VftSW: Friends Thou Hast, and Their Adoption Tried

Derby and Hilde spent Halloween night together in the garage as we entertained a dinner guest and the horde of ghosts and goblins that trampled our front steps.  This worked much better, than listening to Hilde’s yaps from her kennel every time little hands rapped at our door.   The only time we heard from them was that moment when every evening when some stray dog runs by the side of the house and stops to investigate the back porch.  When the excitement of the evening ended and Hilde came in, the storm hit for real.  The roof rumpled as the wind trampled over it and the rain rapped on the windows.  I heard Derby whimpering then and brought her into the study with me.  After a while with me and kiss for our guest, she was happy to head to bed.  The morning we rose in the dark on the tail of the storm and began our walk.  A young black Labrador came to visit us.  It was skittish and wouldn’t come close.  I encouraged it with words and Derby with the wagging of her tail, but it vanished into the dark.  Regardless of Derby’s insistent calls it wouldn’t return and I dragged my “pretty little girl” on down the road.   We moved away so naturally it had to follow.  We got to the empty lot at the end of the road and we waited for Derby’s friend to catch up.  It zoomed on by and ran towards the other end of the side street..  In the rain and bluster Derby could see it watching us from the shadows at the far end of the street.  But, all her whimpering and tail waging couldn’t summon a new friend.

VftSW: Three Dogs

I came to work across the muskeg yesterday.  I always forget how pretty it is.  Yesterday I hiked the golden red of a winter muskeg, low ceiling and ground fog drifting from center stage to off stage on the right.  I guess the high light of the trip was three dogs.  I haven't had time to think about them.  The first was a brown Labrador.  The dog has known me since its puppyhood.  It barks loudly from the end of its chain but the tail is wagging wildly.   The next was a black lab I didn't recognize that sat at the side of the road, but kept its back to me sort of "I'm invisible.  You can't see me." things.  The final was some big dog that didn't see me until I was way past its property.  Its bark was loud and ferocious and it began stalking me at some distance. 

I looked around for a stick to throw.  (It's a trick I learned when dealing with the dogs that lived next door to Paul in DJ.  When being charged, you raise a stick over your head.  Bad dogs cower and run away with their tails between their legs.  Good dogs sit with the tails wagging, waiting for you to throw it.)  I considered picking up a 4x4 in the ditch, but no dog deserves that.  Besides the magic works just as well with a twig as a stick.  It gave up following me.   

So, a dog doing its duty.  A dog afraid. And a dog too brave.  I wonder if that says something about the way we live our lives.  Duty can bind us like a chain.  Fear; well that's Satan's weapon of choice.  And some of us are braver than our Master requires us to be. 

VftSW: The Things Above

Something interesting happen with the dogs today.  Derby is so visual, she will stop to watch an eagle float by overhead and knows enough to wait for the mate to appear.  So, this happen with Hilde.  It was light enough to see, but Hilde always keeps her head down sniffing things and looking for a place to leave her mark.  As we approached the next grove of tree along the way, she started circling head down oblivos to her surrounding.  Her surrounding certainly noticed her.  I sat two streaks of  royal flush flash across the headwaters of the creek and then disappear behind the trunks of the their respective young alders.  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the nervous shake of a tiny tail.  A small flew two feet above Hilde's head to reach a stout tree and then froze there in plain view.   With some signal unknown to me all three of the aerial critters scrambled higher into their assigned trees and came to roost safely out of range of Hilde's bit.  Not that she ever noticed.  Isn't it amazing how involved we can get with things below, and ignore the things above? 

VftSW: Derby is a Quick Study

When Derby and I return from our evening walk, Hilde is in the garage waiting for us.  My Black Labrador hits the water bowl or tries to play with my wife’s Miniature Schnauzer.  The little salt’n’pepper princess only wants to sniff “The Black One” and that’s it.  I take Derby off the leash and put Hilde on.  We walk.  When we come back Derby meets us at the back door to the garage.  She tries to play with Hilde, while I fill her water and food dishes.  Derby eats. Hilde gets a treat. I go in the house. 

