HinesSight

Pampered pet, humbled husband

First, yesterday’s post about our dog’s overheating may have alarmed the many admirers of Serena the Wonder Dog, the Hines Family Animal Companion (we eschew calling her our “pet,” this being terribly Homo sapiens-centric, though the verb form of this word accurately describes how we spend much of every evening).

Hopefully this photo that I snapped this morning when I went in to the dog room to wake her up will reassure anyone concerned about her welfare. Serena has an entire futon on which to sleep in her amazingly cute contorted dog postures. This is her famous “straight arm” pose, a favorite. About a week ago Laurel switched her futon covering from a teal sheet to this more harmonious earth tone design, into which Serena blends nicely.

Second, in writing about the frequent “told you so!”s I hear from Laurel, in which she corrects my many erroneous conceptions about the world, I may have left readers with the impression that this is a bad thing, that I long for a subservient, docile woman who will unthinkingly agree with everything I say and obediently comply with everything I ask her to do. Well, I do have to admit that this sounds pretty appealing. But only for a little while, like a few hours a week in the bedroom.

The rest of the time I want a woman who is herself, not me. Otherwise I’d feel like I was married to myself. What’s the point in that? “Yes, yes, yes” would get boring. I like the unpredictable mix of “Yes, no, yes, no you bozo!” Recently I ran across a great (and possibly tongue-in-cheek) quotation from Rumi’s Fihi ma Fihi where this incomparable Sufi mystic speaks of the spiritual benefits of marriage (to get the full impact of this passage recall that Muhammad had at least ten wives).

God most High and Mighty showed the Prophet [Muhammad] a narrow and hidden way (to refine himself), and that was to marry women, so that he might endure their tyranny, listen to their absurdities and let them ride roughshod over him….The way of Jesus was to struggle in solitude and not to gratify one’s lust; the way of Muhammad is to endure the tyranny and grief inflicted by men and women. If you cannot go the way of Muhammad, at least take the way of Jesus, lest you be altogether deprived.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” heats up audience (and our dog)

In our never-ending marital “told you so!” competition, my wife beat me two to one last night. We went to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” at Movieland in downtown Salem, and as the 7:45 pm showing time grew near I told Laurel that we should leave earlier than usual, since the movie was proving to be hugely popular among die-hard liberals—who, like almost everyone, love to be exposed to communications that confirm existing strongly held beliefs.

Drawing myself up to the full height of my Alpha Male Head of Household Kingly Dominant position in our relationship, about 6:45 I emphatically decreed with my most authoritative masculine tone of voice that we had to leave by 7:15 at the absolute latest. Of course, this proclamation had the usual effect: at the exact time I had said we should be in the car, Laurel slowly pushed her chair back from the table at which she had been leisurely eating a bowl of curry, and languorously went into the bedroom to change. And then, with equal calm, into the bathroom to put on makeup.

I walked around in the living room, making loud jingling sounds with my keys as I muttered, “Any time you’re ready…any time…we should have left by now.” “It’s Wednesday,” I heard in reply. “There won’t be many people at the show.”

I memorized Laurel’s words so I could repeat them back to her at an appropriate moment, which turned out to be at 7:48 as we stood at the rear of a darkened theatre looking at the backs of many, many heads. I don’t like to sit close to the screen, but last night our walk down the aisle to the front of the theatre was triumphal for me. I don’t think I ever said “told you so!” Didn’t need to. The looming-ever-larger screen did my speaking for me.

It was great to see so many Salemites out mid-week for this Bush-bashing film. Of course, what else is there to do in the evening in Salem but go to the movies? (Answer: stay at home and watch TV). From our fifth-row seats we enjoyed listening to the frequent laughs and catcalls as Michael Moore exposed some fresh idiocy of George W. and his administration. At the end of the movie there was healthy applause, a good sign for Kerry’s chances I think, as his liberal base certainly is getting fired up from “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

So did our dog. Which led to Laurel tying me in the “told you so!” sweepstakes upon our return to the car. Serena had been left alone in her outdoor fenced kennel for most of the afternoon, so I felt sorry for her and insisted that she’d be happier coming along with us to the movie. Well, more accurately to the parking garage. Before we left Laurel said that it was too warm a day to leave a dog in the car. I assured her that Serena would be just fine in a shadowy parking garage with the windows in our Prius rolled down a inch or so.

