Sienna (fka Noelia- how stupid is that name? Seriously.) was my 3rd year spay dog. We met in the junior surgery kennel area in December 2011. I walked in an excited but nervous student, as I was about to assess my first ever patient for surgery. She was already waiting, a boisterous, approximately 45 lb blonde and white pittie with bright red skin and a patchy hair coat. I already knew she would be coming home with me at the end of the week; Justin and I had talked extensively about the situation beforehand. I wanted a second dog (we had Flint at the time), and the surgery dogs were all residents of ACCT Philly. For most of them, nothing was promised after they returned to ACCT following their week with the vet students. We could adopt them ourselves, sucker a friend or family member into it, foster them or let them go back to their uncertain fates at the high volume shelter. Even if she didn’t work out in our family, there was no way I could just send her back to be an overly excited pitbull-type dog with terrible skin competing with all of the other pitbull-type dogs to find loving homes.
Surgery-wise, everything went smoothly, although I remember being paranoid that my knots would fail to hold, and her incision would fall apart. I bathed her in the days prior to surgery, in the hopes that it would help soothe her skin. Her history before ACCT is a mystery, but she was someone’s dog at some point. She was in good body condition and LOVED all of the people. She came into the shelter after being picked up as a stray with a ratty, red collar and no tags or microchip. I estimated she was between 10-12 months old at the time.
The night before the spay dogs were set to return to ACCT, my friend and surgery partner, Sara, met me in the kennel area to introduce Sienna to Flint and help me get them loaded into my Jeep Wrangler. (In hindsight, thank goodness they got along well because there really was no good way to guarantee separation in that car. I put one in the backseat and one in the front passenger seat and hoped for the best.) Back at the house, it became apparent that Sienna had never been crate trained. The first time I put her in it, I returned to blood spray on the wall behind the crate and a very sore tail tip.
Flinty was a real saint in the early days with Sienna. As much as she loved to play, she really didn’t know how to do so appropriately. I kept needing to bandage Flint’s hocks from the cuts and tooth marks she constantly left behind following their rough-housing. She greeted people with just as much gusto as she did dogs, jumping to lick Justin’s brother’s face when she first met him. (He is over 6′ feet tall.) If we attempted to walk her on a harness, she would sink low to the ground and pull with all of her might, making it a miserable experience for the person on the other end of the leash. For her, I learned to properly fit and utilize a Gentle Leader. I brought her to numerous training classes (with my friend and coworker running the class Rook and Magic are currently attending), where she enjoyed both the socialization and the learning. We worked on getting her skin cleared up, but we didn’t get a complete resolution until months into her time with us, when we finally found her demodex mites and treated her for them.
Sienna was a very loving dog. She was goofy and playful, but she kept us on our toes. Early into her time with her, it became clear that she had some issues with separation anxiety. Although she looked calm in her crate when we would close the door and seemed pretty collected when we returned home, she was generally covered from head to tail in poop, which was also smeared all over the inside of her crate. Every time we came home, we had to bathe her and clean the crate. In December and January. When it got to the point where this was happening every time we left her, even if we’d already gone through the process once on a given day, I couldn’t take it. I dreaded going home, fighting tears in the car knowing the mess waiting for me after a long day of classes. We tried playing music, keeping a window cracked, leaving the door to the room with her crate open and then closed, moving the crate around. We even tried gating her in the kitchen instead of using a crate. She escaped, pooped in front of the door, and when I opened the door at the end of the day, spread the poop all over the carpet behind the door. We knew that our home wasn’t where she was meant to stay, as we just didn’t have a lifestyle that could support her the way she needed at the time, but I was committed to keeping her with us until we found her the perfect home.
I told my boss that I needed to start the dog on something before I lost my mind. She prescribed clomipramine for Sienna, which made a world of difference. If I recall, within a couple of weeks of starting the medication, Sienna was no longer covered in her feces on a daily basis. It probably only happened once or twice more in the remaining 9 months or so that she lived with us.
I admit that I wasn’t too active in marketing her. I just didn’t have the time and figured the right person would show up eventually. I also felt that I needed to give full disclosure about her issues to anyone interested. A couple of people inquired and one even came to meet her over the course of several months. She was still with us when I needed to leave for most of June for my externiship at Cape Wildlife. Instead of leaving Justin with a foster he didn’t really want, I sent her to stay with a friend and former coworker with lots of foster experience, as I knew she’d be well taken care of in my absence, and my boyfriend wouldn’t have to be stressed out taking care of Sienna. She had a wonderful time, living with several other dogs and cats during those few weeks.
At one point, we jokingly tried to give Sienna to Justin’s mom as a birthday gift. (She did not accept. Obviously.) I’d often have my mom stop by to walk her in the afternoons on her way home from work to get her out of the crate for a bit. She’d come for regular walks at Ridley with us and to the beach in Ocean City, NJ when we would visit Justin’s family. Flint became somewhat protective of her at times, we theorized because he knew she just didn’t know when to stop pushing herself onto others. I always said she was like the kid that just tried too hard to be liked and to be everyone’s friend. I remember one instance at Justin’s mom’s when Flint charged Justin’s older brother’s dog after he growled at Sienna for simply existing in the same room as him, a very uncharacteristic move for Flintster.
We’d call Sienna either “Bean” or “Milky Ray” when not using her actual name. (My brother always just called her “My Lovely,” and I’m certain if he was old enough at the time to have adopted her, he would have.) She’d get very excited when Justin spoke to her in the voice of Muppet’s Swedish chef. She had no regard to personal space, especially Flint’s and almost always had to touch him when sleeping near him. Despite her sweetness and all of her good qualities, I didn’t find her adopter until October 2012. When I did, though, it was meant to be.
Sienna is alive and well, living with her mom and her mom’s new fiance a few miles from here in the home they bought during the pandemic. I try to touch base with her mom twice a year, on the anniversary of Sienna’s adoption and at the midpoint in the year, which was just on April 21st. (She’s going to be in her mom’s wedding, in case you were wondering.) She hasn’t needed her anxiety meds since she ran out of the bottle I sent with her in November 2012. A few years back, she had a Mast Cell Tumor removed, and it gave her mom the scare of her life. At one point, one of her doctors thought they heard a heart murmur, which also caused a moment of panic for her mom.
Sienna is her mom’s version of Flint. She always tells me that Sienna is her best girl, and she doesn’t know what she’d do without her. She has a t-shirt with Bean’s face on it, and I absolutely loved it when she sent me the photo of her wearing the shirt and hugging Sienna. I cried when I went with her mom to ACCT to finalize Sienna’s adoption. I told her that if she EVER could not keep her, to call me, and I would take her back in a heartbeat. She does, after all, have a very special place in my heart as my first surgery patient. (We also went through some trying times together and made it out the other side.)
Obviously, Sienna ended up right where she was always meant to be. It makes me incredibly happy to have been a part of her journey, and I’m so glad for the life she has had. I hope that, even though she’s got to be 10-11 years old now, she has several great years left with her mom.
“Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.” ~Dean Koontz
