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Euka O’doggie

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Donna Black-Sword
May the road rise to meet ya and
 your bowl be full o’kibble, says Euka.

Sam’s coming over today, says My Favorite Kid on his obligatory weekend phone call to his mama, And I’m making shepherd’s pie and boxty for her tonight.  I don’t think I can handle making the soda bread so I had to buy that from the bakery.  So what are you guys going to do for a St. Patty’s dinner?

You know you’re German, right? I said. On both sides. If there’s any Irish in your heritage, it’s a closely held family secret, mein kinder.

Ma, he says. Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. You know that.

He speaks the truth, my smart kid. And so to honor this bit o’the green that lives in all of us this fine holiday, we bring you the best I can manage this afternoon. 

Photos of the dogs wearing head boppers.

What’d ya expect from me? I come from a German heritage. And hillbilly. A long line of hillbilly. Sorry ’bout your luck on that stellar lineage, kid.

Good grief, is that a come hither look or what?
Kiss me, says Euka. What’s the Irish word for tart?

Micron wants to know to say
 I don’t wanna play this game in Gaelic.

And of course limericks written by dogs is a must for this best o’times holiday.  From Dogster Micron wants to share his favorite.  He dedicates this ditty to his friend, Mere and her little toesies.

There once was a Boxer named Pete,
Who had an obsession with feet;
And when he sniffed toes,
He dove in with his nose,
‘Cause nothing ever smelled quite as sweet.

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Question: What does dog food and powered flight have in common?

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Donna Black-Sword
They’re all looking at me, aren’t they?

Say what you will about the City of Dayton, Ohio. Go ahead, I’ll wait. It’s not like we haven’t heard it all before. Sure, like any aging city in these great states we’ve seen the place go from boom town to some very troubling problems. And sadly, much of it has taken root in our historical sections of the city.

Which saddens me as I drive through our humble downtown and surrounding areas now. I have history here too having walked our city blocks as a gainfully employed young woman of the 1980’s.  Lunchtime then was an event of changing out of them fancy heels into sneakers to spend an hour shopping at Elder-Beerman’s before grabbing a burger from the food court at the Arcade. We had the Rike’s building then, where I worked at E.F. MacDonald on the eight floor. And the upscale Metropolitan clothing store was across the street, next to Frisch’s Big Boy with their cherry cokes. The sidewalk hot dog vendor guy, striped umbrella shading his steaming cart on Second Street. All are gone now.

The artful rotunda (yep, those are really turkey gargoyles up there) atop the Arcade will likely never be appreciated by another generation of Daytonians. But the Rike’s building, which would bring families downtown to view the annual Christmas window decorations, was replaced by the Schuster Performing Arts Center. A definite plus for Dayton and redeeming cultural center that brings Dayton’s street cred up by several notches.

Dayton has so much to be proud of, historically speaking. If we can just be reminded of it all.  And if we can continue to preserve it for our children, so they can pass this heritage of information on to their own.  We want it remembered that our gem city was built on a foundation of inventors and entrepreneurs.

We Daytonians are proud of our pioneers of creativity.  Deeds with the self-starter, technology that is used today in our modern vehicles. And of course Patterson who built a little company called NCR on the wings of the success of his electric cash register. And that fellow so important to my career, Paul Iams*, who founded The Iams Company with his concept that a high-quality protein based dog food will improve the health and well-being of our faithful friends.

Oh, but what are we really famous for, people? Do you know?

Dayton can crow her pride as the birthplace of aviation. In spite of that other state that attempts to stake claim to this first-in-flight stuff (yeah, I’m looking at you North Carolina and your annoying license plate logo.) it is within the boundaries of our fair city that the Wright Brothers were lovingly reared. It was here, right in our West Side, that Orville and Wilbur stewed their creative juices to design a flying machine. The first one that actually could leave the ground and stay up there for more than a few seconds.

The Wright Family lived in what is our West Side in the late 1800’s, then a beautiful middle-class neighborhood of large frame homes and well tended gardens. And an area infamous now for its slow decay. But tucked within this shameful blight, we have a pocket of preserved history as the Wright Brothers National Memorial. To walk through this restored neighborhood, it feels a little like being in a bubble. We’re safe here, inside our shimmering walls. All that stuff on the other side of the opalescence is too blurry to be seen from here. Squint your eyes and you can imagine what once was.

