(43) A Flea's Chance on a Dog's Back

I was talking to my dad this AM and he told me about a book he heard about so I looked it up on line. That's because I love books almost as much as I love my dogs(relax Brad you are above the dogs). Any way, I found the book he was talking about and on the way to finding that book, I found a website that showed little clips of authors talking about their books. Something like the old Reading Rainbow book reports. The authors give little back stories to the books in order to entice you to buy their books. I liked the idea since I could hear about multiple books and decide if it sounded like something I would want to read. If it sounded boring, I could just click on the next author or book and listen to see if it was something interesting. On the page of video book clips that I looked at there were about 16 clips and there were about 2000 pages to view. I only looked at one page and it took me about 15 to 20 minutes to listen and pick the next clip. The reason I am sharing this is that out of the 16 clips I listened to 4 were clips of books relating to or having to do with dogs. These are recent books that are being marketed to the public. Imagine how many books there must be in those 2,000 pages of 16 clips each. That's 3200 new books and if there are 4 on each page that's 800 new books about or relating to dogs. How will I ever read all of them? Sometimes I get a wild hair and think that it would be great to write a book about Beeks and his adventures and relate his dog perspective to life in general. Given the plethora of dog books on the market it would have a flea's chance on a dog's back to make it. Think of all of the attention that the book Marley and Me has received and think of the odds it overcame in order to even get to the publishing stage. Amazing.

Anyway, let me share some of the book titles that look really interesting to me. You might want to check them out for good reads.

What a difference a dog makes by Dana Jennings
What a Difference a Dog Makes: Big Lessons on Life, Love and Healing from a Small Pooch (Hardcover) $13.57

Cowboy and Wills: A love story by Monica Holloway
$24.00

Love is the Best Medicine and Tell Me where it hurts by Dr. Nick Trout
Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles (Hardcover)$23.99

Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing, and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon (Paperback)$14.00

Saving Gracie
Saving Gracie: How one dog escaped the shadowy world of American puppy mills (Wiley; $21.95)by Carol Bradley

It has been raining on and off most of the day today so we have been spending a lot of time on the back screened-in porch. This place has something for everyone. The animals love to smell the outdoors, hear the birds, cars, and other animals in the area and feel the breeze on their faces. It really is a great place to be outdoors and yet out of the elements like rain. There is enough space here that I can sit and read or work on the computer and they can roughhouse or sit looking out at the chipmunks running around. All three of the animals, that is, Beeks, Max and Chez love to sit and look out, watching and listening for that unexpected sound,movement or smell. Beeks gets a little anxious when the thunder starts to roll and he moves closer to the inside door and to me. Max and Chez are unfazed. I have noticed that Chez will try to get out to the porch even when the rest of us are not out here because he can get closer to the things he really loves, little tiny moving creatures.

When the cycle of quiet returns, we seem to be in the still of the night without complete darkness. Max sleeps, Beeks quietly looks around and Chez hunches over as close to the screen as possible to see the "ground squirrel's" run down their holes nearest the house. All is well here, for the moment, until the dogs hear a nearby truck or kids walking down the lane, or the clap of loud thunder. Then let the ruckus begin!

So long for now, I'd better get started reading, so many books so little time. If you read a great dog book please let me know. It might just be the perfect Flea.

(42) Mixed Emotions or Dogs on the Run

On the Run
Its a good thing that Beeker gets his morning, afternoon, and evening romps and walks because he needs them. We take our walk-abouts in the morning, to see all the new growth and then in the afternoon he runs around the yard and woods. Again he runs around the yard when Brad gets home or after we take the "together" walk with Max and Brad. Its been windy, windy, windy, today but it has also been warm. Almost 80 degrees. The wind helpskeep me cool but with the dog's black hair it warms up fast. Max is most happy inside or in the garage on the cement floor. Beeks gets hot but cools down faster and is ready to go again. Smaller body and quicker recharge.

I was busy on the computer most of the day and Beeks was most willing to just hang ot in the hall way waiting for me to finish. He has about a 3 hour patience cycle and then he needs/wants some attention. He lets me know this by bringing me a toy and droping it in my lap. Today it worked out pretty well with my schedule and we both needed a break at the same time. Other times I have to put him off (see previous blog).

