Today was Hank's monthly acupuncture appointment. Hank and I sat on
the floor In a tiny room with the vet, Becky, and her tech, Patricia.
Sharing the room was a woman who's mini pincher stood shivering on the
exam table, already pierced and throbbing with healing current. 

Hank has grown used to the drill. We walk in, she gets on a padded
matt, they stick needles into her, hook them up to electrodes and she
either stands or lays down for a 1/2 hour while I chat it up with
Patricia, or Becky, or the other tech, who likes cats.  Hank is relaxed
while receiving her treatment.  This is huge for Hank, an Australian
Cattle Dog mix, who is mostly raw neurotic energy, even at the
approximate age of 13. 

The min pin was shaking and panting.  We were mid-discussion on cat
hydro-therapy and what sort of deranged failed CIA operative came up
with that idea, when the min pin stopped panting, lay down, and, though still
looking ill at
ease, seemed decidedly less terrorized. 

"OH!" exclaimed the dog's owner, a
nice young woman with a charming smile and irrelevantly silly shoes,
(they looked like twin velvet speedboats, with a bow where the drivers should be.)

"THE AROMA THERAPY IS WORKING!"

One of the things I love about WestVet, besides the people, is that
they are always trying new things.  LIke cats in whirlpools and
…aromatherapy!  Scented oil that is calming and soothing to your
pet.  (It smelled not unlike an old ladies living room, thermastat set
to 76, magazines from the 70's, heavy layer of lavender furniture
polish. Hint of hard candies from Easters long ago.)   I'm not
surprised it worked on the min pin, who looked like Shelly Winters
(Poseidon Adventure era) but it PROBABLY wasn't the soothing scent I'd
choose for Hank, who might do better with cat vomit or the smell of a
vehicle overheating. (Not currently available) 

I'm pretty sure Hank's emotions can't be bought with lavender.

Briefly when we had the room to ourselves, the woman with the min
pin asked me if the aroma therapy wasn't the most amazing thing I'd
ever seen.  I kept looking at her shoes, imagining the sort of drivers
they should have, and shrugged. I gave a non-committal, "Your dog seems
much calmer."

I really wondered if having another calm dog present might also have
been a factor.  Or that we were talking about sticking cats in whirring
tanks of water.   

I used to have really strong opinions.  I should say, I would opine
strongly; my opinions were strong like an odor is strong, not like
steel or a bear. Actually, maybe a bear. A smelly bear.  I would raid
campgrounds with my opinions, steal people's picnic basket joy. 

The older
I get, the more often I find that the more vocally certain I am, the
more likely I am to be very publicly wrong. My opinions have morphed
into preferences or strong leanings.   For instance, I lean strongly
toward believing that Country Music sucks the backside of sweaty truck
drivers. Although, many of my friends LOVE that shi….uh musical
genre.   So, I try to keep an open mind.  In the OLDEN DAYS of KATY, I
would have droned on and on about how country music makes me feel like
stabbing at my ears with pruning shears, and why just because 'truck'
and 'beer' are easy to rhyme doesn't mean that doing so illuminates a
universal truth.  Why, FIGURATIVELY, supporting CW is EXACTLY the same
as encouraging Special People to breed. Then I'd find out my real
father was Merle Haggard or something.  That's the sort of luck I
have.   Only not so potentially interesting or profitable.  My real
father would be in a Merle Haggard cover band.  Merle and the Haggies
or something. Scottish Country. Anyway.  I'm more careful.

"I'd like to try the aroma therapy on my dogs sometime," I said, full of my open minded goodness.

Becky came in the door just then, went to her cupboard, took out a
big q tip, dipped it in her little vial of Old Lady Concentrate and
wiped a big smear across Hank's stoic forehead.  I had to drive home
with all the windows open, and even then I didn't exceed 20 MPH and my
right blinker was on the entire time.

 Goodbye, Colleen!

