Mud Nosed Moon Doggie

We Love Dirt

      It’s mud season up here on the hill, which means the paths in the woods are squishy, and walking them is a balance between slipping, sliding, and getting boots stuck.   My dog walks in this season remind me of dreams I’ve had where I’m trying to walk fast, but my feet are slow and I can’t figure out how to change that.   

      But the dogs don’t mind.  Ziggy paddles through puddles and small streams quickly, always looking for something to eat - rabbit poop, old deer bones, anything he calls food.   And he calls almost everything food, except zucchini.

     Luna, on the other hand, rolls joyously in puddles and lays down in streams, lapping at the water, getting her nose into it and then shaking off water in a great spray.  

     I’m told that not all labs actually like water, but she is true to her breed, and has been since she was six months old, when she saw her first pond.  

     I was in my home town of Hudson, NY, my sister and I walking our dogs near the pond where we learned to swim.  Luna walked up to the edge of it and stood there.  I released her from her leash. She walked forward, into the water, and then she began to swim.

     My sister panicked.  “Oh my God! she exclaimed.  “Go get her before she drowns!” 

    “That’s not happening,” I murmured, as I watched Luna swimming in circles in the middle of the pond.  

     Luna’s eyes took on a glazed aspect, as if she’d found her favorite drug.  She swam in circles for ten minutes, totally ignoring me and my sister.  Why would she leave the place where she could be totally her own Lab self?  After another 15 minutes of that, I called her back and she turned toward shore.  When she got to land she shook off water and sighed deeply, as if we’d disturbed her Best Dream Ever.  

     Since then, Luna has been utterly in love with, utterly hypnotized, by any chance to take a swim, or a dip, or a roll in the mud.  In fact, when I brought her to Canine Camp Getaway, a long weekend for doggies and their humans, she swam for 3 hours every day, clearing all the tennis balls out of the pool as if this was the most important job she would ever do.  

Stars+Water+Dirt=Life

     So around here, once the ice thaws and we have water, my dogs are wet, mud nosed, muddy pawed, covered in wet earth and water.   As I tell my friends, I used to have furniture.  Now I have dogs.  Sigh.

     On the other hand, I don’t mind it that much.  I was raised on dirt.  

     When I was growing up it was common practice for parental units to toss their children outdoors early on a Saturday morning, and not expect to see them again until suppertime.  During the daylight hours we played outside, sometimes going to woodsy areas where we could gather wild black raspberries, or make up games about being chased by bears, or sometimes, just digging in the dirt in our yards.

     Sometimes we borrowed a pot from a kitchen and made ‘stone soup’ from dirt, water, leaves, stones, chestnuts fallen from trees.  We’d spin this concoction on the wheels of our bikes as a way of mixing it, then pretend to eat it.  Once our friend Kevin actually did eat some, but he’s a grown man now, so it did him no harm.

     Other times we’d dig in the place where we’d buried our pet turtle, Myrtle, hoping to find her bones, which would be pretty damn exciting.  Or we would dig for China, hoping to get to a place where we’d stand upside down wearing conical hats. We did this until our friend, Nancy Fabiano, suggested we might get to hell before we got to China.  We were Catholic school girls, and believed that was possible.  For a while, we paused.  Then we decided the risk was worth it, and kept digging.    

       To me, dirt is good.  There’s so many different kinds - the thick clay of my childhood yard, the light and almost dusty soil of a house I lived in near Schenectady, NY, the rocky clay mix of where I live now, out of which you might dig up shale, or beautifully textured white grainy stones embedded with small pieces of glinting garnet.  

     Scientists believe that life on earth grew because of dirt.  More specifically, out of clay, which forms a hydrogel with microscopic spaces capable of soaking up liquids like a spong.  Over billions of years, chemicals confined in those spaces could have carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA, and all the other stuff that makes a living cell work.   

     Life, which came from the stars, needed dirt to bear and raise it.  I am reminded of the most accurate translation of the place in Genesis where humans are created, which reads thus:  Let us make earthlings of the earth.  Male and female we will create them.”

     And if you’re living with a dog, you might as well embrace dirt, because they will drag it into your house. My husband often complains about this.  When the dogs jump in our pond and then roll in the dirt, he throws his hands up and calls out, “Hey!  Hey!  Stop that!”

     When he does so, I remind him that he chose these dogs, with a song I made up special for the occassion,  sung to the tune of “When a Man Loves a Woman.”  It goes like this:

      When a Man has Labrador Retrievers,

       And he also has a pond,

      He can fully expect those dogs will often be wet.

      If a man wants a dry dog, 

      He should have listened to his wife,

      And gotten a Papillon instead.

    Well.  Other Lab owners with husbands will know what I mean.  Though I do highly recommend that you make up songs about your dogs, that’s the subject of another blog.

     For now, I’ll say it one more time:  Dirt is good.  In the Tarot deck, the card of The Fool (and aren’t we all fools) is traditionally shown with a dog nipping at his or her heels.  The Fool is going out into the world, hoping to accomplish a goal.  But that won’t happen unless he or she is grounded in the earth, our constant remindder that even if we came from the stars our bodies, our DNA, was nurtured on this planet, which we should cherish, because she’s always done so for us.  

     Dogs remind of us that.  It’s just one of the many important lessons they teach us - that in a world which leans toward sanitization, dirt is our friend, our mother, our home.  

     You can learn more about my novels and nonfiction books at my website, wildreads.com.

The Roasting of the Peeps

    Yes, it's true.  On Easter I go to a friends house, and we roast Peeps around the fire pit.  They're actually much better that way, because they develop a kind of brûlée crunch on the outside, and the middle is just roasted marshmallow.  You might want to try squishing them between graham crackers with chocolate, in which case they'll be S'More Peeps.  Or you may want to have contests in the microwave to see how big you can make them without having them actually explode.  This is called Peep Jousting.  Because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

IN THE SWIM

Luna loves summer

    It’s no longer mud season here on the hill.  Long past it, in fact, but with all the rain, you’d never know it.  And as my dogs take their daily walks in the woods, they relish mud and water more than women at a day spa relish mud and sea weed and other strange body coverings.  

