Highlands

Having been home a week now, I should be caught up, back in the saddle, in the swing...pick your metaphor. If only that were so. Many have asked me about the trip, and I've intended to synopsize the experience before the details are lost but my Grandma had a saying about good intentions and the pavement along the Road to Hell.

Still, the cold winds, fitful rainstorms and generally moody/glowering skies we had today brought Scottish memories back to the fore. Tonight what comes to mind most strongly are the sheep...everywhere. Sheep far outnumber the humans in Scotland. In New Zealand it seemed to be a point of pride that there are sheep an order of magnitude more than the humans. I didn't hear any Scots bragging about their woolly citizenry, but it appeared that if you live in northern Scotland you're either a sheep farmer or a Bed & Breakfast owner. Or Royal. Other options weren't readily apparent.

The rusted heather hillsides were dotted with the grayish shapes of unshorn sheep, followed by the bright white, unstained new lambs. April is the thick of lambing season, and everywhere we hiked we could scarcely avoid treading on Scottish black faced and Lleyn lambs curled together or dashing out of our way, bleating and baaing their fright to complacent ewes. The Lleyn lambs looked for all the world, when lying down, like Easter bunnies...their fleece is short which gives their erectly-held ears a disproportionately large and bunnyish silhouette.

Fences seem only a means of delineating property lines not of actual livestock containment. Sheep run the roadways and ditches and public lands and highlands, yards and even woodlands. Almost anyplace we stopped to take in the scenery we could watch shepherds working the flocks together with the ubiquitous Border Collies. There might have been a Lab or a mutt here or there, but Border Collies ruled the countryside. What a treat it was to watch true working farm dogs doing what their ancestors have done since the dawn of domestication. Found myself wishing I had tried harder to bring one of the GSDs along...they would have learned a thing or two from watching.

Everything in that land was rugged, from the topography of ancient basalt bedrock to the hardy breeds of livestock and dogs, to the people themselves. We learned quickly that they count on their tourists being rather rugged and capable as well...hiking trails were, shall we say, less than well marked. Blazes like one expects to see here in the States must be unthinkable to these hardy souls. And I've got the bog-stained boots to prove it!

Karma?

One's sense of time is a subjective thing, at least I've noticed my own being stretched like a telescope of compressed like a slinky under various circumstances. Many a poet has waxed on about a lover's sense of time versus a condemned man's, a young child's versus an octogenarian's. In my current situation, my removal from things familiar, from the routine of farm chores and obligations to the animals, plus the need to contend with unfamiliar stresses, has turned my perceptions of the past four days into a slurry of images without definitive edges. That is what I had hoped...but I had hoped it would be occurring because of the miles that I had expected to have logged on Scotland's moors and highlands. Unfortunately, Eyjafjallajokul (the volcano in Iceland) had other plans for me...and millions of others.

So, a much-anticipated wilderness adventure has morphed into an education in acceptance and flexibility. As I've stood in lines, lines, and more lines these past four days (nope, I still don't have my luggage, and the Wal-Mart blouse I bought on Friday is developing an interesting "musk") I've struck up conversations with folks from Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, England, Ireland and quite a number of Germans. Their stories vary, but all tend to remind me that my situation is far from dire.

Many are like me, frustrated and inconvenienced and racking up hotel/living expenses. They express concerns over their inability to get back to work/family/home and I can relate to the see-saw of emotions inevitable in situations where conflicting information contributes to repeatedly dashed hopes. Some folks' stories are heart-rending, like the woman who had cut short her vacation with the husband she rarely sees to attend a funeral in England, only to find herself unable to be with her grieving family or to rejoin her bound-for-Greece husband. A grandma who was so agitated she literally was bouncing on tiptoe, hoping against hope she'd make it to Italy to see her grandson's first communion. One couple couldn't even make it to their own wedding! Of course the news has been full of more high-profile consequences, like the cancelation of many dignitaries' attendance at the Polish president's funeral, or Angela Merkel's inability to get back to Germany.

