The story I was going to write...

 I was going to post the story below under the title T2 + W = A new adventure:

Taking a cue from their blog heroes, Ms. M and Mr. B., T2 have agreed to welcome in a fellow pit bull who's down on his luck at the moment.

With his mush muzz and sweet personality, Willis probably won't be with Project Rescue for long before finding his forever home. While he waits, he'll be joining us at our home for a little pampering and TLC (and probably a little bullying from the two sweetest, bulliest bullies I know).

As T2 and I waited for our first introduction, we had a chat: 

• No terrorizing the new guy.
• If you feel you must run him through an initiation ritual, you may not re-enact the one in which Toni knocks a tooth out on Téa's head. In fact, no initiation rituals involving the vet are allowed.
• Rudeness will not be tolerated.
• Sharing is encouraged (including squirrel duty in the yard, couch time in the evenings and treats). There's enough for everyone.
• Just because we have a guest, this does not mean the usual rules and regulations go out the window. If we're going to help Willis, we're going to start by setting a good example for him.
• Please keep in mind who is the alpha dog at our house. (No, it's not you.) (No, it's not you either.)

I think we're on the same page, as the "neutral ground" intro went without incident...despite Téa's best efforts to show him that she's a bit rude and bossy. 

More to come.... 

Instead, I am happy to report that we seem to have become some sort of quirky good luck charm for foster dogs. Willis is the third of three pit bulls who were slated to stay with us as fosters but who instead went on to their forever homes before they even came for a visit. 

We're better than rabbits feet—and more humane!

I could be wrong, but...

I'm fairly certain this isn't what my great-grandmother had in mind when she lovingly and painstakingly needlepointed this chair.

Le dîner avec nos chiens

Chris and I invited a couple we are friends with over for dinner last evening. We were sure that they accepted our invitation in order to enjoy a good meal, catch up over a few cocktails and generally relax.... Toni and Téa seemed certain that our friends had specifically been invited over to enjoy their company, particularly as they arrived bearing a fresh supply of Wishbones Dog Treats (which can also be purchased in person at Woolly Mammouth Antiques, Oddities & Resale at 1513 W. Foster Avenue in Chicago). 

I'm starting to think T2 might have called this one correctly:

Peace, love and understanding

One of the most satisfying programs I volunteer with is sponsored by, in my opinion, the most unlikely organization.

We’re all, by now, well aware of the US Humane Society’s (USHS) support of convicted dog fighter Michael Vick. Most of us, a few Philadelphia Eagles fans excepted, are also aware that while Vick talks the reform talk, he has yet to publicly prove that he feels remorse for the treatment of the dogs in his “care” at his Bad Newz Kennels and that he comprehends the inhumanity of his actions. (We do understand that he’s very sorry for the impact his actions have had on his wealth and his career, but that’s an entirely different sort of regret.) Throughout Vick’s continued failure to show true remorse for his actions, the USHS continues to tap into Vick’s status as a professional athlete and continues to hope that he will come through for them in terms of PR opps more often than he fails them. It makes it hard to take them seriously as a true animal advocacy group.

And yet it is through a little grassroots, community-run program that I am able to participate in one of the more compelling programs I’ve come across in Chicago. USHS’s End Dogfighting campaign is run out of a community center in a neighborhood with few resources, plenty of room for improvement and endless opportunities for good people to make bad decisions about their own lives and the lives of those they care about (humans and canines alike). End Dogfighting includes a Pit Bull Training Team program that teaches owners (often young men—the most likely demographic to participate in dog fighting) to interact in a positive, healthy way to show off their dogs’ strengths and assets. Many of the people who work for the program are reformed dog fighters themselves, not in a Vick talk-the-talk way but in a genuine, honest way. These men understand why people make the decision to fight their dogs and know firsthand what can motivate those same people to make a change, having made it themselves. One former fighter I know will tell you that he now cooks each of his pit bulls a full roast chicken each day, among other luxuries. Another took a vacation to the middle of nowhere America last summer and had tears in his eyes as he told me about the people he met who fought their dogs simply because they didn’t know anything else to do with them. They didn’t even bet, unlike Chicago fighters who are often earning money to put food on the table or to buy gas to get their kids to school. He spent his vacation building agility runs and introducing the people he met to the basics of dog training.

I spend my time with the program in the classroom. Targeted toward seventh graders over the course of eight weeks, the curriculum takes a hard look at dog fighting; helps the students see the wider effects of dog fighting beyond just the dogs (as we know, over 70 percent of dogfighters are also connected directly to other criminal activity); strips down pro-dog fighting media and replaces it with alternative messages; and introduces students to the idea that dogs deserve our care and protection. Kids are funny at that age. They’re on the verge of being too cool to listen, but take them to an animal shelter or put the lesson into an interactive game and all of a sudden you have a willing audience.

This year I wasn’t able to be as hands-on with the program as I had in the past, but was asked if I might be able to bring Téa in to a few classrooms (actually, five classrooms at two schools for 45 minutes each—enough even to wear out Téa, it turns out). We could hardly wait! 