In celebration of Euka’s six month birthday we took her to see the Wright Memorial museum. Well, that’s what we told her.  We were actually on tour with our fellow members of the AACA, The Antique Automobile Club of America. Because we apparently have a visceral need to steep ourselves history of all kinds, even cars it seems.


In hindsight, I should have spent a
minute to adjust that cape. [sigh]

So how’d our girl do, you ask?  Quite well, I think. At work we have some trouble with the happy Euka trying to jump on people. Usually the same people, so there’s a pattern there that makes it tougher to fix. At the Wright Brothers’ museum, her greetings were professional [whew].  Even with small children, she would hold a sit for a head pat when what she really wanted to do was sloppily lick their little faces. Good girl, good girl.

Euka gave no response to the manikins in their period garb, which frankly creep me out a little bit. I have to just walk quietly past these things. So long as I don’t look ’em in the eye, I won’t be sending creep-out vibes down the leash to the puppy. Hey, that stuff happens, you know.

Euka respected the displays with nary a sniff. Stairs were handled with the ease of a pup who’s done this stuff before. Just a little trouble with confidence going from carpet to slick floor, so we kept that event to a minimum. 

And her reward at the end of the tour was naptime during the thirty minute movie of the Wrights. My reward was learning so much more about the Wright Family than the FAQ’s that we’re fed over and over in the usual info tidbits. Did you know that it wasn’t just Orville, Wilbur and Katherine that we always hear about? There were seven kids in the family, one son was a city commissioner. Another sib was estranged from his famous brothers. Who knew?  And dogs! They had family dogs.  Must learn more . . .

And hey, North Carolina. Are you still here?  I have two words for you. Well, besides Orville and Wilbur because those are proper nouns. Huffman Prairie, y’all. We take your twelve second glide at Kitty Hawk and trump you with the invention of full powered flight in Dayton. Who’s got your birthplace of aviation now? Put that in your bowler hat and well, you know. Booyah or something, y’all.

A memorial bench to the Wright Brothers at
Woodland Cemetery. In Dayton. 

And the Wright Family plot at Woodland Cemetery. It’s
traditional to toss a penny on Wilbur and Orville’s markers
when you visit. And by the way, these guys are buried in
Dayton, the Birthplace of Aviation.

____________________________________________
*Euka sends a shout out to Paul Iams, the developer of the original Eukanuba formula. Eukanuba was a term popular during the Jazz Era.  It means “something supreme”.  Euka would agree that her name fits perfectly.

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Wordless Wednesday: Canine Funkitude

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Donna Black-Sword
Is somebody frying bologna? asks Bodine the Cat.

Oh Bodine! Nobody move!, I say. I’m getting the camera.  Which is only three steps away on the kitchen counter.  I click off the lens cap, turn to focus and snap this.

And absolutely not the scene I had before me a mere five seconds ago. The dogs are fresh from their bath, damp and clean.  Bodine came up from the basement for his evening rounds and had curled up next to the two of them on the dog bed. He was grooming them. Alternating dogs to lick their fur dry. And purring. Seriously.

Somehow bizarre, adorable and strangely disturbing all at the same time.

The shot I got instead is Bodine acting like a cat.  It smells like papaya and wet labrador in here, he says, ears back to show his disgust in the canine funkitude. He wants you to know that I’m totally lying to you and he would never (Never! he says) groom a wet dog.

Meanwhile Jager, the Master of the Hunt and Avoider of  All Things Bath-related, is keeping a secured safe distance lest his stanky self be tossed into the tub next.

 
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Hop aboard the Euka Express

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Donna Black-Sword
Gimme a challenge here, Food Lady.
Let’s set this thing on fire or something.

You know how they say dogs know basic math, right?  Show your dog you have three dog cookies in your hand, then only give them two. The dog knows you’re holding out on them and why are you being such a jerk about the cookie because you’re not going to eat it and they know that too.  I thought we were friends here, says your dog.

Our dogs show us their smarts all the time like this. Not just our über-intelligent CCI pups, of course. Each fuzzy comes packaged with their own brand of cleverness.

