When It Rains It Pours: The Benefits of Doggy Daycare
If this blog is sprouting moss, think it prudent to mention that Western Washington as a whole, including Puget Sound, has picked up roughly 2 to 12 inches of rain over the 72 hours ending early December 11. Major river flooding and record or near record crests on rivers like the Skagit and Snohomish reflect the cumulative effect of this week’s extreme rainfall. Cascade foothills and windward slopes just east of Puget Sound have seen some of the highest totals, locally 10–16 inches over 72 hours in favored spots, pushing rivers into major or record flooding.
Waterfalls which previously served as decorations--for the most part a perfect background for romantic selfiies--have all been transformed into rapacious vortexes of destruction, disrespecting human dignity, consuming both lives and homes. But I guess that’s the coin we pay for our emerald palette come summer. We’re blessed at Sasha’s since we’re located slightly above sea level and a safe distance from the mass eruption of angry rivers.
In fact, my son is getting married in a few days (and btw she’s an angel) and his venue up north lies right on the line of demarcation between river and cherished altar. We may wish to conduct this elegant affair in kayaks and REI wool socks with beef jerky appetizers! But this underscores an imperative (or a strongly suggested must do) that doggy daycares need to have in place (and easily accessed in print) emergency protocols, including: • Lost Dog • Sick Dog • Abandoned Dog • Electricity, Water and Internet Down • Earthquake • Snowstorm/Ice Storm • Hurricane, Tornados and Storms • Intruders • Plugged Sewer/Toilets • Idiot Landlords • (Those last two are interchangeable) This should never be optional. Because as they say. When the s**t hits the fan, you’re frantically dodging fecal matter as more important issues are begging for your time. Such as an escaped Husky or a violently convulsing Shepherd. Or no electricity during a snowstorm, ice storm--or conversely a stubborn August “heat dome.” Or the ladies room won’t flush. Or God forbid, the big one hits.
In any and all of these scenarios, you or your staff should be able to access your protocols within two minutes in both print (protected in plastic sleeves) as well on the internet. But there is one good thing I can say about floods: they RSVP ahead to let you know their exact location, date/time of their arrival and even a schedule of when the various rivers will crest! Not many other calamities are quite this cordial or hospitable.
Take an earthquake, for example. I’ve experienced a couple of them when I was a kid in Seattle. Both struck like a night bandit and quickly retreated into the earth’s hiccupping crust. Though the one I remember best was in ’65 when I was in junior high school (Cordell Hull) The moderate quake of 6.5 magnitude was preceded by a chorus of howling neighborhood dogs, before it violently galloped through my English class, where I followed our rote practice of climbing beneath one’s desk until the rumble disappeared.
And the year prior, my aunt who is a few years older than I, was attending high school in Anchorage, Alaska on March 27, 1964 at about 5:00 in the evening when it struck, uninvited and unannounced. The Good Friday Earthquake and resulting tsunamis devastated Anchorage and shattered many surrounding villages. 9.2 on the Richter Scale! Most powerful earthquake ever in North America. But get this. According to my aunt (who confessed she’d never been more scared in her young life), the earthquake lasted 4 ½ minutes!
To this day, she vividly recalls the terrifying sensation of the ground buckling beneath her feet and the deafening roar in the night that seemed to last an eternity. Can you imagine the total encompassing terror? The same length of time required to sit down, relax, and listen to a couple of Beatle’s songs on the radio? (thankfully, not long enough for ‘In a Gadda da Vida! 17 minutes in length and perfect for a DJ bathroom break!)
And my grandfather (rest in peace)—a successful Anchorage paint contractor and high-stakes gambler (that’s not saying a great deal since Anchorage was a very small fishbowl with pedestrian ‘high-stakes’ players…local banker, jeweler, hotelier, and others). He was enjoying his weekly poker game with these regulars and had left the table for a needed bio break and also hoping to reverse his luck, down about a thousand bucks, which was a lot in 1964. Not to be. He ended up perched in the dark on that convulsing porcelain throne for over four and one-half minutes while being serenaded by the bass flatulence of mother earth. Unimaginable! Hallucinatory! And deadly.
These terrestrial saboteurs were able to strike at any moment and anywhere…without conscience or surrender. And so truly egalitarian. They’d devour rich and poor, Eskimo and white, old and young, city dweller and villager, blue collar and white! An unending appetite…
The Continuing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang
The Segue--Chapter One
Turquoise is an eight-year-old Australian Shepherd. A beautiful and soft-as-cotton battleship gray, ivory and black spotted altered female. Smart as AI. A tsunami of genuine personality and life! And this is where it begins to get a bit quirky if you will, almost a little Twilight Zonish in nature. Turquoise, I am to learn, possesses the ability to translate the thoughts of other dogs and transmit them to humans! I wouldn’t ever had thought this a possibility until I placed my hand upon Turquoise’s back when she first followed me into Sasha’s the day after Thanksgiving.
