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| Photo by Laurie Haines at Maine Nature Greyhounds |
Showing posts with label Walks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walks. Show all posts
9.16.2012
Black Dogs Can't Jump
This year I find myself in the position of needing to use up some vacation time or face losing it at the end of the year, so I took this past Friday off and decided to take the pups for a walk on the Lisbon Paper Mill Trail near where we live. This is a lovely paved trail through some beautiful woods that follows along the Androscoggin River. It’s fabulously cool on a warm day and surprisingly beautiful.
Blue and Bettina aren’t in racing shape by any means but this trail is only 1.6 miles total, out and back. We’ve walked it once before and we all agreed it was a wonderful walk for three couch potatoes. On Friday, I collected a couple poop bags from the convenient dispenser and off we went.
Since it was early afternoon, we had the trail mostly to ourselves. At several points we ventured off on side trails that allowed access to the river. The kids had a great time investigating the forest floor and rivers edge trying to find the squirrels and chipmunks who constantly scolded us the entire length of our journey.
At one point we came face to face with a garter snake who decided to test his luck by setting out from one side of the trail to the other directly in front of us. The snake was painfully visible on the paved path and his sinuous movement could not be missed by two sight hounds programmed by thousands of years of evolution to take notice of the slightest movement.
My initial reaction at the sight of the snake was fear. Not because I’m afraid of snakes, but because my first greyhound Girly Girl had a visceral hate of all things herpetological. Before I understood this bitter hatred she harbored, I once directed her attention to a garter snake sunning itself on a concrete block by our barn. This was early in my life with greyhounds and I clearly missed every signal of a predator stalking its mortal enemy with malice and intent to kill. Before I even realized what was happening she struck at the snake, grabbed it by the tail and whipped it around so violently that it tore apart leaving a section in the grass near us while she flung the rest of the hapless snake the entire length the barn and into the woods beyond.
She was coursing with so much adrenaline after this encounter it took everything in me to pull her back from the sad bit of innocent snake that remained in the grass in front of her. With this thought very fresh in my mind I white knuckled both Blue and Bettina’s leashes and cautiously let them investigate the snake from a safe distance (safe for the snake since the guilt over the death of the last poor snake still weighs heavily on my conscience). Blue did the greyhound equivalent of shrugging his shoulders and turned back to sniff the shrubs along the side of the trail. Bettina followed after the snake a bit, possibly trying to figure out what it was but more likely ensuring it wasn’t something edible. She determined it was not edible and thus, of absolutely no interest whatsoever.
We continued our stroll and by the time we reached the end of the trail and turned to come back both kids had tongues hanging out and behinds dragging. I was surprised that Blue was struggling because he usually loves a good walk and has made it greater distances than this trail presented. Bettina did not surprise me at all. Every walk with her includes some sort of drama. Either she is tired and puts the brakes on because she doesn’t want to go any further or she doesn’t want to go back yet and puts the brakes on because she wants to go further.
With visions of needing to carry 135 total pounds of greyhound more than a half mile, I decided that a little break was in order. They dragged and moaned their way to the first side trail and slowly made their way down to the river. A tiny tree had fallen across the path at rivers edge which required stepping over in order to reach a perfect spot for sitting and admiring the river. The tree was not much of a height for any of us. Blue stepped over it. Then mumma stepped over it. We continued on, expecting Bettina would also step over it. When I reached the end of the slack on Bettina’s leash I was stopped short.
Turning I found Bettina standing in the path looking at me. The front half of her had made it over the tree but the back half of her seemed baffled as to how to follow. Everything about her posture and countenance said, “What do I do now?” I brightly encouraged her to hop over the tree. Hopping seemed to be absolutely out of the question. She gingerly lifted a back leg almost high enough, caught it on the tree and let it fall back down. “See?” she said. I encouraged her some more. She tried the maneuver with the other leg producing the same result. She tried each leg several more times with no luck.
