Last Friday, I had the day booked off when it looked like we’d be heading way up north to go camping about six hours from home. When Sandra started getting this temp work, I switched the reservation to Pinery Provincial Park, 3 hours away on the shores of Lake Huron near Grand Bend Ontario. Although we could have easily driven there after work and arrived around 10pm, I decided to keep the day off, run some errands, go to Costco, and be able to pick her up from work at 5 and get on the road.

Friday didn’t exactly go as planned. I blame the sketchy noodle bowl from the mall fast-food Japanese restaurant on Thursday. But I stocked up on steaks and baking potatoes and corn and beer and had the dogs and the gear ready to go by 5:30.

The drive to Pinery was lovely. I’ve never been through Stratford before, and really, must find a way to go back for an actual visit. We passed through what felt like the heart of Ontario’s agriculture community; so many farms, growing everything from corn to soybeans to broccoli! We saw cows and sheep and alpaca and goats. We even saw a Turkey store with an LCBO in it. Weird.

I didn’t know what to expect about Pinery. From the descriptions online, it sounded a lot like a very family-friendly campground, with lots of programs and a fabulous beach. Our site – 948 in Burley campground – was rated “good” for quality and “average” for privacy, which tends to mean it’s pretty open to both neighbors and the road.

As we drove through the park for about a half hour to get to our site, I realized that Pinery was both much larger and much more wild than I’d expected. From doing some reading, I’d learned that Pinery has the largest Oak Savanna in Ontario; a grassy area dotted with majestic oak trees.

Living in Canada, I don’t feel like I see a lot of Oaks. We had one in our back yard growing up, but in later years, I’ve gotten more used to Maples as the standard. Our side was mostly open, but had several gorgeous Oaks around the edges for a bit of privacy.

But the main reason to go to Pinery isn’t for the trees. It’s the 10km of white sand beach, with shallow warm waters and perfect sunsets. Like about three dozen Provincial Parks, Pinery has a dedicated “pet exercise area” at one of the beaches. The rules state that dogs must be kept on leashes, even on this pet beach, but many (including us) were just keeping leashes nearby and our dogs under control in the water.

First thing Saturday, I took Jackson and Cooper to the beach to burn some energy. The week before, Sandra worked on two pitches until midnight, giving us little time to get them to the dog park during the week. And man, were they full of beans! At 10am on Saturday, the dog beach was still fairly empty. Not so a few hours later when we went back for the afternoon with chairs and sandwiches to enjoy the rest of the day. We staked out our spot in the sand and I spent the next four hours in the water.

So many sandbars make the water pretty much waist deep for a long distance, so it was warm and sandy underfoot. One of the best swimming experiences I’ve had outside the Caribbean! For the dogs, this was great. I could stand and they could swim constantly, or I could run with them through the shallower sections while chasing balls.

This was really the first time we’ve swum with both dogs for so long. We took Cooper to Kelowna BC when he was about 5 months old and went to the dog beach there. But Jackson hasn’t really been in the water with us for more than a few minutes at Killbear.

Jackson, as it turns out, gets a little anxious. I don’t know if he’s worried about us, or if he just doesn’t like swimming. Many times, he swum up to me and pawed at me with his front paws by jumping half out of the water. Sounds cute? It’s not. His claws are kind of sharp, and with the power of a 95lb lab, have left huge bruises and scrapes over much of my body.

I figured out that if I watched him coming at me, I could turn and hold him a bit to give him a break and help him calm down. Then, send him back to the shore where Sandra would be waiting.

On the other hand, Cooper was even more of a suck than I’d believe possible. If he swam out to me, he expected me to hold him… on my shoulders.

Pretty cute, actually.

Whether this past weekend was the best camping we’ve ever had, or just a really good time, it doesn’t matter. Going to the lake for two nights felt, to me at least, like going on a fantastic summer vacation for much, much longer. I had that end-of-vacation-cry feeling when we drove away; I didn’t want to leave.

Well, another week, another bout of dog-related drama.

You know we had scheduled and rescheduled and scheduled again a week long camping trip to Killarney Provincial Park and a few other areas in the near North of Ontario. We had shopped, and packed, and planned out everything from meals to a backcountry canoe trip of 3 days. We had the canoe rental lined up, the sites all reserved – a miracle given that it’s the long weekend here in Ontario, and everything’s been booked for months.

