Figuring the Focus (of the search & the blog)

The appeal of documentation is the sustained focus as well as the record that can reveal a process that had been hidden.

I’m not sure a public blog is wise…well it isn’t if I censor. But why censor? Again it is a matter of audience. Whose eyes do I imagine on the page. What would I be holding back? My fear and my doubt. My impatience. Names. (Newsmaker above)

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DW mentioned tonight hat I should not count out the papillon as a therapy dog. I understand that is entirely possible, but I can’t quite picture it. In my mind there is a dog large enough for a child to lean against. A dog of some physical substance. A dog with big paws and an attention spot a little higher off the floor. I want to be able to SEE him when he's in heel position! But he need still be small enough to be safe around the papillons.

This dog I can see. He lives vividly in my mind. He is a silvery dark blue roan. His feet and hocks are black, he moves effortlessly, just ahead of me on the left. Those glorious constellations of color shimmer in his coat. He moves with purpose. We are walking down a hallway. His confidence is contagious; his devotion to duty is leading the way.


I’ve been weighing the 2 breeders I’ve been in conversation with. I got to meet L and her dogs. Confident curious. She showed me how she banged the ex pen when they were little so they would be unfazed by the noise. She pointed out how like a wheelchair a crate dolly, piled with crates was (Corgi size crates I might add.) Her consorts, or mentees said how much kinder and focused on the welfare of the dogs she was than the other breeders they had met.

I liked her. She had the look of perpetual amusement that someone who is comfortable in their skin, in the world and in their choices has. She was easy to talk to. Pleasant. That piece of smile is what I remember the strongest. And looking down into the dour sad faces of these very happy dogs. Her young male was the most impressive. He had lovely posture and his tail was constant. The girls were a little more distracted. Its like the boys are so present in the attention they are given; the girls always have an eye on what’s going on behind and around.

Her mentee is also planning a litter, possibly using that boy.

S has been extremely generous with information. Very kind and present in her responses. She is breeding to dogs I’ve heard good things about and whose conformation I admire. Calm outgoing dogs that get on with children are what she’s after. And I love her kennel name. Well, I like them both…but hers is really special.

S has a litter due in Feb, but a waiting list that may be as large as the litter. The in there would be more boys than girls. And orange and whites. She is planning another litter later on that is very appealing. BR dam, OW sire.

There is one other I’m tempted by and that is a kennel that breeds solids with lots of working titles. Used to be close by…re located to the Midwest. Haven’t written. Don’t want to spread myself too thin.

Still. I need to find some local ECs to hang out with….

Clarity in Complication

It’s a complicated process this. Tonight M and I started to have this conversation, but it deteriorated and we never quite got to the matter itself. I believe he’s overwhelmed by the idea of complications. I think of Alfred Hitchcock’s declaration “My idea of happiness is a clear horizon.”

I keep thinking that I’ll be 50 this year and I have yet to do some of the things I’ve set myself to; this therapy work for instance. Perhaps I am repeating myself. Once I was asked to choose a word that embodied my vision. I chose the word: *abundance. *

Clarity within complications. A full life. I pulled back to half time teaching in order that I might enrich and fatten up my life. Have time to do the work that I want to do. This work. And to serve with the animals. To walk. Take photographs.

I have thrown myself into this project: the research, the conversations, the blog, with such force and such focus. I set out looking for a breed that might replace the collie in its abilities to do the work that I would not ask the Papillons to do. Not that a Papillon couldn’t do it---just that mine aren’t quite cut out for it.

I started with the terriers. Bedlington. Manchester. But I had to face the fact that I was walking right near the arena I vowed never to go into: dog aggression. Or its possibility.
I veered off to the Welsh springer spaniel, a dog I have always admired, and there I encountered the Field Spaniel and the English Cocker. After conversations with some of my papillon friends, the subject of size came up…. One said, “nothing bigger than 20lbs.” The other said, “No bigger than a Cocker.”

And truth be told, for some reason, I am really drawn to the English Cocker. The rainbow of coats, the size, the outpouring of love, the ever wagging tail and that fabulous cobby body. “A little taller than long.”

So. I have on tap, 2 mentor/advisors. Both with long experience in the breed. Both careful but generous with their knowledge. Two breeders I’ve been talking seriously with, both in California. Barrister and Indigo. I may well tap Nohea. She breeds solids, but her cockers are very versatile and C mentioned that she’d be a great advisor.

How much do I care about coat color? I prefer a blue roan. I’ve really warmed to the orange and the orange roan. Liver is awesome. My least favorite is black and white. They look like springers to me. The blacks are hard to read/see. The tan and roan and tri-colors seem more like herding dog colors. I like the black and tans. The tan eyebrows. Lovely. The reds and blondes are OK.

