Posted on May 31, 2017 in Childhood Dogs Humiliation Writing Exercises
I did not cry when my mother wrote to me in Greece to tell me that he was dead.
Posted on June 26, 2012 in Anxiety Cancer Diary Cats Dogs Uncertainty
I must confess that I still feel a little selfish when I remind people that I am under stress — perhaps more stress than Lynn.
Posted on April 24, 2012 in Anxiety Dentition Dogs Health OCD Spirituality and Being Whines
Let me count the ways the events of the past few months have screwed me. Note that there may will be additions as the weeks pass…so keep checking this article. It will be a mega-whine!
YES I KNOW IT CAN BE WORSE AND THAT IS WHAT WORRIES ME!
Everyone is telling me that “things will get better”. I sigh and reread Job.
At least Lynn’s chemo is over and the scans are looking good. And Obama won.
Posted on January 17, 2011 in Dogs Encounters Hikes and Trails
I know they would have got on famously.
Posted on July 30, 2010 in Dogs Travels - So Cal Video
Drake ran away from me on Sunday.
Posted on July 19, 2010 in Dogs Travels - So Cal
The waterline at Dog Beach runs nearly in a straight line from southeast to northwest. Chunks of gravel-pocked conglomerate shore up the low dirt cliffs for most of the length until dunes meet the sea at the reach adjoining [[Bolsa Chica State Beach]]. As I just noted, the beach itself runs straight, but for about a quarter of a mile, the cliffs do a little advance and push the rocks into the sea. Aside from this, it’s an empty stretch so there are no interesting [[tide pools]] at water’s edge, just a sliver of sand.
We’ve been arriving during the late afternoon retreat of the tide. The waves have left gray penumbrae of themselves at the point where the beach abruptly changes its declivity to a twenty degree angle diving into the sea. At the southeast edge, people cluster with their canines, throwing orange and yellow balls into the foam while black-clad surfers float a few yards off waiting for the idea wave to scrape the bottom and carry them in a brief moment of magnificence to the shore.
None wait at the area I call the Point. The Point is merely the place where the rocks spill over into the sea. The beach remains straight, determined on its course to skewer Bolsa Chica. Winds blowing from the south churn up eight foot waves that crash into the beach in intervals that can’t be predicted. I have never been able to count the pattern of small waves leading to one large like surfers are said to — and I don’t think they can make the count either because they sit in the water until one suits their liking.
Yesterday, as we approached the Point from the southeast, no crests struck the shore. The water just slid in gracefully, throwing up little cockscombs of spray rather than the dramatic crashes we associate with winter storms. So I deemed it safe and let my diminutive, twenty pound [[Boston terrier]] up the strand.
Halfway through the rocky area without warning of wind, a succession of ten BIG rollers crashed into the shore. I saw them coming, so I lifted Drake onto the rockslide because he so hates getting wet. I pointed out the path he should follow. But my doggy kept coming off the rocks and onto the beach, scared I suppose and craving closeness.
I saw it coming: a huge scrapper with a slapping wall of turquoise water and a growing white crest bearing down on the shore. I turned my back to shoo Drake up the rocks seconds before it hit. My doggy was slow in understanding my intentions for him, so I was reaching down to pick him up and move him when the monster hit. For a second, white foam erased the rocks and the dog. There was only the heavy shush of the water, then a gurgle as it pulled back. Drake disappeared from my sight. The spring-back from the rock drenched from shoulders to knees. Then, as the green, silver and brown of the rockslide reappeared, he stood there, taking in the surprise of the splash. This time I grabbed him before the next one hit and placed him on a high place before scrambling up ahead of the next one which crashed even higher and still got my butt.
We were left to climb sideways down the rocks as one white-out after another wrecked itself on the shore. Lynn got wet, too, but only as far as the bottoms of her short-shorts. It was good to get back to the wider beach. I thanked no god for our survival, but I was glad that there had been no pull to the encroaching waters.
Posted on April 20, 2010 in Dogs Hiking Weather
What made him do it? Had he gone to the edge and just slipped? Was he testing me? Or had he decided to hell with the road, he was going to take a short cut?
Posted on April 5, 2010 in Dogs Encounters Hiking
He was just lying in the road — not dead, but lounging as dogs do before a fire. Lynn passed him first and Drake followed. The two dogs introduced each other with a little friendly butt-sniffing, then the stray spread himself out again just below a bend on the Harding Truck Trail.
A couple of bikers came around the corner. One of them stopped to pet the red-haired mix. As they came towards me, I asked “Is that your dog?”
“I don’t know whose dog that is,” said the biker. “There’s a lady up there with a dog. Maybe it’s hers.”
“That’s my wife,” I said. “We only have the one dog.”
As Drake trotted ahead, his butt as tight as a jockey dressed for a race, the red dog came toward me. I didn’t know what to make of him. His short hair curled against his back. A pink tongue lolled out of a blocky, houndish head and a pair of silver eyes sized me up. I pulled a biscuit from my pocket and gave it to him out of pity. He took it politely.
We rounded the corner together and caught up with Lynn.
“Is there anyone up ahead?” I asked her.