Yesterday we helped Colleen pack up for her move to North Idaho.  It went pretty quickly with 7 of us working. I haven't known Colleen for as long as some of the others, like Jodi and Jaenne, and Mary (who works with Colleen), but I will really miss her.  She is a quietly humorous person; very intelligent, full of interesting biology facts, great with her dogs, really fun to be around.  She is moving north of Sandpoint; beautiful country, not yet yuppified, nor scary white (anymore), yet still close enough to a good beer and bookstores to be reasonable.   I envy her the new adventure. I hope we stay in touch. 

Greenleaf

Could be mine by next weekend!  Scary.  I will be poor again.  Not as poor as I was 20 years ago, raising Cienna on a bakery workers income, sharing the dog's vaccines with her because we were too poor to afford a pediatrician….Cienna is vaccinated against Bordatello and Rabies, and lately giardia, but not measles or smallpox or tetanus or whooping cough.  I've never had the heart to tell her this. OR that the shots I give her still, (consistency is important in disease control) when she comes home every year, are NOT the same as the ones her friends received as children in real physician's offices.  She thinks that our family doctor is a kind old-school* elderly gent named Dr. Fosters-Smith, who is an agoraphobic.  And that I received a nursing certificate thru the mail in the 1980s and am his assistant.  I do this for The Love of Family Medicine AND the United States Postal Service.  She has NEVER had worms.

NOT REALLY.  BUT this is the sort of story my husband's mother comes up with, confusing details and Lifetime television movie plots into our lives; she passes these strange tales along far and wide.  Recently she was telling people that: Cienna was born with a cleft pallet and, instead of nursing her, I had to dip a rag in milk (!) and squeeze the nutrition into her mouth.  Rag drippings. For the first 2 years of her life.  Where did this come from? Is there any seed of truth? In America?  No. I nursed Cienna for the first year of her life with my admittedly rag-like bosoms, but her palette has always been…uh….uncleaved? 

The second rumor that came back to me, also hilarious, but easier to understand due to my notorious love of my dogs and sketchy kitchen undertakings: I am feeding my family on a diet of raw meat.  Chicken necks, thighs with bones and skin,  gizzards and hearts, chunks of beef.  Eric is 6'4" and weighs 200 pounds.  How many chicken necks do you suppose it would take to fill him up?  Carlos, also substantial in size, prefers cheese and carbs to meat.  I can't even imagine the look on his face if I handed him a plate of gizzards.

My mother-in-law is endearingly unbalanced.  Since reading my now defunct blog, I am Eating My Husband's Soul, she fears me.   In that blog, which was really just a spoof on the popular Good Wife blogs, I had my husband repeatedly molested by my best friend's well-dressed monkey, named Andre.  I had a great time writing that blog, for well over a year, to huge success.  But I shut her down when Eric begged me to please do something before his mother had him kidnapped and rehabilitated, and re-released into a better home and garden.

Anyway, sounds like I'll soon be able to christen the new Greenleaf Center for Carnivore Depravity, with a rag dipped in champagne.  Money doesn't matter.  It's all about Helping People. 

__________________________________________________

*Old School – This is a great term to throw around when you don't want to go into vivid actual detail surrounding some suspiciously half-assed or outmoded way of doing something.

I've been driving around for the past month, practicing my whistles in a way that made sense to me; namely learning to whistle old sitcom theme songs and commercials from the 70's.  Somedays I really impressed myself with my repertoire.  Mr. Ed, Green Acres, the Patty Duke Show!! (I know! I KNOW! 1960's even!)
Of course, though he claims to have been crying for an entirely different reason, and not for joy, I believe that Eric was proud of my progress with Stairway to Heaven.

I believed that, though I might be lagging behind in the dog/human communication portion of herding, my whistling skills would be the stuff of legend.

Sadly, like most things, turns out that my tonal talents are not translating to the sheepdog world quite as smoothly as I had fantasized that they would.  Today I was trying to replicate the tones that Jen has been trained to understand and…
I can only do 'Walk' and 'Look Back'.  Everything else leads me, frustrated and angry, straight into the intro to My Three Sons.

