The Waiting (Room) Game - Canine Edition

Sleeping with a dog like Canéla in the room can be a challenge at times. While she will begrudgingly depart our bed for her own when we ask her too (often voicing her displeasure with a low, rumbling growl), and on occasion even remove herself after lights out, she fully believes she can reserve the right to unilaterally resituate herself on our queen-sized mattress at pretty much any time she wishes. And if we are sound asleep, oftentimes it turns out she is correct.

Friday morning at 3:40 am, however, she was whimpering on the floor loudly enough that it woke me up. This wasn't the soft cries of bad dreams that we find so unsettling during the day, but sounds of stress and discomfort. She was also at the foot of our bed, not in her own, which was unusual behaviour.

Thinking she needed to go to outside, and got up and led her to the back door, but noticed her walk was much more stiff-legged and awkward than her usual loping gait. After opening the back door, she proceeded gingerly down the back steps and towards the grass.

When I came back from my own washroom break, it looked like she was trying to poop but unable to, and her back legs were visibly shaking. She stopped trying, and then her long legs seemed to fold up under her and she lay down on the cool, damp grass - also unlike her.

I thought perhaps we was taking a short break or perhaps cooling off, but when she didn't get up after a few minutes, I opened the door again and whistled. 

Other than turning her head to look at the open door, she didn't move. 

I put on my jacket and went outside in my Crocs, bending down and scratching her behind the ears. I stood up, clapped my hands and pointed to the back step, inviting her back in. 

She looked at me with an expression I couldn't fathom.

I ended up picking her up and carrying her into the house and setting her on the loveseat in the living room. Glory was up by now and I explained my level of concern, which had been rising consistently since being awakened. Glory checked her legs and paws while I fetched a bowl of water, but didn't find any sore spots or injuries, and Canéla turned up her nose at the water I offered her.

With my concern reaching peak levels, I went back the bedroom for my iPad and sat in the recliner next to her, glad to see her rest her head at the armrest so she could see me. I saw there were a number of 24-hour vet clinics I could bring her to if needed, but she didn't seem to be in any distress at the moment, so Glory and I agreed that wait and see was probably the prudent approach. I texted the happenings to the family Instagram chat and headed back to bed, where sleep eluded me for at least another 1-2 hours. Was my pet's issue neurological? Parvovirus? Cancer? 

I found out after I woke up that when Glory got up for her 7:30 am shift at Grey Nuns, the dog was laying on the floor outside her door. Glory let her out, and the morning pattern repeated itself - she ended up carrying Canéla back in and laying her on her own bed, with more room to stretch out. Somehow the same incident repeating made the entire situation more worrisome.

Audrey wanted our own vet in Spruce Grove to look at her instead of taking her to an emergency clinic but they didn't open until 8:30. I called in to work to let them know I would be absent and went back to sleep for a few minutes, but when I called, I discovered they were booked solid for the day and recommended I take her in right away (somewhere else).

So I ended up carrying her out to the Lander (where she had exactly enough strength in her limbs to walk across the comfy blanket I had laid out and onto the opposite rear seat, where she collapsed in a heap), and driving her to Boreal Veterinary Centre, across from the Humane Society on 137 Avenue.

It is a new facility (2 years old this summer), with three of the four receptionsit stations crewed so I could see one right away. They got her checked in quickly and even lent me a leash, since I left the house in such a state that bringing one hadn't even occurred to me.

Canéla walked under her own power to the waiting area until she could be triaged, with her tail tucked and feet skittering uncertainly along the slick floor. She lay down beside my chair in a clear state of apprehension, only rarely letting her head rest on her paws, but not once expressing any interest in or barking at the other people or dogs in the centre. 

It did not take long for a tech to come in and assess Canéla, concurring that the limbs seemed all right, and although her temperature was the high end of normal, her heart and respiration were pretty normal. With her being classified as stable, we would basicaly enter the queue of non-emergency cases, and would be bumped if more pressing cases presented themselves. She advised it we likely be a 2-3 hour wait, which I said was fine and understandable.