And as we walked back to the car I could see, from some distance away, that Serena indeed was fine, if by fine you mean “standing up in the rear compartment, panting with her tongue hanging out of her mouth, a ‘Someone Save Me!’ expression on her face.” Given this admittedly arguable definition of “fine” I guess I could see why Laurel rattled off a few emphatic “told you so!”s when we got the rear hatch unlocked and felt a rush of warm interior air.

Hey, I’ve never had a physics class. How was I supposed to judge the convective balance between the outflowing body heat of a mildly overweight dog and the inflowing air from mildly lowered windows? And after sucking down what was left in a water bottle Laurel had (thankfully) left in the car, Serena’s tongue retracted to its normal non-panting position, none the worse for wear.

I still was plagued by a mild case of guilt, however. And I am the Driver of the Car when Laurel and I travel together (I also am the Remote Control Holder, these two unexalted titles being bones that Laurel throws to my masculine self to chew on, thus helping to disguise the power that she wields over every other aspect of our marriage). So I lowered the left rear window so Serena could stick her head out and inhale the wondrous odors of downtown Salem while further lowering her body temperature.

This was a fatal error, as it broke the tie. As soon as Serena’s nose passed beyond the vertical boundary of the window glass I heard, “Haven’t I told you that it is dangerous to let dogs stick their head out? Stuff can get in their eyes. Do you want me to call the vet and have her talk to you, or do you believe me?” “Yes,” I softly replied, hastily putting the window up to less than dog nose width. “I believe you.”

That’s what I said outwardly. Inside my head the Husband-Wife scoreboard was brightly flashing the evening’s final “told you so!” score: Brian 1, Laurel 2. “Damn! Another loss!” I reviewed my unsuccessful game plan and made mental notes about where scoring opportunities could be found in the future. Tomorrow is another day. Win some, lose some. Well, for me as for most men it’s “win some, lose many.” Women simply play the game too well—not a fair competition at all.

Oh, great, our dog is fat

While it might seem that a Pet Health Report Card isn’t the most fascinating thing in the world, actually there is a quite a bit of interest here. Laurel handed this to me when she returned from Serena’s semi-annual “wellness exam with preventative care” (it runs two pages, but the “Urogenital” section is on the second page and I wanted to preserve at least a semblance of Serena’s canine confidentiality; the condition of her sex organs is between her, us, and every dog in the world who comes up and sniffs her).

First, I was struck by how much more informative and detailed this report is, compared to what I get when I go for my annual physical. Plus, I’m pretty sure my photo isn’t in my medical chart—though I have to say that Serena was captured in a mug shot pose that isn’t very flattering. Second, Serena has these semi-annual wellness exams, um, twice a year. Which is twice as often as I see my doctor. And when Serena goes to the vet with a health problem we get a follow-up call within a couple of days, someone pleasantly inquiring about how Serena is doing and whether we have any questions about her treatment regimen.

By contrast, I could be on death’s door and I still wouldn’t be able to reach my Salem Clinic family doctor directly by phone, since all calls go through a central switchboard where you leave a message for the doctor, which then apparently goes straight to a shredder so Dr. Too Important To Be Bothered, M.D. doesn’t have to risk being late for his golf game by spending a few minutes phoning a patient. The notion that my doctor would actually call on his own to ask how I am is, of course, beyond imagining. But not for dogs.

So Serena gets better health care than do lots of people in this country, and most people in the rest of the world. Maybe this is just one tiny, itty-bitty part of the reason why America is both so respected and so despised by those beyond our borders. We treat our pets better than millions upon millions of people are treated in third-world countries. This doesn’t mean that Serena should get worse care, of course. Let’s raise the world health care water and lift all ships.

Serena is, by the way, a Lab/German Shepherd mix, as evidenced by her drooping ears. The Pet Medical Center has her down as a German Shepherd, which is what she admittedly looks like (apart from the ears). Personality-wise, though, she is very much a Lab. For which we’re eternally thankful, having spent the 1991-2001 decade with visions of bite-induced lawsuits going through our heads every time the UPS guy or mailperson came to the door. Tasha, our previously dearly beloved psychotic pet as I liked to call her, was a purebred German Shepherd. Give me a Lab/Shepherd mix any time (unless, I suppose, the time was when I was being attacked by a 250 pound meth freak with a baseball bat).