I know what you, reader, are thinking, because I thought of it, too: Well, Katy, it might take a little longer, like trying to drive your car somewhere, say Portland, using only left-hand turns, but you can eventually navigate a trial field with Walk and Look Back. Just concentrate on straight lines. 

But I want to have it all and it's really humbling to find myself up against such a small yet significant stumbling block.  Rather than question my own abilities, or admit finally that it may involve my family's long standing assertion that I'm "tone deaf" and "shouldn't be in the same room with a musical instrument of ANY KIND"….I find myself considering the problem to be that of the Whistle itself.  It's just not good enough, it lacks the RANGE, to communicate my more sophisticated instructions.

So, my next thought was, could Jen work under a boat horn?  That would free up my mouth for screaming incessantly, something I hate to give up.  But ….no range there, either.
Which led to might Jen respond even BETTER to the harmonica, say some bluesy notes driving her Away melodically, regretfully?  Upbeat frolicky rifts telling her to Come By?  Transitioning to the folksy Walk, Look Back…Neil Young has an entire career I could use.  That'll Do, sad and spiritual… 

Close, but too much blowing and sucking in. Too likely to be abused by people who are depressed by the way their run is going or who like to get high beforehand.  NOT that anyone does that, but they might if we started having decent tunes and more food available.     

Why not the Pan Flute?  Pan was the greek god of Shepherds and Flocks.  And I can get one on Ebay for like a buck ninety five. PLUS they'll throw in Yanni's Greatest Hits.  Yanni.  Yeah.

I've hit rock bottom.

Back to Patrick's Welsh Tones…

Today I actually called in sick from work. Sick enough to stay in bed until 10 watching the inauguration….But not too sick to drive out to Caldwell afterward; pick up Jen (she thinks I'm her Sheep Chauffeur) from Patrick's and drive over to Dianne's house.  Lindy and Rave, my 16 year old son, Carlos, and Scout, came along also.  Scout's crate was barely big enough to hold both her and her disapproval.

Jen lay draped across Carlos from Patrick's house to DIanne's.  She reminds Carlos of the Aussie who raised him, our beloved VB, who died at 15 a few years ago.  VB and Carlos were inseparable.  We called her our nanny.  Her devotion was unconditional, her patience saintly, yet she did eat at least half of all his snacks, a good portion of all meals.  She taught him her best skills.  Like peeing outside and befriending squirrels. (VB truly loved squirrels; let them eat from her dish). The Joy of Frisbee.
Neighborhood watch.  One time a neighbor lady stopped me to share her funny story of Carlos and VB, running along the fence together, chasing and barking at the mail carrier.   

"Up and down the fence they'd both go," she said, shaking her head. "The mailman tried to talk to the boy, and the dog… but ….they both just barked and barked. He even had a lollipop he tried to give your son.  That little boy really seems to cue off of the dog!"
At the time we did get a lot of junk mail.  Also at the time Carlos preferred snausages to candy.
Jen seems to have the same sweet yet stubborn personality. 

Jen and I worked better today. Better in that we both knew what we were there to do and one of us could just suck it up and patronize the silly Not Patrick for a little while since she drives us to sheep and has a treat in each pocket.  Our driving lines were straighter.  Things flowed more easily. 

DIanne worked Scout.  Scout kept running back to the car, where I was crouched being small behind the wheel.   Scout didn't bark as much as she has at Dianne, and monitored her distance from the sheep better than she does for me. I was happy that she had her time on sheep.  Dianne is a saint.  I wish I had thought to bring treats for her.  Next time.

LIndy and Rave did great.  Rave is a really sweet red aussie with a quirky personality and lots of talent.
They worked on her outruns and driving.  Each time they are visibly better than the time before.

On the way home, Jen crunched her final treat and Scout plotted her revenge from the back.

