Happy Birthday You Old Dog!
Mood:  special
Topic: Reilly
Happy Birthday, Reilly: my sidekick, my teammate, my companion. You are three today- and I learn a lot from you every year, and I see a lot of nature because of you that i have not noticed as much since I have become an adult. Thank you! I enjoy your cookie dance when you want to play, I love that you don't bite me when we wrestle, I am proud of you for trying swimming even though you aren't sure if you like it. I hope in the next year you will continue to be healthy and safe and strong. I will stick with you and you will stick with me and we'll go camping and hike in Vermont with our whole family wolfpack. Thank you for being my good dog. I am proud of you and I love you.

Itchy Ears
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Reilly
Rei has an ear infection in her left ear. I flushed them out this morning because I knew she had been itchy lately. I cleaned her ears with cotton balls and the left one had lots of 'debris'- which to me always sounds like sticks and leaves, but in vet terms means "black ear crud." Luckily I still have her Tresaderm from her last ear infection. She has little ears and they are semi-rose so you'd think she has enough airflow but I guess not. The vet thinks its allergies. I didnt think it was springtimey enough for allergies but I must be wrong...

update- HA! I caught the little bastids in time! Early ear infection- nothing heavy duty, just cleaning every other day and tresaderm. This is a coup for me because last time I didnt catch a clue until she was scratching her ears and harming them. Apparently I am learning something, since I can tell a dog with bacteria in her ears when its still only a FEW. I feel really bad when I am stupid about pet care. Have faith Rei, I am getting better!

Poor Reilly became scared when the vet's thermometer began to beep that it was done registering. The beeping sounds a lot like the Invisible Fence collar. I gave her my fence-safe command, "On Leash" and she stopped tucking her tail.

In the waiting room, we met first two young women with fashionable flared jeans, large handbags, studded belts and shiny dark glasses. They petted Rei, but did not speak. Later I saw that they had a tiny orange puffball of a toy dog (a pomeranian maybe?) sticking his head out of her large pink furry tote bag. In that furry bag, Rei would DEFINITELY have a different interpretation to the term Toy Dog.

We met a very sweet boxer with a young soft face and a big boxer smile. Rei liked him. And a Real (pitbull to some of you) Staffie, who was a cutie. Same exact ears as Reilly, but overall shorter, broader and smoother with a pointy tail and a bigger head with a shorter snout. He had beautiful patches - not brindle- and he was afraid of the vets and lay down on his belly and put his chin down. He sealed his body to the floor and rolled his eyes up to look at his owner above him- "Do I HAVE to?" She eventually picked him up under the armpits and hauled him in to the exam room. He was mild and funny and I think really wished he could stay in the waiting room and play with the cocker spaniel in the corner. I wished that I could meet him, but we were paying at the counter and they were trying to get him to the room.

TidBits
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: nobody told me there'd be days like these
Topic: Reilly
Yesterday began February vacation for Raye. So to kick things off on a proper note, we drove to Yale to see the dinosaur bones- any first grader's dream! Of course the exhibits held far more excited children and weary adults than it was designed to hold and we became worm out and sick of people after a short time. Happily the dinosaurs were the first hall and we spent lots of time in there before the place became not fun to be in anymore. I am SO happy my daughter is almost 7 and doesnt scream in crowded museums.

Most first graders will matter of factly inform people of my generation and older that there is actually no such thing as Brontosaurus anymore, that there was a mistake and Brontosaurus ("thunder lizard" we hardly knew ye) is now called Apatosaurus ("deceptive lizard"- not as inspiring). This museum holds the only fossils named Brontosaurus in the world. The Yale scientist who collected and named Brontosaurus had only a few bones to go by at the time. Upon recieving a big box of more bones, he realized that this was actually Apatosaurus after all and that it was the same species exhibiting a phenomenon of bone-fusing as it matured and not a separate dino after all. Interestingly, one can name individual fossils, so the skeleton at Yale is Brontosaurus the Apatosaurus.

