Dog days

No, this is not weather-related. The fact is, it's been a year since Collette died. We told ourselves we were going to wait a year before we started looking for a new dog. The new dog will still suffer the comparison with Collette, a collie-like mutt that we adopted at the Silicon Valley Humane Society in Santa Clara, California, in 1992. She lived with us for nearly 14 years, and moved with us to France at the ripe old age of 11½.

Collette on the beach at San Francisco in about 1998

About a week ago, I called the local SPA — Société Protectrice des Animaux — and asked about their hours and procedures. The woman on the phone said the facility, located about 7 miles north of Saint-Aignan, near Contres, was open to the public every afternoon except Sunday. I would need to show proof of my address (an electricity or telephone bill, for example) and a valid ID, in my case my U.S. passport and French carte de séjour, or residency permit, before they would let me adopt a dog.

Walt and I were busy all last week, spending one afternoon in Blois having lunch with friends, and another afternoon meeting with a contractor about our other current project, which is sprucing up our kitchen by painting and having a new sliding-glass window and some extra electrical outlets put in. On Friday, we finally had time to go look at the dogs available at the SPA.

In the southern California desert in February 2001

I think we both hoped that we might find Collette there, or at least her twin — I know I did — but that didn't happen, of course.

The local SPA is very different from the Silicon Valley Humane Society, as you might imagine. The Santa Clara facility is located in the middle of the urban sprawl that runs from San Francisco south for 50 or 60 miles down to the lower sections of San José. Three or four million people live in that stretch of housing developments, shopping malls, little downtowns, and office parks. Silicon Valley is not exactly a rural area, and the Humane Society, I remember, felt like a big warehouse full of barking dogs in cages. It was really jumping that Saturday morning in July 1992 when we found Collette there.

Here, the SPA is outdoors. There's an old stone farmhouse where the offices are set up, and then there are four or five long, low outbuildings divided into separate kennels for the dogs of the moment. We were greeted by a friendly staff and told to just go have a look around. There were two kennels close in, they said, but make sure you go through the gate out to what they called les villages to see even more adoptable canines, we were told.

That's what we did. It was bright and sunny. More than half the dogs barked loudly as we walked past their box (can you say [bucks]?), as the individual cages are called in Molière's language. Some were just being territorial, but some appeared to be terrified. Completely freaked out. Vicious, even. One poor dog chased his own tail, spinning madly in circles, seemingly oblivious to our presence. Several others were 10 or even 12 years old, according to the sign on their cage. Still others hid from our prying eyes.

Personally, I saw two dogs, out of the 50 or so available, that I would have been tempted to take home with me. One was a friendly beagle that had already been spoken for. The other was a small, 9-month-old yellow Labrador, a female that was bright and friendly. There was a pile of dog poop on the floor of her box and I kept hoping she wouldn't step in it as she jumped around with joy at seeing some new humans.

That should have been my first clue that there was a problem. We went back and talked to the people in the office. A woman there said Ariane, as the Lab was named, was a good-tempered, alert dog, but she had one big problem. Nobody had yet succeeded in housebreaking her.

In French, the word for "housebroken" is propre. It also applies to children who are toilet-trained — they are propres, or "clean." That is not a term you would know unless you've had children or a puppy in France.

I learned it from reading a now-discontinued blog written by an American woman who is raising two small children in France. When the first child was ready to go to nursery school, the school authorities asked the American whether her son was propre. She was offended! "Of course my son is clean. I bathe him every day!" she thought. Afterwards, the woman's French husband explained to her what "clean" meant in the context of a toddler and a nursery school.

August 2002 in California with Walt and our friend Cheryl

So the little Labrador was not "clean." She had recently been adopted out to a family that kept her only a couple of weeks before deciding they couldn't deal with the mess and brought her back, we were told. Even the SPA staff couldn't train the dog; they would take her on long walks during which nothing would happen, and as soon as they put her back in her box she would poop on the floor.

But it's not hopeless, the SPA woman said. We know a trainer who deals with problem dogs and who could surely sort this behavior issue out for you. We'll give you the trainer's phone number.

We said we would have to think about it over the weekend. Along with the poop problem, I'm also worried that the little Lab would just be too rambunctious for a life as a house dog. Collette was a calm if sometimes spooky dog, and she was 95% propre when we got her. She was about six months old, and after just two or three "accidents" in the house she figured out where she was supposed to do her business and never sinned again.

