Dog rivalry

I took Yukon for a walk down the gravel town road behind my property a few days ago. A little ways down the street is a house on the south side of the road, with an open field of untouched snow directly across the road on the north side.

As we approached the house, a big yellow dog started howling. It was tied up, standing in the driveway in the below-zero morning cold. It quieted down a bit while we neared, and Yukon tentatively stepped toward it (though because it was tied up on private property, I wasn't going to let them meet up close).

Just as she stepped forward, the yellow dog launched a massive barking salvo. Yukon jumped back and skittered away down the road. Here is a file photo of Yukon running:

Well, the walk was an out-and-back, so we had to pass by the house again. Right as we got to the driveway, the yellow dog started barking again. Yukon stopped, looked at the tied-up dog, and then leaped out into the open field across the street, jumping and bounding in circles through the snow in full sight of the other dog. She jumped back over the snowbank into the street where I was waiting, and we continued on our way.

It kind of seemed like an "in-your-face" moment aimed at that other dog. Maybe there is some attitude to go along with Yukon's insatiable appetite.

My own mini-"Friday the 13th"

One of the things I like about going back home to West Bend to visit is that I know my family's land and the surrounding area well enough to walk it on a dark night without a flashlight. There is a plot of about 12 acres of woods I can traverse - on or off-trail - on a moonless night, and another several hundred acres surrounding it in which I know all the trails by heart. It's something I'm quite proud of - and it's something I'm working on at my home in Duluth.

Even with all that knowledge, though, there still is a sight that puts a tinge of fear into my mind:

It's a motion-sensor light atop a shed maybe an eighth of a mile from the house, at the far end of the yard, on the edge of the woods. Its purpose is to light the way if you need to get something out of the shed at night, but every so often when I'm home alone - and it happened again while I was visiting earlier this week - the light flicks on when I'm in the house.

"It's just a deer," I always tell myself. And there is a 99.9 percent chance it is just a deer that tripped the light. But there's always that one-tenth of one percent chance that it is a homicidal maniac skulking around the woods on a dark night, or a lone mountain lion waiting to pounce should I go out to investigate.

I was never a big fan of the Friday the 13th movies, and I've only seen bits and pieces of a few, but looking out the kitchen window and seeing those bare light bulbs flick on in the distance, when I'm home alone, on a pitch-black night.... it always makes me think of those films.

Dreaming, Vol. 2

Last night's dream: My dog was infested with fleas. My house was infested with fleas. Fleas, fleas everywhere.

Possible inspiration: My dog has been scratching a lot - audible at night - but, thankfully, the vet declared her flea-free. I think it's just the dry air in my house.

Oh cripes, what do I do now?

I just got back from a walk with Yukon. We went up and down the back road, and were about to head back inside when some gunshots started in the distance. She flinched a bit, and I didn't want to take her in right then to reinforce her fear, so we circled the yard for a bit.

As we got down to one of the front corners of the property, in an area where I had cleared some brush over the summer, something odd caught my eye:

It's right in the middle, just a little below center - a white form on the ground. Funny, I thought, I don't remember a big rock being there.

The dog was interested, so I walked up and....

What must have been a beautiful buck - maybe even the one that scraped up a bunch of trees in my yard - crumpled in a heap, dead for at least a few days from either car or bullet. On my land. As noted in the title of this post, my thought: "Oh cripes, what do I do now?"

This happened on my family's land while growing up, but there were big, open spaces around us where the deer carcass could be dropped - and my dad was there to do it. I don't think he'll be willing to drive 400 miles to take care of this one - and there really isn't anywhere to go with it without loading it in the back of my car. I wonder what my garbage man would think if I dragged it down for next week's pickup.

For now, the thin layer of snow actually makes the situation a bit more bearable - it's almost serene. Everything is frozen, so I don't have to worry about decomposition right away. I think it's a 10-point buck - I didn't lift the head to check the antlers on the other side - and I may just leave it, and let nature take its course (no brush cutting in that area next spring). I'd like to harvest the antlers - they're really nice. I'll just have to keep the dog away from the scene.

