Coming Home
I met Cadence at the Eastside Humane Society Shelter about a week before we brought her home on the 7th of April 2005. We had been talking about getting a dog for some time, and had been visiting the Eastside Shelter to look for suitable dogs. We needed one that would be calm and gentle enough around our 4 year-old son.
When I stopped at the shelter one day on my way home, Cadence caught my attention because she was the only dog in the large dog kennel who was not throwing herself against the chain-link gate, barking and carrying on. Cadence just stood there, waiting to be noticed (or not caring, particularly). I offered my hand through the fencing, ready to pull back in case she snapped. But she just sniffed it. So we met.
Cadence was an intimidating dog. She had the broad chest and the short, triangular muzzle of a Rottweiler. It was pretty clear she could chomp through bone if she wanted to. She was mostly black, with brown legs and the brown eyebrows common to German Shepherds and Rottweilers. The shelter staff had named her Katrina as a nod to her German heritage. On the placard it said "dominant female": this dog had to be an only dog.
It was a pretty risky idea bringing such a dog into a house with young children, but her calm demeanor won me over. At least it was worth getting the kids and dog together in the play area to see how they got along.
At the next opportunity, we took the kids to the shelter and introduced them to Katrina. She sniffed hands all around and rubbed up against everyone in turn. She seemed to prefer those who were sitting down, coming up to get a little rub behind the ears. She put on her best "good dog" show, even going so far as to fetch some toys that were tossed across the play area. She knew the voice commands "sit", "lie down" and "come here". She had been a family dog some time in the past. It was also pretty clear that she was calm and gentle enough to be with young children. So we signed the papers, made arrangements and brought her home.
There ensued a lengthy discussion on what to name the dog. Her black-and-brown coloring suggested spices, so we went through the spice cabinet and finally settled on Anise. Eleanor went so far as to sketch a portrait of our new dog, carefully letter Anise on it and stick it to the wall above her bed in the girls' room.
Adair had second thoughts. She imagined yelling "Anise!" at the dog park and having it mistaken for "anus". So much for that name. A new naming contest was held and the winner was Cadence.
Behavior
For the first 6 weeks that we had her, "calm" was only an approximation of her behavior. She spent a lot of time just lolling about. In contrast to her later behavior, it appears likely that she was depressed. She had spent 3 months (unclaimed) in a shelter in Yakima before being shipped over to Bellevue; her history before that is unknown.
Aside from the fact that she was already trained, we discovered that she really hated tall men with hats. Also, if I happened to raise my arm rapidly, she would cower. We concluded that she had been mistreated by a tall, hat-wearing mystery man. Given how intelligent we found her to be, we assumed it was she who had ended the relationship.
She was likely depressed because she figured that her new gig was too good to last. (At least, we flatter ourselves.) Once she came out of her funk, she turned out to be quite a handful. When we went out for walks, the leash was taut from start to finish. That is, unless she saw a squirrel. In that case, it was time to drop the leash. I never understood how a 60lb dog could generate 120lbs of tractive effort, but so it was.
She loved to run as well. One time we got to the end of the driveway just as a cyclist passed. I encouraged her to pursue, and we sprinted up the street at 20 miles per hour (until my legs gave out).
Walks consisted of visiting and sprinkling every tuft of grass, up and down the length of the street. The Humane Society staff had gotten the "dominant female" part right. Her play at Luther Burbank was to try to get in front of and turn her chosen ball-fetching dog. She was often successful in intimidating the other dog to the point that he would just forget about the ball.
Except on rare occasions, Cadence did not fetch balls. Her favorite game was to chase me around and try to get in front of me and turn me. She had a really strong herding instinct, so she would growl and nip until I turned aside. She loved to play this game, but would only do so with me or other dogs. She was much too gentle to even growl at the kids. Once, when she nipped and accidentally caught my thigh, she acted thunderstruck. It took a lot of calming and coaxing to get her back inside.
