A happy visit

This past weekend, owing to celebrations at the seminary, Brother Christopher of New Skete was in our area. And during break time I easily convinced him to walk with me to our house and see Josie again. He last held her in his arms when we were picking her up from the monastery at the end of April. He's the main trainer at New Skete, and also the main author of their best-selling books that have been so instrumental in our own life with Josie.

He saw our Josie-lifestyle in all its chaos, and affirmed it all. He also gave us invaluable advice on a couple of outstanding matters of obedience and heeling that Patricia, especially, has been applying with great results. She'd already been heeling quite well on our morning walks, but walking ever so slightly too far ahead. Not pulling, but ahead of where she should be. If you're dying to know his advice, write in with a comment to this entry!

We'll be seeing Br. C. again in early October, when he will spend the night with us owing to some local commitments. Looking forward, even as we plan our next visit to New Skete.

Do invisible fences make invisible neighbors?

The big new thing in our household: fences.

A week or two ago Elizabeth and I completed the construction of an extra section of fencing for our yard, to give Josie a better sense of delineation. This was done as a reinforcement for the Invisible Fence we had installed in May, and have been waiting until now to train her to. This constitutes a wire that traces the perimeter of our garden, and works with a collar that sets off (first) and audible signal and (second) an electric shock when she gets close enough.

We figured we'd never have fencing high enough to prevent a 90-pound shepherd from jumping over (or for that matter, even a dog). So the i-fence was the way to go. And training so far, after a week, has been going very well. We're at the stage now where we test her by throwing balls for her to chase, or having people come for her to run and greet -- and she's pretty well figured out not to approach the fence area. This has been allowing us a lot more free play in the garden, with no leashes attached.

The kids' play with her has risen astronomically, both inside and out. Inside, they've taken to tying her by leash to a rolling office chair, and getting them to pull them around, to everyone's delight. Outside, it's ball stuff. Great fun. And we'd just begun to lament that we hadn't had a more puppy-like experience with the kids, Josie being so big and everything. Well all that looks fine now. They romp.

Love

Is it crazy to use the word "love" about one's dog? I held Josie's head in my hands and looked at her, and actually told her I loved her -- that sounds really ridiculous to me. I think it's George Bernard Shaw who said something like "Animals receive more love from humans than they can possibly manage." Maybe so but, well, there it is, and I've confessed it now, to her and to the blogosphere.

In conversations with Br. Christopher the other day (see today's post about him) we talked about how although animals are certainly ensouled beings, we should not humanize them. To use theological language, theirs is not a "noetic" or reasoning soul. But it is a soul nonetheless, with feelings, instincts, passions (fear, anger, joy, contentment, playfulness), and no less than Basil the Great affirms this in his homilies on the Hexaemeron. So as far as love is concerned, it's by no means one that is shared between equals. But anyway (to use non-theological language), Josie's a totally sweet thing.

Josie is now around seven months old. Phases continue -- dependent partly on stomach health and other physical factors, and partly on just plain phases -- she can be exasperating or a delight, and the balance has decisively been on the latter.

She's still a pup: she's very excitable, and also she tires out pretty easily especially after new stimulus. Last week I took her to my office at seminary for the first time. She met lots of new folks, she sat there (fairly) patiently while I met with a student for nearly an hour, and walked back home with me. And crashed out under my desk for several hours from exhaustion.

Under my desk has become one of her safe havens. It always takes her a while to get her chewing ya-ya's out -- where she'll seek out and gnaw anything but the sanctioned bone I place under my desk -- and then she'll settle down there in one or another state of alertness or crashedness, periodically releasing an audible, contented yawn.

Snippets

The other day Josie and I walked to our neighbors across the street to drop off some mis-delivered UPS packages, and as often, the pup was a great conversation ice-breaker. They immediately began to dish out: their daughter, soon to be getting married, owns seven dogs, including a German Shepherd who's a national champion. What's more, the dog will be walking her down the aisle at her wedding next month...!

Josie continues to oscillate between being saint and sinner. She's learning to lie contentedly under my desk as I work in my home-office. Conversely, most of her badness these days has the unlikely target of Elizabeth. Yes Elizabeth -- who handles her so ably, who has this natural feel for animals, who is aware of the dynamic of dominance in the pack, who of course is also the smallest of all of us. Josie's been nipping at her regularly, and Lizzie does all the text-book corrections, but to no avail. She is gradually getting pretty dispirited. We're hoping it's a phase, but are seeking advice.

Last snippet before shut-down tonight: in prep. for training Josie to our newly-installed invisible fence we're adding to our existing visible fence, including putting up a fence and gate near our front door. This, we hope, will work well with the invisible containment, and certainly ought to signal her that something new is happening. It'll be great to let her off the leash entirely when in our yard. But that's taking more fence work, and several weeks' training...

Pumping ironies

Peter drove Josie and the kids to Hartford yesterday to visit his sister and her daughter, aka Tania and Kristina. They'll have to tell you more about that on their return. It sounds as though the visit was a great success, with Josie behaving like a lady and enjoying the picnic along with everyone else. While they were away, I thought I'd look I'd mention a new element in my life, the fitness buddy.

Alice is my fitness buddy, and has been ever since I saw those Cape Cod photos of us on the beach (too cold to immerse in the waves, so every bulge showed above the waterline). I have midriff issues; she wants stronger arms. She lives in Little Rock, I near NYC, so we exchange phone calls and spreadsheets. She boosted my vague food goals to "5 servings of fruit or veg a day" and "no more fizzy diet drinks" (they make you hungry and deposit aspartame in your mid-brain). The 5 servings a day have left me energized. Cutting the soda should have done the opposite: I loved that carbonated caffeine kick in the morning. But a week afterwards, my appetite had plummeted and my weight started inching downward. After a consolatory DDP left me hungry for a week, I'm back to iced tea.

We haven't exactly gotten derailed, but real life has gotten in the way.

Alice applied for a new job in Atlanta and is preparing her house for selling, so all the touch-up work is counting as arm exercises. A persistent staph infection discouraged her eating her 5, but helped her drop many pounds, so her waist is getting trimmer by the minute.

I've been eating my 5 (and Granny's pies and summer ice cream), but spend so much time with the physiotherapist doing shoulder and arm exercises that my midriff is no slimmer, but my arms are toning nicely. Should fitness buddies be living each other's goals like this?

Oh, and to top it off: Peter, who hasn't joined us in our healthy new goals, has dropped nearly fifteen pounds...

Elizabeth writes

When Dad (Peter) was in Oxford, Josie was giving everybody loads of trouble! I knew that Josie needed her alpha, so we had to do some serious training with her. We trained her with some Cheerios because she loves them. What we did with them: we used them like a treat to get her used to our commanded words, and when she did it right, we gave at least one to her. Once Dad (Peter) came back from Oxford, she was so excited to see him that she jumped all over him. Then when he started training her, she got much better.

Once when I walked with Josie and my friend back from the public library, I gave Josie to my friend, Josie saw a bird across the street, charged towards it, out of my friend's hand, across the street, and it was very scary because she could have gotten killed. She crossed the street again at our garage and I caught her. Sometimes when I look at Josie sitting down beside me I can't believe that she did all that.

Elizabeth's request

Elizabeth has asked me to enumerate the Airedales in my life. The first was Gabby, who was part of the family before I was. After her came Shea, then Helle. But there was also my grandmother's dog, Tacky. We've also just made the acquaintance of Charlie, an elderly (16-year-old) Airedale who strolls the neighborhood with his owner.