So of course, the plans went awry.

The first problem happened on Wednesday. Sandra got a call about 3 full weeks of contract work. Beginning the next day. Making it impossible to go away for the full week after all. But, the prospect of 3 full weeks of salary made up for that small disappointment entirely. I decided to cancel the reservations and find something a little closer… like Killbear Provincial Park, about 3 hours away.

Because we could only get a reservation for the first night, I decided to drop Sandra off at work on Friday morning, and with the dogs, drive up to the campsite to get the tent and everything set up. That way, even if we rolled in around midnight, we’d be able to quietly go straight to bed.

The drive up was lovely. Located on the eastern shores of Georgian Bay, the park itself is a gorgeous mix of pines, sand, and large slabs of rock. It’s part of the Canadian Shield, and it’s just breathtaking.

As the dogs and I drove through the park, they got increasingly excited about the chance to run through the woods a bit. Many of Ontario’s Provincial Parks have dog off-leash areas, sometimes with swimming and hiking opportunities. Killbear has a lovely 1km wooded path that runs through the woods to a nice little crescent sand beach.

The dogs had a blast. I went swimming too, even though the day wasn’t that warm. We set up the tent and air mattress and chairs. We packed up to get back in the car and pick Sandra up from work, another 3 hour drive.

And then, Cooper got sick. Not just a little sick. The kind of sick that stinks out the bum.

I’ll spare you the details, but you should know that we had to stop the car every 30 – 45 minutes for the poor guy.On thursday, he had some hip xrays with sedation, and I think the medication really disagreed with him. He got worse, and we decided that a night in a tent with a dog with diarrhea would be a terrible idea.

And true, it would have been awful. One of us got up with him just about every hour, all night long.

I think I mentioned that we only had a reservation for the one night. The plan had always been to get up early to get a shot at extending through the weekend with one of the non-reservable sites. Because we spent the night in Toronto, that plan was totally shot. Everything was sold out, and we’d be too late to get a first-come-first-served site. But, we had to clear the campsite of our stuff by 2pm. We were on the road around 8:30. By the time we hit the 400 heading north, I noticed an odd thing. Not only was the highway packed with cars, we weren’t going much faster than 20km/hr.

It should take about an hour to get to Barrie. It took us 3.

Long weekend traffic. I’d guessed it would have been the worst on Friday night, and maybe a little heavy the following morning. It was brutal. I won’t lie – I had a bit of a hissy fit in the car. But, we had to keep going, even if it was just to turn around and come back home.

Once we passed Barrie, the traffic thinned and we made it back to the park around 12:30. Just enough time to pack up the stuff and head back to the dog beach for a good play.

Driving back was uneventful. Cooper was feeling nearly 100% again, and I recovered enough of my spirits to feel only a little bit resentful that the weekend has turned out this way. All that driving takes a toll too; $120 in gas and one exhausted Amy.

I went to bed around 8:30 last night, read a bit, and then slept for 11 hours straight.

Today, I’m going to grill a chicken and fix this current knitting disaster.

I feel like we’ve spent the entire summer trying to go camping. See, that was my big plan when we moved here on only one income. We already have all the gear, tents sleeping bags, cookware. And Ontario Provincial Parks are pretty awesome. A lot of them even feature designated off-leash areas for dogs. (I made a little Map to Track Off-Leash Provincial Parks, in case you’re curious.)

The thing about the park system here… it’s hugely massively popular. Reservations for campsites open 5 months ahead of your scheduled arrival. FIVE MONTHS. SO way back in February, I started making reservations.

First off, was the lovely weekend at Sandbanks in early June. (I never got around to blogging about it, but I posted the full set of photos on flickr.) It’s a lovely park, about 3 hours east of Toronto. We had near-perfect weather and a near-perfect campsite, tucked back into the woods. The dogs had an absolute blast.

Unfortunately, the next week was when Cooper got attacked. So, we cancelled the one-day Dog Paddling Adventure for Cooper and Sandra, a day of organized canoeing with dogs. I ended up taking Jackson for the day. He adored being on the water. So much so, that during portages, he jumped into the canoe the first chance possible. “I’m ready to go!”