Interestingly, fossil dino tracks have their own names, independent from the name of the creature that made them. So if Brontosaurus the Apatosaurus walked across the mud flats of contemporary Connecticut, his tracks are not called "Apatosaurus tracks" but "eobrontes" or something like that. I am not sure what the names are because our tour of dinosaur places-to-go was cut short when we discovered that dinosaur tracks state park was not open on Mondays.

This week Raye will be joining Reilly and I at the field for a Pack of Three. Even though it was below freezing today, I heard no complaints out of the girl the whole walk, because she was hurrying about, playing that we were under a swamp.

When Rei and I went to the field on Saturday we parked in the lot near The Building- plenty of spaces. We noticed a bright red hummer pull ON the grass IN the field, just inside the gate. the driver got out, let his dog out - a Keeshond? -fluffy grey spitz type- and stood next to his vehicle talking on his cell phone. He did not walk around the field. He did not drive around on the field. He just put his shiny truck on the grass enough to show that he could, and furthermore WOULD, but wasn't interested in the community. The dog sniffed around, neither of them interacted with anybody, then they hopped back in their ostentatious vehicle and left.

I thought about how hard those of who use the field daily try to keep it picked up, and observe the courtesies of community and sociability. This Hummer guy drove INTO the field solely so his dog could leave a pile and nothing more. He did not have to park with the commoners, nor did he have to risk conversation and connection by having to walk from the parking area around to the gate into the hayfield. He did not pick up. I am appalled.

I feel a strange relief that Mitch failed the good dog test. I feel at this moment a security that even if some days are boring socially, that Reilly has it very good and is quite fulfilled as an only dog. She has me. Even if I can't wrestle as well as a dog, she doesn't care one bit and wants to play with me very much anyway. It kindof hit me when I reread a page in one of my dog books: "Don't get a second dog as a companion for the first, or expect that you will need to play with your dog less because he has a companion- it's YOU they both want."

I was worried that Rei would become less my Familiar and just one of The Dogs. I don't know if that would happen, but I really only have enough alone time for each Jeff, Me, Raye and Rei and a minute of two here and there for each cat. I cannot have two Familiars. She is Chrys' Dog, Reilly. and I am Reilly's Owner, Chrystal. I did not want to compromise depth of connection with Rei for a larger pack. I did not want to change the things Rei and I do together, the places we can go, the quiet way we can communicate as we hike, or that she sleeps at the foot of my bed. (Jeff points out that 2 dogs in the bedroom is too many for him.) I think Rei is just the right number of dogs for us. We will go camping this summer and Rei will come with us, and I have great confidence that she will be trusty and good and we will all have a good time sleeping in the tent.

Teddy Ball
Mood:  lucky
Now Playing: snow day
Topic: Reilly
Rei is curled up asleep on her bed in my studio. She is curled in a round ball, and tucked in the space under her neck and enclosed by her foreleg is her fleecey ball. Like a teddy bear. She looks pretty happy. Her eyes are rollng around beneath their lids, her muscles twitch now and then. She is dreaming, cuddling her ball.

It seems weird that a dog would have a teddy bear, but she does. It can be a different toy, but always something round and fleecey. She always greets anyone coming through the door with her fleecy toy in her mouth, even barking around it Wrlph! Wrlph! Is it a security blanket? Is she a canine Linus? Is she merely showing some predatory thing by presenting soft toys to us? Is she showng us her retriever heritage by carrying a toy on walks? around the house, upstairs to bed?

The puppy book said that after a while your dog will let you know what toys to stock. It said to keep many of the same type of toy. At the time I thought that seemed excessive, after all my childhood dog, Fred, didnt have any toys. My dad gave her such a scare when he caught her chewing up our fisher price farm animals that for the rest of her days you could not even give her a rawhide to chew. She would take it politely and drop it. No, thank you.

For Reilly, all the rubber and rope toys have been left by the wayside. she likes Fleecey toys, nylabones, her fleecey tug, and her kong ball (but only because it delivers peanut butter, treats or toothpaste). Squeaky vinyl dinosaur- nope. Knotted rope- no thanks. Her soft rat, flecce balls, plush color ball and cured beef tendons are what she likes. Even Canvas Kitty- whom we call the Bad Guy, so we can still call our real cats Kitty- is second to the furrier toys. Canvas tug is good, but she's happy to play tug o war with a stuffed animal, too.

know thy dog.

