If only I could give and take my own WAIT command. Winter is here, however temporarily. We’ve had snow every day for what seems like a week. Somehow I can’t just leave her when I go skate skiing, my winter passion.
I knew there would be chaos. But that didn’t keep it from being chaos.
First, Cedar alternated biting my skis and poles in rapid enough succession that I couldn’t get my skis on before she wrapped the leash around my legs a couple of times. I laughed, and got us untangled and underway, with her leashed and off to my left. And then it was mad ski tip biting. I used the poles for some gentle and not so gentle “aversives” and we actually got underway. Until… another dog.
Ears off, leash tangled, pups flying in circles, and eventually one or both hit me hard enough from behind that my pole would have impaled an overflying bird. I didn’t laugh so much that time.
Ran into friend Merry who suggested I unleash her. There was hardly anyone on the trail. We had a good two minutes of YES!, unfettered striding by me, happy galloping with only a few attempted ski bites by Cedar. Cut to tiny dog on leash, Cedar’s ears in lockdown mode, and a long five minutes to restrain Cedar against a railroad tie with my poles, while the nice man gave me palliatives like “Well, she’s young” and “She sure is a good looking girl, at least.”
So, my young, good-looking ski companion and I have a lot to learn. Any successful teacher will tell you the secret to their success is learning how to learn from their students. Although I may let my “good teacher” aspirations expire with my teaching certificate, I think I could do well to match Cedar’s growth curve with waiting.
It makes all the sense in the world to wait until she can heel on command, and until she physically matures before we make skiing a regular thing.
Well, you knew it was coming: The sentimental post to hold up to the light all the things Cedar shows us. The joy in waking up to a new day, the endless capacity for forgiveness, curiosity, and love. Nah, this one is about pie.
Because I’ll begrudgingly admit that some of the above may be true, depending on the moment and the weather, Cedar gets to be this year’s centerpiece of our annual smoked sourdough apple pie.
Pie art by Katrina. (You knew that.)
When I shared the image with Katie, who is spending Thanksgiving back East with fellow Juneau college boy friends, she asked whether that was a dog or a penis. Some days the line is fine, I will admit.
We’ll keep working on our sourdough art–I see you rolling your eyes, kids who have been subjected to my not always so well leavened biscuits far too many times–but until she’s smothered in vanilla ice cream tonight we’ll give Cedar (who is currently helping with food prep by removing the label from a can of corn) her center-pie moment.
Happy Thanksgiving. And thanks (both of you) for reading along, or at least looking at the pictures.
Katrina was here on Cedar’s first day home. In the ensuing seven weeks, Cedar’s cells have divided a gazillion times; her weight and size have probably tripled. She’s gone from infant to tween.
Katrina helped us both through Cedar’s first nights, and eased the separation anxiety. We’ve lived apart since we started seeing one another in 2006, so we do know a thing or two about separation. I’m not sure how to take this, nor do I really care, but it took Cedar’s arrival for Katrina to get out a calendar and plan a regular series of visits. As happens often, life intervened on the November plan, so Katrina and Cedar are today catching up on half of Cedar’s life.
October 6 and November 24. Tom’s photography skills seem to be declining as fast as Cedar is growing.
One sweet thing Katrina did back in early October was leave her shirt behind for Cedar to bask in her smell. I’ve left it in her pen area. Occasionally I marvel that Cedar has never torn into it, but I’ve thought about moving it several times.
Katrina slipped in around midnight through a winter storm warning (with an actual winter storm attached). What a relief.
This morning, Cedar greeted Katrina with heart, paws, tail, and teeth full of love. After full on zoomies and a complimentary escort to the bathroom, Cedar came out, picked up Katrina’s shirt, and began parading around the kitchen with it— a stunningly beautiful piece of communication from Cedar’s heart.
ASVAB position statement and the “Good Dog Collar” recommended by the Monks.
Dang it. It’s true. The behaviorists at the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, instead of using their precious resources to con more vets to move to Juneau, have come out with this Zero Tolerance position paper. There is absolutely no role for “aversive” techniques in dog training. While I’m certainly monitoring my YN ratio, I’m going to plant my feet in the slush and practice some somewhat civil disobedience.
I double checked the article this morning… “Did I really read that right?,” I wondered after a day of “meh” responses to simple COME commands, and after a morning walk with a whole lotta pulling and a whole lotta three-step corrections. An angsty little neighborhood waltz. I was mulling pulling out the “good dog” collar.
