Gone to the Dogs: Skye's Arrival

 For almost a month and a half now we have been a two-dog household. 

Skye's owner had a situation that made keeping her untenable, and she had heard how well Canéla had done with us since adopting her in 2021 and hoped we would be able to re-house her. 

Truth be told, we are okay being a one-dog home, but with Fenya and Bobby recently moving to a pet-friendly building in Toronto, there was an opportunity here to get this 16 lb allegedly Havanese mutt into a nice situation in another province.

After some false starts and an apparently heartbreaking departure from her other home, Skye (yes, same as the one in Paw Patrol) joined us on October 24. 

She is a sweetie, but knowing she was an impulse purchase from the pet store in West Edmonton Mall that closed down suddenly years ago may go some way to explaining not only the cryptic nature of her breed (as she looks almost nothing like a Havanese and probably has as much Cuban blood as I do) but also some of her various neuroses.

Oh yes, she is a cute one, but not without issues.

For openers, she has a distaste for being alone that borders on psychosis, snuffing under closed doors until becoming borderline hypoxic, and scratching relentlessly at the kitchen door when we were trying to limit her travels to linoleum while we assessed her housetraining.

She also did not let the fact that she is less than 15 pounds stop her from tearing down a metal baby gate we had set up for the same purpose.

Her parkour skills make containment difficult as well - she is fully capable of jumping onto Glory's bed which is actually an inch higher than the kitchen table. But while we have never seen her go directly from the floor to the table, she has traversed the living room floor to the love seat to the recliner back and over the room divider onto the kitchen table several times now.

Housetraining-wise, while we were told she was pee-pad trained, the two times she has used the ones set out here in the past 40-odd days can probably be dismissed as random chance, and she has been known to drop onto them for a nap as well, so...

But the worst experience came the day after her arrival; perhaps an hour after Glory suggested putting a pool noodle or something under the wooden gate in the back yard, Skye got out, presumably under said gate, which I had suggested was physically impossible.

This prompted a frantic, hour-long search for her by Audrey and I, first on foot, then in two separate vehicles, catching and then losing sight of her in the neighbourhood and being told by a lovely lady who drove over from Griesbach to help catch her that she saw Skye on Castledowns Road.

The feeling of helplessness and anguish, coupled with the thought of telling Fenya and Bobby that we had lost their new pet before they even met her threw my guts into turmoil. By chance, I saw others chasing her in a residential area nearly 2 km from our home and roared down the street to cut her off. 

Blue icon in upper right is our place, red pin is where I found her

It still took another ten minutes to actually catch her, with her dodging and outrunning four of us. Once I picked her up though, she snuggled closely into my neck, which prompted an "aww" from one of the pursuers and a comment of, "guess we know who the dad is" from another.

This prompted an hour of securing the yard with a wooden board on the gate and krazy karpets threaded between the iron fence railings before I collapsed in an exhausted but relieved heap.

It is tough not to feel some sense of rejection when this happens, but it really is natural; Skye had not been with us even 24 hours when this happened, and naturally there would be a compulsion to return to the former home. But since then things have adjusted pretty well around here for the most part.

We have abandoned attempts to have her sleep in the kennel as she would scratch at the gate and bark for up to two hours before finally falling asleep. Since none of us seem to be allergic, it has just been easier to let her sleep in our bed, which is only really a challenge when Canéla jostles with her for space or is surprised by Skye in the night. This dog has a deep-seated need to be as close to humans as possible (preferably Audrey, who now routinely leads a parade of dogs around the house like a Disney princess).

Canéla, meanwhile, has done a very decent job adjusting to having another dog in the house, although she clearly wants Skye to engage in more play with her (but maybe she doesn't know how? many of her behaviours are more cat-like, frankly). There are some small traces of jealousy and maybe even pouting on Canéla's part, but on the whole, she has been gentle and accommodating with her new roommate. Skye has only recently begun playing with the various dog toys we have around, but that may have been a physical issue as well.  

It turns out that Skye's diet was almost exclusively boiled chicken, and this meant her teeth were neither getting scraped by kibble or biscuits nor cleaned at the vet. As a result, we recently discovered the poor thing has an abscessed molar that is infected and needs to be removed, along with 7-9 other teeth. The vet we took her to says she may not have chewed on the infected side of her mouth for 6 months to a year but is now gamely eating kibble mixed with soft food (to make sure she gets enough eaten with her antibiotics). 

Despite all her neuroses, Skye is not a complainer, so who knows how much this discomfort might be impacting her behaviour? I never saw her pick up a toy until after starting on antibiotics. Maybe we haven't even met the real dog yet, who is already established as being a bit of a character.

The original plan was for Fenya and Bobby to take Skye back with them in November, as they came to Edmonton for his Master's convocation (congrats again Bobby!), but they have had no luck finding anyone who could keep her over the Christmas holidays while we are all in Texas together. Currently, it looks like Skye will stay with us before and after Christmas, and hopefully, Bobby's family can take her in while we are away.

But even if that doesn't work out, I am confident we can find someone to house her for ten days or so; she is pretty undeniably cute, after all. Who wouldn't want to assist a helpless dog with a smile like this?