Way back in the winter, I had booked the day trips, plus a four day Women’s Weekend with the Dog Paddling group to the Haliburton area. Because of Cooper, we had to cancel on that as well as the accompanying few days at Killbear Provincial Park.

So then, since Cooper’s tail has been healing so well, we rather ambitiously decided to make some reservations near Killarney for car camping and some backcountry canoeing for this weekend and the following week. I bought the maps, a few books, plotted out some routes, and then changed everything when the reservations folks reminded me that it was a long weekend and nearly every lake was sold out. Uh-huh. But, we snagged a spot on a side lake, had almost all the stuff together, and then Cooper hurt himself on Tuesday.

He’s back to his normal self now, and he’s had blood work and a few exams. The best guess is that he pulled a muscle or strained something pretty badly, and the meds helped everything to loosen back up enough. But, he’s still on doctor’s orders to take it easy until Monday, so yes, we cancelled ANOTHER camping trip.

The plan now is to just shift everything back by a week, go at the beginning of the August Long Weekend rather than have those days at the end of our trip. So I’m rearranging and re-reserving, and finding that even less is available.

Still. I hope… desperately… to be out on a lake some time soon. I hope to be in the woods. To be smelling that fabulously clean and musky air. To be cooking outside. To be enjoying a well-deserved stainless steel mug of wine. And to be just away from everything, even for a little while.

I can’t believe it’s been four weeks today since all this happened to Cooper. Just a few seconds has caused such a major disturbance in our lives. He hasn’t been able to go off leash since then. He’s been living with a cone, and now a skirt and a cone, on four different types of medication.

But he is getting better, at long last.

The skirt has proven to be a life saver. We’ve strapped it onto the back of his harness, so the harness almost becomes a belt. It keeps him almost entirely away from his tail. (If he tries hard enough, and doesn’t have the cone on, he can lick at it through the denim. Not great, but not that terrible either.)

With the pockets at the top, it almost looks like jeans or overalls. Pretty cute, if you ask me.

He’s still on one of the pain meds, the sedative, and some new antibiotics – his second round – to prevent any infection. We took his bandage off for the last (?) time last Sunday, so the wound has had five days to heal so far. It’s scabbed over pretty well, and the only incident was last night when he got at it while we were taking off the skirt so we could take him for a quick walk outside.

I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that Toronto’s been going through a heat wave. Thankfully we have air conditioning. I can’t even imagine how miserable he would be without it, with a big vinyl cone, and a long jean skirt. And in this kind of weather, my dogs don’t really want to do much of anything.

Jackson is having a tough life too. It’s hard, when there’s only one of us around, to get him out for a good long exercise, and he can’t play with Cooper like he’s used to. But we’re surviving. And at some point, this will be over with.

The clock is kind of ticking right now. For Valentine’s Day, I’d splurged on a 4 day weekend canoe camping trip with Dog Paddling Adventures. That trip is in a week. We’ve got a call into the organizers. We can’t go if he’s wearing a cone and a skirt all the time. But we could disassemble the cone and roll it up in a pack in case of emergency. And we can’t go if his wound is open, or breaking open all the time. But the trip was really expensive, and if we can’t go, we’ll likely lose some money, plus have to wait until next summer to go again.

I’m craving normalcy around here. And I want to go. But I don’t want to be stressed about him on the trip either. But he’d love to be out in the lake, in the woods, and in the fresh air after being cooped up for so long.

So, that’s my current worry.

In the meantime, we survived a week of Cooper staying home while we worked, which is a big improvement over the last three. I just think if we can keep him entirely away from his tail for another week, we’ll be pretty much done with all of this.

I’m not getting my hopes up.

I’m not – really.

But I think I may have found the solution to Cooper’s tail chewing troubles.

A long size 6 jean skirt that’s been languishing in my closet since 2004.

It’s the kind that hits me at the ankles, but has a long slit up the front. This is key for Cooper, as it lets him walk as normal, just with a big train covering his rear end, and most importantly, his tail.

I first tried it by just zipping and buttoning under his front legs, where his chest is skinnier. This was good, but he was able to shimmy it off when moving around. Then, I took the back belt loop and strung it through his collar; great for walking, as it kept the length a bit shorter, but it pulled a lot on his collar when he sat or lay the wrong way.