For instance, as a former stray Jager has a level of survival skills that he exhibits even these seven years after his Gotcha Day with us. Street smarts, so to speak. When in the office he does his Tiny Tim performance with my dog loving co-workers.  Oh please sir, says Jager with an affected cockney accent. He expands his pupils until his eyes are watery black pools. Could you spare a sandwich for a hungry dog? They don’t feed me until the weekend, you know.

And so he’s handed a pity cookie by a kind soul. Which he spits out. It’s my jaw, you see, says Jager. I don’t have much muscle here. Might you have a softer treat for the poor likes of me?  And sure, he gets a different treat. Who could say no to that face? Jager chomps down the soft treat, then snatches up the one he dropped and trots away to nosh upon the treat back on his dog bed. True story. Except for the cockney accent part. He actually has a hard time pulling that one off.

He’s a clever one, our Jager.

But we know Euka’s a rather smart girl, too.  She observes her environment and misses nothing.  I notice her relaxed posture as we walk into new situations, but I also see how she needs to process things. Not a fear or hesitation about what’s going on, but instead she cases a room with a what’s in this for me attitude.



You do have matches on you, right?

Our local chapter of puppy raisers for Canine Companions for Independence was provided the opportunity this weekend to introduce our pups to an agility course. Not as training for any competition, but an excellent and safe way to reinforce confidence with novel experiences.

It’s a long drive for us, about an hour and a half, to reach the agility facility (heh. agility facility.) and we show up a bit after things have started. Activities in full swing with dogs and people absolutely everywhere. At one point I counted sixteen pups with their handlers. (During the playtime break, I’m sure the thundering herd was at least twice that.) It was so very interesting to watch Euka scan the room, the agility equipment, the dogs in motion. Her body posture – head up, ears perked – was all Coo-ell! Bring it on!

 
It didn’t take her long to figure out that she was to jump through the ring or leap over the hurdle, not just run around the things. And then she was all over this stuff. Weave poles, A-frame, dog walk plank, even the teeter totter.  You can’t stop the Euka train, she’s just chugging along.  I mean, just look at her Labrador smile in these photos. This was exactly the kind of challenge our girl needs. Absolutely worth the drive; time well spent here.

Oh, but the tunnel. Short of me doing a demo of how it works (stuffed sausage, anyone?), Euka just wasn’t clicking on this one. Euka on one end, me on the other waving a dog cookie in the opening. Euka! Here! I call.  You got it!, she says and runs around the thing to get her hard earned treat. I toss a treat to land about a third of the way inside. She pops in far enough to munch it and backs out. We then waited to watch another pup go through and still, Euka’s like and why would I want to do this? What’s my motivation here?

I’m just not getting this sandworm* thing.
But you know what? I’m not gonna push it. She’s going head first with all the other equipment here, especially with all the distractions about us. And it’s not even a fear thing we’re dealing with. Merely a failure to communicate, the two of us. Not a biggie.
Turns out I was right not to fret about it, too. When we released the pups for a play session, when the dogs morphed from double digits to a hundred and two, there were several who decided to rassle inside one of the tubes. The heck! says Euka. I want a piece of that action! Rawr!
The girl found her motivation indeed. Two pups are inside the tunnel. Then three. And a fourth joins in.  Then how many are in there, we ask.  We don’t know for sure. The thing is spitting out panting dogs like a projectile live birthing session, just to suck another couple of pups back into the other end. 

The Euka Express bursts from the train tunnel.
Woe to those dog in the path of the freight train.
All three of them.

Alrighty then. Checking off Sand Worm Tube from the novel items list. Been there, done that.
__________________________________________________
Loads of gratitude goes to ARF Agility and Rally for Fun in Gahanna for allowing us to use your facility for our CCI pups.  We do appreciate your generosity. You wore my dog out and for that I am in your debt.
__________________________________________________
*Of course I’m referencing the sandworms from the Dune universe. You knew that, right?  Too far geeky?  What if we called them Graboids?  See? Now you understand, don’t you? Who would purposely put themselves inside one of those things?