Is He or Isn't He?
I love both my dogs. Max is such a loving dog, he has those big eyes that really look at you and let you know he loves you back. Here's the thing. I spend a lot of time with Beeker outside off leash. Beeks follows me all over. If I go upstairs, so does Beeks. If I go into the kitchen, so does Beeks. I readily take Beeks with me whenever I run errands. I treat them both, when one gets a treat, I give the other one a treat. Both dogs sleep on the bed at night, however Max doesn't last long cuz its too hot for his Newfie self.
But I wonder, does Max (or any dog) get jelous? I know that jelousy is an emotion and emotions seem like a human trait. We have learned that animals cane feel fear, rage, curiosity(seeking or anticipation). So they do feel some "human" simular emotions. I know that Max gives me the "sad" eyes when I walk out the door with Beeks. Max is enthusiastic if he thinks that I am leaving the house. He will follow me and keep close to the door. He is giving me all of the signs that he is anticipating the outing and wants the adventure as much as Beeks until...the door opens and Beeks is called to leave. I can almost hear Max sigh with sadness. I find my self feeling aprehensive as I get ready to leave. sometimes I know that taking Max with us would be miserable for him, that he woudl be much more comfortable staying home, but still I wonder, am I just rationalizing? Am I the worst kind of dog owner, favoring one dog over the other? I certianly wouldn't favor one of my children over the other.

So after my own self inflicted guilt, I reexamine the situation and come up with these thoughts/rationalizations: (1.) Max has a different role(job)in our family, with different strengths from Beeker. (2.)Max has not proven himself as able to recall, or be socially behaved most of the time. (3.) Max is big and I am not able to control him if he decides to pull like a crazy dog. (4.)Max isn't always comfortable when we go out.
Again, these are my rationalizations. I know that I need to practice with Max alone, without Beeker but the question remains, does he get jelous when I take Beeks outside or show favoritism? Or does he just move on to the next moment and activity, like where the coolest place is in the house at the moment.

(41) April Showers Bring May Flowers (and Plants)

We had a whopper of a thunder storm this afternoon but it lasted only about 20 minutes and then the sun came out as the humidity rose. Beeker does not like thunder it turns out. As soon as the thunder boomed he lowered his ears and his body and crept to where I was standing. I tried to comfort him and to reassure him that the thunder would pass. Then t boomed again. This time he crept to where Max as laying in the laundry room but then his anxiety grew and he returned to where I was and crawled under the kitchen table so that he could see me and Max at the same time. I know that loud low noises can hurt a dog's ears so I felt sympathy for him. It was interesting to watch how his anxiety led him to roam around instead of hunkering down. He really was trying to find a place that would protect him and also to be near those (Max and Me) who could reassure him at the same time. Even after the sun came out and we readied to go outside, Beeks was still more anxious than normal. When we got outside and smelled that wonderful mix of dirt and rain, we both felt better. I don't think there is a better smell in nature than that of dirt after a new rain. To me that is nature at its best. What a great fresh smell. I guess Beeks thinks so too because he ran around the lot like a puppy (see pictures). As I have said before, We usually take a walkabout in the morning and in the evening. Today the difference of growth between the two walks in the same day was nothing but amazing(see pictures). I love this time of year when the April showers really do bring May flowers. I love watching each fern poke its tendrills up to the sun. I would swear that the growth is so fast right now that Beeks could hear it (being that his hearing is so good). He just can't get enough of the running and the pouncing in the woods. I allow him to run then after I walk further on, I call him to me and he (mostly)comes. My son use to call this,"attaching to the Mother Ship". Then off he goes.

Last week I purchased the Premier Twist and Treat toy for Beeks and have been filling it with Canidae Tiny Bits.Its basically the Canidae food in small treat sizes. This is the toy that the dog has to figure out how to twist the top and bottom of the saucer shaped toy in order to get the holes matched so that the treats will come out. The top and bottom of the saucer shaped toy screw into each other for filling. I shook it after I had placed treats in it and thought that since the top and bottom need to be lined up in order to let the treats out, Beeks would not be able to figure it out. I first gave him this toy in the car as something to do when we were going somewhere. I heard him working on it and then after about five minutes nothing. I assumed that he got bored trying to get the treats without success. That was that. When I got home and grabbed it to take it into the house I discovered that the toy was completely empty. Completely! The top and bottom halves were aligned and all of the treats were gone. POOF! I tried it again at home with the same results but I didn't watch him so the next time I am going to watch to see what his method is. I will report back.

Enjoy your rainy days and watching the green grow!

(40) The Feast de Resistance

It has been a wonderful Easter Day for all of us. We started the day by going to the Urbana Sculpture Garden for a walk. Beeks especially likes this park because there are new smells that he delights in finding when ever we go there. Today we noticed all of the beaver damage along the creek. Many trees have been chewed down and have created some dams along the way. The Park board has been working to unjam the creek and let the water begin to flow, but this continues to be an issue for this great park. So many trees downed and a lot of water backed up. Beeks is perfecting his art of rodent pouncing. At one point he looked like his cousin dog, Jesse James as he bounced in the tall grasses trying to catch some kind of critter. Jesse would have been proud.

