Fog and mist all day long. Not enough rain to clear the sky, just sponge like mist that wets a canvas coat during a short walk. The mossy ground is squishy with water and the holes where Dot has dug in the ground are turning to mud. It looks like some big animal tramped down a corner of our berry patch and the way Dot had her hackles up zigging and zagging around the house with her nose to the ground, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a brown bear on the lawn during the night. Our garbage cans were all upright on the road but people are pretty good about not putting food waste out until the morning of garbage day.
I enjoy foggy days. I like how birds emerge into view and disappear like a vanishing thought. I also like how the curtain of fog doesn’t stay the same all day long but allows some islands, some trees to become visible for a few moments as if the weather were just auditioning them. Dot and I walked down the road for about a mile and a half working on her leash technique. She is so much better than she used to be that walking her on a leash is becoming almost enjoyable and does not leave me with a painful lower back from being hauled around by her enthusiasm. She reminds me of Richard Nelson in that whatever new thing is out there she MUST go see it, study it, sniff around for a good bit and then pee on it.
We then clambered down a steep trail which is tricky with the two of us, because with the right moment of imbalance on my part Dot can pull me off my feet now. But we did fine and we got to a quiet beach where she could romp around by herself away from cars. She enjoyed, sniffing things and eating barnacles while I made todays recording. Then we went home, there were quite a few cars and trucks on the road. I think summer lodges and fishermen are getting ready no matter what the virus is doing, I say that because there seem to be a lot of trucks piled with stuff in the back of them zooming around. Dot and I worked on not trying to lunge out in front of the trucks by sitting by the side of the road and every time a car went by and she didn’t lunge, I lavished her with praise and gave her a treat. When she did lunge she came to the end of her new training collar. She never yips or shows any pain, but at the end of about an hour, I can safely say that she seemed to enjoy the treat more than the lunge. But still, I think she suspects that every pick up truck is coming down the road at forty five miles per hour (our top speed limit) is traveling to expressly to deliver her their load of sirloin steaks. She is so sure of this, she wants to get in front of them so that they will see her and stop, when they don’t, she is both heartbroken and excited to chase after each one to correct their mistake, “Hey, it’s me! I’m right here, Wait, wait, wait!”
Someone has to teach her that life is full of these type of disappointments and that falls to me. Somehow she hasn’t understood my long verbal explanations about what would happen if she ran in front of a truck, with the vivid and frightening descriptions, meant to scare the puppy pee out of her. That doesn’t work. See Gary Larson’s cartoon, “Blah, Blah, Blah. Dot, Blah, Blah, Blah.”
So it’s treat or twitch. Treat or twitch. So far I think the most effective training experience happens when she gets ready to throw her body in front of a speeding truck and the truck pulls off the highway before it gets to us. “See?” I say, “Not everyone is coming to see you. They have other places to go,’ and she looks up at me with kind of shocked and sad look in her eyes like, “Really?”
Carl Jung wrote that in the earliest weeks of human development a baby child does not really understand the difference between themselves and their mother. The mother and the baby are still one being, connected. He wrote something like, “When the mother holds her child and they catch each other’s gaze, in a sense they are looking through the same eyes.” The baby reacts to the light and to stimulation and assumes that they are reacting as part of the mother. I’m betting dogs do the same thing. Dot was just emerging from that warm wiggly oneness when I snatched her up from the breeders. Left free the mother would have snapped or butted the pups out of the way of danger, and I imagine the pup experiences the pain as some natural pain just suddenly visited upon the body, like a back twinge and would try to correct something so as not to have it happen again. Just as I change my gait to accommodate my sore back. Our body teaches us how to move. Our mothers taught us how to move early on, we just didn’t know they were doing it. But now, I have stepped in and it is up to me to teach survival, to this pup. This is a big one: speeding cars are indifferent. They could easily kill you. Just like a virus. Neither really care about your safety. I do… this thing that ripped you out of your safety zone and yells at you, gives you treats, then inflicts a twitch of pain. I’m the one who cares about you. Love and Fear. Love and Fear.
Welcome to your new life, Dot. You are now part human. That’s domestication for you.
We made it back home and Dot is now sleeping peacefully in the office. She enjoys my fake electric fireplace, and I fill my head with thoughts of her. Perhaps, hopefully I am becoming part dog. Maybe she is domesticating me as well. Tomorrow we will have more lessons,
A blue heron lands
loosely, like a string puppet
on its reflection.
jhs
This morning Dot and I made a recording at the beach where I read from Bob DeArmond’s book about his trip from Sitka to Tacoma in a dory in 1931. Highly recommended book, particularly if you have spent time on the water in southeastern Alaska. Dot was quite well behaved during this recording.
