Ever since I’ve lived in a house instead of an apartment, I’ve had dogs, usually two or three. We’ve almost always gotten them from owners who had to rehome them; friends, neighbors of friends, co-workers. This is my first experience adopting a truly stray dog.

We sadly found ourselves with just one dog. When you’re used to multiples, the house is just too quiet with one.
But this time we did something different. I googled ‘high kill shelter’ which eventually led me to this Facebook page:
Hartford Animal Shelter.

This is a true, 100% city pound. All their dogs are strays found around the city of Hartford, CT. They have 10 days, and 10 days only, to find homes or places in other rescues, or…

Fortunately there is a team of dedicated volunteers who try everything they can to get them out before their expiration dates. The majority of their dogs are under 2, but I was drawn to the profile of Wharf. He only had a few days left, and nobody was showing any interest. He’s 10 years old, unneutered (a new experience for us), hard-of-hearing, but described as a sweet old man.

So with just two days left to go, I filled out an app. The next day, we got a call from the Animal Control Officer asking if we could come down that evening. Due to unusual circumstances (jury duty, for one thing. The ACO, not Wharf.) we only had Thursday night to see him.

She also said that there’s a vet in Ayer that has a program called the Dundee Project. They take stray dogs who have medical problems and fix them up, free of charge, then find them homes. They could take Wharf if we couldn’t, so I offered to give him a ride even if we decided not to take him. The office manager at the Ayer vet said she could meet us there that night no matter how late.

My husband went down (a 90-minute drive from where we live in MA) with our dog Louie. The ACO met him at about 10 p.m. (He later described her as having ‘a heart of gold.’) I saw on Facebook that he’d been adopted before I got the call from my husband, so I knew he decided to take him. But I got a very panicked call from him about 15 minutes later.

He said Wharf was a mess. He has tons of ticks in his ears (when we was brought in, they were so small they went unnoticed), seems to be complete deaf, feels slimy to the touch, and has fur that’s coming out much more than usual shedding. My husband was really worried that he might have some contagious disease, and we had a couple of dogs coming to stay with us the next day. He also thought he was completely deaf (his description had said ‘may be heard of hearing’).

So we gave the woman from the the Ayer hospital a call asking if she could help us. She agreed, and John drove him directly there. She met him after midnight and talked with him for about an hour. She set up a nice place for Wharf in the boarding area. When she asked John whether he wanted to surrender him or keep him, John opted to keep him. Whoo Hoo!

John filled me in more when he got home about the pickup. At the shelter, Wharf didn’t seem very interested in either him or Louie, but was obsessive about sniffing (they met outside). Louie crabbed at him a little when Wharf jammed his nose in his crotch. Happily Wharf didn’t get bent out of shape by this at all. But John wondered if he was really ever someone’s pet. But once they got to the vet and went inside, away from tempting outdoor smells, Wharf seemed to notice that there were people. He responded more to being pet, and gave John’s hand a kiss through the bars. That was definitely encouraging.

Wharf was there for a week (and my husband drove the 45 minutes again to bring him a care package of toys and treats). He didn’t turn out to be in as bad shape as we thought. The fur falling out was due to stress. They thought he might have a kidney disease, but the tests came back negative. He did have a UTI and they had to sedate him in order to pull out a jar full of ticks from his ears.

The people at the Ayer vet were truly amazing. They gave him so much love and care, and weren’t going to charge us a cent. (We insisted on paying, but even so they didn’t charge us anything for his hospitalization stay).

One thing that was not correct on the shelter description was “good on leash.” We could see from their video that he’s a puller, and my husband confirmed this when he met him. So we bought him an Easy Walk Harness (the greatest dog invention ever!) and had it ready in the car. So when my husband got the call that we can bring him home, he drove right from work and returned with a dog I hadn’t even met yet, but had already named.

We decided to call him Chet after the main character in the Chet and Bernie mystery series. Bernie is a PI and Chet is his pup. The books are written from the dog’s point of view, and although the ‘mystery’ part is a little thin (you can see how it’s going to unfold in the first few chapters), the dog’s view is charming and extremely entertaining. For example, Chet may see something exciting out the window and then wonder what the breeze is he feels. “Oh, that’s my tail wagging!” (Here’s an Amazon link to the first book, Dog on it (paperback) and Dog on it (Kindle).