This cuddling of the ball is interesting to me because it is like hugging, and i just finished reading a book that says hugging is a primate behavior that dogs don't really like. On second glance it may make sense though- she doesn't love the ball in an endearing way: possibly it is her 'prey' and she can enclose it, and possess it, she is the master of it. She does not want me to enclose or possess her, to envelop her, dominate her. We are hiking buddies, off leash and free.

Yesterday we hiked at the golf course in the snow. It was deep heavy snow that eventually began to stick to my snowshoes. which is less fun. It is neat to walk a snow covered golf course, the sand traps and mounds make the terrain interesting. The cattails are all that indicate the water hazards.

The day before we walked quite far, down the golf course to the woods, to the powerlines, along the powerlines to an empty field entirely surrounded by woods. It must be cut by someone or it'd all be trees. Yet it is not adjacent to any farm. The powerlines run across it, and its edges are bordered by old stonewalls and brush. It is a secret hayfield. When I began to feel that we had been away long enough we headed back home along the powerlines and discovered a well-cut path along a stone wall that led into the woods behind the houses on Keith hill. It is remarkable just how covered with stonewalls this area is, and noone remembers what each divided section was. There is a book Stone By Stone about NE stone walls that I should really pick up. Here is Rei on what looks like a ski hill, but is actually the 5th green.

Mouse Huntin'
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: Cosmic Dare- the Seatbelts
Topic: Reilly
Yes, It's fun and all, till they actually catch something. Usually she gets nothing, but Reilly had a highly successful hunt this morning. She found a whole nest of fat little meadow voles and killed 5 of them. I am sorry to say she ate at least one whole vole and a half of another, possibly more. It wasn't a pretty sight.

She dug and whuffled and became very excited and dug some more. Raye and I were excited to see her digging and making snorting sounds as she went. Her head was in the soil, alternating with her large paws for digging, then back in for a sniff and a listen. Then she made a huge whoosh with her mouth as if she was trying to vacuum them out, dug some more, vacuumed again and then pulled a mouthful of 3 squirming furry things and shook them. She dropped them and shook them to death individually and bit them up for good measure, then went in for the others. I looked in the hole and noticed the rump of one alive. I covered the opening with my boot so maybe Rei would be satisfied and leave it, but the vole ran out of the hole right at Reilly, who was neatly biting a mouse in half, took a left into a grass tunnel and disappeared. Raye and I agreed to not make excited noises or Rei would look for it. We tried to get Rei to leave the hole, but she found two more and swallowed one whole. Ick. We saw the escapee vole running off over the remaining patches of snow, "Don't point or she'll see." reminded Raye. So I didn't. 5 mice down and 1 escaped. We leashed Reilly and dragged her back to the car, she disappointed because was enjoying herself and wanted to hunt a lot more and me thinking: I hope she doesn't puke up a mouse in my car.

Although she's seen similar on tv nature shows, I felt weird watching this hunt-and-kill live with Raye- on one hand I don't think it's cool for little girls to see mice bitten in half, have their guts shaken out, hear squeaks and watch little squirming legs and tails struggle between the powerful jaws of our beloved furry pal. "Ew! A GUT!" (where?!) "There! on that leaf- oops, No! don't point!" On the other, bigger hand, several points: she was just as excited as Reilly was until the graphic guts-a-flying, legs a-squirming part. In fact, afterwards Raye was telling Reilly that she would give her a hunting badge, no, THREE hunting badges!! Our dear little pussy cats kill little rodents all the time and we still love them. Would we stop them if we caught them? I seem to remember spraying the cat with the hose when she came home with a live baby rabbit once. I think its just the reality of living closely with predators. I do not sic Reilly on prey animals, but if she gets one, I am torn between saying Hey, no- give that here (ie. the baby rabbits last summer, but that's another story) and saying Ok, but if you catch it and kill it, you better EAT it! "Take what you like, but eat all you take" thing I guess... although I have mixed feelings about her actually eating voles, and this is why good dog toys are so great and preferable for health and mess reasons.

