Maisie

As those who read this blog know, we lost Sherman last October.  It was painful, and we grieved quietly, unlike dog nuts who make their grief public.  I don't know what happened to Sherman after he died, but I don't expect there was a rainbow bridge involved. 

For as sad an event as it was for us, it was probably more traumatic on Custer.  That sounds like hyperbole, but  Cus was bereft for two months after Sherman passed.  He moped, he was listless, he just wasn't the same dog.  Karen and I noticed it immediately and debated what to do to snap him out of it.  Fortunately, we'd anticipated Sherman's passing -- although we thought we might have another year with him -- and we'd considered our options.

Because Karen's plugged into the bulldog network, she went to work looking for dogs we could adopt.  We quickly learned just how controlled the bulldog adoption world was, being stonewalled by neighboring states' adoption sites because of some weird reciprocity respect that prevents people from one state adopting bulldogs in another state. 

We next turned to getting a puppy, but the timing wasn't right on a couple of different levels, not the least of which was my impending surgery.  Getting a puppy is something we look forward to doing, but now wasn't the right time.

So Karen then contacted people she knew in the bulldog breeding industry and an option presented itself.  A breeder in a neighboring state had a friend in Kansas whose teenaged daughter had recently died.  Due to the circumstances, the Kansan has a dog that she was ready to give up.  All we'd have to do is pay for her gas to meet us at the breeder's house and, if the dog and Custer got along, she'd be ours.

Yes, it was a girl.

Margo, as she was then known, had been a show dog who retired to being bred.  She was done breeding and, according to the Kansan, had just the disposition for which we were looking.  She was calm and quiet, got along with other dogs and was good with families.  Karen and I discussed it and decided the Custer needed someone, so as long as this dog got along with him, we'd be taking her.  They also offered us another dog, a boy named Lucky, but he was seven-years-old.  Margo was five-years-old, and since we had our 'druthers, we preferred Margo if for no other reason that we stood less of a chance of losing both dogs around the same time.

On December 10, we make the trek to the breeder's home and met Margo.  She's small -- a runt really -- and quiet.  The boy, Lucky, was happy-go-lucky like Custer, but he had this weird breathing thing and was a little on the heavy side.  Margo obviously watched her girlish figure. 

After some back and forth, we decided to take Margo.  She was understandably skittish, not sure what was going on, but otherwise all right.  Custer was indifferent.  We figured since he didn't get in a fight with her, it was fine.

We brought her back home and immediately realized there was a problem with Margo.  First, she ran around like a cat, slinking low to the ground and fast, very fast.  She would also hide behind furniture.  It wasn't until later that Karen discovered that Margo suffered from kennel syndrome, or a condition that results from having been in a kennel all her life without knowing what it's like to be outside of one.

The day of my surgery I took her out to do her business and she decided it was a fine time to explore the neighborhood.  Given that I was facing a hip replacement in a few hours, this wasn't an opportune time for her to do so.  She played ring-around-the-rosey with the neighbor's pole barn and eventually ran into me, otherwise we might have lost her.

She's doing better now after a round of what we call crazy pills.  These pills, prescribed by a veterinarian, don't alter the brain's chemistry but calm down the panic urge quite a bit.  She's still a little weird, but she is sweet.

Her favorite times of day are early in the morning and right before bedtime at night.  When she goes out to do her business in the morning, she runs at me after she's finished and launches herself at me like a missile.  At night, same thing.  Then she runs into her bed and sits upright at attention as if she's going to be called on to answer a question.  She is undoubtedly sweet. 

We decided to change her name from Margo to Maisie early on because Margo sounded too much like Let's go, which is the command to which she answers when we go outside, and because we got tired of calling her while she was still in her crazy stage.  Unfortunately, Maisie also rhymes with hazy and crazy, so we doubt she'll ever shake that label.

Custer abides her, but just barely.  He will not hesitate to bark at her for some alleged transgression, and he's still as jealous and possessive as he was with Sherman.

Maisie isn't a replacement as much as she is a place holder.  She's coming into her own, and she's very sweet and loving.

I just wish she weren't so crazy...or hazy...

(c) 2017 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles