22/8/22

Today is the 88th anniversary of the death of Michael Collins. He died in an IRA ambush outside the tiny village of Béalnablath in West Cork. A great tragedy for Ireland, and the Irish.

In a little over a week I'll be back on the Ould Sod. I usually wander out to Béalnablath while I am there and will no doubt do that this time as well.

Jack's growing

He's going into a growth-spurt right now. In the pointing photo immediately preceding this post he looks like a little rectangle. Now he's becoming more lanky and is an almost perfect square. He worked the pheasant wing very well yesterday and enjoyed it. He got a little more exposure to gunfire this morning and still no reaction to speak of. (He stops eating for a moment, comes to the front of the deck to look, and then goes back to his breakfast.)

On a 200-mile supply run yesterday he was a near-perfect traveler: no complaints, no howling, no accidents, no nonsense of any kind. So many dogs are temperamental about traveling that I am glad to see he doesn't seem to be one of them. I bought him and Maggie a dog-house at the ranch store and he has already been napping in it, while Mags is avoiding it as a "new thing."

I go back to Ireland on the 1st and am not looking forward to missing my pups for almost a month. Well, there'll always be the homecoming!

What a wonderful day!

Jack is 9 weeks old today. I figured he was overdue for a little work-out, so I thawed a pheasant wing and attached it to a fly-rod. I took him out front (with the other dogs put away) and let him see and smell the wing but not touch it, keeping it away from him with the fly-rod when he got too close. In about thirty seconds he decided that pointing was better than chasing and I grabbed this shot of his first real point on a "bird."

I only worked with him for about fifteen minutes. He didn't want to quit and after I put the wing and rod away he stayed on the training ground and "tracked" wherever the wing had been, with great enthusiasm. I finally had to go collect him and put him in his pen for a nap.

I guess it would take another bird-dog person to understand what a special thing this is for me. My "little man" has passed his first test and this is a very major thrill for me— and I think for him as well. Nothing can match this until his first point on a real bird this fall. Life is good!

Dog-nanny checking in!

Been kinda AWOL lately. I can't really blame it on Jack, but he has been a factor, even if a pleasant one.

For those that might be interested, he weighed 10.4# and stood 12" when he came to us. Yesterday, his ninth with us, he weighed in at 13.4# and stands 14". He and Mags are great buddies now and the play-fights they seem to enjoy so much would curdle your blood to watch and listen to. He's spunky in spades, and though she continues to be able to dominate him, at 26#, she cannot cow him. She's going to need counseling when her dominant period comes to an end, which isn't all that far away. But she's amazingly patient with him, which I think is quite a feat since I know well how sharp those little teeth are.

He knows his name; will come about 2/3ds of the time he is called; responds well to "Be quick!" (potty command); hasn't soiled his crate and sleeps through the night; understands "No bite!" as well as a more generalized "No!" He barks at strangers, but is ready to be friendly if they are. He's doing a lot of little quick points when we walk in the fields and I think he's ready for the pheasant wings now. Doesn't seem afraid of thunder and I've been shooting a .22 rifle about 50 yards away while he eats. No signs of undue alarm yet, but he is curious about it.

They can be tiring, but puppies are a wonderful experience and I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't experienced one.

The course of true love...

...never did run smooth.

Unless, of course, you're a bug. Then everything is hunky-dory.

Jack's first days

Jack is doing very well here at Rancho de los Perros. He fits in well, and the other dogs have accepted him without any glitches or problem-areas. Mags is a bit jealous, but I am giving her extra attention and of course she is the only dog allowed on the bed at night, so that helps. But whenever I pet or make a fuss over Jack she finds a ball and brings it to be thrown. I throw it, of course!

There is obviously a "bond of fascination" for Jack with Emma. (Not the other way. Yet, at least.) Whenever Em is close by he gravitates to her and tries to follow her when she's exploring (which is all the time!). But she is too fast and has no obvious interest in him. Much too busy; makes no concessions to little legs. Typical Shorthair. But he watches her with admiration in his eyes and whenever she comes close enough he tries to go with her.