So for anyone interested in how he’s doing, I thought I’d post updates here.

Day 1
My husband called on his return trip. Up until now, Chet hadn’t had any accidents and the ACO at the shelter said he only went outside. But John said when they were in the exam room, he marked about 5 or 6 times, which sent us into a little bit of a panic. We really hoped he wouldn’t mark in our house. An unneutered dog is a new experience for us, and our rug does have lots of pet smells in it, so we were a little worried.

We agreed to introduce him to the house slowly. For starters until he gets a little settled, we would put him in the ‘dog room,’ a spare bedroom that has an electronic dog door to the fenced-in yard. When I hung up, I had about 15 minutes to try to clean out the room (it had a bit of junk in it since Louie just uses it as a pass through to the outside). While I was frantically carrying old windows and screens out, and sweeping out a rather large accumulation of pet hair and dust, they arrived.

It was about 7 p.m., so plenty of light left. Louie and I met them at the car. We walked the two of them around on the street in front of our house to start with. Chet got out of his harness a couple of times so I had to grab him by his collar in order to get it back on. That’s when I first noticed his cough, which I thought was related to his pulling.

After a bit we brought them to the dog yard (fenced in and full of wood chips). We hung out with them just watching and petting him when we could.

The first thing we noticed was that he was a pacer. He went around and around the perimeter, marking on the same plant on each trip. It had a troubled feel to it, like Little Timmy was stuck down the well and he just HAD to get out to tell someone! When he went past where I was sitting, I lightly brushed my fingers along his back, but he didn’t respond at all.

A couple of times he tried lick Louie’s face or sniff his crotch and got more growling, which he ignored again. Well, actually, he backed off. We were happy and relieved to see that.

After about 30 minutes, I left to continue cleaning out the room. I got all the junk out and swept/vacuumed it. I put a big, comfy dog bed in, along with water. We figured if he marked on the linoleum in there, it was easy enough to clean up.

So in he came. The vet had sent us home with some Science Diet because it would be easy for him to digest. We had to mix it with a little of Louie’s wet food for Chet to eat it.

One of us hung out with him in there until bed time, except for a brief break for dinner.

It was my turn first. I sat on the dog bed and just watched him. More pacing, around and around. I tried patting the bed to get him to come over and relax, but he wanted to keep walking. But here’s the interesting thing. At one point when I patted the bed, he came over and gave kisses! That’s right, a very thorough face cleaning! He did it a total of about five or six times when he passed by on his pace route.

Finally when he came over, I asked him to sit. And he did! It might have been my body language because I don’t think he heard me. But at least he was relaxed enough to do it. He laid down next to me and actually put his chin on my leg. Awwwww.

Even with all his pacing, he didn’t mark once.

John relieved me so I could take a shower. John laid down on the dog bed and Chet lay next to him. Not snuggling, but just being there.

That night right before bed, we went back out to the dog yard. This time he did normal sniffing, not the obsessive I Gotta Get OUTTTT kind of thing.

We noticed he still had the cough, so it wasn’t related to pulling on-leash.

I also noticed he didn’t seem to know what to do with stairs. We have two steps to go up to get back into the house, and he seemed very hesitant.

We had him sleep in the dog room with the door closed.

Day 2
Chet had no trouble holding it overnight. But was still coughing 🙁

As I brought him outside, we had our first test of his prey instinct: a bunny! At first he didn’t notice him in the yard, but then he saw him and pulled to go over. But when I led him to the gate, he readily came, so he wasn’t obsessed. (Our former dog would never have given up so easily).

Later after I put him back in the room, I went to fill up his water dish and neglected to shut the door behind me all the way. He pushed it open; he was loose! I calmly finished filling the bowl and replaced it. Chet just walked around sniffing; no marking at all. But he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He definitely did not do stairs in his old house.

I decided to give him a bath. I had planned to wait until he had settled in a little, but then just wanted to get it over with.