She stared at me with reproach as if I had guaranteed she’d make it over if she only tried again. I could see her calculating the likelihood that I would bring her meals down there by the river. I could not convince her to try moving forward again, and she must have determined that I would NOT bring her meals down to the rivers edge (smart girl). She decided that the best course would be to go back the way she came. Without the benefit of the ability to see the tree, her front half had forgotten how high the tree stood off the ground. Blue and I looked at each other as she tried to put first one paw and then the other up and back over the tree the way it had come with no success.
I could see the fear in her eyes as she was probably picturing life without breakfast and dinner. This seemed to galvanize her and she finally managed to get one leg up onto the tree. Clearly expecting to have both halves on the same side of the tree, she looked a bit puzzled at this new turn of events.
After some more struggle she got the other paw on top of the tree and then dropped off the other side affecting a joyful reunion between her front half and her back half. We finished up our walk moving more and more slowly. As we rounded the final corner, the kids saw the car and picked up their pace significantly, practically dragging me to the car. And my doctor wonders how it can be that having two dogs, I don’t get more exercise…
Blue and Bettina aren’t in racing shape by any means but this trail is only 1.6 miles total, out and back. We’ve walked it once before and we all agreed it was a wonderful walk for three couch potatoes. On Friday, I collected a couple poop bags from the convenient dispenser and off we went.
Since it was early afternoon, we had the trail mostly to ourselves. At several points we ventured off on side trails that allowed access to the river. The kids had a great time investigating the forest floor and rivers edge trying to find the squirrels and chipmunks who constantly scolded us the entire length of our journey.At one point we came face to face with a garter snake who decided to test his luck by setting out from one side of the trail to the other directly in front of us. The snake was painfully visible on the paved path and his sinuous movement could not be missed by two sight hounds programmed by thousands of years of evolution to take notice of the slightest movement.
My initial reaction at the sight of the snake was fear. Not because I’m afraid of snakes, but because my first greyhound Girly Girl had a visceral hate of all things herpetological. Before I understood this bitter hatred she harbored, I once directed her attention to a garter snake sunning itself on a concrete block by our barn. This was early in my life with greyhounds and I clearly missed every signal of a predator stalking its mortal enemy with malice and intent to kill. Before I even realized what was happening she struck at the snake, grabbed it by the tail and whipped it around so violently that it tore apart leaving a section in the grass near us while she flung the rest of the hapless snake the entire length the barn and into the woods beyond.
She was coursing with so much adrenaline after this encounter it took everything in me to pull her back from the sad bit of innocent snake that remained in the grass in front of her. With this thought very fresh in my mind I white knuckled both Blue and Bettina’s leashes and cautiously let them investigate the snake from a safe distance (safe for the snake since the guilt over the death of the last poor snake still weighs heavily on my conscience). Blue did the greyhound equivalent of shrugging his shoulders and turned back to sniff the shrubs along the side of the trail. Bettina followed after the snake a bit, possibly trying to figure out what it was but more likely ensuring it wasn’t something edible. She determined it was not edible and thus, of absolutely no interest whatsoever. We continued our stroll and by the time we reached the end of the trail and turned to come back both kids had tongues hanging out and behinds dragging. I was surprised that Blue was struggling because he usually loves a good walk and has made it greater distances than this trail presented. Bettina did not surprise me at all. Every walk with her includes some sort of drama. Either she is tired and puts the brakes on because she doesn’t want to go any further or she doesn’t want to go back yet and puts the brakes on because she wants to go further.
She stared at me with reproach as if I had guaranteed she’d make it over if she only tried again. I could see her calculating the likelihood that I would bring her meals down there by the river. I could not convince her to try moving forward again, and she must have determined that I would NOT bring her meals down to the rivers edge (smart girl). She decided that the best course would be to go back the way she came. Without the benefit of the ability to see the tree, her front half had forgotten how high the tree stood off the ground. Blue and I looked at each other as she tried to put first one paw and then the other up and back over the tree the way it had come with no success.