We walked back to the waiting area, and after about an hour she stood up and pulled for the door, the most initiative I had seen her take all day. I took her out to their spacious lawn and watched her struggle to excrete a tiny bit of diarrhea, and then let her lead us back to the Lander. 

She seemed must more restful curled up on the back seat than laying on the hard floor inside, so we stayed out for a couple more hours, driving away briefly so I could get some drive-thru for lunch. After eating, I took her back on the lawn with no result, but did get to see her drink a little water from the makeshift tuna can dish I keep in the vehicle.

After three and a half hours, I was growing a little uncomfortable and a bit impatient, but when a young man in his twenties walked by with (presumably) his father, his eyes puffy and cheeks flushed and tear-stained, I overheard him asking if their pet was going to be cremated here. Reminded that these premises contained far worse things than waiting, I opened my iPad and returned to reading. 

It was five hours before we were shown into an examination room, and the lights actually turned off once and I had to flap my arms to reinstate them before the vet arrived . She introduced herself as Milla and apologized for the long wait. She explained there had been an influx of more serious cases and status changes that had kept all the staff hopping.

Despite the stresses of the day, she was delightful and friendly, and plied Canéla with treats while conducting her examination. I held her collar while the vet checked her temperature at the other end, and she noted it had actually increased another tenth of a degree, but wasn't too concerned about it. 

She confirmed the diarrhea and largely ruled out constipation based on palping the dog's abdomen, and suggesting an x-ray to confirm was probably unnecessary. In the end, she suggested that the diarrhea must have taken enough of a toll on Canéla to exhaust her early in the morning, and while she couldn't make a determination as to cause, we agreed that "digestive misadventure" was not out of the question.

She suggested a pre-probiotic paste but not only wrote out a prescription for antibiotics just in case (so we wouldn't have to come back in if her condition worsened), but also asked if she could give Canéla a quick ultrasound to make sure there was no fluid around her heart (something that had happened with another case) for no charge. The emergency exampination and medicine came to less than $250. The dog not only walked back to the car but jumped in on her own this time; she was still for the rest of the ride home though.

Friday night Canéla had a few accidents downstairs, and today the backyard evidence suggests she is still pretty unsettled so we are switching from kibble to beef and rice (there's a reason it's a classic)to see if that helps. But she is jumping on and off the bed again under her own power, which is a relief to see, and acting a little more like herself every hour it seems.

And if nothing else, it is good to know that there is a 24-hour animal hospital just down the road that already has "Kanela" on file if we need to go there in a hurry...but I am okay if we never go back either.

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?

Cold Weather Comeback

Last Thursday night saw a significant shuffling of cars and unraveling of extension cords in our household, as the overnight low approached 40 below zero, Celsius.

The Jeep that Glory drives to work at the diner was booked in for emissions recall the next morning, and the block heater cord on the Flex had been torn off somehow prior to the previous winter. This meant the older Ford needed to be brought into the garage and the Jeep plugged in out front to ensure both vehicles would start the next day (which, mercifully, both did).

Having the day off felicitated this, a trip to Costco, and the ability to pick Glory up at the end of her school day so she wouldn't have to wait at the bus stop in weather bitterly cold even for Edmonton.

Less than 24 hours later, however, it had warmed up enough that Canéla and I actually made it to the dog park for the first time this week. The cold and snow required dressing her up in her jacket and boots ("Muttlucks"), something she is not fond of in the slightest, but which was achieved without bloodshed.

The wind kept it a bit below -20° C, but once we passed through the double gate at Lauderdale Off-Leash Park, she spent most of her time there on the run, playing with several other dogs (for a change).

I've been bringing the clicker and treat bag with me to try to improve her recall, and while I don't appreciate how much more food-motivated she appears to be these days (not leaving strangers who have given her treats, etc.), watching her come running towards me is still pretty rewarding.

There are so many more important things to talk about at the moment that it honestly feels quasi-irresponsible to spend one of my weekly blog posts talking about simple successes and basic joy despite the best efforts of the cold. 

But all the important stuff - the Alberta Sovereignty Act, the growing healthcare crisis, the enabling of fascists and anti-democracy types in social media and elsewhere - they all make me angry, and there are enough other, smarter, people writing about them that taking time to focus on a happy dog running to me across the snow felt like the right choice after a really enjoyable weekend.