Chet reacted like almost every dog we’ve owned; he went with me into the bathroom, but did NOT want to get into the tub. I had to wrestle him in. But even with a semi-total stranger manhandling him into a situation he really did not want to be in, he never tried to nip me. This dog has not a mean bone in his body.

When the water hit him, he stood still, albeit as close to the exit point as possible. And he did try to make an escape a time or two. But when I got to each paw, he lifted it up without asking. This dog was definitely used to getting baths, even if he didn’t like them.

I found myself wondering (not for the last time) how he ever came to be a stray. Was someone somewhere looking for him?

We both noticed that sometimes he does kind of gum you if your surprise him. It’s almost like what a dog would do if he’s trying to bite but is too weak. But Chet is anything but weak, so I think he’s just saying “hey!”

When I mentioned to John that he sniffed around the living room briefly and had no interest in marking, we agreed we could let him out into the rest of the house. So when we got home from work, out he came. Again, he just walked around, but no accidents.

By evening, he was a little shadow, following us from room to room and standing close when I did the dishes, etc.

We did notice that he never lay down or sat, other than when he was sleeping. He always stood to watch.

We also think his sight isn’t too good. When we go to pet him, even if he’s looking right at us, he always seems to flinch a little when we first touch him, like he didn’t know it was coming.

His cough was a lot worse. We made an appointment for xrays back at the Ayer vet.

He also stopped eating the kibble/wet mixture. I decided to try some raw food (the prepackaged dog food) we had left over from our last dog. At first he snubbed that too, but once he started eating it, he gobbled it down.

He slept in the living room on the Princess bed—an enormous LL Bean couch bed (big enough for a Great Dane) that had belonged to my doggie friend Princess.

Day 3
Today he followed Louie out the dog door, but then couldn’t get back up the stairs to come back through, so I went out to rescue him with his harness and leash. The dog door is what I call a George Jetson door; it goes up and down when tripped by something our dog wears on his collar. So there’s nothing scary that has to be pushed.

He also noticed the rats for the first time (I have pet rats who live in a bookcase). He jumped up on their cage a little, but then followed me to the computer, so he’s not obsessed.

I still couldn’t get how someone could just abandon him. So I spent some time searching through Craigslist posts for the Hartford area, going back a few weeks before he showed up at the shelter. I was looking for anything about a lost dog or ‘must find home for’ but…nothing.

Day 4
I feel like the mother of an infant; every day he does something new.

Today was the first time he laid down other than on his bed. I was doing the dishes and when I turned around, he was just relaxing on the floor.

He also did the gumming thing again, but then immediately pawed at me. He was playing! I picked up a squeaky ball and give it to him, which he took for about a second before setting it back down. But that’s still the closest thing we’ve seen to playing yet.

I went out in the dog yard with him to keep him company. I read a book and expected him to walk around. But today was the first time he just peacefully laid down.

It’s funny, even though Louie has been pretty clear that he’s annoyed by his new brother, Chet constantly looks to Louie for tips. When Louie looks intently at something in the woods, Chet is right there beside him saying “Can I look too?”

I’m sad to say this was also the first time he had an accident. He had just been out about four hours before. I was at the computer and he came over. I thought it was just to say hi, but then I saw him crouch. D’oh!! When we went out, he took a long leak on the rhododendron. I think he had been drinking more water than usual because of his cough.

Day 5
He’s still doing new things!

Today he went out the dog door by himself (not following Louie) when I opened it.
Also he had only been out back without me once, and had paced. But this time I checked on him after about 10 minutes from an upstairs window. He was laying down peacefully, enjoy a snooze in the sun.

I grabbed my Kindle and went to join him. He came over to say hi, then went back to his snoozing spot, which wasn’t near me. In the past he’s tried to stay close, so he must be feeling more and more comfortable in his new home.

Today we went back to Ayer. He’ll be staying overnight so that they can take xrays tomorrow. It was my first experience with him in the car. He didn’t want to jump in (wanted to sniff the area so badly). Once I wrestled him in, he really, really wanted to ride shotgun! He managed to make it into the front, then went back again on his own. After that I blocked him with my arm while I drove. And he’s a lot of dog to block!