When Laurel came back from the vet she yelled out “Serena is overweight!” as if this was totally my fault. As if the chunks of cheese I sneak into Serena’s dinner every night, or the extra dog biscuits I give her when she looks bored in between meals, are going to make any difference. I’m confident that these treats actually cause her to lose weight, because her tail wags so vigorously when I’m getting them out, and that has to burn up lots of calories.

We did get a cheery “Great job with weight loss!” in the “Appearance, Weight, Temperature” section of this report. On her last wellness check Serena had ballooned up by at least five pounds more, so we have indeed been making progress. Maybe next time we won’t have any red marks on the report and I can pin it on our refrigerator with a magnet, a big gold star pasted on the weight section. Then I’ll celebrate by giving Serena a huge chunk of cheese.

Trying to keep up with the border collie

I have to assume that Laurel is trying to keep our dog up with Rico, the really smart German border collie who knows the names of 200 objects and has language skills comparable to a young child.

Otherwise, why would she suddenly engage in a frenzy of obedience training today with Serena, the most recent (and still very much ringing in my ears) example being a 45-minute walk in the Metolius River countryside punctuated by virtually non-stop calls of “Serena, closer!” “Serena, no!” “Serena, heel!” “Serena, stay!”—depending on what out of control behavior Serena was exhibiting at the moment.

Laurel and I have different dog control standards, which makes me thankful that we’ve never had any children together. I suspect that, if we had, early on I would have been banned from going anywhere alone with the little tyke(s)—unless I was accompanied by a responsible adult, me not falling into that category.

Yesterday we got to Camp Sherman well after sunset, and Serena needed some exercise. I jumped on my mountain bike while Laurel was cleaning up the cabin and rode down a gravel road, then on a trail through the ever-darkening woods, and back on the road to the cabin. Serena ran along happily with me, and sometimes she ran along happily without me. But I always had at least a vague shadowy idea of where the family dog was when she was off checking out a deer or squirrel smell.

“Where did you go?” Laurel asked when I got back. “On a bike ride with Serena,” I replied. “Did you take a leash, a whistle, a flashlight, and her training collar?” “Um, no, I forgot.” I got the Jackie Gleason look I remember so well from the “Honeymooners”: Next time, Brian, you’re going right to the moon! But with no physical clenched fist. Just the mental version.

I probably am too casual with Serena on walks. But we both have been. On walks we’re always amazed to encounter other people who have a dog actually walking along with them. Usually Serena is only in our immediate vicinity during a few nano-seconds when geometric necessity demands that she race by us in the course of the frenzied, manic, “there’s a fresh smell just ahead!” circles she traces around us as we walk placidly along.

Well, not so placidly now, given the near-constant canine control calls Laurel has started to utter. She’s trying to reduce the radius of Serena’s racing from the current fifty yards to a dot in the distance, to what seems to me a wildly unrealistic fifty feet or so. I wish Laurel luck. She’ll need it, because as soon as I take Serena out for a walk by myself, all that training is going to start to unwind.

I figure that since Laurel never had any children of her own, she might as well get a taste of what child-rearing with a husband is like. Ah, I have so many fond memories of coming home from an outing with my daughter and overhearing the conversation in the kitchen as Celeste excitedly told her mother about her day. When I heard “Your father let you do what?! Where is he?!” I knew it was time to get my innocent face on.

Luckily, dogs can’t talk. Even Rico. And if Laurel somehow succeeds in training Serena to communicate what goes on during our man-dog walks together, I’ve got a few chew stick bribes up my sleeve that should quash any tattle-taleing. “Woof! Brian had me on the leash the whole time. He didn’t let me chase anything. Our walk was so boring. Woof! Can I go play now.” Good dog, Serena.

Serena, our Tai Chi Zen dog

Last weekend we saw more evidence of the marvelous powers of Serena, who, in addition to being astoundingly beautiful and amazingly intelligent, has canine Tai Chi and Zen down to a “T” (bone, she could only wish, if she wasn’t the animal companion of strict vegetarians).