Canéla’s First Year-End Review

Hi Canéla, come in and sit down. Sit. Yes, sit. 

There you go - good girl. I see you brought Douglas with you; that's fine, emotional support stuffies are a longstanding tradition in this house.

So you have been with us for a year now, a year as of... [rustles paper] January 24th! Wow, time really does fly when you are having fun. And I hope it has been fun for you too, but this annual review is a chance to look at the year that was, celebrate achievements and, you know, look for opportunities to improve.

You certainly have come a long way from the underfed mongrel we picked up in Canmore, that's for sure! You barely stuck your head out from the kennel on the trip home, and you snapped at Glory that night too. No, no, there are no hard feelings - you had given ample warning, we were just too unfamiliar with you to pick them up.

There were some concerns about allergies at first, but those all seem to have worked themselves out, because we all felt like you were worth the effort. You took to housetraining very quickly and have only had one indoor incident in the past six months - good girl! Let's see if we can go twelve in a row, eh?

With house training largely sorted, the next big opportunity is - well, how to phrase this... you can be a bit of a maniac, can't you? At the dog park you are generally very polite and good about greeting and playing with other dogs, but if you are on the leash, you leap and bark and snarl and sound generally like a daemonic werewolf. 

And heaven help us if you see a rabbit while you are on a leash! Last March you pulled me off my feet and my shoulder was out of sorts for eight weeks.

No, it is fine now, thank you, and no hard feelings - it was icey, after all.

You are also a little hard on your toys - yes, even Douglas - and your depredations often require intercessionary stitching by Audrey. But honestly, they are your toys, so it is hard to find fault with them being used as intended.

Also, I have to confess I find some of the places you choose to sleep in or the poses you sleep in to be unsettling as well.

But perhaps you have as little choice in this as we do. Mostly I am glad you are able to find comfort in our home, given that such coziness was inaccessible to you for much of your life.

Still, the organization is really hoping you take some time to reflect and can perhaps focus on not losing your damned mind when another dog comes within half-a-block of the house. Yes, we, will make allowances for rabbits that have the unmitigated temerity to sit on your front lawn.; I agree, that they should never feel welcome nor comfortable. What's that? Open the door just once, you say.

Sorry, dear - not a chance.

But honestly, that is about it - you don't chew things you aren't supposed to, you reserve your biting for playtime, mostly, anyhow, and you aren't too much of a mooch in the kitchen.

You are a boon companion during my workdays as well, even if you do get a little pushy if I need to work past noon. And how do you tell? You have shown no interest in clocks and wear no timepiece that I am aware of. Anyways, thank you for those times that you have displayed patience,even begrudgingly.

You have come from being somewhat aloof to being a creature that enjoys contact, plopping down for a cuddle whenever there is an open seat or space on the bed you can squeeze yourself into. There have been a few incidents where you have been disturbed when half-asleep and have responded with the fiercest of growls, though. And let me tell you, if I am getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, that kind of fearsome startling is not something I appreciate!

But I do enjoy our lunchtime walks (when it isn't terrifyingly cold or treacherously slippery) and I know Audrey enjoys her time with you at the Lauderdale off-leash park.

And not everyone is into dogs, but those who are certainly seem to appreciate you. I know my cousin Parker really enjoyed roughhousing with you and taking you for walks over Christmas.

And of course, we were presently surprised that you were able to graduate your training session last summer - once there were no other dogs present. Perhaps we will revisit that at some point in the future, eh?

At any rate, you have been a boon companion this past year, and we look forward to the next one together.

Shake?

Good girl.

Canine Soliloquy

I am sorry if this is startling to you, but it is probably past time that you were made aware that your dog can speak, and it is certainly past time that we spoke.

Well, not speak, per se - it is actually a limited form of asynchronous thought-sharing that canines like myself can achieve upon sufficient exposure to another specific creature, even a biped, under certain special conditions.

No, not telepathy either. I am not able to read your thoughts and much of what you convey in other ways - vocal volume and pitch, mannerisms, body language, and scent - is completely unintelligible to me. Colour? Money? Delayed gratification? These concepts are a closed book to me and my kind.

