A TOUGH LITTLE PUP: HOW A STARVING DOG BECAME A WANDER UP SLEEPING DOG

For this edition of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap we examine one of the truths of life: Sometimes a dog needs a little tweaking at the vet's office. 
In this case we're focusing on my personal dog, Porche Noel, found on the front porch at Christmas.

That was the Christmas of 2008 --SIXTEEN YEARS AGO.

Our Oak Cliff front porch had ornamental iron bars "caging" it and a matching door. The porch was where we staged our free Feral Cat buffet twice a day. Feed. Trap. Neuter. Release. Feed. Know what I mean?

One day as I worked on the lesser American novel in my office, my funspouse Martha came home, walked in and asked, "What's up with the dog on the porch?" 
"What dog?" I responded and sure enough there was a young, starving, limping and rasping dog on our porch. She'd squeezed through the bars on the gate, eaten all the cat food, then was too thick to squeeze out. Captured by her appetite! Her expanded tummy made her unable to flee through the bars. We "strangers" had "captured" her." And she was polite -- though at dinner time we did have to separate her from the Peacful Picnic hat was feeding time for the pre-existing dogs nd cts..
The reality is this: We invited her in and she came to stay.

Last week, she needed some tooth work. She also got a cyst clipped off of her right front elbow and she got a really good exam of everything else. One healthy, 35-to-37 pound dog (depending on her daily snacks!)!!! 
The knock-out meds for the dental work kept her woozy after the vet visit and that is a photo of her snoozing in the back seat of my car. I was able to wake her up and help her back into the house. You have to, with each dog in your life, figure out the proper combination of "lift" and "treats. Porche's a darling dog who has taught me well.
[OH, DEAR READERS: I'm sure you have dogs and cats who have taught you the easy stress-free ways to get them from the house to the car and back. Nobody else can train humans like a dog or cat can train us!]
For this edition I asked Porche's second-cclosest human relative, my funspouse Martha, "What's your favorite thing about Porche?"
 And, after pausing for a few seconds, Martha replied, "She'll take pills in any kind of food -- It's really a misery if you have a suspicious and skeptical dog you're trying to pill. Lately Porche's favorite is an antibiotic tablet wrapped in a sliver of a slice of American cheese. "Same theory of medicinal application her father Larry prefers." Martha said. 
[LARRY ASIDE: Martha knows me oh-so-well. She'll hold up a few Fritos wrapped in a sliver of American Cheese and suddenly I'm up on my back legs like a circus elephant trying to demonstrate my adorable charm by letting my enormous nose snag a piece of flying cheese right out of the air. OK back to reality and Porche.]

So there's our 16-year-old formerly wander-up Dallas dog who owns our hearts. That's a photo of her on her first visit to a vet 16 years go -- thin, rasping, kind of iffy on her feet. 
When we got her she couldn't bark (only rasp!), her back legs didn't work well enough to allow her to scratch (still can't -- but she has two humans who can scratch) and she was starving. Nobody starves in our house! We have medical records to demonstrate that.
Porch just doesn't have the traditional dog tools. (On the left, she's snoozing on her living room couch -- sometimes she can get onto it without help, but most of the time she needs a lift from me or Martha -- Porche puts her front paws on the couch and we lift her from the hindquarters and she happily flops down and starts her nap."
What she can do wonderfully is charm me and Martha with her attitude that she can make her way down the back door steps into the yard and, then, with courage and determination, fight her way back up three steps right into the house she'd call "home" if she were of a mind to bark in English. She prefers to issue happy yips, yaps and yelps! 
Yes, she is my personal dog -- she decided to assume that title of Larry's Personal Dog. Why? I don't know. But my explanatory theory is this: "Dogs are smart."
[LARRY APPEAL ABOUT A NOTE: About 3 weeks ago someone sent me the material to feature her dog or dogs in our weekend edition of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. Somehow I have lost that material. If you could please re-send it to [email protected], we'll put the spotlight on another great human/people relationship. Anybody can send info about a sleeping dog, napping cat or snoozing in-law who came for a holiday and stayed to [email protected]. Thanks. Remember, Animal Nuts are people, too.]