How to stick tweezers into your dogs nostril!

Now now! Don't wince and dismiss this blog as some psycho's sick fetish. Bear with me a bit. I am now going to head back to Nishi's health and some coping strategies we used. As my earlier blogs indicate, Nishi's accident left the right side of her face completely damaged. Her right nostril does not produce any moisture resulting in crusting on the inside. We have to frequently clean it out (at least once a day) using tweezers for this purpose. How annoying and scary for a little dog like her. While few of you have perhaps had to stick something up your dogs nostril, I am sure you frequently encounter situations where your dog has some irrational fear of something and you want your dog to get over that fear and get comfortable with that object or situation, just the way I needed Nishi to get over her fear of tweezers and get comfortable with me putting it in her nostril. So, here's how dealt with this.

Picture taken 3 months after her accident showing the constant crusting in her right nostril

One afternoon, we found ourselves sitting on the floor and pinning Nishi baby down, trying to calm her down, wrestling with her and the tweezers and losing the battle, losing patience and the will to continue. Finally I gave up, stood up, threw the tweezers away and yelled out that I could not do this any more. What the hell were we doing? Here was a puppy who had just been through hell and we were making things worse. We are her parents. We had to be making things better! "Why won't she understand that this wont hurt and it's for her own good Uttam?" I yelled. He calmly said "How is she to know that?".  I huffed and walked away.

Finally when the frustration gave way to reason I kept turning that question in my head. "How is she to know that it won't hurt her?". I had to tell her. I had to somehow tell her. But how? I took a deep breath. I knew then that I had to learn to communicate with her. She was so good at telling when when she was afraid or happy or sad or hungry. Could I not tell her something? I went back out and found her sitting in a corner, feeling utterly miserable about this whole episode. My heart went out to her. I took a few cookies and went up to her, knelt in front of her, apoligized and gave her some cookies. She tentatively look a few then started slowly wagging her tail and licked my wrist. Bless her little soul for getting past it so fast. A tear dropped down my cheek and I was determined to make it all better.

I got up, shook myself the way she has taught me to shake myself [and fetched her ball. We started playing. We forgot all about the episode and we had a fun fun game. She finally collapsed after a tiring game of chase .(update: I no more recommend playing fetch with  dog).] I took a few more of her favorite treats and went up to her and started giving her the treats one at a time. I slowly pulled the tweezers our and put it on the floor, far away from her and continued giving her the treats. I don't think she noticed the tweezers. I kept the treats coming and slowly started moving the treats towards her, talking softly to her. At one point, she noticed it from the corner of her eye and froze. I stopped moving it and pulled it away. I continued talking softly. Wearily she moved her attention back to the treats. I slowly moved the tweezers closer again. She kept an eye on it, while she continued to take the treats. I stopped moving the tweezers. Just kept talking to her and treating her. Finally she lost interest in the tweezers and rolled on her back asking for a belly rub. I took the chance and moved the tweezers closer. After a 30 min long session of treating and conversation, the tweezers were right under her nose on the floor. She had examined it and decided that it was not worth thinking of. Battle 1: WON! "Tweezers are are not the enemy."

UPDATE:I now recommend different methods. If I had to do this now, I would just put the tweezers down and sit calmly around it and allow Nishi to examine it. I know she will take time and pretend like she is not interested in it. But eventually she would examine it. If I saw she was not nervous around it anymore, I would encourage her to examine it by leaving a few treats near it and just giving her time to examine it at her own pace, even if it took an hour 

Now I had to move to step 2:" Tweezers are friends!". For this, I went back again, picked up a few more treats, and everytime I dropped a treat on the floor, I dropped the tweezers with it. At first, she jumped back, looked at me confused, then slowly steered clear of the tweezers and picked up the treat and bolted! But as we continued doing it, she started to ignore the tweezers. After the 10th time, we moved to the next level. I'd drop the tweezers first, then drop the treat a few seconds later. By the time I had done that a few times, she got the idea. "Tweezers means Treats". Now the tweezers had become her friend. She started wagging her little stubby tail when she saw that small piece of metal.

This step was so successful that by the next day, when I pulled the tweezers out she would start prancing about. So we started playing a game. I would touch it to her little nose, make a little high pitched sound - "boop" - and then run. She would chase me and when she caught up to me I would pet her, treat her and repeat. She would stand look up and offering up her little black nose for the "boop" and ready to chase.