Meanwhile, I started searching the web. I found sites where people place ads for dogs and puppies they want to sell or give away. But I didn't find any interesting prospects nearby. And I of course found web sites for dog breeders specializing in all sorts of dogs.

Ken and Collette at the Eiffel Tower in June 2003

One is a breeder located about two hours' drive southeast of Saint-Aignan and about 20 miles east of the town of Montluçon. Montluçon is a place Walt and I visited on a vacation back in 1995 when we were driving from Paris to Toulouse, and I've always wanted to go back and see it again. It's located near the headwaters of the Cher river, which flows by just down at the bottom of our hill.

Saturday morning I contacted the breeder, who specializes in border collies, by e-mail, and she said she had three female puppies available. They were born on February 22. I wrote back to make an appointment, and the answer back was that yes, please do come for a visit, but now there is only one female puppy left. So they are selling like petits pains — hotcakes.

We'll be able to drive the autoroute, a toll expressway,
all the way from Saint-Aignan (upper left) past Vierzon,
Bourges, and Montluçon, down to Montmarault (lower right).
It's supposed to take two hours and the toll is 15€/20$.

We can't go today because we are having another kitchen contractor come in to do some measuring in preparation for giving us an estimate on the work we want done. And we didn't want to commit to going tomorrow because the weather forecast says we should expect snow (!) in the morning. But we plan to drive down to Montluçon and the nearby village of Montmarault on Wednesday to see what might develop. Maybe that puppy will still be available and will win our hearts.

Indulge me one more time...

Here is the picture of Collette that I wanted to post a couple of days ago, but the Blogger software wouldn't cooperate.

I took this about two hours before Collette disappeared. She was serene, I think. We had taken her outside and laid her on the ground so that she could feel the earth beneath her and the warmth of the afternoon sun on her coat. Walt says it makes her look sad, but I'm not sure.

Collette, March 14, 2006, at La Renaudière

We had just had the dog groomed a few days earlier, so she looked especially pretty this week. Groomed or not, Collette was my favorite photography subject. She was also the main reason for my walks and photo sessions out in the vineyards behind La Renaudière. It's the end of an era for me. And the beginning of a new one, of course.

Somebody pointed out that in my writing about the veterinarians it was not clear why I sometimes said "he" and sometimes said "she". There were two vets involved, a male vet on Monday and a female vet on Tuesday. That's why.

I'll stop now. I'm in the process of reserving an apartment in Paris over the web so that Walt and I can go spend a week in the city soon. It will be fun to wander the streets for a few days. I always feel younger and more optimistic when I'm in Paris.

Collette est partie

Collette died in the car on the way to the vet's for her appointment this afternoon. Or in Walt's arms as he carried her in. We had to wait a few minutes when we arrived, and decided to wait in the car with the dog. I went in and told the receptionist we were there. Then I went back out to the car and Walt said Collette was taking a breath only every 15 seconds or so. The breath was going out of her.

The vet came out to the car, and when Walt lifted Collette to take her inside, the vet, Mme G., said she thought the dog was already dead. Walt carried her into the examining room and laid her on a table. The vet listened with a stethoscope and then touched Collette's eye. There was no reaction. She's gone, the vet said. "You don't have to feel you've rushed things," she told us. There was no need for euthanasia.

Collette's body will be incinerated and we will get the ashes in a couple of weeks. We will scatter them out in the vineyard behind la Renaudière, where Collette spent some of her best days.

I wanted to post a picture of Collette that I took today, but Blogger doesn't seem to be accepting pictures right now...

Collette news: not good

Our 14-year-old Sheltie mix dog, Collette, suffered some kind of malaise yesterday. She hasn't eaten since Saturday, and she had a rough night last night. She can't walk straight -- she's listing to the right and very unsteady on her feet. She walks in circles and bumps into all the furniture, doors, and walls. Her eyes are bright and she is alert, but she's obviously in trouble.

She was fine, if a little arthritic, Saturday afternoon when I took her out for our regular walk, and was fine again Sunday morning when Walt took her out for their walk in the vineyard. But she wouldn't eat her breakfast of poached chicken when she came home. She had been coughing off and on for two or three days, as well. We were out having lunch with our visiting friends Sunday, before dropping them at the train station in Blois for their trip back to Paris. By the time we got home late in the afternoon, the dog was unable to walk normally.

