By the next morning, both Mither and Babycat were settling in to their new digs at our house. The previous evening, after we met the hauler at a truck stop, we brought them home and introduced them, muzzled and one-by-one, to our pack: three retired racing Greyhounds, one young Saluki boy, one old man Afghan Hound, a middle-aged, mixed breed of unknown heritage, and, finally, one formerly stray Italian Greyhound who, by our veterinarian’s reckoning, is at least 15 years old.
Despite being toothless, deaf, blind, having no thyroid function, chronic irritable bowel disease, disc disease in her neck, and a chronic yeast infection of the skin, the IG is a happy little dog.
I can well imagine that having come off a 1500-mile haul, only to be confronted by this wild assortment of characters, the two travelers from Oklahoma would rightfully be a bit overwhelmed. In the past, I’ve had foster dogs that barked, howled, cried, whined, and generally made pests of themselves the first night.
However, mother and daughter slept soundly through the night and polished off a large breakfast the next day with no difficulty. Perhaps they knew they’d need to muster their strength for what other oddities might lay ahead.
What lay ahead, on paper at least, was a trip to the veterinarian’s office for a well-dog visit. They were then to be left there for boarding and to be spayed when space opened up in the practice’s schedule. Inwardly, I was already weakening on that first point. I knew a scant twelve hours, eight of which were spent asleep, was not enough time to judge the character of these two dogs.
I didn’t let that stop me, though. To me, it seemed better both financially and from a humanitarian standpoint, to keep them at home with us until their surgeries. In other words, the two Greyhounds were already getting under my skin.
Mither was a joy from the moment I watched her leap out of the hauling rig. Here was a true athlete who, despite having been off the track for five years, nonetheless managed to execute the jump not just with precision, but with an amazing fluidity of motion. She accomplished it with such grace and dignity that it took my breath away.
The English major in me also saw it figuratively, as a leap of faith. Mither was jumping into the unknown and doing so with confidence and enthusiasm. There was no hesitation, no trepidation. Mither was up for whatever challenges were ahead and she seemed certain that she was going to land on all four paws.
Babycat was in every way her mother’s opposite. There was to be no leaping on her part, either literally or figuratively. She was curled into a tight ball of fear and seemed to embody the old Irish expression, “Better the divil you know than the one you don’t.” She may not have liked the truck, but she was sure she liked it better than whatever was outside the truck. Her previous experiences in life had been limited to interactions with her littermates on the farm in Oklahoma. She knew nothing of the outside world, yet came to the conclusion that this sudden change in what was familiar could not possibly be good. As I wrote in my last column, she had to be pried out of her hole and carried to our car.
Once inside, Babycat never lifted her head, not even to see that it was her own mother who was accompanying her. I saw her actions as an example of the way many of us behave when confronted with something new: we shut down and make snap decisions without first examining or exploring the new event or idea.
Both dogs had been though exactly the same trip, both were dropped off to us, and both were riding comfortably in our car. Yet their reactions could not have been more different. Mither was already more than halfway convinced that good things were ahead. Babycat, though, was resigned to her own negative view of the world. I could feel my determination growing that, one way or another, I was going to prove to Babycat that life could indeed be a bed of roses.
That morning, as Charles and I drove the mother and daughter pair to the veterinarian’s office, I broached the subject of fostering them. “Are you asking me or telling me?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Neither,” I replied. “I just want to discuss it.” “What’s to discuss?” he said. “They’re our new project, aren’t they?” I said no more, but I knew that for many different reasons, these two were not only our new project, but also our new dogs.
During their veterinary examinations, everything seemed to be going off without a hitch until we came to their mouths. I actually could smell Mither’s terrible breath in the car before I even had a chance to look at her teeth.
Once she was elevated on the veterinarian’s table, though, I began to see the full extent of the source: decay, broken teeth, plaque, tartar and infected gums. At the age of nine years, it looked as if Mither had never had any dental care in her life. If she could be optimistic and cheerful under those circumstances, she was a great soul indeed.
At only sixteen months of age, I assumed Babycat’s teeth would merely need a bit of polishing; but I was wrong. A close examination revealed that a foreign object was jammed up between two of her teeth causing an abscess. Further, it was affecting her sinuses and causing her eyes to weep a small amount of greenish pus.
Apparently, and we’ll never know for sure, she had chewed on something, probably a stick, and a splinter of wood broke off below the gum line. So what I thought would be a routine procedure for her would be a bit more complicated than expected. Both dogs were sent home with antibiotics and scheduled for spays and dentals a month later.
Mither’s dental actually ended up being done in two installments. Her dental problems were so severe that it would have taken too long to accomplish in conjunction with a spay. The photos accompanying this article, taken at the veterinarian’s office, show her mouth before and after. You can see clearly that although her teeth are cleaner in the ‘after’ photo, there are still exposed roots, and broken teeth.
In the end, two months later, she had 21 teeth removed, leaving her with just five today. She is livelier than ever and eats like a champ. But the physical toll on her, and the financial toll on us, was considerable. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Mither deserved better preventive treatment for her mouth than what she got.
Babycat’s dental also became more involved. Not only did she have an abscess, but an x-ray revealed that the splinter of wood had also fractured the roots of two teeth. They were removed, and the rest of her mouth was cleaned and polished. While she still has a way to go emotionally, she no longer hangs her head, and her eyes have cleared up, too. Who knows how much of her introverted personality was brought on by one whopper of a toothache?
Next month: More progress, and the pair are officially adopted.
Cynthia Branigan is the author of the best-selling book “Adopting the Racing Greyhound” and the award-winning book “The Reign of the Greyhound." She is the founder and president of Make Peace With Animals, an all-volunteer adoption group that has placed over 5,000 Greyhounds since 1988. Comments on this column are welcome; send to FromTheHomeFront@Verizon.net>