Just as an outdoor fire is called Kentucky TV (as we were told by real live Kentuckians), so is Serena’s view out of a living room window of our Camp Sherman cabin Dog TV. For it faces a wood platform by the fire pit, under which live a flourishing family of chipmunks. Laurel leaves almonds by the holes that lead under the platform, luring the increasingly chubby chipmunks outside to fill their cheeks.

Serena watches intently. Periodically she comes up to us and turns her head toward the door, a non-verbal plea: “Let me out. Chipmunks are calling.” When we finally succumb and open the front door, she usually doesn’t rush pell-mell to the platform. Wise Dog knows better. Instead, she goes into her Tai Chi mode.

This is one of her four Tai Chi postures, the right-rear-leg-moves-as-slowly-as-growing-grass pose. She also has variations for her other three legs. Exceedingly graceful, eyes focused intently on the chipmunk who is standing beside its hole, gnawing away on an almond, she takes minutes to move just a few feet. We stand at the kitchen window, once more awed by Our Baby.

There finally comes a moment at which Serena seems to know that she has reached the Motionless Point, the place some five feet from the chipmunk hole on the perimeter of her hoped-for prey’s Dart Zone. She moves even deeper into her canine Zen No-Mind. Absolutely at rest. One focus: chipmunk.

Something breaks the spell. Dog. Chipmunk. Hard to determine. A five-foot leap takes longer than a five-inch dart. No matter. Chop wood, carry water, stalk chipmunk. One thing at a time. Now, become one with the hole. Stillness. Zen stalking. Wait for the within to reveal itself.

Kinky sexual behavior

With a title like that, I’m pretty sure this weblog posting will be read. Especially accompanied by the titillating (to dogs, at least) photo of Serena and her new canine boy-toy, Rocco. Yesterday, in freezing weather, made worse by an even-more-freezing wind chill, I dedicated myself to capturing this rather rare animal behavior: a spayed female humping away on a neutered male, who, by his expression, is either in a state of erotic pleasure or, more likely, complete bemusement.

So here we are, with several inches of snow/ice on the ground, and freezing rain coming down right now, and we’ve got to also worry about our dog’s sexual identity. Fortunately, I found some info via Google that reassured us that Serena isn’t as bizarrely caninely kinky as I thought at first. This vet, for example, gives some reasons for a female dog starting to hump another animal—in the case he addresses, a male cat, which is decidedly more kinky than a male dog, so I guess Serena is normal by comparison.

It is, though, still rather disconcerting to watch your sweet little girl puppy pumping away on a male dog like a sailor on shore leave who has been at sea for six months. Probably this is just dominance behavior, though it certainly seems like something else is going on between Serena and Rocco that approaches some sort of doggie romance. When she is on a leash, he walks beside her, and they playfully nip at each other’s muzzles almost as if they are kissing. Then, Rocco will lie down on his back, spread his legs, and Serena will jump on top of him.

Laurel spoke to Rocco’s owner a few days ago, and told the woman what was going on between our “children.” She was aghast: “That’s sick!” she cried. Knowing her attitude, I felt a little funny taking photos of the two dogs yesterday within view of Rocco’s house. It being so cold, and needing to remove my gloves to take a picture, I wanted to get an explicit photo as soon as possible. So Laurel spurred Serena on: “Get him, Serena! Get him! Jump on him! Show what kind of a studette you are!” Hopefully the cold air didn’t result in sound carrying all the way to Rocco’s house, or we may be facing a canine sexual harassment suit, which I suspect isn’t covered under our umbrella insurance policy.

Lust and longing at the dog park

Last weekend Laurel and I took the family pet, Serena, to the dog park at Minto-Brown Island. A “dog park,” for those not educated in canine arcana, is a place where dogs are allowed to run free, leashless, though still theoretically under the owner’s voice or psychic control. This was the third time, I think, that one of us had taken Serena to the dog park for some socializing. But this was the first time that I fully realized that the dog park has much social appeal for humans also.