Instantly, my body tensed, as a gentle creek of vibrating warmth rippled up my arm, tranquil and relaxing. And my mind swarmed like a beehive, stampeded by a garble of unfamiliar voices that filled my head, a manic CB radio! I immediately stepped back, urgently snatching my hand away as if it might be stolen or vandalized. Now the only sounds were coming from our large daycare room where a howling contingent of our squaddies, skeptical of a newcomer that they had yet to sniff. They couldn’t see her over the wall of the daycare room, but they could certainly hear over it.
“What’s the matter?” my wife, a most empathetic RN and part-time wrangler, asked at seeing my odd behavior. “Static electricity?” For a moment, I hesitated, glancing down at Turquoise and trying to make sense of what had just happened.
It was as if a hidden world of jabbering apparitions were rioting inside my head. I struggled to articulate it, feeling both astonished and slightly unnerved. “I’m not sure,” I replied, truly bewildered.
Turquoise looked up, surveying my face, her riveting azure eyes the genesis behind the nickname we eventually provided her. “And who do we have the pleasure of?” my wife queried, slim in a surgical smock from her early shift. “I think he’s enchanting.”
“She,” I corrected, squatting down to better assess gender, careful not to touch her private or public works.
“Goose or gander,” she twinkled. “No matter. He or she…whichever… will make an excellent playmate for both Maple and Mama Cass.” Maple, a six-month-old Golden Doodle, appeared to presume her quest in life was to reign supreme in the high jump, practicing her leaping prowess on unsuspecting two-legged visitors--my wife’s surgical smock shielding her from Maple’s killer talons.
Meanwhile, a five-year-old Rottweiler nicknamed Mama Cass, resembling a third-world terrorist in her short-haired brown and black ensemble—was Sasha’s original matriarch. Gentle as a butterfly, she was an extremely effective peacemaker, once towering over a riotous tangle of two dogs who were in an atrocious fight, threatening at minimum to draw blood. Or worse, lacerate flesh, requiring a pricey vet visit and sutures. Yet, when the two warriors glanced up to see the massive Mama’s undercarriage standing over them, they were startled, immediately ceasing their paw-to-paw combat, at which point mediator Mama retreated while the two ruffians slinked back to their respective corners.
Later in the day when the same two dogs started to lob stink eyes at each other, Mama just casually sauntered in between the two of them, peacefully and without malice--neither willing to challenge her. They both prudently decided to nap instead. During her third year at Sasha’s, Mama spent many of her days at home tending to a brood of kittens who had lost their mother. Hence, her moniker, Mama Cass. While all our dogs possess owner-provided names, we much prefer to nickname them with handles humorously appropriate to their respective personalities and physical appearance. And the canines didn’t seem to mind an inch.
At that moment, Mama Cass casually strolled through the double-glass front doors paying scant notice to spouse and I. Instead, she immediately proceeded to sniff the new dog on the block, Turquoise, who daintily pranced her butt away from Mama’s inquisitive wet snout--her bucket list not including a canine proctology exam.
“Where’d she come from?” spouse asked.
“I was walking back from town…needed exercise after all that pumpkin pie last night…and I think somewhere near the Denny’s, uh… she started following me.”
“Name?” Spouse speaks with RN-pinpoint precision. No extraneous words. Empathetic, but not saccharin.
“No tags,” I explained. “And she’s not chipped.” Our chip reader located no blips in Turquoise’s furry alabaster neck.
“So what are you thinking? Spouse quizzed. “That she’s going to stay here?” There was a hint of “this might be a bad idea” in her voice.
“Well, I guess,” I fumbled momentarily, still dumbfounded by the bizarre but gentle arm massage and the cacophony of voices stampeding throughout my skull. Confused and maybe a little frightened. “I mean it’s already past six. And she looks hungry. And it’s dark and cold outside.”
“No sweetheart. I think you’re absolutely right. But we can’t just call her dog, can we?”
I smiled faintly, not willing to detour this conversation by mentioning the anomalous intersection of touch and sound. Perhaps even supernatural. “I think she named herself,” I said, as I crouched down and better examined her angelic face without touching. “With eyes that mesmerizing and sky blue…No contest. Turquoise.”
Spouse clapped her hands with delight. “Spot on,” she smiled while gently nodding her head. “I love it!” She paused. Annoyed. “Guys…quiet!” she barked at the lynch mob sequestered on the other side of the wall.
Fortunately, spouse is highly allergic to many breeds of dogs, so while Turquoise is cuter than a bug’s ear, her endearing fluff nearly mandating a hug, she would probably resist a wrestle with this intelligent bundle of fur. At least for a few days. And maybe in that time, I can figure out the genesis behind this insanity...
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