"Let's just keep driving," Carlos suggested, when it was time to turn into Patrick's drive, "Tell him we forgot…."

Sometimes I worry that Carlos' first girlfriend will be my age.  And hate mail.

Carlos and VB circa 1998ish

Yesterday at Dianne's I worked with Patrick's Jen. Poor Scout looked on in scoutrage from the front seat of Jodi's pickup.  Actually, though, I think it's more appropriate to say that Jen worked with me.

Jen is a great accomplished open dog who has gone into retirement or semi-retirement, at least from trialing. Nine years old, and having recently raised a litter of puppies, I think it must have been a rude surprise for her to be roused from her lazy Sunday morning and thrown into the back of Not Patrick's truck, into a crate, next to some beer bottles, only to emerge 15 minutes later at Dianne's house working for….a clown.  Someone who can't find her come-by with both hands.  Someone who would try.  Someone who instead of employing a whistle seemed to almost beg, piteously.  

"Jen? Come by? Here! Herehere!?"

It took her a little bit to realize I was serious.  Or that she was awake and alive and really being asked to work for an amateur. It took me a little while to be serious. I was in awe of a dog who knows so much more than me.

When we got to Patrick's that morning, Patrick came outside, followed by Jen, unawares and carrying a nice bone.  "Patrick and I are going to check on something Important. Maybe I'll pee…" You could almost hear the tune she was humming in her doggy head. Then she saw us, saw the truck, felt our intent; she dropped the bone in shock as we started steering her toward Jodi's truck. Patrick's Boston Terrier quickly nabbed it. Somewhere a cow bawled.  I'm sure it all happened in slow motion for Jen and that her thoughts were something along the lines of, 

"Who are these Not Dianne or Susans? Are those BEER BOTTLES? Oh, no. No. nonononono. I am NOT getting into a COOLER in the BACK of Not Patrick's TRUCK at 10:00 in the morning when I still have my genitals to lick and that bone…where is my b….oh! Sweet Crunchy Jesus, that little punk with the fancy collar took my bone! What is going on?! Have I died in my sleep? Is this HELL? No, there would be more cats….and not Patrick… Oh! Is he really allowing this? After I have given that man the BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE?"

Poor Jen.  It was a rough start to her morning, but once she rolled out of the pickup at Dianne's house and onto the field with me and some sheep she seemed to warm to her job.    

It was nice working at a slower-than-Scout pace, and on things other than Get Back and Get Out of That.  Jen and I drove.  Back and forth long distances on Dianne's field. It was tricky at first, for me – — like learning to use a clutch. My timing sucks. I'm not used to saying 'Come by' or 'Away' and having it work. Jen is so smooth and steady.  So we drove crooked, serpentine lines back and forth, but it was really fun. For me.   Jen was probably busy trying to remember what she chewed up at home to deserve this. 

I've seen these skills used by other people on other dogs, but I'm not even close with Scout.  It was nice to have that experience.  Saturday, at Colleen's Going Away Party, (sniff, stifled sob), I worked Reena a bit and that was good, also.  It is helpful to experience how different dogs work, how their eye or power or speed or whatever effects the livestock, what one needs to do to compensate.  It's nice to have the time to process things as they happen.   

I'm sure Jen didn't even look back as she and Patrick drove away.  She assumed we'd go back to drinking beer and the sheep would scatter like leaves. 

I haven’t really been running lately. Not truly running.
More like brisk walking.  Running really makes me happy, and I know my
dogs do better after a longish run.  Zeke and Scout totally Zeke-out
during the first 2 miles or so; running around and around sagebrush, over rocks
and logs and each other, through creek beds at top speed, reverse
direction.  Scout lays in wait ahead on
the trail and pounces on Zeke as he rushes past.

 Fun for all, for the
first 20 minutes or so.