     When my husband gripes about the dogs being wet, how much mud they splatter when they shake it off, I sing him the Labrador Retriever song -  to the tune of ‘when a man loves a woman.’  Sing it for yourself.  With feeling.

      

                                                           When a man gets a labrador retriever,

                                                           and he has a pond,

                                                          He must fully expect that dog will often be wet.

                                                         If a man wants a dry dog,

                                                         He should have got a Papillon,

                                                         which is what his wife suggested in the first place.

  

   Well, yeah.  And if you ask me why he thinks it might someday be otherwise, I have no answer, except that it’s a sign of his eternal optimism.

    He should know better.  Luna, in particular, is a true water dog.  I knew this when she was six months old, and I brought her to my sister, Norma’s house, so we could walk her and my sister’s new sheltie puppy, Max, together.  A doggie play date.  And the first time she took a real swim.

     We started at her house, which is on the block we grew up on, just up the street from the pond where we took swimming lessons when we were young.  Our big test at that time, the marker which said we could go swimming alone, was swimming from shore to the float in the middle of the pond without assistance.  

     I can still remember the first time I did it, how aware I was of my brother standing on shore, his hands on his hips, watching to make sure I didn’t flounder.  It seemed very far away, and I was scared I wouldn’t make it, but I did.  And when I dragged myself up onto the float, I looked to shore to see him nodding approval. I was a swimmer.

    For Luna, it was all much easier.  

    We walked our two dogs through the playground adjacent to the pond, took them around the trail and to the small beach.  It was early May, and the pond wasn’t open yet, so there were no swimmers.  Just a man standing at shore teaching his daughter how to fish for sunnies, a mother and her son building sand castles on shore.  We took the dogs off leash, and tossed a frisbee around, which Max loved, and which distracted him from trying to keep the water from lapping the shore.  Shelties are herding dogs, and in the absence of sheep, they’ll corral anything that might get out of bounds.

     But when I tossed the frisbee, since I’m pretty bad at throwing things, it went in the water, and Luna immediately went in after it.  She stood there, hip deep, and paused.  She shivered meaningfully, as if she’d just seen a Goddess.  Then, the frisbee still in her mouth, she started paddling out toward the middle.  

      “She’s swimming,” my sister said.  “Shouldn’t you stop her?”

Mud is GOOD!

      “Yeah,”  I said. “How?”

      Clearly, there was no stopping her.  This puppy was paddling with intent, her gaze focused, every gene in her body telling her she was made to do just this.  Just this.

She went out well over my head, and swam in large circles, hanging on to that frisbee.

     “Luna!” I called.  

    She turned toward me, then kept swimming, and if a dog can look beatific, she was all that.  Her eyes half open, she paddled with joy, water in her face, water all around her, water, water, everywhere. My sister’s sheltie lingered at the shore and barked, not sure Luna’s paddling was a good thing, but Luna had no doubt at all. 

     As I watched, I understood I was witnessing a living being doing exactly what it was meant to do, exactly everything that brought her joy and dharmic fulfillment.  She was being who she was meant to be, and it felt good to her.  Really good.

     Since I have a lot of very active mirror neurons - those parts of the brain that allow us to feel what others around us are feeling - I got the lesson.  This is what it looks like to be exactly who you’re meant to be. Witnessing her bliss reminded me of what it’s like to be a writer, or to choose any path that’s, um, unusual and authentic.  It’s messy, and sometimes frightening, but if you’re lucky enough to find and follow that path, oh my.  Will it feel good?  Will it ever.

     She paddled for more than twenty minutes before I waded out toward her and called her fervently back to dry land.  I heard her huff of breath - a doggie sigh - and she turned back to shore.  

    Since that time, she’s ready to leap into water at a moment’s notice.  Once or twice I’ve had the pleasure of swimming with her in country creeks.  More often, I just watch as she tosses herself into water as if into the heart of a universe that loves her.   

    Mud season, and labs combined with a pond, require a whole pile of towels as well as a mop that’s in constant use, but Luna’s expression is a daily cup of joy, and couldn’t we all use a little of that.  

      Here’s hoping you find and relentlessly pursue the place you’re supposed to be.    

      You can learn more about my fictional character, Big Cat woman Jaguar Addams, who knows exactly what she wants to do and does it, at wildside.com.  Meantime, here’s a messy little recipe, just for summer fun.

Life's a  - you know.

Swimming Cherries and Frying Onions

Really.  Cherries and onions.  Something sweet and savory, good for many uses. We had a lot of cherries this week - it’s that time of year - and I wanted to play with them the way Luna swims.  This recipe is for a very small experimental bowl - just about a cup - but you can expand it as you like.  I know I will

13 Cherries, halved and pitted

1 cippolini onion (small and sweet onion.  So sweet)

1 tbps. flour

GOOD olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Some prosecco, or other sweet white wine  ( I actually used a peach moscato, and it was yum)

Put the halved cherries in a bowl with a cup or so of the wine and the salt and pepper and let them get all happy swimming in it for an hour, up to overnight.  You’ll know by their smiles that it’s working.

Sip a little of the resultant juice, because it’s goooood.

Slice up a cippolini onion or another small onion, and dredge it in the flour.

Get the olive oil hot in a saute pan and throw in the onions, letting them get brown and crispy, but NOT BURNT!  Because they don’t swim and can’t cool off.  

Remove the onions, wipe the pan out and add a bit more olive oil.  Get it HOT.

Toss in the cherries, and move them around as they cook.  Add the juices from the bowl and the onions, lower the heat and let it cook a little more, until the liquid goes away.  

Use the cherries on chicken or duck, or in a salad.   Or just eat them.  They’re quite a taste treat.  

