Penny's Big Adventure

The things that give us the most joy have the power to cause the most pain and suffering in our lives.

That became true for me on Saturday March 8 when I watched my worst nightmare unfold before me. People often say, "It was like watching a horror movie," to express the feeling of having absolutely no control or ability to manage the awfulness of your reality. That was the feeling I had as the day progressed unveiling the worst possible scenario moment after moment, until suddenly 36 hours later I was blessed with the best, most miraculous, possible outcome. Penny wandered away from me and then made herself found. The adventure that she had, we will never know. Every cell in my body aches to know what she did, where she went, was she scared or excited, did she have close calls, what did she eat or drink, how did she find her way to a friend's house, how did she break out in the first place, WHY did she break out in the first place.... but this endless list of questions all fall under the category of "you will never know". As frustrating as that is, I can accept that I will never know.

However, what I intimately know and understand is my own suffering experienced as a result of her loss and the absolute inability I had to relieve it in any way. I had to just dive into it, experience it in my body, allow it to overtake me. Because when something in your life gives you such joy and bliss and engenders feelings of such deep love, the pain and suffering of its loss is equally as powerful and the suffering all-consuming.

Saturday started with an energetic walk up to "Penelopeak" - the mountain we fondly named after Penny because we do almost daily walks up to its small summit. I had planned to do a bike ride with a friend in the park and, as usual, I was faced with the question of, "Do I leave Penny locked in the house by herself or do I try to find someone to watch her?" For some reason on that morning, I thought to explore another option - I could leave her with doggie friends so that she could have some play time while I got my bike ride in. This seemed like a good option because Penny absolutely loves being with other dogs and especially likes my friend's Vizla, Jack.

I brought her over to Heidi's house and tried to teach her to use the doggie door, but she was too distracted playing with Jack to pay attention to me or the door. So I said, what the hell, not thinking that she might try to escape if she was left outside alone without the other dogs. In fact, this realization didn't hit me until much later... We drove off, looking back to see three dogs watching us drive away with alert ears. Heidi and I momentarily acknowledged that it was the first time we'd left Penny alone with her dogs and drove off.

During the bike ride, I had visions of Penny being hurt or attacked by Neila, Heidi's other female Vizla that is less socialable. But I try to brush these off because I often worry about unrealistic things happening to Penny. However, when we got back to the car, Heidi had a voice message from Dave saying that he saw signs of another dog at the house but that he didn't see one. My heart stopped but my actions didn't. Get in the car, get back to the house, find Penny. Heidi and I told ourselves the whole way back to the house that she must just be hiding in the yard or in the house or that Dave just didn't see her. We convinced ourselves it was impossible for her to escape and why would she in the first place? She adores Jack - she wouldn't want to leave him. I still hadn't thought about what Penny might do if Jack and Neila went inside through the dog door, leaving her outside alone.

We arrived at the house and searched the yard and the house and no Penny anywhere. The larger search began. I didn't have a plan or a strategy. I didn't know where to begin. I knew I had to search quickly though. Dave started driving around the neighborhood. Heidi and I drove the road back to my house (3 miles away) thinking that maybe, miraculously, she would find her way back to her home. No Penny. I made flyers at the house, Heidi called the shelters, the vets, the radio station, the microchip place. We headed back to Heidi's and I set off on foot and didn't stop until my parents and their friend visiting from England arrived. Bad timing for a visit. I was distraught. I couldn't hardly say hello or tell them where the bathroom was. I took off again to drop off flyers and continue to search with my mom at my side. Not the way either of us had envisioned spending time together...

Night fell. I drove my mom home and packed up a sleeping bag, warm clothes, headlamp, some food, flyers, dog treats, a pile of dirty clothes, and filled my camelback. I had a map and a plan of action. I would strategically park my car, leave a pile of dirty clothes by it with some dog treats, then take off walking and calling Penny. If she came back to the car, hopefully she would stay with the clothes and food and wait for me to come back. I started off, but about 30 minutes into my walk, I heard something that sounded like her little puppy howl from the first couple of nights we had her.