Cat training

So much for that. Elizabeth and Michael for the last few weeks have spent a half hour at a time trying to cat-train Josie, that is, to make her understand that the cats are none of her business. Alice, who is moving soon from Little Rock to Atlanta, sent us some extra cat doors, which the kids immediately installed in their room doors with a little help from Dad and a jigsaw. When it came time to show Jack and Cinder how to use them, Jack decided that we looked dangerous and shot downstairs for the first time in ages--right into the maw of....Josie! We heard a great scramble from her scrabbling feet as she chased him under the guestroom bed and low-grade grumbling and hissing from Jack. We backed off, forcing Josie from the room once, twice, about fifteen times. It might be better to let Cinder teach Jack about the door.

Dog days

Every month, my goal has been to write more often in the blog than I did the month before. Oh well! At least August will make September easier, right? It has been a busy month, nonetheless.

While Peter was in Oxford, Granny came for ten days and, as usual with her Mississippi farm-girl work ethic, made neglected parts of the house sparkle. She also made 7, yes, SEVEN, custard and pumpkin pies, all of which were consumed before she boarded the plane home again. We had three Airedales when I was growing up, all of which we considered my father's, so I'd forgotten how much she likes dogs. Though she was never able to get Josie entirely under control, she eagerly volunteered to walk her in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings. I'm not sure how far they got, but they seem to have come back friends.

Josie graduated from Puppy Kindergarten. Not summa cum laude, but not at the bottom of the class, either! And that last class was brilliant. With the instruction we received then, we now have Josie heeling and paying a good deal more attention to us when we are out walking. Frederic joined us for this last class and all but the graduate celebrated with cones from a neighboorhood creamery.

The school year is drawing near. We had our annual visit to the pediatrician. He usually says of Michael, who talks a mile a minute when nervous, "He's very precocious"; this year, on observing the length of his feet and the width of his shoulders, he said, "He's going to be a giant." Better get my hugs in while I can, then! He pronounced Elizabeth "perfectly healthy," which bolstered her confidence; she seems to need that, since her best friend, with whom she has been inseparable since kindergarten, is moving to a new school. Elizabeth is growing in other ways, too. She's just given me notice that, after nine and a half years, I'm to retire from doing her hair.

I'm working from home today. Michael just came in to report that Josie has been carrying around one of my 5-pound weights. The physiotherapist assigned me to doing biceps curls and "skull crushers"; it seems Josie has decided to do "neck lifts." Just heard some whimpering--hope she didn't drop it on a paw!

It's budget time at work. We are supposed to keep our budgets "flat," that is, not to spend any more money next year than this. I spent a good deal of time working with one of my team members on our various budgets. Some people write in full corporate-speak and it takes a great deal of effort to trim out the jargon and excess verbiage so that the financial controllers can understand the requests. For there are ways around that "keep it flat" directive. As in academia, you try to squeeze as much blood from the stone as possible, and if you want cash, you have to apply for it. I'm asking for cash to expand the archives operations: to launch a conservation effort and to digitize our foundational document, which is almost 200 hundred years old, with copperplate beginning to fade and pages crumbling.

We're going into the city tonight to hear a mass percussion performance at Lincoln Center. Cold and drizzly weather, apparently driven up from the south by Hurricane Dean's romp through Mexico.

Adolescence

Much has been going on.

I was in Oxford (UK) for the first week in August, and was alarmed at some of what I was hearing from Pat via e-mail: Josie being "difficult," "overwhelming," "hard to control." Not the best time to have left her with Pat's mom, who had enough on her mind during the days with the kids. "Well," I thought, "she must be missing her alpha. As soon as I get back we'll put things right." Well I got back, and was greeted with much joyous licking and jumping. But the control issues were still very much there.

Of several factors, one has been illness: she stopped eating for several days, and then started throwing up lots for a couple of days. Evening emergency visit to the vet, accompanied by Lizzie. (Just for effect, she coughed up some bile on the vet's floor. He was impressed.) She got IV electrolytes, and I cooked up some rice and beef for her new "bland" diet for the next few days. She's better now, but on days of mild relapse, she behaves awfully -- because she feels bad.

Another major factor: she's really growing up. She is less and less content to stay in the crate. She wants to spend more time with the pack. But she's not ready for un-supervised activity in the house. She's a real teenager, and she's a whole lot more work now than she was. There are times when she does settle down near us, chin on floor or on paws, just like a text-book dawg, but those are pretty rare. We're walking her more and more too, finding ways for her to see more of the neighborhood, work off energy. I make sure to walk about a mile with her every morning. (On several recent mornings I've walked with her by the train station along the Bronx River. A pleasure.) And we try to find a way to run her around later in the day too. After such sessions she's often pretty content, sometimes even tuckered out. But sometimes she's just rarin' to go for more.

It's been exhausting. But it's been good, at least, to have had some time during these end-of-summer days, to be here and devote some attention to all this. Better yet, it's been amazing to have these days with my kids. They aren't adolescents -- not yet, anyway! And they are a total pleasure.

Cut to the Quick

I've been revisiting the New Skete books with great pleasure. In the first one (Dog's Best Friend) they talk about grooming -- cleaning ears, clipping nails, brushing, etc. -- and emphasize that we should make this a pleasurable ritual that dog and owner alike will look forward to. Accompany with lots of massage, verbal reassurance, etc., as you get into the ears with cleaning fluid, get to the nails with clippers, and such.

This has not exactly worked with Josie, at least not lately. She's learned to recognize the bottle that holds the ear liquid -- a fluid that smells like rubbing alcohol. So after Elizabeth steadies her comfortably, I approach with the bottle, and watch the dog get super-uneasy, ears flop back smoothly against her head. I get in there somehow with a squirt of the fluid and the cotton balls. And just when we all think it's over, she does a great head shake that sends the liquid all over us.

Today it was nail-clipping day. I still look forward to these things, but Josie, again, panics. If our floor hadn't been well polyurethaned, there'd be claw marks all over it today from Lizzie dragging Jose over to where I could get to clip her. Thing is, in the end, she does calm down, and we're still all the happier for it, just to have had a good cuddle. You see that's another thing: we're supposed to hold back on petting and handling her in order to reserve that for when she has earned praise. But that's really hard to do. As I keep saying: she's a puppy after all.

Michael steps up

Michael feels things intensely. This makes him very astute regarding literature, human relations, and spiritual things. It also makes him sensitive to pain and joy, spiritual and physical. One of the upshots is his enjoyment -- and also fear -- of our animals. He adores the cats, and has a relationship with them (especially with Jack) like no-one else in the household. But he's still a bit wary of them: once bitten, twice shy, as they say.

All this has engendered a complex beginning to the Michael-Josie relationship. Ever since we were even discussing getting a dog, he was worried about how that would affect the cats: they would be susceptible to danger, and also they would take second place in the animal hierarchy. His misgivings were partially allayed by conversations with the New Skete monks, but in fact the fears were not unfounded. We're still working on getting Josie not to lunge at the cats, and she definitely gets more attention than they do -- she is a puppy, after all. Furthermore Michael's approach to Josie has been very careful and awkward. For weeks, despite my insistence, we watched the following cycle play out: Michael keeps his hand tauntingly above her head so that it wouldn't get nipped, which of course plays into Josie's lunge and nip reflex, which results in more fear, etc.

But things are changing. Several factors -- time, the Cape Cod trip, observing us and Sarah (puppy Kindergarten) working with Josie -- have conspired to instill in Michael considerably more confidence. He's more assertive with her, and here we come full circle, because he's taken a leading role in training her to ignore the cats. When Jack or Cinder are around, he becomes very (appropriately) authoritative with Josie showing her what's right, manipulating her with conviction. And she's listening to him.

Watching the kids interact with her, and learn about life through her, has been a real joy.