VENGEANCE

Luna's Tundra

    Really, what I’m talking about in this blog is climate change, and how humans refuse to recognize our interaction with the rest of the natural world.  You’ll get that toward the end. For now, if you like, I’m just talking about cats and dogs, and the weather.  

  We’ve changed the clocks to summertime, and that means it’s almost spring, right?  RIGHT?   

  Well, not really.  In my part of the world, everyone is hunkering down for a snowstorm tomorrow, though right now it’s sunny and almost balmy, in strange contrast to the snow that’s still everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  

   Not that I’m hankering for spring, and my garden and getting rid of my boots, and walking the dogs through meadows instead of over the continuing, infinite tundra.  No. Of course not. 

    Luna, of course, is perfectly content.  She loves the snow. Labrador Retrievers were bred from Newfoundlands and Springers to create a dog who loved the water, was agile and active, and would do things like retrieve fishing nets from icy cold waters, and clear the ice from the edges of lakes and rivers.  Luna, who apparently bred true, will attack ice on our pond with gusto, one of only two times where she’ll show anything like aggression. The other is if someone presents a threat to me. She’s a sweet natured dog, but don’t mess with her pack leader.   

GOT the ice!

    If you have a healthy respect for the kind of damage a dog can do, you’re smart.  At least a million dog bites are reported each year, and maybe a dozen people are killed by dogs.  On the other hand, cats are not known to kill by attacking, which is one reason why cruel people and cowards often abuse them.  

    My personal experience tells me that when cats act with aggression the motive is different from what you see in dogs, who attack either to guard territory or people, or from fearful aggression and a lack of training.  All the cats I’ve known were aggressive in a more deliberate, pro-active way.  Psychokitty, for instance, sized up everyone who came to my house, and if she thought they were no good, she’d stroll over to them and pee on their shoes.  As it turned out, she was always right. 

    Then, there was my black cat Chaos, a mighty hunter whom I once saw devour an entire squirrel except for the tail, which he brought to me as a gift.  When he was part of my household, a friend made the mistake of giving me a parakeet as a birthday present.  As soon as I brought the bird home in his cage, Chaos looked at me as if to say, “You’re kidding, right?”  

    To his dismay, the bird stayed in a cage. He could walk up to it, brood about it all he wanted, but the bird itself was out of reach.  He began to hunker down morosely in front of it.  There it was, boxed lunch, and he couldn’t figure out how to open the box.  As time passed, he would physically droop whenever he passed the cage.  Sometimes I’d catch him pawing at the door, then shaking himself and walking away.

    Then, one day as I opened the cage to put food in, the bird suddenly flew out and began swooping around the room.  Immediately Chaos was there, and before I could move a molecule, he leapt up, caught the bird mid-flight, pierced it once in the heart and dropped it.  He looked at the lifeless body for a moment, gave a small kitty trill of triumph, and walked proudly away.    

    Though I was truly upset about the bird, I couldn’t help but admire Chaos for his tenacity, and his aim.  Cats do not forget. And they do let you know when they’re displeased.

    Photon did this once when I went away for a weekend, the first time I’d done that since I got him.  He was the kind of cat who wanted everyone to stay within the boundaries he proscribed, and when I took Luna for walks he’d pace the windows and the doors, meowing frantically until we returned.  I’ve learned since that cats who live in colonies take on different roles, some of them becoming nurse cats for those who are sick, some becoming the cats who prevent fights, and some securing the perimeters, making sure nobody goes beyond their territory.  Photon was surely one of those.

    When I returned from the weekend, Steve greeted me at the door.  

    “Look what your cat did,” he said, and gestured broadly.

    In front of me I saw all the stuffed animals that belonged to my son when he was a child, stretching in a perfect line from the kitchen, through the living room. I’d kept them in a basket, and he’d taken them all out one by one and lined them up, then beat each one thoroughly.  Steve watched him do this. 

    “What?” I asked Steve.  

    “Photon’s been beating them all weekend,” he replied. “He's angry that you went away.”

Don't Mess With Me

    I looked to the end of the line.  There was my son’s stuffed Alf doll, a figure from a TV show about an alien who hated cats.  Photon was  trouncing it solidly.  We watched for a while in silence. Then Photon grabbed Alf by the back of the neck and dragged it to his lair, totally ignoring me, making his opinion known. 

    Do cats actively seek revenge?  Some cat experts say they have the intelligence to plot and plan, and they also have a sense of fairness.  But they also say cats only act badly when they’re trying to control a difficult situation. This, I think, is something we can all understand.  When the world gets out of control, we also try to bring it back into frame.  If cats act badly, they have reason to do so.   

    And here is best incident possible to illustrate that.  

    

    It happened in the suburban neighborhood where I lived when my son, Matthew, was ten years old. For a while we had a stray Tomcat hanging around, a handsome fellow with long black and white hair.  He’d lay in my driveway, indolently rolling around the tarmac and purring.  Of course, I fed him.  He’d rub against my hand in grand manner, as if he was the Duke of Essex, willing to grant audience to his subjects.  He never caused any trouble, and I enjoyed his grand style.

    One of my neighbors didn’t care for him so much. She worried that he’d bother her two cats, though he’d never gone near mine.  But she was a worrying kind of woman, so she bought a trap, baited it with tuna, and caught him.  Then she drove him 25 miles away and let him go.

     Two days later, he was back in my driveway, sunning himself, looking not at all the worse for wear.  I fed him, petted him, asked him how he was doing.  He purred at me that he was fine, deigned to rub against my hand and meow.  After a while he rose, yawned, and strolled away.  I wondered how my neighbor would react. The next day I learned her reaction wasn’t the problem.  

    When he left my house, he went and sat under her back porch.  As she stepped onto it after work, he attacked her, clawing her badly enough that she had to have eighteen stitches in her leg.  Then, he went away again – this time for good.