The sound went straight to my core. I could have imagined it but i didn't imagine the feeling that washed over me. Then, about 30 seconds later, I heard coyotes yipping. All of these sounds were coming from a place called Coyote Hole - an open area and canyon just across the main road from Heidi's house. I hadn't searched over there during the day. I ran back to the car, threw everything in and drove over to Coyote Hole and started off calling and whistling, calling and whistling, as I had been doing for nearly 12 hours. All that was echoed back to me was silence. The deafening silence of the desert. I walked down into the canyon and my calls and whistles echoed off the cold rocks.

It was a beautiful night. The moon was out and close to full. The desert was awash in its gentle light. But I couldn't find peace or solace in the quiet desert night as I had so many times before. Only pain, a knife in the heart. And on top of the pain that comes with the loss of a love, I was layering blame and criticism on myself. Why did you think it was OK to leave your puppy alone in a strange yard? Why didn't you look in Coyote Hole earlier today? Added to the mix, was also the pain of not knowing if she was alive or dead, eaten by coyotes or cowering scared and cold somewhere, snatched by a puppy thief and asleep in someone's bed or stuck in a cholla cactus. I cycled through the pure pain of loss, the pain of self-judgement and criticism and the pain of not knowing. One constant turning wheel of samsara with no apparent escape. Only a strong will to keep looking and keep calling as it seemed the only way I may be able to find her and find relief.

So I kept walking, and calling, and whistling and shaking the treats. And then I got really cold and really tired. I'd only eaten an egg for breakfast and shoved a sandwich down the hatch at some point during the day. I was exhausted emotionally and the despair that comes with endlessly calling and searching with no results was starting to wear on me. The tears kept flowing uncontrollably. I decided to head home. But I wasn't finished yet - when I got home, I put Penny's crate with all her toys in the car and drove it to Heidi's. I set it by the gate and dribbled my dirty clothes all around it with a fresh bowl of water out front. Maybe she'd find her way back during the night.

I went home and finally crawled into bed around midnight but it took me forever to warm up. It was as if I was feeling how cold Penny was sympathetically. I closed my eyes and went into a stormy sleep for about an hour and a half and then was awake again. Feelings of guilt for not spending the night searching for her filled me. Did it mean I'd given up? Did I lose my chance at finding her? Could she make it through the night? I had no idea. I opened my computer and began to circulate flyers via facebook. I send emails to friends who might help me look on Sunday, I researched resources on what you should do when you lose your dog, I found a pet detective that used search dogs in San Diego and jotted down her phone number. I learned that the best time to call/search for a lost dog is at night or in the early morning, motivating me to get going again.

I was up and ready to go again at 5am. I was walking/biking the neighborhood by 5:30am, trying to strategically cover all the areas I might have previously missed. I walked Coyote Hole again at sunrise. It was spectacular. The sky and clouds were lit up with gentle hues of colors while the stars slowly faded into pale blue. I felt an inkling of peace creep in and then it was gone and the despair came back. I said many many prayers. I imagined her being attacked and killed by coyotes and tried to come to peace with that potential outcome.

Back at Heidi's house, I called Ethan and we cried together. We thought of the reality of losing little Penny pup forever. We tried to tell each other not to give up hope, but fell into imagining our worst fear - that she was gone from us forever. I drank a cup of coffee at Heidi's and called the pet detective with search dogs in San Diego. I headed into town to put up more flyers but felt aimless and hopeless. I went back to the house and made small flyers and printed them off. I headed out to put flyers in people's mailboxes. And then I got a call.

"Hey, I think I saw your dog running west along Alta Loma by the elementary school. I was trying to run damage control and make sure she didn't get hit by a car. I stopped and called her name, she looked at me and then when I tried to approach her, she ran off into the desert."

"What did she look like? Was she wearing a collar? What color was her collar?" I asked, needing to know if it was actually her.

"It was the dog in the picture all right."

"Where was this exactly?"

"Oh, along Alta Loma. She ran north, off into the desert. I'll show you - meet me at Alta Loma and Sunny Vista."

