HomeSpunHealers

Do away with your old habits and start fresh.
Wash away your old opinions,
And new ideas come in.

~ Xue Xuan (1389-1464)

Everyone has baggage of some kind. It’s hard to go through this world and not pick up some kind of issues involving previous situations. I have my own, and so does my husband. We have been married for only six years, each of us coming from a previous marriage, so in a way, we’re still getting to know each other and finding out about issues that we didn’t previously know about. The good news about baggage is that we don’t have to constantly carry it around with us. We can check it and go back and go through it occasionally when we want to or leave it and never return to it. At least that’s possible for humans. I’m not so sure about animals. Sometimes humans need a lot of therapy before we can get rid of the baggage. At the very least, we can talk to each other and work it out together. Animals don’t speak in our way. Animals speak naturally through their actions and emotions. Body language is important in all communication, but particularly in communicating with animals. And it’s important to know how to read an animal and how an animal is reading us.

We were warned about a couple of Elvis’ issues before we agreed to adopt him. We knew he had food issues. In his foster home, there were six other dogs, and they quickly learned that Elvis not only does not like to share food, but also he likes to eat others’ food, and he is not shy about taking it away from the meeker ones who will let him. Kojak the Meek will let Elvis take his food with no fight at all, but then he looks pitifully at me as if to say, “Did you see what he did? Aren’t you going to do anything about this?” In the foster home, his foster mom just put his dish into a large, open crate, and Elvis followed the dish right in, hungrily gulped his food down, and then waited to be let out again after all the other dogs had eaten. I don’t have a large crate like that, but I was prepared to shut Elvis away from Kojak if I couldn’t work out another solution. At first, I was appalled and a little frightened by the gusto with which Elvis ate his dry food. He ate it so fast and furiously that he sounded as if he was choking on it. I was used to Kojak, who could be a little finicky at times, nibbling at his food, leaving some to come back to later. All that changed when Elvis arrived. Kojak has learned to get really busy eating his dish of Caesar wet food after Elvis’ dish has been set down. If I set Kojak’s dish down first, Elvis makes a beeline for it, and can have it scarfed down in a few seconds. So, Elvis gets his dish first, and then Kojak gets his dish on the opposite side of the kitchen table next. At first, Elvis would eat his food much faster than Kojak could eat his, so when he finished, he headed straight for Kojak’s dish, knocking Kojak out of the way and finishing his food, too. Elvis is on a different, prescription food that prevents kidney and bladder stones from forming since he had to have surgery in the past to remove those stones, and when I asked the vet about the speed with which Elvis plowed through his food, he told me to just add some water to it, and that would slow him down some. It was a perfect solution. Kojak learned to eat a little faster and lose the finicky routine, and Elvis slowed down enough to let Kojak finish first, so I don’t have to separate them when I feed them. I just have to respect Elvis’ issues and all goes well. And we have a standing rule: if any food falls on the floor, and Elvis goes after it, let him have it. Our daughter learned when she tried to block Elvis with her outstretched arm from a cookie she dropped on her bedroom floor that Elvis will bite the arm that blocks him.

Another of Elvis’ issues that we were warned about before the adoption is that for some reason, Elvis does not always like to be lifted up. His foster mom told me that twice when she had tried to pick him up to take him outside, he growled at her and tried to nip at her hands. Elvis is perfectly healthy and strong, and since he can jump up on everything he needs to jump up on, and we take him out on a leash hooked to a harness that he always wears, we didn’t really have to lift Elvis for any reason. We are used to lifting Kojak up on the bed at night to sleep with us, and we’re used to lifting him up onto the couch if one of us is sitting there, and he wants to sit with us. He has a little carpeted ramp that he can still run up to get to “his” chair where he often sleeps during the day when there is no one home to lift him. But sometimes when he gets tired, his hind legs aren’t strong enough to support him, so I will lift him into his chair or carry him to the bedroom at night when we go to bed. I thought I’d try to lift Elvis the first week he was with us just to see if he’d growl or nip at me. He didn’t nip, but he did growl. I tried it one other time and got the same result, so I quit trying. The first time we took him to the vet, though, for his grooming, I knew I better warn them about this issue. As it turned out, he didn’t even growl at them when they lifted him in and out of the tub, but he did growl when they held him to trim his nails. There is something about having arms wrapped around his midsection in a holding position that he just doesn’t like. I don’t think it hurts him, but it seems to scare him. A growl is a warning. If a dog growls, back away.