But I saw you watching me this afternoon at the fenced dog meadow we go to on most days, and I thought you should know that you are correct: dogs can smell through time.

As you are no doubt aware, the canine sense of smell is not only astonishing in its sensitivity but also staggering in its scope. I mean, it only makes sense that a species such as mine, with both its body structure and brain oriented around its olfactory system as well as a predatory nature should excel at tracking other living things. Turning our preying instincts into a means of tracking shared food or human fugitives was a masterstroke of interspecies communication on the part of your kind! Moving from food and capture to the detection of illicit and bad-smelling substances is just grist for the mill at this point.

But if I understand correctly, you have only recently begun to explore how we can somehow detect unwanted malignancies that your tools and devices are unable to find. True, it is not easy or common, but if you were to suffer from the disease-that-eats, there is a good chance I would know - but I don't know that I could make you understand me. Death is also less critical of an event to me and my kind, except when it is actually happening, for reasons that are likely to become obvious.

Now, it is unknown if we smell the disease itself, or if its effects make it detectable in you somehow, or, as I have theorized, if we are able to detect the tragic shortening of time the eating disease causes.

We canines have a different sense of time altogether than you bipeds, experiencing it in a far more holistic and comprehensive fashion, and like most of our other perceptions, it is filtered first through our sense of smell. 

For instance, you live your day-to-day life on a knife-edge, balanced between memory and anticipation, often missing nuances or opportunities provided by your current situation. I would hesitate to call it zen, precisely, but we dogs do possess a focus on the "now" that you would be wise to emulate on occasion.

Dogs are aware that time, largely presumed to move unilaterally, does in fact travel omnidirectionally. Bits of time are carried forward and backward by tiny particles, impossible to see but discernible to a trained snout and a wary brain. [editor's note: is it my imagination or is this dog seriously describing tachyons?]

We smell the future and the past on every breeze and in every spot we encounter - what you sometimes no-doubt perceive as an infatuation with scents left by another animal (and I confess that yes, sometimes this is indeed the case) is more often a highly-enriched space for us, brimming with both recall and premonition.

Such it was in the park today, when you saw me sniffing this way and that as though looking for a predetermined spot. In a way I was; the scents told me then that at some point in the future I will have defecated in a spot near here and eventually I was able to determine the precise place. I did what I needed to do, right where I was meant to do it. 

The fact that I was able to do so at all after you came by so quickly afterward to collect it and put it in that freestanding collection vessel makes it a rather accomplished feat, if you ask me.

At any rate, when I saw you standing there, looking at me afterwards, your head cocked slightly to one side, I suspected you were gleaning more about the truth of the situation than many of your kind do, and wanted to confirm your suspicions.

I also wanted to take the time to let you know that although I miss the people I knew closely in my former life, I also have opportunities to experience them again in the past, when the wind is right. I am actually quite happy here with you and our family for the most part, and am also aware that this happiness will continue on for much of my life. I don't think about the future in a conscious manner the way you do (thank goodness - it seems quite worrisome at times), but have sureties of the future visited upon me from time to time via the scents I encounter.

At any rate, I can sense your primary brainwaves slowing [editor's note: can dogs sense alpha waves? sensorimotor rhythms?], so I think whatever rich-smelling fermented sugars were in that glass you had after supper must be wearing off, and that will bring our time of communion to an end, at least for now.

I'm glad we talked, and thank you again for all the belly rubs.

Doggie Decisions

It was tears before bed at one point last week in our household, when Glory realized she was indeed having an allergic reaction to Canéla.

The pooch had done very well in her first few days with us - no 'accidents' in the house at all, no chewing of shoes or table legs, and reasonable, if sometimes rambunctious behaviour.

We had told Glory to be honest with us, because as hard as it would be to part with Canéla if we had to, we could not endanger hers or anyone else's health for the sake of a pet. And although we told her time and time again that it was not her fault if this unfortunate circumstance came to pass, we knew no matter how many times we reinforced this she would never truly feel that way.

