INDEPENDENCE DAY - JULY 2020

Friends of Scooter Sublime know that on his tenth-month birthday, a certain part of his potential was stripped from his body. As a result, certain activities were prohibited for two weeks: no stairs, no romping, jumping, running, playing with canine friends, no bath or long walks, no chasing the ball in the carpeted apartment corridor, no excitable trips to the concierge for treats. Scooter was to aid surgical healing by being quiet. 

Days one and two: Coddle. Comfort. Encourage quiet. 

Day three of week one: Scooter jumped onto the sofa and off again, and then again, before we remembered “no jumping.” “NO!” we said as he jumped onto our bed. By day four, we, his humans, called the Vet, confessing.  

“If it’s occasional,” we all reasoned. The jumps were minor, not at all like his training jumps over boxes and baskets and other high things, to which he returned today.

“No, Scooter!” as he flew from floor to sofa cushion. Too late.

Wait. Was that the third morning of the first week when upon waking and leaving his crate, he romped to the living room? “No, Scooter! No romping.” Was it that very morning that he used his poodle-powerful front paws as effective tools to removed the blue donut?

That day or the next, Scooter negotiated with us for major periods of “time-out” from the inflated blue donut around his neck. He hardly appreciated the trouble we accepted in order for him to completely avoid the face-enclosing Elizabethan cone animal hospitals provide. Can you picture Scooter submitting to an e-collar? We couldn’t. We shopped around. We found the inflatable donut. He reluctantly wore it when we insisted but by the third or fourth day, he said, “Here. You guys can have this back. Thanks. I’m pretty much done with it.”

Fortunately, we had discovered, and had on hand, the “Dog Recovery Suit.” Now we were talking Scooter’s language. “This is what it takes,” he agreed. He loved it. We loved it. It was handy, what with Velcro-ed straps that stretched under and over his hind-end, freed his ever-wagging tail, and prevented his attention to a short sutured line on his underside. The Velcro-ed back half could be undone and secured forward over his shoulders when relief trips were called for. I can’t say enough about this product. I’d be happy for them to pay me to praise this discovery. 

It must have been toward the end of Restricted Week One when we realized we were using our usual route–stairs—between the yard to our second-floor apartment. Oh, darn. Oh well. We’ll go slowly. We won’t mention it to our Vet.

 Week Two. Day two: Scooter said, “To heck with it,” and briefly ran circuits in the lawn like a Formula One car on narrow Monaco roads. He needed it. We allowed it. A Vet lives in an apartment nearby should we need to mention it.

 Week Two, day four. After Scooter’s late afternoon dinner, he and I scooted down the stairs, out the door to the lawn where the boy squatted (which is still sometime his preference to a leg-lift at which he is quite proficient). 

 “Oh! Scooter! Stop!” said I, seeing what I saw.

“Not on your life,” was the response. 

 We had grown so comfortable with, accustomed to, the blue onesie that before this trek out I failed to move the rear straps forward. How do we explain it: Our pup peed his pants.

 I write now on Wednesday, July 8, 2020. On this past Monday night, I forgot to put the onesie on Scooter before he went to bed. Last night, I deliberately didn’t. Today is Scooter’s Independence Day. Two weeks of quiet—Done! No fireworks, no Boy’s Flag flying, but no donut, no onesie, no restrictions. Today, Scooter chased his favorite purple ball down the long corridor. Today he ran furious circuits in the yard. Today, he played hard with his similarly sized buddy, Toby, the very in-charge “Shih Tzu, Havenese, and possibly Poodle mix.”

Tomorrow Scooter will join us for a cruise to a nearby island and experience sand, surf, deer, and deep forest walks for the first time. All this before his eleventh month of life. But for a bit of discomfort, and two weeks of supposed quiet, he’s a lucky boy.