oh yeah...I was here LAST December!

There is something about coming full circle, landing again on this date in this season and I remember late December last year I started this project with great seriousness and here it comes again. My body remembers this date, the chair, this angel of the lampshade…the feel of nighttime and the sound of the keys. My goal was to write here every night, even if only for a few minutes. The project: The 4th Dog.

I haven’t kept up writing every night, though I still stay up quite late…crawling into bed at 2 or 3 and reading until I can’t read any longer. I am easily thrown off; my rituals are fragile. Some of them. Any change in routine can tip me over just enough to make me lose my footing and then I need to wander around until I find my footprints again. This time Maudie herself was pouring…


The other night was Solstice night at the P and J’s farm; a gathering of farm families and friends who come together around a makeshift jam of tables and folding chairs (that reminds me of Passover Seders and after Sabbath service kiddish…food food food—casseroles and cooked vegetables coming out from under tin foil, meat sliced, wine poured, the rituals of speech, deserts. The lighting of candles, the acknowledgement of the earth in space.) Everyone says what they valued most about the year and then blows out their candle until all the candles are out and the room is dark…on the longest night of the year---then the circle starts again with hopes for the next year, the candles are re-lit and we lean towards spring.

So in that spirit… I think about this last year, the journey (can I say trip instead?) that took me to Monmouth to get Maudie, the 4th dog herself, and where we are today.

First. I have this little mountain of pages that have piled up despite my distractions. On them I have not only chronicled thoughts and activities but I became a writer again. And I think maybe a better writer, my sense of economy and directness winning out over the baroque seductions of language itself as often as not. (Editing is fun. Although blogs aren’t very conducive to it…)
It remains the challenge. But I have come to treasure the adjective-less sentence…. even when I forget to build them myself. I even cut back a few metaphors that wound around the foundation of thought like kudzu---yuk yuk--- But that’s another story…thought and metaphor. I still hold that metaphor is how I know what I think.

Last year this time I was all glowy about Sonny’s first 2 CD legs—we acquit ourselves so very nicely in the ring. I didn’t think it would take a whole year to get the 3rd and final leg…but I got busy and we developed a little bit of a problem with “stay.” But neither did I think that a year later I would be all shiny again sitting across the room from where an enormous purple and gold ribbon hangs on the wall. (see HIT!!)

And Maudie. Me and Maudie. We start work next month in the library as a READ team. Reading Education assistance Dog. Less than a year it took to find each other and work to get certified to do therapy work. By both Dove Lewis and the Delta Society (well…once I send the fees in to Delta) Any day now Maudie’s special yellow DLAATE band should arrive. (The one she will wear on our outings). Wow. That and our work in Ellie’s class is going so well…we have fun together. I think the mixture of Maudie’s sensitivity and stability is a good combination for me.

And more. I didn’t know how much she would change my own life…how she would help me rebuild my physical strength. I went from barely being able to get down the street before my muscles would hurt, to being able to walk a lesuire mile in around 12 minutes. That includes 3 hills. PLUS. It was for Maudie that I got the bicycle, so I could go fast enough to help her sustain a trot, and here I am buying Gore-Tex and Merino wool so I can continue to ride through the winter and reading books about Lance Armstrong. It’s no longer about the big dog…. it’s about the bike. And the big dog.

Handler Training

Last Saturday from 8am -5pm I spent at Dove Lewis in a handler-training seminar. There was quite a large group of us, maybe 30 people, and made up mostly of women with retrievers. One person was working with a cat. Australian Shepherd/border collie crosses weighed in with 2, also a Bouvier, a beagle, an English setter, Chihuahua, a pit bull mix. Many of the retrievers, most of which are Labs, are guide dog almosts.

There were no animals there, but I remember people’s dogs from their introductions.

We talked about proactive handling, Dove Lewis, hospital protocol and decorum, and preparation for the certification test. A video of Turid Rigas’ on “calming signals” showed some of the more subtle incarnations of dog-dog communication.

Next Saturday, Maudie and I will go to Dove Lewis for more training together. They call it a lab and the 2nd floor of Dove Lewis will be set up as a mock hospital environment. We are to prepare our dogs and ourselves as if for a real visit: dog freshly washed, handler well turned out and equipped.

