how great the sunshine was and fell in love with it. Some of the fights among the siblings may have happened as they scrambled to be the dog on top of the pile for the best sunshine experience.

Today, I have to check on him when he’s sunning himself for fear that he’ll really cook himself. While he’s busy enjoying the sun, he’s perfectly happy to share it with me.

Afterall, sunshine is good, but playing with brother Jasper or Mom or Dad: that’s good too.

We locked our dogs in the house and took these two goldens into the backyard and gave them time to become a bit more comfortable with their new surroundings. A beautiful day of blue sky and sunshine was quickly giving way to dark skies and thunder rolling in the distance. Clark and Clover were already understandably upset at having been taken out of their home. Typically foster dogs have some trouble adjusting and will spend a lot of time panting and drooling during their first few hours in a foster home. But as we discovered this morning, these two are terrified of thunderstorms. As the thunder rolled closer, we pushed up the introductions. Jasper (6), as our alpha male, was introduced first. We took him into the backyard on a leash and tightly controlled the introduction of Jasper to Clark & Clover. Once the initial greeting had subsided, we removed Jasper’s leash and let him free roam with the two foster dogs. After about 15 minutes, it was Amos’ (4) turn. Out he came on a leash. With Jasper already there, Amos was calmer than he normally would have been. Amos had a horrible start to life, (more on that some other time). The introduction between Amos and the two new fosters was a bit rocky. Clark immediately tried to dominate Amos, and Amos put this pretty golden boy on his back with Amos standing over him. This is something of a feat since Clark has at least 10 pounds on him. They repeated this exchange another 3 or 4 times throughout the afternoon and evening, with Amos dominating each time.

Our oldest Golden, Cody, who passed away on January 5th, 2009 at 13 years and 5 weeks, had serious health issues many times throughout his life. He had 7 surgeries to remove fairly large cancerous tumors and 3 months of chemotherapy. For this reason we chose to not foster dogs that would present a challenge to his alpha dog status in our home. In other words, we fostered puppies. However, now that Cody has gone to the rainbow bridge, and Jasper and Amos are more than capable of defending themselves, we figured these two 1 year old sweeties would be welcomed by our dogs. After all, both Jasper & Amos go to the monthly GGRR meetings and romp with the 20 to 30 adult goldens that show up. There has never been a dog fight where either of my dogs were on either side of the fight.

Yesterday, it rained; it thundered; but soon the sun came back out and all four dogs were getting along well. Clover was busy trying to get Amos to play, and Jasper joined the fun, and soon Clark was there too. I was sitting on the ground among them and the foster dogs were trying to figure out the game. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell when a growl is just one dog talking to another and when it’s a symptom of aggression. In any case, with no toys around, suddenly Clark started growling at Jasper, and it sounded ominous; Jasper returned the growl. Clover immediately dived in alongside Jasper on his other side and also started growling in a menacing tone. All three were laying down facing the same direction, shoulder to shoulder. And 10 seconds later Clover and Jasper moved from a playful session to a battle. Clover just grabbed his ear while Clark went for Jasper’s head and throat. I was sitting right there, not 3 feet from them when this erupted. Jasper cried in pain, Amos tried to jump in, and then I intervened. I pulled Clover off and put her on her back. She fought back hard – trying to get back into the melee, but I managed to keep her down while I pulled Clark off Jasper. The whole thing lasted less than 30 seconds. But it left Jasper’s ego bruised and his ear bloodied. There was so much blood that we didn’t know for 10 minutes that it was only his ear that was bleeding. He had blood all over his head and shoulders and was dripping large drops everywhere he walked.

We took our guys into the house and left the foster dogs to wonder what happened in the backyard as we focused all of our efforts on getting the bleeding to stop. After about 30 minutes using paper towels, an ice pack, and flour, we were successful. But 30 minutes later we had to repeat the flour application because he shook his head and it started bleeding again. The foster dogs have been separated from our goldens ever since. They spent the night in side-by-side crates in our family room, while Jasper (with his e-collar on) and Amos spent the night on our bed. We’ll try re-introducing the dogs again on Tuesday or Wednesday (maybe).

All night long, we played the day’s events back in our heads as we searched for answers to what we believed was an unprovoked attack. Hindsight has shown us that there were signs that we missed. Each time Amos put Clark on his back, Clark’s ferocity increased with the next attempt. On a couple separate occasions, when Clover was jumping up on my wife or me, Jasper positioned himself between Clover and us, with his hair standing up and a rigid “These are my people” posture. We thought it was cute. Jasper, having left his Mom at 5 weeks old, has always been a Velcro dog anyway; we figured he was just being a bit jealous. He wasn’t. Jasper perceived a threat and was reacting. If he had been able speak to us we might have been able to recognize that the situation was more volatile than we thought. Both Jasper & Amos had been telling us all afternoon, but we were too busy trying to make these new fosters feel welcome to notice.