Tales and tails: two perspectives

Michael brought the bag of tresse (we still retain the Swiss word for braided, egg bread) to Peter's office this morning, where I was eating breakfast and reading Tuppence to Cross the Mersey. He settled in cross-legged and asked, "At the end of his birthday party, Bilbo starts to talk like Gollum, you know, saying "My precious" about the ring. Does the ring have some kind of power that it gives off? Is the same thing happening to Bilbo that happens to Gollum? I noticed in the sword game that it attracts the ring-wraiths and that also makes me think that it
does." He knows too much.

Peter's back from Oberlin, but arrived home so late that we barely registered his presence. This morning, Michael didn't quite believe that Peter had woken him up to say hello at midnight. The exception was Josie, who wriggled out of her crate in the dead of night to wag her hindquarters wildly and press her ears tightly back against her head for him. Same thing this morning (perhaps she thought she was dreaming last night).

(Now it's Peter talking.) Josie perceived me at my arrival at midnight, in spite of the blanket that covers her crate overnight. I couldn't resist opening the crate and having a love-fest with her. I'm afraid it must have woken up our downstairs renter, because she was utterly beside herself, and when I wrested her to the ground and pet her there, her tail was thumping hard and rhythmically on the floor...

In the car this morning Michael was asking me the same questions about LOTR -- a great pleasure to watch him engage and perceive so much about it. Tolkien teaches more about all that is right and honorable in the world -- as well as the pernicious force of the lust for power -- than anything other than Scripture. Sorry to offend legions of Harry Potter fans -- and it may be comparing apples to oranges -- but LOTR leaves HP in the dust when it comes to redeeming value and artistic genius.

I've only read the trilogy once (and have seen all three films in their extended versions numerous times), while Pat's read it probably about twenty times, literally. So for the more complex questions, about how and by whom the ring was forged, and the nature of its original power, I referred Michael to the expert. Elizabeth too chimed in about her reading, about a cat and other animals that talk to humans.

Josie is growing and adding all kinds of new coloration to her coat. I hope that she retains lots of the black, even as the brown and white patterns continue to incur upon it. Incur, get it?

Deathly Hallows

Yesterday, the day that the fervently-awaited Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, Michael started reading, not Harry P., but The Fellowship of the Ring. It's lovely to hear him talking about Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday and the fireworks that look like Smaug rushing out of the mountain. Parenting doesn't get much better, especially since he's reading the same copy that I had with me at Girl Scout camp outside of Houston the summer before eighth grade.

Head of the Class, Josie!

Okay, so Sarah didn't say that, but throughout the class on Wednesday evening, she'd tell us what to do with our pups, then survey the students to see all the other canines leaping around on their leashes, while Josie was doing as ordered: sitting calmly behind us, or heeling, or ignoring racing children. When Sarah had us scolding rope or a sneaker (to discourage a dog from going near it), Josie avoided it without fail. I don't think I could have mastered all that when I was 5 months old!

But Josie has an advantage, too, besides being generally poised and whip-smart: All the other human students in the class are mothers with very young children, or working women. Peter has a lot of time at home this summer, so Josie has four of us to work with her. I take her for longish walks in the neighborhood (yesterday she heeled flawlessly for about ten minutes of the half-hour), Elizabeth is constantly working with her on hand gestures or handling issues, Michael is taking charge in his own way, and Peter takes on alpha issues. We've also seized every opportunity to train her not even to look at cats (as Sarah advised), and Cinder, at least, is getting the message. I don't know how cats can be so attuned to these power matters, but she almost immediately learned that she was now safe from Josie. (Jack has yet to venture from upstairs if Josie is abroad.)

My back seized up on me today, so instead of taking Josie for a brisk neighborhood stroll, I drove her to the church grounds, to pick up Michael and Elizabeth. We clipped the puppy to the longline and let her race around. All her pent-up frustration of the morning poured itself into galloping full-tilt alongside the brook. She was finally winded by the time Kate brought fellow-New Skete shepherd Nezhma out. Josie wanted so badly to play, but Nezh turned her back and snapped at her when she came too near! Ah well, she's eight and not willing to bounce around puppy-style.

Peter's been in Ohio since Thursday. I know it is for an ecumenical gathering and that it is celebrating the 20th or 25th or 50th anniversary of some organization. (It was good to hear that Kate also has trouble keeping track of what her husband is traveling for.) He's been meeting again with many friends from the international ecumenical movement, many of whom he hasn't seen in several years. But I'll let him fill you in on that.

Puppy Kindergarten, Take 3

Thought I should also report on last week's class. It was raining so hard that only three pups made it to Sarah's place: ours, Stella, and Duke. And Whoopsie made four. We learned how to use treats to train them to sit, stand, come, get down, follow a pointing finger. Elizabeth has done a lot of work with Josie on this since, to great effect. One method is to teach her to lie down by sitting on the floor with your legs bent in an inverted V and getting her to crawl through the V on her belly. Very fun. She's also teaching her to wipe her paws by following the treat around in a tight circle.

We also learned that we need two walking commands--one, Let's Go, to tell her to come along, but not right beside us; the other, Heel, to keep her in tight formation with us. She's learning, and learning fast.

At home the other night we were outside, a lovely balmy evening, sitting on the hammock with Peter. The kids were catching lightning bugs, Michael numbering them George 72, George 73, George 74. Suddenly Josie hurt herself, impossible in the dusk to see how. She yelped and yelped, then raced for the hammock with her tail tucked and curled up on the canvas beside Peter, whom she clearly expected to protect her. It was very sweet: he nearly melted.

Cape Dog

During this past week I've been trying to think over how to write about our week on Cape Cod. My standard line has been, It was lovely to be somewhere that the hardest decision to make was which beach to go to (or more pressing, what kind of ice cream to consume). South Beach, where the sands are soft and deep, the seals congregate at arms' length from swimmers, and the waves cross each other along spits reaching out into the water, became a favorite. We usually go there once per stay, because it involves a bit of a trek from car to beach, but we all loved it enough this time that we went every day the weather was good.

Don't get me wrong, now. That water was COLD. The sun was too anemic to pierce the clouds most days, and the wind whipped along great for kites, but not for warming up swimmers. Michael, Elizabeth, and Frederic joined the seals every day we went. Until the last day, Peter, Alice, and I only stuck our toes in, and then reluctantly.

Michael and Elizabeth go to Cape Cod with certain goals in mind: 1) Visit Ben Franklin, a five-and-dime, as often as possible. 2) Swim in Schoolhouse Pond at least once a day. 3) Catch frogs in the bog and stroke their bellies until they are in a trance. This year they added a new goal: Lure Josie into the water as often as possible. After her first surprise full-body dunking, she was markedly reluctant to plunge entirely into the bog, though she did enjoy delving for nasty, black, slimy bog plants from the bottom of the waterways. They managed to accomplish all of the above, except persuading Josie to swim again...

Elizabeth gained another goal: Engage in body art. To wit, dye hair with bright colors (blue, pink, yellow for her; blue and green for Frederic) and tattoo as many people as possible with her henna kit. Only Michael resisted the desire to be decorated. All the rest of us, Fred, Alice, Peter, Elizabeth, and I all found ourselves inscribed with pseudo-ancient designs on our arms or ankles. They're still there... The evening she did it was one of the highlights of the trip: everyone sitting in the den area reading or working quietly at computers, while Elizabeth or I piped henna scrolls on scrubbed and oiled patches of skin. Very peaceful and redolent of eucalyptus oil.