But the individual, Common Man stories I'm hearing day after day have reminded me of my experience flying home from Germany on 9/11. The Canadians housed everyone on my flight and several other planeloads of stranded travelers in military barracks a couple of hours outside of Halifax. The thousands of passengers that found their fate linked by those events formed a camaraderie of need. People relaxed their usual facade, forging bonds of a deeper and more acute intimacy than society normally supports. The stories that were shared with me, then and now, were under circumstances that compel unvarnished emotional honesty.

Gardens and Grooming

The pups have had the use of my garden area as a play yard for the past couple of months, but today's play sessions were cut somewhat short. Mom, they soon learned, hasn't much patience for all their "help" when actual work needs to get done. It was funny at first; I marveled at the intelligence expressed by the twelve-week old Rio daughter who started digging every time I wielded a shovel and who grabbed and shook the clumps of grass and weeds as I hoed. I watched her sidelong...she was looking at me, looking at the task, then copying. She didn't know why, she didn't know the purpose, but she wanted to participate. I had to lean on my hoe and laugh. But about the fourth time she gamboled up and down the furrows as I kicked dirt over the corn seed, I had to scoop her up and send her packing. The howling that wafted from the kennel was quite mournful...she's going to be quite a character. The pup pictured is a son of Vixen & Ieuan.

Besides getting the corn planted and the potatoes cut and the manure spread, I raked out several garbage bags full of hair from the two molting horses and a half dozen of the shepherds before my arm gave out. Since the birds are already nesting, I like to leave some of the softest undercoat clinging to shrubs and bushes so their nestlings have a nice warm, soft start in life. From there I took to the mower and managed to cut about a third of the pastures and property before running out of gas; that's gasoline, but it pretty accurately portrays my overall state -- out of gas. Regardless of what the calendar says, Mother Nature has committed to bringing forth spring. And just as She sends squirrels spiraling barber-pole patterns on the oaks and maples and cardinals bashing against the windows, She dictates my steps. The warmth and sunshine pushes me into an unwinnable race to get my garden planted, all the dogs and horses groomed out, perennials that proved their fitness by surviving winter in their pots still beg to be planted, and, oh yeah, maybe I should pack?

Pack, as in prepare for two weeks of hiking the Highlands of Scotland. I leave Thursday, but even if I had every minute between now and then with nothing to do but prepare, I don't see how I'd manage. And I find myself coming up with multitudes of essential projects(it's not procrastinating if you're doing something truly useful and necessary, right?) as it becomes apparent that I've managed to schedule myself to be away during some of the best of what PA has to offer. The wisteria will bloom while I'm gone...I curse that vine all year long just so for one brief, glorious week (or so) I can breathe the cool grape-scented midnight air under those magnificent pendulous purple blossoms. And the lilacs, those delicate reminders of the bouquets my mother always placed in each room every spring...no wonder I'm ambivalent about leaving.

So, Scotland, what do you have for me to compensate for a two-year gap between filling my nose with the scent of lilacs and wisteria, and not being here to watch as these pups expand their world?

April going on July

Little did I know how completely ludicrous that photo of the dogs playing in snow would look just a couple of weeks later. Here I am with the windows open to try to entice a breeze to sweep the heat of the day out of the house. My skin is itchy from dried salt-- my evening walk had me sweating like a work horse. Everyone's commenting on the lovely weather, and sure, I'm loving it. But at the same time, it terrifies me...it's been hovering in the high 70's and even over 80 a time or two...this is APRIL(!?!) The apple trees have opened their leaf buds and are quickly developing flower buds. The quince (japonica) will open by the weekend, the jonquils are in full glory, even the lilac looks like it'll bloom while I'm gone.

When we moved here from New Jersey, on Memorial Day weekend 1984, at first glance I thought there had been a horrible insect blight because the trees had no leaves. So, a quarter century ago, trees were at approximately the stage at the end of May that they are now at the beginning of April. That's nearly two-months' difference over the course of a geological nano-second! I've been reading the stats as spring arrives earlier and earlier, but I don't think the official proclamations match the on-the-ground reality of the abrupt climate change being wrought. I wish I could stop thinking of implications and just enjoy the rapturous wonder that is spring.