After some more struggle she got the other paw on top of the tree and then dropped off the other side affecting a joyful reunion between her front half and her back half. We finished up our walk moving more and more slowly. As we rounded the final corner, the kids saw the car and picked up their pace significantly, practically dragging me to the car. And my doctor wonders how it can be that having two dogs, I don’t get more exercise…
7.12.2011
Walk the Walk
I had a physical recently and the lab results revealed that my cholesterol level is 300. Ooops. The doctor gave me a stern lecture about needing to eat better, lose weight…you know, all the doctorly stuff that goes in one ear and out the other. At some point it must have become apparent to her that she had lost her audience so she threw a Hail Mary. She suggested I take the hounds for a daily walk.
I must admit, that got my attention for a nano-second and then I went back to thinking about a hamburger with bacon and cheese for dinner. Up to now, I’ve taken the furry kids to the backyard, which is nicely fenced, and let them run their little hearts out. The backyard is very good sized and allows two greyhounds plenty of space to run until they drop. For my kids, that’s about three minutes.
The idea of taking them out for a walk has been unappealing because we live in a rural area. There are no sidewalks and the cars speed down our road like we were the first turn at Talladega. Not to mention the insanely high population of horse and deer flies. With all the farms around me, and herds of deer lurking behind every tree we are at ground zero. For any city folk out there who may never have been acquainted with a deer or horse fly, let me enlighten you. These flies are the size of a 747 jet liner. They are the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the fly world. They fear nothing and once locked on target, death is the only thing that deters them from trying to make a meal of you. And they bite. Very hard.
Can you blame me if I didn’t immediately jump at the idea of taking the kids for a walk? (Oh for heaven’s sake, all right! I’m also a bit lazy too. Happy now?) None the less, one day last week after work I threw caution to the wind and called the hounds for harnessing. It had been hot that day but I figured that by the end of the workday we’d be fine because the sun was on its way down and a nice breeze was dissipating the day’s heat. Everything seemed to be in order.
For an inexplicable reason, I decided to leave the house via the front door. This is something that we never do. The front steps are concrete and have a slightly steeper pitch, as well as shorter tread width, than the back stairs. Blue had some experience with the front stairs as there had been a time when we were forced to use the front door after the deck fell off the house (long story). But it had been a number of years since he’d even seen them. Bettina didn’t even know we had two doors in the house. As we stood on the verge of departure, I could see that the kids were a bit hesitant about this new situation. Their solution was to hang back behind me and try to assess it. Mumma, on the other hand, had made up her mind to do this thing so I impatiently urged them to venture forth.
They obeyed. Since they were unsure about these suspicious steps, they did what greyhounds do. They ran. Down the stairs. Fast. I was unprepared for this and thus it occurred to me only while in mid-flight that Bettina was only sporting a 4 foot leash. Since it was going to be more than 4 feet between where I was standing and where she was fixing to land, I deduced that I had a new situation on my hands. Unfortunately, I didn’t deduce the best action to take. What I did instead was start yelling, “WAIT! WAIT!” Blue, by now also in mid-flight, started trying to back pedal to comply with my request. Bettina hit the ground with no leash to spare. She came up short while her momentum yanked me down the stairs behind her. Blue was sandwiched between us. Bettina fell backwards onto the bottom step. Blue came down on the bottom stair and fell on top of Bettina. I came right behind Blue thanks to Bettina’s assist, landing on top of the pile.
Once we sorted out which parts belonged with whom, I did a field triage. Blue, with his paper thin, white dog skin got the worst of it (as usual, poor baby). He had scraped off a section of skin from one hind leg, presumably from the concrete stairs. He didn’t seem to be disabled by the boo-boo so I gave me informed medical opinion that none of us would die from our trauma.
The front door, at the top of those concrete stairs, remained wide open. Having descended the stairs sooner than I expected or intended, I didn’t have a chance to shut the door. It looked a long way away. We had also just discovered that Bettina’s leash wasn’t long enough to reach from top to bottom or vice versa. I went back up the steps as far as I could get. Not nearly enough. I spent the next 15 minutes coaxing Bettina and Blue to not only approach the terrible stairs again, but, in Bettina’s case, to come up a couple stairs so I could reach the door.
