Dog people and cat people...

Though allergic to cat dander, and the proud owner of a German-bred Verein Deutsch Drahthaar (a pedigreed pointing versatile hunting dog),,, I will try to have this discussion without being influenced by my own personal bias.

This "discussion" is more or less a plea for understanding, not meant to be a judgement of people or the types of pets they own. In fact, quite the contrary. I'm begging for a little understanding due to an experience I had a couple weekends ago with my own aforementioned dog--a five year old German Wirehaired Pointer (the Germans call them "Drahthaars"). Her name is Ecco.

A couple weeks ago, I had the good fortune of spending the weekend with four friends from college--two couples, all four "cat people", i.e. cat owners/lovers of domesticated felines. All of whom (to my understanding) have never owned dogs,, let alone German-bred hunting dogs. Anyway, this is where my story begins...

I spent a good part of the first two years of Ecco's life training her to be the disciplined loyal hunting dog and well-mannered house pet that she is today. Three to five evenings a week were spent in the yard drilling "sit", "stay", "kennel", "lay", "down", etc. Then, most Saturdays were spent at the pond near my house getting her accustomed to swimming, retrieving, and the like. After she got a little older, I even paid for a lease in order to use some acreage of land away from the city where she could practice her natural hunting ability with wild game, and even some planted birds for specialized training. All in all, I'd say that we spent literally hundreds of days over thousands of hours together--training, playing, hunting, walking, swimming,, and generally learning each other. And we do to this day. She is who I come home to, she is a Godsend. I love her with all my heart. My dog and I have a relationship that is hard to put in words. She knows me as well as any person--she is loyal, respectful, and knows that I love her. I strive to be the person my dog thinks I am. I only describe all this because I need others to understand that I've spent literally thousands of hours with my dog--at home, in the field, and watching her swim in the water. I am intimately familiar with what she can do, what she can't, and what influences her in most situations. At last count, she knows 21 verbal commands, three hand signals in the field, and is working on three more hand signals in the water. And that's not counting her ability to read my tone of voice, subtle gestures, and even facial expressions--all of which I am convinced she is able.

Now that some background is laid, I can continue with the events of the weekend. After spending a day and a half in Boston, we decided to drive up to Portland, Maine, where one of my friends and his wife reside. It was just an overnight trip, so I'm sure Ecco would have been okay staying on my back porch, but the "cat people" insisted that we bring her up to Portland. No big deal, she's crate trained, and loves to travel. So, we packed up some food in a Ziploc, and headed north with Ecco occupying her crate in the bed of my pickup truck. Which by the way, I could tell was met with some resistance that Ecco didn't get to ride in the cab with me. A lot of folks don't realize that a crate trained dog is very comfortable, safe, and secure in their crate--they are den animals, and a crate is like a "den". And by the way, it's the safest way for them to travel. Anyway, she made it all the way to Maine (a two and a half hour drive) unscathed and happy.

While in Portland, Ecco stayed in her crate. If she had come into the house, there would have been two dead cats in a matter of seconds. In Germany, dogs are bred to instinctively attack and kill small furry animals because of the rodent problem in Germany. It's kinda hard for a dog that is genetically programmed to kill vermin on sight to discern the difference between a small furry feline,, and a small furry rodent. So, I've never tried. I don't want to defeat her instinct to be a hunter. So,, like I said, the dog stayed in her crate. She put up a little fuss because she wanted to be with us,, but she settled down after a few minutes and took a nap. I took her for tons of walks and bathroom breaks, made sure she had food and water, and always cleaned up after her--for your information. :-)

