In Touch With Her Inner Wolf

I used the term “inner wolf” first in 2003.

We had put Buster down after a long and still-unexplained period of pain and suffering–a robust 90 pound black Lab, who lived with us only 4 and a half years.

A few weeks after his passing in July, we brought home an 8 week old male we named Tsuga, named after the genus for eastern Hemlocks, a favorite tree that is steadily disappearing from our forests.

When Tsuga was about Gandy’s age, we left him for a week at what later became known as “Puppy Camp”, which he came to enjoy. But his first visit erased all the good behaviors so hard-won during his early puppyhood. He was unruly, snarly, anxious and obnoxious—“in touch with his inner wolf.”

Gandy only the week before we left in April 9 had turned the corner: less jumping up on people, easier to walk on the leash, and even actively affectionate at times. We were finally getting somewhere! Then we left her at Puppy Camp, not only for a full week of separation, but for spaying. She came home with stitches, antibiotics for a skin infection she’s had since we got her (staph pyoderma) and an attitude.

By late in her first day home, she acted like she sort of remembered the routine, who we were, and the perqs of living on Goose Creek. Problem is, she can’t enjoy the creeks–not until her stitches come out in an agonizingly long week at the end of a leash. Add to that the days of rain between now and next Tuesday, and I do not look forward to the travails of pet ownership.

Then, we’ll have it behind us, and move on towards a relationship we only hope for and expect, and will look back on these brief encounters with Inner Wolves. We have our own, too, and I confess I felt more than a little feral yesterday with Gandy leaping like a marlin on the end of a canvas strap out of the tall grass of the pasture. This too shall pass.