This morning, Monday, we took her to the vet. He said she has probably suffered a stroke of some kind. He gave her a shot and gave us some pills for her to take morning and night for a few days. He said that if her condition improves significantly by Wednesday night or Thursday morning, there's a chance she will continue to live a normal life for a while longer. If she doesn't get significantly better by Thursday, her days are probably numbered. We will have a hard decision to make either way.

We are of course very sad and are watching carefully to see if the poor dog seems to be suffering needlessly. We don't want that to happen, but we want to wait as long as we can.

We made Collette a palette of big towels and covered her
with another one because she was shivering. She's sleeping.

Fourteen years is a long time to live with a being as beautiful and affectionate as Collette has been, and we are lucky to have found her at the Santa Clara Humane Society shelter in 1992. I'm glad she has been able to spend her last days and years out here in the country in France, where she has been free for nearly three years. For the first time, she experienced life without a leash. Her passing, now or next year or the year after, is going to change our lives in many ways.

I hope this message is premature.

When we came upon her at the Humane Society in 1992, Collette (as we would name her) was already scheduled for euthanasia because she was afraid of people in general, and was especially afraid of children. Nobody wanted to adopt her until we came along. She had been in the shelter for nearly two weeks. With us, she has had a good life, I think. Thanks to Merle for encouraging us to adopt a dog, and to Harriet, Cheryl, Sue, CHM, and Peter J. for being Collette's good friends over the years.

Dog update and Dec. 1 photos

I haven't specifically mentioned Collette lately. The news is good. It's been two weeks since her last crise. She shows no signs of being in pain, she enjoys twice-daily walks, and her appetite is good. We assume the new diet, which we are sticking too even though Collette seems disappointed not to get more food from the table, is the key to her better health. But who knows? Maybe she had a virus....

By the way, I want to explain the way comments are handled on this blog. First, why do you have to type the funny letters before you are allowed to post? Well, that's how Google keeps people from setting up automated postings to the comment area. An automated program can't see the letters and can't type them in. Before I turned on that feature, I got a bunch of comments on my postings that were actually ads posted automatically. So that's what that's for.

Also, I have turned on "comment moderation", which means your comments come to me via e-mail and I publish them. The only reason for that -- and I'm thinking about turning it off so your comments are posted directly -- is that one of the first comments I ever got on the blog said something like "Blogs are for losers. Get a life you piece of s**t." That comment was posted anonymously. I'm sure none of you sent it. Moderating comments lets me delete such nice postings before they ever appear in the blog.

It was frosty out this morning when I took the dog for her morning promenade. I took this series of pictures. I'm getting used to my new camera and I'm pretty happy with these.

It was about 8:00 a.m. and the sky was mostly cloudy. There was a little sliver of clear sky over in the south, where the sun was coming up. The temperature was about 30ºF. Right outside our back gate this was the view:

Here's a zoomed shot. Remember, you can click the pictures to see larger views. This early in the morning, with low light conditions, zoomed shots come out a little blurry. But you can really see the horizontal sunbeams on the trees beyond the vineyard in this one:

There are a lot of leaves on the ground right now:

And as I said, it was frosty. Most of the grasses and plants were frosty white:

When I looked back over my shoulder, toward the sunrise, this is what I saw:

A little farther out is the field where the donkey and the poney often hang out. They were nowhere to be seen this morning. But Collette was there, sniffing around:

Here's a view back toward our house, with the sun coming up. Again, it's zoomed, so it's a little fuzzy, but still pretty:

The grape vines are mostly bare now. You can see that these are old vines:

We walk along the edge of the woods that surround the vines out behind our house. The woods are colorful now:

Just along the edge of the woods, I was startled when a pheasant took flight in a noisy beating of wings. Collette didn't seem to notice -- she's not interested in birds. I looked and saw a second pheasant, a female, crouched down near me. It stayed until I got really close, then it took off running, not flying, to escape.

Here's another picture of Collette. She loves to run down the row of vines next to the one I'm walking it. It's like a game to her -- she likes to walk down the next row over and keep an eye on me as we walk, rather than staying right next to me. I think it amazes her that we end up at the same place in the end.