Now I confess I also go to Cape Cod with a number of goals in mind. 1) Disengage brain. 2) Be with Peter and the kids (Alice and Frederic were a bonus). 3) Visit my favorite consignment store. 4) Have one good fish meal. 5) Get a necklace and earrings set at Yankee Ingenuity. This year I had two new goals: First, Go to physical therapy. I've had tendonitis leading to a nearly frozen shoulder. Between Alice, who is a physiatrist and performed lots of painful but fabulously effective muscle energy techniques on it, and Lisa, who is local PT and shoved my shoulder blade out of its near-freeze, the whole joint is much further down the road to operating fully. Second, I wanted to get some folktale work done. I thought I'd spend an hour or so a day translating, but instead produced a useful table of all the published and unpublished Pontic tales I know of, to help cross-reference them (comparison is primary in folktale studies), and to show me what I've already done and what I need to do next. All goals completed!

I don't know Peter's goals. My guess is that they were to make sure everyone else is happy. But Peter, you'll have to weigh in yourself on that one.

N.B.: Alice was wonderful to have on site not just because she is my sister and a great doc, but also because, as a fellow-Southerner and -fan of ocean swimming, she also understands why normal people do not wade into freezing cold waves to disport among the seals. She also understands the deep-seated needs of Southerners to have iced tea ever on hand, along with tall tea glasses, and that it is worth a little extra trouble to ensure that every meal, however simple, tastes great.

Along those lines, it became apparent to me that I have had at least a little influence in my husband's life. He insisted on producing a home-cooked meal to greet his mother, sister, and niece the night they arrived. So we feasted on grilled cod and other delicacies. Although on our first date he did impress me by cooking me dinner instead of taking me out to a pub (we met in England), he long valued restaurant meals as a way to celebrate and for equally long didn't really see why birthday cakes HAVE to be homemade. Go, Peter!

Alice Weighs In

I left Little Rock on the last day of June – after replacing a couple of kitty doors in my house - to fly to Providence, RI on my way to Cape Cod. Catham, MA to be precise. Where I have had a lovely time dog jogging in the bog looking for frogs, not in the fog or leaping in logs, but wearing my togs. Whew. And of course having a lovely time being in the presence of my sis, brother-in-law, nephew, niece and friend. Been walking on the beach – amazed at the cold (always expecting beach water to be at least 80 degrees) and in awe of the kids swimming in it with little hesitation. Went seal watching (alas no whale watching this time), consignment shopping, and star gazing. Almost forgot the Catham Fourth of July parade – I don’t think I have ever been to a Fourth of July parade – rememberances and prayers for all our veterans and soldiers for our freedoms. Just an overall lovely peaceful vacation. Many blessings found and appreciated.

Josie’s and my first solo Bog Jog
Took Josie out on my own to the cranberry bog- about twice her size as when I saw her in May (see photos below). At first she did not know what to do with just me and neither Peter nor Pat nor Michael nor Elizabeth. She kept looking back at the house, expecting someone else to join us. Then she perked up, figuring out I was a pretty good substitute. She ran and sniffed. We ended up at one of the “ponds” where she leapt to the edge, fearlessly retrieving pieces of pond goo and running delightedly back up to the path, head and tail held high. The day before she had learned about bodies of water – having walked in over her head – oops. Then, as we headed back to the house, she ran up the path ahead of me, stopping 2-3 times to wait for me, looking back to see what was taking me so long. What a fun time. Had one more bog walk this morning – our last one together, sniff – as I head back to Little Rock tomorrow……..

Editor's note: here's two shots of Alice picking up Josie -- one in the beginning of May, and one in the beginning of July. I'd say she's grown! (er, the pup, that is...)

I Love a Parade

Well it’s the fourth of July and Chatham has an annual parade which attracts not only the tourists but especially the local folks from several of the nearby towns. We began the morning way too early at 7:00, parking, and walking to look for the Kiwanis Club-sponsored pancake breakfast. It took work to find it, but it was worth it. We took turns waiting outside with Josie, attracting many admirers as usual, and finally snuck her into the cafeteria as we munched. We thought we were completely unnoticed, with her lying peacefully under the table, until we saw several small children crouching and looking at her in amazement.

She did great in town, again, despite all the commotion, movement, and sometimes loud sounds. And once again she drew countless visitors of all ages, and drew out many stories about dog ownership, most happy, and one that ended up with the dog (a Hungarian Couvage) being given away by its family, flown to a ranch in Texas where she’d be more free to growl and threaten the livestock instead of small children.

When we got back, after an hour-long car ride that usually takes 10 minutes, she parked herself in front of the fridge and crashed out, totally.

Bog and Salmon

The last few days, Josie’s experience of life on earth has been ratcheted up about a hundred notches. Start with a six-hour car ride, beginning at 4:30 AM. She acquitted herself well. When she barked – that out-of-nowhere, high-pitched bark that makes everyone jump, it was usually for a good reason, like needing to relieve herself or eat or drink. Once we figured out which it was, she was great.

Here we are on Cape Cod, and she’s living life among us in a totally new setting. She enjoys some time in her familiar large-sized crate (which she will grow out of before long), but less and less. That’s because she’s started living so much more. I’d reckon yesterday was the most active and full day she’s had since her first days out of the womb.

We are six here – with the addition of Pat’s sister Alice, and a twelve-year-old friend Frederic. All took Josie out on a long walk around the cranberry bog that our house overlooks. We now have this great 50-foot line that attaches to her collar, which allows her to romp around in near-total freedom. We practically never needed to pull it – she was happy to be with her pack, taking periodic forays to eat dirt, nuzzle around, sniff, leap back in surprise at the grasshoppers, check in with us. I’m not sure she knew what she was getting into when she jumped into the swampy waters – to our initial shock (and hers too) she disappeared entirely, the water over her head – scrambled and loped out, instinctively going straight to the classic dog shake-off. When we got back to the house we hosed her off and dried her, and she slunked under a bench on the deck and crashed out for a good long while.

Later in the day we took her to the beach – great to see her play with the waves, running in and back – pretty much exactly like little kids do.

Two days ago we took her into town. While the kids were in the five-and-dime, I sat outside with her on a chair, and boy is she ever a conversation-starter. A real nice way to get to know people, so many of whom wanted to come up and pet her, ask her age, and say “awwww.” She did great.

No doubt about it, her life has just gotten about 200% more full – and she seems to like it a lot. She’s a DOG!

Oh, the day ended with Frederic and Elizabeth making a fine salmon dish. Hence the irresistible title of this entry.

Fast forward to the past

I know that my reflections on the uncertainties of life are not particularly unique, but even so it was serendipitous to read tonight about Heinrich von Kleist: "A typical intelectual product of the late eighteenth century, Kleist had started from certain unquestioned assumptions: that life can be planned, that its random element can be eliminated, that happiness can be achieved and assured if we go about it the right way, that man is educable and society perfectible, that the world is rationally ordered and that all things in principle can, and in due course will, be completely understood and explained." America was founded on Enlightenment principles (remember that "Pursuit of happiness" clause, among others), and seems yet to retain many of those beliefs, as in many ways my family did, and perhaps still does. But Kleist must have been rocked to his core at some stage, for the text continues: "His creative writing expressed the state of mind that follows upon the loss of every article of this faith." (From David Luke and Nigel Reeves' introduction to their translation of some of his short stories. )

A series of unfortunate events

This morning Peter and I dropped the car off for the AC to be recharged. When we swung by the house to pick up Robyn on the way to the train station, I went in for one last good-bye with the kids. And found Michael, unclad, slightly scalded, and scuttling up the stairs figleafing himself with his hands. He'd sloshed boiling hot ramen noodle soup over himself. Elizabeth, who was draped over the stair banister, had bashed her forehead on the overhanging ceiling. But Josie, bless her, wasn't adding to the fray by barking. Peter stopped in on them, shortly afterwards, helped clean up, comforted the demoralized Michael, and found a palatable breakfast for Elizabeth.