I headed over there, followed him around as he showed me where she was. My heart lept with hope. She made it through the night. She was alive. She was out in the desert and still alive. Oh, the relief. But it was a delicate relief. I knew I had to be careful with my hopes.

I set off to look for her and sent friends and parents to look throughout a large parcel of land just north of Alta Loma between Heidi's and my house. It seemed almost as if she were making her way home. We looked for hours around that piece of desert. We talked with residents, we looked around houses, we called and called. It was hot and windy and my lips were chapped, my throat constantly dry and I was sunbaked. But we kept looking. I sent others to continue looking around Heidi's house. More people were volunteering to help look and put up flyers. The outpouring of support, love, willingness to help was overwhelming and made for an interesting mix of emotions with the pain.

I got a phone call at some point on Sunday from the pet detective, Analisa Berns. She told me dogs survive for weeks away from home all the time and that it is totally likely that Penny made it through the night and could very well make it through more nights. She said I needed to think strategically and that she could help with consultation or could come out to the desert with her search dog and help find her. Success rate 10% on the search dog. Price tag $875. Yikes. But what the hell. The whole situation seemed irrational, so why not an irrational reaction? She calmed me down and told me that my pup was a survivor and that because she was offspring of feral dogs, she most likely was scared of everything and likely safer from coyotes. She told me to call her by 3pm if I wanted her to come out with the search dog.

Then an old friend from high school reached out and offered to do pet psychic work. She connected with Penny and told me that she was scared and hiding in a ditch somewhere close to where she escaped. That only brought more tears but also a bit of relief considering she was able to connect, suggesting Penny was alive.

All of this help and support and advice from all angles gave me energy and compelled me forward. Finding Penny became my job and I began to be more matter-of-fact about it. I took it on with more determination and less emotion. Mission: Find Penny!

I kept looking but with less tears and despair and more as "just what my life is like right now". I thought about the days and weeks ahead where my reality included a couple of hours of searching for Penny everyday and putting up flyers and doing whatever it takes to find her. I talked with Ethan and we both came to peace with the "not knowing" and decided that we could, in fact, move forward with the "not knowing". We would keep looking and doing everything we could until we knew more information. That is all you can do. I decided to do some self care and meditated with my mom and then took a shower. I went out searching a bit more around sunset and walked through familiar territory that I had walked with Penny during our brief 4 months together. I thought about her a lot and sent her a lot of love.

Back at home, I did more social media work to spread the word about her. My goal at that point was to get a positive sighting of her. So the more people I could notify about her loss, the better. I had signed up for email consultation with the pet detective and spent a lot of time reading the "lost pet guide" she had sent and filling our her survey. I ate some dinner with my parents and their friend and made a fire with my dad. I was settling into my new reality.

And then, the phone rings. It was Dino. I figured he was calling to check in to see if there was any news. But instead he said, "Penny is at my house."
"WHAT??? You're kidding me. No why would you be kidding me. That would be evil. You are not evil. WHAT???!!"
"She's here. She was outside playing with my dogs. I heard her bumping on the door."
"Oh my god, oh my god. Holy shit. This is miraculous."
"I assume you want to come get her. She's here eating food right now."
"Oh my god, I'll be right over. Thank you thank you thank you."

I called ethan on the way over. he cried with relief. I caught him right before he went out of reception for 5 days. I called heidi and she cried too and couldn't believe what I said.

I rushed to get Penny. At Dino's, she heard me call to her and did her usual back and forth back and forth nervous dance that she does when I haven't seen her in awhile. She was excited to be with her buddies, Dino's dogs. I picked her up and put her in the car. She whined on the way home and barked a bit and acted nervous. At home, she jumped up on the couch and I checked her out - a couple of cholla spines was all I could find.

The relief was wonderful. She slept in bed with me that night and slept all the next day on the couch. She seemed no worse for the wear except for a bit of urgent diarrhea 24 hours later.