    Had he come back all those miles just to let her know he was miffed? Greeted me amicably, then waited under her porch to maul her?  If so, what does that teach us?
    I’m thinking of a commercial that was popular when I was young, about margarine.  In the commercial, Mother Nature was the main character, and she was angry that someone would make a substance to imitate butter, part of her arena.  At the end of the commercial, she sent down lightning and said, “Don’t mess with mother nature.”

    Yeah.  All that. 

    As I mentioned before, when cats were indiscriminately killed in the middle ages to suit the new patriarchal religion, the result was an increase in rat popultion, which increased the plagues that killed millions of humans.  In so many ways, we have to learn this lesson over and over again, both personally and politically, and cats, half domesticated, willing to live with us but not to serve us, are perhaps our best teachers.

   As debate rages in the Senate and Congress about climate change

, and those who survived Hurricanes Irene and Sandy shake their heads in wonder, dogs serve to remind us that we interact with nature on a daily basis, and cats remind us that nature is still bigger than we are, that Mother Nature doesn’t forget, and that she will respond when we act unfairly in any way.

    Here’s to the dogs.  Here’s to the cats.  Our best teachers ever. 

    My novel, Something Unpredictable, is an environmental romantic comedy that has something to say about the choices we make and how they affect the planet.  If you feel strongly about that, CALL your representative and let them know. They get paid to represent us, after all.  And here's a simple recipe to keep you going while you do.  

       Avocado Sandwich

      Really simple, and very satisfying.  You can add slices of tomato or onion or both if you like, because you know the rule: PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Simple and Happy

1 avocado
1 clover garlic, mashed or grated
About two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
A slice or two of your favorite cheese (I use cheddar or brie, depending on my mood)
2 slices of your favorite bread
Salt and pepper to taste

Mash the avocado with the garlic, add the vinegar and mash some more.  Toast the bread.  Slab some of avocado mis onto the bread, sprinkle salt and pepper on top, layer the cheese over this.  If you're using the onion and tomato, put this on top. Smush the other slice of bread on top. 

Now you can either put the open faced sandwich into a microwave and set it for a minute to let the cheese get melty, OR put some butter in a skillet, heat it up, and then put the sandwich into the skillet and let it get all melty that way, like a grilled cheese sandwich.  

Either way, it will taste good, and remind you that nature gives many gifts, which we should appreciate, and return the favor.   

SHINY: Part II

I am Dog.  Must Have Stick.

     There are many shiny things in the world.  Some of them are just distractions, the kind the Mohawk refer to in their prayer, ‘keep me from being distracted from the things that glitter on the side of the road.’  Other shiny things are true light, to be followed at any cost.  

    Learning to distinguish between the two is a lifelong task, needing the wisdom and experience of intuition, which is developed by taking a lot of wrong turns, and a few right ones.  Luna, as it turned out, was a true light for me, guiding me into a deeper understanding of myself, making me better at loving others, healing some long broken places.  Animals of all kinds can do that for us, if we pay attention.  If we’re not distracted by the things that glitter along the side of the road.  

    So how did I know enough to push past my own limitations and keep her?   Well, partly that’s the nature of my being.  I’m a Sagittarius.  We resent limitations to begin with.  When they pop up, we try to stretch them.   But mostly, it’s like I said at the start.  It was all about love - both receiving and giving.   

     My husband loved me enough to give her up for my sake.   I loved him enough to get her back, for his.  It’s really as simple as that.  Very simple.  Just not easy.

      Some sayings I’ve learned in the course of therapy come to mind:  The only way out is through.   And this - The truth will set you free.  But first it will hurt like hell.   

    Love almost always asks us to go beyond our own limitations - which, mind you, is not the same as relinquishing yourself.  The first asks you to become more of who you are.  The latter asks you to slice off a piece of your soul.  The first is moving toward light.  The latter is usually making a false promise of something that glitters along the side of the road. 

I am Dog. Must Love Mud.

      And one reason having an interaction with animals is good for us humans is because they don’t make false promises.  They are pretty much what they appear to be, and we have to accept them that way.  Luna is smart, attentive, high energy and very attached to her humans, but she’s not human, and I need to recognize that. Though she recognizes words, and picks up on mood and emotion better than many humans I know,  she’ll always want to roll in poop, always need to be walked, always respond to the genetic code that makes it imperative for her leap into mud puddles, and retrieve sticks.  

      My cats, too, will always be cats, and asking them to be dogs, or otters or anything other than cats, would do them a great disservice.  I appreciate them because of their unique shine, just as I appreciate Luna because of hers, and my husband because of his.   

     As humans, our interactions with other species is about that shine, which invites us to enter into the realm of another consciousness, and so expands our own. I think dogs are unique in human history because of the way they’re also willing to enter our consciousness, but that doesn’t make them more valuable than cats, or birds, or the salamanders I find along the paths in the woods I walk.  Each species has its own thing to teach us, a different way of viewing what it means to be conscious.  They teach us to see things we couldn’t see with our own eyes, as we are willing to view the world through theirs.  

     Right now, I’m thinking of the hummingbird who tried to slam into the ceiling of a greenhouse.

     I was at a garden shop, looking for fuschia to feed my own local hummers, when I noticed a small female zipping about.  I tracked her, and saw that she was zipping up toward the plastic ceiling, ramming into it over and over. 

     Horrified, terrified that she’d kill herself, I got one of the people who worked there and showed her.  “Please,” I begged.  “Do something.” 

    The woman, older than me and very calm, considered.  “I could get a net,” she said laconically, “but then I might hurt her more trying to catch her.”
     “But - but she’ll kill herself,” I protested, wringing my hands.

     “Here’s the thing,” the woman said.  “I see them do this a lot, and what happens usually is that after a while, they get tired.  When they get tired, they drop down.  When they drop down, they see the door, and then they fly out.”
    As it happens, at the time I was in a dead end relationship with a man who wasn’t willing to do anything much for me, while I felt compelled to make the thing work.  Make it work.  Make it work. I’m sure other women know what I mean.

I am Hummer. Must Hummmm.

