He’s a scrapper, my Zeke. He greeted me at 7AM this morning, dancing.
“Good morning! I have to pee! Let’s go!”
He’s still unsteady, slow and sleepy, but the spirit is back.
He bit Sumner’s face yesterday when they were out in the yard, for old time’s sake.
“I ain’t dead yet, kid. Back off!”
Tom painted a pretty picture for me while I was away, lest I worry myself sick about what was going on at home. “Zeke’s fine, he’s running around. He’s fine.”
I knew that “running around” hasn’t been an option for Zeke for the past few weeks, but I kept my mouth shut. Something in the way he said it precluded me from asking more questions. I had a job to do in California, and Tom knew that if he told me everything that was going on with Zeke, I’d have trouble focusing. His edited version of the facts didn’t keep me from crying before I got out of bed on a few mornings, and losing it to the make-up and hair ladies as I talked about Zeke.
I dreaded seeing Tom at the airport – I knew his face would tell me everything, and it did. We weren’t even out of the airport parking lot and he said, “He’s bad. Zeke’s doing really bad, ok?”
He gave me the rundown … the week started off fine but Zeke declined rapidly on Friday. Saturday brought a frightening seizure (his second in two weeks). Tom was so worried about Zeke on Sunday that he almost had me take a cab from the airport so that he could stay home with him.
When we arrived home Tom took Sum outside so that I could greet feeble Zeke alone. My little man hitch-stepped to me and wagged his stumpy, creaky tail, but there was no dancing. No “You’re home! Hooray!” Just a tiny tail twitch that signified that he was happy to see me.
My Zeke.
I sat with him on his bed while Tom and I talked about the reality of the situation. Zeke was now a shadow of the dog we loved.
“Let’s wait,” Tom said. “You’re home now, maybe he’ll rebound.”
And he did.
He’s gotten a little better each day, but “better” is relative. He still sleeps all day. Falls. Gets confused. (”I hear you Mom, but I can’t find you.”) He’s still eating and keeping clean, though. He’ll take short strolls with me down to the garden, but he grazes car bumpers as we walk down the street, as if he can’t quite navigate his way around them. We had some low-key fun with a ball this morning, but he had trouble finding it if it rolled away from him.
Sumner is unmoved by the changes in Zeke, and it makes me a little angry. He’s jealous of the extra attention Zeke’s getting (particularly from Tom), and he’s taking advantage of Zeke’s weakness. Sum cleans out Zeke’s bowl if he looks away for too long. Payback is a bitch in the dog world too, I guess. Sumner is finally out from under Zeke’s dictatorship and he’s loving every minute. I thought that Sum, soft soul that he is, might understand the gravity of what’s going on, but he doesn’t.
I’ve been crying for three days straight now. Bawling, to be exact. I turned to my trainer friends for advice and they offered me great comfort, and their own “saying goodbye” stories that made me cry all over again.
Zeke is sacked out in his bed right beside me. He heard me sniffling (the soundtrack of our lives these days), lifted his head, looked at me for a moment as if to say, “You ok?” and then went back to sleep.
Two extra days later and I’m finally home. I was supposed to leave on Friday but we still needed to film one more segment, so they extended my stay until Sunday.
I was glad we were able to make time … the segment was all about myth-busting some typical bully breed lore. (Every short-haired stocky dog is a “pit bull”! Pit bulls have jaws that lock! Pit bulls are born fighters!) Once again, we filmed my segment at the end of a long day and everyone was eager to cut for the weekend … I really wanted to sell my points, and I’m not sure that I did. We were dealing with four sweet, adorable, silly little American Pit Bull Terrier pups while we filmed, trying to get our points across while attempting to wrangle the puppies.
“We” would be me and show co-host Electra Mustaine. (Metal fans will probably recognize her last name.)
I hope, hope, hope that everything I filmed last week turned out ok. My mind gets cloudy when I try to recall it all. Was I clear? Did I make sense? Did my 360-degree-muffin top show a lot? (I saw photos – it did.) Fingers crossed that I didn’t embarrass myself.
The bad news is that I returned home to heartache.
Zeke. He’s not doing well.
Update tomorrow – not ready to write it all yet.
I’ve lost track of time – the days are just flying! Still having fun though. Finished up my last two training tips yesterday afternoon (late yesterday afternoon, to the chagrin of the crew.) Then I had to roll through 13 little taped factoids, just as the clock was nearing 5:30. It would have been a lot tougher for me without the help of the magnificent “Big E” … since I’m unable to smile naturally after I finish my scripts (particularly when on teleprompter), Big E stood just off camera, lifting his shirt and rolling his hips like a belly dancer and making funny faces to get me to laugh. Worked like a charm! He even threw in an Elvis impersonation on the last one!
I’ve been able to spend some time with Kathleen the groomer (from “Groomer Has It“)and she’s a total blast. I taped an interview with her but I’ve given up on trying to upload vids, so here’s the transcript instead!
V: What’s one thing people don’t know about being on a reality show?
K: It’s hard work. The hardest part was taking all of these competitive people and throwing us together and then we couldn’t talk about anything.
V: Because of the gag order?
K: No, we couldn’t talk because they wanted everything fresh for the camera. It was excruciating. We had to sit and look at each other and we couldn’t say a word. We’d sit and make faces at each other.
V: My big question is: did they follow you into the bathroom?
K: I wanted them to! C’mon, bring it on! I wanted to take 48 year old flesh to a whole new level!
Discussion then turns to the toilet in our trailer and other bathroom-related material
V: What’s next for you, Kathleen?
K: Aside from Faithful Friends I’m doing two grooming lectures in Hershey PA at the Groom Expo. I was on the cover of Groomer to Groomer magazine … I still remain undefeated in the creative grooming category.
V: Where can people keep up with you?
K: I’m working on www.askgroomerkathleen.com, as well as kaylordesigns.com and Cafepress.com
Aaannnd then we commenced with not-for-print gossip.
I was lucky enough to get to meet Kathleen’s two bearded dragons …
Can she groom a bearded dragon? Yes, she can. As Kathleen says, “If you can name it, I can groom it.”
Today was a little more relaxed. The majority of my tips are completed (the good, the bad and the embarrassing) but we still had to film the “baton throws” in which I finish up my segment and introduce the show’s new resident groomer, Kathleen from the Animal Planet show “Groomer Has It.” I only had to say a few lines and walk towards where Kathleen was standing, so it was easy-peasey compared to yesterday. Though it was hot enough under those lights to make me sweat through my bra.
The rest of the day was dedicated to reptiles … Wanda, the host of the show, interviewed wildlife expert Nigel Marven. He was a hoot, and delivered a seamless segment.
I still have two more dog training tips to shoot and a few other fun little segments, but the week is already close to booked solid with content. It’s going to be a tight squeeze to fit me in the schedule again!
(Remember how I promised to post video? Well, I taped behind-the-scenes stuff during Friday’s shoot, and I did a little interview with Kathleen today, but I’m having some technical issues getting it uploaded … frustrating!)
11 hour day. Two beers with dinner. I’ll let the photos do the talking.
We had a very productive day … we had hoped to shoot six of my training segments but we managed to shoot ELEVEN! Not all of the pups I selected were able to perform on camera, but I manged to muddle through. The segments we shot were real, meaning that the dogs weren’t perfectly trained demo dogs. They made mistakes, I made mistakes, but we kept rolling no matter what. The result is what we hope will be a realistic look at what it’s like to work with the normal, sometimes challenging dogs we all live with.
It was a good day in TV-land.