When we let Serena out of the car, she ran happily into the large grassy dog park field, which, this being a sunny (if cold) day, already was filled with other dog parkers—both of the canine and homo sapiens variety. The dogs have no problem making new friends. Male or female, young or old, purebred or mixed breed, large or small, all it takes is a few sniffs (mostly of private parts) and some sort of mysterious social order is established. Serena knew who she wanted to play/wrestle/chase with, and who she didn’t want to play/wrestle/chase with. Even with all the dogs running around madly every which way, with some being excluded from a play group and some included, there was no fighting, no apparent hurt feelings. One big happy dog family. Which included the owners also.

Normally, if you encounter a few dozen strangers in a large field, you will exchange just a few pleasant words (“Hi,” “How are you?”, “Nice day, isn’t it?”), and that will be the extent of the socializing. But if you put a few dozen dog owners into a field, along with their dogs, even though they have never met each other, extended conversations start up almost instantly—the human equivalent of sniffing private parts, I guess. We learned the names, breeds, favorite activities (such as chasing cats, not a big surprise), and other characteristics of quite a few dogs. Knowing that there was about the same chance of Serena bringing back the tennis ball that I wanted so desperately to throw, as of me winning the lottery, I temporarily adopted retriever-appearing dogs, with the full consent of their owners (who, when the dog refused to bring the ball back to me, would say, “Don’t feel bad, that’s just what she does with me also.”)

Dog parks are one of the few places, other than sporting events, parades, or concerts, where strangers can instantly bond through the glue of a strongly shared interest. I wish there were more places like this in Oregon, and our country. When I spent a college semester in Zadar, Yugoslavia, way back in 1968, I was struck by how Zadarians (or whatever they were called) would “promenade” in the evening along this historic city’s sea wall. Women would walk in one direction, men in the other, providing lots of opportunities for subtle (and not so subtle) flirting. By contrast, where in Salem can you find more than a few people on the street after 6 pm? We have no public meeting places, bars and nightclubs being a pitifully inadequate substitute.

So, thank heavens for dog parks, where canine connoisseurs can commingle comfortably. Even when their dogs are attempting, um, to commingle in a much more intimate sense. It is a great ice-breaker to be exchanging some small talk with another dog owner, and then look down to see that one of your dogs is mounting the other one. This seems to have as much to do with dominance as it does with sex, something that I’m just learning, having moved fairly recently from the cat side of the best pet tracks. Though Serena is female, there was a lot of swinging both ways. A male would try to mount her, then she’d try to mount another female, and so it would go in various and sundry sexual combinations.

At some point I couldn’t help but think of Arnold Swartzenegger. He reportedly engaged in very much the same sorts of animalistic groping of strangers as what goes on in a dog park all the time. But the dogs don’t file sexual harassment suits, nor do their owners. Everyone just smiles and says, “No, Rover, don’t do that to her.” Understand, I’m not excusing Arnold, but maybe we people would be happier and more relaxed if we remembered that we are animals also, and accept that animals instinctively will act like animals—even if they have a Ph.D., or a Rhodes scholarship. The dog park has some lessons for us, perhaps.

Dining tip/Triathlon win

First, a dining tip. We heartily recommend, whether you are a vegetarian or not, the “Garden Plate” dinner selection at the Black Butte restaurant—where we just celebrated my second birthday dinner, ten days after the first celebration with my sister and brother-in-law. One difference this time: I had to buy my own dinner. Another difference: as good as DaVinci’s restaurant in Salem is, this Garden Plate dish was really spectacular.

Since we want Black Butte to keep offering the Garden Plate, and our waiter said it took some serious lobbying from the waiters/waitresses to get the chef to make a decent vegetarian dish, it is important—no, essential—for anyone who drives by Black Butte Ranch on their way to Sisters or Bend to stop by the restaurant and order the Garden Plate. Several years ago Black Butte had a fairly good polenta dish. Then they sold out completely to the meat/fish lobby and had absolutely nothing vegetarian on their menu. We had to beg and plead, like the second class citizens vegetarians often are, for the chef to make us a pasta dish with some vegetables on top—something we easily could have made on our own.