When the going gets mushy, I occasionally need a dose of Wolters’ common sense. From Water Dog:
“Teach HEEL on a leash and choke collar. Hold him in tight, command HEEL, slap your leg with your hand. Keep repeating the command. If he wants to be out front like the bandleader…yank. Pull him back, command HEEL… If he insists on getting in your way, give no quarter: bump him out of the way. Let him learn to walk on his feet, not yours; he’s got four, you’ve got only two…Once he knows what to expect, then get tough on him.”
richard wolters, water dog, 1964
I haven’t started on HEEL yet, but Wolters helps me reload just a bit. (And I’ve majorly disarmed myself by trying to avoid training with treats. There is some evidence, dear fam, that she does NOT live to please me. My one exception to the treats–a test case–is using ice cubes to bribe DOWN. She’s getting there, but I have no idea how to get her out of the short term reward phase.) The vets’ study points to the dangers of creating anxiety in pets through aversive feedback. I get it, and think I’ll know how to watch for it.
Wolters again, on COME.
“He’s got to understand that you must be obeyed immediately. Not tomorrow, not next week, but right now…. By the time he’s about 15 weeks old, he should come any time he’s called.”
Uh oh.
So… feet firmly in the slush, I say this oh ye hallowed vets. I’ll reward. I’ll praise. I’ll keep those cortisol levels down, I hope. I may even give in and carry treats.
But I’ll also know that look that says, “Yeah no.” (Did I get that right, Katie?) And… sorry dear Cedar, there will be an occasional aversive.
It occurred to me on our Not-So-Great-Circle route walk today that one good thing about being outside with Cedar is how often I get to celebrate something new, or some little bit of joy with her by saying “Yes!”
Probably just the French press kicking in, but this morning I was thinking of just how good it is to have occasion to say “Yes!” out loud, so many times in a day.
I get to say “Yes” when Cedar has waited at the door, “Yes” again when I clip in the leash and we start walking. “Yes” when she responds to the leash check and walks in step, and…my favorites…”Yes” when she zooms around in fresh snow joy, or stops to listen to a raven or an eagle.
Having killed the French press over an hour ago–when I thought of what I’d write today–I should admit there are plenty of “No”s, even outside, when she tries to resist the leash check for that nose full of someone’s crap, or when she tries to gobble up a plastic bag. But the ratio of Yes to No is way better than when we’re inside (with shoes and couches and slippers and flesh).
Just this week, I learned that fellow middle aged men (mainly) actually use an index to judge hockey players called their CF. Doing my best to be one of them, here’s what I learned this week.
Corsi For Percentage (CF%) is used to evaluate a player’s team’s puck possession on the ice. A typical hockey player has a CF% between 45% and 55%. CF% is calculated as the sum of shots on goal, missed shots, and blocked shots over the shots against, missed shots against and blocked shots against at equal strength. Basically, CF% is the +/- rating for players, but instead of goals, shots taken and attempted are counted.
I also learned there is, pathetically enough, a site called PuckPedia.com
So maybe it’s time for me to establish my “YN rating” in order to get a better handle on being Cedar’s guide/master/commander/follower. I’d say my rating on our 20 minute morning walk was positive, but as she licks my sweats and looks out the window while I finish this short post, I’m trying to remember what the kids say… Is it Yeahno, or Noyeah?
I’ve never been much of a stats guy. Let’s keep this simple.
Yesterday I listened to Michelle Obama address a crowd of English teachers. One of her messages to adults, offered in the spirit of understanding our unspoken communication, and thinking of who may or may not feel empowered to confide in us, was to make ourselves vulnerable.
It’s in that spirt it that I offer you not only the remarkable similarity between my own and Cedar’s jowls, but a little secret to our co-existence. We have these little heart to hearts at least once a day. I like to think they assert and re-assert my dominance, but the jury is certainly out. She seems to be missing the piece that the rules still apply even when I’m not in the room, or even not within arm’s reach.
An early morning heart to heart (jowl to jowl?) with our girl.
Cedar listened to the First Lady as well, so maybe a little woman-to-woman thing went down, and maybe I’ll see Cedar coming around today?
Honestly, our heart to hearts, usually night time rituals of a bit of play and a bit of love, are becoming one of my favorite parts of the day. For all my grousing here, I’ll admit it: she is a sweetheart.