UPDATE:I now recommend different methods. If I had to do this now, I would tone down the excitement, slow down the process so that she had time to realize learn and process faster

After 2 days of this, on the 3rd day, I decided to go for the last and final step. I dreaded it! If just getting over the fear of the apparatus took so long, how long would it take to put it in her nostril and clean? I took a deep breath [and we started with a high energy game of ball.(update: I no more recommend playing fetch with  dog).] When she was exhausted, we collapsed under the fan and we started playing a mild version of the "boop" game. "Boop" and treat and pet. No running. After a few attempts, I tentatively put the tweezers a little into her nostril and quickly pulled it out and treated her, dreading that she was going to get up and bolt. To my utter surprise, she had no reaction at all. She just kept playing the "boop" game, slowly losing interest in it. She finally fell flat on her side and just wanted to be petted. I continued the "boop" game, petting her everytime I put the tweezers a little deeper into her nose. She seemed to have lost all interest by now. After a few seconds, she just shut her eyes. I am not sure if she was sleeping. I ventured trying to clean up a bit and no reaction! So I went ahead and cleaned it all up. No reaction at all! Hmm...perhaps she was tired. I had to try again to be sure. So later in the day, we tried the whole thing again. First ball play, then the "boop" game. This time, it was right after her meal. So she was not particularly interested in the treat and she had lost all interest in the "boop" game, but did not really care about the tweezers. It was as if she was telling me "Mommy! Please stop with that silly game. You want to clean my nostril? Just do that and get it done with. This boop game is no fun at all".

Today, we breeze through it. Before bed, we have a routiene. I have to brush her teeth, clean her eyes, put drops in them, clean her nose, put moisturizer inside her nostrils and on her snout. She is quite bored through all of it. But she is not scared. She tolerates the whole thing, waiting to be done. Then we start petting her profusely. If she is interested, she stays back and gets petted. Else she bolts after the toy that has been on her mind all along.

It's been two years since I managed to get Nishi over her fear of that dreaded metal object. Now, after a lot of reading, I realized that this technique has a name to it - Desensitization and Counter-Conditioning or DnC or D&C.  

Desensitization is what I did as Step 1 - teaching her The Strange Object is NOT THE ENEMY. So exposing her to the object at a distance or intensity that will not spook her and then slowly increasing intensity or decreasing distance. Till she finally is close enough and is realizing "This is not scary. It's not going to hurt me".

Counter-Conditioning is Step 2 of this process - teaching her that this non-enemy is actually HER FRIEND. So, basically, every time she is in the proximity of the object, treating her to something she loves. Eventually, as approaches the object, she starts expecting great things. In her mind "Tweezers are cool. They get me treats" and the very sight of this object makes her so happy.

We have since, used this method to deal with so many fears. We got her over her fear of water and taught her how to swim. In fact, we even taught the vet about it. When we took her to the vet and he had to clean her nostril, she started wriggling. We told him to slow down a bit and play the "boop" game and give her some treats. I had carried the treats with me that day. He was amused, but humored us. Now, he and Nishi are best of friends because she will let him do anything to her - Anything! The "boop" game is powerful :)

This is a video of Nishi swimming. 

Desensitization was achieved by us getting into the water.

We stood 2 feet apart and let her swim between the two of us.

We did this till she realized that she could swim then gradually increased distance

Since she loves to play, we used her favorite floating toy for Counter-Conditioning.

If anyone reading this has other suggestions on how they got their dog over irrational fears, please do leave comments. I would love to know.

The Storm after the storm, with a capital S

By mid 2011, Nishi had already been to hell and back. Because of one critical mistake from us our 11 month old puppys face was driven over by a speeding cab. It took us several weeks to be convinced that she was not going to die. We stroked our puppys little head as she went through surgery after surgery for several months. We cried at each complication we discovered in her eye, nose, teeth, jaws etc...but Nishi led us through it bravely. Eventually we were contemplating a sigh of relief at having perhaps salvaged more or less a whole puppy and learning to come to terms that she was going to have some disabilities for life. And then all hell broke lose all over again.

We discovered that Nishi suffered from a degenerative genetic disorder called Patellar Subluxation. In simple English, the knee cap that keeps jumping out of it's place. This is often experienced by humans. If you sat on the floor with your legs extending out in front of you and someone sat on your knee and shifted their weight around, your knee cap will slip out of it's place. Don't try to do this because, I have watched people experiencing this, scream out in pain and describe the pain as excruciating. But it's very easy to fix as well. Imagine the knee cap to be held in place by springs. Tap on it lightly or kick your leg out and springs it right back into place.