The most salient message about whole experience was the reality of my lack of control over pleasant or unpleasant events. I kept trying to do things that would end the unpleasant and bring the pleasant back into my life. But I had no way of doing this. I didn't know where to look or how to find her. I tried to pay money to have control by hiring a pet detective. I got my friends and family involved. But in the end, none of the things that I did to try to control the outcome of the situation brought her back to me. Maybe the prayers and intentions and effort of everyone holds some weight. But in the end, Penny wandered back in her own way, and apparently not as a result of mine or my friends' search efforts. And the interesting part about this whole story is that she only wandered back to me once I let go and settled into the new reality of not knowing.

So, that was my adventure. Penny's adventure will never be told except fictionally or in an imaginative children's book someday.

My story ends happily - I gained a deep understanding of suffering, had my heart broken open and learned how to be ok with the Not Knowing that is always with us while still ending with a happy reunion. My heart aches for those who do not know the happy endings and go on living without loved ones and not knowing what happened to them. Deep compassion for you all out there.

Four month adoptaversary

Its been 4 months since we brought into our lives the most precious, heart-breakingly cute, loving creature. Her name is Penelope. The seed of love was planted the first day I found her on petfinder. I couldn't stop going back to that face. Her name, "sweet pup", couldn't have been more accurate. A sweet pup indeed. That seed of love was just a glimmer of hope, an idea. It hadn't taken form yet, it hadn't even established itself in the ground. It was just a seed floating around, hoping to make a go of it with a dog; the right dog. When we drove out to apple valley, that seed of love planted itself securely in the "sweet pup" that we now know as Penelope. The love has only grown since that first day. The seed has germinated, it took hold of the soil and has been growing roots and growing into the sky as well. It grows stronger and bigger everyday.

Today Penny and I went to visit the snow. It was her first experience with snow and after getting over her initial hesitancy, she came to love the snow. At first she wasn't sure what it was but then she began to trot through the snow with an especially waggy tail. And then she started to run through it. She would run hard, jump, launch herself into powdery, puffy snow embankments, she'd jump on top of snowy logs. She loved it! Playful and running hard all day.

We ended up hiking up close to 2,000 ft in 3.5 miles. Oops! We were having so much fun in the snow that I forgot that she is still a puppy and we need to take it easy. When we started descending, I realized we'd pushed it too far. Penny was tired, muscles quivering, it was drizzling and she was cold. This is when I realized - damn, Steph, she is only 6 months old! Take it easy on her!

We made it back to the car and she was thrilled to curl up in a ball inside of a towel and go to sleep with the heat blasting. She didn't move for the entire 1.5 hour drive back home. We are now sitting in front of the fire, enjoying the warmth and letting the exhaustion dissipate. I fed her some special canned food as a reward for her hard work/play in the snow today.

What a joy to go for a walk with a smile plastered to your face all day because your dog reminds you so simply of the beauty and wonderfulness of life. To watch a puppy play in snow instills a deep, lasting happiness that I am eternally grateful for.

The love keeps growing deeper and stronger. It changes everyday. I'm glad I took that seed and planted it with Penny.

... Probably the best

There is not a day that goes by that does not include an exchange that goes something like this:
Steph: Penny is such a good dog.
Ethan: Yup. Probably the best.

I don't know if all first-time-as-an-adult-dog-owners have this experience, but we certainly do. We can't seem to find flaw with her. Sure, she has unique traits, character and personality, but they are never judged as good or bad, positive or negative. Her traits just make her who she is and we think she is perfect.

Penelope is no longer a baby. Yes, she is still a puppy at 19 weeks (4.5 months) but she is more of a miniature version of the dog she is going to be than pure baby.

Just a week ago, Ethan and I took her to get her last round of shots. And for the past week, its been game on. She's been to the farmer's market, on hikes, into the national park (shhh) and to a party with at least 10 other big dogs. She is loving her new life of interaction and growing more confident everyday.

But, back to this notion that she is the best, most perfect dog in the world. How can Ethan and I repeatedly think this? I've never in my life been able to non-critically look at something or someone. I've always had a "but" to accompany the "this is really good" statement. But not with Penny. She is just the best. Cute face, soulful eyes, white coat, short-haired, petite in size yet athletic, sweet as pie, smart, plays well with other dogs and doesn't chew up our stuff. Even her standoff-ish-ness has become a positive in my mind. We won't have a dog that jumps up on people inappropriately.

