My Page: Kathryn Socie

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The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

I noticed it again the other night. Maybe it’s the evening light or maybe it’s just that time of day when things are moving slowly and I pay closer attention. As I settled in on the couch and the dogs crawled up beside me, I saw it in both of them. Foggy eyes. You’re probably familiar with it, the natural lens change that occurs in dogs at about 7 years old, that tell-tale sign of maturity. I caught it the first time in Walker over a year ago and was stunned. He is so lithe, muscular, wild spirited, playful and, somehow, older? Though I revel every time someone tells me what a cute puppy he is, the realization that he is not a pup, but in fact moving toward the other side of adulthood is a jarring reminder of the shortness of the canine life span, my absolute least favorite dog trait.

Walker and Weez are textbook healthy. Still, as eight year olds, anything can happen. Though they do everything at mock ten, go anywhere, run like maniacs without so much as a stiff rise as they get up each day to do it all over again (and perhaps longer, faster, harder), I know what being eight means. Rather, I know too well that dogs truly are short-lived animals. My dogs are seemingly in their prime, but that can change suddenly, rapidly. Not to mention the fact that if they max out their life span, which I am SO rooting for, we have ONLY ten years left. What a rip-off. I want so much more.
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The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

Are you single and living in Missoula? Got a dog? Chances are you’ve been on the safe date. When someone says to you, “Hey, want to get the dogs out on Water Works sometime this week?” odds are you’re being hit on. It seems benign, rather just-friendly even, but it’s probably a date. In a town where 75% of the single population is dogged, it is the perfect way to launch love, or at least explore the potential. And how ideal? No pressure to find a topic of conversation (hello, dogs!), no worrying about who picks up the check, and if it feels a little awkward it’s over rather quickly and your dog had a good romp, so all is not lost.

By safe I don’t mean it in the weeding out Ted Bundy sort of way. Rather, if things go nowhere, egos emerge from a shared dog-walk unscathed, very unlike sharing a meal for whatever reason. Perhaps all survive because there’s no money involved, or perhaps because the asker can hide behind the rather transparent guise of it not really being a date. [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

It starts the same every time.

“Maybe you can answer this question…”

Once I got tagged as an obsessive-compulsive information starved geek with a coupla years of veterinary experience, I became the go-to for copious amounts of garden variety critter information. You know, avoid the veterinary bill ask the dog-crazed freak. The panic stricken call at the oddest hours and I find myself engaged in entirely too many discussions, too often, using the complete suite of adjectives available to describe poop. There is something wholly satisfying about sharing my pedestrian wisdom, however. Like, in my most recent session, when a friend traveling through town started in with:

"Before it happens again and we totally freak and fork over $500 to the emergency vet, should we worry when…” [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

As I walked through the door into a room filled predominantly with strangers, I was immediately struck by the sense that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I was greeted by the hostess, a distant friend of a friend who had just the day before insisted that I attend her party. So I did. And, wow, was I in foreign terrain. Her house was impeccable, immaculate, something out of a catalog, nay a museum. A China cabinet stood against the back wall with actual China in it, neatly, perfectly displayed. She had a matching red, velvet couch and love seat, sitting on perfectly plush, white carpet buffered by teak wood end tables. The walls were the color of a fresh latte and a set of themed, framed prints were hung throughout a never-ending expanse of a house. It was beautiful in an Edward Scissorhands sort of way; uncomfortably tidy with a dash of eery. Still, she created a show place that would make Martha Stewart proud.

My sheer out-of-placeness there left me totally stunned. For starters, the hostess asked guests, very politely, to remove their shoes. Had I been planning for a shoes-off occasion, I would have strategized my footwear. As per usual, I had run the dogs on dusty, dirt trails in my Chacos before leaving for the event only to throw my filthy feet into a pair of dressier clogs. Imagine my horror as I stood in this woman’s foyer about to step gross, grimy, dirt-covered foot in her utterly well-kempt home. Already embarrassed, I was soon catapulted into mortification.
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The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

If you have a dog, chances are you've heard it. It comes out in a dozen different ways, but the meaning is always the same. In fact, the other night I passed a couple on the trail who, after my dogs politely moved out of the way and sat to allow them to pass, one of them exclaimed: "You are so ready to raise children after raising those two angels.” While I recognize the sentiment is meant to compliment my subtly displayed maternal nature, I'm not so sure my dog caretaking skills are a direct reflection on my ability to parent.

I can’t imagine these people are implying that it’s acceptable for me to put my kid out in the backyard at night when he's got diarrhea while I head back to bed, or that sticking a child in a crate during the day after a walk and bowl of kibble is totally kosher, or that taking my kid for regular runs next to my bike at top speed so she sleeps better is swell in their book. Seems any of these “parenting” actions should prompt a phone call to child protective services, making my case; the leap from dog to kid is a large, scary, expanse. [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

The weather's gone wonky, sending Weez to the little house. With a totally delightful irrational fear of loud, booming noises, the thunder yesterday morning turned Weez, my 8 year-old blue dog, into a heavy breathing, clingy, emotional mess. Much as my compassion is expansive, a dog launching on to my head in the wee hours of the morning, digging into my skull frantically in a useless effort to quell her utterly screwed up notion that thunder is the purest of evils falls way outside my touchy feely zone. Going to work with claw marks extending from my eyeballs has never been a look I’ve necessarily aimed to achieve. [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

It’s that time of year again; the season when the formerly-assumed-as-innocent take back the woods. Well, given deer numbers, does pretty much take back every nook and cranny of Missoula. Throughout much of the year does come across as lovely, peaceful, Disney-like creatures, but once they have fawns on the ground everything changes. Spring is the time of year when these animals attack and if the twice-annual angry letter to the editor is any indication, public enemy #1 for Bambi’s mom is your dog. [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

Dear Crabby Lady with the Labrador,

Perhaps you remember me, we met on the hill the other night. You were hiking with your largess black Labrador complete with testicles, me with the two spotted cattle dogs, one spayed female, one not “intact” male. I was but one of the folks to which you gave a hefty dose of the what-for. Though in your very special way you explained that your beloved dog was just a “sweet, sweet, lab,” I might point out that the problem was not at all with his disposition, but rather it was with the bulbous body part so many other dogs are, thankfully, lacking in this town. [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

I can't be the only one who's noticed the shift in our relationship with dogs. With entirely new industries emerging to address their psychological and emotional needs alone, something definitely changed. Even the television image of the dog ingrained in the American consciousness has swung from that of Lassie, the faithful, courageous Collie, living in service to his people, to Wishbone, the well-read Jack Russell making parallels between the literary classics and life's dilemmas (all beautifully executed in period appropriate outfits). Somewhere, nestled in between finding lost children and discussing the philosophical import of Huxley, is the reality of the relationship I have with my dogs. One decidedly steeped in servitude. Mine. [more]

The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

As a certified sucker, I dog sit. A lot. Entirely too much in fact. Rarely am I able to say no to someone, too often I openly offer my services unsolicited. For several years running I have celebrated every major holiday with a gaggle of mutts, I’ve taken vacations with an interloper or two and a few have hung around for months at a time. With a calendar packed with dog engagements, I can pretty much handle any kind of crowd. This weekend’s was an epic seven. [more]

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