A lot of kids screamed and scrambled when they came into their classroom and saw a pit bull (even though Téa’s tail was wagging and she had on her goofy pit grin the whole time). We made a deal—Téa and I would stay for a whole 45 minutes if they could help her behave by behaving themselves. (I’m always happy to bribe people get what I want—in this case, well-behaved seventh graders.) I talked about T2, passed photos and explained why Toni wasn’t with us in the classroom (treated badly in the past, she gets very nervous in new situations; it just wouldn’t be kind). No, we do not fight our dogs and no we do not worry that they will just decide to kill each other one day. In fact, our dogs go to dog daycare just so they can play with other dogs. No, we also do not worry that they might kill us one day. No, we did not crop their ears; we would not have liked it if our parents had decided one day to cut our own ears off so we would never do that to our dogs. Pit bulls with no ears are harder to place in homes, which is why we open our home to pits with cropped ears. No, we don’t yell at our dogs and we don’t hit them to make them behave. If someone yelled at me or hit me every time they wanted me to do something or to not do it, I would eventually be very irritated by it…and then I might behave badly. Dogs are not very different. We treat our dogs as we want to be treated: we use calm voices to ask them to do things; we say thank you by giving them a biscuit.

Téa and I showed them some of her tricks. We invited two students from each class to come up and do a trick each with Téa. Even the kids who had screamed earlier were waving their hands to have a chance. We took more questions. Yes, they both know more tricks than just the ones we did here. Yes, they love to be around small children. In fact, pit bulls were once called nanny dogs because they are so good with children. Dog food, they eat dog food. They sleep in our bedroom on their own beds on the floor.

In one class, a student shared with us that her uncle was in jail because he had strung his pit bull up in their tree and beat it to death. We used that as a conversation about humane behavior and consequences.

To wrap things up for each session, everyone who wanted to pet Téa was invited to line up single file and quietly for a pet before we left. Even in the last class, when I was tired of my own stories and ready for a nap, Téa was ready with a butt wiggle and an occasional back roll for every single student and teacher who wanted her attention.

I think Elvis Costello got it right: “As I walk through this wicked world searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity…there's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?”

Exhausted after a long day of promoting peace for pit bulls!

The Houseguest

We have a friend who seems to stumble onto pit bulls in need all of the time. This is, most likely, due to the fact that she’s a bit obsessed with pit bulls (fair enough, so are we) and that she tends to spend an unusual amount of time (for unknown reasons) in shady neighborhoods. It’s a given (that I hope is changing) that if you find a shady neighborhood, you’re sure to find a plethora of pit bulls in need.

We were literally in flight from the UK to the US when the calls began coming in on both our phones. (I don’t know if she thinks Chris and I don’t spend time together or if she thinks that when we do, we don’t spend any of it communicating—either way, we tend to get identical voicemails from her.) She’d come across another pit bull in need. Only this time it was a puppy—just three weeks old! And she hadn’t been in a shady neighborhood, she’d been at a parade on the Southside. Oh, but she still lived in a no-pet building. Please call immediately. 

Oh dear….

I guess it’s not totally surprising that just 24 hours after landing and 22 hours after bringing T2 home from two weeks at sleepover camp, we found ourselves balancing a (probably seven-week-old rather than three-week-old) puppy on a barstool as we said, “No, no. He’ll be fine. It’s just a matter of a few days until we can get him into the rescue program.” You will notice we did not say, “No, no. We’ll be fine. We were just saying that what we really need after two weeks away, in addition to two slightly clingy dogs who missed us and a good round of jet-lag, is a puppy who has been taken away from his mother too early and who was just fed a bunch of different things that guarantee frequent trips outside at very short intervals. I mean, really, we’re not big fans of sleep or calm anyway.” Which is how we ended up with Scooby. (In my defense, I had really hoped we could find a more unique, admirable sort of name for the little guy, but the truth is that Scooby seemed to really suit him.)

The first evening was really quite something. We have our routine fairly down-pat, as do most families, and there really isn’t a lot of wiggle room for extras – especially extra canines. While I prep dinner, Chris settles into the

corner of the sectional with his laptop and a dog on each side. Chris works or peruses the internet while T2 use their time to catch up on some much needed sleep (somehow those four hours in the afternoon never seem to be enough). Then everyone eats and we all eventually return to the couch until it’s time for bed.

However, when you add in squiggly, wiggly, wound-to-the-brink puppy energy into the mix all of a sudden it becomes, “No, you can’t let him have her spot.” “Careful, I think he’s going to jump!” “Off the keyboard, you monkey.” “Get him out of the freaking kitchen—he’s going to get burned when I open the oven.” “Ow—those puppy teeth are sharp!” “Watch the wine!”  “Hooooney, will you please come get her…I mean him again? He can’t be in here alone while I’m cooking.” And so on. It took a full two hours every night for him to bounce and pounce and tumble enough energy out of his teeny system so he could crawl up Chris’ shirt, wiggle around to his back and settle down in a nice, warm, quiet space of his own. Every night. Two hours.

