Cabin Fever with Julia Oldham
For many of us who share our homes with animals, the quarantine has provided a chance to spend more time with our companions. For artist Julia Oldham, her connection with rescue Pomeranian Woodrow goes back much further than the shelter-in-place order. Oldham has spent her time in isolation drawing an illustrated history of her life with Woodrow and the many challenges and struggles they have overcome over the past few years:
“I started posting daily images on March 12, the day before the national State of Emergency for Coronavirus was announced. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and this shelter in place period has been the perfect time for it. It's been really touching how many people have been checking in on the story daily since I began it. I've never worked on a serial project like this before, and I love it. I am excited to post a new image every day, and I've had a lot of great conversations with people both in the comments and in private messages that have come out of each post... which has been awfully nice in this time of isolation.”
New installments in Woodrow’s ongoing story, updated daily, can be seen on Julia’s Instagram @juliaoldham.
“November 20, 2018: I met Lolo (who would be renamed Woodrow when I adopted him) at the shelter for the first time on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I would spend time with him every single day that week before finally bringing him home with me on Saturday. He was a sick and crusty little guy, and I'm always drawn to the sick and crusties. I brought a wet, warm washcloth with me to wipe his face and skin, and I gave him some little pieces of cheese, which he liked. I said the name "Lolo" a number of times, but he never responded to it at all.”
“November 22, 2018: On Thanksgiving Day, I was volunteering at the shelter. Lolo had severe diarrhea, and so he was spending time in one of the outdoor enclosures while I was cleaning up his disastrous kennel. Once it was cleaned, I went out to spend time with him in the fresh air, and he looked very unwell. He was quite still, drooling profusely and shaking, and his eyes looked glassy, and he was barely acknowledging my presence. That night I told Eric that I felt really strongly that we had to bring him home. I thought he was probably going to die very soon, and that it would be a brief hospice situation. It seemed very unlikely that a nearly 13-year old dog could bounce back from the state that he was in.“
“November 24, 2018: We arrived home with Woodrow in the early afternoon and discovered he could not climb up the stairs by himself due to his severe muscle atrophy. He put his little front paws on the bottom step and just stood still, looking confused and blank. He had to be carried up and down stairs while he slowly built back muscle mass.“
“November 24, 2018: Woodrow very quickly discovered the child-sized, white saucer chair in front of the living room windows and curled up in it. It became his safe spot, and is where he still spends most of his resting time. (It is significantly less white now.)”
“November 25, 2018: Woodrow was not shy at all about climbing into dog beds and onto furniture with the other dogs (and occasionally cats.) He would squish himself against whatever dog was on the soft thing that he also wanted to be on. The other dogs seemed a little baffled by this strange, ancient, tottering little creature, and would sometimes get up and leave if he got too close. But not always.”
“November 26, 2018: Woodrow's vet appointment was both heartbreaking and hopeful. While he had certainly been horribly neglected and possibly physically abused, all of his maladies were treatable or at least manageable. We crossed our fingers.”
“End of November, 2018: Now it was time to wait and see if little Woodrow could pull through all of this sickness and hurt. We got him a crate so he had his own cave to retreat to when he felt like having privacy (he kept trying to steal one of our big dog's crates, and it was causing some unrest). He loved the afternoon sun and would point his face toward the light and look rapturous.”