Pet cats hunt because it is fun, not because they are hungry. Its what predators do. Reilly isn't starving either, but it seems to give her great delight to sniff, track and dig out a tasty snack or, in today's case, a uh- six-pack of snacks. On another hand, I actually feel kindof proud of her for being a successful hunter. I am reminded of Farley Mowat, observing the wolves catching mice and voles, which it turns out make up quite a large percent of their diet- not the large ungulates- and trying to catch them himself which was hard.

It's just what happens- as you have read I meet all sorts of dead things out in the world. But recent field rumors are that one of the springers got worms from eating mice at the field. It's also very likely from putting her nose everywhere other dogs go. Many dogs hunt mice at the field with no ill effects: Tessa has quite a bit of beagle in her and as such becomes quite possessed with hunting, and Kevin Number One has a cute story about how Fitz was catching mice in the snow and giving them to Pete and Cooper to eat two winters ago. I suppose I would rather have her catching and eating live prey than eating and rolling in dead stuff. Nevertheless, I feel a bit reserved in my eagerness for dog kisses today as a result...

Guest Free
Mood:  party time!
Topic: Reilly
Three days from Christmas and we are guest-free. In fact at the moment it is just me and my Rei. Raye is at school, Jeff is at work and our second wave of Pennsylvania guests have hit the road. It's time to to shower, clean up this place, remember what I got people for christmas, see if the last batch of christmas cards have dried yet- we print linocuts on my press, this year's batch are not the best, but they are fine.

Rei and I have been to the field exactly one time this week. We have walked at the golf course and just locally when it was very cold. The golf course was a good walk, lots of deer evidence, and the sculpted greens and hollows and hazards make for fun exploring. I cut cattails and Rei skated on the water hazard. She sniffed footprints and hunted mice.

It is fun to watch her hunt: nosing, whuffling along, lifting her head, raising her ears and then leaping with all 4 legs at once like a goat- spring, spring, POUNCE! She stuffs her whole face in the snow and whuffles some more, tail swinging wildly, then stops. Raises her head and blows the snow out of her nose. A quick shake and she begins nosing some more.

While the babies visiting us were crying last night, Rei was not sure what to do. She walked to them, she walked to me, she wagged her tail. She seemed stressed. Nervous about her whippy tail hitting the kids in the eyes or head, I put her in a down, and she complied with no question, no hesitation beside me. I know if I got up she would naturally follow me, so I asked Raye to get her a nylabone, and she lay there in her down and chomped her bone. She is a good dog. Kelly observed her attention and how she sticks with me and said Look at her- she just loves you so much.

I was delighted to hear that from someone outside of us, and a veteran dog person like Kelly- who has always had dogs and to whom I defer in matters canine. I have felt rejected by Reilly as I got to know her when she doesn't want me to pat her or to sit next to her too closely, but I can see that she feels great joy in being with me when we are exploring outside together, or when she greets me. I know Rei looks to me and enjoys me, if she can love me I am sure she does. The book I am reading reminds us that dogs arent rapturously in love with us every minute, and we all want love and affection at certain times but not others. I am glad Rei is not a needy dog, and I think in times of doubt or distance I need to remind myself that she is my trekking pal, that she waits for me to come home from hockey before she will go upstairs, that she wants to come with every time I leave the house, or go to another part of the house, that she only plays with me. That she is not a dog just ANYONE can read. She has the most understanding with me. I know what she loves- to RUN, to wrestle, and to be near me. She loves to visit the ladies at the bank or the store, and the dogs at the field or in the neighborhood. She loves Cody and Hobey and Hazel, McTavish and Harley. She loves cookies, and little scraps of meat, she loves gentle time when it IS gentle time and she does ask for tummy rubs, but not in the same way that other dogs do. She's not really aloof, she is subtle.
Not a quick study, not an open book, not overly publicly demonstrative. Maybe not unlike me. She is MY dog, my friend and I need to remember that I DO understand her and relax and enjoy her.