Although we were reminded several times that this is a lab, not a test, and that we should try to approach it with a relaxed and open state of mind, we will also be evaluated as we go. Copious notes will be taken. So it is not a pressure free hour….and I keep thinking of the lab like a haunted house set up for Halloween.

I have a lot of confidence in both of us though. Maudie is extremely well behaved in public, and she keeps me calm and focused. My conscious “worry” is about my ability to role-play as a mature adult: “Hello Mr. Alzheimer; my name is E and this is Maudie and we’re from Dove Lewis. Would you like us to come in for a visit?”
I want so desperately to appear natural and un self conscious that I get nervous and sometimes when I get nervous I make jokes and laugh inappropriately. But it’s not about me…it’s about us. And I can speak as the manager for the Marvelous Maudie.

Friday I will have to bathe the marvelously furry Maudie, do her nails again, check her teeth, be sure to comb out and untangle her coat. I need to bring the things we would take on a real visit: water, a safe brush (no metal or sharp tines) a collar and lead with no chain, some wipes and bags, a towel, her quilt. A notebook.

Nov 3 is the test. It is the same test that the Delta Society administers and if we pass we can register with them to also be a certified Pet Partner team. If we pass we can begin the work.

Nov 3 is my father’s birthday. He would have been 75… Perhaps from his seat in the Other World, he will help guide us, support my small part for Tikkun Olam (healing of the world).

“It is not your job to fix the whole world, but neither should you shirk your part in the work.” (Talmud)

Here we go.

The Interview

You know those sequences in movies when the film goes into time lapse to indicate the passage of time and when it resumes regular speed, seem to be moving more slowly? That’s how this day felt.

Maudie and I went in for our interview/assessment this afternoon, slid downtown on our own melting…is more like it... it was so hot.

T came down into the lobby to fetch us and we went up on the elevator—one of the things that Maudie does not have a lot of experience with and that gives her pause. I was asked a series of questions about Maudie and about myself and our relationship while she settled in near my chair.

It takes her about 5-10 minutes to get comfortable in a new place, and she was hot, so her panting created the first impression, but, it was quickly evident that she was OK in an unfamiliar environment.

When we started to talk about interacting with strangers, it got interesting. Although Maude had a perfectly lovely encounter with a very sweet volunteer, she was uncomfortable with our interviewer and went into “is there someone else in this room with us? What other person?” mode. In short she moved away to lie with her back to T, did not respond to her invitations, paced around to me.

T has a lot of experience reading dogs and translated this to mean that Maudie wasn’t quite ready to interact with a lot of strangers; that she needed more ripening time and we should wait another 6 months to undergo the training. I kept juggling 2 voices in my head: 1) she wasn’t going to pass! She was not as outgoing as I thought and she will not like meeting all those new people in strange places. 2) Calm down, she just needs more experience, and no dog is perfect. The process just may take longer…

The conversation turned to how she deals with stress and uncomfortable situations. She turns away, either lies down, back to person, or leaves the room. T suggested that she probably goes flat---turns off----and that’s what she was doing. I expressed my surprise at Maudie’s behavior, because the Maudie I know loves to meet people, is not at all touchy and accepts a range of responses. But this is also where my knowledge sped up…and I saw Maudie more clearly. At home, where she is uber comfortable she is energetic enthusiastic and playful. In new situations where she is unsure, she pulls in and presents a very quiet picture. In fact, when I met her in Albany, she had that look; I read it as boredom. In fact she was hanging back and observing. She still likes to meet people, but in a more reserved way.

It strikes me just now that this seems very typical for a herding dog: confident but a little cautious, reserved with strangers, but not averse to new friends. Of course, the more experience she has with new friends, the more new friends she’ll be eager to collect. That she has that nascent desire is why she came to be with me on this journey in the first place.

Just as I was preparing myself to wait another 6 months to get started, Maudie walked over to T, wagging her tail, offering her Lassie paw and looking at her with “bedroom eyes” as Polly called them. Soon she was lying across her feet and letting her scratch her tummy. And T was reassessing. She said several times that she was on the fence…and in the end?