At some point on every run, especially on a new trail, or
new route on an old trail, Scout and Zeke seem CERTAIN that I have no
idea where I’m going or how we’re going to get back.   We’re
lost.  While Scout is convinced that we are loping idiotically into our
doom, Zeke takes a more positive stance; he indulges me hoping that when it
gets dark, and cold, and dinner time, we’ll eat Scout. 
Scout runs at my side, looking up at me, willing me to admit that we’re going
to die cold and alone and without a couch to hide under.  Zeke runs ahead frequently stopping to look
at me with his ‘This might be a good place to turn around or eat the little
weird dog’ expression.

I run my dogs in shifts now. It’s easier. There really is no
way to monitor 5 dogs with any degree of confidence that one or more won’t take
off after a deer or coyote, or livestock; or that I won’t accidentally leave
one in the car… or in the foothills.  Especially tempting with the
Butter Queen Annie.  Re-introduce the hunting dog mix into the wild. 
Rub some bacon grease on her tartan sweater, roll her in some crumbs…. 
She could be a new encrusted species.  Rare and breaded status.

Anyway, no. Zeke and Scout are my running dogs.  Hank, Jasper and Annie
constitute the Old Lady Toddle.  I prefer to run with Zeke and Scout first
and toddle afterward with the Old Ladies. The old ladies have no worries.  Hank and Jasper trot along, peeing and
sniffing until they want to turn around, about 20 slow minutes into our
leisurely stroll.  Annie runs wide loping
circles around our general area the whole time she’s offleash, the middle third
of the walk.  She’s not really an old
lady. She has her own category.  It’s
easier to keep an eye on Annie, and train her while walking.  Plus, Scout hates her.  Annie is a humpstress. 

Last night I decided to run for 30 – 45 minutes on a trail
that drops down into a little valley and meanders along a stream and climbs steeply back up along a ridge, back down a hill to the car.  I’ve
been on this trail a few times. I like it because, like most of my trail
choices, no one else uses it much.  I prefer to not play this Foothills
Yuppie Trail Use Etiquette game; leash walk, greet strangers with apologies,
“She won’t bite…anything above the knee usually…”  and
“Can my nice dog please sniff your …let’s be frank uglier dog’s butt?
What? No!?  Too late…That little furry gland should be
honored!” 
Although it is funny to watch people who accessorize everything in their lives,
wear all the Right Gear, (new this season!), drive a Lexus SUV to the trailhead
and hike with titanium ski poles….have to pick up their dog’s excrement, with
their hands, in a little bag, and carry it for 1/4 mile.  It’s a shameful
testament to my character that I really get a kick out of that.  Turns out, I’m a bitch.

So, Last night I did get
lost. I ended up taking a wrong drainage and having 2 steep hills to climb, being followed by a coyote, and
getting back to the car just barely able to still see the trail.  We did not eat Scout, BUT the old ladies did
not get their walk and the disappointment all around was palpable.  Almost. 
Annie greeted me at home with a dead squirrel.  

I would blog about my lesson with Dianne yesterday, but I feel more confident about my leadership skills in the workplace today. So….

Today at work I led my first conference call as new chair of a group that I never really even wanted to join.  Peer pressure! What ever happened to the good ole days when it got you high and addicted to cleaning solvents?  This still may. I do love my scented markers. BUT I could quit anytime. 

Anyway, these calls usually last in excess of the allotted hour put aside. Thanks to me and my facilitation skills, I shuffled things along at a clip that got us over and out within 24 minutes. AND I ate my and half my bosses lunch at the same time! I cut people off mid-sentence by saying definitive things like, "Okay, well if no one has anything else on that subject…" my voice escalating, and adding in a bit of humming if they tried to continue.  For topics that really threatened to ramp up, regardless of my humming, I chewed food directly into the mouthpiece. Crunch crunch crunch.  It's hard to want to go on and on about data standards when someone is eating carrots and corn chips on the other end of the line. 