Now with Patellar Subluxation, these springs are either in the wrong place or get lose. So the knee cap keeps jumping out frequently. Nishi would experience this while just running around in the park. She would kick her hind leg and it would slip back. But the frequency with which this happened started increasing. But we were still not too concerned. After all she was in pain just for a few seconds at a time and we had been through enough to even contemplate another complication with a puppy that had barely completed her first birthday. But of one of the subsequent visits was to reveal that we had no such luxury in story for us. We were informed that the problem was not the pain. The problem was that the knee cap moving so much would slowly start grinding down her bones till the nerve endings got exposed. When that happened, she would be in constant unbearable pain, which would only keep worsening with age. What did this puppy have in store? Whose brunt was she bearing?

With a heavy heart we prepared for another surgery. We learned that the bones would be sculpted to make the knee cap fit better and the spring mechanism would be tightened and repositioned so that it would hold the knee cap in firmly in position. We consoled ourselves that the procedure sounded simple enough. I mean, after an encounter where we were nervous we had left behind a part of her brain on the road. After that scare, this sounded relatively simple. So we went ahead.

After the surgery, the vet recommended that we leave her behind for post operative care. I knew that if we left her behind she would be in a crate. The thought of that made me shudder. We decided to stay home all day and take care of her till she recovered. We did physio every day, dressed her, iced her and gave her hot packages. She suffered through all of it without complaining. We were instructed to keep her tied at all times. But how could we do that to a puppy who had been through so much. So we just monitored closely. The irony in that effort can only be understood by someone who knows Nishi. One fine day she woke up to find that her pain had reduced a bit. So she started bolting around the house in the morning. Her leg was in a tight bandage that but that did not stop her. Keeping one leg stretched out, she was bolting on 3. We were relieved to see her in good spirits, smiled and gently insisted that she stopped playing.

We took her back for a check-up and the vet almost burst into tears. We were puzzled. She was in good spirits. We had done everything religiously. So what was he so upset about? Turned out that it had slipped out again and healed there, sticking it completely out of position. So she was actually still in pain, but was choosing to ignore it and just focus on play. So she was back under the knife. And again. And again.  She was in so much pain that there would be nights she would just sit up and stare into space for almost an hour, not moving, doing nothing. I would wake up and sit with her. I did not know what I could do to ease her pain. So I would just sit beside and and stare with her. Her leg was in a cast for so long that she lost all muscle mass in the leg. We could not take her on a walk because the walk could put pressure on the knee cap again, but she needed the exercise to build her muscles again. The situation was just going from bad to worse. So on the next scheduled surgery date, we said No!

Nishi's leg in a splint, comforting herself with Teddy, her toy

We went for a second opinion and a third. What we learned there made me sick to my stomach. Turns out that this surgery is a super complicated one to start with. Success rates are very small. But it was indeed a degenerative condition, meaning it would get worse with age and surgery was the only solution. Where were we to go from here? We held each other and cried. Where had we gone wrong? Would our puppy, with boundless energy have to lose her leg? Were her best days behind her and every day bring with it new pain? We had started spiraling down a bottomless pit of darkness and despair.

But then there was a little voice inside our heads. If Nishi spoke out loud, her voice would perhaps sound like that. It asked told us "Do you see how Nishi has put blind faith in you and followed you down every path you have asked her to take. She has faith in you. Why do you not have that faith?". We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and got to work.

What ensued was intense research. We spoke to as many qualified people as possible. We looked up what was done in other countries. We explored alternate medicine. We inquired on what was done to humans. The only viable option that emerged was swimming as physiotherapy. So we searched every nook and cranny of the city for a pool that would admit her. We asked all pools and no one would admit a dog. Finally we came across Paw n Claw. The pool would only be open on weekends. We met the owner Adnan Querishi, who would turned out to be her angel in disguise. He took one look at her, heard her story so far, and graciously agreed to accommodate her every day.

Thus started swimming! Short snout dogs really do not like swimming. They struggle in the water. So we got into the pool with her and slowly taught her confidence. We took her favorite toy into the pool. There was no way we would stress her out any more. So we did everything we could to ease her into the water, literally and figuratively. Soon she gained confidence. Within a week she started looking forward to her swimming sessions. She would get super excited as soon as we stated driving towards the pool. We would take her swimming 4-5 days a week, for two and a half months and it was a joy to watch each time. She swam for 2 hours a day, every day for several weeks.

Fast forward to today. I invite all of you to cubbon park to watch her run. It is a joy to watch. And when you know what she has been through, it will move you to tears. She swims like a pro and leaps into any water body she encounters with unbounded joy. She jumps up to hug her favorite humans and showers them with all her love. She runs like the wind, chasing anything that moves. She is my hero. Her heart has more courage than I am confident I can muster. She is a role model. One we were close to losing so many times. But all it required was a little faith on our part. It would have been so easy to give up. Several times we had people telling us that "others" would have given up. But today, when we look at her, we know that we did the right thing by not giving up on her.

