In Putnam woods

From last week in the Putnam wood, me and Maya with my friend and his dog. Gotta do it again soon, though took a huge tick off Maya a couple of days later. Ugh! Awfully horrid creatures. They are a clear example of nature's mutant side. What earthly purpose except misery do they serve?

And today Maya made life more difficult by jumping the fence gate and bothering the neighbor, who was none too happy to bring her back. Unfortunately the gate is only three-feet high, or maybe a bit more, and she can get over it. Gotta fix that this weekend. Neighbor says do invisible fencing, but I think just a higher add on to the gate area will be find. I don't want to be shocking Maya when the yard is pretty much fenced anyway.

She was zonked tonight and didn't even look for supper. Hummm ... hope she's OK in the morning.

Treking with Kobu

Fantastic day. Went to Putnam and treked in the state park with my buddy David and his dog Kobu. David lives on a road the runs into the park, reverting to a very rocky dirt road only three houses up from his. The park has great stone walls and other rock ruins. Because Putman is very rocky and hilly, the area was abandoned of farming long before other areas and these walls and rock foundations have to date to th mid-19th century or earlier, when folks from the Northeast moved to the Midwest for flat farmland.

We did a nice three-mile walk, basically following the dirt road, but diverting for a bit along an area that was once pasture land, divided by beautiful stone walls. I let Maya off her leash as soon as we were a little ways into the dirt road and she had a great time with Kobu, though the playing got a bit rough at times. Maya's paw was bleeding for a bit but I couldn't see anything really wrong with it and it seems fine now, as we sit in Dave's house, the dogs running around the house free and the kids—his three kids and his two nieces, the youngest being 2 and a half year old Samantha—playing with the dogs as if they were just a couple more kids. Now the dogs are tussling pretty rowdily!  What a life: kids playing, the dogs playing and us sitting here drinking Powers whiskey! Could it get any better? Yeah. Food's ready!

Other walkers

With the kids out of school for Holy Week and the day care only partially full, Meche had time to walk Maya this week. She took her to the lake preserve that Maya and I have explored so much--not the ridge preserve where she picked up ticks. Meche, Maya and half a dozen day care kids. Have to give my wife a lot of credit on that one! I don't think I'd have dared.

Then after work I make her fetch a ball in the back yard--Maya, that is, not Meche. But the dog, who's now four months old, is a stinker and likes to tear after the ball, but then plays games about giving it back. I think I need training on how to get her to behave and bring back the ball and obey the release command.

No ticks this week, and she's settling down a bit. She'll happily gnaw away on a chew and keep us company, although she can still get crazy, like tonight when two of Abby's friends came by unexpectedly as we were watching Survivor. We had to put Maya upstairs because she went crazy and was climbing all over the two boys as they tried to sit on the couch. Hummm... set her on boys who come to visit my almost-15-year-old Fionna? Sounds like a plan.

Ticks and fences

Maya hasn’t gotten many walks in this week, since I finished fencing in the yard last weekend. I ran some green plastic-coated fence through and behind the large forsythia that runs along part of the yard. The other parts of the yard are enclosed with a four-foot chain-link fence and my other neighbor’s hedgerow of arborvitae, before which Meche put a three-foot plastic fence that stops the kids—and now Maya—from getting through.

The dog is thoroughly enjoying her freedom in the yard and runs like a demon around and across the yard. We’ve only a quarter-acre lot so it’s not huge, but it is sufficient to give her space to dash. I’ve spent a fair amount of time tossing a green tennis ball for her to chase.

We’re going for a walk in a little while, but not where I had been going the week before last, when I was exploring a place called Sunny Ridge Preserve. The place was fascinating with all sort of stonework, including a high stone dam in a narrow trough in the rock through which a stream runs. The preserve is supposed to offer a great view from the ridge, though Maya was never willing to keep going to get there since the trail climbs steeply to get there. The area is pretty rough, with lots of downed trees and tangles of shrubs. I want to research what the area was used for and will have to check out the Web on it. But for now I’m turned off to going there because last week I took six ugly gray, apple-seed sized ticks off of Maya, and one off of me! I still have welt under my arm from the nasty thing. Maybe I’m maligning the preserve but I feel that’s where we picked them up. I’ve never found such nasty creatures in my yard, although I know they could be there. I’d love to explore that area more but right now I’ve developed an aversion to the place. It’s got a highly negative yuck factor to it now.

Fortunately, I’ve given Maya a treatment for ticks and fleas and the ticks I took offer her appeared to be dead. I didn’t realize the treatment doesn’t stop ticks from latching on, but it kills them once they do!

Now, it’s a sunny spring day, so I’ll head out with the dog. The back yard is nice but this dog is meant for walking.

Too much too soon

Oh, God, I might be walking my dog too much. That’s according to the trainer. I said I was walking her a lot, like three-mile hikes in the afternoons, and sometimes a neighborhood jaunt in the mornings. He said she was still, at three and a half months, just a baby and I had to be careful not to wear out her joints while they are still developing. And running her isn’t too cool.

Damn. I don’t want to hurt her. Maybe I should just suspend this blog til she’s a year old and ready to tear. But I asked the vet’s assistant the other day—before I’d spoken to the trainer—and she said as long as the dog was up for it, that was okay. I’ll talk to the vet on Friday.