So, I guess its called love. It does crazy things to you. All I can say is thank you, universe, for connecting me with the perfect dog!

Penny at 14 weeks

We must be doing something right because sweet Penelope has doubled her weight in the last 6 weeks that we've had her. But it is easy for me to think that I am doing a lot wrong in puppy parenthood. Mostly, I am completely lost on how to communicate with my feral-born puppy. It seems that when I try to make her comfortable, she thinks that I am going to hurt her. When I try to give her a treat she thinks it's a trap. When I want to pet her and give her love, she runs away with her tail between her legs. Is this the additional challenge that comes with adopting a dog that was born to feral desert parents? That is the most logical explanation that I can come up with.

I try to get into her head and understand her even though I am not a dog and obviously do no think like a dog. But I do it anyway. So here she is - born to feral parents, under a log in the middle of the desert. It would have been during the late monsoon rains we got out here. So it was warm and moist and she lived for awhile with her mom and litter mates under a log or more likely a large creosote. And then comes along these two-legged giants that scare her mother away and take her and her littermates to a new place with other dogs, cages, weird food, weird smells and no mother. They find her mother and bring her in a couple of days later. She and her littermates are hungry, traumatized and thus associate the two-legged giants with these negative feelings. Then they spend the next several weeks watching their mother interact with humans. And from what I have heard, her mother would shy away or snip at any human that approached her. So this is how Penny learned to interact with humans.

When I think about it this way, which dog psychologists would probably tell me is completely off, I understand why I still evoke fear in my sweet pup. And I know I need to be patient but sometimes it is so hard because all I want to do is love her and feed her and train her and make her comfortable and yet she often responds with fear to these attempts. Fascinating to watch my own emotions fluctuate, my frustration arise... and then I remember. I am not a dog. I am a human. It may take a whole lifetime of learning how to communicate with her. But I have to be patient.

happy 4-week adoptaversary, Penny!

These notes below were typed up for some friends who are going to puppy-sit for us next week. Thought I'd share them here.

Penny has been with us for 4 weeks to the day. We think she is 12 weeks old even though the rescue told us she was born September 1. The vet assigned her birthday as September 7. She has grown so much, she's had her first taste of Thanksgiving turkey, her first experience with unrequited love (Bravo), has made her first friend (Louie, see pic below), has expelled the worms living in her gut, and has gone on her first night-time adventure with the pack (a walk to Chris's house with Louie, me and Ethan). She is getting used to the ritual of sleeping in her crate, waking up for a poop outside and then snuggling in bed with either Steph or Ethan, or both. Despite her apparent affinity for cuddling in bed or on the couch, Penny still shies away when we turn to pet her. More work still to come...

Here are some things that we are working on with the little pup: 

1) Not shying away from people and their hands. We only pick up, pet, put her leash on when she is calm and relaxed. It is easy to find yourself chasing her around but we are working hard to stop doing this and instead wait patiently for her to allow us to approach. Chasing her to pet her or pick her up only reinforces her early life experience of “being trapped or caught”.

2) Sleeping in her crate through the night. This is her safe place and where she feels most comfortable. Snuggling in the bed in the morning is fine and has become a ritual for us, but she has always slept in her crate.  She often needs to pee and very rarely poop during the night and she starts to feel very anxious if she can’t do this in an appropriate place (her wee-wee pad or outside). Also, she often will eat a bit of kibble during the night.

3) Chewing only on her toys. Penny has ample selection of toys from which to choose for her chewing pleasure. We have given her many options so that she doesn’t feel the need to chew on hands, feet, shoes, furniture, socks, clothes, etc. Please encourage her to chew and play only with her toys and, if you feel comfortable, discipline her with a “chhhttt” if she is chewing on/playing with something other than a toy, especially feet. Because she is a herding breed, we are trying to discourage the tendency to nip heels as she grows older.

4) Lack of possessiveness with toys. Penny should know that the toys ultimately belong to us as the “pack leaders”. We are working with her to freely give up any toy if we decide to take it.

