Going to the Mattresses

My father was an animal person, particularly with regard to dogs. He was known almost to his dying day for adopting strays. Even strays that were leery of humans would follow him and attach themselves to his "adopted" pack. You would never know how many dogs you would find in the yard or the house. My mother was the daughter of a farmer who grew up with a practical approach to animals, pets or otherwise. They were either a food source or performed a task. She did not have any sentimental illusions even towards the household pets.

The one attitude they both shared was that animals belonged on the floor. No pet of ours was allowed on the furniture. Furniture was expensive. We were a blue collar family. What we had was dear. My parents could not afford to be forgiving towards tears, scratches and hair over everything.

The ultimate test of my ingrained attitude was marrying a cat person. The only thing harder than keeping a cat from climbing the shelves and off of the furniture was to herd it. With Sylvan and Frisky, the cats from our newlywed years, there were several accidents which lead to temper tantrums by me and admonishment from my wife to grow up. Teaching me maturity was one of my wife's early challenges. There is still some debate as to how successful she has been.

Eventually I resigned myself to the inevitable natural tendencies of a feline and learned to live with their crawling and climbing, scratching and shedding.
With Hamilton I was determined to be more strict. I had my heritage to defend. No dog on the couch or bed. No leaning on the table with his front paws. Hamilton would be disciplined. He would accept his boundaries and be happy for it. After all I was the master, the Pack Leader.

To this end I embraced the philosophy of the crate. The crate would be a physical representation of the household rules. And Hamilton would find comfort and solace from its implied limitations on his behavior. To reinforce its intent we would keep it in the living room away from us. Hamilton would have a safe, secure environment to sleep in without us in the room. He would develop confidence and independence. After all his heritage was to be a guard dog, a hunter, a fighter. His was a mix of German Shepherd and Terrier -- stoic, brave warriors.

Then again you can't expect too much from a ten-week old puppy. Each night Hamilton would whimper in his crate full of chew toys, blankets and a separate velour-covered, puppy-sized bed. Sleeping through such pitiful pleading was a challenge. And there was the complication of differentiating the apprehensive whimpering from the I have to go variety.

After three nights of sleep deprivation I consulted with my wife, always the sensible one, and agreed the best approach would be a temporary relocation of the crate to the bedroom where he would be comforted knowing we were nearby. The whimpering was surprisingly loud now. And then there was Gus.

Since Hamilton's arrival our two cats had retreated to the bedroom. This was comfortable territory for Daphne, our shy runt. For Gus it represented a strategic maneuver until he could assess the situation. It was his reign and now it was invaded by this strange sniveling creature that smelled to him like a walking potty box. Now his bedroom refuge was invaded by Hamilton and his crate. Where is a cat to turn?

He decided to assess the situation closer. He surreptitiously approached the crate from the side. The crate was designed to provide intimacy for the dog so it was enclosed on three sides with only the front gate providing an opening for viewing. Coming from the blind side Gus pulled his head around to the front gate. Hamilton must of looked worse than Gus could possibly have imagined. He arched his back. His fur and tail stood on end as if they had been starched.

The hiss initially confused Hamilton. It was probably the first he had ever heard. He cocked his head behind the gate and seemed to be attempting to decipher a foreign language. You could almost visualize Hamilton's brain cells calculating the intent of the tones and modulations of Gus's voice. He tried to sniff Gus with his nose through the gate. The scratch across his nose happened so quickly that Hamilton didn't register the pain initially. Then there was a loud yelp and Hamilton retreated to the back of the crate.

Now the whimpering became louder and we also had Gus all agitated, jumping from bed to table to the top of the crate hissing and clawing. I decided to get dressed and take Hamilton out for a walk. It was 2 A.M.

That weekend was Hamilton's first at our country home. We have a small cottage on a lake near the Delaware Water Gap in western New Jersey. It is our retreat from Manhattan and the pressure cooker of our jobs.

Initially Hamilton was thrilled with his new surroundings. Fresh scents, plenty of room to play and new nooks and crannies to investigate. Then came the night. The bedroom did not have room for the crate so we placed it on the porch which is enclosed with a door to the house that we keep open in the summer. It was a beautiful August night. Nothing stirred, not even a quiet summer breeze. The quiet was soon shattered by Hamilton's load whimpering. Sounds were amplified by the stillness and the calmness of the lake's glimmering surface and we knew his cries were reverberating around the lake.

That's when we gave in. My wife padded out to the porch and opened the crate door. As she turned back a streak of fur broke between her legs through the doorway and into the bedroom. I looked at Hamilton's pleading face and those beguiling brown eyes and knew I was lost. I lifted him up and he snuggled onto the pillows. As my wife got back into bed there he lay between us his eyes already closed.

We had crossed the line. As I looked at the now empty crate I knew there was no turning back. We had breached the historical legacy that had guided my family for generations, two anyway. No longer would any dog in our family be limited to an exclusively terrestrial existence. Hamilton had broken the barrier.