I was a little worried that he might freak out being back at the place where he had spent a week, but he didn’t seem to mind it at all. After the vet tech let us in, he walked around sniffing and saying hi to Lucy through the bars (another boarder).

Day 6
The vet had to send the xrays out for a second opinion. The final verdict: chronic bronchitis. She’s hoping to reduce his coughing by 70%.

More firsts:

This was the first time Chet sniffed Louie’s crotch without getting crabbed at. And at one point when he snuffled Louie’s face, Louie actually wagged! (Actually we were interested to see how Louie would react to Chet’s return after being away overnight. Louie acted like “I remember you” and not “Oh. It’s you again.”)

Another first: Chet picked up a bone briefly.

Day 7
We can’t decide if he’s deaf or not. When I came downstairs this morning and Chet was facing the other way, I called his name. There was no response at all. But later when he and I were laying on the Princess bed together and the clock chimed, he looked up at it.

The vet tech thinks he can hear high frequencies so I tried calling his name in a high squeaky voice. He looked up!

Day 8
There were three ‘firsts’ today; two good and one problematic.

First the good.

The was the first time Chet actually played with me! I sat on the dog bed and he came and curled up partially in my lap. (He does that now instead of just sitting next to you!) Then as I was petting him, he started mouthing my arm. We played that way for a few minutes, and then he rolled over. It wasn’t a ‘rub my belly’ kind of roll, but it was more a big, goofy, wriggly worm belly exposure.

He also played with a squeaky toy. He grabbed it when I offered it to him, walked around chewing it, and then started to shred it. Just like a regular dog!

Ok, so here’s the not-so-good:
We thought maybe the fact that he’s not neutered wouldn’t be a problem since he’s so old. But…this was the first time we had a boarding dog over (did I mention we’re dog walkers?) and it just happened to be a female. When Chet met her out in the yard, his face lite up and he wouldn’t leave her alone.

That in itself wasn’t really a problem because she kept swinging away from him and telling him no. But the problem was the way Louie reacted. He had been getting better about not crabbing at Chet, but when all this was going on, Louie went nuts. He totally turned into Cujo and tried to bite Chet a couple of times. Actually when Daisy told Chet to go away, he went over to Louie and acted like he was going to start humping him (put his chin on his back, etc.)

So if we were waffling about getting Chet fixed, this removed all doubt. I called the Ayer vet to make an appointment and will discuss it with the doctor who knows him best when she returns next week (they want to make sure his cough is better first).

This incident also reinforces what John and I observed from seeing hundreds of different dogs at the dog park (we take dog playgroups in an off-leash setting). Most dogs there are neutered. The owners of the ones who aren’t often say their dogs are very friendly.

Which might be true, but we’ve found that the personality of the unneutered dog is only half the problem. The real problem is how other dogs treat them.

Unneutered dogs tend to get picked on, bullied, attacked. They smell different, and they are often seen as a threat even if they aren’t doing anything wrong.

So I really hope that after Chet has his little snip-snip, Louie will go back to being the tolerant little brother.

Day 9
I’ve been away housesitting, but John said he ate a stick in the yard. That’s something new and more of what a regular dog would do. John also says he’s noticed an increase in energy; he trots around the yard instead of plodding along. He’s been eating all his meals with no problem and we’ve been trying to decrease the amount or raw food and increase the kibble.

Day 10
Today I saw him trotting outside for myself. Wow, what a difference. It’s also the first time he came up the dog stairs to the dog door (four steps) without me steering him by his harness on the outside. This time I opened the door from the inside and he came right in.

We’re down to 1/2 patty of raw food instead of two (along with kibble), and will eventually try kibble with regular wet dog food.

Day 11
This is the first time he was mischief dog! We’ve been keeping him in the dog room while Daisy is here, but I came home from house sitting for a few hours while the others are out at the park and let him out. He’s been walking all around sniffing, tasting, etc. He hasn’t been that interested since he’s been here.

I’m starting to agree about the age guess. They had him listed as 10 and when he first arrived, I thought he was probably older. But now I agree with my husband; we think he’s younger.