It’s not lost on me that while teachers are dealing with the hardest days of their careers, while the pandemic rages on with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations, while folks in BC and Western Washington are dealing with epic floods, while some in DC are fighting for the very survival of our democracy, I’m writing about a dog.
Well, if there’s forest therapy, maybe there’s beach therapy, and blog therapy, and…here comes the rationalization…dog therapy? For what it’s worth, between bouts of foolishness like this, I do what I can to help make the lives of teachers just a little better.
Yesterday’s therapy was of the beach variety. What I did not capture on camera was of course the most beautiful moment where Cedar waded into the pastel wavelets and followed them to shore – a little celebration of some brand new aesthetics.
Having recently read about the dangers of too-long walks (there goes the forest therapy)…I had a plan to use a tennis ball to lure Cedar seaward, in hopes of soon unlocking the world of swimming. She was almost there on her own volition…sort of moonwalking after the dappled light, so I figured it was time for the nuclear option.
Here I’ll confess a bit of last-dog trauma. Soon after I introduced the tennis ball to Bella, her brain shrunk to exactly its size and stayed there for pretty much the rest of her life.
Photo by Katrina. • 4th grade painting of her beloved fetch addict by Katie.
Cedar was at first reluctant to go after said nuclear orb, which did sort of please me. But then she made a few retrieves (none quite requiring swimming) and I was almost ready to lob it just beyond moon-walking range.
Then she did the thing: Jumping up in excitement, facing me, going backwards a bit and jumping again as I walked forward. Ball crack.
The nuclear option has gone back underground while we find other ways to play, other enticements to swim.
As the daylight does its slow pour over last night’s snow, I’m thinking about teachers in South Carolina and Massachusetts reckoning with new levels of violence, and others who are reporting young people showing all kinds of asocial responses to trauma. I’m mulling my own significant climate impacts, and what lifestyle changes I will make to do my part. Cedar is chewing on a rawhide, seemingly confident that she has some dog-therapy job security.
1. To bring something to an equal level or position compared to another thing. In this usage, a noun or pronoun can be used between “level” and “up.” A late field goal has leveled up the game between these two powerhouses!
2. To achieve or advance to the next rank. Said of a character within a game, especially video games. You’ll probably need to level up a couple of times before you try to take on the boss in this stage.
Cedar is leveling up and I’m behind in the game. While she spends most of my Zoom meetings curled up on the bath mat next to the recycling bin or on the floor near the heater or on her dog bed in the pen area, last week she decided she needed my full attention and after biting my shoes and hands and knees repeatedly under the table, then tearing my sleeve, when I tried to push her out of the way (while I nodded attentively to my colleagues), she did her best to climb up to table level and join the action.
My puppy proofing is looking quite passé at this moment. I’ve had to move the hamper, previously keeping socks and slippers safe, to the top of my dresser. Shoes near the front door are now above waist height, and…sigh…it looks like counters are potentially fair game in Cedar’s view of new-level adventures. Basically, I have to raise my gaze another couple of feet to a) remove temptations, and b) accept the fact that we’re at a new pain-in-the-butt level.
AKC’s missive for Week 14 is called “Four on the Floor: Stop Your Puppy from Jumping”. They recommend I keep her out of the kitchen. Not going to happen. And that I keep all food off counters. Nope.
I’m going to make a command decision here on a Monday morning. When she goes high, I’m staying low–a low voice and a low tolerance for getting up on the furniture and especially counters.
When I asked Teri, her breeder, to describe her personality among her littermates, Teri described her as a “first sergeant”–not the alpha leader, but not so submissive either. My first sergeant will NOT level up to challenge the Commander in Chief.
I’m not a woods guy. My brain and spirit seek open spaces. My formative years near the ocean, on a lake, being a “flatlander” as woodsy Vermonters say, programmed my firmware for the marine world, for open vistas and for horizons.
When I’ve deer hunted, I’m sure I’ve missed many more deer than I’ve seen due to at least half of my CPU — to continue with the unwelcome computer metaphor–preoccupied with finding the way home again.