The weather is supposed to turn warmer and maybe rainy tomorrow and Saturday. We could use some warmer weather. It's been downright cold for the past two weeks or so.

Healthy dog, icy weather

It has turned really cold. At least the sun is shining brightly, so it's not gloomy and gray. Collette has been fine since we put her on the new diet last week. She's again running and jumping (a little) on our walks and around the house. She plays with her chew-bone. She's eating well.

Here she is on the walk this morning. There was a heavy frost. Following are some more pictures of the frosty plants out back.

This is the kind of contraption they use to burn the clippings in when they prune the grape vines in the fall and winter. They are very common around here, and I think they are used all over France. Somebody told me the reason for burning the clippings is to kill pests.

Collette's better...

For now at least, Collette is feeling a lot better. We've put her on a diet of plain, home-made chicken broth and poached chicken, with a little bit of yogurt to help settle her stomach. We don't know what was wrong with her, of course, but we're hoping for the best. The good news is that she is eating and enjoying going out for walks. And she doesn't seem to be in pain. Thanks to our friend Helene J. in New York for all the advice, and to her sister Harriet M. in California putting us in touch with Helene again.

The weather has suddenly turned cold. After a week or more of chilly, damp, gray days, it's suddenly bright sunny but very cold outside. This morning everything was frosty white outside, and it's supposed to be even colder tomorrow morning (-3ºC is the prediction). I picked the last eggplants in the garden a couple of days ago, and it's a good thing I did because the plants froze last night. All the dahlias froze too. We had brought a lot of other plants in already -- geraniums, kalanchoes, and nasturtiums in pots, so they are safe.

We're going to have Thanksgiving dinner next Thursday with some people in Blois. There will Amercians and French people there, a total of 10 or 11. We'll have turkey and stuffing and all the other trimmings, including pumpkin pie. Meanwhile, the days are short and the weather is cold, but the sun shines brightly. Here are a few pictures I took this afternoon on my walk with the dog.

Collette out on the road, looking good.

Some nice colors in the back yard.

A trail in the woods out back.

The vines are gold- and copper-colored right now.

The last flowers of summer.

Collette is feeling poorly

Collette, our dog, hasn't been feeling well for more than a week now. Over the last few days, I've come to realize she's been having the same symptoms off and on for nearly six months.

Back in June, she had a very bad week. She stopped eating and then she stopped wanting to go for a walk. Before she just refused to go out with either of us, she began walking very very slowly, with her head hanging low. On June 25, our neighbors had a big, all-day party. At one point, late in the afternoon, we went and let Collette out so she could come see what was going on. She wandered around the neighbors' yard in a daze, eyes glazed over. A friend who was there later told us she thought Collette was a zombie that day.

We took her to the vet, who did blood tests but didn't find anything unusual. He diagnosed arthritis and treated her for that, and he said the really hot weather we were having right then might be a factor.

Now I should point out that Collette is 14 years old. We got her from the Humane Society in Santa Clara, California, in July of 1992. She was about 6 months old then, according to the vet we took her to see after we adopted her. If you use the 1 dog year = 7 human years formula, that makes her 98 years old. She moved to France, which meant flying in the baggage compartment of an airplane, in a cage, when she was 12, or 84. She's no spring chicken. But she doesn't look her age at all. And she has enjoyed the freedom of living in the country for these past two years, after living the city life in San Francisco and Sunnyvale for all that time.

It's of course very sad to see Collette in decline. About 10 days ago, she was out for a morning walk with Walt. About half-way into the 2-mile walk, she suddenly began walking really slowly, as she had in June. Her eyes seemed to become opaque.

Collette and Walt walked on back to the house, at a very slow pace. I was upstairs in the kitchen when I heard the door open and close downstairs. Then I heard Collette yelp -- almost a shriek, really. When they came upstairs, I asked Walt if he had accidentally stepped on the dog's paw or something. He said no, he was just drying her off with a towel when she yelped. He had touched her belly.

Collette had come upstairs under her own power. She ate her breakfast of rice and beef as usual. But then, instead of going and lying down as she usually does, she just stood around with her head hanging down. She tried to lie down a couple of times, but she couldn't. She would sit and then start to ease herself down by moving her front paws forward one at a time. About three quarters of the way down, she would change her mind and stand back up. She was obviously in pain.