Another of her traits was that she was naturally very protective. At Luther Burbank, sometimes a pack of dogs would start harassing another. When this happened, Cadence would run right between them and break up the fight. We took Cadence to a Wooden O performance of Macbeth one time, and two of the actors were practicing their swordplay before the performance. One of the blows struck a spark off the other's sword, whereupon Cadence jumped right up and started barking at the actors to get them to stop.
Once she felt at home, she started to take her job as a herder seriously. She would challenge passing SUVs and even the school bus. I had to keep her on a leash for fear that she would really get in front of a vehicle, expecting it to turn, and be disappointed. Eventually, she decided that SUVs were OK and let them pass. But the school bus that swallowed up the kids in the morning was a mortal enemy. Never mind that it burped them back up, unharmed, at the end of the day: the school bus still caught heck as it pulled away.
On hikes, she would run back and forth in the line, making sure that all her "sheep" were still there.
Cadence was also highly intelligent. It took me only two weeks to train her to come to heel. I wanted her to be able to cross streets safely while not on a leash. I did this by filling my pocket with treats before a walk up to QFC. At each cross-street, I pulled out a treat and held it at nose level, chanting "heel, heel, heel" as we crossed. After that (and after she had stopped trying to herd cars) we were able to walk anywhere on the Island without a leash.
Her off-leash behavior was the complete opposite of her on-leash behavior. On-leash, it was the taut-leash scenario: I couldn't possibly walk fast enough to get where she wanted to go, and she would challenge any dog she saw. Off-leash, she would lag behind. I often had to wait for her to catch up from walking 30 yards behind me. She might sniff a dog or human in passing, but otherwise ignored them.
Intelligence
Cadence was a very smart dog. It took me only two weeks to train her to come to heel. I did this by holding a treat at nose level and chanting, "Heel, heel." as we crossed at intersections. After a dozen walks up to QFC, she had it down. I didn't worry about her off-leash behavior because she would return to me when I called.
About a year after we adopted her, we took a family hike up Little Si. Coming back down, we happened to disturb a wasps' nest near the trail. I saw the angry wasps on her fur and yelled, "Go!" Running down the trail as fast as I could. Cadence took off after me but by then she had been stung two or three times. After that, whenever I said "Go!" she took off like a shot. She only needed that lesson once.
One of her special treats was to lick out the inside of butter wrappers. After a few times, she figured out that she could pin the butter wrapper in place with a paw while she licked it clean. This has been my standard doggie IQ test ever since. Most dogs just don't get it.
Dog vs. GPS
One time, Brian and I decided to go for an overnight backpacking trip to Joe Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, taking the dog with us. The trail became hard to follow about 2 miles from the lake, and my GPS receiver was not much help in finding it. Cadence had been lagging behind, as if to say, "Yo, dudes! The car is back this way."
After bushwhacking for almost a mile, we still had not found a trail, and the going was not getting easier. Brian found a tree where a bear had recently sharpened its claws and used that to persuade me to turn around. It wasn't a long debate.
I dialed in the back-tracking function on the GPS receiver, and was using that to retrace our steps. Brian was a bit ahead of me and kept looking back for an indication on where to head next. At this point, I noticed that the dog was dead-center in the trail being mapped out by the GPS (and she had been since we turned around). I put away my GPS and said, "Follow the dog." It wasn't long before we found ourselves on the main trail.
Rescue Dog
Cadence was not really a swimmer. At Luther Burbank park, she would wade in chest-deep to get between
retrievers and their toys, but she would not voluntarily swim. However, when Sue Small and family came to visit us, we ended up at Twanoh State Park. Brian went into the water and pretended to be drowning. Cadence dutifully swam out and tried to herd him back to shore.
Some time after that, we went camping as a family at Wynoochee Reservoir. The reservoir has a broad (if rocky) beach and a diving platform anchored about 30 yards from shore. The kids used the same trick -- pretending to drown -- to persuade her to swim out to the platform and climb out onto it. But as soon as a few kids left, she was happier to go back to shore. Even so, it took some encouragement to get her to leave the platform.