Now,, the thing with hunting dogs, especially German hunting dogs (weims, shorthairs, wirehairs, and the like) is that they are driven with a hunting instinct, a kind of fire that burns in their guts. That fire is what produces their drive to hunt out in the field, their desire to work for their handler in the field and in the water. It's that innate "desire" that motivates a dog like Ecco to voluntarily swim through an ice-chunked river in the middle of January after a downed mallard duck. It's that same "desire" that motivated Ecco to hunt for pheasants in North Dakota for four days--about 7 hours a day, with very little rest. During that hunt, she was pretty much at full sprint covering as much ground as possible looking for pheasants for many hours a day--without complaint, and without falter. She endured a full face of porcupine quills, and bloody paw pads after the second day,,,,, but still wanted to hunt,, and did so in elegant fashion. A meek, mild, sensitive dog, without all this "heart", may very well not perform to such an amazing degree in the field. But Ecco, along with virtually all dogs in her breed have this desire. It's not trained. It just comes naturally. But with this "desire" comes challenges when training. Ecco is pretty much impervious to punishment. Let me re-emphasize, she does NOT get her feelings hurt even after the most severe punishments are administered. She may react to the punishment while it is happening, but the second that the punishment is over, she is wagging her tail, bouncing around, and excited for what's next. Because she isn't all that much affected by punishment, coupled with this extreme hunting desire, training can be a constant challenge. I am convinced that she reasons through a decision--weighing the likelihood of getting caught, gauging the severity of punishment, and rationally deciding if the reward for being disobedient is worth it. For this reason, even though she is almost six years old, she still acts like an 8 month old pup. She knows obedience, but still pushes her limits like a toddler would with its parents. It's this constant discipline that was abhorred by the "cat people" and subsequently admonished. I don't blame them for caring about my dog's feelings, I just beg of them to gain a little understanding before jumping to the conclusion that I am an abusive dog owner.

In the town of Portland, Ecco was on cloud nine! So many people, so many sights, sounds, smells.. And the number of other dogs,,, whew! To say that walking through the streets of downtown Portland was distracting to a dog accustomed to lonely neighborhood sidewalks, unoccupied ponds, and the wide open spaces of the hunting field,,,, would be a tremendous understatement. But I viewed the experience as an opportunity for training. There very well might be distractions in the field as well, and Ecco needs to learn to keep her focus, and to refrain from abandoning the obedience that we both know she knows. Let me admit that I was surprised how distracted she appeared to be. She can "heel" off-lead in most situations like show dogs, but even on-lead (with all the distractions of Portland), I was constantly yanking her collar, twisting her ear, and verbally reprimanding her. If I allowed her to run wild--sniffing every person and pet, jerking me into the alleys, jumping on passers-by, she would think that it is okay to do that all the time. She knows better, and I had to make sure she was duly reminded. Again, this is not exactly understood by the "cat people". It's not that I expected them to understand, but I was hoping they could give me the benefit of the doubt as the owner and single trainer of Ecco over the last six years instead of judging me out of their own ignorance. By the end of the trip, Ecco was heeling a lot better, but I admit it was a struggle.

Then came the beach. Unfortunately, the beach was the last impression Ecco and I left with the cat people. As I stated before, Ecco spends about three to five hours a week in the water--even in the winter we go to the pond to swim as long as the pond isn't frozen over. She absolutely loves the water, and literally jumps at the chance to swim--even if the outside temperature is below freezing. So, with all that experience, I thought we would have a wonderful morning at the beach showing off her prowess in the water. It started out fine. Ecco ran up and down the shoreline, sniffing every rock, every plant, and generally being Ecco. But when it came time to show off her retrieving skills, I suppose I got a little overzealous. We started out with a couple sighted retrieves where I throw out a bumper dummy while she's looking at me. I send her out into the water, and she brings back the dummy to my side. I even threw a couple "blind retrieves" where she doesn't see where I throw it, but goes out into the water in the direction I send her anyway. She was doing great till I threw out two bumpers "blind". She retrieved the first, but by the time I sent her out for the second, the cross-wind had taken the second one farther out to sea, and farther downwind. When she went out for the second, she didn't see it, and she was upwind from the dummy so therefore couldn't smell it either. She acted like she didn't hear voice commands--perhaps because of the chop on the ocean, I'm not sure. But to make a long story short, Ecco decided to swim non-stop for the next twenty minutes searching the ocean for the lost bumper dummy. She checked buoy after buoy, some of which were probably 300 yards from the shore and a couple hundred yards apart. Finally, when she was headed on a line downwind from the bumper dummy, a kayaker paddled up alongside her (between Ecco and the dummy), and forced her to shore. When Ecco got out of the water she was energetic, tail wagging, and ready to jump back in the water to continue looking for the dummy. I called her off because I could tell the group I was with thought that I was abusing my dog by making her swim for such a long period of time. I confirmed that assumption when I told one of my friends that I know Ecco would have found the dummy if the kayaker hadn't interfered. His response was a smug and condescending "That kayaker saved your dog's life." I was taken aback, and a little irritated at his ignorance, but I didn't start an argument. I knew that he didn't know any better.

