Stiltgrass and high steppin'

Sometimes I feel like it's one step forward and two steps back with this dog.  A couple of weeks ago Maya was truckin' along using her damaged foot and generally making great progress after three weeks in the hospital with the best of attention and physical therapy while we were in Peru.

Then, from one day to the next she stopped using her leg. It seems she irritated her paw by gnawing on her nails, so, I guess like cutting a nail too short or maybe breaking one off, she didn't want to use it. The first week was pure setback. Then last Friday the vet left her foot uncovered to allow the irritated paw to air and cure itself, but in the time it took me to drop her off at the house and head to the office, she managed to rip into her bandage and bleed all over the place—despite wearing a big cone-shaped collar on her head! We had to rush her to the local vet and get her bandaged up again. This week she's been out of her cone hat only to go for walks and occasionally to eat.

Today, finally, she showed signs of getting better. I took her up the mountain—the second time this week—and by taking the hilliest route forced her to drop the leg now and then. At one point, on a soft, flat stretch, she voluntarily dropped it for four or five steps and did that two or three times during our ascent. As reward I let her run free for the walk back down, and in total we covered 2.35 miles. She was in her glory while free and even occasionally seemed to let her damaged leg hit the ground, though it was a bit hard to see for sure. Anyway, she didn't let it deter her from enjoying a romp through the woods.

This was the second time this week I've taken her to the mountain. Sunday, while Meche and the kids were at the beach, Maya and I went for a hike. We met a guy with a Brittany spaniel and I unleashed Maya so she wouldn't be disadvantaged. They ran around for a while but since the Brittany was a roamer—and had a small cowbell on her collar and a GPS tracker—she and Maya didn't spend too long together. Maya's good at coming back and even though the Brittany took off and was out of hearing range for a good while, Maya stayed obediently close by. Good girl.

I'm pretty sure this is Japanese stiltgrass.

Maya in stiltgrass.

From the Brittany's owner I learned about Japanese stiltgrass. Bummer. That lovely, bright green, feathery looking grass I've been seeing on the mountain is an immigrant! Damn. Apparently it came in during the early part of the 20th century packed around pottery from China! As I walked today, it really changed my perspective. I've always liked that the mountain is so obviously old farmland. I can easily imagine someone moving their dairy cattle
up and down the slopes to different pastures during the year. And this being an old settled area of the country, it has been farmed since well before the American Revolution.

Yet, who am I to be prejudice? We're all invasive species, no? Even the Native Americans can't really claim they are completely original to the area, and are descendant from early invaders traveling the Bering land bridge. Migration is the story of humanity. Still, I understand whitetail deer won't eat stiltgrass, so it is taking over and displacing other "native" grasses. Hummm ... and then how long have some of the other grasses and such been here?

Worst yet, I recognized it immediately as the same thing cropping up in my front yard. The good thing is it rips up easily.

Stiltgrass or no, it's great to be getting Maya out on the trail again.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

I had expected an exuberant reaction from Maya when we picked her up from the vet on Saturday after being away from her for three weeks. What I didn't expect was her lapse in recognition. How easily they forget!

After meeting with us and going over how Maya was doing—very well thanks to the wonderful care and attention she received, including another surgery that closed up the open wound over the metal plate in her leg—the surgeon vet went and got Maya. She basically pulled right past the little examining room we were waiting in, hell-bent on getting outside for a bit and the vet had to pull her back. We went to her and she didn't recognize us. She shied away and cowered a bit before approaching me apprehensively. Then, boom, she was jumping all over me and Meche and whining and quivering. Poor thing, she must have thought she would never see us again.

Bionic extremity

 The vet showed us her xray, which is pretty impressive. I can imagine why she isn't too comfortable using that rear leg. The metal brace inside her skin is huge, with big screws clamping it to her bone. Dios mio, I can imagine I'd be favoring my leg and limping like crazy if I had a plate like that under my skin! Apparently the screws extend into the other side of hard bone, though it isn't that hard to see in the picture. Otherwise, according to vet, they might wiggle loose.

Four-footed cat huntin' in basement daycare.

So she came home with meds and a physical therapy routine that includes making her walk uphill so she pushes off with the leg and walking in a circle clockwise, which makes her use the leg, especially if I give her lazy butt a nudge now and then. When she's excited or wanting to play she totally forgets the leg and has it firmly planted on the ground, such as in the picture above in which she nearly snagged the cat. (Note extended, wagging tail, a clear indication of desire to engage. Translation: cat at 2-o'clock!)

The first couple of days home she was pretty much a wimp about the leg but the last couple of days she's been keeping it down a lot more, and tonight I took her out for an evening stroll and she was planting it firming on the pavement the whole way up our hill—about a good 10-minute walk. Back down again was another story but she was tired by then. I'm feeling a lot more optimistic. She can use it with certain vigor when she wants. I suspect she will tend to favor it for a long time, if not forever, but I'm no longer worried that she'll just let it atrophy. I'm now hoping we'll be back out on the trails by September. Maybe not off leash but that will come.