When we got home, the dogs rested as Brad and I prepared for our egg hunt. It was fun to watch our neighbor girls play in their driveway in anticipation of the hunt. As you can see from the pictures, they wore their bunny ears for the event as well. They got excited as they came thru the path. Their eyes were looking to find all the colorful eggs we had placed in the yard. Before we would let them "go to it" we brought Beeker out for pictures. I'm not sure who was more skittish, Morgan and Maya or Beeker? A fun time was had by all, and all of the 46 eggs were found(We think).
The girls LOVE Chez so we decided to bring him outside after the hunt. He was so happy to just be out in the sun he didn't mind all of the attention he got. The cat does love the sun. I was surprised that as soon as the girls were finished with the hunt they were ready to explore our house. What I mean is that,I remember Easter Egg hunts, and when I was finished I wanted to see what was in my eggs, trade for other goodies and eat all the chocolate my parents would allow me. Not these girls. They were happy with the excitement of locating eggs and spending time outside. Then it was time to explore the house. Now, Morgan and Maya have favorite things to do when they come to visit my house and one of them is to play with all of my little tiny animals. I have turtles,frogs,birds,and lamas. Maya likes to line them up, play with them in imaginative ways. Today was no different. Shells are something else they like to play with. My shells get put to good use when the girls come to "Miss Sally's". Both Dogs settled down and the girls play together so well that we adults were able to spend time drinking coffee and talking! What a wonderful day.

Later Beeks and I played fetch and bring in the yard. Beeks likes to run after balls I throw but he doesn't especially like to bring them right back to me so he usually gets them and then lays in the yard looking at me sweetly. Therefore we have devised a system that allows a good game of bring and fetch. Beeks sits at a heel, I throw the ball, he fetches the ball and I call him back while holding a chew rope of another ball. He brings me back the ball so that he can get the rope. I throw the rope, he runs for the rope, I call him back, showing him the ball in my hand and so it goes. This works for him and I feel like he is following my command. It's a Win-Win situation. He's pretty worn out after about 7 rounds of this.

The feast de resistance for Beeks and Max today was the ham bones I gave them after I cut off the ham this afternoon. They were besides themselves as they sat hoping that a morsel would drop from the carving. When I actually got the ham cut and figured out that there was a nuckle bone attached to a part of the hip, I decided to give them each a little treat. A treat it was too. The drool was at full throttle by the time I got them outside. I sat watching them eat thinking, do you think they're happy or what? When they began to chew up the bone we took them away,with much resistance on their part. Both gave them up but with some trepidation on both of their parts.
This is about as good of a dog day as there can be.

(39) It's that Frisky Time of Year

Yea! We're done with the mulch and the pea gravel. We finished yesterday and it felt great to have worked hard in the hot sun. We finished just in time for the thunderstorm that came during the night. I'm glad that the rains came to settle the mulch and to see what happens in the dog fence. Turns out that everything worked great. When the rains finished this afternoon, the green of the grass and plants against the deep brown of the mulch was beautiful. Later after other home chores were finished, we decided to take the dogs for a walk before the sun set. Brad has been practicing having Max off leash in the yard with him and this has been working good, even with some neighborhood distractions. Anyway, we leashed up the dogs and left for our walk. It was nice to spend some together time since earlier we had been working on individual projects. Beeks has been pulling and not staying at a heel when he is on a leash, so we continue working on this issue. Max does great at a heel.

Everything was going fantastic on our quick walk until the rabbit appeared. He didn't come out of a hat and he wasn't delivering Easter eggs. Beeks was so focused on the rabbit that his head was jerking around to follow it. The silly rabbit hopped a few paces ahead then stopped and looked at us. Okay, this rabbit wasn't the smartest bunny in the warren. Beeker wasn't exactly shaking but he was over intent on the bunny's every move. I would think that the rabbit would run in the opposite direction when looking at two large prey animals. But...No. it just kept hopping in the same direction we were walking, almost like it was going on a walk with us. It hopped in front of us for nearly a half a block. Finally it went into a back yard as we turned the corner. It is Spring and all animals are feeling frisky.

Since it is Easter tomorrow, Beeeker is going to host an Easter Egg hunt for the neighborhood girls. This should be a fun time for all of us. I'll let you know.

(38)How Curious or I wish I had a Picture of That!

Happy Birthday Papa!

