Posted on October 13, 2011 by: WayCoolDogs

We called them the ‘hundred day dogs’ because they were brought in to board by their owner for three months. They were separated at first, but both pined so they ended up together in a cage and were quite content, although it was a bit of a squeeze, due to the fact that Tiger was, to put it gently, plump. I met the owner’s sister, who came in a few days later to see if they had settled in, and promised I would look after them, so each day after that, Tiger and Sheba were my first priority. I took them out together and they had very distinct personalities.

The only characteristic they shared was an absolute refusal to do anything in their cage, so as soon as the cage door was open, it was a mad scramble, and I had to be very sure of my footing on the flooring which was often slippery. Tiger was the worst, and he barely made it to the step down to the yard before he stopped dead and lifted his leg with such a look of relief on his face you had to forgive him. Sheba could hold it a little longer, but as soon as she felt grass under her paws that was it.

Having got rid of the necessities, it was time for the thank-yous, and Tiger was especially charming. He would stand beside me and lean into my thigh, looking up with such affection that I would be forced to bend down and hug him, bracing myself all the while because if I didn’t his body weight would push me right over. Other times, if I was sitting on the step, Tiger would manage to get his front paws up on my lap, looking very pleased with himself, and would stay there until the weight of his portly body began to give me pins and needles in the legs. Sheba wasn’t quite as needy, she would wait until we had walked around enough to get tired, and I had settled myself on an old metal chair frame topped with a slab of wood, and got out the grooming tools.

That’s when she would get dreamy. She loved to be combed as much as Tiger did and she would fix me with her deep, dark wolf-eyes, shivering with pleasure as the comb rippled through her fur. She definitely wore the pants in the family though, in spite of being a lot smaller. When we walked she was the one who pulled, while Tiger ambled along behind. In fact he was so laid back that one day he stopped to investigate an interesting smell, and the leash slipped off his neck as I walked on with Sheba. I had a moment of panic, but he just stopped and waited patiently for me to place it round his neck again.

Like all the others, they smelled me long before they could see me coming, and if for some reason I needed to do something else before walking them, they would raise the roof with their indignant barking, but I tried never to do that, since I knew they were holding on for dear life and waiting for me.

The week before they were to go home, Tiger had an accident and somehow got his paw stuck under one of the side walls of his metal cage. He was distressed and in pain, and Sheba didn’t know what to do to help. Fortunately the X ray didn’t show a break but there was quite a deep hole right in the joint.

They didn’t want me to take him out of the cage, because they said he wasn’t putting the foot on the ground, but they didn’t understand how important it was to him, so I sneaked and took them out anyway, and it didn’t surprise me at all that after a gentle walk with me he was putting a little weight on it, then a bit more each day, till by the time their owner came back from her trip and collected them, Tiger was doing much better.

 

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Guest Post by Cindi Scholefield, a volunteer at the local animal shelter in Kingston, Jamaica. For any donations to Cindi and her dogs, please send to:
Eunice Crompton-Nicholas
c/o
Harry Dufour
9330 Dunhill Drive
Miramar
Florida 33025-3869

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