What I've found is that sentences don't always NEED to be finished. 
Especially when they contain the same information stated in a slightly
different way or expounded upon to a degree that makes your teeth itch
and your hands yearn to slap something. I find that the lives of those sentences should end before they become a paragraph and cut into someone's google-searching/emailing time.

Finally I suggested to the group, after a few complaints that I wasn't letting anyone talk, that for next time instead of whole sentences we should just stick to nouns, with everyone allowed 3 adjectives each. 

By then no one was saying much and I was full.

Today was one of those rare long-ass federal employee work days. I barely had time to constantly check my email and do random google searches, such was the demand on my time.  Still, I hate to not update the blog for yet another day.                 

Highlights from the weekend:

Dianne and the Maltese Cross. Most everyone who reads this knows exactly what that means, although it amuses me that some people might get here, to my blog, via some sort of related word google search,  and wonder just who this Dianne is, with her mysterious Maltese Cross.  Does it pertain to the Jebus?  Or is she a Malta Enthusiast? A warrier? One of the Order of Bath?
The truth is crazy enough.  I held my breath for the whole thing.  I hope to never be publicly subjected to the dreaded Cross, but I'd love to get to the point with my dog that I'd be confident enough to try it in private. With one or two citizens of Malta looking on. 

Sheep pens.  I spent most of my time in the pens sorting sheep for set out.  I like this work.  I'm starting to get the feel first hand of 'the bubble', plus I'm accepting at last that they, the ewes, don't want to be petted.  They will never accept me as one of their own.   It's like in Junior High, only smellier, and I have the best hair.  Finally.

Greenleaf House inspection.  Eric and Chuck checked the house out on Saturday, looking for obvious issues; there weren't any surprises. I went out to look around. The current owner was out there and we talked with her a bit. She seems like a fun person with good stories, as I've heard from multiple sources.  Has an aussie she trials.  I love her young guardian dog.  His head is as big as a wood stove.  I kept picturing him sleeping on a warm bed.  Inside.  Chewing peanut butter and cheese treats from an extra large Kong.  Meanwhile, outside, sheep are carted off into the night by all manor of predator.  Even the squirrels won't be able to resist helping themselves to the occasional two-headed baby lamb.  I do worry about my instincts.  I love all the wrong things.  Passionately.

Good night.

I don't have time to wax wordy on this, because I'm meeting my ex-husband/bestfriend/realtor, all wrapped up in one tidy little well-dressed smirk, but….

Our offer on the Greenleaf property was accepted, so …it's only a matter of time, of course, before I run for Mayor and open a bar there, freeing the residents of this small, Quaker, gun-slinging community from decades (I'm assuming) of 'friendly' prohibition.  Passive tea-tottlage, goodbye.  I'm riding in on a twelve pack. Icy cold. Driving a herd of lime. I expect the villagers to greet me with a bottle opener and shouts of Hurrah!

I'm excited. I think it will be a fun purchase and place to go work sheep.  Once I get a few.

This is Annie. 
She enjoys eating butter left on the counter, barking at the memory of squirrels, and long runs away from me at a frantic, distracted clip.  Turn offs: the word 'no', leashes, and being second to get to the cat box.

Today I took Annie, along with my other 4 dogs, on a run in the foothills. I chose a little used trail about 8 miles up Bogus Basin road.  I leashed-walked Annie for about 15 minutes, while my other trust-worthy dogs frolicked, sniffed, and rolled. I felt guilty for Annie's restraint.  Once we were far from the road I released her.  Immediately she ran.
My dogs continued to do their usual keeping within 10 feet of me; regularly checking in.  Scout stalked Zeke, Hank looked for something nasty to eat, Jasper ran back and forth between me and her next pee spot… wagging her half tail before running back ahead each time.

Annie ran.  And ran. Huge circles up and down the hills, out of site. She never glanced in our direction.

She ran.  Occasionally I would call her back and she'd come toward me, the tags on her collar jangling her proximity, or sometimes even TO me, and then I would praise her mightily, but mostly I just let that little butter eater run.