Another major issue that we discovered about Elvis is probably related to the arms around the middle fear. The first time we met Elvis, he growled when Jim put on his harness. Since pugs have no neck to speak of, a collar doesn’t work all that well to walk them on a leash. It can choke them, and if they back away from you while you’re holding the leash, the collar can come right off, and you’re left with a free-roaming pug. Kojak has a red harness and leash, and we got Elvis a purple one. He didn’t mind when Jim put the harness over his head, or when Jim got his leg through one side, but he growled and nipped at Jim’s hands when he reached around him to secure the harness. Jim just let him growl and nip, and since he wasn’t biting hard, he talked to him to calm him down and proceeded to fasten it. We thought it might only be because he didn’t know us well yet, but after having him growl at us each time we put the harness on him, we decided to simply leave the harness on him all the time. He didn’t mind wearing the harness; it was only putting it on him that seemed to upset him. The first time Elvis went to the vet, he didn’t growl when they lifted him, but he did when they held him to trim his nails, and then when the vet assistant tried to put the harness back on him, he growled first and then he bit her right on the nose. It really hurt her, and there was a lot of blood as there always is with a facial wound, but he barely left marks on either side of the bridge of her nose. We found out because of that incident that not only does Elvis not like having anyone’s arms around his middle, but he also especially doesn’t like anyone leaning over him and doing that to him. There is a rather graphic story to be told about Jim and Elvis’ harness, but I will save that for another time. Just let it suffice to say that we are very cautious when we put Elvis’ harness on. When I have to do it, I get him sitting beside me where I am on his level and do it from the side. He doesn’t mind that. It doesn’t seem to scare him.

I have no clue about why Elvis has food issues and issues about being lifted or held firmly around the middle. I think the harness being put on is related to the issue concerning his middle, but I can’t even be sure of that. I have a theory, though, but I don’t know how we can ever prove it. Here is my theory: I believe that Elvis was abused in his first home, the one he lived in for six and a half years. I don’t think he was beaten or hit because Elvis never flinches or backs away when a hand is extended toward him, and he relishes being petted and scratched and having his belly rubbed. Usually if a dog has been hit a lot, he will shy away from a human hand. And I don’t think he was neglected medically or starved because he came to us so very healthy, and he had that surgery, too, so they were very willing to get him adequate health care. He definitely got plenty to eat, so I don’t know where the food issues come from. I do know that the reason he was surrendered was he was kept locked in a much too small crate a good portion of the time, and his family no longer had any time for him. His owner admitted that she felt it was cruel to him to do that, and she was convinced that finding another home for him was best. Crating a pug for long amounts of time where he has no human contact is unthinkable. Pugs are bred to be companions to humans. That is what they are all about. So, I guess there was that kind of neglect. I also know that he does not like that crate, so he was probably forced to go in there. Maybe someone lifted him by a harness and roughly put him in there. Maybe he associates being forced into the crate with pain of some kind, and maybe that association carries over to being lifted around the middle and having the harness secured on him. It makes a certain amount of sense to me when I have nothing to go on. I can’t ask his former owner, and I can’t ask Elvis. Well, I can ask him and I have asked him, but all I get is a trusting look and a wagging tail. My theory is just conjecture on my part. But I know something awful happened to Elvis. That is obvious. Pugs don’t have it in their nature to fear things that aren’t harmful to them. And when we want to pick him up or put on his harness or hold him securely in place, we only have his best interests at heart and the outcomes are always good for him. So, I guess this fear he has is actually a phobia. I think we’ve probably discovered all of Elvis’ issues by now after four months of intimate contact and communication with him. But just in case we haven’t, we treat him with a little bit of extra precaution, and we watch carefully how he responds to us. If he growls, or worse, bites, indicating that he fears something, we don’t try that again. We respect his issues and know that he’s not ready to check that baggage yet. Maybe he never will be. But perhaps as he gets further away from whatever caused the issues to begin with, he may be less afraid. Until then, we help him carry the baggage because we choose to.