After loading up on groceries today I needed to stop at a number of other stores. Beeker was in his usual place in the back seat and I put all of the groceries in the trunk area. The trunk area in my Honda isn't really a trunk, but separated by the back seat. Two of the grocery items I purchased were a whole cooked chicken and a ham. Both were in the trunk area. Now, you may think you know where this is going, but you don't! When I left to go into the store, Beeks was NOT tethered. When I returned he was still in the back seat. He had not gotten in the back trunk area and no food was disturbed. So to push my luck I left him again untethered in the back seat when I went into the third store. Again nothing was amiss. So here is the question. Why does Beeker not leave the back seat in my car but does get out and become the thief in Brad's car? I have a theory. Here it is. Dogs and some other animals are highly detail oriented, or to put it another way extremely specific in their world views. They are not good at generalizations the way most people are. Being able to generalize is a higher brain function. So each encounter with their environment is specific. When Beeker was very young, and we had him just a week or so, I would take him in the car and put him in my front seat. We would go to the Vet's office or to the store and he would get sick during the ride. I learned fast to put him in the back seat. Now he doesn't get sick riding in the car. He always rides in the back seat of my car. Brad's car also but... In his mind, he has associated my front seat with getting sick and so doesn't go there. He knows where he is safe so he stays where he is comfortable. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

The Curious part...
As I was driving home from the store, down our lane, a diesel truck was stopped in the middle of the road. As I approached, it slowly moved on down to our circle and turned around. When approached the place where the truck was stopped, a TURKEY flew across the road in front of my car,to the other side. It was about 60 pounds, the size of Beeker. Turkeyzilla if you will. This is the second turkey I have seen in the same area, the first not as large,about 2 years ago. I was stunned. After I shook off the surprise of it, I tried to get Beeker's attention but he didn't see what was right in front of him. Silly dog. He kept looking out the side window. We will now need to name Turkeyzilla, since it's a sometimes resident.

George and Gracie Cooper's Hawk
We've been observing George and Gracie nest building in the early morning and not so much in the afternoons and evenings. In the morning they are busy coming and going with sticks and large twigs to improve their humble abode. As Brad mentioned to me, they keep working on the nest but its hard to see any improvement in it. I guess we aren't seeing it from a birds eye view. Yesterday evening as we were finishing up on the landscaping we did see one of them soaring overhead. On our walkabout this morning, Beeks and I didn't see any additional carnage so maybe the hunt doesn't happen every night, just every so often. I wonder if the turkey should be afraid? I guess since it is still wandering around after two years it must not fear hawks.

(37) Working like a Dog!

First, Sorry about the demon eyes on this picture. Daylight was going quick and my flash kept going flashing.

Every muscle in my body is sore but we were able to get all of the gravel into the dog run. Happiness is abounding! There were some highlights and some down turns but we finished the run and started in on the mulch. The highlights were that I was able to work with Beeks off lead as I pulled lawn carts full of gravel in and out of the dog run. His heels and recalls are really coming along. I'm so proud. A lady came walking in our cul-de-sac while Beeks was in a down stay and he didn't get up. He wanted to, his body was raised, but he stayed. I have decided that he does really good with lots of verbal praise. I think working short and frequent trainings works best for him as well. We are both learning.

Thoughts as I moved the rocks today:
While I was moving the rock from one place to another I had two reoccurring thoughts. The first was: Where are those two boys that I labored over for 9 months, when I need them? I thought we had children to help with these laborious jobs. The other thought was that I felt like the indentured workers that know how to take small tiny steps so that they don't injure themselves on their large over sized burdens. They are hunched over and are conserving their energy because they know they have many more trips ahead. I felt akin to them today. I learned the hard way that I needed to raise the bucket up high enough so that the non wheel end does not scrape my ankle or heal. Yes, it did hurt.

My Thievin' Dog Part II
Yesterday before the mulch was delivered I made some chicken salad and took it to my room to enjoy my lunch before I went outside to work. I placed the salad on my side table and then went to the bathroom. When I returned(not 2 minutes later) my thievin' dog was dragging a piece of bread off the bowl to the ground. Now, I was not really surprised but all the same, I did catch him red handed, so I admonished him by saying ,"Beeker! Bad Dog! Kennel Up!" He looked at me, with his tail between his legs and his ears down and walked into the kitchen to the laundry room (his kennel). Just like that! Brilliant! Sneeky but brilliant. He's not called Sneeky Beeky for nothing!

Chicken Hawk Update (Cooper's Hawk)
We have seen both hawks and they are still working on the nest. While I was out shoveling rocks, one of the hawks was making large arcs over head in the morning breeze. It's great to see the striped underbelly of the hawk as it flies. We have decided to name our resident hawks. Gracie and George. We hope they stay for a while. Once when a bat made its home in our front overhang during a rainy week we named her Beatrice. I think naming our short term guests helps us think of them in a hospitable, welcoming way. Part of the Fam.

Well, sleep will feel good tonight and there is more work for tomorrow. It felt good to be outside in the warm sun completing a project. More tomorrow.