Out: Superdog!

Even though Otis is forced to spend most of his life as a land-bound quadruped, once a day, on average, he gets to throw off his Bark Kent alias and show the world his superpowers.

I’ve often considered getting him a Superman cape for the explicit purpose of forcing him to wear it during a photo shoot much like this one. The only reason why this hasn’t happened is because whenever we dress Otis up at all, even if we just put a hat on his head, he gets an exaggerated look of despondency on his face as if he knows that this time, for certain, we are no longer laughing with him, but indeed at him.

However, he really deserves the superhero moniker, if not the cape, this week. We took these photos the day after Otis accompanied Anthony on an eight-mile mountain bike ride (i.e., eight miles of Otis running at 100% after spending the summer mostly swimming, hiking and running only in short bursts). As expected, he was overheated and panting like a gazillion times a minute after the run, so we immediately took him to the lake so he could cool off. When we got home, he curled up and passed out.

In retrospect, taking your dog for an intense run, dumping him in cold water, then letting him stay in the same position for a few hours seems incredibly stupid, but we didn’t even think twice about it. Not until Otis tried to get off the couch that evening and cried like we had stepped on his ear on our way to go give all of his food to a pack of coyotes.

Seriously, Otis didn’t even cry like this during the three-month broken paw debacle this past spring. It was intense enough that I almost started crying—we’re talking nonstop, high-pitched yelps with each move. When we finally got him off the couch, he immediately sank down on the floor and refused to move again.

Eventually, we figured out that he had a muscle cramp in his right hind leg (not a difficult diagnosis, since it felt approximately like a chunk of granite). We massaged it, rubbed in some muscle cream and put a heating pad on it for a couple of hours, with a few small walks in between so it wouldn’t tighten up again. By bedtime, he was still crying with each step, but the intensity had gone down a few notches.

Nonetheless, we were expecting the cramp to worsen overnight. We had already established that his earlier nap had allowed the muscle to tighten up in the first place. And Otis’s sleep is, like most dogs’, fraught with spasms, twitching and kicking, so we doubted that the muscle would have much of a chance to really relax and loosen up.

The next morning, he was a little stiff but, to my surprise, not whimpering at all. By mid-morning, he seemed normal, and by early afternoon, he was whining—for exercise. So we took him to the beach, where he proceeded to jump around like a complete idiot, running up and down the beach and launching off the pier, all muscle cramps long forgotten.

Superdog indeed.