Notes After Zurich

It's clean! It's pretty! It's expensive!

We booked the cheapest accommodation in town: one of those hotels with moulded plastic shower and toilet cabinets. Besides being almost affordable, it is conveniently located next to the conference centre where a techie event was being held. We were meeting John Buckman, one of the speakers.

We once stayed in a hotel of this chain at the same time as a bus load of Spanish kids travelling to a football match. I say “match,” so you know it's soccer. The kids must have locked their teachers away somewhere and were a nightmare of rowdiness, so our spirits took a hit when we passed the stadium two blocks away from our Zurich hotel and saw people pouring in for the Big Match. Fortunately, the match was local, and the Swiss don't do hooligan. (Zurich City won.)

We checked in and went out and wandered among abandoned factories covered with graffiti. We saw parasols in front of one building and passed another with bare wooden tables. We could see more activity on the main street under the gloom of the elevated highway leading to the centre, but it was past 8:30 and fatigue drove us back to the wooden tables.

The guidebook suggests that, if you are on a budget, it's best not to plan on staying too long in Zurich. The LaSalle turned out to be only €€ (what must €€€ be?), so for the price of another round of surgery for Nala or a down payment on a new friend for Van-Ly, we got a meal. But what a meal! I could hardly wait to be hungry, again. The staff were friendly, too. “What's inside?” I asked. “Come with me,” said our waiter, and led us inside to the clean, but not exactly remodelled factory floor, where there was more restaurant. This room was all fine linen, polished wood and crystal chandeliers – entirely encased in a glass cube. We have lucked into the “It” restaurant in Zurich. We are in the “Happening” district. And, yes, we did eat there, again.

Friday morning, we walked down to the tram stop for a little tourism. We had not yet changed our euro into Swiss francs (CHF) and didn't have enough change for the ticket machine. Anticipating the answer, we still thought we'd ask if we could get change for our 10 CHF note from the magazine kiosk. The woman spoke neither English nor French, but looked at the note, smiled and made change. This kind of courtesy should be in the guidebook.

As in Paris, where there is a Right Bank (chic and expensive) and a Left Bank (bohemian and less so), in Zurich there is a West side of the river (chic and expensive) and an East side (more casual and slightly less expensive). Both sides of the river are very clean, except for the occasional puddle of cigarette butts. It took awhile to figure out that they were the remains of the previous evening's pub gatherings where people congregate on the pavement/sidewalk outside the drinking establishments. Our guidebook was evidently wrong when it said that smoking in public places was forbidden.

Besides the remains of the evening, another thing we did not see was dog poop. In fact, we didn't see any dogs. I finally spotted 3 or 4 during the afternoon. And we regularly dined outside without benefit of bug. I can understand the lack of mosquitoes, but how do you outlaw flies?

The car horns were a surprise; I didn't think they'd be allowed. And the bicycles. The Zurichers have more bicycles per capita than Chicagoans. There are massive parking areas for them all over the place. One of the best things about Zurich – maybe The Best Thing – is that not everyone has a phone to an ear all the time. Few do. Not on the street and especially not in restaurants. Is this civilised or what?

We wandered in the hot sun and enjoyed the wandering. We came to a big, English-language bookshop and passed an hour browsing the two floors, touching, riffling, sniffing. It's been 14 years since I've been in an English bookshop. The cashier, when I paid for my two marked down books, did not look up at this news.

For lunch, we ate the hot dogs and potato salad in a € place in the centre. Soup arrived first. It looked like potato soup. It tasted like Cream of Wheat. Or maybe like grits. “What is it?” I asked? “I don't know the English word,” said our waitress, and enquired of the two women at the next table. They didn't know either. “It's called “gritz,” said the waitress. “Grits?” “Yes, gritz.” What can you say?

We walked down to the Opera house to check out the performances and prices. My standard opening in German-speaking Zurich was to start every interaction with “Vous parlez français?” followed, if the response was negative, by “You speak English?” Most everyone spoke everything. (I'm used to feeling inadequate.) At the opera house, as soon as I got the first question out – the one about French -- the woman shook her head, left the window, and asked the second ticket-seller to handle the transaction. Then second woman listened to my first three words and then said, “Why don't we speak English; you're obviously English.” “I live in France,” I said, inadequately. (We spoke English.) Tickets were significantly fewer €€ than dinner, but the performance would start while we were listening to John's speech, so we missed Manon Lescaut. No doubt it isn't the done thing to go to the opera in jeans, anyway.