We started to examine her. Every time we touched her belly, she would shriek with pain. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but not much. I called the vet and his receptionist said he could see her in about 90 minutes -- he was in surgery.

We couldn't leave Collette standing the way she was, so Walt managed to get her down on her side on a rug on the floor. He lay down beside her and kept her comfortable while I went out and took the back seat cushions out of the car and folded the seat backs down to make a flat platform. We put down a thick blanket all folded up to make a soft surface. Then we carefully lifted Collette into the back of the car and got her down on her side again.

We drove slowly over to the vet's office, three miles from the house. We got Collette out of the car and she walked into the waiting room on her own. She stood there for about 10 minutes while we waited for the vet to see us. When he called us in, Walt carefully lifted Collette up onto the examining table. The vet touched her abdomen and she moaned. He said he wanted to do an x-ray.

The x-ray didn't show anything out of the ordinary. We looked at it and could see Collette's stomach, small and large intestines, and spleen. There were poops in her large intestine waiting to come out. All was normal.

The vet gave Collette two shots -- an anti-spasmodic and a pain-killer -- to treat the symptoms of her malaise. He said he didn't know what was really wrong with her. We took her home and she slept the rest of the day and night.

The next morning she was completely back to normal. That lasted more than a week. She loved her walks, trotting right along, sniffing everything along the way, and chasing cats when she saw or thought she saw one. It was like old times. Her appetite was good, her bodily functions were normal, and we were very happy.

Then, this past Sunday, we left Collette alone at home on Sunday afternoon while we went up to Blois to have lunch with some friends there. When we got home at 6:30 p.m., Collette was obviously not well. She had that hang-dog posture; her eyes were dull; she didn't want to go outside. We made her go out anyway, because we figured she must need to. She didn't stay long and when she came back in we realized her belly was tender again. She yelped when we touched her.

By Monday morning, everything was fine again. We had good walks Monday morning and afternoon, and a good walk on Tuesday morning. That was my turn to go walking with her, and I was happy to see how energetic Collette was, how interested in everything. She did a good poop. But I noticed again how her hearing is failing her -- if you speak to her when she's walking ahead of you, she doesn't seem to hear. When you are facing her, her hearing is better.

Then late Tuesday afternoon the symptoms came back. She again was unable to lie down. At one point she kind of got herself wedged in between the coffee table and the sofa and wouldn't move. I took ahold of her thighs and slowly backed her out of her predicament, but she suddenly went limp and fell over on her side on the hard tile floor. She didn't hurt herself, but she was in no hurry to get up.

It was after 9:00. We got her up onto the bed and she was stretched out on her side. Walt lay down next to her and looked into her eyes. "She keeps looking right into my eyes," he said, "as if she wants to make sure I'm here." We went to bed an hour or so later -- Collette hadn't moved.

During the night, she got up and went and drank a lot of water. Her movement woke me up and I heard her slurping and slurping water for what seemed like forever. Then she came back into the bedroom but didn't jump up onto the bed. I don't think she was able to.

A while later, I realized Walt had gotten up. He put Collette back up on the bed. When I got up at 7:45 this morning, Collette didn't stir. Walt got up a few minutes later. Collette still didn't move. It was nearly an hour later when she got up. That is highly unusual behavior. Normally she wakes us up as soon as it's light outside because she's ready to go.

She had drunk so much water during the night, we figured she must need to go outside. It was drizzling rain, but Walt took her out for a short walk. He said she walked very slowing on the way out, but when he turned around to come back to the house she started trotting along beside him.

Since this morning, she's been sleeping. She didn't eat at her normal time, right after the walk, but she did eat a little at noontime. She sleeps on the sofa as I write this. At least she is comfortable lying down today.

I suspect liver or pancreas problems. Those organs weren't visible on the x-ray the vet did about 10 days ago, but in fact the blood test back in June didn't show any abnormalities in Collette's liver functions. We are going to be careful of the dog's diet for a few days -- no more food from the table, and no cheese! -- to see if that might make a difference.

These are sad days. Collette has never been sick before, so we don't know what to do or what to expect.

Have a look at her adventure last July, chasing the deer.