     But as I watched, the little hummer did drop down, and did see the door, and sure enough, zipped right through it.  I sighed.  The woman shrugged.  “Like I said,” she commented, and wandered away.

     She understood the hummer not from the human perspective, but from the bird’s.  Her willingness to do so probably saved the creature from being injured, and showed me what I needed to next in my human relationship.  All this, from a creature that weighs between .071 and .212 ounces.

    Animals teach us, in ever so many ways, if we pay attention to what they are, rather than asking them to be us.  And that, I think, is at the heart of what’s shiny, rather than what glitters along the side of the road. 

      Luna, of course, had a great deal more to teach me about who she is, and with every part of it, I learned more about who I might be.    

       If you want to read more about birds, try my novel These Dreams.  If you want to read more about how one young woman learns the difference between glitter and shine, try Something Unpredicatable. And here's another shiny recipe.

SHINY SMOOTHIE

   This smoothie, a fine breakfast, will make you feel shiny because it's full of everything good.  Of course, you might want to amend it, and sub out the maple syrup for honey, or peach yogurt for the peaches, and that's just fine because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Must Also Contemplate Smoothie

 BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE

1 cup soy, almond, or regular milk 

1/3 cup blueberries (I use wild frozen)

1 tbsp. ground flaxseed

2-3 tbsps. maple syrup
2 teaspoons bee pollen, if you've got it.

1/2 of a peach (frozen work, as does some peach yogurt, soy or regular)

Put it all in a blender or food processor, pour it in a glass, and drink it up. Yum.

SHINY

Looking at Sunshine

    During this phase of Luna’s training I took her a lot of different places, partly to socialize her, and partly because I still needed to bond with her.  I was beginning to understand dogness, but I needed more training of my own.  

     We went to the grocery store, and I’d have her sit while people went in and out, and she could greet them as long as she didn’t leap.  Which she still tended to do.  Labs are an exuberantly social breed. But I’d tell everyone who passed that she was in training, and they could pet her only if she was sitting, and everyone seemed to understand.  Many people told me stories about training their own dogs, and the techniques they used.  Many people said it was smart to get her out at a young age and do this. It would, they said, have a good pay off over the years.  

      I also took her to my classes at UAlbany, and she learned how to pay attention to me in spite of many, many distractions.  She also got really good at not freaking out at the high pitched sound of female undergraduates squealing with delight.

    “Puppeeeeeeee!” was the resounding cry, as a group of them rushed us, and I heard from both young men and women about how long it had been since they’d seen a dog or a cat, and how much they missed them. College campuses can be isolated from the regular course of daily living, with limited age groups, limited environment. 

    “All we have are squirrels,” one student told me.  “We feed them, because, you know, you have to feed something.”

     I understand that some colleges bring in dogs at finals, just to help students destress. I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have them around more often.    

    I also took Luna to playgrounds, so she could learn how to behave around small, very young humans.  I didn’t know if she’d grow up to be as big as her father, but if she did, I wanted to make sure she knew enough not to jump on toddlers.  At one of those excursions, I learned something new about her.  

Luna is Shiny

   We were both sitting, me on a bench, her next to me, and for a while we just watched the children on the swings, on the merry go round and slide.  Then, a tiny mite of a girl came over tentatively and stood just out of reach, staring at me and then at Luna, who stood and started her tail wagging furiously. But she didn’t lunge or leap, and that was a good sign to me.  

    “Is that your doggie?”  the girl asked.

    “It is,” I said. “She’s just a puppy, really.” 

    She scuffled her feet in the dirt, keeping her distance while Luna grinned and wiggled. “What’s his name?”  she asked.

    “It’s a girl, and she’s named Luna.  Like the moon.”

    The little girl thought about this,  gave Luna a long look, then nodded.  “She’s shiny,”  she said, emphasizing the word. “Very shiny,”  she repeated.  Then, she skipped away.

    Luna heaved a puppy sigh and sat down.  The excitement was over.   I looked down at her, and realized that at six months, and maybe forty pounds, she was losing her soft puppy fur look. Now she was a slim and leggy young lab, her black fur like a coat of laquered enamel, the closest I’d ever get to having a panther.  She was indeed very shiny.  For the first time, I felt a burgeoning pride in her, and in my relationship with her.  I had a dog, and she was shiny.  Very shiny.

      On the way home, she sat in the front seat of the car, calm and alert, as she always did.  From the start she was a good car dog.  She didn’t jump around or try to drive.  Instead, she’d look straight ahead, occasionally snuffling at the crack in the window, and her entire being expressed both contentment and confidence, as if she was saying,  “I know how to ride in a car.  In fact, I’m very good at it.  And I’m very shiny.”   

    Occasionally I’d reach over and pet her.  She’d turn to me and wag her tail a little, but then turn back to watching the road, as if this was her job and she didn’t want to leave it for too long.  

   “Okay, girl,” I’d say. “You’re doing great.”  

    Though I’d approached these kinds of excursions as training exercises, merely a way of teaching her to be the kind of dog I wanted, I was beginning to enjoy the dog she actually was.

    At around this time I was driving somewhere without her, and Prairie Home Companion was on the radio. The guest musician talked about just getting a new puppy for her farm, then sang the song she’d written for him. “Look at you lying there,”  she sang,  “cockleburs in your hair, next to what’s left of my shoe.”

     I actually teared up, missing Luna.  And it hit me. Not only did I have a dog now, and not only was I learning to deal with it, I loved my dog.  My shiny, shiny dog.  I was engaged with both my head and my heart, and so what she’d told me the first time we met was true.  

     We belonged to each other now.   

They will be SHINY!

     You can learn more about my writing at wildreads.com.  And here's a shiny recipe, just in case you're hungry.