He also has a thing for brush. I trim the yard right up to the high grass so there is a real demarcation line between "lawn" and "tall grass." He will stand in the lawn, close to the high, thick grass and stare into it -- as if he could actually see anything! Then he makes a mighty leap into it, thrashes around for a few seconds, and bounces out again. The sort of thing that Mags never did, and has no interest in now. But it is just the kind of play you would like to associate with a bird dog. Soon now the pheasant wings!

He spends a lot of his day in the front pen, under the big cedar, often with Mags. Mags is very patient with him and has yet to do one of her big, back-off ROWR-ROWRs as are so frequent with some pushy, rude smaller dogs which she despises. He even grabbed loose skin on her lower neck and twisted and she just got loose and moved away. Given time, I think they will be friends. Once he's big enough to matter, I'm certain that Em will enjoy his company on their rounds and she will be a great help in keeping him safe and within bounds. Nevertheless, I will be keeping a close eye on him as he is sure to get a measure of wanderlust at some point. It'll be quite some time before he gets the freedom that Emma has.

This morning he got his nails clipped for the first time. He did NOT like it, but put up with it pretty well. He's sleeping through the night and has learned that whining and howling gets him exactly nothing.

And that's the news about Jack's first four days. Mine, too, as I'm having to adjust to having a puppy on the place again.

Meet Jack

Well, I did it. For some time now I have been thinking about bringing on an apprentice for Emma. She's eight-and-a-half now and it's time to do that. But I was happy with two dogs and not particularly thrilled with the thoughts of the first three or four years with a new pup which can be super-trying, as most of us know.

But then an unplanned opportunity arose that jolted me out of my complacency. And so Jack came to live with us today. He's a spunky little monkey, completely unafraid of the other dogs and very friendly, confident, and outgoing.

Also— I just want to mention how much the comments on my Murphy post meant to me. Dogs and dog-people are special and we seem to have deep reservoirs of fellow feeling about our four-legged friends and the joy and pain they bring to our lives. I don't think I could ever trust a person who didn't at least "like" dogs. Thanks, everybody. Jack says "Hi!"

Murphy

This week was the third anniversary of the death of Murphy. Dog-people sometimes talk about our "friends" and sometimes non-dog-people scoff at such an idea. How can a dog be a genuine friend? That's silly. To them, maybe. I pity them for that.

Murph was a special being. Oh, sure— every dog owner says that about their doggie pals. And I have no doubt they are right. I've lived with too many fine dogs to doubt it in the least.

But even so, Murph was different. If I were a Buddhist I'd say he was a bodhisattva. And who's to say he was not. Not a day goes by that I do not think about him and wish he were still here with us.

The two pictures are of him as a young sprout, full of vim and vigor, and just before his death, when the cancer had really eaten into him.

Nobody who ever got to know him thought he was anything but very, very special. He'll be with me 'til my own last day.

A flood of golden light

Just the other evening I was in the kitchen getting ready to make something to eat. The late afternoon had turned very dark and I had flipped on the light over the stove. Suddenly the room was filled with an intense warm glow. I went to the front door and saw that the sun, just about to go down behind the mountain to the west had broken through the gloom and flooded the prairie with a molten gold light that burnished everything with a Midas glow. It lasted only a few seconds, but I managed to bang off a couple of frames.

(I suspect that wind-pump may be the most photographed Aermotor in twelve counties! Can't help that: it's my lawn ornament and keeps getting in the way.)

Foundling report

The dove chick seemed to do well in my fenced garden. It couldn't get out through the wide mesh because I had put chicken wire on the bottom 18" of the fence to keep the rabbits out. Emma was very vigilant, making it her duty to check on the baby's whereabouts first thing every morning and then several times a day thereafter. This was not kindness on her part. After all Emma is a bird dog 24/7.