She is an artist's dog. She shows me things I would have missed without her, I go places I would not go without her. She makes me want to write and draw more- and it should be noted that you can have all the skill and craftsmanship in the world, but if you have nothing to write or draw about it is all for naught. "If I should speak with the tongues of all the angels, but have not love, I am no more than sounding gongs and tinkling cymbals."
My muse has now had enough of me sitting still, clicking and blogging and is pressing a fleecey ball into my leg, so I must go!

the ascension of Reilly
Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: and through the wire
Topic: Reilly
Yesterday was a rainy day, so our field trip was brief. We met Hobey and Bear for company, but Rei really rebuffed Bear- she showed her teeth and huffed at him when he came over. Bear IS a very large male, but he is old and grey-faced and has had surgery on both back legs. He has only a stump of a tail and he is not a high-carrying dog. I am not sure why she reacted so strongly to such a mild dog. Maybe she was in a mood. Maybe she is adjusting her rank.

We met K2 and Tom today with their 2 and 2 dogs, all males. Reilly enjoyed running with them, especially McTavish who is young and likes to play. Duncan is old and sticks close by Tom. Duncan doesn't take any crap, but he is efficient and doesn't bother with situations that don't absolutely require his action.

Pete and Cooper discovered a buck at the field shortly before I arrived. Of course they had taken off after it and while Pete realized quickly that he'd never catch the fleet animal, Cooper was insistent on filling the freezer and took some time to return, K2 said. Meeting a deer did not surprise me, since two days ago Kevin Number One and I found lots of deer tracks ("spoor" as they say in Africa, said Kevin Number One, who has been there and touched elephants) along the path at the bottom of the field. That Cooper did not catch it did not surprise me, but that it was out so late in the day (8:30am is past the 'witching hour' for deer) does. I wish I had seen it- antlers and everything. Maybe I will be so lucky another day this week. I had three crossing my back woods in a big hurry on Friday, but I saw them out the window, which is not the same as being outside.

After those guys left, I caught up to Karen and Hobey - which delighted Reilly, since they play really wild together- and then met Marco the dark poodle. Marco is known to be a dog not every dog gets along with, though Rei and Hobes have not fought with him (they don't seem to fight, luckily). He is a standard size and thus the same height as the other two, but lighter and springy and with a newly-coiffed poodley-hairdo. He was delighted to see the female dogs and bounced all around them. They kept their fronts to him and showed their teeth if he tried to sniff their behinds or get behind them at all. Marcos owner did not mind the girls showing their teeth and said they were cute and that Marco deserved it if they chased him off. She said that Marco wants every dog to play with him whether they want to or not. This is what gets him in trouble.

He is kindof like a child who is not getting enough attention and acts overly silly and annoying to get some. In fact by the time we were on the last leg of the field, yards from the cars, Karen let her son Josh down to walk and leashed Hobey, who kissed Josh and showed her teeth to Marco and tried to run him off away from Josh. Marco thought this was fun and showed his teeth to Hobey and frisked and flitted around the group to agitate the leashed Hobey. Marco's owner recgnized this was a recipe for bad things and called him away and together they ran to the car.

Reilly continues to flash teeth at annoying or intimidating dogs to say "stay back from me". She showed them to Marco many times today. She still wanted to play with Hobey but so did Marco, and he was fast enough to keep up with the girls. He was an intrusive third wheel and when Rei and Hobey began to wrestle and Hobey rolled on the ground to show her belly, Rei couldn't tackle her because Marco either was going to first, or she pulled back because she did not want to have to expose her back to Marco. Both girls snarled at him, he leaped back but did not really care and watched for them to begin to run or play again.

Rei is only two and a half years old, but I think she is finding herself as an adult now. Where she used to feel fear and show helplessness and submission, she now sticks up for herself when she is afraid. The behaviorist that I spoke to when Kaylee was here had said that I should not scold Reilly for sticking up for herself, to allow her to handle her own social interactions and experience the success of being able to take care of herself with all other dogs. Not that I ever coddled her but as a reflective new dog owner with a big brindle dog so frequently mistaken for a "pit bull" I was overly concerned with her PR. Maybe this anxiety on my part that no other humans just assume I had a mean dog rubbed off on Reilly and did not help her confidence early on.