Nishi swimming like a pro and her never-give-up attitude

 

Nishi running like the wind!

That Fateful Day

I frequently reference Nishi's trauma and accident. About time I wrote about it. Well, I did write about it a while ago to tell her story to people who cared most about her. But it's time I put the story out to a wider audience. Often I wonder why I do this. Why do I write about her pain? Why do I talk about her troubles? I guess it's because I feel guilty. I have had several people tell me that there is no point in beating myself up. I disagree. It's not true that no one is at fault. I am at fault. Our kind - mankind - is at fault. My little Nishi was NOT at fault. She suffered for no fault of hers. So I owe it to her that I bear the pain of recollecting that horror and tell her story, so that each of us can extract our learning from it. Perhaps someday, some other innocent puppy is spared the pain that my little one had to endure. So, here is the blog that describes that day:

It was a Thursday. A long weekend round the corner. Uttam had bought us tickets to spend the weekend in Mumbai, as a birthday present. We both needed it. I had been having a long affair with misfortune and hoped a change of scene would somehow end the vile affair. Uttam had quit his job the same day and hoped the weekend would give him space to ruminate on what next. The only thing we needed to do was figure out what to do with Nishi, our 11 month old boxer puppy.

Our plan felt good. We would take Nishi to my sister’s house and spend the night. We would leave early next morning, before Nishi got up. And Nishi, would spend the weekend getting on my sisters nerves. We giggled at the thought of my sister coping with Nishis unbounded energy and exuberant love.

We knew Nishi was in good hands over the weekend. But the thought of her not being with me bothered me. Apartment dogs spend all their time indoors with owners. They become family. Nishi was my baby and being away from her even for a day, not having her pottering around or tearing around the house with her toys, not having her walk up to me every few hours asking for a good dose of petting, was not a thought I was comfortable with. I started hoping something would happen to cancel our trip. Uttam suggested we go on a walk to take my mind off this. I thought a walk would do me good. So we got ready for that walk.

We live on a busy road, much too busy for a walk with our lil doggie. So we quickly crossed the road and turned into the first small road. Still too many cars. We kept Nishi close and turned into a smaller road. This road was much better. Narrow enough for just one car to pass, residential and quiet. Nishi loved this road as well. She had made many doggie friends on this road - Gunda the lab, Curisie the cocker, Roxie and Mojo the boxers.

She came upon the first house with Gunda and Crusie. The dogs were not out. She still spent sometime sticking her head through the gate, as if she was calling out to them. When she realized they were not coming out, she sighed and left. Next up was Mojos house. Mojo was her best friend. She would do her boxer play dance and he would reciprocate. They both would rear on her hind legs and box with their front paws, the way boxers do. If Mojo has been let out, they would bolt up and down the road, for the sheer joy of bolting. Nishi loved this and started prancing on the way to his house.

As we reached Mojo’s house, Mojos owner walked out. He too loved watching the two of them play. So he let Mojo out. We often did this, and when we did, we stood guard at opposite ends of the road, to slow down any approaching vehicle. Mojos owner suggested that it was unnecessary as the road was far too narrow for any fast cars. But we insisted, at the risk of looking obsessive. No point in taking any risk with our little princess. So we took Nishi off her leash and got ready take positions. Then our lives changed!

I don’t remember seeing, hearing or understanding anything. I just remember just feeling! A sickening feeling in my stomach. Out of pure instinct, I screamed as loud as I could. I stopped screaming but continued to hear screaming. It wasn’t me, it was a dog screaming. There was a car in front of me and I saw the dogs running around. I saw Uttam standing in front of the car and pounding his fist on the bonnet. The car backed up a bit and I ran around to see what was going on. But I could not turn around to see what had happened. So I stood facing away and I continued to hear a dog screaming. But had I not seen the dogs run around the car. Gosh! It was not both of them running. It was just one of them. The other had been hit by the car. I let out another scream. No! Let it not be! No!

I turned around and saw Uttam was sitting on the road. He had a dark, almost black dog in his arms. Nishi! Her face had been shredded. Her tongue was hanging out and her eye was staring into a space I could not fathom. My Nishi. Another scream escaped my stomach. It was coming from deep within me. Like I was pleading to the universe to reverse this. Like if screamed loud enough, the universe would hear me. When I stopped Nishi was still screaming. But this time, it was different. When she was under the car, it was like she was pleading to be released from the grip of the car. But now, it was like she was wailing in pain and sorrow. She sounded like a crying child. I looked on helplessly, watching Uttam bent over her, covered in blood.