I finally managed this challenge. With one arm stretched out fully behind me holding Blue and Bettina’s leashes and my other arm stretched out fully in front of me, I could only touch the closest edge of the door. This happened to be the edge where the door is hinged to the building. The door handle was another few feet beyond that. Knowing I couldn’t bring the dogs back up those stairs, I used my one hand to lever the door mostly closed by inserting my fingers in the gap between the door and the casing. With a final lunge, I grabbed the now much closer handle and shut the door. Whew. We might actually have had to go back inside and just come out the back door like we normally do.
Finally, a little worse for wear, we were off for our walk. We managed to reach the middle of the front yard before a legion of horse and deer flies descended on us. Bettina, Blue and I looked like a small solar system with each of us a planet and the flies a myriad of not so tiny moons orbiting around our heads. The only immediate solution was for me to shoo the flies away from me and the kids, while they tried catching them with their teeth.
As we reached the end of the drive, I stopped at the mailbox where I found a sale flyer for some local hardware store. I grabbed it, intending to throw it in the recycle bin upon our return. But it didn’t take long for me to repurpose it as a make-shift fly swatter. (The irony of my using a flyer to swat flies is not lost on me.) We headed off down the road. Bettina and Blue were madly snapping at flies while their mumma was crazily waving her arms all around using the flyer to desperately try and knock out a few of our tormentors. As I got vociferous in cursing the flies and waving my arms around most vigorously, the kids would stop their walking and watch my antics.
It was at one of these moments that I took a particularly large swing at a fly around Bettina’s face. I miscalculated my parabola and ended up swatting her on the forehead with the sales flyer instead. She reared back with a look of utter horror, hurt and disgust. She was clearly deeply offended that I had struck her and no amount of apologizing and cooing could convince her otherwise. She was making sure to keep both my hands in sight. Thus it was for the remainder of our walk. If I so much as moved the hand holding the flyer, she would flinch and cringe away from me to the extent her 4 foot leash would allow.
We managed to get a few phone poles down the road, moving at a very leisurely pace when I noticed that Bettina was starting to flag a little. Bettina, my just turned two, ball of energy, running in the back yard like a crazy dog all the time girl. Blue was all engines go. I could see no indication that he was beginning to tire. We made our way to the next phone pole and Bettina had begun to lag back behind us a bit. I determined we’d better cut this first walk short and head back.
When Bettina caught up with us, we turned around and headed back towards the house. Bettina went a few yards and stopped. Oh lord. She stood there panting and looking at me. I looked down the road to where I could see our driveway. It wasn’t that far away but at that moment it looked like a long way indeed. There didn’t seem to be much to do but to push through and get back home.
I gave Bettina’s leash a small tug and said in my most encouraging voice, “Come on sweet girl, we’re almost home. When we get back we’ll have dinner.” Blue was all for chow and set off immediately. Bettina dubiously brought up the rear, went another few yards and stopped.
Oh fiddlesticks! (Yeah sure I said that…) This wasn’t good. I stood around for a few moments thinking I would enjoy the drone of the fly horde while I let Bettina catch her breath a bit. Blue stood impatiently looking from me to our driveway and back again. He was drooling slightly. Most likely over the thought of imminent dinner. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I put on my best cheerful mum face and got Bettina on the move again. We made it a few more yards. At this point I was trying to mentally calculate how long it would take us to make it back home at that rate. I had it pegged at sometime right around the next day’s breakfast. Bettina stared at me, stubbornly refusing to be influenced by my promises of food, my entreaties for a break, Blue’s obvious eagerness to get to the food portion of the program or the black cloud of uber-flies trying to make dinner out of us.
I scooped her up and started walking towards home. And by “scooped” I mean bent over with a groan, hoisted her up, staggered around a little and then, when I was sure I wouldn’t keel over, started stumbling in the general direction I wanted to go. This time I made it a few yards and stopped. That was how far it took for the message to go from my arms to my brain informing me that this dog was damned heavy for looking so petite.