John Buckman, who runs Magnatune (slogan: We Are Not Evil) and BookMooch (where I mooched a copy of Barbara Woodhouse's No Bad Dogs: The Woodhouse Way this weekend*) and his wife Jan, arrived. We were in Zurich so that John and Nick could discuss Intellectual Property Rights. (Don't ask or I write another post. This is a warning.) The four of us went to a pavement cafe and John and Jan ordered iced coffee. In Switerland, iced coffee turns out to a coffee/ice cream soda. Nick and I had coffee. This was before I discovered Sour Cream Ice Cream. I blew it. We mentioned that we'd seen our first Starbucks. Jan is addicted to the same Latte that keeps Carina, my idol and dog guru, going.

* Ooga Chukka warning. However, Barbara Woodhouse is THE reason British dogs are so well behaved.

We made the 8 ½ hour return trip on Sunday – including a short breakfast stop, a medium lunch stop, a coffee break and a brief attempt to try to help some Americans who had a problem with their car and, in his case, with his personality. Our friends and dog sitters, Pat and Steven, had a meal – and our dogs – ready for us.

Van-Ly and Nala had had had a fine weekend with lots of extra-long walks with their friend, Suzie, river-wallows, and attention, but they covered us in welcome-home kisses just the same. Then Van-Ly went back to watching the rats.
Nala stayed close. This was the first time we'd left her since 21 September 2005, and she may not have been sure she wasn't being abandoned, again. Last night she climbed the long flight of stairs to sleep in our bedroom for the very first time.

Second Hand Nala - Part 3

Before they left, Nala's former owners explained that she didn't like to go inside. She also didn't take food from your hand. She cringed when you tried to pet her. Which you didn't try too often because she smelled like a garbage dump.

We offered her the inside and a rug of her own. In she came. Suspicion confirmed: they'd never let her inside their house. Then they'd moved to an apartment and she couldn't climb the stairs. That one we believed. So she'd been living in their van. Full time.

First stop: the vet. Nala's heart seemed O.K. She could hear. Ran some tests and sent them to the university. When they came back, no sign of disease or illness. "How old do you think she is?" I asked. The vet looked at her teeth and estimated, "Between 5 and 10." Right. We don't know.

There were three obvious problems: Her eyes were pouring dirty, yellow mucous; she could barely walk and she stank to high heaven. For the first, we were referred to an eye specialist. For the second, we were advised to wait and see. For the third: "She'll probably have to be shaved," said the vet. "I know a good groomer." We'd never used the services of a groomer before, but, I thought, I am never going to get this dog clean on my own. She had black stuff caked into her fur like brick. Cement, I wondered?

We took her to the groomer, who agreed: "She'll have to be shaved." Two hours later, I returned to the groomer, sulking over having a bald Chow. But she wasn't bald. "When we put her in the tub," said the groomer, "it turned out to be caked mud and started melting. I've never seen a dog so dirty. The bathwater has never been so dirty. I had to change the water 3 times." Nala wasn't exactly beautiful, but at least she wasn't bald. When Io Jima had been shaved to operated on her displaced hip, it had taken nine months for the hair to grow back.

Actually, Nala wasn't too bad looking, except for her pathetically sparse tail. She was a rather nice red.

Next stop: the eye specialist. Nala had entropion, her lashes scratching her corneas, and dry eye: she didn't manufacture tears. She was so good with the specialist. She sat there, sad, while her eyes were washed and papers stuck in them and needles in the rest of her. I don't like thinking about the pain and discomfort she had endured during her 5 to 10 years. We returned home with several sorts of eye drops and an appointment to tack her eyelids.

After the surgery and regular eye drops, she was a new dog. Minus the pain in her eyes, she was happy. She could see. When we reached for her lead to go "walkies," she danced! And collapsed. But after two months of regular walkies, she could run. It seemed that she had been crippled through lack of exercise. My guess is she was only let out of the van to "do her needs," as the French say, and then shut up, again.

Two more months passed and she began wagging what passed for her tail when I came down in the morning. Then I could pat her head. It took a year for her to learn how to take food from my hand.