That makes three occurrences during our time in rescue that something happened because we missed the signals. The first was when Amos made it clear that he didn’t want to be adopted by the family who was trying to adopt him when pushed out the screen on their front door as he tried to escape during the dog introduction. The second was when we were trying to pair another foster puppy with a prospective family. There were some light growling issues between their existing dog and the foster puppy, but it wasn’t bad enough to warrant stopping the adoption. After all, their existing dog was 5 years old and the puppy was 7 months old. The older dog would quickly teach the younger dog about dominance. But as we were leaving after the dog introduction (there’s a mandatory 24 hour waiting period to eliminate spontaneous decisions to buy a dog) the puppy bit their dog on the paw. He didn’t break the skin, and the other dog didn’t cry, but it happened, and the prospective family witnessed it. They called 72 hours later to say they didn’t want the puppy. That puppy went on to another family, with another golden as well, and it’s a perfect match.

Obviously, dogs aren’t going to learn to speak English. So I guess we have to do a better job of learning to speak dog.

(Side note: My wife took Jasper to the vet at noon today. The wound is a puncture through the right ear flap. As they tried to clean it up, it started bleeding again, and they’ve decided to keep him for a while this afternoon because they can’t get the bleeding to stop. The vet said that putting a stitch in that part of the ear could do more damage than the original injury. However, if they cannot get the bleeding to stop, a stitch or two may be the only solution.)

This year, 2009, so far, we have fostered Spencer, Tyler, Hunter, and Logan.

This posting is about Hunter.

Hi, I’m Hunter
Hi, I’m Hunter
We fostered Hunter and Logan together. Both were about 6 months old. Hunter met his prospective adoptive family on April 26th. About mid-morning on April 27th, Hunter was suddenly stricken with some kind of illness. And I do mean suddenly. One moment he was fine, running and playing with his golden playmates, and 30 minutes later he was down. His eyes were swollen shut, and when he opened them, they looked like pools of blood. The whites of his eyes were extremely bloodshot, and the conjunctive tissue around the eyes was blood red. And he wheezing and having difficulty breathing. Jasper, Amos, and Logan were all fine and had been running and playing together in the yard just before this happened. During a call to the vet, they suggested giving him an antihistamine, but with my years of experience in dealing with the many illnesses of the foster Goldens and the various cancers that Cody had, something told us that this was something that a simple antihistamine wasn’t going to fix.

Ten minutes later, pulling into the vet’s parking lot, Hunter started going into anaphylactic shock. His breathing became very labored. Inside their office, they checked his temperature and discovered that it was 105.6F. Normal body temperature for a golden retriever is 101F to 102F. Brain damage can occur at or above 107.6F. The vet started an I.V. and to help reduce his fever they packed his I.V. bag in ice, sprayed him with cool water and rubbed isopropyl alcohol on his pads. Hunter’s fever responded by going up to 106.2F. They treated him with higher than normal dosages of antihistamines, antibiotics, and steroids, and plenty of fluids. For the next 24 hours, Hunter fought for his life, and we continued to get updates on his condition every few hours. At around 5pm when the vet closed, we transferred him to the emergency hospital where he could receive round-the-clock care through the night, and back to the vet when they reopened in the morning. By morning, he had stabilized and his fever was bouncing up and down near 104F. By mid-afternoon, his fever was falling, and by the end of the day, it was low enough that he could come home.

The question that remains, however, is, “what happened?” Today, more than a month later, with Hunter happily in his forever home, and Logan happily in his forever home, that question still haunts us.

Our best guesses are the following. Both were suggested by Hunter’s vet.

Hunter may have eaten a spider. He had been busy consuming every June bug he could find, and in Missouri in April, June bugs are plentiful. I could see him pouncing on a spider in the absence of an available June bug. His reaction appeared to be an allergic reaction, but it was extremely more severe than a simple spider bite or bee sting, even if he had been allergic. In fact, if we hadn’t been home when it happened, he would have died. In fact if we had given him an antihistamine at home and played the wait and see game before taking him to the vet, he may still have died. When a poisonous spider bites (brown recluses are common here), it only pumps a small amount of venom into the wound. But if the dog eats the spider, he ingests all of the venom contained within the spider and absorbs it through the stomach wall, so the toxicity is MUCH higher.
Hunter’s blood work was evaluated by the vets on-site on the day of his admittance. They usually send the blood work out to an outside lab; but there wasn’t time for that. A couple of days after he had come home, they repeated the blood work, and sent both samples to the outside lab. The results showed that at the time of his admittance he was anemic and the second sample was not. It also showed that his blood was having difficulty clotting during the first and second blood tests, but now, 5 weeks later a blood test (at the same vet and paid for by Rescue) showed that problem has cleared up too. One of the things that causes anemia and clotting issues, is rat poison. We bought nearly sixty 40lb bags of top soil at Home Depot and Lowes the two days prior to his illness. We emptied those bags into the new raised garden on the day before. We (the vets & us) theorize that Hunter may have found a piece of a dead animal that had been stricken by the poison and had died in the dirt before it was bagged.
Either one of these guesses are a real possibility. We were lucky; we were home when this happened. If we hadn’t been home when he fell ill (may not have happened immediately after exposure) he would have died before we could have gotten him to treatment. If we had just given him an antihistamine and waited to see what happened, rather than take him immediately to the vet, chances are better than average that he would have died. The “What If” question still haunts us. I’d feel better with a definitive answer about what the cause was. But we won’t get that. And in a week, we’ve got two 1 year old golden retriever siblings showing up for a foster visit.