I also think his hearing is better than we thought. I called him twice in a normal voice and he looked up.

His cough is much better. In the past few hours, I didn’t hear him cough at all, even when he was trotting around outside.

Day 12
Ok, this was really, really impressive. Today he came back through the dog door by himself. It may not sound like much, but it took our last dog months to learn it.

I put the ‘magic collar’ on him. When he got near door on the inside, it opened. It was probably accidental, but he went right out. I was trying to decide how to teach him to come back in; maybe by coaxing him through with treats. But then I heard him come up the stairs on his own and the door opened!

He went back out and in multiple times. Sometimes he turned around to go out so fast, the door hadn’t closed yet from when he came in.

Only once did it start to close on him. I held it up before it closed on his tail. (It closed on Louie once and he wouldn’t go near it for weeks. But after that he figured out that he can’t linger).

Since he never barks (I’ve only heard him once), I think I’ll let him go in/out as he pleases tomorrow.

Day 13
Since Daisy left with my husband and will be gone all day today, I decided to try letting Chet and Louie interact again. Ever since the humping incident, Louie has really been growling at Chet through the door. But I hoped that face-to-face, it would be like it was before Daisy came.

So I opened the door and held my breath. Chet came out and…Louie walked right past him into the room and started sniffing around like “I KNOW you have a dog in here somewhere! Where is he???”

Then when Louie came back out, he didn’t acknowledge Chet until Chet started sniffing his hindquarters, which brought on a growl.

But that was good enough for me to feel comfortable leaving them together all day. I put magic collars on both so they could go in and out freely.

When my husband came home, Chet was sleeping peacefully on his bed. No problems. Whew!

Day 14
The vet was back today. I told her about all the progress he’s been making and how he hardly coughs at all anymore. She agreed there’s no reason he can’t be neutered.

So ‘as soon as possible’ is two days from now! I’ll bring him over tomorrow after work and pick him up on Friday.

Hopefully this will restore harmony in the doggie world. We’ll see.

Day 15
Brought him back to the Ayer vet for the big snip, snip. You know what’s puzzling? Chet doesn’t seem to know much about cars. When I open the door, he walks right past it like he doesn’t know they are things to be jumped into. And I have to lift him onto the back seat.

Which makes me think he didn’t go anywhere, ever.

And yet he picked up each paw when I gave him a bath.

Interesting.

He did much better on the car ride. True, I had a cooler with his food (still on raw mixed with kibble) on the front seat, but he didn’t try at all to worm his way there. He stood up on the back seat, but this was the first time he also laid down. Well, the back half of him was down, but he kept his front paws in the well, with his big head near mine. Every once in a while, he gave me a head hug.

Day 16
They called me to say that everything went well. He’s got the Cone of Shame on, so we’ll see what he does with that. If Louie crabbed at him before, I wonder what he’ll do with a walking lampshade.

They did find two lumps on his scrotum, though. One which looked like a mole, they removed and the other, which looked like a pimple, they didn’t. They took a sample of it, but didn’t get a chance to analyze it before he woke up. Then they realized it should be removed by taking off the entire scrotum, so I’ll have to take him back in 2 – 3 weeks for another surgery.

Day 17
Chet came home today wearing the Cone of Shame.

I took it off him while I sat with him on his bed and I could supervise him, intending to put it back on later. It was then I realized: the whole time we’ve had Chet, he never once took any notice of his person. I’ve never seen him lick a paw, or even so much as sniff his crotch. So I left the collar off and he never took any notice at all of his hindquarters.

I’m still not happy that they want us to take him back for another surgery in 2 weeks.

I really hate the idea of putting him through all that again. If there was anything questionable, why didn’t they just remove the scrotum as a precaution? It’s not like he needs it for anything once the neuter is done.

Day 19
Today is the first time I’ve actually seen Chet licking any part of himself–his front leg. It was right after he had an appetizer of licking the bottom of my foot, while my sock was still on! What a goof.

Chet is a very unusual dog. It’s funny, the longer we have him, the less cuddly he gets. It’s a little odd.

When I sit on the Princess bed and call him over, he usually comes to say hi and give me a kiss. But he’s never given me the thorough car wash face licking that he did on the first night we had him.