Now, though, the Garden Plate is an oasis in the otherwise barren vegetarian land of the Black Butte menu (OK, I think there also is a fettuccine alfredo, but that is so clichéd as not to even count). Fresh off my palate, I can accurately describe the marvelous Garden Plate: soft tofu with a crisply breaded covering, nicely fried; a grilled portabello mushroom; asparagus; sweet tomato relish; yellow squash; zucchini—all immersed in a subtle sauce, accompanied by a just-right dipping sauce. As full as I am, it makes my mouth water to remember our meal of an hour ago.

I was impressed by how, when I repeatedly took one slice of the tofu crisp and combined it with one slice of the portabello mushroom, then dunked the two-slice forkful in the dipping sauce, I ended up my meal with precisely one slice of tofu and one slice of mushroom left. It is this sort of culinary precision, combined with the creativity of the whole Garden Plate presentation, that makes Laurel and me realize that, as cooks, we aren’t worthy to butter the toast of the Black Butte chef. May he live long and prosper, and forever serve the Garden Plate to Central Oregon visitors such as we.

On a more active note, I am pleased to report that Serena and I won the human/dog Camp Sherman Iron Species Triathlon yesterday. The only shadow cast over the radiance of our win was the minor detail that we forgot to announce to anyone but ourselves that this event was being held. Still, our accomplishment deserves high praise and much publicity, which I am trying to take care of myself in this fashion.

The Iron Species Triathlon started out with a four-mile man/dog hike from our cabin to the Alingham Campground and back, walking (and in the case of Serena, running, after squirrels, chipmunks, and anything else that moved, or smelled like it had moved in the last twenty-hour hours) briskly. Man then jumped on a mountain bike and rode, with dog running ahead/behind/to each side for three miles up to the head of the Metolius River and back.

The third leg of the Iron Species Triathlon came when Serena and I returned to the cabin and took naps, each of us visualizing swimming a mile in the Metolius. At least, that’s what I did, and I assume Serena held up her end of the last leg of the Iron Species Triathlon. Since the Metolius is too damn cold to swim in, we necessarily had to make the final event of our hike/bike/swim Triathlon a virtual contest, rather than have it take place in physical reality. All in all, we were proud of our performance, and look forward to repeating as champions in the next running of the Camp Sherman Iron Species Triathlon. Our confidence is high, especially since, once again, we have no intention of publicizing the event before we’ve finished it.

Why dogs don’t invent computer chips

Recently Laurel excitedly pointed out to me a news item about dogs sharing 75% of human DNA, or something along those lines. I wasn’t impressed, since I knew that chimpanzees and people are 98% genetically similar, which makes our dog a much more distant relative. And the more I play “buddy ball” with Serena, the more I am convinced that even that 75% may be a decided overestimate. For those unfamiliar with dog play paraphernalia, “buddy ball” is the brand name of Serena’s light-up-in-the-dark ball, the light-up feature being a necessity given her underdeveloped retriever skills, as it allows me to throw the ball for her at night and be able to find it myself, and then throw it again—to myself.

Occasionally, however, seemingly at random, Serena does manage to bring the buddy ball back to the general neighborhood where I am standing. This usually happens when I am standing at the top of our driveway, which descends fairly steeply into the carport that holds our two cars. When I throw buddy ball down the hill into our lawn area, Serena doesn’t run back up the hill with the ball, because this would be too much work. Instead, she runs sideways, ending up at the edge of the carport, where, night after night, we play out the same frustrating drama.

“Bring it here, Serena! Bring it here!,” I yell encouragingly from the top of the driveway. Serena looks blankly at me, wondering what I’m talking about. “Bring it here! Good dog, good dog!” I wave my hands excitedly, like Laurel has told me to do, since this is supposed to make Serena eager to please her excited owner. Serena chews her buddy ball cud for a while, then begins walking slowly up the driveway. We both know what is going to happen. But I play out my role, and she plays out hers.

“Good girl, that’s it! All the way, bring it up all the way to me!” Maybe I’m too verbose, and should just use guttural German commands (Serena is half German Shepherd, the half that walks slowly because she feels like it), but I always feel the need to spell out exactly what she should do. Serena trudges up the driveway, then, universally, pauses almost exactly halfway up. She looks at me standing at the top. Then she looks back at the two cars at the bottom. Then she opens her mouth, drops the buddy ball, and watches it roll down the hill until it comes to rest precisely under one of the cars, having caromed off the garage door and rebounding with just enough kinetic energy to reach the most inaccessible spot in the carport.