ROASTED MAPLE VEGGIES

About 5 carrots, peeled and sliced on the diagonal

About 3 good sized beets, peeled and sliced into wedges

Two fennel bulbs, fronds removed, and bulb cut into wedges

about a quarter cup of REALLY GOOD extra virgin olive oil

about a quarter cup of REALLY GOOD and very REAL maple syrup (We use the dark kind)

Salt and pepper, applied liberally

If you want, you can add other veggies - potatoes or parsnips are good - because you know the rule.  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Take all your ingredients and put them in a casserole dish.  Sprinkle them liberally with salt and pepper.  Pour in the maple syrup and oil and, using your hands (the cook’s best tools) toss the veggies around to distribute the rest evenly.

Put the casserole, covered, in an oven that’s preheated to 350 degrees, and cook for about 45 minutes.  Take the cover off and cook for about  15 minutes more.

TALK WITH THE ANIMALS

Luna Listens to the World

     My wordless walks with Luna in the woods fulfilled a fantasy I’d had since I was a little girl:  that of talking with the animals.  

      In second grade, my teacher was a nun named Sister John Bernard, one of the few nuns whose names we didn’t change.  The mean ones were given more appropriate appellations, such as Sister Concordia who became King Kong Cordia, or sister Mary Edgar, who became Sister Mary Eggbeater.  Sister John Bernard retained her name because she one of the kindest people I ever met.  She never raised her voice, ruling her class with love rather than fear, and she was adept at paying attention to the individual needs of every child, nurturing their skills rather than pushing them against their weakness. Through her eyes, our accomplishments were made bigger, while our faults were diminished.  

      In her class, I was inspired to write a Christmas play, and it was about the magic hour of midnight on the first Christmas Eve, when Lithuanian legend said even animals could speak in human tongue for just one hour.  Mary and Joseph arrived to a manger full of silent but wise and knowing animals, never realizing they had their own consciousness, which they could voice. 

     The smartest thing about the play, besides the dialogue which was pretty cool for a second grader, was that animals know things.  They’re conscious, and if only they could talk to us, they’d have a lot to say.   What I didn’t know at the time was that it’s humans who have the problem.  We impose human expectations on other animals, when the truth is we have to learn their language, rather than asking them to speak ours.  

     My interest in connection with animals was fostered in many ways.  The movie Ring of Bright Water, about a friendship between a family and otters, captivated me, and I longed for otters to play with.   And the movie, The Three Lives of Thomasina was even better, because it spoke to so many parts of my life, including my understanding that science and art have to work together to accomplish anything.  

    The movie features a little girl, Mary, whose mother is dead and whose father is a bitter, skeptical veterinarian. But through the death of Mary’s cat they both meet Mad Lori, a witchy kind of woman who seems able to talk with the animals.  Ultimately, both she and the veterinarian learn that their combined skills work much better than either alone.

     Now, really.  Does it get any better?   And the story includes Thomasina the cat deciding to forgo her revenge, which is not easy for a cat to do, but I won’t go into detail about that here, because cat vengeance is a different blog.      

       I wanted to be both Mad Lori and the veterinarian, learning how to talk with the animals in a soul sense, and understand them in a scientific way.  As a daughter of both science and art, this theme permeates my life, and it began in my mother’s kitchen, at the sink, because my father, a deer hunter, would always bring the deer heart to me.  

       He did this because he knew I was interested in anatomy, and so at the age of seven or eight I’d stand on a chair at the sink, the deer heart in a basin in front of me, and explore its various parts.  On the counter next to me would be the Encyclopedia Britannica which, for my younger audience, was an antique form of the internet.  I’d learn all the parts - aorta, ventricles, and so on, and name them in the actual heart.  I memorized them, touched the heart and named them, because, as I’ve said before, naming is big magic.

     And then, at a certain point, I stopped.  I closed the encyclopedia, stopped looking at the deer heart.  I did so because I suspected there was something I had to learn that no book could teach me.  That simply seeing the parts wouldn’t give me a complete understanding of the whole, and even as a child, I knew that mattered.

     Then, Luna came along, and I began to meld the two. 

      I’d already begun that with my cats, following them on their nightly walks, sitting with them under the moonlight and listening, simply listening, to the world, I began to get a sense of how their perception differed from mine.  But my only experience with cat research at that time was from a science teacher who used to experiment on them.  He’d cut their ears off and drop them out of high windows to see if they still landed on their feet.

     Brrrrr.  I wanted no part of that.  To me, it seemed like an extension of all the past wrongs we’ve done to cats, this time under the umbrella of science instead of Christianity.   

Luna Also Listens to Her Food

     But science has a lot to say about dogs, and I read all of it.  Then, as I walked with Luna in the woods, I experienced firsthand how in tune she was to me, how she watched me for direction, for connection. I was aware, in a very visceral way, of how her whole body listened, sniffed, and watched for environmental cues from me and from her world.   I was aware that my whole body, my entire energy, spoke to her more clearly than any words I could ever use, because dogs watch us.   

    They not only watch us, they also make us more visible to ourselves, because they often interpret and act on what we mean instead of what we say.  Then we have to become conscious of our own inner workings to straighten it out. You might say they’re the original psychologists, teaching us about our unconscious motives and drives.  Other times, they watch for the simpler things - food, affection, walks.   

    As Luna did this for me, I developed a deep sense of gratitude to her, and wanted to repay her in kind.  If she could understand me, it was only fair that I should learn to understand her.  And this, in many ways, completed my understanding of communication both within and between species.

     What matters isn’t so much the ability to talk, but a willingness to listen.

      Let me just return for a minute to how I opened this new blog.  I said that yes, really, I still believe love is the answer, even when I’m not sure what the questions are.  I meant that, and here’s more:  Love is, by definition, ready to extend its interests beyond the self.  In fact, I’d taken on dog ownership because I love my husband, because I went beyond my own limitations to listen to his needs.

     Love listens. That’s what it does.  It listens, watches, pays attention, then acts on what it’s learned.  

      That, I think, is why we see dogs as loving.  Because they do that. 

      And as a human animal, I knew I had to be willing to do the same.    

