Therapy Dog McDuff and The Pill War

I once heard a Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show announcer say as the Scottish terriers majestically entered the show ring, “The Scottish terrier is the only breed of dog that knows it is smarter than its master.” I didn’t understand what he meant then, but that was before The Pill War with my Scottish terrier, McDuff, began.

Why would giving McDuff medication be any different than giving my previous dogs pills from the veterinarian? Just hide the pill in a piece of cheese, wiener, or lunch meat and give it to him. Right? Wrong.

He’d gently take whatever I had hidden the pill in from my hand, chew once, drop it, and repeat the process until the pill fell out. Then he’d eat the cheese, wiener or whatever and walk away savoring every bite.

I told a friend at work about my problem. She suggested I put the pill far back in McDuff’s throat, hold his mouth shut, and rub his throat until he was forced to swallow. It always worked with her dog. What she didn’t factor into the equation was a Scottie with a severe case of lockjaw. He’d seen the pill and knew what I was up to. No matter how hard I pried and threatened, I couldn’t get him to open his mouth. Foiled again!

Someone told me about peanut butter. I gave him a huge glob with the buried pill. He smacked and licked until the peanut butter melted and spat out the pill. To rub it in, he continued to smack his mouth long after he walked away.

Frustrated beyond belief, I called his vet and recounted my many attempts to medicate McDuff. He said, “Put the pill in his dog food.” Why hadn’t I thought of that. It worked! For a week the dog bowl was licked clean every day and the pill gone. Fooled him at last. No way is a dog smarter than I am.

Noticing that the dog bowl next to his water container was cruddy, I decided to wash it. What did I find when I lifted it up? Seven pills neatly lined in a row. He had hidden them between the dog bowl and water container all week!

Calling the vet in tears, I blurted out my finding. He laughed out loud and said, “That McDuff is one smart dog. Come to my office and get capsules to break apart and mix in his dog food.” I did and although I was skeptical, it worked. So tell me something. Why did I feel I had won the battle, but lost the war?

Life with McDuff Take a Bite Out of the Big Apple

Dog Writers Association of America (DWAA) nominated Life with McDuff: Lessons Learned from a Therapy Dog for a Special Award and invited me to attend the Awards Banquet at the Affinia Manhattan Hotel in New York City where the winner would be announced. The letter I received from Sue Jeffries, Contest Chair, informing me of the nomination stated, “We had over 200 entries for these Special Awards, so to be in the running is, indeed, a ‘special’ honor!” After attending the banquet and seeing the nominees, I agree wholeheartedly and feel privileged to have been included among them.

Even though Life with McDuff was not the winner, I had a marvelous and unforgettable experience, mainly because of the wonderful DWAA people I met at the committee meeting and folks at the banquet. Sue Jeffries, Chris Walkowicz, Pat Santi, Marion Lane, and Ida Estep were super and some of the nicest people that I have ever met.

Maybe I’m prejudiced, but I believe “dog people” are special, full of love and kindness that spills over from their pets to fellow humans. I met so many of them at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on the two days that I attended. The sight of so many different breeds of champion dogs will always be with me. Hopefully, I will be fortunate enough to attend it again in the future.

Being in New York City was the icing on the cake. I LOVE NEW YORK!!! Everything about it is exciting and enjoyable to me. Riding the subway, eating pizza, pastrami and cheese cake, attending plays on Broadway, and going to museums. The hustle and bustle of the fast-walking residents. Even jumping out of the way of taxicabs to keep from getting mowed down. There’s no place like The Big Apple, and I’ve traveled a lot.

LIFE WITH MCDUFF: A SCOTTIE WITH ATTITUDE

LIFE WITH MCDUFF: A SCOTTIE WITH ATTITUDE

I’ve owned many dogs in my lifetime, but none like McDuff. Scotties are a breed apart. Their appearance, intelligence and stubbornness set them apart from the other breeds. They have attitude — and plenty of it.

Just the way they walk with that peculiar gait, those protruding eyebrows, flowing beard, and extra-long, erect ears commands attention. And Scottie owners know that they get a lot of that.

Scottish terriers are often described as “dignified.” A neighbor saw me walking him one morning and struck up a conversation. From then on, he referred to McDuff as “the professor.” I didn’t have to ask him why.

I once heard a Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show announcer say, “The Scottish terrier is the only breed of dog that knows it’s smarter than its master.” McDuff’s off-the-chart intelligence combined with supreme stubbornness and frustrated me to tears. I write about the ways he outsmarted me in my book, Life with McDuff: Lessons Learned from a Therapy Dog.

It took me a while to realize what was going on because I thought, he couldn’t be that smart; he’s just a dog. But I soon found out, often to my amusement or dismay, that I had been outsmarted by a canine.

My friends at work clamored for “McDuff Stories” and he provided plenty of them. They howled at his exploits and my frustration. I write about many of them in Life with McDuff.

McDuff was special enough for me to write a book about him. And it is doing quite well. One of the blurbs on the book cover is, “Think Marley and Me, but with an intelligent dog.” That sums it up nicely.