Finally, I pulled out his easy-walker harness. It has a strap that goes across the shoulder blades, so I put that through three of the belt loops and we have perfection.

I think this will work because the fabric is heavy enough that he can’t move it out of the way. It’s also “skinny” enough so there’s not a lot of extra fabric to trip over, or get stuck in things. And if he has to go do his business, I can fold it up over his shoulders and it stays in place nicely, kind of like a cape.

The issue, if you have just come onto Cooper’s story, is that his tail was bit off at the dog park 3 weeks ago. He lost one vertebrae in the following partial amputation. But because he’s a lab, and because he wags and moves constantly, no amount of sedative, no size cone, and no deterring factors like bitter apple spray have kept him away from the wound for long enough for it to heal. If it doesn’t heal soon, the vet will be recommending a full amputation, down to a stub. Now, he’ll look perfectly cute with a stubby little tail. And once that heals, it won’t impact his life much at all. But I hate the idea of putting him through another surgery at this point. I just want him better.

And if I have to put my dog in a skirt to make him better, then so be it.

I just might take it off before taking him on walks around the neighborhood. The cone draws enough jeers as it is.

My current stress level is off the scales. Chalk it up to worry and a lack of adequate sleep for several nights. Chalk it up to just too much on my plate. I thought 2010 was going to be my year of ‘getting it all together’, but right now, it just feels like it’s the year of ‘falling apart’.

Cooper’s doing ok. Thank you for your awesome comments. I’m already haunting the dog park when I can to try to find the owners of the other dog, although I’d be surprised if they’d come back there, when there are so many other options. He’s got two different types of pain meds, and the wound is healing nicely. It’ll be another week before the stitches come out and the cone off, but there are worse things, I suppose.

This morning, we woke up to find another ant trap in the back yard. This happened a few weeks ago, and I just threw it out, assuming it had been an accident, or fallen off the neighbor’s balcony. This time, it was deliberately placed in the middle of the path. So, it looks like we’re going to be dealing with evil neighbor issues here in Toronto as well.

A little bit of googling makes me feel better about it. I guess ant traps typically are only toxic to insects. But it’s the idea of the thing, of once again living near someone who… well… hates us. I put up a sign, and we’ll be asking all the other dog owners on the block if they’ve had any problems. Hopefully that’s the end of it. I can’t cope with the idea of going through the kind of stress we had at home in Calgary.

In Toronto, we know a lot of our neighbors really well. And we like them, and we suspect the feeling is mutual. Of course, it might not be a neighbor at all; the back of our yard faces a tiny laneway.

On top of that, all the worry and focus on Cooper hasn’t distracted me from worry about my Dad. He’s home now, and the first week at home, he started having problems breathing when walking. So, he cut back the walking until he can get into see the pulmonary specialist on the 21st. And then he fell in the bathroom, so he’s not really walking at all any more. The most troubling thing, but not entirely unexpected, is that Mom says he’s really quite different now. He had been diagnosed with a type of dementia when he was in the hospital, probably from the lack of oxygen to his brain when he breathed in all that fluid. What’s been most impacted in his brain is initiation and cognitive thought. He can follow a conversation on the phone, and can answer some questions, but mom says there’s just so much he can’t even fathom processing.

I feel like she’s not telling me everything too. It’s rare for her to say anything negative about dad’s condition, so I worry even more when she says things like, “Oh Amy, it’s so hard.”

And all of this, and I’m so behind in all of those mundane life tasks. Cleaning. Bills. Just keeping up with the house. It’s funny how one ‘little’ thing can really disrupt your life. I feel like until we can get a few good night’s sleep, we won’t be back on our game, and will only get further behind.

There had been plans to go camping and on a dog canoe day trip next weekend, but that’s probably not going to happen. I can still take Jackson canoeing, but we’ll have to figure out if Cooper’s resting well enough to deal with the car camping change of scenery and added stress. There’s nothing worse than a dog who can’t sleep when you’re in a tent!

I’m exhausted. I’m stressed. And I’m sad. I’m sure I’ll be better by next week this time, but for now, I just need to get from one part of the day to the next. Right now, that means getting on my bike and heading to NXNE Interactive’s full day of techy social media workshops.

