Remembering Leia

We had to let our Leia pass over the rainbow bridge this past Thursday. As anyone who's loved and lost a pet knows, it's a brutally difficult thing to go through. I want to memorialize her because she was an amazing dog and it helps the grieving process, but also because over the past ten years of Leia's all too short life, she taught me so much about animal behavior, emotions, training, and how our human way of caring for an animal is not always the best thing for them.

From the moment we brought Leia home at eight weeks of age from Austin Pets Alive! shelter, there were some things about her that were different from other dogs I'd had. She was not as affectionate or cuddly as other puppies I'd had, preferring her own personal space to close physical contact with us. She didn't seem to enjoy petting much, and soon I was convinced this must have been a trait common to one of the breeds in her genetic mix, and I distinctly remember searching Google for "touch sensitive dog breeds". When I discovered that Whippets can be sensitive to touch, I was convinced she must have a lot of Whippet in her! (she had the svelt shape of a sight hound as well). When we had her DNA tested a few years later this turned out not to be the case.

At the time we adopted Leia (who was named after General Leia Organa in the film Star Wars: The Force Awakens), I was just starting to get back into dog training, after taking a hiatus for 11 years! I had not yet discovered the wonderful world of cooperative care training. Had I known about the ways one can help dogs feel more comfortable and even enjoy being touched and handled, I think it could have made a sizeable difference in her experiences with veterinary and home healthcare. I am really glad that I did stumble onto cooperative care training, and became a Fear Free Certified Professional. After I began working on this with her at home, and began working with a Fear Free veterinarian, vet visits became more tolerable for both of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVdoTAiUok8

Leia enjoying cooperative care training

When Leia was only around one year of age, she began having problems with luxating patellas, which resulted in orthopedic surgery on her right back leg. While the surgery was successful and gave us more active years with her, it also came at a cost to her mental wellbeing. In the aftermath of her surgery was the first time I realized that Leia could be aggressive in some situations. While anesthesia, surgery, and resulting pain and discomfort is no fun for anyone, Leia seemed to be traumatized by it. Everything about her told us she just wanted to be left alone, and her mood was depressed for weeks afterwards.

We had a few good years, and then around age six or seven she began showing signs of what I thought was arthritis. X-rays didn't show anything significant, so our vet said we would continue to monitor for ligament tears. At the time I had no idea how bad this could be. Unfortunately eventually she had a full tear in her cruciate ligament, and although we felt conflicted about putting her through surgery again, at the advice of our vet we thought it was our best option. And about a year later, she blew out her other knee. We were faced with no good options: forego surgery and she would develop end stage arthritis fairly quickly and not have a good quality of life, or do surgery and she would still develop arthritis but it wouldn't be as bad. I waffled back and forth for a couple of months before giving in and going ahead with it. Given that we got maybe a year of her feeling good after the second surgery before things started to go downhill, I regret doing the third surgery, and maybe even the second.

One of the things Leia taught me is that having the ability to make choices for oneself and to have bodily autonomy should be respected in all creatures, whenever possible. If I could have asked her if she would choose those surgeries or to have a shorter life without them, I think she might have chosen the latter.

Some of the other things Leia taught me:

• Much can be achieved nonverbally.

  • Leia was a master of the "polite stare". When she was an adolescent she began coming to me and sitting politely by my side when she needed something. This would often happen when I was working on my computer and at first I thought she wanted petting (silly me, by that time I should have known she wasn't that type!), but after a while I realized it was her way of telling me she needed a walk or some kind of mental/physical enrichment. I figured that out because when I put my hand on her back to pet her, she would turn away or move away, yet she would stay close and keep looking at me. She never pawed me, or whined. She just...kept...looking, until finally I got up and said "What do you want, dog?" and then she would get excited and we would go downstairs, and eventually I figured it out.

  • She later used the polite stare to get me to move our other dog off of her preferred sleeping spot! By trial and error I realized that she was really, truly, trying to communicate what she wanted, just by using eye contact! This realization was somewhat earth shattering to me, because it speaks to the level of intelligence in this amazing animal.

• Dogs can express anger, including cursing.

  • Another unfortunate experience at the vet was when she had something painful going on in her mouth and wasn't eating, and I tried a drop off appointment because that was all they had available. It was a new vet she didn't know, and they had to muzzle her and sedate her. When they brought her out to me she had the muzzle on, and she was whining like she was just barely holding in a lot of rage. The tech asked me to remove the muzzle, which I did, and then she climbed in the car, turned around, braced her paw on the doorframe, and barked ferociously once at the tech, and turned her back to her. I have no doubt that what she was saying to that tech was "F**k you!". After that I decided I would never do a drop off appointment again, and that was when I started my journey with cooperative care to help her have a better experience.

  • Rolling in stuff is fun.

    

    Leia after rolling in mulch

  • Dogs like to party, too. While she was very particular about being touched, she had times when she absolutely loved getting pets, and even giving kisses. Each day after their evening walk, the dogs would hang out in the backyard with my husband, sometimes for several hours. When Leia was still feeling good, they would play, and run, and bark at noises, and chase wildlife (real and imaginary). The yard was always her happy place, and nighttime in the yard was party time! Leia was like a different dog at those times. She was loving, she was playful, and she was affectionate. She loved to play the "paw game", which meant she would slap her paw onto your leg playfully, and she had the biggest doggie grin ever. That's how I want to always think of her.

  • For some dogs, the job is more important than anything else. As Leia began to decline in the last weeks from an underlying neurological condition (which we did not have diagnosed because we made the decision not to do anymore invasive procedures to her), she gradually lost interest in her favorite things, the last of which was food. But down to the last day, she still ran the length of the fence and barked at "intruders", because she took her job very seriously, and truly enjoyed keeping us all safe. Incidentally, we've never had a security system, and never had any issues with security. I don't think that's a coincidence.

One thing I know to be true is that while Leia could certainly act aggressively in response to certain triggers like veterinary care, she didn't seem to want to hurt anyone. True to her namesake, she was beautiful, at times fierce, but always a good soul. She just felt strongly that her wishes and boundaries should be respected. As long as people respected those boundaries and didn't put her in situations where she had to defend them, she was no threat to anyone. What I know all too well as a professional dog trainer is that had she been adopted by a regular person, more than likely she would have been rehomed, or returned to the shelter for growling, snapping, or even biting someone. Unfortunately this is one of the reasons we have so many dogs displaced from their homes. We need to help people understand animal behavior and help them live cooperatively together. While there are things I could have done better, I feel good about the life I gave her. And that gives me some share of solace at losing her.

While she may be gone from this earth, she's forever in our hearts. 🐾❤️

Leia living her best life