Since carrying her home like some fly crazed sherpa wasn’t going to work out, I returned to coaxing (threatening) her towards home. I managed to tug her to our driveway. By this point she was panting heavily. I was worried that maybe, being a black dog; she had overheated and was on her way to heat stroke. Her tongue was hanging far out of her mouth and she had a glazed look. Until, that is, she hit the edge of our lawn and started trotting with Blue towards the front door. Excuse me?
As soon as we were inside, she began dancing and jumping around insisting on the dinner I had promised. I let her have her dinner. Then, just to show her there were no hard feelings; I took her temperature in the time honored way of vets everywhere. She was not excited about having her bum assaulted in such a manner. As a concerned pet parent, I was obliged to be SURE that she wasn’t in the throes of heat stroke. Right?
I must admit, that got my attention for a nano-second and then I went back to thinking about a hamburger with bacon and cheese for dinner. Up to now, I’ve taken the furry kids to the backyard, which is nicely fenced, and let them run their little hearts out. The backyard is very good sized and allows two greyhounds plenty of space to run until they drop. For my kids, that’s about three minutes.
Can you blame me if I didn’t immediately jump at the idea of taking the kids for a walk? (Oh for heaven’s sake, all right! I’m also a bit lazy too. Happy now?) None the less, one day last week after work I threw caution to the wind and called the hounds for harnessing. It had been hot that day but I figured that by the end of the workday we’d be fine because the sun was on its way down and a nice breeze was dissipating the day’s heat. Everything seemed to be in order.
For an inexplicable reason, I decided to leave the house via the front door. This is something that we never do. The front steps are concrete and have a slightly steeper pitch, as well as shorter tread width, than the back stairs. Blue had some experience with the front stairs as there had been a time when we were forced to use the front door after the deck fell off the house (long story). But it had been a number of years since he’d even seen them. Bettina didn’t even know we had two doors in the house. As we stood on the verge of departure, I could see that the kids were a bit hesitant about this new situation. Their solution was to hang back behind me and try to assess it. Mumma, on the other hand, had made up her mind to do this thing so I impatiently urged them to venture forth.
They obeyed. Since they were unsure about these suspicious steps, they did what greyhounds do. They ran. Down the stairs. Fast. I was unprepared for this and thus it occurred to me only while in mid-flight that Bettina was only sporting a 4 foot leash. Since it was going to be more than 4 feet between where I was standing and where she was fixing to land, I deduced that I had a new situation on my hands. Unfortunately, I didn’t deduce the best action to take. What I did instead was start yelling, “WAIT! WAIT!” Blue, by now also in mid-flight, started trying to back pedal to comply with my request. Bettina hit the ground with no leash to spare. She came up short while her momentum yanked me down the stairs behind her. Blue was sandwiched between us. Bettina fell backwards onto the bottom step. Blue came down on the bottom stair and fell on top of Bettina. I came right behind Blue thanks to Bettina’s assist, landing on top of the pile.
Once we sorted out which parts belonged with whom, I did a field triage. Blue, with his paper thin, white dog skin got the worst of it (as usual, poor baby). He had scraped off a section of skin from one hind leg, presumably from the concrete stairs. He didn’t seem to be disabled by the boo-boo so I gave me informed medical opinion that none of us would die from our trauma.
The front door, at the top of those concrete stairs, remained wide open. Having descended the stairs sooner than I expected or intended, I didn’t have a chance to shut the door. It looked a long way away. We had also just discovered that Bettina’s leash wasn’t long enough to reach from top to bottom or vice versa. I went back up the steps as far as I could get. Not nearly enough. I spent the next 15 minutes coaxing Bettina and Blue to not only approach the terrible stairs again, but, in Bettina’s case, to come up a couple stairs so I could reach the door.
I finally managed this challenge. With one arm stretched out fully behind me holding Blue and Bettina’s leashes and my other arm stretched out fully in front of me, I could only touch the closest edge of the door. This happened to be the edge where the door is hinged to the building. The door handle was another few feet beyond that. Knowing I couldn’t bring the dogs back up those stairs, I used my one hand to lever the door mostly closed by inserting my fingers in the gap between the door and the casing. With a final lunge, I grabbed the now much closer handle and shut the door. Whew. We might actually have had to go back inside and just come out the back door like we normally do.