This weekend was supposed to be relaxing. We had no plans, no camping, no commitments other than working on Year of Lace stuff and cleaning the house and working in the garden. Just regular old weekendy stuff. When Sandra got home from work last night, we fed the dogs and walked them to Trinity Bellwoods. It’s not the world’s best dog park, but our guys generally keep to themselves, and just love to run up and down the hill of the off-leash area bowl.

We had just arrived, and had just taken the dogs off leash. I had noticed the weimaraner walking up the hill with two women, but didn’t think anything of it. As soon as Cooper and Jackson took off running, the women started screaming “NO!” at their dog, and we saw the dog take off after our guys.

I didn’t see it happen, but within seconds, they had their dog, and Cooper was running and hiding between my legs. They apologized, and we both said, “Oh, no worries.” And then I looked down.

And then I saw the tip of Cooper’s tail, missing, and the bone exposed.

I freaked out. I’m not sure what I said exactly, but it was something like WHERE’S COOPER’S TAIL?!?

Sandra took Cooper immediately to the vet across the street, and I stayed and looked for the tip of his tail, with the two other owners, who said very little.

I eventually found it. I should have gotten their contact info, or names, or something. But to be honest, I was just concerned with getting my poor dog to the vet asap.

Unfortunately, it was just 7pm and the vet was closed. I switched into Sandra’s birks and ran home the nearly 2km to pick up the car, then come back and pick them up to drive to the very wonderful Emergency Vet at Davenport and Yonge.

The vet initially hoped she could just put in some stitches and close the skin over the protruding bone, but quickly discovered that he didn’t have enough skin left, and would have to amputate one of the vertebra. This is a major surgery for any dog, and there was some fear due to Cooper’s… ahem… girth… that the anaesthetic would be tough to manage.

We had Jackson in the car, so we spent the next six hours taking turns walking him, walking for food (Craftburger, which I could barely eat), reading through every possible magazine in the waiting room, and watching the repeated cycle of news headlines on CP24.

He was out of surgery around midnight, and I paid a bill more or less equal to my entire biweekly salary.

(And yes, we should have pet insurance on these guys… it’s on the list on things we need to do to be Grown Ups Again. So dumb to have not gotten to it yet.)

We had him home, cone and bandage and all medicated, by 2am. He cried constantly, and at 5am, started thrashing around and had removed the bandage entirely, within a span of a few seconds.

Because Cooper’s a very waggy dog, and he wags his tail constantly when he walks, he doesn’t exactly want to walk in that condition. We had to carry him to the car to go back to the clinic, a dance of ridiculous proportions when you’re thinking about two girls in PJs in the middle of the night and a 97lb lab with a cone on his head and a bleeding tail.

At 6:30, we all feel asleep for a few fitful hours.

The whole thing sucks. I’m so mad at those owners for not paying enough attention to their dog’s ability to be off leash, for not controlling their dog. Off leash is a major responsibility. You have to know your dog and what might make him unhappy or stressed. And you have to be able to compensate for that, by keeping him out of exactly this kind of situation. If your dog is set off by other dogs RUNNING, maybe the off leash park isn’t a great place to be.

And I feel so bad for Cooper. He’s never been hurt his entire life, except for his neuter surgery, and even then, his recovery was so quick. He hates the cone, but he has to wear it. The worst is watching him bounce around like a pinball, as he hits the cone on the wall, on the furniture, on my legs, on the planters in the back yard. (OK, can I admit it’s also kind of funny in that ‘if I don’t laugh I’m going to cry’ kind of way?)

I don’t know that he’ll be able to be left alone for awhile, or he’ll pull out the stitches and start bleeding. We certainly can’t leave him with Jackson; rough-housing would be really awful right now.

It’s funny, as you get older, how your definition of ‘luck’ changes. As bad as this was, it could have been so much worse. One severe dog bite could be fatal. We’re lucky it was the tip of his tail and not the base, not his side, not his neck, or his leg. We’re also lucky that Cooper is the kind of dog to run from a fight. It would have been worse had he fought back. And we’re lucky it’s Saturday now, and we have two full days to spend taking care of him at home.

Last night was a rough one chez Swenson-Tiano. You probably know that Sandra’s been in Edmonton for a few weeks taking care of her family after her mom’s knee surgery, so the boys and I are home alone, living the oh-so-exciting single life. We found a great dog walker to take them for runs in the afternoon, so I’ve been working as usual, getting home between 6 and 6:30 most nights to spend the evening with Cooper and Jackson.