Mom was often seen feeding the chick and after a few days there was no more sign of it. No body or other evidence of foul (fowl!) play. Looks like the baby got its wings and flew off with mother. As an aside, the morning after I first discovered the foundling I also found two other chicks just outside the dog pen wire. These guys were evidently more advanced than their sibling, because when I approached them they flew off into a nearby cottonwood. It wasn't an elegant flight, but it did the job.

Emma still circles the fence looking for the chick, but she is about to give that up in favor of more profitable patrols.

A Foundling

I have a dog-yard just off the deck out front. It's about 24x30'. This morning Mags wanted to stay out for a while and since I had things to do I closed her in the pen. Emma was out on her own.

After a while I looked out the office window to see Emma very interested in what was going on in the pen and Mags walking behind a baby bird as it flopped around trying to get away from her. She wasn't trying to grab it (as Emma would have in a second!) but seemed merely curious about it.

Dogs' reactions to such events are interesting. Emma would have gobbled the little thing. Mags wanted to know what it was but didn't have any interest in catching it or doing anything to it. Had it been a rodent she would have reacted differently. Murphy, my beloved Rottweiler, would have been beside himself with worry. Many times he would find a baby bird or bunny in the yard and come running for me to bring me back to it. He seemed to be saying, "We oughta do something about this!" It simply wasn't in him to hurt such critters.

Anyway, I went out into the pen (keeping Emma out) and picked up the baby. It was a dove and had obviously fallen out of a nest in the cedar tree inside the pen. I try to discourage birds from nesting there but it doesn't do any good. I couldn't see the nest in the cedar so I took Mags out of the pen and set the baby in a big, flat crotch of the tree, then closed the gate to the pen to keep the dogs out.

When you find a little bird like this your first thought is that it is "abandoned," or that something has happened to the mother. This is almost always wrong. Mom is most likely there, watching everything you do, whether you can see her or not. (Try handling baby owls or hawks and you'll meet momma lots sooner than you would like!)

In about half an hour I went back out to see how things were going. Sure enough, baby had left its perch and was on the ground again. This time Mom was there, stuffing food down its gullet. When she saw me she backed off a little and huddled close in the grass. I stayed on the deck so as not to disturb them more than I had to to see what what was happening. But I must have made Mom nervous, as after a few minutes she flopped away, on the ground, in a perfect and very touching display of a bird with a broken wing. I went back inside to let her calm down. Unless a big bull snake shows up, things should be OK in the closed pen for a while. Maybe even long enough for Mom to get the fledgling up into a tree and off the ground.

I suppose I could get a ladder and try to find the nest in the thick tangles of the cedar's mid-story. But usually once a baby starts to get wanderlust putting it back in the nest is a waste of time. If they're really, really young it might work, but otherwise just forget it. (As another aside, it's an old wive's tale that if you handle a baby bird the mother won't have anything to do with it. Except for buzzards birds have no olfactory sense.)

We really don't have a pressing need for more doves around here, but that's not the point. We'll just have to let this little drama work itself out.

Irish Geology

I'm one of those travelers that would rather have a nice, typical stone from a visited place than almost anything else. Certainly more than a plastic "souvenir" made in China.

Since I started to going to Ireland regularly, in 1984, I have brought back examples of her impressive geology. My front steps are now lined with an ever-changing arrangement of Irish stones. I like to look at them, when they're dry and when they are slick with prairie rain.

Once, in Shannon airport, a porter hefted one of my bags and said "What have ye got in here, rocks?" I said "I do indeed!" and I think he chalked me up as just another crazy American.

When I moved out here, friends helped me load the semi-trailer I had purchased. I had a large library and they grew weary of toting the many boxes of very heavy books. But when they came to the two boxes of Irish stones, weighing about sixty pounds each, I had planned ahead! I didn't have the heart to tell them they were carrying stones, so I labeled each box "Irish Geology." No questions were asked.