However, the last two days, when Hilde and I returned Derby wasn’t waiting for us.  She didn’t attempt to engage Hilde in play.  Rather he was sitting upright atop her bed.  She sat head up and sphinx-like, forepaws crossed at the “wrists”.  It was as if she waited politely for something. 

I finally called the friend who’d housed her the week before.  It ends up that she feeds her own dogs their medicine each evening by crushing it up in a spoonful of wet dog food.  If Derby sat politely and waited her turn she’d get her own spoonful, sans pill.  Derby is a quick study!

VftSW: The Veiled Dawn

Derby found a ball last night at sunset.  Not just any ball, Derby found a green tennis ball towards the end of our walk.  She scooped it into her mouth, gently bit it a few times, shook her snout to jiggle it around and then happily trotted for home.  Our home “La Querencia” is built on pilings to keep it out of the “muskeg”. A raised walkway leads from the driveway (also on pilings) to the back door.  Half way along Derby leaped off.  Why?  Because, the gravel floating atop the muskeg provides better traction than the smooth old boards.  She pulled me towards the backyard.  She insisted on playing with treasure in the safety of her fenced yard.  But, it was late and I insisted she go into the garage.  So, this dark morning after greeting me at the garage door she ran to get her new ball which rested comfortably on her bed.  She jumped and whirled around my feet while attempting to howl with the tennis ball inside her mouth.  She finally dropped it near me.  I bounced it off the concrete floor for her.  She’s not much of a fetcher, so after a little of that, she curled up with her precious toy upon her bed.  “But, it’s time for your morning walk?”  I insisted.  She brought her ball.  This morning there was no dilly-dallying; no stopping to sniff that succulent ground cover in front of the picket fence at the corner, no seeking out a confrontation with the bully-dogs at the end of the street, no digging around for that salmon carcass in the weeds in front of the “abandoned” house.  It was “get ‘er done” and get home.  The weather was good, that is to say, it wasn’t raining sideways.  I intended to put her in the back yard.  But, just in case she jumped from the boardwalk again and pulled me to the back yard.  I took her off the leash, opened the gate and she leaped with joy into the yard, galloped about, more yodeled than howled and tossed the ball into the air triumphantly.  I laughed and with the veiled dawn at my back headed off to work.

VftSW: My Dark Angel

Right before church I walked my Black Labrador, Derby. On the way home ahead of us walked a young couple with a toddler enjoying a sunny patch in the fall day. As we approached they got the stout little toddler out of his backpack.

“Look quick,” I recommended to the young mother. ”before you know it he’ll be asking to borrow the car keys and drive a way.“

As the stout little blonde tottered our way, he bawled out; “Bawg dawg!”

All three of us adults encouraged his understanding. His parents tried to explain about showing a dog your hand first if you wanted to pet it. I assured them that Derby was friendly. For her part she knelt down, because she likes children and wants to make herself look less threatening. The parents offered her nose the back of their hands too. The little boy laughed to see Derby’s tongue flicker out in response and joyously touched the shiny, dusty, black fur. His curiosity sated he looks up at us adults and said, “Where’s the other person?”

There had been no one else around us on the street.


　

VftSW: Is That Cute or What?

I don’t know if this is the sweetest thing or the saddest. 

I stepped into my darkened garage this morning.  My Black Labrador wasn’t waiting at the door for me.  Sitting on the doorstep apparently makes Derby feel closer to us.  When she came to greet me, sleep still hung about her like a warm blanket, until her squinting eyes and fluttering lashes chased it away. 

 Only she hadn’t come from the direction of her bed.  Over the weekend, I’d been clearly as friends’s property of invading alders.  When I got home sweat and rain ran through all my clothes and wood chips snuck in everywhere.  My wife brought my robe and I stripped in the garage.  Derby had been sleeping on my piled clothes.