      If you want to know more about how I listen to love, you might like my novel, These Dreams, which looks at all that.   And a recipe to try in the meantime is below, all about listening to your food.   

           

Ricotta Fritters

   Really, any time you fry food, you have to listen and sniff as well as watch.  The oil will sing at  different pitches, and your nose is as good as your eye as you tend the proceedings.   So listen to this as you cook, get a sense of what pitch means what, what sniff means what.  It will help you understand your dog better.  

Ingredients

Oil for frying

Shhh.  Listen. 

¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
2 large eggs

1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese, drained in cheesecloth over a bowl overnight if wet

2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 -2 tbsp confectioners sugar and 1 tbsp cocoa for dusting

OPTIONAL, but I ALWAYS use it:  About a cup of tiny semi-sweet chocolate chips, added to the mix for an even more chocolately experience because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Method

Prepare paper towels and/or brown paper for draining your hot fritters and set aside.  Start preheating vegetable or canola oil in a large (14”) skillet.  By all means use a thermometer to test for the right heat, around 370 degrees, but also listen to the oil.  Get to know when it’s working, when it’s done working, when it’s furious. 

   As the oil preheats, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, in a mixing bowl and set aside, still listening.  Always listening because cooking is also about love.

 Break two eggs into another mixing bowl and beat them lightly, as if you’re having a good day and just want to dance.  Add the ricotta, sugar, and vanilla and combine until mixture is smooth and all in sync with each other.  Add the dry ingredients to this and fold in gently, gently, still listening to the oil, and very aware of the texture of what you’re mixing, careful not to mix too much.  Just all together is good.  

When the oil sings right and your thermometer concurs, use a small ice scream scoop or figure about 1 1/2 tablespoons and drop this into the skillet. Watch it cook until golden, listen carefully to the change in the oil’s song, and sniff to make sure you’re not burning anything as you go. Cook around six at a time, and DON’T CROWD THE PAN!  Each will take about 4 minutes to cook. 

Remove the finished fritters from the oil and sing back at them if you like.  Any song will do.  Transfer them to the paper to drain. When they’re still warm and cosy, sprinkle liberally with powdered sugar and cocoa.
 
Makes 16-24 fritters

HAPPY TRAILS

Luna: Pathfinder

      When I was growing up, though their were many dogs in our neighborhood, I never saw one of them walked on a leash.  Mostly they’d be let out in the morning, and called home at night.  

     There was Bongo, a laconic basset hound who waddled around the block twice a day by himself. There was Kasmir, our neighbor’s Afghan, the most exotic dog ever seen in our part of town, his long blonde coat the mirror image of his owner’s perfectly coiffed blonde hair.  He was sociable, and not very bright, and would leap in front of us to play, then immediately be distracted by something and run away.  

     The closest thing to a leash we ever saw belonged to a man named Joe Black, who lived half a block down, and who we were warned to stay away from. He sat on his front porch in what were either shorts or boxer underwear, his little dachshund tied to the railing. The rope went halfway up the block, and she would trot that far while Joe sat and muttered to himself.  After a while, he’d tug on the rope and rasp out, “Come on, sistah!”  Sistah would turn around and amble back.

     That was all I’d ever known of someone walking a dog.

     That’s just one reason why I continued to struggle with what should have been the simplest task – walking Luna on a leash. My attempts were marvels of inconsistency, as Luna would pull ahead, and I’d do the corrective jerk, then immediately apologize, because pulling on something around a creature’s neck horrified me.  

      “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry,” I’d say. “Did I hurt you?”

      She’d wag her tail, wait patiently until I started walking again, then rush forward, jerking my shoulder at its joint.  I’d correct her, apologize again, and we’d start over.     

     The discomfort and guilt I got from walking her on leash was similar to the reaction I had when I mowed our lawn, which was filled with crickets, leafhoppers, preying mantid and the occasional frog and snake that slithered up from the pond.  Hundreds of living things would rush out in the wake of my mowing, seeking refuge from what must be, to them, an apocalyptic storm.   

    “I’m sorry,”  I’d shout over the roar of the mower.  “Go over there.  Run away.”

   Once or twice I ran over frogs, which is as bad as you’re probably imagining. Like putting a frog in a blender without a top. This seemed especially wrong for someone like me, who patrols the road when mud turtles and salamanders are traveling, to make sure none get run over.        

     Leashes worried me as much as mowing, and too many times Luna and I came home from walks with my temper in a frazzle, and Luna looking confused as to what, exactly, she was supposed to do.  Her failure to learn was really all about my failure to teach, as is often the case with dogs.  I needed to find a better way. Though cats manage ambivalence with ease, it doesn’t suit dogs. They want clear directives, given consistently.  Without that they grow frightened and try for dominance. I was doing Luna no favors with my cycle of correction, apology, and irritation.

     I tried a variety of training methods.  If the dog pulls, stop walking.  When they sit, start walking again.  I’m sure it works with many dogs, but for Luna it was just a brief rest between pullings. I tried the method where you turn around and go in a different direction every time they pull, but apparently Luna liked going in small circles, and the neighbors were starting to stare at us.  I tried holding treats as we walked, which worked until she’d eaten the treat, at which time she’d forge ahead.

    The real problem wasn’t the methods.  It was me.  I just couldn’t mean it, and dogs know when you don’t mean it.  So how on this green earth could I learn to mean it? And even if I could, would it help? Beyond my neuroses, Luna was and is a high energy dog, and she needed to run faster than I could go. To solve that part of the problem, I began taking her off-leash beyond our land, into the wild.  

     That land, owned by our neighbor Bill, isn’t accessible by road, and no one goes there except during hunting season so we had it to ourselves. It was cow pasture in past generations, and has since grown into thick scrubland dotted with young trees, not the easiest to traverse.  But Luna could safely leap and run here, so we bushwacked on.

     One day, as I was disentangling myself from some buckthorn, Luna went into an alert stance, then took off after a bunny.  I knew she was safe, so I got myself detached without panic, then followed her.  After thrashing my way through more brush, I emerged onto an open trail.  

