Enjoying the mild spring weather, I was working with all the doors and windows in my house open. So when my dogs, who had free run of the house and backyard, started to bark at something, I looked out the window and saw a stray dog wandering around the front yard. He’s about 50 pounds, some sort of Kelpie/Cattle Dog-mix. I got up and went out the front door, and he ran off down the street. I almost started to look for a leash and treats, but I was busy, on deadline, so I went back to work. Ten minutes later, the barking started again, and there is the dog again.

I went outside again, this time with a leash and treats and Otto, my ambassador for loose dogs. Otto is big enough to handle himself with almost any dog, dog-savvy enough to not get into a fight with even a very rude dog, smart enough to run if the other dog is downright aggressive, and obedient enough that I can call him away from even a very intense greet-and-pee session. Nine times out of 10, I can open my side gate and the stray dog will follow Otto into my backyard. And then I can read the dog’s tag (if he has one) or call animal control.

The dog started to run again when I open my front door, but as soon as he saw Otto, he reversed direction and headed straight toward us, head and tail high. Oh good, there is a tag on his collar. I patted my leg and said, “Hey pup!” brightly, but he completely ignored me and fixated on Otto, leaning in to sniff Otto in a very forward fashion. Apparently Otto smelled GOOD, because two seconds later, the dog leaped onto Otto’s back, trying to hump him. Otto whirled around with a big, bear-like roaring growl and bark – “No WAY, buddy!” But the dog was like a laser-guided missile – completely ignoring me, and fixating on Otto’s nether end. He kept trying to jump up on Otto, who kept growl/snapping and whirling. Somehow, I managed to drop a slip-lead over his head and pulled him away from Otto. Whew!

Relieved to have the dog under control, Otto trotted a few yards away and peed on a tree. Seeing this, the dog immediately went into plow-horse mode, pulling with all his might to go pee on the tree, too.

This is not my favorite kind of dog: stray, intact, and so charged with testosterone and bad manners that he’s about to cause a fight, so eager is he to hump a neutered male dog 20 pounds bigger than he is.

I tied the dog to the tree, and put Otto in the house. Then I went back out and read the dog’s ID tag. Great! It had an address and a phone number; the address is just around the corner and up the block from me. I untied the leash and started walking that way, while using my cell phone to call the number on the tag.

The dog’s owner answered and seemed unsurprised to hear that the dog was out. He asked if I could put the dog back in his yard. Sure, no problem. I got to the house and approached the side gate, noting that there are “coyote rollers” on top of the six-foot fence – lengths of PVC pipe threaded onto a strand of wire fencing; the pipe rolls when a dog tries to jump/climb over the fence. It’s a smart solution that foils the escape plans of many dogs, but this dog obviously found some other way out. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to work, but I put the dog behind the fence and closed the gate.

By the time I reached my front porch, the dog was right behind me, eager for another encounter with Otto. Okay, plan B.

I opened my door, let Otto out, and when the dog started trying, again, to hump my increasingly annoyed dog, I got the lead slipped over the dog’s head again, and put Otto in the house. Thanks and sorry again, Otto!

I called the owner again. He told me that he called his young adult son and asked him to come home from work and and chain the dog up in the backyard. Ah! I said, I could have done that for you. He tells me, no problem, the son is on his way, should be home any minute.

I took the dog back to his house, and tied the leash to a post on the front porch. Another dog comes running to the side gate, a young Australian Cattle Dog-mix, female, maybe five or six months old. Cute! I waited for a few minutes, to see if the dog can handle being tied up. He laiddown on the shady porch, so I felt fine about walking away.

Five minutes later, the dog is on my porch again. Gah! He has his collar on still, and there is no stub of leash, so he didn’t slip the collar or chew his way free. I let Otto out of my house – bait dog! – and walk back toward the dog’s house, him trying to hump Otto the whole way. I am really not liking this dog!

Halfway there, I saw a young man who was obviously looking for the dog. He yelled the dog’s name, to no effect. “It’s okay,” I called to him, “we’re on the way!”

When we reached his front yard, the young man said the obvious: “I unsnapped the leash and he just took off!” He started grabbing at the dog, trying to get ahold of the dog’s collar and yelling the dog’s name. The dog ignored him like he ignored me; all he can think about is humping Otto. I managed to lasso the dog again. “Your dad told me you were going to chain him up? Where is the chain? I can take him there.”

The young man opened the gate and we all went into the very large backyard. There is a small chain-link pen back there, just four feet high, and the puppy was now in there. The young man led the way to a spot where a long cable is fastened to a tree. I clipped it onto the dog’s collar and then Otto and I backed out of the dog’s range. The guy was thanking me, rushing around; he had to get back to work.

I looked around. Lots of stuff for the cable to get wrapped around. Lots of holes where the dog has dug. No water. I said, “Is there a bucket or something for water?” The guy looked around and grabbed a five-gallon bucket, and started to run some water into it. He was grumbling about the dog, and how he’s annoyed because the dog is going to teach his dog, the puppy, some bad habits. I said, “Well, first thing, get the darn dog neutered! He will be less likely to be so obsessed with escaping – and he won’t get your little female pregnant!”