When I got home last night, I thought everything was fine. Cooper and Jackson were both ecstatic to see me, doing little dances around the living room. And, they both enthusiastically devoured dinner, then a post-dinner dessert of frozen organic yogurt. (Lucky dogs, eh?)

Around 8, I noticed that Cooper was acting weird; just sitting in the backyard and staring at me. Sitting. Not laying. Not playing. Not walking around. I tried to call him in, and he still didn’t move. I brought out a dog treat and held it a foot in front of his face and he didn’t move. When I jumped down into the yard (we have no back steps), he came right over and jumped into the house, so I didn’t think much of it.

Until an hour later.

In the middle of the living room, he was just sitting. In the middle. Not doing anything else. Not following me, as usual, when I went to the kitchen for some ice cream. I started to worry.

A little later, he was standing with his tail between his legs and crying softly and I knew we had to rush to the vet. Did he eat something? Was he sick? What happened???

We drove downtown, Cooper on the passenger seat just crying next to me. We waited. And waited. And waited. And then waited some more for xrays to come back. And thankfully, everything looked ok. Thankfully, everything looked like maybe he just felt a little sick from something he picked up in the park.

After the vet reassured me that the xrays would have shown serious problems or Cooper would be vomiting or worse, we went back home and I tried to sleep.

This thing about love is hard. I tend to forget that, inevitably, Cooper and Jackson will get old, will get sick, and will leave me. And so it is with every soul that I love. My family, my friends, these beloved hundred pound drool monsters…. everyone. I tend to forget the natural impending loss that will happen at one point or another. And how much that’s going to hurt. And maybe I also tend to forget to be thankful for the brief time we all have together.

I’m reminded sometimes that love is both a blessing and a curse. It’s so great to care that much, and feel that joy. But it’s always tempered with more than a little fear of loss.

Last night, I lay in bed, Cooper stretched out next to me, worn out from being sick, from being stressed, and from his late-night adventure. And I felt like we dodged a big bullet. He’s two and a half. He’s just a kid, really. But last night, maybe for the first time, I realized that no matter what, some day, I’m going to lose him.

And I’ll never be ready.

I wasn’t sure what to think about this special event when I found it on the Blue Jays’ website. “Dog Day”? Really? My first thought was that it was bound to be a disaster, what with all the… well… baseballs… flying around. But how could we pass up the opportunity to spend the afternoon at the Rogers Center, watching a game, with Cooper and Jackson and a hotdog or three?

We got up early and spent an hour or so at the dog park near our house, throwing tennis balls, running around. The key to properly behaved labs is exhaustion. (This is an invaluable lesson for all you dog owners. Want your dog to walk nicely on a loose leash? Wear ‘em out first, and they’re so much more likely to listen!) Our original plan had been to walk to the Rogers Center; about an hour from home. With the rain blowing in, we decided to drive and parked in a lot I knew a 10 minute walk from the park.

The directions had been vague; come to Gate 1 prior to 11:30 for a “dog parade”. So, we lined up with everyone else, and soon had four tickets; two for us, two for the dogs, and headed in to the 100 level outfield seats. Inside the dome, they’d set up ‘relief stations’, complete with grass and fire hydrants. Several groups had booths and promotions going on, from first aid info to radio shows, to pooper-scooper services.

The dog area stretched roughly from section 100 to section 106, and was gated off from the rest of the public. Tickets were spread out a bit, giving each group generally one to two extra seats to allow more room between the dogs. Still, we heard that over 300 dogs were at the game!

At noon, the parade started, with owners leading their dogs around a section of the outfield. Naturally, there were more than a few accidents, but our dogs did us proud in every possible way.

Back at the seats, we settled in, and split a hot dog for everyone and a couple of beers for Sandra and I. I can’t say we really watched much of the game compared to a normal day out, but it was still really fun, and I saw several of the runs. Cooper spent much of the actual game on one of our laps, or on his own seat. Rather hilarious to see a nearly 100 pound dog trying to be a lap dog like the little Bichon behind us! Jackson settled down and slept on the floor beneath my legs.

So, it was a great day all in all. We’re all exhausted now! Will we be going to next year’s Dog Day? I think so!