And spring on my hilltop truly is rapturous. Even in a normal spring, one dominated by Mud Season, one can't help joining the rabbits in their maddened "March Hare" dances...squirrels spiral up oaks, the horses donate their winter cloaks to the birds who frantically weave it into their nests, and Beth and the dogs go gamboling through the woods. OK, the dogs gambol. I trudge, but with much lighter step than usual. Tonight I counted seventeen turkeys, four kingfishers, two wood ducks, as-yet unidentified geese that made intriguing whistling sounds, and myriad cardinals, robins, wood thrush, chickadees, juncos, blue jays...and their calls were capped by the ear-drum piercing, brain-mush-inducing shrill of spring peepers calling from every wetland.

Tomorrow, back to hauling manure to my garden. The sprouts are ready to transplant, and I have potatoes to set.

Good intentions

Another lesson in doing what I intend to do when I originally intend to do it. Because now it looks like spring outside, with cardinals singing and Canada geese winging north overhead. But back in the initial days of the Big Snow Dump of 2010 I witnessed something I wanted to share. Diva and Xico (daughter and father) had "entertained" me with antics that reminded me of how children vie for their parents' attention.

Now that the Big Snow has become The Big Melt, the story is still pertinent but less timely. A mere two weeks ago we were still in serious winter here. Snowy, cold days seem to bring out the child in all of us, and this deep snowfall elicited a frenzied joy from the dogs. In particular, Diva's exuberance reached almost physically dangerous levels...dangerous, that is, to her poor dad. Normally I do not feel even slightly sorry for Xico, who can be domineering and rather bullying to his kennel mates. But since his daughter has grown up she can hang out with him; astoundingly the tables have been turned. One could say it's a reverse of the old Parents' Curse ("one day may you have a child just like you"), or perhaps it's an example of the type of behavior that warrants the Parents' Curse in the first place.

On this particular day Diva was relentless, haranguing papa Xico with lightning-like strikes of her teeth, latching onto his mane, his cheeks, his ears, bashing him forcefully with her chest, rearing up like a stallion to crash into him, pursuing him when he would like to have avoided her, all accompanied by sound effects that (were I not there to see for myself) would have brought me bolting from the house...it sounded like a battle to the death.

Interestingly enough, this all ceased if I wasn't present. While I was in their exercise paddock, Diva would ratchet her behavior to a level that I thought intolerable - I was actually encouraging Xico to give some back. If I walked to another area in the exercise yard, the bedlam followed me. They steered the antics specifically near me, in front of me where I couldn't help but see them. It finally occurred to me that this wasn't just an interaction between the two of them, this was a performance of sorts with me as audience. I was reminded of a summer evening a decade or so ago when I sat on the back porch feeling rather blue, watching my son Kyle shooting hoops. He recognized my mood and started shooting crazy shots, leaping and twisting and attempting the most impossible moves. It worked; I couldn't help but grin and I even eventually got off my duff and joined in. Diva and Xico certainly had me grinning and shaking my head. Then again, the dogs' behavior also had a similarity to much-earlier days when my two kids would huddle near my legs when I was trying to cook, even though far more entertaining games and toys were all over the family room and the great outdoors beckoned with endless possibilities...they wanted to pinch each other and fight over nothing in my presence.

So what was happening this wintry day? Were Diva & Xico really picking up on my sadness or despondency and trying to intervene? Was it as simple as vying for attention, like my kids' trying to get me to focus on them rather than the work I was involved in? Was it a display of strength, in effect saying hey, I am worthy - pick me as your next in command, your Right Hand, your Main Partner? When I left their exercise yard and moved to the next, the rambunctiousness subsided; when I returned, it escalated again. Clearly the message was aimed at me.

The canine mind is endlessly astonishing, and the more time I spend in their presence, the more fully I appreciate not just their behavior but comparable human gestures. I get glimpses of the complexity of feelings, thoughts, and motivations underlying behavior and attachment. What a privilege.

Yin/Yang

So how does an entire month go by between blogs? In a blur, that's how. The puppies from the litters already posted in previous blogs are now eight and ten weeks old, romping and wrestling and making finger paintings on my kitchen tile. Since their arrival, Vixen presented her litter of five (Caesarian...I've run out of any expectation of a normal birth occurring ever again) who are now five weeks old, and Saga was relieved of her one big, gorgeous, dead male puppy (also via Caesarian...I am beyond being able to talk about it) and then had to be spayed on the table due to blood loss.