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Four-on-the-Floor

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Donna Black-Sword

I don’t get it. Can you ‘splain it to me again, asks Euka. Why is that stuffed toy Ed is holding in his mouth not a stuffed toy?

Because that’s his beard, I tell her.

Euka tilts her head as if shifting her brain to the right might help process this.  So, she says slowly.  If Micron holds a toy in his mouth and shows it to me, that’s ok. I can wrestle the thing to the ground, right?  She tilts her noggin to the left for this next thought. But if Ed leans into me with his stuffed beard, I get yelled at for trying to take it from him?

You know, I can almost see the logic in this. That is dog language after all, especially among retrievers. This passing toys between doggie maws. The deal breaker, I suppose, is when somebody is not actually another dog.

Think about it this way, I say.  Dogs use their mouths as hands and people use their hands as, wait . . . that’s not right either. Heh. Ok, let’s just keep it simple here.  Euka, my love, don’t jump up on people.

Her brow furrows on this.  Don’t jump up on people. she repeats. I still don’t get it. That’s where all the good stuff is.  How can I get to the cookie hands and lick their faces then? It’s not like I can reach the good stuff from down here. You’re weird, Food Lady.

I’m aware of that. It’s what makes me charming, I say. Listen, this is the rule I want you to follow, and what  you will keep tucked away in that polar bear noggin of yours. When you greet someone, it’s always Four-on-the-Floor. No exceptions.

Oh! Nuh-uh! cries Euka. That ain’t right! What about that little girl at the library? She smelled like bubble gum, she can’t just have all that goodness for herself. And that one boy? He was like a three-foot french fry. yummy . . . 

No exceptions, I say again. None nada nyet zilch. Just like Micron does, you sit and wait to be patted on the head.

So, what you’re saying is I should do whatever Micron does, she says. A clever girl, our little Euka.  She’s looking for loopholes.

That’s a scrap of newspaper, not a beard.
There’s a difference. Who knew?

Nice try, girly girl, I say. Not at all. In fact, most of what Micron does, well, don’t do that. Like when he pulls my butt across the office to get to his favorite cookie person. We expect you to have better self-control than the mighty Micron.

Ha ha! says Euka. You said butt. [snort].

You’re a big girl now. And so very smart, I continue.  In fact, I think you know full well what you’re doing. We’ve worked on this enough, me and you. You’re taking advantage of others who don’t know you’re supposed to be in a Sit for a greeting.  Am I right?

Maybe, says Euka. But how does Micron get away with stuff and I can’t. It’s not fair.



Micron meets Snoopy. This excerise in self-control
 lasted about ten seconds. Do note Snoopy’s
body language of self-preservation. 

And there it is. The whole ‘it’s not fair’ thing.  As a parent, how do we answer this lamentation of our children? Right. We know well this mantra of  Life’s Not Fair. Ah, how completely unsatisfying that response has been to the generations.

Instead I say, because Micron suffers a chronic case of misfiring neurons in the presence of dog cookies. Or other dogs. Well, and stuffed toys. He kind of loses his mind in the moment.

Which is true. Stuffed toys are that dog’s kryptonite. Extra fun when I have to stay hyper vigilant visiting nursing homes with him as a pet therapy team. Some ladies do like to keep stuffed toys next them in their wheelchairs. That’s our Micron, three-quarters Golden Retriever and one-quarter work ethic.

And you, Euka, I continue, are learning how to be an assistance dog. Micron is not. Special rules for special dogs.

And between me and you, I think you can actually set a good example for Micron. Instead of being a monkey of his misdeeds, how about you show him how a good dog behaves. So let’s do an experiment, but you can’t tell Micron, ok? You start following the Calm Greeting rules and see if he follows your lead.

I don’t know about that, says Euka. But I guess I can try it. Ok, I think I’ve got it now. So I can play mouthies with Micron, but for people I Sit. Four-on-the-Floor.

Yup, Four-on-the-Floor. Make me proud, little girl. You can do this thing, I say. We both can do this thing.

It’s the start of a new work week tomorrow. Let’s keep paws crossed for keeping masculine facial hair intact and calm puppy greetings all around.

For Euka, of course. There’s not much we can do with the big guy, you know, with his heart of gold and his head full of . . . well, happy thoughts.

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