A side note - my dad's dog, Daisy, stumbled upon one of those deer carcasses in the woods back home a few years ago. It was desiccated corpse, but she still found it irresistible - to the point that she'd wander up into the woods every chance she got to gnaw on it. Finally, one Christmas morning after presents, the whole family helped load the thing up on a sled and skid it to a distant, inaccessible location. To this day, years later, the dog still goes back to the original spot where the deer was, looking for her long-lost snack bar.

Just shoot the buffalo already!

Cape buffalo (image from Wikipedia)

When I got my dog earlier this week, I felt I needed to make a financial tradeoff. So, I canceled my cable TV.

Yukon has been taking up much of my time these first few days, but late at night, between work and bed, I still find myself with a half-hour or so when I need to just wind down. I can't watch late-night cable offerings, so I've been getting reacquainted with late-night local TV. Tonight I was introduced to a show that started out benignly, then became progressively more horrifying. The show? "The American Huntress."

The show started, and seemed mildly better than infomercials, so I decided to stick it out. It is sponsored by the likes of bullet manufacturers and a clothing line called "She Safari." The premise is something along the lines of two women from Texas who like to hunt, and they bring along cameras to film their exploits in hopes of encouraging more women to hunt. Tonight's episode involved one of the women - her name was Linda, but I'll call her "Shotgun" - and her husband ("Second Fiddle") going on an African safari.

They arrived in Africa, and filmed the interior of their luxury tents to show their female viewers how posh things can be, so they won't be so darn hesitant to join their husbands on their next weeklong trip to hunt game in Africa.

Then they headed out into the game reserve to find a big male cape buffalo, the shooting of which seemed to be Shotgun's all-encompassing desire. But then the group spotted a herd of elephants, and Second Fiddle just had to shoot one, so they stalked and took out a big elephant bull.

I was starting to feel weird at this point. I have nothing against hunting deer, or any other kind of game that is put to use as food, or clothing, or some other practical application. But it was quite clear that they weren't going to be frying up elephant steaks outside their four-star tent that night.

So then they went out the next day, in search of Shotgun's cape buffalo, when they instead spotted some kind of wildebeest that Shotgun just had to shoot. So she did.

I started thinking, for God's sake, for the sake of all these animals, let some dumb cape buffalo stumble out in front of their LandCruiser so they can shoot it and be done with all this. But no.

Then, if memory serves me correctly, they went out again and found not a cape buffalo, but leopard tracks - and Second Fiddle had to shoot a leopard. So they hung the wildebeest carcass up and waited for the leopard to come along. He did, and yet another majestic African animal fell. And we were only like two-thirds of the way through the show.

Another day, and Shotgun finally, FINALLY got her cape buffalo. But then she decided she HAD to shoot a lion. Which, using the logic of the safari, meant she first had to shoot a hippo to get bait for the lion. Which she did. Ultra-condensed version, the lions never showed, so, oops, that hippo was shot for... nothing. Oh, well. End of hunt for them. Sigh of relief for me.

Other than the wildebeest and hippo used as bait, the show never mentioned what happened to all these animals that were shot. I assume they probably were mounted as trophies to sit in Shotgun and Second Fiddle's living room. What a waste.

But all is not lost. Thanks to the ads, I've got a hot tip on the most destructive bullet on the market, and I got a good look at the She Safari line. Tailored camo never looked so good.

Karmic payback

Things are going well with the new dog - "Yukon" is her name now - but we had one minor "incident" today.

She is a very sweet, mild-mannered dog. She had been so timid, so hesitant to try new things, that I thought nothing of leaving her alone in the back seat of my car for 10 minutes while a few bags of groceries were in the cargo area. To get back there, she'd have to get up and over the back seat - something it seemed she'd never be willing to do at this point.

Well, she did. And she ate most of a bag of 12 dinner rolls. Fortunately, she left most of the bag; if she swallowed any plastic, I'm sure the doughy rolls will help it pass right through. The photo above shows the offender and the evidence.

I wonder if this is karmic payback for the incident described in an earlier post.

In any case, she is very attached to her crate; that is her default place to be. She comes out every now and then to see where I am, and to explore... though she tends to make a beeline to the crate if I so much at glance at her.