Rei is ascending at home as well. She has been sleeping in the bedroom for a month now. I kicked the cats out, partly due to Loki's sickness and partly due to the discovery that with no cats in the bedroom I become less congested at night and sleep better. I think this move may have vaulted Reilly over the cats, who used to sleep not only in the bedroom where Rei was not permitted but on the bed with us. Now Rei is in the bedroom but the cats are shut out.

Generally the cats and Reilly leave each other alone, but lately Rei has chased the cats from getting too close to her food dish. In the past, Loki has crunched a few of Rei's nuggets. With her increased access to upstairs, Rei has discovered that the cats' food tastes good and that they don't defend it. (So I have to make sure they finish.) I gave Rei a starch bone a few days ago, and held it while she gnawed. After a few minutes I got tired of that and let her have the whole thing. She stayed next to me chomping. Loki came in, walked between us, I petted her and she went beside Reilly to sniff her side, Rei turned her head and raised her lips to show Loki her teeth, but Loki didn't seem to notice. She sniffed Reilly again and Rei turned again and HUFFED at her, Loki leaped aside and swiped her paw in the air before hopping up on the couch to groom herself.

Cody's Movies
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Reilly
We just finished watching "The Wrong Trousers" and jeff is upstairs putting Raye to bed. I rewinded?, rewound the video, ejected it, and brought down the boxes to slip the video back into. Reilly smelled the boxes and jumped to her feet to get a better sniff- then she became very excited!!
I let her sniff the box the three video boxes fit into and she was delighted, stuffed her snout all the way inside the box and wagged her tail and danced her legs. She pulled out her snout, gave me the happy face, hurriedly grabbed the nearest toy, ran to the door and BARKED!

"Those are CODY's Movies!!! Is he HERE?!!! He's in the driveway, right??"

no, he wasn't. We won't see Cody again for a few more weeks TBD.

things my dog has shown me
Mood:  bright
Topic: Reilly
It was two Thanksgivings ago, that is, two years ago on Thanksgiving when my dog and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant...well, no.

It WAS two thanksgivings ago, and Reilly and I went walking up on the cornfield-turning-golf course/minicastle development. It was freezing cold and bleak and early in the morning, the sky was white. We crossed the green and walked on the track the big dump trucks were using to get to the spot where they dumped rock and soil and gravel, each in its appropriate tremendous mound, We passed some green pvc pipes and a pile of 2x6s stacked up.

Reilly, being a young puppy at the time, liked to sniff and explore the tall dead grasses, the pipes, the piles, the 2x6s and the large concrete cylinders that were used for manholes. Being a relaxed sort of person out for a walk on a silent thanksgiving morning before anyone was really up yet to begin fussing with turkeys and so forth, I let her. The 2x6s were warping in the cold and because they were not stacked too perfectly to begin with - and had likely been stacked exactly that way all summer long as well- there was a long hole in the stack that Reilly was interested in, a chattering sound coming out. I checked it out too, because, while I am interested in her hunting skills, I feel responsible to keep her from getting into trouble and to keep small critters from getting into trouble with her. I didn't see anything between the 2x6s, but as I stood up again I saw a small weasel sticking its head out of another space in the stack.

I have lived here for all but 10 of my 34 years and I have never seen a weasel of any kind on this hill, so this was quite a treat. It was brave and small, and unafraid and very chipper. Reilly was happy to watch it, and did not try to pounce on it. We watched it play peek aboo with us in the 2x6s for a while, and then I left it a tiny dog cookie, a charlie bear. We stumped back home, where my family was still warm in bed, and declared how exciting it had been to enjoy a weasel this morning before anything even happened.
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I spotted another weasel back in the spring while waiting for Raye's bus with Reilly on a dark, rainy tuesday afternoon. It must have been March becasue it was still pretty cold and dark for 4pm. We stood there waiting, fairly well shut down, waiting. No cars either way on the farm road we live off of- two roads off of, technically- dark. rainy. From the corner of my eye, i see a black shape lumping across the road, That's a big cat, I thought. No, its back and tail look like an otter- but there are no otters on top of Keith Hill, probably no otters in the streams at the bottom of it either. It went directly across the road and slipped through the old white gate in the stone wall into the Prescott Woods.