This could not be my Nishi. My Nishi never cried a single day. She never felt anything other than happieness. She had too much energy to be lying on the road for so long. She had gorgeous eyes that had won Uttam over. She loved to play. This was not my Nishi. “Water!”. Water? No Nishi did not like water. She hated baths. But she loved water falls. “Put water on it”. Put water on what, I wondered. Suddenly I was brought back to the scene in front of me. Someone was suggesting putting water on her. I looked at her. She had stopped screaming. She was trying to breathing, but only thing I heard was gurgling of blood in her throat. This was not my Nishi!

Suddenly I sensed a movement in Uttam. I don’t know what Uttam did at that moment or how he looked. I only remember feeling hope. Later Uttam told me that it was at that moment Uttam realized that Nishi was not dead. She had stopped bleeding and was still breathing. I am still not sure how I felt Uttams realization. My mind started racing. “Car! We need to get her to a vet! I need a car! Should I run home and bring a car? We don’t have money. Should I bring money? Uttam what do you want me to do?” I yelled. Mojo’s owner pulled up his car. Uttam carried Nishi in. Someone gave us money. I jumped into the car and we drove off. Nishi, please hang in there my baby.

Uttam seemed very calm. As I hysterically barked directions to our favorite vet, Uttam calmly suggested we go to the closest vet instead. After all, we were not in an ambulance. First aid was critical. How was Uttam being so calm while I was hysterically repeating everything he said several times over.

At the end of a seemingly endless drive, we reached the vet. I ran in and screamed “My dog! Someone help. Please help. My dog has been in an accident. Please help”. I ran back towards the door hoping someone would follow me. No one did. I ran back in and cried for help again. People in the room slowly diverted their eyes away from the TV to look at me and stare. They just seemed stunned. Screaming for help, I ran out to get Uttam and Nishi in. Thankfully, by the time we came back in, people had recovered from the initial shock and had prepped a table for her. She went on the table and the longest hour of my live commenced.

While we had been smart in going to the closest vet, to avoid Bangalore traffic, the vet himself was not spared by the unyielding peak hour city traffic. He arrived an hour after us. Meanwhile we could not sedate Nishi who could have been on the verge of slipping into a shock. So we just waited and waited. Not a peep from the little frail body on that table. Just heavy breathing. Once in a while she lifted her head, perhaps just looking for comfort. Just this small gesture was giving us comfort. Our Nishi was alive and moving.

More than two hours of us bringing her in Nishi went into surgery. Uttam washed up and came out to sit with me. “Uttam we let her down”, I said. She had never seen the need to be scared. She was confident that we would protect her always. And when she was under that car, screaming, I felt her needing to fight for herself. She no more had us. She had to get out of the car on her own. We were not there for her to hide behind. “Uttam we were not there for her”, I sobbed.

At 11 that night we finally took her home. No one could give me much reassurance about her, considering the injury being so close to her brain. We had to wait. And the wait continues. The next day we moved her to our favorite vet. What was to follow was days of X-rays, IV, injections, medicines, cleaning, vet visits and lots of waiting, watching and hoping.

In the next few days we discovered several complications - broken molars on her right side, broken jaw on her right side, an ulcer in her left that that needed surgery, loss of sensation on the right side of her face, an infection in her ears and nose...the list seemed endless. As I write this down, we are still waiting for her left eye to be opened, sensation to return to her face, jaw to heal and the infection to clear in her nose.

It’s 5 AM and I am up. I can still hear her screaming. I open my eyes to see her little snout, less than a centimeter from my nose. Nishi has made it a habit of climbing into our bed, ever since the accident. She is snoring funny. This is the most comforting sound for me. It reassures me that my Nishi is alive. Tonight she has brought a toy to the bed. She seems to have play on her mind at all times. Sometimes I wonder if she continues playing in her dreams. Even on days when she must have been in excruciating pain, if she gathered the strength to get out of bed, it would be to go get a toy. Despite having limited vision, no sense of smell and being in unimaginable pain, she never fails to give visitors the warmest welcome. After all that she has been through, she has nothing short of complete trust and unadulterated love for every person she meets.  Thought I cannot forgive myself for letting her down, she has forgiven me, trusts me, loves me, accepts my love with no inhibitions and is here beside me, sleeping peacefully. When she finds it so easy to cope, why can I not? Guess she can cope because of her spirit, her enormous heart, her zest for life and her tremendous capacity for sheer joy!