Nonetheless, Maya definitely seems to want to walk. And even after being told Saturday that I was walking her too much, I could tell that Sunday she wanted go get out—well, so did I. So we did the smaller hike around the lake, taking a sidetrack that’s supposed to be a shortcut but I didn’t have my Nike Plus with me so I couldn’t confirm that. We were gone an hour, though I didn’t push her as I’ve been doing. I gave her more time to snuffle thing out. That was also a recommendation of the trainer—not to worry about making her heel. She’s too little yet for that training and wolves in the wild don’t necessarily follow the leader but do obey the leader. Still, a couple sites I’ve read emphasized the importance of this with setters. Ugh! Que hago?

Today and yesterday we did just walks around the block, today around here and yesterday around the high school after she wouldn’t settle down enough to let me watch Fionna’s lacrosse game. The thing is Maya thinks everyone in the world wants to stop and pet her and tell her she’s a sweet, beautiful dog. She craves attention. Ha, great insight! That’s a dog.

One thing, though, Maya is great for hiking. We spooked a few deer the other day and she froze and the deer froze and we all just stood there in clear view of each other for minutes, nobody moving. Then the deer snorted and pranced parallel to us and stopped again and still Maya kept quite and just tracked her. THEN she got bore and sat down! But she never barked. She's great that way. We hear something in the woods and she stops and is completely silent. Bird dog. Hey, that's be a great way to see those ground bird that are so hard to spot. Have her flush 'em! Can’t image that’s too kosher in the birding world, but it’s not killing them. Anyway, I think Maya is way cool being quiet that way.

Settling on a red and white

Walked Maya in the rain. It wasn’t a downpour, but a light steady rain with the temperature about 40 F., more Irish weather for this four-legged descendant of that misty green isle. We did the lake loop, which is only a mile and a half, and today it was brisk. We ran in spurts totaling about a third of the distance and took only 32 minutes to do the whole walk. When the kids were little we’d take two hours to do that walk, giving plenty of time for rock scrambling, exploring old stone walls and foundations and, of course, rests. Now, I can’t get them to even walk the dog with me.

Getting this dog wasn’t my idea, but the breed was. When Meche and the kids started abogando for a dog, I was pretty resistant. We had two cats that were pretty old, one about 20 years old that I inherited and the other that was 16 years old that we got as soon as we had our first apartment. I’d promised the girls we’d get a dog when our old cats died, but when both passed away last year the reality of a dog seemed like just too much commitment. Then four mouths after the last cat died, Fionna brought home a box of four kittens. We ended up keeping two, although I’d have kept them all if pushed. My sister-in-law took the other two. It was amazing how quickly we became attached to those kittens.

I tried using the argument that we now had two more cats to counter the pro-dog faction—which was everyone else in the house. I sort of won, but I could tell that Molly, our youngest at 11, was extremely disappointed. I think she chalked it up to “parents don’t keep promises.” So I started researching dog breeds and we visited the SPCA shelter. A rescue didn’t seem like the best idea because of Meche’s day care, which is housed in our walkout basement. Even the guy in charge of rescues at the shelter confirmed that, saying, “I can test them for food aggression; I can test them for how they get along with other dogs; I can test them for how they get along with cats. But I don’t have test kids.” Once it was decided to get a puppy, I felt we should choose a breed with known characteristics. Look, some breeds are just not the best with little children.

At first I wanted something that didn’t shed, but nothing that came up in the web sites that help you pick a dog breed went over with anyone else in the family. I’d seen cockapoos and labradoodles and both seemed like lovely dogs, though I’d heard they were being bred indiscriminately and often from poor stock. With no one else concerned about shedding, I dropped that criteria and focused on how well they got along with children and other pets and how affectionate they were. Setters, spaniels and retrievers generally came out on top. Their drawback was … especially setters and spaniels … they’re high-energy dogs! I’d always thought I’d like an Irish setter because of their beautiful color and healthy lean look. So I checked out a breeder I found online. But when I raised the idea to Molly, she noted it was a pretty big dog, with females weighing in at about 60 pounds and 25 inches at the shoulder, and she wasn’t sure she could control it. Anyway the breeder didn’t have any females anyway. But then the breeder emailed me to say she had a couple of red and white Irish setter females and that they where field bred and smaller than the reds. She said the females only get to 40 pounds and are about 22 inches at the shoulders. After looking up “field bred” and researching red and whites, which I’d never heard of before, I tossed out the idea. More resistance! Fionna wanted a Siberian husky and Molly a border collie! More research. Neither scored as well as setters, particularly the collies, which are off the charts on energy and exercise needs and really low on getting along with children. Huskies fared better but clearly could be problematic, and didn’t rate well with other animals.

In the end Meche said I needed to decide. To test things out, I lied and told the kids I’d already ordered the dog. Fionna flipped and felt I had no right to do that without consulting the family (read, without her permission!), but Molly reminded her big sister that dad would end up being the one to take care of the dog the most. Meche reminded Fionna about bringing home a box of kittens without consulting anyone. After I showed them a picture the breeder had sent me of the pups at four weeks old everyone was sold! Then I had to check back and make sure the breeder still had the red and white females. (I forgot all about my aversion to white dogs that shed.) The rest is history. Except the name and that they tricked me on!

Now, on that “field bred” point, this is from dogbreedinfo.com about red and white Irish setters: “There are two types, field lines and show lines (bench). Field types are bred for hunting and field trial work and are generally somewhat smaller with shorter coats. The bench type are bred for conformation shows. Both types are energetic and need daily exercise, but field lines have a higher energy level and need even more exercise.”

Thus the name of this blog: Walkin’ Maya.