Yesterday also had its challenges though, to be fair, Puppy Kindergarten in evening was another great session. Only problem was, we missed half of it. It rained torrentially and dramatically yesterday--peals of thunder, crashing lightning, hail in places--and flooding on the parkway. We didn't know about that last bit. Besides, I'm from Houston, so an hour-long drenching rain doesn't seem like much. But it was enough to fill the river and overflow onto the parkway. So we were stuck on rush-hour filled back roads for 45 minutes and missed the early part of the class.

On the bright side, Josie barked only once in the car, upon which Elizabeth offered her a bone and she chewed it happily for the next hour. Sarah also noted that Josie is much improved this week, in fact she may have been the most improved in the class, since she sat calmly much of the time when Sarah was walking us through another technique or changing the collar on one of the students, while the other pups roamed, sniffed each others glands, or wound their leashes around their owners' legs. We learned how to get her to heel, saw the uses of a long-line leash, and heard about how to use a clicker to teach her to come. Along the way, we're having to redefine the way we talk to Josie. For example, only one word to mean one thing. To ask her to heel, we can't also say, "Let's go," "Follow," "Hep," "Come," or anything else. Just "Heel." "Come" means "Be with me and I'll give you a treat."

We were happy to see the other puppies again, too, and noted how much they'd grown, even the Lhasa-poo, Timber. There's also Nod, the fawn-colored greyhound; Jackson, the Portuguese water dog; Duke, who looks like a Bernese mountain dog, but is really a mix; and Stella, the bulldog-mix. Whoopsie is Sarah's large black lab, very calm around puppies, obsessed about catching frisbees.

On other news, our friend Elli writes from Greece: "I am impressed by your puppy's diligence! Should we send our cat [to kindergarten] ]there too? For better-behaviour lessons, such as "I should not bite my friends just for fun", "I should not be so selfish" etc., etc. Hmmm! She is on my black list because she woke me up terribly early this morning and then went back to bed (she, not I) and slept happily."

Puppy Kindergarten

Last week we attended our first session of Puppy Kindergarten, led by the deeply experienced trainer/author Sarah Hodgson. See her site at www.dogperfect.com. Before we go to our second session this evening, I thought I'd review what we learned last week:

Puppies can't multitask.

Instead of crying, they nip.

German shepherds are bossy.

Josie can hold her own in a growl-fest with a bulldog-mix.

She can also squash a lhasa-poo under one foot and the lhasa-poo will bounce back.

"Lhasa-poo" is an amazingly silly name for a breed.

Puppies can be taught certain words to help them learn what they need: e.g., food, water, outside, mat, under (your legs).

Different kinds of leashes can be used for different kinds of training (Sarah's site has an area with examples of these different leashes.)

Distraction is better than constant correction: When Josie stole a sock yesterday and was cavorting through the house with it, Peter didn't chase her, he offered her one of her chew toys in exchange. And she took it!

Children should not sit on the floor in room where six puppies are romping with each other.

Greyhounds are less aggressive than German shepherds or lhasa-poos.

Josie's German ancestry (the monks get a lot of their breeding stock from Germany) shows in her relatively wide body and generally healthy proportions.

If the children make treat boxes (plastic salad cups with a hole cut in the lid and filled with Cheerios), we can teach Josie to find them wherever they are.

Time Out

Peter and I spent much of the weekend in Rhinebeck at a beautiful wedding. The setting was glorious, overlooking the Hudson and the Catskills, the weather cool but sunny, the love between the bride and groom and among their families palpable, the rabbi's sermon personal and beautifully structured, and the music hot. But it took some effort to get into the mood, as on Friday and Saturday we were touched by two deaths near us.

A family friend, learned, quick-witted, Jesuit, who grew up in a fanatically anit-smoking family, died in excruciating pain from esophagial cancer. He was in his 50s.

A woman at church, a one-time student of Peter's, who had been rejoicing over these last few years in a mid-life marriage, learned that her husband, only 43, had died of a heart attach while riding the train.

I've had a life freakishly unmarred by death. Until I was near the end of high school, no one I knew died, and even then it was grandparents. Everyone else who has died in the meantime was somehow marginalized either by old age, or mental illness, or drugs. I don't know how that affected my brother or sister, but it gave me the false sense that you can know the shape of your life and live according to a plan.

That changed in December, when a friend--the friend who taught me how really to live--died with her husband and two young children in an unexplained small plane crash. She was 45, the children 10 and 11. Others in our community have lost friends and family even younger, with less drama. Now it seems as though we may be devastated by the flu soon, probably within the next three years. It's hard to know how to move forward without being in denial.

Pray for the souls of Andrew, Robert, Lillian, Paul, Shawn, Kitanna, and their families and friends.

A romp with ancestors

The other day Michael, Elizabeth, Babushka, and I took Josie over to the cemetery where my father and many other relatives are buried. I know that people overdo this sort of thing, but I was interested to note how as we approached my dad's grave she became excited, and as soon as we got there she started rolling all over the grass contentedly. It was a good visit - we sang "Christ is Risen" together, went around to other aunts' and uncles' graves, and that of my grandmother. Then we fed Josie next to the car in the shade, and drove home. Josie seemed to agree with all of us that cemeteries can be a really nice place to be.

Dog-meet-dog

I think I was in Romania at the time, but I'm told that Josie's first brief encounter with Nezhma, an adult New Skete shepherd, was apparently all about friendly licks. Today, with some time off, I took the kids and J out for a more extended play-date. At first it was the predictable sniffs. Then, a bit of a growl from Nezhma -- Lizzie interpreted this as "You're walkin' on thin ice, buddy." When we got out into the open field, they mostly respected each other's space, but periodically had some spirited chases, ending with classic paws-up submission on J's part. It all ended amicably enough, but without much joyous romping. After all, it would have been uncouth to do anything serious on the first date.

In concert

Time is passing and it's way past time for me to write again. Since the last time that I wrote, Peter has gone to and returned from Romania; Michael and Elizabeth have
been sick twice and I once; my parents have returned from a three-week jaunt in Russia; my brother introduced me to Google Earth; a doctor diagnosed my shoulder problems as acute tendonitis; I ordered "Typen turkischer volksmarchen" from Amazon in Germany; Josie seems to have doubled in size; and another of my valued colleagues has been fired. So, as you can see, I haven't been idle! I am very much looking forward to our upcoming vacation: we will go to my mother-in-law's house on Cape Cod, near the beach, and do nothing for seven days. Except eat.

All the firings at work were making me glad that the tenure system still operates in universities. Now that Peter's book has been accepted by the press, he has begun his tenure application. He's been told for seven years that he would be submitting for tenure. Just before he submitted, however, the administration told him that they were probably going to start separating promotions from tenure, and how did he feel about that? Good thing he went to
Romania; otherwise he might have told them more about his feelings than they
wanted to hear!

So many people are moving on: many of the children's classmates will be moving on to other schools. Our cherished tenant is heading for a new job in Texas, where her family is; Robyn may be moving on to a much-anticipated position with an aid organization; and I spent part of Saturday helping S. with her CV so that she can leave her abusive position and find something more congenial, perhaps in Manhattan.

Elizabeth had a studio class as one of her last piano events--the students all play for one another, but parents or other audience is not allowed. Michael missed his recital because of illness, but did manage to make it to the concert his group played for the Bronxville Chamber of Commerce at the town's sidewalk sale. We took Josie along: she strolled along through the crowds as though she had been doing it all her life and curled up under the cafe table while Michael was playing. She was greeted by so many people that Robyn suggested that we should have opened a "Pet the Pup" booth for a dollar a pop!