The guys says, “Well, we were going to breed them!”

I was incredulous, but kept my tone teasing and playful. “Why the heck would you do that? Neither one is a purebred, and he’s an a**hole!”

He responded with something about them both being working stock dogs. Uh huh. Here in town. Okay, good luck, and have a nice day.

FIRST THING this morning, the dog was on my front porch, whining for Otto. I got a leash on him and walked him back to his house, and knocked on the door. No one home. Little dogs barking inside. Then I took him back to my house, tied him to the tree out front again, and called animal control. An officer came right over to pick up the dog.

I feel a little bad for not calling the owner again; his number is still in my cell phone. But maybe a ticket or two will inspire him to take more serious measures to contain the dog. And neuter him!

The May 2015 issue of Whole Dog Journal contains two in-depth articles about the venomous snakes in North America that are potentially dangerous or deadly to dogs. The main article discusses the rattlesnake vaccine and antivenom treatments, as well as practical tips for avoiding snakes and emergency first-aid for snake bites. The second article discusses snake-avoidance training methods that do not involve shock collars. Subscribers to the WDJ can check out these articles and more at wholedogjournal.com — and in the hard copy of the magazine, in their mailboxes now.

However, we ran out of room in the issue to discuss another important : Discussion of the evidence that venomous snakes may be developing increased toxicity.

In 2008, toxicologists at the Banner Poison Control Center in Phoenix, Arizona, one of the nation’s busiest poison centers treating rattlesnake bites, warned emergency physicians of a troubling trend.

“Over the last five or six years, we have noticed an increased incidence of critically ill rattlesnake bite patients being admitted to our service,” wrote Dr. Steven Curry, the center’s Director of Medical Toxicology. “The collective clinical findings in these patients mimic aspects of anaphylaxis and commonly include one or more of the following: rapid collapse within a few minutes of being bitten; hypotension and shock, commonly requiring epinephrine; rapid, profound third-spacing of fluids with hypovolemia and hemoconcentration, sometimes with only minimal or absent swelling; swelling or angioedema of the lips, tongue and throat, sometimes requiring emergency airway management; and profound weakness and/or diarrhea.”

Toxicologists could not say why so many bite victims experienced severe and life-threatening symptoms. In the few cases where physicians with Banner Poison Control Center were able to examine the snake responsible, it was a Mojave rattlesnake. However, in most cases, the rattlesnake was not identified.

“We never recommend that any attempt be made to capture or kill the offending snake because of the danger involved,” Dr. Curry said. “Therefore, we don’t know that Mojave rattlesnakes alone are responsible for an increasing frequency of severely envenomated patients.

“Physician toxicologists with Banner Poison Control Center have admitted about 50 to 75 rattlesnake bite patients annually for nearly 30 years,” Dr. Curry added. “Prior to 2002, we saw patients with the above findings about once every two or three years. Now we see several of these patients each year, and have recently become aware of similar patients in nearby states.”

Dr. Curry and his colleagues have communicated with poison center toxicologists in Tucson, Arizona, Southern California, and Colorado, where similar trends have been observed.

In June 2012, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that in and around San Diego, California, rattlesnake bites were increasing in frequency and becoming more dangerous. The article quoted Dr. Richard Clark, director of the Division of Medical Toxicology at the University of California San Diego Health System and medical director for the San Diego office of the California Poison Control System. “While San Diego County is seeing a rise in snake bite cases each year,” he explained, “the more alarming factor is the toxicity of the bite. The symptoms and wounds we’re seeing are worse than in the past. Some speculate that with the modern world encroaching on nature, it could be survival of the fittest. Perhaps only the strongest, most venomous snakes survive.”

All the more reason to exercise caution in any area known for its rattlesnakes.

Sorry if this is the fifth time in the past year that we’ve run a reminder in either the magazine, the blog, or the Facebook page, but here goes:

To give your dog the best chance of survival in a car accident, you really have to have him or her in a crate that is solidly fastened into the car, or seat-belted in a proper harness, one that has been independently crash-tested and approved by the Center for Pet Safety (CPS). For more reasons why you should use only a product that has been evaluated by this group, see our January 2015 article, “Restraining Order: Our Car Safety Harness Recommendation.” (Current subscribers can read all past issues online at no extra charge; the link is here: https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/care/collars-harnesses-leashes-muzzles/whole-dog-journals-car-safety-harness-recommendation/
).