Gender? Honestly, I think a male might be better suited to the work I have in mind. A female might fit into the dynamics of the pack more easily. Flynn won’t feel as put off by a girl as the boys would be by another boy.

I’m pretty confident about the breed, even though I haven’t met many. I ought to. Nothing is more grounding and clarifying than experience.

Birthdays!

Saturday (January 27), I got a letter from AC that the H/E litter was born (6) and genders are forthcoming. She sent me a link to some puppies in England that are from the same line. At 7 weeks they are unbearably cute and full of promise.

Were the circumstances different, if we didn’t have papillons to watch out for, I would be on it like white on rice. I just think they are too hefty. If there was a burst of enthusiasm, a 7lb-er could go flying, and I can’t risk that.

I’m going to have to bow off the Field. It is a sadness. I have grown really very attracted to them. I love the fact that they will carry their own ear in their mouth if nothing else is available, and that they are great “talkers.” They are reputed to be very laid back and sweet and funny. The color is lovely too…the chocolate.

So much about this litter seemed other wise so perfect. I love the sire, the dam has a reputation for a fabulous temperament and I really like the person who owns them. All the pieces fit, except one. Well two….

Every once in a while I get a jolt of hope…they’re not THAT big…. but then I pull back.
A part of me keeps hoping that when I wake up in the morning that something will be different and it will work! But, I don’t think I could be comfortable being as vigilant as I’d need to be for peace of mind.

Maybe there is a way...

Anyway. I’m marking the day. A Birthday!!

KB’s puppies were born yesterday, on Mark’s birthday.. 2 sable male papillons.

Learning the Names

My sense of time has been altered. I can’t say whether it’s sharpened or dimmed, but I am keenly aware of it in terms of how much I learn from day to day so that on Tuesday I will look back on Monday and marvel at what I didn’t know. I plug along. Dogged. Emblazoned on the white board of my mind is the history of the English Cocker spaniel. I am starting to recognize lines and notice when a path forks.

Because the numbers are relatively low-- I believe they are # 74 in AKC registration-- the pool is small enough to get a handle on. At least the conformation pool. I am always on the lookout for the letters AFTER the name as well. And I have Front & Finish that lists the rankings of obedience competitors by breed.

So the knowledge is piling up in my head. First I learned about Field spaniels, and if I didn’t have breakable toy dogs, I’d be on that list. I’d have my heart in my hand for a Henry puppy. But I do worry about accidents. I may have already talked about that. The sheer weight and exuberance.

I like the English Cockers. They’d be fun to name. Beekeeper’s Apprentice. They come in great colors, are a great size and look like tons of fun. But I’d need a really smart one, and a confident one who wasn’t always leaning on me. One who loves the world and people; I want him to be like a flash of red light leading my heart out alongside him. One who is gentle and respectful of the smaller people in the household. I need a magical one.
A healer.

I started out liking blue roans. Then I added the orange roan to the list. Then the orange and white. The deep reds are gorgeous. I like a lot of color in the coat…but not too dark. The complexity of the pattern…those maps of the sky and of lost oceans. Islands and wind currents. The fractals in an EC coat….not just the spiral of a fern, but entire continents half hidden by clouds, seen from outer space.

If I walk away from where I am engaged in tracking down the 4th dog, I can become suddenly frightened. It’s as if I have been buried in a book, the world has been going on without me and I’ll never catch up, nor will I be safe because I have not been on watch.

Or that I have been dreaming in a vaccum, and the world could not possibly fit me and my vision into its schedule. I’ll have to go it alone and I am utterly unprepared. This feeling is like the anxiety dream, only I have it when I ‘m awake. its like an indigo cloud passes over, and the only light I have is a candle and the wind is blowing.

When this happens, I think I cannt possibly go on with this. It will spell disaster. The disruption will be complete and long lasting. There will be no recovery from it.

It is fear. But I don’t understand from where it comes or what it’s cloud brims over with. It is anxiety about anxiety. That here, in my box seats high above the stadium, my table strewn with books, my microphone on to catch the bubbles of my joy, I am competent, brilliant even. I make connections, I find things out. I work at it all day. Hunting down pedigrees and health clearances. Looking things up. Writing letters. Writing to breeders laying out my dream like a box of silver before them. Asking them if they have the piece missing from my pattern.

I n the hours after the cloud passes over, silent, stealthy, I begin to feel like a fraud. Like a kid making prank calls, or a teenager writing to a movie star. My parents have not said yes. I am pretending I can have another dog, but it will end in disappointment.

How many years of my childhood were spent like this?! Bent over the story, eating the story, drinking the story until it became the very foundation of who I am. A girl who lives in an imaginary world where she no longer lives in an imaginary world.

an inside story

Who will ever read this? If someone else wrote about this process I'd be on it in a flash.
I have been reading Sue Aibley's blog about choosing and training her PWD puppy. It's great. Reminds me about puppies: how much work they are, how much fun they are, how much input you can have.