I looked at Reilly, she missed the whole thing. I had not wanted to point it out to her because she can get inspired and bolt after wild creatures, so with the fisher cat safely melted into the woods across the road I walked her over to sniff at its trail which she found extremely interesting, until the bus came. For that's what it was, a fisher, and I remembered my brother showing us the skin of one he had found dead on the road and - being the kind of guy he is- he had got out, looked around, and tossed it in the back of his truck, took it home and skinned it so he could cure its fur and show my daughter. Recently I learned that in some states you cannot legally posess wild game just any old time for any old reason. I don't know if you can pick up roadkill in Massachusetts or not.
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Roadkill chili

Kathy Springer mentioned today that something or other was happening "only two months away, in January" and that caught me by surprise because I cannot see beyond Christmas once Halloween has come and gone. The week between Christmas and New Years is sort of the time it takes to flip the page of the calendar from December to January, sort of dead-time that doesnt count, a heavy digestive sigh, and then on January 2 you start back at the top of the long annual strip of paper that is the year. All new and crisp, not dogeared and messy. At Christmas and the Free Days that acompany Christmas where you have Christmas do-overs because wihtout sleighs and reindeer, you can't possibly see everyone you need to see before the year ends in one event, you sort of 'tag' and account for everyone you know. Its like taking stock- and Christmas cards is taking stock- who goes on the list, who comes off, who has moved, had babies, who has died. Its also a little creepy to think of this accounting for everyone you know at the end of every year. I suppose if you bother to write meaningful correspondence in each card, then you are also taking stock of your own year and how to parse the events appropriately to near and sundry. We just write " Happy holidays," or "Seasons Greetings" to our secular friends and "Merry Christmas" to those, such as my mother, who prefer a more spiritually relevant message.

Christmas eve is always at Mom's house- and my brother is there, and its on e of the few times I get to see him at length and in a do-nothing setting. It was probably Christmas when he brought the fisher pelt for young Raye to see. Last year we met his girlfriend (now wife) Sara, and had hors d'ourves accompanied by their favorite wine- which I've forgotten because I don't like wine. Aaron also brought a large bowl of chili and some nacho chips for dipping. "Road Kill Chili" he said when asked, giggling, "Turkey." "Really?! uh, well, it IS very good," i said, "did you shoot it?" I am very supportive of his hunting, and happy to share in the spoils. "Not exactly' he said. Sara gave me a sideglance. "Oh, right- roadkill, so it was dead on the road?!" I said, feeling that the chili was too good to be from such a disgusting beginning.

"No, not really that either." he said, "I hit it with my truck."
Sara indicated that he sort of made sure he hit it with the truck by swerving a little. We joked about him driving off road to chase it down, but I guess he only had to go a bit to the side and caught it a glancing blow such that it staggered into the woods. damn. He can't leave it like that. He fished around in the truck and found a hammer, followed the turkey and finished the job. Took it home and cleaned it, made chili for Christmas Eve appetizers at mom's. For the record, it WAS excellent. and no birdshot to look out for.
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I was four years old for most of 1976, my birthday being november 13th and exactly 13 days after my mother's due date of Halloween 1971. The bicentennial was a fun year to be four, I had a jean jacket with an American flag patch on it and a yellow smiliey face patch which back then was "have a nice day" but which my own 6 year old daughter unfortunately thinks is the Wal-Mart logo. (to her credit, she dislikes Wal-Mart, preferring Target instead- I use my parental influence a little bit there, and damn, I admit it!) Lots of consumer products were in a celebratory mood and it seemed like we were always sending away for stickers or getting things in the mail from foods I liked, such as the silver-plated Spaghetti-O's spoon I still own. From specially-marked boxes of Hendrie's Ice Cream Sandwiches, I collected "IQ Cards" which were lenticular cards of things such as camouflage effects of tiger stripes in the grass, or the inners and outers of volcanoes. One of these was a fantastic color of bluish purple and changed from a night sky over a mountainside to show the norhtern lights when you tipped it. I loved to tip it and flash the Aurora Borealis on and off and I kept that to this day- its here in the studio.