This was especially hard on Glory since she has been the one spending the most time with the terrier - Audrey and I both had work, and Fenya's classes and study time left her behind the door of her room on most weekdays.  Glory had taught Canéla to sit very early on and was very good about not letting her jump up on her. She spent much of the day sitting with her on the kitchen floor so the pooch wouldn't feel lonely or abandoned.

The symptoms were fairly mild, and she felt much better the next day. Later on, when Audrey and I grimly asked how she was feeling, she replied, "I was a lot better after spending the night away from her, and it is mostly just sniffles anyhow."

"Is it the kind of thing you might need to take medication for?" I asked cautiously.

"Maybe?" she said. "The important thing though, is that she is not leaving this house."

And that is how we found out we are keeping our new dog.

Friends of ours who are pet owners despite having allergies themselves have chimed in with messages of support and advice, and half a week later, it seems like only intermittent medication is needed at this point. Once Glory finds a job and is spending a little more time outside the home (which will be good for her both income as well as combatting cabin fever), the impacts should be mitigated even further.

In the meantime, acclimatization to our new family member continues. It is astonishing to think that a dog so close in weight to Nitti could be so much taller, and almost all of that height is in the legs. This can create some interesting tableaux, like when Canéla stands up with her feet on an armrest in the living room and make eye contact with someone next to the kitchen sink.

My argument for an off-kilter spelling of her name never made it out of committee, and that is fine; my next goal is to standardize the spelling of Canéla with an accented e (Alt+0233), like when you see "olé!" written outside of Mexico.

She is getting walked regularly, which is good for her and even better for us. She has largely adapted to the cold weather, although she still has a tendency to keep her back left foot off the ground, so we will need a vet to look at that before too long. 

The temptation to get a DNA test done in order to know what breed she might be is hard to resist. Our best guess is maybe a mix of border terrier and Wheaten terrier, but Canéla's colouring, leg length and body language make me wonder if she maybe has some coyote in her. A lot of this is probably just my association with some of her expressions, which remind me a little of Wile E. holding up a sign asking, "In heaven's name, what have I DONE?"

Last night we brought her to the basement for the very first time, and the extra space gave her an opportunity to cut loose a little bit, playfighting, tossing her toys about and racing around frantically in what we used to call "puppy rodeo" but is known to many dog owners as "the zoomies."

We think she is around a year-and-a-half old, which means there is a lot of puppy in her still. She can get overexcited pretty easily and sounds absolutely ferocious with her growls and snarls, but her tail never stops wagging either, and she is quick enough to stop when you let her know she's overstepped.

It's still too early to determine how much trouble we may have gotten ourselves into with all this, but at least it promises to be entertaining! And in the meantime, Canéla seems to feel secure and at home with us.

Gone to the Dog?

And so it came to pass, perhaps surprisingly, that the Fitzpatricks welcomed another dog into their home early in 2021. But would they be able to keep her? What will be outcome of this blog's first cliffhanger entry?

If you read my overwrought farewell to our beloved canine companion Nitti back in October, you will not be surprised to learn that the whole experience was pretty exhausting on us as a family. So much so, in fact, that Audrey and I were unsure if we even wanted to get another dog. "Every puppy is a countdown to tragedy," as they say, and we were none too keen on repeating that experience.

But the worst thing about not having Nitti around was seeing all the places he could have been - looking out the window, lapping up a drink at his water dish, or sitting on the recliner next to me while I worked from home. We found ourselves longing for the sound of his nails on the linoleum overhead and hated the fact that there was no reason not to lock the back door after dinner, since he would not need to be let out one last time before bed. For a dog that weighed less than thirty pounds, he left a hole in our lives that a beluga could have swum through, so we started actively looking for another dog to adopt before the end of October.

And while we are not fussy people in terms of breed, breeding or colour, there were a number of criteria any new dog would need to meet: not a puppy, but not too old either; not a purse dog, but small enough to feel comfortable in our house and yard; and no specific breed, but definitely non-shedding as Glory and I both have allergy issues.