Good girl, Maya.

Going to the ...

What with all the dogs? Everywhere I turn now I find people we've known for years, who like us have lived perfectly happy lives, at least each according to his or her ability, without the need for a canine. Now it seems like everyone I talk to has gotten a dog. I don't think it's just because I am suddenly more aware of dogs in this world—I am but that's not the reason. The empirical evidence is just all over the place:

My longest, best friend from high school tells me one day on the phone that he and his wife have gotten a dog. This was shortly after we'd gotten Maya and he and I hadn't talked in probably a year so it couldn't have been cross-pollination of thought. A coworker also got a dog about six months before we did, though I can't claim lack of knowledge on that one, nor can I say his actions didn't help push me toward accepting one.

Meche's uncle's dog, Chicucha, an unshaved schnauzer, in Cuzco, Peru.

Now, here in Peru, I'm finding many of our old friends are going to the dogs as well. Our friends Cesar and Aglae informed us they have a schnauzer, as does Meche's uncle with whom we stayed in Cuzco. The two dogs have very different temperaments, though, and her uncle had one previously.



Then on Sunday we go to a cookout at her cousin's house in the campo south of Lima and he picks us up with his son and their six-month-old schnauzer-terrier mix, or at least that's my guess as to what it is. Meche's cousin calls it an ex-schnauzer.

An ex-shnauzer named Chaska

Then at the barbecue—called a parrillada here—some other old friends show up with their dog, a mixed breed of I don't know what called Sour. I learned that day that Sour was their second dog and that their first dog, a lab-boxer mix, was stolen. The stolen dog's name had been Pisco, a grappa-like spirit distilled from grapes and used in the national cocktail, the Pisco Sour. Thus the name of the dog that followed the dog Pisco.

Sour, a spirited dog named for a spirit.

I have made a feeble attempt to captures some images of dogs in Peru, particularly in Cuzco, while on this trip. My underlying agenda—spurious as it is—was to find traces of Irish red and white setters in Cuzco and confirm my brother-in-law's belief that Maya is the spitting image of his former dog Stroll I. I didn't find anything much like Maya there but did find a few white dogs with patches.

Most of this effort consisted only of lifting my camera in passing as we went about visiting friends and family. Even then, I missed a great shot of a dog jumping into the fountain in the main plaza of Cuzco for a bath because my camera was uselessly stashed inside my knapsack. We did carry out one dog-specific mission this trip, though, and that was to visit Stroll II, my brother-in-laws second Stroll, which bears no resemblance to Maya.

Stoll II, guardian of his domain.

He had to be left behind when my in-laws and their two boys moved to the States. It broke their hearts, especially my youngest nephew who pleaded for years for his father to go to Peru and bring Stroll II back. For a lot of reasons that wouldn't have been feasible, one big one being Stroll II was used to wandering openly around his neighborhood.
Also, he was adopted by the new owners of the house and later by neighbors across the courtyard, where he now resides. He's a big, brave dog who became the de facto guardian of the little complex of houses and survived poisoning—the vet clipped the ends of Stroll's ears so he would bleed out and get rid of the poison—and not long ago survived testicular cancer. Although I don't recall having met Stroll II before, the girls had and, believe it or not, he appeared to remember them, at least according to the neighbor who says unknown visitors don't usually get such a friendly reception.

Then there's Rose, an English woman who has lived in Peru for 25 or 30 years and has been a staunch defender of animal rights, particularly in working to improve treatment of dogs and cats. She works with a group called Vida Digna, a Peruvian animal welfare association. She spends a good amount of time rescuing injured, abused or neglected dogs, especially ones hit by cars, and has about 20 dogs under her care boarded with various friends and sympathizers around Lima. Below is a link to a touching story she wrote about a handicapped boy with a big heart for our best friend. Note the color of the dog in the pictures; not exactly an Irish setter red but ...

http://www.care2.com/causes/deaf-boy-in-shanty-town-rescues-burned-homeless-dog.html

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Here are some more photos of Peruvian dogs, mostly from Cuzco, though, the last patriotic pooch was wandering around the center of Lima with his owner on the country's Independence Day. He's actually a working dog, because we saw him a couple of days later in a similar part of downtown in different attire, something akin to traditional Peruvian campesino, including a chullo, the well-known Andean woolen hat with a pointed tassel and ear flaps. His owner dresses the dog up in these costumes and then waits around for tourists to notice and take pictures. He collects tips for the favor of posing his canine friend, who doesn't seem to mind the work.

A Peruvian hairless pup

A Peruvian hairless dog in national colors in Cuzco plaza.