Well, probably because I flicked it too fast, my IQ Card of the Aurora Borealis did not accurately prepare me for encountering the real thing last winter when unusual solar storms caused the lights to be seen much further south than is typical. I had to take puppy Reilly outside when we were watching a movie, and I was still getting used to all the ins and outs of owning a dog. Going out - AGAIN- to pee. So we walked up the street and I noticed the sky was red in one direction, red like clouds, but no, more like streaks. They were not reflective like clouds, but light in and of themselves, and as I stood still, they slowly changed. Much more slowly than my lenticular card, or the double-time films you see on nature shows. When I was sure that I was looking at the Northern Lights, I went home to get Jeff, but the lights were almost faded away when he came out. If i had not been prompted by Reilly to get outside, I would have missed them completely. I wonder how much else I have missed for not owning a dog? Or how much people who do own dogs, but just let them out the door into the yard and go back inside, miss?

footnote on estrogen incontinence in dogues
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Reilly
Yes, Reilly is 2 years old and incontinent. We control her incontinence with drugs- Proin, which is made of phenylpropenalamine? something like that- that they used to use in powerful human decongestants but now is used as an estrogen replacement in dogs. Reilly takes her conveniently meat-flavored (so she says) chewables twice a day and lives normally and dryly. Without the estrogen, her bladder sphincter muscles lose their muscle tone and cannot stay closed, causing her to leak small amounts of urine in her sleep. This happens to spayed female dogs - a study I read says 20%- but usually doesn't show up until they are older, Rei began leaking at 8 months old.

As a Puppy Underground RR dog, she was brought to Massachusetts from Virginia at the age of 12 weeks and spayed immediately at the shelter, which doesn't let any puppies out of its sight unless they are spayed or neutered. This is called in vet circles "Early spay or neuter" since the prior recommendation was to wait till the puppies had grown some more- 5 or 6 months before performing the surgery. Most of what I have read re: safety of ESN lists concerns about puppies' ability to endure anesthesia at various ages and to heal from the surgery successfully, both of which seem to be proven as OK at the earlier age. What I question is the hormonal OKAYness of puppies by spaying ("ovario-hysterectomy"- ovaries and uterus are removed) them so early, since hormones produced by the removed organs are still needed for development and in Reilly's case, normal operation of systems. Since Reilly's body does not produce enough estrogen naturally to keep her urogenital system strong enough to control her pee, she leaks without hormone supplementation.

Reilly's best vet said, choosing words carefully, that there's "No good science" at the time that will say that early spaying can be the cause of estrogen incontinence, but this isn't good enough for me. If we consider removing the source of hormones from a human child, could you expect him or her to develop without any deficiency? Reilly is a good dog, and has grown big and strong, but I prefer the policy of the shelter we got our cats from, which give you a surgery voucher for free spaying when the cat is old enough. Obviously Rei's shelter knows that people get lazy or can't find the $ or the time and want to keep unwanted puppies from happening. I respect the motive, but I'd choose a different source of pups next time so I might spare my pup a medicated life.

I keep Rei on the smallest dose that works, and there is room to increase it if it becomes ineffective, which our vet warned that it may someday. When proin is no longer effective, we move to DES, which they used to give to women in the 50's and 60's, but the catch with that one is that it can impair function of the dogs' bone marrow, so we hope it will be a long time before we have to ever go to that. I am left to wonder if this would happen to Reilly if she had been spayed at a reasonable age, such as 5 or 6 months old. I wonder how many other dogs from the shelter have this problem- when I picked up Rei's scrip at the vet's a few months ago the woman at the desk said, "Can I ask what this is for?" I said incontinence, she said, "it seems like SO many people come in for this."