Drip...drip...

In the midst of all the newness of discovering the neighborhood, Josie has just started to notice little things. Today I noticed several times that when she's had some water from her bowl, she lifts up her head and watches the remaining droplets drip off her snout, amazed at the ripples on the surface of the water.

Myths and legends

As part of family time tonight, we finished reading Robert Graves' translation of Cupid and Psyche. It was more complex than I'd remembered, in terms of language and human-god relationships, but everyone followed along enthusiastically and with baited breath. They recognized its relationship to various versions of Beauty and the Beast, especially one involving a polar bear. What I hadn't realized until now is that Beauty and the Beast is an offshoot that retains the marriage-with-a-monstrous husband and the search elements, but the Arabic "Cruel Mother-in-Law," with its impossible tasks and the son who can only help his wife indirectly, is clearly an offshoot of the relationship between Venus and Psyche.

Another myth that came under examination today, is that Co., where I work, is a meritocracy. My unit has already lost its director and deputy director, who had built it and the global network that surrounded and supported it virtually from scratch. Now another executive, a talented worker and an excellent manager of her unit, has been canned, with no warning and no explanation, other than that they are elementing her position. Her team is in shock; her clients are in shock; the rest of us are confused and dismayed.

And our new head arrived. I rather expected that she would call us all together, tell us that she knows we've been through a tough time, but that she's here to keep things together and that we'll move ahead from here. Instead she met with a number of people, none of whom I've seen before. She did come by for an introduction, but was so anxious to greet the woman in a neighboring office that she just shook my hand, said Hi, and disappeared. Hope tomorrow is more promising.

Home certainly was. Michael was at a rehearsal for tomorrow's recital, so Liz, R., and I ate dinner and took Josie out for a real neighborhood walk. She's wonderfully unruffled by trotting around in the larger world: alert, interested, but calm. Even when we met a family of small children on trikes, must have been six or seven of them, right next to the sidewalk, she didn't get overly excited. She looked at them, would have been happy to greet them, but was equally willing to head on down the path. And it was the same story with everyone we met. What a pleasure she is (though even more when she has learned to heel).

Absolut Evacuations

The weekend started with a full-building evacuation on Friday evening, a drill which allowed us the choice between waiting 45 minutes for the building to reopen, go to a local bar, or head home early. At home, S. came by soon after we had plugged in an old VHS of The Pink Panther Strikes Again to begin Pizza and Movie night. S. had just been meeting with a new mentor, who confirmed that she has been struggling to work these last two years in an abusive environment, and she needed to wind down and grieve a bit. R. and I closeted ourselves until late in the guestroom with S. and some frozen vodka.

Saturday Sav came over for the first time since he was released from hospital, where he'd been incarcerated for 11 days. He was in fine form, just returned from Princeton where he had been baptizing a friend's baby and had seen many mutual friends. It was the anniversary of the release of Sgt Pepper, and he'd found a lone copy of a cult tribute band's release of a Sgt Pepper song on eBay, and summarized the plot of As You Like It, and so on. We watched Stranger Than Fiction. Lame, lame, and lame. Instead of exploring the interesting implications of a fictional character becoming aware of the voice narrating his life, it was a straightforward, man finds a way to react against his fate, which takes pity on him. He could have looked around to see whether anyone else in his world was in a similar predicament. Or, since some say that characters live again every time a book is read, the author could have offered to re-write his life so that it was delightful but ended in an early death, or give him his same humdrum life that would stretch until old age. Or, she could have renamed her character and set the living man free from association with her text.

Sunday I lay in bed sick, dizzy and utterly enervated. Elizabeth had been feeling poorly with the same thing the night before, but somehow managed to soldier on, making it to church and the rest of the day's events (romping with the dog and R. in the backyard, building train sets, cleaning up room). Faced with his first-ever final exams now that he is in fifth grade, Michael has been reviewing social studies, his poorest subject, steadily, and has been so exultant that he now remembers most of the events, that he is becoming convinced that the tests, rather than impossible, will be ultra easy--an extremist like his mom, as Peter says. Michael's trying for High Honors this semester, and might make it if he stays on an even keel.

Sunday Ruth came over to visit. She's been up in Rochester visiting her sister and caring for her nephews. Josie was pushing boundaries severely, jumping up and having to be corrected. She mouthed my arms as I was correcting her, and had to have her muzzle held then barking and snapping at my hands. Time and time again. I finally held her down on the floor and rolled her onto her back, and after that there she was willing to calm down and get back to business as usual playing with an ice cube.

Monday morning, this morning, Peter called me at work to say that Josie just had her last shots for the year. She's now been given thumbs-up to roam the neighborhood, though we've been advised that she shouldn't eat other dogs feces for another couple of weeks. She probably will, too. It's pouring rain out, otherwise Peter would be walking her right now--we've all been eager to release ourselves to roam the neighborhood with her. We'll all get to stretch our legs!

Stop and Eat the Roses

I'm just back from taking Josie to the vet -- her final vaccinations for this period. That means she can romp and frolic outside our property for the first time -- meet other dogs and neighborhood people. That's going to be a big change. She enjoys our property, though we have to keep her away from the flowers, and we've been finding more and more ways to play with her, such as tying a rope up with a pulley from a tree branch. Great dog fun.

Best vet-visit yet. Calm in the car, calm in my arms (getting to be quite an armload) in the waiting room. She trusts me more and more. Last night I clipped her nails and it was the easiest time yet. She's on the brink of being 16 weeks old, the time they call "adolescent." But she's already had some strong teenage-rebellion moments. Apparently that's going to increase, if she follows the textbooks.

I was away last week, and am going away again for a few days tomorrow. Last time I came back after five days, she was totally different -- got that stripe of white over her forelegs, and grew noticeably. Don't know what to expect this time... She's great.

Returns

Peter just returned from nearly a week in Israel. He came back browner and still a bit dusty from the Mediterranean heat. Josie greeted him ecstatically. She is noticeably more demonstrative with him than with the rest of us (though she is also eager to please Elizabeth as well). When I returned from a week away in England, it was business as usual with her:
happy enough to see me, but no more.

She has changed. She's back to being interested in people again, but still pushing the boundaries of behavior. Barking has gotten worse. She's rebelling more, sometimes racing around the garden like a maniac, sometimes reaching up to nip when she's been corrected (again this is more with Peter and Elizabeth, perhaps because they do more of the alpha-exercises with her). Her coloring is also changing rapidly. While Peter was away, she grew white lines from her elbows up her sides. Her chest developed a white spot that Michael called a thunderbird, but has now grown larger and shapeless. The underside of her tail appears to have a chain of tan going up it, and her rear end is now also tan. Her sides are still mostly smooth and black, although her back is covered with wavy black layers.

She began to go out of control the day Peter left, ignoring all rebukes. I shook her down for barking about three times the first evening, and shook her down another three times for digging on the next day and haven't had much trouble with her since. We've also been working to control her jumping up: catching hold of her legs and keeping her upright just past the point of discomfort (it's beginning to have an effect). She's not much of a hunter, fortunately, though she's tried a couple of times to snap up bumble bees. Somehow the bees didn't seem to notice, and canine and apian escaped unscathed. And even when she catches the cats off-guard, they manage to scramble away from her because she gives up the chase so easily.