And I’ve been lost. There was one solo hunting venture when I realized the creek I had been following was flowing the wrong direction. I had a compass, but no map, and my assumption about the North-South lay of the land before I set out was inaccurate enough that the compass made no sense. Easy enough, I’d backtrack until I hit footprints. I found prints, which was at first a huge relief, but then I realized that there were many, many prints, some going in circles like the fresh tracks I was putting down. (Turned out the tracks were from the previous day’s rescue team for another hunter just as woods-direction-impaired as me.) And there were other times. As a kid of eight or nine, I once returned an hour or so late from a neighborhood game of “Chase” –which often veered into the scrubby forests around our house–one shoe missing, torn Toughskin jeans–tears and snot testifying to my fear of spending the rest of my life in the bracken. Another time, a buddy (who does NOT waste his CPU cycles when looking for deer; I swear he imagines them into existence) and I hiked through nasty brush behind his house. When we finally broke into a clearing near treeline, were momentarily defeated by other footprints. It took us a while to realize they were remarkably similar to our own.
I’ve done better in treeless spaces. There was the time on the Egegik River in the fog and darkness. I had taken the Fish and Game skiff down to the cannery on the bay to call my buddy to congratulate him on his wedding. The skiff was full of salmon, which we caught to test run strength, and which we would sell at the cannery. The cannery wasn’t buying and I had to wait in line for the payphone with 10 or 20 gillnetters as I watched the fog coming in across the bay. While I had the trip back up river to our field camp timed with the flooding tide and remaining daylight, fog spooked me into leaving early. I went aground. On a sandbar with fresh brown bear tracks. As the fog swallowed me and the salmon-heavy skiff, and daylight waned, I waited for enough water to float us, and putted ahead blindly to the next grounding. On one of those short trips, I heard the nesting gulls which marked the deepwater channel to get home. The rest of the trip was slow but sure. Run a couple of hundred yards (now in darkness), shut the engine down, listen for the gulls, re-orient, and head home.
Anyway, the forest behind our cul-de-sac has a trail, and it’s frequented by fellow-dog walkers, and other neighbors, young and old. It’s a good place to let Cedar off leash. I’m not sure how we’ll fare with the first bear or porky encounter. My other concern is that I gather pups aren’t supposed to make “long” “hikes” until their growth plates fully fuse. (According to the websites that suggest a 4 month old-pup shouldn’t hike or otherwise exercise for more than twenty minutes, we just overdid it .)
But much as I’m not a woods guy, there’s really no better place to be in Southeast Alaska in November than the old growth forest. I thought about that a few steps in, and the phrase “forest therapy” popped up in my brain. I guess that’s really a thing.
Inspired by the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing,” forest therapy is a guided outdoor healing practice….[f]orest therapy relies on trained guides, who set a deliberately slow pace and invite people to experience the pleasures of nature through all of their senses…
Decades of research show that forest bathing may help reduce stress, improve attention, boost immunity, and lift mood.Trees give off volatile essential oils called phytoncides that have antimicrobial properties and may influence immunity. One Japanese study showed a rise in number and activity of immune cells called natural killer cells, which fight viruses and cancer, among people who spent three days and two nights in a forest versus people who took an urban trip. This benefit lasted for more than a month after the forest trip!
***
Some research suggests exposure to natural tree oils helps lift depression, lowers blood pressure, and may also reduce anxiety. Tree oils also contain 3-carene. Studies in animals suggest this substance may help lessen inflammation, protect against infection, lower anxiety, and even enhance the quality of sleep.
“Can forest therapy enhance health and well-being?”, Harvard Health Publishing
Our big back yard, thousands of acres of forest extending back to the Juneau Ice Field and into Canada and the giant continental craton, ain’t a bad place to take a little “forest bath,” in part because the old growth canopy keeps the actual rain bath to a minimum, in part because it has a trail so I’ll live to type another day, but really because the old growth back there is awesome.
On our “big tree walks,” we skirt the fringes of suburbia. We pass a treehouse and various trinkets testifying to the spirit of the neighbors who choose this fringe. We splosh through mud patches, and over slick corduroy “bridges”. We walk through gates of time (time courtesy of time–some tree rings testifying to centuries; gates thanks to friend Kurt’s chain saw).
And here at home, snoring Cedar, maybe a bit drunk on tree oils, works to close those growth plates so we can go deeper into the big back yard soon.
Cedarpup: girl being made of trees (and kibble).
An upgrade from my childhood treehouses.
Note the deck chairs.
The rare Tongass flamingo.
Trailside Trinket Shrine
Well-marked turnoff for Kurt’s place; even I can’t get lost back here.
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