She scanned the trail. “No, I don’t see anyone.” So we had a new companion. Drake tolerated him and the two of them sniffed the flowers that lined the road — blue lupines, blue dicks, and even a few California golden poppies.
The trail went down and then climbed up again in a kidney-shaped switchback, ground that I knew well. A cold wind was not matched by the bright light of the afternoon. If it had not been for the steady breeze, we would have been sweating. Instead, I rubbed my hands against my thighs to warm them and quickened my pace to warm my insides with blood.
We came to our destination, a lone eucalyptus tree that had been burned to a stick by the Santiago Fire of three years past. Lynn and I had a problem: there was a picnic bench where we fed Drake his dinner before turning back. The strange dog complicated this simple repast. I called him to one side, offering a biscuit, but Drake ran over, too. Lynn tried to call Drake back to her, but he was followed by our red guest. Finally, Lynn placed Drake’s feeding sack on the table and lifted Drake to the surface so he could eat unmolested. The red hound accepted the distraction of a few biscuits while Drake ate. Lynn lifted our Boston Terrier down so we could eat. Drake yipped and snarled when the stranger sniffed his butt, but mostly they got on peaceably if not entirely amicably.
No owner appeared, so we let the well-testicled mutt accompany us on the way back. The two dogs bounded through the uncut, undulating meadows along the side while Lynn and I stuck to the broad, rock-strewn dirt road.
Near the bottom of the hill, we asked one of the neighbors of the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary if he knew whose dog it was. He threw up his hands and laughed when I suggested he take the dog for himself. “We’ve already got a dog.”
A family with a white West Highlands Terrier met us at the trailhead. Our companion ran over to their girl and made friends. “He’s a nice enough dog,” I said to the father. “We met him about a mile in and he’s been following us all the way.”
Our companionship ended when we put Drake in the car for the ride home. The red dog tried to jump in with him, but I forbade him using what we call the “game show noise” — a throaty call that told all dogs and cats that they had transgressed. As Lynn carefully backed out the car and drove off, we exchanged hopes that the dog would find his way home. As we reached the top of the parking loop for the turn-around back down Modjeska Canyon, we saw the dog beginning to climb the fire road in the company of the family.
“Well,” said Lynn, “I guess he’s appointed himself trail guide.”
Posted on March 26, 2010 in Dogs
It was three a.m. and Drake would not leave the front door alone. So I harnessed him up and went for a walk in the night. Water from leaky sprinklers formed amorphous gray blob silhouettes on the sidewalks. Drake went from bush to bush, sniffing and leaving his urine autograph at each one. I grumbled. “Are you going to do anything meaningful?” I asked him. He just pulled me to the next plant.
Then as we came to a place where sidewalks met next to a grassy knoll, we heard a cry that my synaesthesiac sense registered as being shallow and broad, looking a bit like a crushed hat or static on an oscilloscope. It screeched but once. Drake’s ears went up and he pulled harder at the leash. I didn’t know what kind of animal made the sound, but my imaginings grew from a cat to a raccoon to a mountain lion.
“Let me see!” Drake begged in the words of resistance against the leash. “Whatever it is, I want to show ’em!“
“No dice Little Guy,” I replied. I directed him back toward the condo. He resisted the direction of my march, but at last surrendered to my greater power. He reluctantly climbed the stairs and pouted as we went in the door.
“I’m sorry, Little Guy, but I know you. If it had been a mountain lion, you would have done something stupid.” I pointed to his bed and he sadly curled up, his adventure cut short by his owner’s worried response to a simple mystery.
Posted on December 1, 2009 in Dogs Encounters
I took Drake out for an off-day walk — one where we do not go a long distance but stay close to home. This one took us through the back condo complex where we live into the front one and back into the back through a patch of grass where we often stop so Drake can drop doggy bombs. Today a pair of owners with a [[bull terrier]] and a small [[German Shepherd]] were on the spot first. When they saw me coming, they shouted at their dogs, forcing the Shepherd into a submissive, prone position. The bull terrier — who was held by the woman — and Drake took offense to each other. Drake growled and the bull terrier charged to the limits of his short leash. My dog did the same.
“You don’t have to show him,” I said.”
“Oh yes I do!” Drake responded as he jumped to the end of his tether.
I pulled him away, speaking quietly, while the other owners yelled at their dogs.
As I drew away, I heard the woman saying “Did you hear that dog growling? That dog was growling.”
She had no clue of her part in the little drama — the yelling that excited all the dogs into a frenzy regardless of who started growling at who.
Posted on October 12, 2009 in Cats Dogs
A man we know likes to take his cat for walks in the park. The man strolls down the street and the cat — a smallish gray tabby boy — follows along. Once at the park, Dude, as the cat is known, looks around and then follows the man home. The dogs in the park evidentally don’t know what to do with this feline because I have had no report that he has been bothered by them.
There’s a bush just outside the fellow’s apartment that Dude likes to hide in. When I come back from the park with Drake, Dude likes to leap onto Drake’s back. This causes Drake to startle and do a left circle until he is behind me. Dude then tries to make friends with Drake, but my Boston Terrier will have nothing of this. He turns his face to his right, away from the victorious tabby.
“Dude,” I like to laugh to the cat’s owner, “has Drake’s number.”