Long and short of it? We’re signed up to take the class in October. We can always pull back if she needs more time, but I do believe that we are ready to quicken our communication, leap into more experience and that we will rise to the occasion. And I left with the Delta training manual stuffed into my bag.

So. Huzzah! We’re on our way!

Recap

When I began this blog, I was just starting on the journey of the 4th dog. An idea had surfaced about another way to serve, to do good, through a relationship with animals.

I have always believed that animals can guide us to our best selves; they model joy, courage and generosity. They can bring us smack into the present, back into our bodies, confer on us a sense of peace. But you know that....

I find myself wanting to embrace people with the same generosity. Like many of us whose lives revolve around animals, I have heard myself say how much more I prefer dogs to people. It was Suzanne Clothier who suggested that a lesson we should learn from our dogs, who love US unconditionally, is to also love us…our own species: human beings.

It was a natural progression to the idea then of therapy work. I could work WITH my dog to help people in various states of need. It is easy to love people who are vulnerable; in fact I think we love others best when they show us that vulnerability. A good place to start.

I started the blog thinking about breeds—probably my favorite pastime anyway—and learned a lot more about various spaniels, shelties, Bedlington and Manchester Terriers…

But when the fog lifted, the way was clear, and there at the gate was Maudie. This was late February. Since then, the focus has shifted to the bonding, the day to day, the next stage of this life together. The Art and Science.

The fact that I have a collie…a collie!!!!......again, has brought me fully into the present, into the possibility of more good work, and it has thrown yet another lifeline to that collie –obsessed girl I was….but more about that later.
(The Mythology. Meet: Albert Payson Terhune.)

Hands in pockets to feel the dust of the earth, eyes to the heavens.

The blog takes shape in the best way...it changes and grows.
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That is a photo of Sunnybank Thane...handsome profile eh?!

The Pre-Education of a Therapy Dog

Several experienced people have suggested that in order to raise the odds of getting a dog who will qualify for therapy work, I’d do best to get a dog….that is…not get a puppy.
With a dog, the temperament is more evident, and there are fewer surprises. Puppies grow and change; even the most outgoing youngster can develop quirks that you may or may not be able to work with. And if your heart, like mine, is set on doing this work, why NOT increase your odds?

Maudie is 2. I sometimes wish---with a powerful yen---that I had gotten her as a puppy. Watching a collie grow up is a wonder; they go through so many physical stages…weedy, fuzzy, and then they bloom into big gorgeous peonies. And of course, I would have loved to have known and grown WITH her. Dogs are with us for so short a time…it is a little pang that 2 years of her passed without me….

Nevertheless. I chose her---and she was chosen FOR me---because her solid confidence and gentle loving spirit are large, and had developed enough for us to able call those qualities dependable.

Her early life is somewhat of a mystery, but I know L & E did many things very right. Genetically, she is sound, and knock wood, healthy; the dogs behind her have good temperaments. She was exposed to enough stimulation and variety so that I have encountered very little that daunts her…she glides over metal grates, doesn’t flinch when something in the kitchen crashes, is eager to meet people, allows herself to be touched all over, tolerates the most uncanine-like human hugs, and has a foundation of listening to human speech enough to make around-the-house communication easy. (Go in; Go out, Wait, etc.)

So what have I been doing these 6 months while we waited to have the interview that will hopefully begin the process with Dove Lewis? Well, I take her to as many different places as I can, work in obedience (which is really just learning to communicate back and forth at a deeper level), ask her to meet and greet as many people as are willing. When someone admires her on a walk, I ask them if they’d like to meet her and facilitate a little exchange. (Her stunning good looks and collie aura at such times make me feel like the manager of a movie star…hee hee…Lassie legacy.)

I discourage her from jumping and climbing on people, and try to help her become more aware of where her body is in space.

But mostly, all this adds up to a simple preparation: we are learning to be a team, partners who go out into the world together to work, who can count on each other to keep them safe, who can speak clearly to one another. We are learning how to read each other’s moods and limits, how to cheer each other up, or calm each other down. She is mine. I am hers. We walk out together.