And he doesn’t curl up in my lap anymore. After saying hi he usually walks away. Once in a while he’ll lay down on the bed next to me for a minute or two before getting up and walking away, either to lay on the carpet by himself or to go to another room. I miss him resting his chin on my leg.

Maybe that first week he was just so grateful to be rescued, and now things are settling down to the mundane.

June 11
Tonight I discovered Chet has had some training as a bull fighter. Or at least, the bull.

He was getting really worked up in play mode. For some reason I started holding my hands out like I had an invisible cape and calling Toro, Toro! Chet kept going past my hands, snapping at them each time. His front feet actually left the ground by about an inch. It was very funny. Wish I had a camera handy.

Post Neuter Update
I’ve lost track of the days, so I’m just going with the topic now.

Chet’s neuter has been a smashing success! We were a little worried because a few people, including the vet, said that he might be so old the neuter will not really have any effect. In other words, if he’s so used to humping, it may not matter if biologically he now has no reason to.

And it did seem that way at first. The day we brought him home from his snip snip, we had Joey boarding, who is a male dog that everyone seems to think is female. He always gets humped. It may have something to do with him getting neutered at a very early age (3 months), I don’t know.

Sure enough, Chet’s eyes lite up and he tried, so we shuttled Chet into his solitary confinement room. Plus we wanted to give him some peace to recover.

But a few days later after Joey had gone home but Phebe and Hazel were here, I had to take Chet through the house to get outside because our dog door was broken. He sniffed them in an interested way, but did not try to hump them. So I let him stay out and he’s been great. No problems at all with them.

Tonight we had Gracie and Jack visit for a few hours, and again he was fine.

So I think his humping days are over!

Louie still growls at him, though, especially when Louie is sitting at my feet and Chet gets too near. “My mommy! My mommy! Grrrr.”

June 12
Well, I’m sad to say that Chet bit me tonight. Not his fault though.

We finally got the dog door repaired, but he seems to have forgotten how to go through it. He just stood there looking out. So I tried to ‘help’ him out, maybe a little too forcefully. He really didn’t want to go and tried to turn back to come in, getting a little stuck in the process. Then I tried to pull him back through by the collar and he bit me in two places.

The good news is that he’s so old, his bite barely even broke the skin.

But I felt bad that I scared him so badly he felt he needed to do that. 🙁

Post-Neuter
Chet’s humping days are definitely behind him. We had Joey back and Chet showed no interest at all. Yippee!

We had Chet back in for one more surgery just three weeks after his neuter. This time they removed his scrotum because they had found a cancerous growth on it the size of a pimple.

He did fine once again.

The vet said he looks great. He’s up to the weight he should be, which is about 59. And she said he interacts a lot more. He greeted them when they went to his cage, etc. And when I dropped him off and they weighed him, he was watching me the whole time.

They’re pretty sure they got everything they needed to, but won’t really commit to saying that 100%. They said they could do a test for about $600 using the tissue they removed that would tell us what type of chemo we would need if he later needed chemo. But given what Chet’s been through and his age, we’re just not going to worry about that.

Off-Leash
Chet had his first off-leash experience at the park! I took him on a Saturday with two of our clients’ dogs.

Based on what we’ve observed about him, it went pretty much as expected.

He didn’t interact with other dogs one bit. All he wanted to do was walk and sniff, like the pacing he did in our backyard when we first brought him home.

But the good thing is that he mostly stayed on the trail, so Gracie, Jack, and I just had to follow him. Only once did he venture off into the woods. Even his trot is slow enough that I can easily catch him and block his path, which makes him turn around.

I was really curious to know how he would react to the pond since we’re going to a cabin in Maine very soon with the ‘kids.’ He didn’t pay any attention to it at all! Didn’t walk in it, didn’t drink from it, didn’t even sniff it. He acted like it wasn’t there.

Then on the way back, I went off on a side trail and he kept going straight. I headed him off and got him turned around. Then made a very deliberate exit onto the side trail, but once again he passed it and went straight. Finally I steered him by the collar and it was clear he was thinking “Oh!! I didn’t know there was a trail there!”