That being said, she is becoming territorial. When Elizabeth brought her out the other day and Josie saw me in the garden, before she recognized me, she became alert and guarded: ears up, standing very still, tail notrwagging. Once she heard my voice, she relaxed and wiggled up to me. A day or so later, a bird landed on the yard fence and she became alert and suspicious, and began a short growl and a series of warning barks. The bird, though clueless to the threat, soon flew away and Josie was satisfied.

I suppose it is only a matter of time before she stops accepting anyone who comes into the house, but so far that hasn't been a problem. She has taken Robyn's arrival as our long-term guest in stride. When our friend Chieko came to pick up her son, Frederic, the other night, Josie was absolutely delighted to greet her and be petted by her. It's hard to tell whether she remembers Chieko from having met her weeks ago; Josie did her best to crawl over her. It was late in the evening though, so I held Josie in my arms until she settled down and lay still for stroking. I'm hoping she'll learn that way to be calm with guests.

Testing, One, Two...

We get Pat back tonight! It will be good to be running on all cylinders again.

Josie is growing by leaps and bounds, literally. She's gaining weight -- five pounds since we got her -- and in size and ability to jump and run. All weekend, and today most of all, she is testing us more and more. More barking, more nipping/biting. Just now at lunchtime I had to make some more dramatic assertions of my being in charge, assertions that she continued to test with barks and even little growls. I made sure to come out on top, including having her on her back, exposing her chest to me -- I believe it worked, but I'm not positive. At any rate, she's pretty tired at the moment. I think she's enjoying the new crate pad that Michael and I got for her yesterday -- she chewed up the zipper on the previous (undersized) one pretty quick. At any rate, she sure looks peaceful now.

Spring Social

Life's odd with Pat away. Though kids and I certainly notice it strongly, I don't know if Josie has a clue yet: she kinda takes things as they come. She is, after all, a puppy. She's also a puppy who's been taught from the very beginning to roll with the punches. The monks handle the pups, get them used to collars, cars, peoples' hands all over them, and to people coming and people going -- so the rest of the training and socialization is built on that strong foundation.

That all came in handy, not only for Pat's absence but for Josie's first real trip to the vet yesterday. She was poked, prodded, examined, injected. She had the test that us guys in our forties know too well -- the one involving a surgical glove and plenty of KY Jelly. And she was brilliantly stoic. The waiting room was another story -- twenty minutes in the present of cats in crates, a towering black great dane, and lots of new smells and sounds -- she was scared, and showed it. Anyway, she's all dosed up now on vaccines, flea liquid, a pill against worms, and some liquid in her nose that does I forget what.

And we try to keep the socialization thing going on, bringing people over to meet her and get licked. Today, e.g., I've got three students coming over to rehearse a bluegrass tune that we'll be performing at a talent show tomorrow night. Don't know if the monks ever did that!

Lizzie and I sat on the lawn yesterday afternoon, after Josie had forgotten all about the vet's waiting room, and trimmed her nails. A surprisingly pleasant experience. And today I had one of the most gratifying one-on-one sessions with her yet, on the kitchen floor, tossing a knotted rope and getting her to fetch it and gnaw with such enthusiasm that she was yelping in glee.

It's all about... people

Peter and Elizabeth took Josie for a "well-puppy" visit to the vet on Saturday, just to get them acquainted. New Skete recommends doing that, but after week of people saying, "You can't be serious," it was nice to hear the vet confirm that, since the visit happened so early, Josie would imprint it as a positive experience. Good thing, too: tomorrow she'll return for her shots.

The vet also recommended that Josie meet at least ten new people a week for a while: she'll soon become territorial and needs to see the boundaries of that territory as fairly porous. She's met some of the children's friends, some teachers, a bishop, a number of Peter's students, our language club members, and a few neighbors. They've mostly been coming to us: she isn't allowed on land used by other dogs until she's 16 weeks old (she's not fully vaccinated).

One of the first thing people want to know, besides how old she is, is her name. Some ask with some anticipation, as if hoping to hear a clever one. Their faces fall and their voices turn dismissive ("Oh.") when they hear "Josie." Too prosaic? Others say, "Hi, Josie, what a beautiful puppy you are!"

I'm off to England for a week. I doubt Josie'll forget me in that time, but I wonder how much she'll have changed by the time I get back. If she's too territorial by that time, will I make it past her boundaries? Brother Christopher told us of a surgeon who was home so rarely that his shepherd didn't realize that he was part of the family. By the time the puppy was a year old, he would no longer allow him in the house. Perhaps I should leave her one of my old t-shirts as a memento.

To the next phase

As some things stay the same, others are changing very fast. She's still a dear, still cocks her head wonderfully, still brings her crazy ears together. She still spends time in the crate, in the kitchen, outdoors. All puppy waste material is on our lawn, not on our floor. But she's moved to a larger crate where she can sit, stand, and even walk around a bit. She spent her first night outside Elizabeth's room last night, without a hitch. On the whole, her adaptation to us and to our house is amazingly fast, and one of the results is she's less eager to please. Used to be that just clapping your hands would send her bounding to you, tongue and tail flailing. Now she sits there and sort of wonders why you're making all that noise with that stupid eager expression on your face. We're also only just getting hints of what life is going to be like when she spends less time in the crate. I left her in the (gated) kitchen this morning to check the laundry, and came back to see that she'd found our phone receiver as a perfectly suitable chew toy. I thought I'd placed it well out of reach, but those out-sized paws are getting more and more out-there. Now, exhausted from it all, she's crashed out in her crate.

Beta-testing the Alpha

I haven't been so obsessed with pee and poop since the kids were in diapers. But rather rehearse Josie's digestive events and where they happened, here is a telling scene along the journey to establishing myself as the "alpha" in Josie's pack: I was sitting on the kitchen floor enjoying Josie, when she nipped me playfully on the arm. As I've been instructed to do, I took her snout in my hand and gave it a squeeze/shake, saying "No," until she squealed slightly. And we looked at each other. She gave the same arm a slight, gentle lick, and looked at me. I praised her. She gave it a couple more licks, and looked at me. More praise. She gave it the tiniest little hint of a nip, and looked at me. I said "no." ...whereupon she spontaneously lay down on her back, paws up, in submission to the alpha. Man, this pup must be reading the same books I am.

Doing other little enjoyable exercises once in a while, like holding her as she's facing away from me in her seated position, with one hand on her chest and the other under her chin. The hold is firm, but also embracing, with a slight massage of the chest. The message? "I am in charge, but since I love you that's not such a bad thing, is it?"

Do your business, Josie!

With Pat off to work at 7:45, it fell to me to be the main care-giver on this, Josie's first weekday with us. In most ways, that was a great privilege. Alone-time with Josie: on-the-floor play, romping-in-the-garden play, and some time just each of us doing our own thing, but still in each other's company, in the kitchen. She's started to just lie down once in a while and rest her snout on her oversized paws -- a sign of relaxed adaptation. She's such a fine pup, so quick to adapt ...to most things anyway. Now, the book says that she's supposed to need to relieve herself 15 minutes after any meal or after having water. So I'm out there faithfully, repeating the encouraging words "do your business, Josie!" just like the book says, for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. No business in her designated soiling area. Later on, however, she did manage soundlessly to dispense a puddle of urine on the kitchen floor. By the end of the day I was a mite tired of the dynamic. As I expressed my frustration, Patricia sought to correct my various theories about the day. I told her to please just give me a hug and be done with it. Some more time romping with Josie and Elizabeth, and then Josie and Michael, and all of us in the kitchen before bed, and all was well again.

"The brothers said we would see changes in her every day," said Elizabeth just now. Yesterday Josie's ears curved toward each other like a ballerina's arms; now they are stiffer. We've changed, too: we're much more diligent about what's on the floor: rubber bands, bits of wool, onion skin, marbles, dust bunnies have been swept out of the kitchen, out from under the piano, and out of the livingroom corners.