Funny thing about puppies—everyone loves them. I frequently handed him over the fence for the neighbors to cuddle and coo over. Our renters suddenly seemed more in synch with our yard schedule, stepping out to say hi to little Scooby before we went in. People on the sidewalk, a yard over from ours, even asked about him (he was so tiny I’m surprised they could even see him through the fence and grass). Even at the vet when we took him to get his vaccines and de-worming, everyone wanted a little puppy time.

It was actually at the vet that it became pretty clear to me that we, however, might not really be a puppy family, cute as they are. As we know, T2 have their own quirky relationship that involves numerous ‘conversations’ between them about who’s in charge, who gets what toy and other various things that dogs bicker over. I think it was perhaps Scooby’s added dynamic to their relationship and the arrival of an old, graying lab while we were in the vet’s lobby that prompted their first public display of what can only be described as the epitome of family dysfunction. There I was, with well-behaved Toni on one side and well-behaved Téa on the other, Scooby in a beach bag around my shoulder. The next thing I know T2 are doing their very best, most convincing

interpretation of what a two vicious pit bulls look like and why they have such a bad reputation. It only lasted about 15 seconds, but they were up on their hind legs, arms around each other with bared teeth clashing for the whole scene (no blood, there almost never is, just lots of posturing and drama). I looked around to see if anyone had noticed. The couple with the old lab were forgetting to whisper as they talked about the horrible vicious dogs in the waiting room. (I’m sure they were talking about someone else. My dogs were just having a conversation, after all.) Some staff were conscientiously shuffling papers while others had completely disappeared (to come around to help, I figured out later.) And me standing there with a puppy in in a beach bag like this was all perfectly normal. Just then I saw three prim looking King Charles spaniels and an equally prim looking woman heading in the door. I decided that it was time for my lovely family to move into the extra, out of sight waiting room for unsociables, when darned if they didn’t just up and do it again. Ten seconds of pure; all show and no damage; scare the pants of the uptight people brawling, and then back to my sides in less than 10 seconds—all wags and panting. Really, ladies?? In case we missed it the first time?

I would like to tell you that the rest of Scooby’s visit with us was drama free before he headed off to his longer-term foster home with the Chicagoland Bully Breed Rescue program. And for the most part it was. Except for one teeny tiny incident involving a rawhide, a crabby adult dog (I won’t even name names) and young Scooby’s face. I’ll leave it at that with a closing statement that Mr. Scooby is just fine. Now.

We were all a little sad to see him go, I think, but the night he left no one seemed to mind a drama-free dinnertime; her or his own space on the couch, uninterrupted; and a howl-free bedtime.

T2 get a yard!

I've been a little lax with the storytelling lately, not because we've run out of stories but because the four of us (Toni, Téa, Chris and I) have been settling in to a new home. It's taking a lot more time and energy than we humans anticipated, though T2 seem to have gotten the hang of things pretty quickly.

The basics of the move are that the four of us were living in an aesthetically amazing vintage loft in a converted former Nabisco factory. That was the up-side. The down-side was that it was exactly big enough to comfortably fit me (since I was the only one of us there when I purchased it), but now had to manage for me, Chris, Toni and Téa...and our ridiculous amount of stuff. It was also in the middle of hipster West Loop in Chicago, which is great for people but really not all that great if you're a dog (although hundreds of dogs live in the neighborhood). For instance: we had to walk a mile just to get to a decent amount of grass; the amount of semis delivering products to the various warehouses were more than poor Toni's nerves could really handle; the time it took us to get from the third floor to the first tree in the event of upset stomachs was unsympathetically long; etc.

So number one on our list of must-haves when we began the search for our new home was a yard—preferably an oversized yard. No, we did not move just to indulged our obsession with T2, but as long as we were upgrading we might as well upgrade from all family members' perspectives. More space for us, more space for T2—everyone wins!

The change in routine from four scheduled, no nonsense walks involving leashes to an ever-changing plethora of random outings involving their very own yard, various wildlife and no leashes has been hugely popular. Téa is exhausted every evening, which is something I never thought possible. Toni, who's agoraphobia was so severe that she could hardly get herself out the door for the basics when we first met her, now bounds (really, she bounds) out the back door each morning and has even been known to fling herself onto the ground for a random roll on her back, also something I never thought possible.

They even have cool new neighbors: Anya and Vivian to the north, two dog-loving little human girls; and Scooby the obnoxious chihuahua and his new little brother Rollo the 10-week-old pit bull to the south. Tonight Arthur the mastiff, one of the new tenants in our first floor apartment, moves in. Téa was eager to show him her poorest, most unfriendly manners on first meeting, but we're sure she'll get the hang of him just as quickly as she has everything else around the new home.

Téa demonstrates the life-is-good back roll.

Fun fact for the day

You are 60 times more likely to be killed by a coconut than by a pit bull (and five times more likely to be killed by a cow).

See how often you can work that into a conversation!