The Zoo - Part Two

The dog that started it all was Tora! She has since gone to the Rainbow Bridge, but no blog would be complete without a visit with Tora. Here is my journal entry from sometime in 2004:

We love animals. We have way too many dogs and cats -- most people think we're nuts, but we just love each and every one of them. Some we've raised from pups, some we rescued as adults -- and each one is an integral member of our family. But to tell you about our furkids, we have to start with the one who started it all.

Every so often I'm driving my car and thinking about writing about Tora. In my car, in my head, I'm an excellent writer! By the time I put pen to paper (or keyboard to cyberspace) all those grand words disappear. I want to be a great writer to talk about my 'heart' dog, but I'll settle for a person with a good command of the English language.

With Tora's days dwindling I feel a need to write about her life -- for my own peace of mind. I'm not sure anyone else will find these words too interesting, but I'm hoping to make it clear how important Tora has been to our lives, and how hard it is to adjust to the thought of living without her.

And so, here's Tora:



One day I decided we needed a dog. We had a cat, but as much as I love cats, I just needed a dog. We started going to dog shows and a lady outside the ring watching the show had the cutest little dog. Long story short, the dog was a Shiba Inu, a rare breed from Japan. I decided we were going to have one of those!


Shiba Inus are usually red sesame in color, with black and tan a less popular color. We went to look at Shiba litters and Gil saw a black & tan colored 4-day old little speck of a thing and declared her ours. That was August, 1990 -- and Tora came to live with us in early October that year.


It's hard to explain about Tora, and what she's meant to us. We don't have any 'skin' kids of our own, so Tora is our baby. It's the first thing we ever raised together.
She may have raised us tho. She took us in hand from the start. She's the first dog we ever did any obedience training with. Back in our 'salad' days we could afford a dog trainer to come to our house once a week and help us with that. I won't lie and tell you that Tora was a dream at obedience. This is where her training us comes in. She doesn't much like taking orders from anyone. When she does what we tell her, I suspect it's only because it's either what she wanted to do in the first place, or she's giving us a gift -- and next time we owe her! As you will read later, thank goodness for that obedience training. She got her certificate proving that one of us knew how to sit, stay, come and heal. Actually heal was one she wasn't too keen on -- I think she has a feminist nature like my sister. Sometime telling her to stay to one side, and slightly behind us, just isn't a natural act to her. But we managed to pass and get a wall certificate.

She was a constant companion from the beginning -- going with us everywhere. She loves the car -- hops in settles down and eventually falls asleep. Other than when she was neutered, when she had knee surgery and one night in a kennel (which she hated) she's always with one of us.

She is a great little guard dog -- actually her only downside is that barking. I think she came out of the womb barking -- she loves to bark. Try as we have, she still -- 12 years later -- she loves to bark. Now with blindness sinking in, she still greets the world each morning with a bark -- never mind there isn't anything out there to bark on. Tora barks just to be sure if there is something out there, that they know she's out there too!

Each time we add a dog to the family she looks at us as if to remind us how good life was with just her. But she just seems to adapt to the fact that we love tons of dogs. As we added more dogs to our menagerie she has taken the job as Alpha very seriously. I've seen her put a 125lb german shepherd on her back with just a growl and roll of her lip. Even at age 12, going deaf and blind, with heart disease -- no other dog has even attempted to take her position from her. She rules the roost!

When she was a bit over a year old we added another Shiba to the family. Chaz came from the same father, different mother. He's the usual colored Shiba Inu -- red sesame. Handsome boy, but his elevator doesn't make it all the way to the top, I fear. We used to leave them in the yard when we went to work -- they seemed to get along just fine. But Chaz was a puppy, and given to puppy ways. Tora, tho, seemed patient and forgiving and we had many months of the two of them living together peacefully. We came home from work one night to find Chaz on the front porch with our neighbor. Blood was pouring from four puncture wounds in his head. According to the neighbor there was a lot of barking and then a scream. He went to look and found the bloody Chaz. After a trip to the expensive evening vet, it was determined that no serious damage was done. I know, as strongly as if I'd been there, that Tora took Chaz's crap all afternoon, and then finally reached over and just bit him! Four puncture marks axactly matched up to Tora's teeth marks. But, it was the last time it happened. Chaz learned a painful lesson and in the following decade completly respected Tora's alpha position. They aren't affectionate with each other, but they spend a lot of time in close proximity and there has never been another issue.







Tora isn't a warm and cuddly dog -- she's a serious dog. She doesn't much like strangers, and she abides the cats and dogs in our life without any obvious affection for any of them. But she adores us -- and what more can we ask of her.

She developed a seizure problem in her third or fourth year. She would have infrequent smallish seizures. We could never link them to anything organic, or actually we could never link them to anything at all. Oddly as her CHF was diagnosed, the seizures stopped.