And with the Edmonton Humane Society closed to adoptions, it was up to Audrey to sort out the various animal rescue organizations, starting locally but soon ranging all across the province. We made it to the interview stage of a society here in Edmonton, but there were no matching dogs. Luckily, Audrey made a connection with a volunteer at the Cochrane Humane Society. When she asked about our previous dog-owning experience, Audrey offered to send her a link to my blog. The next day she wrote back to say,  "okay, my eyes are all red, I have used up all my tissues and I can barely swallow. We are gonna get you guys a dog."

Nothing panned out for her, but she put us in contact with someone at Rocky Mountain Animal Rescue near Canmore who had some rescues coming in from Mexico, of all places. After completing their adoption application and following up with two emails full of photographs of our home and yard, we were approved to adopt Canéla, a year-and-a-half old terrier mix who had been found in a vacant lot in Cozumel. It is probable that her owners had to move out of the area after losing their jobs due to Covid and could not afford to bring her along.

With excitement and trepidation in equal measure, Audrey, Glory and I loaded up the kennel and blankets into the Flex this morning so we could pick up Canéla from Canmore. 

It was bitterly cold in Edmonton when we left, but as we approached the mountains, we saw the temperature rise from -20 to -2.

Soon enough, we found ourselves outside an acreage just west of Canmore, where we went in to meet our prospective new pooch (if, heaven forbid, we are unable to keep her due to allergies or such, we are able to return her).

The poor animal hasn't been in the country for a full week yet, and although she was understandably shy around us newcomers, she obviously had a lot of trust and affection for the volunteers looking after her. They gave Audrey some treats to entice her over, and she greeted each of us in turn. 

They asked if we wanted to take her for a short walk, the longest time she has been on a leash in months. While still visibly apprehensive, with her tail tucked between her legs, she was also very curious and happy to be outside, despite what has to be a shocking change in ambient temperature from what she is used to in Cozumel.

We returned to the house, Audrey completed the needed paperwork and we carried Canéla out to the Flex, and prompted her into the kennel on the back seat for the ride to her new home.

Canéla is about the same weight as Nitti (who was 26 lbs at his last regular vet visit) but is oriented in a completely different fashion. As Glory put it, Nitti didn't really have any discernible knees, while this terrier is a leggy beastie to be sure, with sizable feet to match. This made it a snugger fit inside the kennel, but she seemed content to let her head hang out the door and visit with Glory in the back seat.

Glory took Canéla out for a walk when we stopped for gas at Cross Iron, but after a few minutes in a noisy parking lot at -13, she quickly displayed her preference for the car. Since she had been getting warm though, we put the kennel in the back and let her stretch out on the blankets covering the seat.

She alternated getting scratches from Glory and curling up with her toy dog Douglas that the volunteers had given her.

We left the house at twenty to nine in the morning and got back about a quarter past seven at night, greeted by an ecstatic Fenya. All four of us spent a little time on the floor together while Canéla explored the kitchen (blocked off by a recently acquired baby gate until she is housetrained) and accepted scratches and pets from each of us.

She is obviously a little underfed ("You need to chuck a couple of cheeseburgers into that dog" my brother-in-law suggested) but is doing very well for a dog that spent at least half a year in an animal shelter in Cozumel (that's like, what - four human years at a medium-security correctional facility I figure? Brr!). She is also no fan of going outside to do her business, but hey, who would be in this weather.

We are still trying to sort out her name, but the temporary one given to her by the workers as the shelter in Cozumel is starting to grow on us. If we end up going with Canéla, I have suggested perhaps spelling it K'Nayla, as it looks even more exotic and is closer to the Spanish pronunciation of her name than can-NELL-uh, which comes pretty naturally when you read it.

And should anyone snort disdainfully and ask why we gave our dog a Klingon name, I look forward to telling them, "oh no, her name is just Spanish for cinnamon."

In the meantime though, we are keeping a wary eye out for potential behavioral issues and of course, allergic reactions from Glory and I. Glory actually was a little sniffly tonight, but she was around quite a few dogs (and a cat) at the Rescue Society this afternoon as well. Audrey is bathing the dog right now so we can have a good baseline for evaluating tomorrow, so we should know in the next few days whether we can keep her, or face a different kind of canine heartbreak next weekend when we have to return her.

Stay tuned!