Cats and Canine

Yesterday was a series of surprises. Today no less so. First has been how calm Josie is despite all the changes in her life. In her crate in Elizabeth's room, she slept through the night (we didn't--we kept one ear open at all times in case she needed to go outside). The second has been how much she enjoys eating grass. And flowers.

The next surprise was that she's very smart. Despite this immense change in her life, she has never acted disoriented, but immediately learned the route from the kitchen to her soiling grounds outside, and after a first encounter learned to be wary in the living room of Jack, our black-and-white mouser, whose hostility makes Josie yelp.

Also unexpected was that Cinder, our sluggish black cat, several times last evening and today, approached the new puppy to initiate detente. She's never met another animal; Josie's never met a cat. Each time, after staring intently at one another, they would approach slowly and touched noses. Then we would hustle Josie outside.

By the time we arose this morning, Michael had installed a pet gate at the kitchen entrance; now the animals can view each other at their leisure.

Enter JOSIE

Who could have predicted anything about this day? It has already been beyond-wonderful, though not without challenges. I write in a moment of eerily blissful silence. Josie – that's right, not Chaka, not Haru – lies sleeping in the crate by Elizabeth’s bed. Who knows what the night will bring? It is 9:30 and we are all utterly exhausted.

We left later this morning than we’d wanted to, and got a bit lost, but pulled up to the central chapel at New Skete literally at the dot of 12:00 noon, which was the agreed time to meet Brother John. He is a humble and straight-forward man, who got straight to the first order of business: meet the parents. We went out back into the main kennels for the adult dogs and met Goldi first – that’s our pup's mom. We’d seen her at our last visit, licking at her new litter, which had already contained our puppy. She’s bright in color, relatively slight in size, and very even tempered. Not so the father, Dux. He’s large, darker, dignified, more intense, more powerful (though his owner, Br. Luke, says he's a total pushover).

The kids ran on ahead to the puppy kennels while we took a bit more time with Br. John, and by the time we’d gotten there, they were in a room playing with …our puppy. It was immediately plain to us all that this was a perfect little dog. Dark body, lighter legs and light paws, very nice coat, a lighter face, with ears that have already begun to sit up, but tuck sweetly together. She has a great combination of curious playfulness and self-possession. The monks are wonderful that way, putting so much into socializing their dogs. But as her PAT (Puppy Aptitude Test) scores showed (!), she is also pretty wonderful to begin with.

We all played with her very naturally; then the kids walked her outside for a long time while we settled all the paperwork. When I went out briefly to see how things were, Michael reported to me, “We decided, together, that it would be ‘Josie.’” That was a big concession for him, because he’d voted for Ella, or several other names than Josie, but saw how much it meant to his sister to name the dog.

We sat at lunch with Br. Christopher and heard lots of great and wise advice, in fact more than our already-overwhelmed senses could take in. By 3:00 we were off for home. The 3.5 hour car ride was less problematic than we imagined – Josie was not too difficult to settle, sometimes in her crate, sometimes in Elizabeth’s lap. A couple stops for her to relieve herself.

Back at the house, so many discoveries, and the beginning of more challenging realities — starting with the cats, who were emphatically not pleased with the new addition to the family. That, in turn, upset Michael greatly, and we all had to work hard (some more and some less successfully) at not giving each other too many opinions on how we should each be handling or not handling the pup. I made a trip with Michael to the pet store (open late) for some last minute supplies, and that separation was very healthy for all.

Pat is now asleep as I type, Cinder is on the bed too, Jack roaming around (his tail is finally back to its normal dimensions, after some serious puffing). And like I say, who knows what the night will bring? I’m on duty for the first part of the night if she kicks up a fuss or needs to go outside. I know, in any case, that we have a totally wonderful puppy, and I can’t wait to spend time with her tomorrow.

Blastoff!

Peter has piled the things we'll need on the trip upstate: dog crate, Ipods, lists of questions for the brothers, Elizabeth's thank-you note (hand-drawn, signed as coming from the whole family), Michael's thank-you (pasted together on the computer, self-signed).

Serendipity marked last evening. With 18 hours left before picking up the pup, we watched a PBS nature program called Dogs That Changed the World. For as long as I can remember, I've thought of dogs as just pets that people indulge themselves with, that working dogs are the exception. The show laid that notion to rest. Dogs deveoped out of wolvesonly about 15,000 years ago. They evolved because of the emergence of cities and their midden hiaps. The wolves least afraid of popel, the tamest, wre most successful at feeding. In mating with each other, they rapidly evolved into proto-dogs, probably within a single person's lifetime. Humans quickly grasped their usefulness and civilization then developed in ways that would have been impossible without canines: large herds, penetrating into the Arctic, and so on.

It must have had an effect on Michael, too: as we later watched a bit of the monks' training video and saw Br. Mark elevate one of the puppies in a mild stress test, he suddenly said, "We could call her Ella." (Now that's a name we could live with.)

Elizabeth: "But I like Josie."

And so we're off.

Countdown: One Day

"We're surrounded by trains!" Michael announced yesterday, when we traveling into the city for "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day." Every year my company puts on different events for employees' children; they usually include a financial education component, a talk by one of the senior executives, and a volunteer activity to benefit a local charity. I looked left and right out our train windows and, he was right, trains were surging by on each side. Elizabeth looked up and then went back to her magazine.

After I picked them up from the formal events of the day and gave them lunch at the company cafeteria, I brought them back to my office. Elizabeth found some pens that she liked and drew "snapshots" of my desk and the rest of my office. Michael played some electronic games. I took them into the archives, where they helped inventory some papers and filled out a donation form. And, the highlight every year, they hunted out the old IBM Selectric and laboriously typed out notes to their dad.

Both children have grown much since last year, and not just the three or four inches in height. We've especially been able to see the effect of future puppy-ownership on Elizabeth. Without being asked, she helps round up the cats for their twice-daily doses of antibiotics. On the weekends, she tracks whether Michael has fed them. She has been cleaning her room, clearing the floor of anything small that the puppy might swallow, in anticipation of its sleeping next to her bed for the first few nights. She takes the initiative to help in setting up the table for dinner. She occasionally even volunteers an opinion, a feeling, or a thought.

The change in Michael is less profound. He doesn't much welcome change, ever, and our bringing a canine into the house is no exception. He often says that Jack is his best friend, and that the cats will have to live upstairs as long as we have a dog. But he loves the services at New Skete and, back when we were looking for a parish to join, strenuously advocated our attending services there-despite the seven-hour roundtrip. Typical of Michael, though, there are few things about which he doesn't have an opinion, and the puppy's future name is no exception. He liked April when Elizabeth first mooted it as a name weeks ago. We've been holding fairly regular brainstorming sessions. We drew up a list of names of Miyazaki heroines, honing them to Kiki and Haru. Michael, "But I like April, I think it's a great name." Peter mentioned Chaka, after one of his favorite singers. Michael: "I like April, what's wrong with April?" Unrelated to the dog, I was talking about the name Josephine; Elizabeth shortened it to Josie. It's her new favorite contender, which she mentioned to Peter. Michael, overhearing, said, "But I like April."

But the main thing, I think, is to remain open to various names. You never know until you meet someone, what his or her name should be. Our children were known as Bébé for the first three days of their lives (they were born in Geneva), until we could see what they should be called. That may be difficult to get across. Michael this evening announced: "I don't like the name Josie." At least he's changed tacks.

Tonight we'll watch a PBS special about the history of dogs in the world; tomorrow we dose the cats and climb in the car to New Skete.