I stare at Serena. I mutter, “You useless pet!” under my breath. I trudge down the hill, get down on my knees, reach under the car, and retrieve the buddy ball. Then I walk back up the hill and throw buddy ball again. And the game goes on. What amazes me, almost as much as my being willing to put up with this crap night after night, is that it never dawns on Serena that dropping the ball on a sharply inclined driveway is going to make the ball roll far away. Wouldn’t evolution have given dogs some insights into what happens if you drop a round bone, say, on a steep mountain? Wouldn’t dog genes be selected for that understood it is better to drop things that might roll on a flat place, rather than a round place? I think these sorts of thoughts every day, as I walk up and down the driveway, retrieving Serena’s ball so I can throw it for her again without her having to break much of a sweat.

And I wonder how it came to be that dogs are so much less smart than we humans. I wonder and wonder while walking up and down the hill so Serena can have some pre-dinner exercise, and I continue wondering as I take her inside to fix her dry food/canned food/broccoli/cheddar cheese chunks meal, and I wonder still as I give Serena her chew-stick dessert if she has cleaned her bowl (which, to be honest, she gets even if she hasn’t). How did we humans get to be so smart, and dogs so dumb? Well, I can’t spend any more time pondering this question. Serena just came in and gave me her “let’s play” look. Can’t keep her waiting.

Serena renaming not in the works

At least, the past few days have convinced us that the family pet definitely shouldn’t be renamed Thor, a.k.a. the Viking thunder god. Notwithstanding Serena’s proud half German-Shepherd bloodline (the other half being Labrador, though her Lab DNA must be missing all retriever instincts, given how much time and energy I spend retrieving tennis balls), we’ve learned that she is a total dog-wuss in the presence of thunder and lightning.

Here in the Camp Sherman environs of central Oregon, we’ve had some impressive thunderstorms the past few days. (A few trees reportedly caught fire on Black Butte last night, but were quickly put out by smokejumpers.)

Serena has spent several hours curled up, and trembling, in whatever areas of the cabin most look like a lair to her at any given thundering moment. First, she headed for her portable kennel, but that apparently was too close to some windows. Then, we found her lying on my meditation pillows, in a bedroom closet that I’ve appropriated for my deep spiritual practice, which some might casually dismiss as sleeping while sitting cross-legged if they weren’t aware of the subtle transformative mystic energies being contacted in my seemingly somnolent state.

Perhaps this is why Serena felt so safe perched on my pillows and Indian shawl, which we quickly replaced with her faux sheepskin dog pad. I shut the closet door halfway, to enhance the cavelike feel, and Serena made it through the thunderstorm in fairly good dog-spirits. This afternoon, more rain and thunder drove Serena under the small desk on which my laptop computer sits, to nestle, trembling again, against my legs as I tried to write some emails.

Dogs are good for lots of things, including licking up spills on the floor that you otherwise would have to take a sponge to, and also reminding us of the Magical Side of Nature. If we didn’t know what thunder and lightning was (and I barely do, I have to admit), we humans too would either be curled up in some womblike place of shelter, or rendering sacrifices to Thor. Sometimes it seems that knowing too much leads to knowing too little. Maybe Serena’s reaction is the proper one—fear and trembling in the face of natural powers we can’t control, and barely understand.

Laurel and I went for a mountain bike ride yesterday afternoon, just as the storm was gathering strength. We rode along the beautiful single-track trail behind Metolius Meadows while thunder boomed and nickel-sized raindrops fell on us. We felt very small. Two little people in a great big quasi-wilderness, watching the wildness of a thunderstorm flash and crash overhead. It was great. It was real. It wasn’t bullshit make-believe like so much of human life is. It reminded us that whatever we think we humans are, we aren’t much, compared to the Forces of Nature than could wipe out each and every Homo sapiens in a heartbeat. Serena instinctively knows this. In this way, our dog is smarter than we are, and we have much to learn from her.

