One Year

I’ve had that one guy a year now. Charlie has been an amazing addition to my life. The work we have done together has been a trek to get to trust, respect, and overall owner/dog relationship through consistent boundaries, discipline, routine, exercise and affection. Really – look here…Consistent & fair rules, discipline including rewards-based, routine, daily walks, and affection: These things are what it takes to have a healthy dog. Most people who have dogs are dipshits. Yes, I’m being judgmental, but also factual, and I’m sure some folks think I’m a dipshit with him out there on the trails.

He has done an amazing job at both understanding me and Cat’s language. He loves people – absolutely loves people and just wants to be by them and gets sad when visitors don’t pet him much. He’s in touch with his environment, and we’ve seen a lot of coyotes, foxes, and white-tail and mule deer in many different locations. He has gotten so much more comfortable just being, and sometimes even shows how he is feeling i.e. Exited! Tired! Anxious wanting to Walk Now! Dinner Time!, and he is off-leash for parts of many of our walks. Our daily walks are his job – he focuses on the walk, notices everything, pees on as many shrubs as possible, all while keeping in pace. I know these things sound relatively simple and normal. However, he had to grow quickly into a dog instead of a neglected rescue.

An example of how we have gotten into sync was on a recent excursion into the foothills with a friend (Hi DeAnna! I’m finally telling The Coyote Story). So we’re hiking post-dusk with a puppy, friend, and a third dog who was being babysat. It was still barely light enough to see, and Charlie took the lead on the trail. I would like to think he was showing the 6-month old pup how to focus on walking because it’s his job, but I could be putting too much into that. Charlie was indeed very focused, and kept tabs on everybody by pausing and looking back for acknowledgment from me. All the sudden he stops. Just stops, and the other dogs don’t go past him because of his energy – it was clear his intent was that we should all stop. Even when I went up to him, he was all, “no, we can’t go anymore.” So my friend and I are talking about what he’s doing and that we should turn around, and then we hear it: a pack of Coyotes yippin and talking and whining to each other all along the foothills in front of us. It took them a bit to disappear out of earshot, and when they were gone, Charlie turned on his heel and took us back the way we came.

I was real proud of him.

I have done all I can with what I know and basic common sense. Yes, I know he is a dog and will do things that you just have to roll your eyes and throw up your hands and say, “fraking Dogs!” I know I’m being a picky Leo and want everything perfect, so sometimes I get frustrated with him. I don’t want unpredictable stuff. And I want him to re-call off-leash better. I want this next year to be about fixing behaviors that occasionally carry-over into the prick arena. I think I would like to get him and I into training, and maybe see a behaviorist so I can nip these minor things in the bud. I’ve done all I can, but I want to hone in on the things that I still don’t like and I don’t know how. I repeat: I’m being picky. He is a really good dog.

I’m proud of the work we’ve done together and the accomplishment of being in sync with each other. I never thought as a cat-loving lady that I would have a dog, and for most of this last year I was still saying, “I can’t believe I have a dog!” What I was really saying was, I can’t believe I like having a dog and that he fits my life! Sounds selfish, but that’s also what can make for a good relationship with our animal companions. I truly believe many people forget about their animal’s souls. People suck. I’d rather hang with my Fur Posse.

Posse Pics. I KNOW.

So this picture is focused on the grass instead of Chi Chi Rodriguez Sanchez Munoz Gonzalez Ramirez, but as you can see – she looks pissy. However: This is just her look. Upon spending quality time with this Calico, you will find she looks like this all the time, but she is not actually pissy. She is sweet and quirky and that is all she is. Really. That’s all.

Investigation: Charles destroyed something (other than seasonal breaking into cat food or trying to pee inside a new place wherein he was almost killed by his owner, but he has since adjusted and we have grown as a couple). Notice his passive destruction. Also, notice how cute the crime is. And well-placed.

And I’m sitting here in Ida-ho for heaven’s sake…

with my ever-growing rescued Fur Posse. Just, like, doing not much but chillin like a villain sitting on the porch with beer in hand. And I’m using this state and the desert & mountains to “recuperate” but now it’s been over a year and a half, and I can’t use that as an excuse anymore. So I have this job at this AgriBiznizzle place where they do mostly not so great things and some okay things to our Earth. I get to do some neat stuff for higher-ups there, and I can see that if I stick with it, I can incorporate some good tools from my edumacation. Already have, see. Little bits. Like a helping with a corporate battery recycling thing and stopping with the water bottles at meetings and purchasing responsible products for tiny projects.

So I go see Jane Goodall speak here, and I’ve loved her forever anyway, and she’s like another version of my cute little 75 year-old mother. So she talks about one of her Jane Goodall Institute programs called Roots & Shoots, and last night as I’m brushing my teeth it dawns on me: I should volunteer as a leader for one of the local chapters of Roots & Shoots. Like, do something grass-rootsy with my “Environment & Community” life-time student loan energy.

We’ll see how it transpires.

I feel I am at an impass.

What, do I keep posting pictures of the Fur Posse? Now that Battlewhore Galactifrak is over, where do my passionate un-read posts come from? Do I participate in social network stuff like Twitter and Facebook instead of – or in addition to – a one-sided Blog? Do I take a break and grow an interesting personality?
I could survive for 1 minute, 28 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor