A Lesson from Leela

I don't usually have litter "themes" the way that other dog breeders do. If I plan to keep a puppy from a litter, I'll name it and give it a call name that has some meaning. The other puppies might get call names, too (like Trooper and Buttercup from my current litter), but they're rarely used in the puppies' hearing, so that the new owners can name their new companion as they please. Leela's litter was born during a "Futurama" marathon. Her littermates were Amy and Nibbler. It was a very pretty litter. My plan was to keep Leela for myself, send Nibbler to someone needing an emotional support dog, and send Amy to a friend who lived in California. I love dogs with blazes on their faces and, even though her muzzle was a little narrow for my taste, Leela had reasonably good conformation with a tailset to die for. Unfortunately for Leela, she was also very "soft."

That is to say, Leela was a scaredy cat who cringed at the slightest verbal correction. If she'd been a Japanese Chin or some other floofy dog I might have considered that acceptable, but I don't breed Chins or floofy dogs. I breed terriers. Terriers are supposed to have the attitude of "Oh, you think I should? How about . . . no." So, even though she was a personal favorite, I knew that she could never be shown or bred. She was spayed and I advertised her for sale, to be the perfect pet for a deserving family. Someone who wanted a young dog, not a puppy, contacted me and I sent her off to what I thought was the most wonderful home in the world. Boy, was I wrong. A month later, Leela was returned to me. She literally had to be poured out of the other person's carrier into the one I brought. She was a limp rag. She had given up. My sweet, playful, serene little dog was almost beyond help. I promised her that, if she lived, she would never go to anyone else again. She was my little dog forever.

To this day, I have no idea what happened. I didn't want to know, so I didn't ask. I didn't make accusations. I didn't send animal control after the couple. I just wanted to get her home. When I pulled her from her carrier and placed her in a darkened crate with a water bucket, her blanket, and a toy, I could see that Leela's body was uninjured, but that her mind was in tatters. I kept petting her, promising her, and after a while it seemed that she was listening. For the first couple of days, she listlessly dragged herself around the room in which she'd tussled with Dodger, the MinPin foster dog just a month before. If I left the room, she became desperate. Her confidence in the stability of her world was gone.

As time went on, I learned that any loud noise had her cowering in the back of her crate. Thunderstorms were torture to her. She would rather cling to me and follow me into the storm rather than be left alone inside where she was dry. Slowly, she came out of her mental fog. I could take her for short walks, but she was happiest in the side yard of the house, safe inside her fence. Leela was never obedience trained. She never learned agility. She never endured a moment of stress that I could avoid. She became happy again, her sweet nature returned, although she preferred solitary games and snuggles with me over games with the other dogs. Leela, determined to go on but on her own terms, had built a wall around herself that let few others inside.

Life went on. Other dogs came and went. Leela went from the baby of the family to the big sister, to the maiden aunt in what seemed like rapid succession. On the way, she became fast friends with Badger, whose affections were supplanted by Copper, who was then succeeded by Yaddle. Today, Leela is 16.5 years old. She'll be 17 in August--where do the years go?! A while ago, due to age, she lost most of her sight and much of her hearing. She is comfortable inside at home and in our yard, where she toddles around like the old campaigner that she is. It made me sad to think that she was living in a dark and silent world, but she has always seemed content, even happy, with her life here. Contentment, according to Leela, seems to come from having familiar things, good food, peaceful times, and gentle companions. Despite her disabilities, Leela seems serene.

Since Copper's death last year--he was her constant companion until the day he died--Leela's made a little routine for herself: snoozles under my desk in the morning and the evening, snoozles on the red cushion on the floor in front of the couch in the afternoon, snuggles and snoozles on the bed with me and with Yaddle at night. In between, she trundles around the living room, inspecting her world to make certain that all is well. She frequently visits the water bowl and pokes her nose in Cassidy's crate when he's in there or in the puppies' crate when they are in there, just to make certain that they still exist. When the weather is just right, Leela gets to sleep in the ex-pen outside with Yaddle or to follow me around as I do my chores outside. At her age, she sleeps a lot, but she also stays active in her own independent way. She's always seemed to live a life parallel to ours, though, or even perhaps outside of ours. How could she do otherwise, I've always asked myself, lacking hearing and vision?

It was all of those things that made me question going away for a three-day mini vacation last week. I had no issue with leaving Leela behind when she had even limited sight and hearing. If I left for one or two nights, she was fine with a bowl of water and a feeder full of dry kibble. I'm not reluctant to leave her by herself for one night, even now. But, last weekend, I would be away for three entire nights. I decided that I needed to make arrangements for her to stay with Dan. We prepared a greyhound-sized wire crate for her, complete with a dog bed, one of her favorite fluffy blankets, and a bowl for her kibble. It was in Dan's living room, so he could see her and make certain that she was never in distress. At least, that's the way it was supposed to work.

For the first day, everything was great. She slept and ate and slept some more. Archie and Cyi watched over her like two little hawks. Leela toddled around Dan's living room a bit, possibly comforted by my lingering scent on the couch. The second day, there was a change. Leela started making gruff, almost coughing, noises, followed by throwing back her head and trembling. It took Dan a few hours to figure it out: she wasn't in pain, she wasn't ill. Leela was deafdog howling. He petted her, then gave her a handful of kibble and put her back in her crate, where she fell asleep. For the next two days, that was how things went. Every few hours, she would howl, he would feed her, she would sleep, and the cycle would start again. I'm fortunate that Dan thought it was amusing, rather than annoying, but Dan is an old dog man and is one of a kind. When I returned from my vacation, she had rather gotten a handle on howling and I could hear her as I approached the house from where I had parked, about 25 feet away.

Leela quieted herself the moment I stepped into the living room. Instead of howling, she turned herself into a billiard ball, bouncing off the sides of the crate in her excitement, trying to get out of the crate. I held her as we chatted, let her sleep next to me on the couch as we ate. It was during those next several hours that I learned something important. Leela's world is dark and silent, but a dog doesn't merely rely on those two senses to live a happy life. She knew that I had returned. My scent made her world suddenly right. When she became a limpet on Dan's couch, she was telling me that my touch made her world safe. I was not merely a pair of hands that turned her in the direction of her food bowl at night. I was an important presence, that made her world whole. Despite what I had thought was an inability to connect with me, Leela still loves me.

That point was made several times that night, even after I returned her to the safety of her living room. She veered off into the bathroom, became "lost," and began to howl once again. She pressed against my feet when I was sitting at my desk or begged to be lifted into my lap. When she settled in between me and Yaddle that night, she sighed with contentment.

Now that I've been home for an entire day, Leela is fine. She's still sitting next to me or on my feet when I'm at my desk. She still trundles around the living room, air scenting everything and reassuring herself that it's all there. And, yet another lesson was difficult to learn. As much as I'd like to do a couple of longer dog shows this year, I won't be leaving her at Dan's any longer. For the rest of Leela's life, my stays away from home will be limited to the time that I can be confident that she will be fine by herself, whether it's one day, two days, or not at all. I made a commitment to her on that humid Louisiana evening that she came home to me. It's a commitment that I plan to stand by, even if it takes another 17 years.

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