Anyone out there thinking of becoming a breeder? Please re-read the last four or five posts and think *hard* before going down this road.

After doing this for three decades it's impossible to count how many times I've heard some variation of the phrase "oh, I'd love to do what you do...I've dreamed of living in the country, surrounded by animals. You must love it!"

Well, yes. I love the dogs. I love the horses. I even love the chickens.

And --- no. Because so much of the "it" that I do is just plain drudgery. The sheer volume of feces I pick up, bag, and then haul to the road to be picked up by the garbage men (bless them) weekly is enough to dim the most devoted dog lover's enthusiasm. The hundreds of pounds of dog food I haul from car to kennel weekly (to account for all that feces) is back-breaking, although I keep reminding myself that it's my cheap gym substitute (bend, lift, twist, hoist, repeat twenty times). Just keeping up with the feeding, cleaning, grooming, bathing, socializing, exercising, client inquiries, paperwork, vaccinations, entry deadlines, pedigree research, tracking, training, conditioning, breeding, whelping, LAUNDRY, and the aforementioned schlepping is impossible. That's the bare minimum, before I've gone to my "real work." Heaven forbid the dogs get sick; not really sick like worried-over-them-at-the-vet's, just sick like couldn't-wait-for-me-to-get-home-to-let-them-out-of-the-crate sick. Days end when I can't keep my eyes open. They begin when the dogs say they begin. A day when I can stop to hug or hang out with one of them is a very good day indeed. Days when visitors are scheduled to come meet the dogs are days I can stop the clock and experience the joy of puppy breath and gnawed fingers, untied shoelaces and exuberant kisses.

So, yes, I love what I do. When I'm particularly centered, grounded, whatever you want to call it I can even say I love chipping poop from the packed-solid ice on a day when the north wind sucks all life from my fingers in the first moments of exposure. There's an art to it, a sort of Zen in just doing what needs to be done, even if I've done it ten bazillion times before and there is no end to the number of times I'll need to do it again. Because puppies, every single one, are worth it.

Minding Dogs/dogs minds

I've been mulling something. Two somethings, actually. And since the latest blizzard has me housebound, I figured this was as good a time as any to try to put those thoughts into some sort of order.

I notice my dogs making assumptions quite often, in ways that mirror behavior I've observed in my children or my friends, or, if I look in the mirror, myself. There are two concepts on my mind, both of which seem to hold some much deeper implications about the nature of self-concepts. Let me try to sketch it out.

My thoughts started down this path as I've been comparing Elatha's versus Brianne's versus Star's behavior in the morning. The bedroom was always Star's exclusive domain but since his passing the other dogs take turns (my allergist insists that I only have one dog in the bedroom at a time...he would actually prefer zero dogs, but we compromise...I tell him there's only one at a time because that's what he wants to hear and I don't think the Pomeranian on my pillow counts...he's not a "real" dog anyhow). Star always knew when I was actually leaving the bedroom in the morning and after an initial "good morning" greeting he'd curl up until I was ready to head out; nothing moved but his eyes, which were always on me. I could make the bed or not make the bed, I could brush my teeth with the electric or manual toothbrush, I could put my shoes on or run downstairs barefoot, I could move towards the door to get something but he didn't cue on anything but my eventual opening of the door.

Brianne parks herself in front of the door, and if I pass near her she flips to expose her belly. That's her morning greeting..."rub me!" Star wanted a face rub, Brianne wants a belly rub. Other than the rolling over, she, too, stays relatively quiet while I go through my morning rituals. Neither she nor Star ever presumed to suggest I should get out of bed before I was good and ready.