As I said, Ecco was spry as always after her extended time in the water--sniffing around, sprinting up and down the shoreline, wagging her tail incessantly. In fact, she really didn't even act tired at all,, even though I wish she would have been more calm. I knew in my heart that Ecco was fine, would have been fine swimming for another twenty minutes, but I wasn't about ready to argue my case to the four of them--one of which had already left the beach because she couldn't bear witnessing such animal abuse. It was an uncomfortable setting back at the house, so I decided to pack up our stuff and head home. Ecco had a blast! I took a great opportunity to train her, but I'm fairly certain my friends think I should be reported to PETA and that my dog should be remanded to puppy social services... I'll say this, I was a little appalled when one of my friends tossed his cat from shoulder height to the hardwood floor, but I didn't question, comment, or judge. Maybe cats like five foot leaps onto hard surfaces. I don't know, because I've never owned a cat. I just wish he would afford me the same benefit of the doubt, and take the time to learn about my dog before judging me on the ways I care for her...

My jumbled head...

A friend casually asks: What's on your mind lately? Well,, not exactly an easy question to answer. I'm at a juncture in my life where I feel a driving desire to make sense of it all. As a Christian, I can look to God for such enlightenment (and I do), but as a living, breathing, thinking mortal man, I feel compelled to twist, turn, and rotate the proverbial Rubik's cube that resides in my head until every side contains the same color squares. Will this self-actualizing resolution ever actually happen for me? I doubt it. But that doesn't mean I can't continue to try. Beyond identification of specific aspects of life that create fulfillment, peace, joy,,, etc., this is my attempt at defining what life is.

Life: A futile attempt to avoid regret.

As we age, we grow to learn about all the reasons why we shouldn't have made the decisions we made earlier in life--certainly not to say that we won't make more bad decisions in the future, but hopefully not the same bad decisions that were previously made. That is all that one can realistically hope to do over the course of a lifetime.

Guess the protagonist...

I'm not sure how this is going to work out,,, but I remember this drill I had to do as a part of a high-school creative writing class... It's kinda like literary charades. I'll write a couple paragraphs in third-person, and you guess who (or what) the protagonist is from context clues.. Okay,, here goes:

He lazily opens his eyes to the brightness of the afternoon sun. The overhanging rock above and to the side provides relief from the heat and glare of the sun. A big yawn exposes the full length of his teeth, but only for an instant does this noble animal look as ferocious as it's typically portrayed. Back to a lazy and completely docile state, he peers through half-closed eyes at the sprawling landscape below. This is a good spot. The rock ledge provides protection from the elements, shade during some parts of the day, warming sun during other parts of the day--but most importantly, it's high above the popular hiking trails down in the valleys below. Over the years it's become increasingly difficult to avoid contact with humans. A source of comfort and continual security abounds in his den--almost as though it was chiseled out the of the rocky mountainside just for him.

From his favorite sleeping rock, he can feel the heat of the morning sun helping to shake the chill of a mountain night. Then, without even moving, he is engulfed by the shadow of the mountainside on or about mid-afternoon. Sleeping is typically the order of the day. There's simply too many people and not enough reason to be out and about while the sun is up.

Evening comes to the mountainside, and he makes his way off the sleeping rock and over to the rock ledge facing the East. Still shaking the sleep from a long day of napping, he yawns one last time and follows it up with a big stretch. First, he stretches the tight sinewy muscles of his front legs by rocking back on his rear haunches and keeps his front legs extended in front. His claws extend slightly to grip the soft earth in front of him. Then, upon completion of the stretch, they simultaneously retract as he returns to a comfortable sitting position.