After Eleanor's graduation from High School, we used the last week of school to go camping on Ross Lake. We took Cadence along for bear protection. We didn't see any bears, but we did end up sharing 10 Mile Island with one emaciated deer. Cadence woke us up by barking at the deer as it was grazing outside our tent. But that was all; later sightings of the deer did not excite her.
Stuffed Animal
One of the reasons we got Cadence was as a sleeping companion for Donald. Donald was a very anxious child and had difficulty falling asleep. The problem was increased when we moved into the house on West Mercer and every child could have his own bedroom. (Initially, the girls shared a room. But after I split the large bedroom downstairs, Eleanor move down there.)
After the routine was established, Cadence would go to Donald's room at bedtime and dutifully hop up on his bed. But she never appeared particularly happy about it. Many times, we would look in on Donald and find that he had Cadence in a hammer lock. This, she tolerated with great calm and infinite patience.
Cadence was easy to train because she believed that she was always starving. She was seriously off her feed if it took her 30s to consume dinner. One time, to celebrate her anniversary I gave her a pound of stew meat which she consumed in 7s flat.
Shortly after she came to us, I was setting out dinner and turned around to find her four-square on top of the dining table, licking the stick of butter. After only verbal chastisement, she never did that again. But a month or so later I had just set out a stick of butter to thaw. I heard a gagging sound and turned around to find the butter plate empty and a very guilty-looking dog standing there.
Solitary Confinement
We tried to avoid putting Cadence in the kennels for vacations, because she was always depressed for a few weeks when we came back. We chose outdoor facilities when we could, to avoid reminding her of her long stay with the Humane Society. One time,we had to leave her at the animal clinic in Factoria. She was a very unhappy dog when we returned to claim her. When we had to leave her (e.g. because we were traveling to Canada) we left her at a dog ranch in Marysville.
Her decline in health may or may not be connected with the last trip we took as a family to Half Moon Bay. We arranged a kennel for Cadence at a dog ranch in the hills above La Honda. That was the year that I attempted to ride down to California, so I had my bicycle with me. Mid-week I rode out to the ranch to visit Cadence. She was not very happy and had a cough. I took here out for a turn around the place on a leash, but that didn't improve her spirits much. The kennels were concrete slabs exposed to the weather, so not very hospitable.
In the fall, Cadence would come up short of breath after chasing squirrels. And by December, she would occasionally stop and glaze over until she came to herself again.
By January, it was obvious that she was having trouble breathing. She would sometimes get worse and then better. At last, when she was in a crisis, Brian and I took her to an all-night vet. They wanted to take an X-ray before administering antibiotics. This seemed like an added expense so I refused. The next day, she had not improved, so I took her to the specialist vet in Kirkland. They checked her in and put her on oxygen right away. X-rays revealed that she had fluid in both lungs -- one completely filled and the other filling up.
For some reason, antibiotics did not seem to be an appropriate therapy. The vet wanted to sample the lung fluid and send it to the lab for analysis. But since it was the weekend, we would not get results for a few days. Steroids were suggested as a way to ease her breathing. It is puzzling to me why both were not applied.
Adair and I took shifts staying at the vet. On Sunday, they let me sit next to the oxygen tank and proffer my hand so Cadence could smell my scent. About mid-afternoon, one of the technicians took her out while they changed the crystals in the CO2 scrubber. Whatever strength she had left was used up in that last walk, and she died within the hour.
As she was dying, it was clear that her attention was focused inward. So it may be self-flattery to think it made a difference to her whether I was at the vet's or not. Being away from us at some point may have killed her. It was her instinct to be with her family as its gentle and sincere guardian. Our first pick as a family dog turned out to be a rare one. A smarter, nobler and more handsome animal is rare indeed.