We're 18 months into our adoption now. Nala has had a second plastic surgery, more thorough, on her eyelids. She walks and she dances. She stumbles from mild dysplasia, but it doesn't seem to bother her. She takes treats from my hand, she's learned to be brushed, and her tail looks like a real Chow's. She is, and has been from the beginning, the most loving and loveable of dogs.

And she's gone from age 13 to age 9.

Second Hand Nala - Part 2

They were a mess.

(This is Nala . Below is Soko.)

Soko was only 3 and, though unkempt, appeared reasonably fit and healthy. Nala, whom the owners were trying to pass off as 7, was crippled, blind, she stank and was, obviously, at least 13. Never mind; we took them. Brigitte said she wouldn't ask for the rescue fee for Nala, since she was such an unattractive offering. But we paid, anyway, for the good works.

While the former owners -- parents and two grown children -- alternated between sobbing at saying good-bye and admiring Van-Ly's beauty and condition (Well, yeah! We took care of her), we lifted the dogs into the van and started for home. Promptly running into an accident on the autoroute that turned the 2 and 1/2 hour journey into 6 hours. The dogs were quite well behaved through it all. I was content.

We got home. Soko was not content. Nala was a zombie. Soko stood guard over her. They wouldn't eat. They wouldn't come into the house. It was September and warm; we left them. We'd go outside from time to time to chat and coo at them. Soko had a nip at me. O.K., he was nervous and unhappy. Finally, it was bed time and we left them for the night.

Nick gets up before I do. The next morning I was just about dressed when I heard him yelling for me. I started downstairs to confront my husband, white-faced and bleeding all over the floor. Soko had attacked without warning and got his hand, his leg and his arm. I whipped Nick into the car and we went to the doctor where Nick received enough stitches to be off work for the next three weeks.

(I should put a caveat here. Maybe there was a warning that Nick didn't recognise. At the time, maybe I wouldn't have either, but I'm told that Chows can do this.)

We came home and called Brigitte and Soko's and Nala's former owners. We've got a B&B, I told them; we can't take the chance he'll bite a customer. "He's never done anything like that before,"they said. (Of course not!) To their credit they came immediately that afternoon. As soon as Soko saw them, he jumped and pranced and then rolled over to have his tummy scratched. He was so happy. And so were they. They took him home and we kept Nala.

(to be continued)

Second Hand Nala - Part 1

Someone asked if I wasn't nervous about having a rescue Chow. The short answer is, "No." In general, I think Chows are better tempered in France than I hear they are in the States. They had a surge of popularity here, too, in the eighties, but there must have been fewer irresponsible breeders, so most have good temperaments.

Used Chows are almost impossible to find in France. I put it down to French conservatism. Having paid a minimum of 1100€ for a dog, they're not about to dump it. But I scan the net constantly, hoping, and one day I found a Chow whose owner was going into the hospital, permanently, and the wife couldn't cope with "his" dog.

I telephoned. It turned out to be a rescue and the woman on the other end of the line said that, after all, a cousin was taking the dog. "Good," I thought, "Still in the family and the owner won't lose contact completely." Chows pine. While they appear indifferent, they become very attached to their owners. Io Jima's breeder had taken in a Chow whose owner had died and it was truly pathetic. It had lost most of it's fur and I tell you there is nothing more miserable looking than an almost-bald Chow. I preferred to lose the dog rather than see that happen.

Several months later, Brigitte, who runs the rescue, telephoned. She had two Chows. Would I be interested in one? Hey, I'd be interested in two! I read everything on the internet about rescuing dogs and how to meet them and what to do when you bring them home. Then we were off to Marseille to meet Soko and Nala.

(to be continued)

The Baby-Sitters

I put it down to our friends, Philip & Claudie, who went away for "three days" and left their hunter/retriever cross, Vicky, with us for a week. They share our doctor and are on very chatty terms with her. So are we, for that matter, so our doctor gets to hear all our dog stories and the Travails of Nala. All this chatting has evidently led our doctor to believe we are suckers because last week we got a telephone call from a strange Englishwoman who said that Dr. Martin suggested we might stand in for her dog sitter who suddenly became unavailable.

I suppose Dr. Martin is right: we are suckers. The EW and Rosie came to visit.