Feeling the typical aches and pains associated with years of strenuous activity, he decides to walk the trail that switches back down the mountainside. In the first few steps he sort of drags a rear paw--first the right, then the left. This helps to alleviate the tightness in his hind quarters.

Feeling stretched and refreshed from an uneventful day of sleep, he slinks down the trail toward the meadow. The sun is setting, and at many times past this would be the perfect time to catch an unsuspecting deer munching the tall grass of the meadow. Poor game management and habitat loss have contributed to the decline of deer populations. Nonetheless, an adult deer would provide a week or more worth of food, so he decides to creep (as he does most every day) up to the edge of the meadow.

With his belly only inches from the ground, he perks his ears up and continues the slow but deliberate crawl into the meadow....

Can you guess the protagonist?

Random Writings and Ramblings...

Feelings:

• a 300-yard drive straight down the fairway (golf)
• a 3-point swish (basketball)
• a line drive off a wooden bat (baseball)
• an inside-out forehand winner (tennis)
• the touch of someone that loves you
• touching someone you love
• throwing your hat in the air after being commissioned an officer in the US Air Force
• shaking the dean's hand at graduation
• boarding a plane home
• seeing your bird dog hold to present on a quail retrieve
• screeching the tires of a fast car around a corner (and not losing control)
• first bite into a bacon double cheeseburger after backpacking for a week
• seeing the rise, and feeling the tug of a trout on the end of a fly line
• hearing a tom turkey gobble back at your call
• the jump of a pistol's muzzle
• the kick of a shotgun
• the report of a rifle
• a smile from a proud parent
• forty-three 800-horsepower stock cars rumbling past you in a tight group
• Love

Random Writings and Ramblings...

Images:

• tall prairie grasses bending in the breeze
• the shadows of pine trees contrasted against sunlight reflecting off a curvy mountain road right before sunset
• the shimmer on the surface of a crystal clear brook (on a sunny day)
• a beautiful woman's face illuminated by candlelight
• a beautiful woman's body illuminated by candlelight
• moonlight in the forest
• mist rising off a high mountain lake--early in the morning
• the nose of a native rainbow trout barely breaking the water's surface
• first snow of the season
• the eyes of an adoring pet looking up at you
• freshly waxed paint on a classic American hot rod
• Old Glory flying high above a neighborhood ball park
• light pouring through stained glass onto the altar of a church
• the purples, grays, blacks, and blues of nimbus clouds just before a big thunderstorm
• manicured infield at Fenway Park
• a big wave crashing into a volcanic rock on the shore of Kauai

Random Writings and Ramblings...

Novel starts:

The warmth of the porcelain coffee cup felt good against his bare palms. It acted as a single source of comfort against the penetrating cold of the late autumn morning. Though biting cold, the peacefulness and dead calm of the meadow seemed to be suspended in time for those few moments before the sun splashed color onto the gray canvas of land spread before him.

Carelessly splashing what remained of his coffee to the hard earth below, the young man paced across the length of the cabin's porch. His thoughts turned to the night before. It was a grand party--a gala event marked by the best imported wine, the finest jazz trio in Montana, and beautiful women dressed in the latest fashions. A fine gathering indeed, but Micheal's brow furrowed as his thoughts returned to his missing father...

Changing Gears..

Lately I've been struggling with what to write about--so much going on right now in the political scene. And quite frankly, too much. Every day there is some topic that either bothers or intrigues me enough to write about, but after I research the topic, draw up an outline about my own thoughts,, and log into the blog to begin,,,, I seem to lose my drive to follow through with the post. My apologies. Guess that's what writing is all about....

So, in order to combat this form of "writers' block", I've decided to take a bit of a respite from the political realm, and just write creatively for a day or two. In addition to my aspirations of public office, political columnist, or even radio talk show host, I've also always wanted to write a novel. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be very good at it, but it's a lot of fun to write fiction, so I thought sometime over the course of my life, I should give it a go.

I'm going to go ahead and post this in hopes that it will motivate me to write a little creative stuff. No promises, but I did want to explain why the next couple posts (may) be different from my normal political wanderings. Again, this blog is nothing more than a journal for me,, so I'm approaching it as such, and writing about what strikes my fancy for the moment. We'll see....