Is that cute or what?

VftSW: Slugs Leave their Lair

The rain falls heavy and hard this time of year in Southeast Alaska. 

In my childhood, the sunbaked New Mexican soil couldn’t absorb a heavy rain.  The streets would flood.  The gutters would fill. And torrents gushed into all the underground burrows.  I remember earthworms squirming out of the drowning lawns onto the sidewalk, so they could breathe. 

Monday morning, here in Alaska, as I came out the back door with Derby, there were two slugs 5 feet up the wall.  What did they know that I didn’t?  Ends up what they knew was that it would rain even hard last night.  The storm grew so loud last night that I went out into the garage to comfort Derby.   

This morning Derby and I took her morning walk along a wet street in heavy fog.  From a distance we could hear either Rose or Flynn barking.  They are a pair of short-haired Yellow Labrador’s, healthy, friendly and almost white in color.  Oddly we only heard one dog sporadically barking.  Derby stopped at one point, held perfectly still, head high, looking in the direction of their yard from a spot where we had seen them before.  Nothing!  We moved on.  We stopped at the abandoned lots at the end of the street and spent some time there. 

When we headed home around the corner came their master’s pickup truck.  Apparently, the dogs knew or maybe they have really good ears and recognized the music that was booming from the cab.  I’ve seen my wife’s little Miniature Schnauzer jump up and run to the window five minutes before our truck (driven by her mistress) turned on to the street.  It’s amazing the many things us mortals miss and how often we ignore that “small still voice” that seems to come in loud and clear to all the other creatures around us.

VftSW: Big Gruff Co-Worker

My wife and I walked the dogs Saturday morning before heading out the road for breakfast.  The sky was blue, the grass tall and green, the breeze blew just enough to keep off the bugs.  We approached the end of the road where it turns towards the ferry terminal, when the big gruff dog that guards the corner came out.  His barks were solitary, loud and mean.  Neither my wife's salt ‘n’ pepper Miniature Schnauzer, nor my Black Labrador paid any attention.  The barrel-chested guardian of the bend in the road stared at them authoritatively, all four paws at the ready and tail held still.  But he never leaves the yard. 

I commented to my wife.  “It’s kind of sad.  Sometime after he is done barking at Derby.  He whines a little in hopes she’ll come play.” 

As Derby burrowed through the salmonberry bushes for fresh fruit I got to thinking about a co-worker of mind.  Someone called me at work one day with an issue that was marginally my responsibility.  I said, I’d handle it.  I could do so without involving my co-worker, but it would get back to him.  He’d be hurt that I hadn’t involved him upfront.  Plus it actually was his responsibility.  He really is looking out of the safety of the field going employees.  On the other hand his conversational pauses are suspiciously  long.  He is quick to explode.  Talking to him is just a pain, but his heart is in the right place.  So, I called and explained the issue. 

“Why don’t people call me about this stuff?”  he whined. 

I thought about playing dumb, but didn’t see the sense.  “Because you intimidate people.” 

After the usual overly-long pause he sighed. “I’ll take care of this.  Thanks for calling.”

Then the guardian of the field going employees’ safety wished me a good day and hung up.

VftSW; What’s Gone and Past

   My black labrador - hound mix and I strolled towards our usual destination this fine morning.  Derby moved along doggedly.  When not distracted she moves along like a man with a mission.  The big black dog that guards the corner of the road saw us coming and began to protest.  But, suddenly behind us, quite a ways behind became an unfamiliar yap.  Derby turned, mission and mutt ahead forgotten.  The new distraction was out of sight, at least a block and a half away.  Again, a few barks, Derby would not move forward, so eagerly did she peer behind.  So obsessed with what lay behind us, so unaware of the big threat near us and so oblivious as to why she wanted to “go for a walk” in the first place; I had to drag her away.  I wonder how often I get so wrapped up in what’s gone and past, that Somebody has to pick me up and once again, put me on the right path.