In training
Within five minutes of waking, Ada gulps her first Trazodone of the day with a smear of peanut butter. She tried more holistic treatments before realizing that she would need medication for her anxiety. You understand.
Before Ada, we had Abe, an affable little terrier mix who liked a lot of walking, but, with his middling intelligence, didn’t require much of us emotionally. After a failed attempt at rescuing a shelter dog during the COVID lockdown, we decided we would find a puppy from a breeder. I know, I know.
She is an Australian Shepherd-Poodle mix, an Aussiedoodle, in the ridiculous parlance of upper-middle income America, and had we been wiser, Ada might never have come to us. Ada had a nearly identical sibling, and in one of the photos the breeder sent us early on, she had mixed up the two dogs. We pointed out her mistake, said that we had selected the puppy with the tiny tuft of white atop her noggin, not the puppy with the solid chocolate dome. We still look back on this and sigh.
The week before we picked up Ada, the breeder texted to ask whether we wouldn’t rather wait for a puppy from another litter, said that Ada seemed too keen on herding. At this point, our children had been home from school for a year, our 18-year-old dog had just died, and nothing short of a canine influenza pandemic would keep us from this animal.
Let’s segue to the wise words of the American Kennel Club: “Aussies are remarkably intelligent, quite capable of hoodwinking an unsuspecting novice owner. In short, this isn't the pet for everyone.”
Pretty quickly, Ada put herself to work as family defender and chief herder. Her over-enthusiasm for her jobs worried us, and we called in professional help. In weekly lessons, our family learned to read her body language and guide her toward basic obedience, and soon, Ada was attending a school led by our trainer. Once per week, the trainer would pick up our dog and whisk her away to PetSmart, Lowe’s, or the local park to practice various skills with other dogs. As a classic overachiever, Ada loved this more than she has loved anything since.
Still, Ada remained constantly on guard. We began keeping a log of her triggers and our attempts to distract her. Among her dislikes: delivery trucks and drivers, garbage and recycling trucks, school buses, Jeeps, people who complimented her on being pretty (and she is so pretty), people walking dogs, children on bikes, and children on scooters. We live in a densely packed neighborhood with abundant sidewalks. Ada’s life was a nightmare.
(Nothing to see here, just my dog threatening me with a knife)
I had assumed that Ada would be my jogging and hiking buddy, allowing her to burn off some of this intensity, but her insistence on lunging at every person we passed made this an impossibility. My husband had been especially keen to train a herding dog, but Ada glommed onto me despite my best efforts to fend off her affections, which came in the form of a chin pressed atop my thigh and big brown eyes cast glowingly toward my face.
Our trainer felt that giving Ada’s mind more tasks might reduce her anxiety. She began teaching Ada to forage for mushrooms in the woods and left us with tiny tins of dried truffles for practice. She suggested agility classes and showed us how to work Ada toward acrobatic leaps through the air in pursuit of a Frisbee.
Finally, she recommended a psychologist — for the dog, not us.
We were two middle-aged people just emerging from a global pandemic, working full-time jobs, and raising kids and felt that if anyone would be going to therapy, it would be the two of us. So off Ada went to the vet in search of a prescription.
Now, when we reach 3 p.m. each day, Ada barks at us for her second dose of Trazodone. She keeps us on a strict schedule: three walks per day, chunk of sweet potato to gnaw after her morning walk, napping beside me in my office until lunch, and dog chew at 3:30 p.m. followed by a play session in our back yard. And heaven help her, if we aren’t sitting down by 8:30 each evening to allow her some relaxation, there will be barking. She is, truly, a velcro dog and strives to anticipate our every action.
The Trazodone hasn’t changed Ada’s personality — she will still chase a UPS truck with the fervor of a raging bull if given the chance — but the medication has allowed her to better follow our instructions.
Much as I thought I knew what a child was a few years into motherhood only to have that illusion shattered by the birth of a completely different child, I thought I knew what a dog was after so many years with Abe. We creatures are infinitely diverse and astounding.
This isn’t the dog I would have chosen for this phase of life, but one benefit of middle age is that I have developed a greater ability to accept things as they are. Not everything (such as looming dictatorships), but some things. I have expended an enormous amount of time and money trying to correct an animal who inherently wants to spend her days romping across the fields nipping at the heels of sheep. Where is her farm? Is it her fault we have not provided what she needs? Already, I worry about where I will put all of this attention when she is gone. She’s just the worst.