[Note: I do not have any inside information from the Forces of Nature that they are preparing to wipe out each and every Homo sapiens in a heartbeat. However, general justification for this statement is contained in this paragraph from a book I’m reading, “The Universe Story,” by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry:

When we examine the nature of the universe we find galaxies with a violence so intense that we cannot account for it scientifically: great spikes of energy blasting across hundreds of millions of miles from the center of our galaxy out through its member systems. Speculation points to black holes of monstrous dimensions generating such extremes of energy from the center of our galaxy. Our own Milky Way galaxy might be capable of generating such a death spike. If such an energy blast does erupt, we will not learn of it much before it reaches us. Even now, a wall of plasma could be rifling towards us at millions of miles a minute; with such stupendous power it would not even notice the Sun and Earth as it scattered us into elementary particles in its inexorable flight of destruction through the stellar systems.

Erotic Serena.

click to enlarge

Because of the bad economic times, we're thinking of branching out into some other entrepreneurial directions. As part of our market research, we'd be interested in the level of interest among HinesSight readers of tasteful pet-erotica. We have a live-in model who works for almost free (dog biscuits are cheap), and Laurel loves to snap photos of her in alluring poses. We're pretty sure a pet-erotica web site would be legal (though one never knows with Ashcroft around) but the question is: how much would people pay to view it? This is one of those secret passions that few like to talk about, but if you know an admirer of pet-erotica, or are one yourself, let us know your opinion of this potentially lucrative venture. Of course, if we pursue this, we'll need some additional models. Pet owners, keep a camera handy. Who knows, your gerbil might be the next digital centerfold on our new web site.

Human training with Chuck-It

We often hear, "be careful of what you want, for you may get it." The summer after we got Serena the Wonder Dog I took her down to the dog exercise field at Minto Brown park, where I admired the tennis ball hurling gadget that a woman was using. While I was throwing Serena's ball just a little way down the field, plus running the risk of throwing my shoulder out with every not-so-mighty hurl, she was effortlessly catapulting her dog's ball far past my distance, and with much less effort. To top it off, she didn't have to bend down and pick up the ball after her dog trotted back and laid it at her feet.

So I was thrilled when Laurel came home with a Chuck-It a while back. It almost didn't survive its first day with us, since Serena immediately decided that it had a higher use as a plastic chew stick, than as a ball-chucking device. However, the pieces she gnawed off didn't impede the functionality of Chuck-It, so Serena and I have been training with it for several months. I'm pleased to report that in this relatively short time I've learned how to retrieve tennis balls from amazingly far distances, sometimes when they're hidden in thick wet grass, and have lost several pounds to boot. Serena has learned how to manipulate and control a human being, or, more accurately, she has honed her already ample skills in this area.

This afternoon offered a good example of how well my training is coming along. Standing at the top of our lawn area, I'm able to Chuck-It a tennis ball with excellent accuracy all the way down to, or even past, the large oak tree at the other end of the lawn. The Chuck-It web site says that throwing distances of 150 feet can consistently be achieved with their product, and I will testify to that. This is half the length of a football field. So, every time I walk all the way down the hill to the oak tree to get the ball that Serena has run after, sniffed, and then left alone to go pursue some other more interesting Wonder Dog activity, and then walk back up the hill to repeat the process, I am walking close to 300 yards, which has to be excellent exercise. "Thank you, Serena," I try to remember to say every time I trudge down and up the slope. "Because you have such a recessive retriever gene in your German Shepherd/Labrador heritage, I am reaping wonderful aerobic rewards."

Still, once in a while I wonder whether it really is appropriate for a man throwing a ball for a dog to get more exercise than the dog does. But that's a humancentric thought which I try to dispel as soon as it arises. We are equal members of equal species, Serena and I. If it works out that Wonder Dog trains me to retrieve the ball, while she has her fun running after it and then leaving it where it lays, who am I to say that this is not part of the rightful natural order of things? After all, I also am trained to jump up and give Serena her dinner-time chew stick dessert when she puts her paw on my knee while I am comfortably reading the paper on the couch, and Laurel is trained to rub her stomach until Serena falls asleep when she presents herself for her late evening pre-bedtime patting session. Ah, its great to have gone to dog-training classes. Now we know just how to respond when Serena wants us to do something.

Canine perfection

Canine Perfection, the Sublime Platonic Form of Dog--Serena! (serenely posing near the headwaters of the Metolius River, with Black Butte in the background)