The seizures never lasted more than a minute or two, I'm sure -- but they seemed to last forever. I always knew when one was there -- I would hear Gil call me by name -- something he only does when one of the animals in jeopardy. I'll come running to find Tora stumbling around like a drunken sailor, trying to burrow into a corner, or under a piece of furniture she couldn't possibly hide under. I would just comfort her until it stopped, and then she'd sleep and I'd keep her nearby so I could watch her closely. As we got more used to them, I discoverd she would respond to my voice -- she seemed to try to hear my voice during her seizure. So I started to give her obedience commands -- firmly but not sternly. Just simple ones "Tora Sit!" or "Tora Stay" - those kind of things. You could see her fighting the confusion and it really seemed to help bring the episodes to an early finish. Those obedience lessons were a godsend.


One of her most endearing habits is when we come home. In her younger days she would run around the house to find a gift to give us. She would bring a toy to us in greeting each night. What a nice thing to come home to -- a creature who thinks we are the best thing since sliced bread. Dogs are funny creatures -- they have no sense of time. They don't know if you've been gone an hour or a minute. We loved seeing how excited she'd get that we'd go outside for a minute, and come back in just to see her fetch us a toy and greet us. Can't get too much adulation in this life, even if you have to create it yourself, don't you think?

Even now in her old age she gets so excited to see us. She crunches up her face, her tail wags like crazy, she bounces around like mad, seems like she bends in the middle -- all the while crying and going on and on about how happy she is to see us. Tora has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure for about a year now. We're supposed to keep her quiet and calm -- no new stresses or agitations. That's a battle -- when I get home each night and she starts her happy to see me dance, I hate having to stop that -- to tell her she can't get that excited.

A couple of years ago Tora and Coco got into a fight. Dog fights scare me -- usually there is little damage, just a lot of noise, but sometimes there is injury. I'm not sure what got the two of them started -- but once separated I found a small puncture wound on Tora's neck. I washed it out, and put antibiotic cream. I watched it for infection and didn't see any, but slowly I noticed her coughing on a regular basis. I took her to the vet, told him about the fight, the wound, etc. He examined her, said it looked fine - but gave her antibiotics just in case the infection was deeper. She took the series of pills, but the coughing continued. I love our vet, but he's nearing retirement and not always as pro-active as I'd like. So I took Tora to a new vet about 40 miles away.

First, Tora hates vets -- all vets, all the time. She shakes from the minute we walk in until she's done. She can be a bit nippy with strangers. When she had her knee surgery and I'd come to visit and sit with her each night, the techs would have me take her out of her crate, because she was not thrilled about being there and about these strange folks reaching in for her. So, I try not to take her unless I have to -- but sometimes you just have to. This vet wanted to take xrays, which surprisingly Tora did pretty well with -- Gil got to hold her while they positioned her and took the xrays. But, the diagnosis is not what I expected at all. Congestive Heart Failure -- he showed us the xrays where there was some congestion which could be cleared up, but some enlargement of the heart, which couldn't be.

That was a bit over a year ago. She's done well, with some changes and additions to her medications. She has her good days and her bads ones. She sleeps more -- due to CHF or age, I don't know. But, she's doing alright. We know there is more coming, and it won't be easy to watch, but we've enjoyed this last year with her. Added to the CHF is the rest that comes with age -- blindness and deafness. It's really become apparent in the last six months. She startles easily -- she doesn't know who's around her and you can see her confusion. The other dogs seem to take it easier on her -- identifying themselves to her in that way that only dogs can. I can see her adjustment as well. In the morning she goes out and walks the perimeter of the yard -- I think to check to 'feel' any changes in 'her' property over night. I'm grateful we moved when we did -- she had enough time to 'see' the place, to imprint it on her memory. As much as I'd like to move again, I won't until after Tora has gone -- I think it would be too hard for her to adjust again. This is a small place and it's just the right size for her. We're learning to touch her when we come up on her, to let her know we're there. I think she likes our hands on her -- she seems to respond well to our touch. She's doing well, but boy is the adjustment hard on us. We can't call her anymore to come in the house -- so we have to go get her. She sees movement still, and she 'looks' for it, so we're adapting together.

I know we'll survive her death --- but just thinking about it floors me. She's been an integral part of every facet of our lives for fourteen years -- during the summer we grocery shop in the morning so she can go with us before the heat hits. Our cars have always been purchased with her in mind -- will she fit, where will her fit. We searched for a place to live eight years ago where her barking wouldn't irritate the neighbors. She's just a major player in our lives -- thinking about how our life would be different if we'd never found her is just unthinkable. We weren't dog lovers before Tora -- we liked them, they were pets -- now we know they're family.

I didn't know we could deal with seizures, heart failure, knee surgeries -- but we could, we have. We're better for it. This little furry creature with a stubborn streak a mile wide has ruled our roost for over a decade and will until the day she dies. And our roost is much the better for it.