Elatha, on the other hand, is the only one of my shepherds who has taken the liberty of enthroning herself on the settee in window tower of my room, the better to survey her kingdom below. When she is rested and ready to begin her day, she begins pacing. Even as deeply as I sleep it's hard not to be awakened by the click-click-click of her nails on the hardwood. If by chance I still don't stir, she unceremoniously shoves her snoot into my face. Repeatedly. Whine, shove, pace, repeat. Once I'm on my feet, she by now has had it with confinement and has no patience for my routine. I'm barely vertical and she's herding me to the door. Ignoring her only ensures that she'll position herself immediately in front of me no matter which way I turn. Banishing her back to the settee gets a sigh and an eye-roll (reminiscent of my daughter as a teenager) but at least gains me a couple of undisturbed minutes. Let me even lean in the direction of the door and Ella bridges the distance from the settee to the foyer in a flash, clocking me with her hard head as she zips by. We were leaving, right Mom? You finally are heeding my instructions, arentcha?

Brianne and Star seemed to have a mature outlook on life; things happen that you can ignore, and it's wiser to save your energy until you're called upon for action. Ella is a classic "type A" who never quite got over the sense that the world evolves around her.

Ella's behavior appears to be presumptive, whereas many of my other dogs seem more assumptive. That's where it gets really interesting insofar as what it reveals about what's happening in their heads. Similar to the situation with Ella in the morning, I often find that when I've engaged in a stationary project, anything that keeps me still and requires the dogs to chill awhile, the instant I even ease my concentration on my work the dogs pop up as if someone passed a current of electricity through the floor. And no matter what direction I might head (maybe the bathroom, maybe the fridge) they all assume that I'm going wherever it is they've been wishing I was going. The outdoors, usually. This I know because once again my knees are bruised by their heads and rib-cages as our conflicting intentions collide. And then they look at me, from the door or the cupboard or partway to their hoped-for destination, with eyes that reveal their thoughts. This is where you meant to go, right?

As opposed to Ella, who tries to control my behavior to suit herself, I believe these other instances reflect situations where the dogs assume that what they want is what I want...that since I'm getting up I must surely be headed to the place/thing/event they want to go/eat/do. This happens with people all the time, why not dogs? We assume that others think or feel as we do, that they want and desire the same things we do, that they would be happy having what we want.

Illustrative side note: my ex never did understand that I do not like pepper, that it burns my tongue. Absolutely did not matter how many Sunday brunches I reminded him, please don't pepper my eggs...salt only! He'd serve 'em up peppered and get mad and hurt when I put them on his plate and wouldn't eat them. Surely I was just being contrary? Surely I just wanted to make his life difficult? Surely I was mistaken about my likes or dislikes and would see it his way if I wasn't so doggone bitchy and stubborn? I'll spare you any more significant scenarios, but I would imagine you can all think of examples in your own lives.

Back to the dogs. I know I'm painting with too broad a brush, and that some of the anticipatory behavior I've described could just as well be indicative of doggy hope, or suggestion, or request (or demand), or (ahem, Miss Elatha) just plain old fashioned domineering, control-freak-iness. But the intrigue lies in the possibility that dogs might consciously think they know what we have in mind, that they might assume that because they want something we also want that thing. If they do...what does that say about their fundamental psychology? How much self-awareness might they actually possess?

And, what about an unconscious mind? Might dogs be motivated and driven by their unconscious much as we are; or to flip the question, might we be driven by our unconscious just as they are? I'm not talking instincts or hard-wired behaviors here, but the unconscious mind that in reality dictates much of what we human beings think and feel and do, whether we care to admit it or not. I just googled and don't find much reference to scientific inquiry into the concept of conscious versus pre- or unconscious thought processes in dogs. But I'm betting it would be enlightening.

The assumptions we make about our experiences throughout life influence what sort of person we become. We assume we understand something, and our next learning opportunity is limited by and predicated on a set of parameters that we regard as "facts" that may in actuality be somewhat or even totally wrong...we build constructs from faulty templates and ultimately might get so off-base we begin re-drawing Reality to fit our inner fantasy. Some folks are more in tune with What Is than others, but we all have our backlog of misperceptions that affect our capacity to appropriately respond to people and events. I think dogs are less subject to that problem, more in touch with Reality, probably because their conscious minds don't interfere or override what their unconscious minds tell them. My dogs may try to dictate my actions, may occasionally succeed; nonetheless, I find in them an antidote to the insanity so rampant in the human world.