I Need a Boa Stress-Pet!

It’s been a weird few months, even for me. I’m so happy to be back in Boise and settled into a good routine. You would think at some point I could coast a bit, right? But strange things have been cropping up and I’ve had to take some drastic steps.

So the first strange thing that happened was I took a bad fall. I was making a house call on an elderly lady, and I tripped on her top step and flew across the porch. I had a laptop and a medical bag in my hands, so I protected them, of course, using my head and post-menopausal joints- I mostly landed on my left knee and elbow, and my head slammed into her front door, announcing my arrival. When she opened the door to find me face down and bleeding, she let me use her walker to lever myself up and then she administered first aid. Eventually I was able to turn her attention from myself to her, but she never lost that alarmed look she had when she first opened the door to find her health care provider collapsed in a bloody, limping heap. This is a true story, by the way, not a complicated metaphor for current events.

I was not just hurt but shaken up, and I quickly ran through the likely culprits- MS, of course, and Parkinson’s- that was more likely, with my family history, or maybe a mini-stroke? Tumor? The shoes, which up until that morning had been my favorites, were put into the closet for time out. Eventually I decided that I needed to increase my Qi-Gong and I needed more exercise.

So then the second weird thing happened. I decided that the best way to get more exercise was to get a dog. I have always been a cat person, until I developed fairly severe allergies a couple of years ago. But I got this bee in my bonnet that the only way I would get my butt out of the chair and outside, where I could once again learn to navigate the dangerous world of steps and curbs, was from the end of a dog leash.

Of course there is a long history of service animal use for people who are blind, who have seizures or diabetes, and lately there have been several groups training psychiatric service dogs for returning vets suffering from PTSD. I am very familiar with how the system for service dogs works and doesn’t work, because in my last clinic, which served the homeless population, I was frequently called upon to provide paperwork certifying an animal as a service animal. In order to take your pet into a homeless shelter in Boise, he or she would have to be a service animal. So I would have to evaluate a patient and document a medical condition that would benefit from a service animal, and then evaluate a service animal and give the owner paperwork to allow owner and dog into the shelter.

Regardless of if I am a big softee, there are some situations that just cannot be condoned in a homeless shelter which has children. Pit bulls who have been rescued from the fighting pits do not belong in a shelter with children, and I frankly questioned the training of these dogs as service animals when their torn ears suggested they were still in the ring. Also, when a man brought in his Boa and told me the snake was his stress-pet, I flatly refused to give him a chit. I also ordered them both out of the clinic when he refused to put the stress-pet back into its cage.

But now I am reconsidering. Not if I should have allowed the Boa into the shelter, because the very loving but tough Christians that ran those shelters also had their limits. But I am reconsidering my previous thoughts about stress and psychiatric service dogs. Because at this point in the story, I met Oscar.

Limping and with scabs the size of Montana on my knees, I went into the local PetsMart to just “look around.” Oh, look at that! There’s the adoption center! I went in to be greeted with about twenty Chihuahuas’ throwing themselves against the wire bars of their cages in a snarling rage, trying to tear out my throat with their tiny teeth. Perhaps the rage was the result of the cute little costumes the staff had dressed them in? Mostly tutu’s, but that did not disguise the fury and blood-rage in their eyes. Do any Zombie stories have dogs? If not, I’m telling you, Chihuahuas are the dogs. Back behind the little demons were a couple of ADD hounds of various kinds, clearly not ready for apartment living, and, at the very back, with his paws over his ears, was Oscar.

Oscar is some sort of terrier. He is not immediately an attractive dog, until one gets to know him. He’s covered with wiry tufts of gray and black hair, and he has random curls over his butt that make him look like a miniature satyr. The tag on his cage said that Oscan knew his name, had passed training school, but was an “escape artist.” I went to the visiting room and one of the staff brought Oscar to me. He sat at attention, or maybe parade-rest, to let me know he was a graduate of training school, but one brown eye rolled back to watch me. I asked Oscar if he would like to come home with me and he wagged his tail and said yes. The staff didn’t understand that the deal was done, and they made him demonstrate all sorts of good behaviors before they heard me say, “I’m taking him.” For the third time. He stood next to me wagging his tail while I gathered leash and collar, tags, food, bowls, etc etc etc.

When I got home the kid looked at me and looked at Oscar and waited for an explanation. I told him Oscar was my Christmas present. In the three weeks he’s been home with me, I have gotten more exercise. Also my brown sheepskin rugs are developing holes and he has eaten two tennis balls completely. I have dealt with the escape artist via concrete blocks around the bottom of the back porch fence, and he has settled into our family so well my kid mentioned that it felt like Oscar had been with us forever. I agree. And whatever is causing me to fall on my face unexpectedly, exercise and a fuzzy excitable dog who adores me will only make it better. And now I need to get off the computer and get the leash because it’s time for his walk.