Sonny is breathing like a teenaged boy in his sleep. I am so moved by him. Everything he does. Everything. I suppose that is what "in love" means.

Tonight I tried to broach the subject of the 4th dog w/M. Last week, on our way to school, I told him what I was thinking about. He said he felt overwhelmed as it is. And " I'm not saying no. But I'm not saying yes either. "

I thought that was a great start...now that I look at it though, it says pretty much nothing. I think I know what it must have been like to grow up in the house in Maine, and why no one asked for anything. Once he me told that when they were kids that if they asked, the ACT of asking often got them a no. I'm shaking my head in disbelief. The parents would throw a vague suggestion of going to the movies.....if the kids got excited and asked an hour or so later ..then the answer was no?

I kind of feel like that is the message he's sending. He said he'd think about it....but he resists my attmepts to bring it up and I wonder f he really IS thinking about it...and how. I remembered how, when Cubby was here, HE was the one who thought we should keep him..."Look!" he said. "He looks like a little collie." I need to be patient.

I've been writing fast & furiously with AC and CB about Fields. They sound pretty much perfect...if only I could make them English Cocker size! (papillons). I wrote the woman in New England that CR suggested & we'll see what she says. She has roan ECs.

Gosh they were pretty. You just want to fold them in your arms and smooch on them. That's a great start for therapy I'd say! And they exude joy. Sweet.

I never heard a word from any of the Welsh people I wrote. (well, all 2 of them)

the papillons set the bar high

Here is a Sonny story. Just to show you what other breeds are up against in the brain department.

Sonny is the youngest of the 3 papillons. Just to show you how smart a Papillon is:

I taught him early on "Can I have that please?" because he is always picking up stuff he shouldn't have. Pens, bits of parrot toys, candles, silver ware (ah!!! utility dog!) . When he brings it to me and hands it over, I give him a little treat in return and a Thankyou! We trade.

One day when I was washing the dog beds I found that he had stashed all this stuff in between the wall of the bed and the "floor," a book of matches, a candle stub, a pair of sscissors, some big paper clips. I realized that he had started a bank! When he wanted a treat, he would go fish something out, and bring it over for trade!!

the spaniels

A friend who was over for supper one night asked me: "Do you really want a big hairy dog with a tail at coffee table height in this cozy house? " I thought about it. No. Nor do I want a dog with 6 times the undercoat of a corgi to comb out, with a long topcoat to boot.
Not that collies won't forever be very special to me. Just from a distance. At least for now.

The Papillons have gotten me keenly interested in the spaniels because of their temperament. Papillons are dwarf spaniels. Big easy going stable cousins could rock.

The List as they came into view: Welsh Springer. Field. English Cocker. Clumber. Sussexx.
The List today in order of preference: Field. English Cocker.
I would have liked to kept the Welsh on but not a single WSS person has returned my emails. Not a good sign. I already have files of letters to and fro from the Field spaniel people.

So at this point this is welcome to the Field Spaniel.
Next I'll tell the story of Henry. And why this process went from 5mph to 60.

I also need to talk about what holds me back. "What causes me to hesitate" is a better phrase.

the search

I'm setting up this blog in order to track the process of the 4th dog. Our population has fluctutated in the last several years from 4 to 3 and back because of the death of Olivia The Last Corgi, and Cubby, beloved Papillon who we took in at the age of 11.

My pledge was to wait until Olivia was over the bridge. The other pledge was to wait until all the Papillons had at least a CD. Within 3 days of her leaving, Cubby appeared in need of a home. When Cubby passed over, we were heartbroken, but the pack felt managable. Intimate even. It's been seven months since he's gone. We are one leg away from the goal of 3 CDs.

I can't recall from where or how the button was pushed, but the collie that was to be the original 3rd or 4th dog has shapeshifted from a Silky Terrier to a Beldington to a Manchester to a spaniel. The spaniel hunt has been quite intense. But I'm ahead of myself.

Ever since I stopped volunteering at Animal Aid (I felt of so little use) I have been looking for a way to serve. I've always been interested in animal assisted therapy and recently, in the R.E.A.D program. This is the program where children with reading & learning difficulties read to a dog and the handler acts as a kind of background tutor.

Not only does it help the child build skills & confidence, but it is a way to educate children about respect for animals. Killing 2 birds with 1 stone. (what an appropriate metapor, huh!?)

In November I also busted through a 7 year writing block & am working on essays again, many of which touch on this process, and the whole psychic squaredance of reality and imagination. I wanted somewhere to document this process with the only goal to be documentation. So. The 4th Dog.

I'm coming in a little late, as I've been through several incarnations (see list above.) But if I know e, it is just beginning.