I was at my local shelter on Saturday, helping someone adopt a dog, one I’d fostered for less than a day. A month or so ago I’d seen a photo of “Jacks” on the shelter website, and thought, “Cute! He looks like (my dog) Otto’s Mini-me!” Then I saw him in person at the shelter last week, when I walked the shelter aisles while waiting to speak to a friend who works there. Again, I thought he was such a cutie, and wondered why it was taking him so long to get snapped up. So when I had some time the other day, I went to the shelter, and signed him out as a foster dog. I took him for a walk with a friend and our combined four other dogs, and he was excellent, so well-behaved and well-socialized. I gave him a bath, took a few pictures, put them on my Facebook page, and by the next morning, heard from someone who wanted to meet him. Yay! We met, and before it was noon, we were at the shelter and the lovely young woman was adopting him. Yay!

But while I was in the lobby of the shelter, waiting for the very busy staff to go over the adoption papers with Jacks’ new owner, I started talking to another lady who was waiting for help from the shelter staff. She was from Oregon, and the day before, she told me, she was driving through the area on her way to a wedding, when she was in a traffic accident on the highway. Her car rolled over and was totaled. In the crash, she told me, she hit her head hard enough that the ambulance crew insisted that she be taken by ambulance to a local hospital. Her car was towed, and her dog, who was in a crate fastened in the back of the car, was taken to the shelter by California Highway Patrol officers. Thank goodness! The dog was only bruised, but otherwise unharmed – and so was she, as it turns out. She had been released by the hospital that morning, and one of her adult sons had picked her up from the hospital and had driven her to the shelter to get her dog. Ack! I started crying in the shelter lobby, completely caught up in her tale, and completely sympathizing with her anxiety as she waited for the staff to go get her dog out of the kennels in the back and return him to her!

As stressed as she was all night and all that morning, waiting to hear how her dog was, and WHERE he was, and waiting to get him returned to her, she was lucky; if her dog had been loose in the car, he may well have been smashed up or sustained a broken neck in the car during the crash, thrown from the car in the crash, or jumped out of one of the car’s broken windows after the crash. In the minutes immediately after the accident, had he been loose, he may have run from the car in a panic, and gotten lost or, worse, hit by another car on the highway. Thank goodness he was in a crate that was properly fastened into the car!!

If you haven’t taken steps to protect your dog in your car, please do it now! Any time your dog goes on the road with you, he should be wearing ID with current contact information, and should be either seat-belted into the car (with a proper harness) or in a crate that is properly fastened.

My stepson and daughter-in-law have a son, who will be three years old in May. Their whole family moved to my town a year ago, so I’ve been spending a lot of time in my new role as Nana.

When my own son was about the same age as my grandson, my mother accomplished the lion’s share of his potty-training over the course of a single weekend, using M&Ms as rewards for “going in the potty.” So I feel a certain amount of responsibility to “pay it forward” to my stepson and his wife, to help in the potty training of their toddler son, who is exasperating everyone with his inconsistent interest in “going in the potty.”

Because they have to get to work at a set time, and I work at home, I have been spending the past few mornings with the toddler, so he’s neither being rushed to perform, so to speak, nor making them late for work by “going” exactly as they are all marching out the door for daycare and work. I declared that I would spend every morning this week with him so I could be ready to “catch him in the act” of pooping, or, preferably, announcing that he has to poop or is about to poop, so I can rush him to a potty and have him “go” there. (Pee-pee has not been a problem. This is all about #2.) Then I could take him to daycare.

Yesterday morning, he was playing in the backyard of my house, wearing shoes and a shirt and nothing else. We were on potty-watch. Suddenly, with NO WARNING WHATSOEVER, he stood still and started to poop. I swooped in, exclaiming, “Liam! You have to tell Nana when you have to poop! Let’s get to the potty!” I carried him – fast but at arm’s length, like an inexperienced TV uncle – about 20 strides into the house, and put him on the toilet. He finished pooping there, and yay! We started celebrating. “Yay Liam! You went poo poo in the potty! That’s so good! Let’s wash our hands and get some M&Ms!” He was happy and proud, and so was I. This is the first time anyone has managed to get him onto a toilet seat at poop time. So we only got the last half of the poop; we can improve!

We cleaned up, washed our hands, and still celebrating, trotted out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, where I grabbed the bribery bag of candy and gave him a small handful. Then I went outside with a plastic bag, to clean up what Liam left out there.

But it wasn’t there.

Tito the Chihuahua WAS, however. Standing in the spot where the warm poop had so recently been, licking his lips. AAAACCCKKKK! I screamed. Liam, thinking we still celebrating, screamed happily, too. AAACCCCKKK!

I know that some dogs eat poop. And though I don’t want to think about it in graphic terms, I know that my own dogs have eaten deer poop, horse poop, and the like. I’ve never SEEN them eat cat poop, it might happen, but I have no evidence of this and so I am happy to imagine it doesn’t. And I’ve never owned a dog that ate dog poop, though I feel for people whose dogs do this. This, though – oh my. I have to admit: It has changed the way I feel about Tito. Time may heal this wound, obscure the memory somewhat, but for right now, I could not be more grossed out by my own dog.

Tell me your dogs have done worse, and you’ve gotten past it?