    Luna sat a few feet down from me, wagging her tail, looking like she’d led me here on purpose.  I gazed around. There was a broad trail cut ahead and behind us for some ways, and grassy meadows all around that lead to woods of tall, old growth pine trees. We were well off our property, but it wasn’t hunting season so we kept going.

   “Thanks, Luna,” I said, and I continued to walk the trail, Luna trotting at my side. 

    Meadows of tall grass and daisies, purple meadowsweet, goldenrod, grew all around the trail.  We followed it into the woods, thick with tall pines, finding even more treasures and pleasures.   A shallow stream flowed through the woods, and Luna splashed in it gleefully.  Further in, we found a six foot tall rock wall, which we later learned was built by farmers more than a hundred years ago. We took our time, and if Luna wanted to sniff to my left or right, or slightly behind or ahead that was fine because we were both safe, in our most natural element.  By the time we got home she was content, and I felt as if I’d discovered the promised land.

    And in a way, I had. I’d found a place where Luna can be Luna and I can be me.  In the woods, we could walk without stress, and we were both confident in my capacity to lead. She could run as fast as she wanted, using her legs as they were meant to be used, and I knew that if I called her, she’d come right back to me.  It was perfect.

    We went out again the next day, and the next and the next, both of us off leash, Luna behaving like a natural retriever, and me reliving my happiest times from childhood when I sought out mystery and adventures in the woods.  

    Our communication was wordless. I’d point where I was going, and she’d turn that way. If I changed direction, she’d follow, always aware of where I was and what I was doing.   

Luna:  Doofus

    Leashless, we were more deeply connected than we’d ever been. As if I was occupying my purely animal soul while I had the privilege of witnessing hers. And the connection extended from Luna to the land we walked on, as I began to understand it through her perception.  

    I wondered what it meant to be a dog who knows the world through scent.  Did smells create images in her mind, or just sensations of fear or pleasure? I’d know deer were close by when she pricked up her ears and stood at attention. If coyotes were around the night before she’d show raised hackles at her neck when she sniffed the air.  When the sun was good and warm, she’d stand with her head lifted while a ripple of pleasure ran across her sleek back, and I’d share her essential, unabridged joy. 

    I also learned that if she pawed at the ground I should go see what she’d found.  Often it was a bone or leftover bunny parts I didn’t want her to eat.  Once when she was pawing, sniffing, and looking a little baffled, I went over to her and saw she was staring at an unbroken egg.

    “Well, now,”  I said to her.  “That’s a new one.” 

    I picked it up, feeling the million tiny bumps on it, wondering how an egg got into the middle of an open field, with no house in sight.  Did someone drop it?  If so, why would anyone be carrying a single egg in the middle of a field? 

   Luna nuzzled me, waiting for me throw it so she could give chase.  She’d sniffed this prize from the matted grass.  Shouldn’t she get to play with it?

   “Sorry, Loons,” I muttered.  “Not this one.”

    Finally, it occurred to me that we have flocks of wild turkey all over the place. Turkeys, when they’re perturbed, will drop eggs at random. Strange that I hadn’t considered this first, as if humans were the only creatures who lived here.  We walked on, and I took the egg with me, a talisman of hope and trepidation.  Eggs are secret places, their bland surface holding the possibility of life, of food, of anything.

     Luna, I suppose, imagined its possibilities of either play or food, if dogs imagine.  Do dogs imagine, within or beyond their experience?  And could I actually imagine beyond my experience?  When I found the egg, it took me a while to remember things outside the human realm, like turkeys.

    But having gotten that far, I could go further yet, and imagine it as a magic thing, holding the spirit of the meadows and woods, a sleeping fairy I could wake by cracking the prize, seeds from a far away star that might wake human consciousness to a new level of love, or a new color, waiting to pour out into the world, or a new song, a lullaby for my restless nights.  

    As Luna and I stood on the trail, she sniffed and I contemplated, which may actually be exactly the same thing.  The long grass in the meadow was illuminated by a westering sun. The soft wind passing over it made a whispering of song.  Luna lifted her head and breathed it in. I also lifted my head, and if I heard a different song, that didn’t matter.  We knew who we were were, and where we were headed next.

     We were, both of us, hungry.  We were, both of us, going home.

     If you want to read more about my interactions with birds, visit SUNY Press to read about Eagle Mitch and Berkshire Bird Paradise.  And here's an unusual egg recipe to eat while you read.  

EGGS LUNA

Two eggs

This recipe calls for quail eggs.  If you can't find them, use really small eggs.  The smallest you can find.  But do search for quail eggs, because they're beautiful, and tiny.  I use them in lots of different ways, and this is just one of them.   

Slices of small loaves, preferably rye  (I use my homemade rye and blue cheese bread, a recipe I'll offer at a later date.)

Quail eggs or really small eggs

Slices of papaya

Slices of prosciutto

Alike in Dignity

How much of this you want to make depends entirely on who you're feeding.  I was just feeding myself, and my dogs, who sit one on either side of me at the breakfast table and wait for crusts, so I just made two.  Increase ingredients according to your needs, and feel free to use ham instead of prosciutto or melon instead of papaya because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Keep the papaya in the fridge, nicely chilled.  

Toast your bread slice.  

Put butter in a sauté pan and let it get brown.  Add the prosciutto slice and let it get crisp. 

Add the quail or small egg, and cook to your desired doneness.  (You can flip it, for sunny side down, but it won't be as pretty or as runny as Luna is.)

Place a slice of papaya on the bread.  Put the prosciutto on top.  Gently place the egg on the prosciutto, whispering prayers or spells for what might emerge in your life.

Sit with your dogs and enjoy.  Share the crusts, because they like that.  

VARIATION ON A THEME:

Because no two dogs or eggs are alike, I also did this with a slice of smoked salmon, covering the egg with dill and finely chopped scallion.  Also YUM!