Meanwhile, I noticed Gus was cautiously creeping into the crate.

A Puppy That Never Sleeps

If you live in one of Manhattan's ubiquitous high rise apartment buildings and you want to get to know your neighbors better housebreak a puppy. A ten week old will give you ample opportunity to see your neighbors at all hours and in various states of ensemble. The digestive process of a puppy requires potty breaks at minimum every two hours. Often more frequently. This means being prepared to take your puppy out at the break of dawn, throughout the day and deep into the night. If New York is the city that never sleeps, you've become one of the nighthawks.

My wife, taking a leaf from my college roommate's, " If you named the pet you owned it," decreed that it was my responsibility to housebreak Hamilton. To be fair there was also the practical consideration that my office was near our apartment while hers was uptown. Of course at night we were in the same bed, but I slept closer to the door. And one of the reasons we adopted Hamilton was to motivate me to get some exercise with daily walks.

The housebreaking started during the period when we had his crate in the living room so he would develop independence. According to the experts the crate would reinforce his sense of identity and would be his sanctuary. He would never soil it so it would help with housebreaking as well. The night from hell which my wife relives ad naseum put the lie to that latter aspect of the theory. The other aspect of the theory was to use positive reinforcement by rewarding your puppy with a treat each time he relieved himself outside. Eventually he would get the idea and you could substitute praise for the treats. One look in Hamilton's eyes as he looked at me with anticipation for doing the right thing showed me that would never happen.

Having the crate in the living room meant that he needed to whimper to let me know when he needed to go out. If i didn't respond immediately my wife kicked me in the back and I would stumble out of the bed and struggle into my clothes. Soon I would sleep with my pants on rather than sleepily pull them on and risk breaking my neck. At least we had the good fortune of adopting in the summer. Imagine standing outside at three in the morning in a January of snow, wind and sleet with your little puppy asking, no begging him, to be quick (his code words for get it done already).

Speed is of the essence. Once a puppy feels the urge to go the dam is opening fast. And you never know from what end. An apartment poses a particular challenge since getting outside requires maneuvering through your own hallway, the elevator, past the doorman always alert for accidents, through the revolving door and finally outside. I estimated that Hamilton's intestinal fortitude at ten weeks old allowed at most five minutes for this exercise. And that was five minutes with a lot more of the give than the take.

I decided that holding him until he was outside was the best approach to avoide any accidents in the elevator or the lobby in front of the disapproving doorman. But accidents do happen. So I began to hold him slightly away from my body facing me. I would coo at him to distract him, " How's my baby Hamilton. How's my baby boy" , and run through the lobby much to the amusement of the omnipresent doorman. By my count we only had four accidents over the first week and one of those I shouldn't count as the doorman was mercifully away from his post for once, probably going to the bathroom himself.

During his first week Hamilton barely made it outside the front door. At night this wasn't too much of a problem. During the day we had to find our place among the thousands of office workers, tourists and neighbors who always seem to stream by our apartment's door. Hamilton decided the grate in front of the building was the best place to go which made clean up easier. I wouldn't recommend trying to retrieve your keys, though, if they should ever fall through the bars.

By the second week his control was getting better and he was able to make it across the street to the plaza of the office building that blocks any significant sunlight from reaching the inside of the apartments in our building. Call it Hamilton's revenge for this affront to our quality of life as he took quickly to the side of the building that faced a relatively quieter side street. Perplexed maintenance people from the office building would occasionally watch our regular routine. And Hamilton was nothing if not regular. Trying to be a good neighbor I was meticulous in cleaning up, even using paper towels if necessary for residue.

The financial district of Manhattan has become highly residential. It is no longer uncommon to see Wall Street financiers racing to meetings in bespoken suits cheek-by-jowl with mothers pushing perambulators and walking dogs and leading children with lunch boxes and book bags to school. We have a school bus stop in front of our building as if we lived down a country lane in Iowa. Ultimately, the maintenance people took Hamilton's regular visits in stride, once even lending me a dust bin when I had forgotten his potty clean-up bags.

By the third week Hamilton was triumphing. He needed to go out less and once outside he developed the confidence to be fussy and take his time to find just the right spot. And Hamilton is fussy. He sniffs around, gives you a feigned leg lift as a tease and then he is off, nose down, looking for a better spot. " Be quick," could be heard through out the caverns of Wall Street. We would circle the office building aimlessly like abandoned satellites in space trying to signal home: B-E Q-U-I-C-K! B-E Q-U-I-C-K! B-E Q-U-I-C-K!

It was late at night that I realized that many of my neighbors were living lives quite different from ours. As I stood there sleepily mumbling " Be quick" taxis, limos and town cars were disgorging neighbors in front of our building, usually dressed to the nines. Couples came home nearer midnight. Single people nearer dawn. So many enjoying the glamour and thrills of the city that never sleeps, I would think.

Then I would say " Be quick" and Hamilton would. I'd give him his treat and he'd look at me with gratitude and pride. I was never happier.