Finally, a little worse for wear, we were off for our walk. We managed to reach the middle of the front yard before a legion of horse and deer flies descended on us. Bettina, Blue and I looked like a small solar system with each of us a planet and the flies a myriad of not so tiny moons orbiting around our heads. The only immediate solution was for me to shoo the flies away from me and the kids, while they tried catching them with their teeth.
As we reached the end of the drive, I stopped at the mailbox where I found a sale flyer for some local hardware store. I grabbed it, intending to throw it in the recycle bin upon our return. But it didn’t take long for me to repurpose it as a make-shift fly swatter. (The irony of my using a flyer to swat flies is not lost on me.) We headed off down the road. Bettina and Blue were madly snapping at flies while their mumma was crazily waving her arms all around using the flyer to desperately try and knock out a few of our tormentors. As I got vociferous in cursing the flies and waving my arms around most vigorously, the kids would stop their walking and watch my antics.
It was at one of these moments that I took a particularly large swing at a fly around Bettina’s face. I miscalculated my parabola and ended up swatting her on the forehead with the sales flyer instead. She reared back with a look of utter horror, hurt and disgust. She was clearly deeply offended that I had struck her and no amount of apologizing and cooing could convince her otherwise. She was making sure to keep both my hands in sight. Thus it was for the remainder of our walk. If I so much as moved the hand holding the flyer, she would flinch and cringe away from me to the extent her 4 foot leash would allow.
We managed to get a few phone poles down the road, moving at a very leisurely pace when I noticed that Bettina was starting to flag a little. Bettina, my just turned two, ball of energy, running in the back yard like a crazy dog all the time girl. Blue was all engines go. I could see no indication that he was beginning to tire. We made our way to the next phone pole and Bettina had begun to lag back behind us a bit. I determined we’d better cut this first walk short and head back.
I gave Bettina’s leash a small tug and said in my most encouraging voice, “Come on sweet girl, we’re almost home. When we get back we’ll have dinner.” Blue was all for chow and set off immediately. Bettina dubiously brought up the rear, went another few yards and stopped.
Oh fiddlesticks! (Yeah sure I said that…) This wasn’t good. I stood around for a few moments thinking I would enjoy the drone of the fly horde while I let Bettina catch her breath a bit. Blue stood impatiently looking from me to our driveway and back again. He was drooling slightly. Most likely over the thought of imminent dinner. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I put on my best cheerful mum face and got Bettina on the move again. We made it a few more yards. At this point I was trying to mentally calculate how long it would take us to make it back home at that rate. I had it pegged at sometime right around the next day’s breakfast. Bettina stared at me, stubbornly refusing to be influenced by my promises of food, my entreaties for a break, Blue’s obvious eagerness to get to the food portion of the program or the black cloud of uber-flies trying to make dinner out of us.
I scooped her up and started walking towards home. And by “scooped” I mean bent over with a groan, hoisted her up, staggered around a little and then, when I was sure I wouldn’t keel over, started stumbling in the general direction I wanted to go. This time I made it a few yards and stopped. That was how far it took for the message to go from my arms to my brain informing me that this dog was damned heavy for looking so petite.
Since carrying her home like some fly crazed sherpa wasn’t going to work out, I returned to coaxing (threatening) her towards home. I managed to tug her to our driveway. By this point she was panting heavily. I was worried that maybe, being a black dog; she had overheated and was on her way to heat stroke. Her tongue was hanging far out of her mouth and she had a glazed look. Until, that is, she hit the edge of our lawn and started trotting with Blue towards the front door. Excuse me?
As soon as we were inside, she began dancing and jumping around insisting on the dinner I had promised. I let her have her dinner. Then, just to show her there were no hard feelings; I took her temperature in the time honored way of vets everywhere. She was not excited about having her bum assaulted in such a manner. As a concerned pet parent, I was obliged to be SURE that she wasn’t in the throes of heat stroke. Right?
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