Rosie is not a prepossessing dog. She is a ten-year-old mess. She weighs in at 10.2 kilos (22 1/2 pounds) when I figure 16 to 18 would be more in tune with health and the state of her legs. She has also been shaved on her back and side to remove two old-age bumps. Her legs look funny. She is some kind of terrier, whose designation immediately slipped my mind, and I can't find her listed anywhere. Norfolk Terrier is as close as I can come, but I'm sure that's not what her owner said because, whatever she said, I remember that, just before the word "terrier" sounded, I was thinking, "Big dog; she'll jump the fence." But, no, she's little, she's old and she's arthritic, so how much trouble could she be? We agreed that everyone seemed to get along, so we made arrangements for Rosie stay for the week over Easter. (see comments: she's a Border Terrier. I knew that.)

When Vicky arrived for her week, Nick promptly took to his bed with whatever was going around at the time, and I got stuck trying to handle three big, active dogs. This time, it was I who got sick. Poetic justice -- but only for two days. As Rosie didn't seem all that thrilled to be here, if whining is any indication, I took her and her rug upstairs and let her stay with me. Today, when I got up, I told her she didn't have to leave the bedroom, but I was taking her rug.

After half an hour I went upstairs where she was hovering, waiting for me to return. "Come, Rosie," I called, as you do. Rosie wasn't coming. I tried several times -- authoritatively, wheedling, chirping -- and finally picked her up, carried her down the stairs and, with great difficulty, pushed her outside. (She always wants to be on the other side of whichever door is closed, so I have decided she can scratch the outside door.)

Later we piled into the car to go to the village and go walkies. Rosie, I learned, does not heel, so I let her off the lead. Nick had already told me that she's pretty nimble. Rosie kept trying to recross the river. Rosie kept running into people's gardens. Rosie went into one of our neighbour's fields (just as he arrived) and wouldn't come back. Rosie never even looked at me all the time I was screaming myself hoarse.

Eventually, the penny dropped. We shook the keys behind her back. We clapped loudly behind her back. We shouted at her behind her back. Our two, who normally couldn't care less, kept turning around from their advance position to see what was all the fuss was about.

What it is is Rosie is deaf. We have to assume Rosie's owner doesn't know this or she'd have mentioned it. But, really, she's no trouble.

Nala's Bad Month

I told you my foot hurt! First I got two -- not one, but two -- abscesses on my paw. Probably from from a thorn or a splinter. I didn't like the treatment and I certainly felt silly wearing Margot's sock. (We have the same size feet.)









Then the Mistral started to blow. I hate the Mistral! Doggles are stupid!









And now Harry! Why won't he leave me in peace? Do I look like I like cats?










And now look! Another eye operation: a lid lift. Carina says I look like I've been Photoshopped. Very funny, Carina!

This is the end!

Everybody's Talkin'

I, like most dog and cat owners (in my case, with a complete lack of surprise), have been reading the news about the recalls of many of the top -- and supermarket -- brands of pet food, in the wake of dying cats and dogs. The deaths have been going on for some time now, but only when the word started to leak out, did Big Animal Food put out announcements. They didn't even have the decency to warn the vets, but that didn't surprise me, either.

What I can't understand is this: Why does it takes episode after episode of this sort of thing for vets to even notice, let alone question their beliefs about the feeding of animals? I feed raw, although my vet does not know this and probably wouldn't approve, if she did. However, it was a passing comment of hers, when Io Jima was dying of cancer, that sent me looking for something outside the commercial dog food world. To her credit, my vet does believe in cooked diets, so she know there is something better out there than the products that the majority of people are feeding their pets.

I expect resistance from my friends and acquaintances.

"Why are you feeding Fluffy that awful Hills?"
"Well, he likes it." (Hey, I like Big Macs, but I don't live on them.)

"It's too complicated to feed a dog on my own." (But your children are easy; they don't have any particular nutritional requirements, right?)

(There might be something in this last one, judging from the way I see people feeding their children. But, I digress. . .)

"But the pet food companies have all that experience and do all that research." (Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He's got good advertising elves, too, and we always believe what we see on television.)

There must be thousands upon thousands of us feeding cooked and raw diets to our animals, slowly convincing our vets, by our animals improved health and appearance, that we know something. ("Well, yes, I can see that Muffy's hair has grown back, her allergies have cleared up and her weight stabilised, but I really think you should be feeding Science Diet. . ..") The biggest names leading the raw food movement are vets, but the veterinary profession don't want to listen to anything except the publicity and "research" from Big Dog & Cat Food.

Why is this?