Nicknames
So even dogs with the most cutesy names to start with are given nicknames by their owners. I began calling him Chet the Jet, similar to the character in the book I mentioned above. John called him Sausage once, and I sometimes refer to him as Sheep Ears. And there’s always Superman Chet because he sleeps with his paws straight out in front of him. But the names that have stuck are Mr. Squishy for me. His neck has some folds in it even though he’s at a normal weight. And John has dubbed him Right There Chet. If you go to open the refrigerator door, he’s standing right in front of it. If you turn around quickly, you practically trip over him. He’s always right there.

Back to the Pond
Ok, now I know why he totally ignored the pond last time. A few days ago when it was scorchingly hot, we made another trip to the dog park. Chet still just

wanted to walk, but we went to a section of the pond with a beach that is partially contained by cement blocks, so he couldn’t really go anywhere. Again he ignored the water while I played with the others. But this time when he was facing me, I backed into the water (wearing Okabashis). I’m happy to say this made him walk right in! He went up to his belly and kept following me. I wanted to see how deep he would go. He got to where he wasn’t touching anymore and started attempting to swim. But then he just kept shaking his head and trying to swim at the same time.

In hindsight, he must have sank like a rock and got water in his ears. All this took place in the space of a second since he was only inches away from where he could stand (it looks worse on the video than it was, promise).

But that’s probably why he wasn’t keen to go near the water.

So I immediately went home and ordered him a life jacket from LL Bean. Hopefully I can try it out at the pond again before we go for our week on a lake. I just don’t want him to be afraid of getting wet.

It came a few days later. When I first put it on him, the front strap was a little too tight and he kept trying to bite it. But after I adjusted it, he didn’t even notice he had it on and took a little snooze, Superman style.

This is the one I got him:
Canine Life Jacket.
It’s made by Northern River Supplies. We’re going to take it out for a test spin…

Just got back from the pond.The life jacket was a success! He was a little more hesitant to come in over his head, but I coaxed him in with treats. And the life jacket gave him just enough buoyancy to allow him to swim normally. Oh boy, can’t wait until the lake in Maine!

More Oddities
There are two things that most dogs do but Chet doesn’t: Chew and Wag!

I noticed when he eats his kibble, he laps it up like it’s a liquid and then swallows it whole. No chewing whatsoever. Although when I give him a big treat, he crunches it.

He also doesn’t wag at all. When I pet him, he leans into it and I know he enjoys it. But the tail remains stationery. If I play with it, he moves it so I know he can. One day he might just start wagging it on his own.

Ramp
Chet has been doing great with the stairs at the dog door, but he doesn’t like to go down them at night. I encouraged him out the door once and I could see that he slipped off the bottom step a little.

So out came the ramp we constructed when our husky mix got too old to go down stairs. From the dog door, the ramp goes to a little table from which a second ramp reaches the ground. The ramps have lattice sidings which were enough to keep my husky from falling over. Now they’re more a visual aid.

Chet came out and went down the ramp while I was still adjusting it. But he didn’t want to go up it at all! He kept going to the stairs, which now have planks of wood right above his head. I tried to steer him by his collar up the ramp. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him ‘canter!’ He ran up the ramp and jumped right off the table. He really doesn’t like being man-handled; it must mean something scary is coming.

So off I went to Lowes for the some treated wood to make rails for the table.

Now he still has no problem going out, but can’t figure out how to come back in; he walks right past the bottom of the ramp and goes to the stairs, looking up longingly.

I tried coaxing him in the right direction with his favorite treats, which worked for Kelly when she couldn’t figure it out. But Chet is sooooo treat-motivated he just snapped at my fingers. His front paws actually left the ground. He followed my hand, but he wasn’t learning anything.

The I tried snapping in the direction I wanted him to go. That worked, but he still couldn’t figure it out on his own. Everytime he went outside, we would have to go and help him find the bottom of the ramp, or else he would just go around and around it.

So I guess we’ll have to see if you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Update: Today Chet went out and in by himself a few times! Yippee! It took him about a week to get it. Which is much better than Kelly. My husband recalls that it took her months.