But a few times she has come to sit by me in another room, and today I got down on the floor with her, and she laid down and put her head on my chest. One of the nice things about having a dog.

New dog

Two-year-old yellow Lab. Left with rescue group by family that moved and could not take her with. As of Tuesday morning, she'll be mine, after I've waited almost a decade to have a dog of my own.

Given name: Gadget. I didn't like that name initially, then thought I'd try sticking with it, but now have decided I can't. So, I will be renaming her ... we'll see how that goes.

Now, I have to find a name I like. Pressure's on.

Spotted on my way home

I was driving home tonight when my headlights caught the glare of a deer's eyes on the right side of the road ahead. I slowed down, then saw a deer on the left side. As I neared and slowed down some more I saw two deer on each side, directly across the road from each other.

I stopped my car a few dozen feet from the deer. The pairs of deer looked at me, looked at each other, looked at me, looked at each other....

Finally, after maybe 20-25 seconds, all the deer ran off into the woods on their respective sides of the road.

I wonder if I broke up a West Side Story-ish rumble.

OK, I'll admit it, I still love this movie

When I was about six or seven, I was introduced to "The Incredible Journey," a 1963 Disney movie about three pets - two dogs and a cat - who traverse the Canadian wilderness to get from where they are being boarded to their real home. And, to be very, very clear, I am NOT talking about the decades-later "Homeward Bound" remake that is far inferior.

I don't know if I was caught at a very impressionable moment, or if it is my love of animals, or my love of the northern Ontario scenery, or what.... but I have been a total sucker for this movie ever since I first saw it. I have it on videotape - not available on DVD - and, maybe once a year, I pop it in the VCR. Maybe it's something that has just perpetuated itself over the years - good memories of childhood getting reinforced every time I watch.

If you've never seen it, the movie consists largely of the animals getting into life-and-death scrapes on their journey, with a richly voiced narrator and a orchestral score offering the "play by play," such as it is. You can get a taste of it with this YouTube clip, and the others that follow. Some of the shots are pretty incredible when you think about the animal training that was involved (and, yes, some shots are a little cheesy looking back from 2008 - especially the "bear attack" scene). Humans are only side characters, assisting the dogs and cat here and there, and providing the final, if-you-don't-at-least-get-a-little-misty-eyed-you're-not-human scene.

One thing I like is that the movie is not "dumbed down" for kids. There are no gratuitous off-color jokes, and - unlike the 1990s remake - the animals aren't given celebrity voices to spice things up. It's a sweet and simple tale, told matter-of-factly, letting the animals, the scenery, the narrator and the music do their thing.

I'm still waiting for the movie to be released on DVD. In the meantime, I'll have to be content with my well-worn tape, the YouTube clips and the reproduction of the movie poster (above) I bought off Amazon a couple years ago.

The Incredible Journey. Awesome.

Ethical dilemma

I added about a dozen stale flour tortillas to my compost pile last night, thinking that ravens or other birds would enjoy them today. I've seen ravens scavenging out of that pile many times.

But, I had noticed lately that food had been eaten out of there with some force - that is, it was ripped apart and scattered about. I didn't think much of it until I saw a neighborhood dog chowing down on the tortillas just now.

This is a dog that is allowed to roam free, and on more than one occasion it has run up to about 20 feet from me, in MY yard, and started barking madly. It also harassed the elderly dog I pet-sit for last spring. So, the thought of it throwing up a dozen stale tortillas on the carpeting at its owner's house does give me a touch of satisfaction.

But, now that I know it is eating out of my compost pile, should I stop putting food out there? Put up a bigger fence? Do nothing? I'm not sure.

Things that get eaten out of my compost pile, Vol. 2

I've been on an eat-it-or-get-rid-of-it tear through my freezer. Contributed to the compost pile yesterday:

- ice-encased frozen pizza

- frozen fish sticks well past expiration comfort zone, even in a freezer

This morning, the fish was gone, as was most of the pizza. Some cheese and pieces of crust were left.

Things that get eaten out of my compost pile, Part 1

Added to the list of items tossed on my compost pile that the local wildlife finds delectable:

- overcooked hot dogs

- frost-encrusted, expired Eggo waffles

On the list of stuff that doesn't get eaten:

- old oranges