5) We do not play tug-of-war with Penny because we don’t want her to think she can engage in a contest of strength with us, even if we know we can win every time. We’ve read that it can nurture dominant and obsessive behavior, which is exactly the opposite of the calm-submissive dog we want to create.

6) Leash walking. Penny generally follows us around outside, but we are still using the leash most of the time to encourage her to be comfortable with the leash. We haven’t started training her to heel yet but simply give her a nudge a kissing sound when we want her to follow us. The other night, she walked with Louie all the way to friend’s house about a half mile away!

7) Fetch. Penny takes to fetch pretty easily and we’ve started reinforcing this by giving her a treat when she returns to us with the object and after she drops it.

8) Peeing/pooping only outside or on the wee-wee pad. She has to pee so often that sometimes we can’t give her the opportunity to go outside every time. It is important she knows where the wee-wee pad is so that she goes on it and doesn’t learn to pee anywhere in a house.

9) Eating. Penny is a pretty good eater. We change up the kibble and that seems to interest her more. We give her a mixture of kibble and canned food or turkey throughout the day. She always has food available but too much chicken or turkey can make her sick (as we discovered on Thanksgiving).

10) Confidence. Penny has a “stray dog” complex and seems to be very sensitive to loud noises, high energy and changes in her environment. We are trying to gently get her more comfortable with these things by using Louie to introduce her to new sounds, smells or objects. Louie seems to be the best at inspiring confidence in her.

Battle of the Beds

This Thanksgiving, our friends dropped off their wonderful dog, Louie, while they traveled to be with family. The excitement that Penny gets from seeing and being around another dog is heart-breaking. It is like she finally feels comfortable in her own skin again. She wags her tail in a different way, puts her ears back as she approaches him, her little body vibrating with excitement as she moves in for a lick on Louie's enormous jowls. Louie is extremely tolerant of the little girl. He allows her to lick his face, touch noses, even jump on his face or shoulder. He gives a quiet growl when he's had enough and Penny backs away. But her desire to be loved and to interact with Louie tugs at some emotional heartstring in me. It is the eagerness to be loved and to please and the constant rejection. Every day, Penny makes an effort to sleep with Louie in his bed. Louie will have nothing to do with it. Everytime he gets up, walks away, and when she inevitably leaves the bed, he goes back and lays down. Finally I put Penny's bed right next to Louie's so that she'd be close to him but far enough that Louie wouldn't feel intruded on. Penny would put her paws and head on Louie's bed but keep her body in hers. In the picture below, you see her looking longingly toward him.

Soon enough Louie started leaving and sitting somewhere else, leaving our tiny little pup curled up alone in this huge bed. This morning however, I woke up to find Louie in Penny's bed! He didn't quite fit but had curled himself into the tiniest ball possible so that he would fit in the small dog bed.

This evening Louie finally started tolerating Penny sitting on the bed with him, but only for short spells of time. The most heartbreaking is that the people in her life who really do want to cuddle with her and love her are the ones she is most afraid of. She hasn't figured out that the weird two-leggeds in her life are her pack as well. She still shies away, trotting back to her crate with her tail between her legs when approached. Will this ever end or is this just the way she is?

Louie finally caves... but notice how he did manage to score her bunny toy.

Penny is 11 weeks (we think)

Penny has had lots of adventures in the past week!! She went the vet for the first time and took a road trip to LA where she met her Auntie Emily, Auntie Laura and Grandpa Freddo. She has been moved around to three new houses in the past 3 days and has handled it with courage. While a bit shy at first in a new home, if given the opportunity to explore on her own from the safety of her crate, she becomes comfortable quickly. She is immediately loved by all. It is because she is such a beautiful pup!

The vet visit was initially quite scary. Penny was shaking and nervous for the first five minutes and then relaxed. Dr. Megan told us that she can put on more weight and that she is generally a healthy pup. We plan to make an appointment for next week for her to get her second round of vaccinations. 

I am a nervous mother with all of this moving around, but it is necessary if I want to continue training for the half-ironman that I am doing in 3 weeks. Thanks to Emily and Laura for so lovingly watching over my little Penny. We love you!!