Spirited year

Maya on one of our walks on the mountain the last week of December 2012. She turned one-year-old on Dec. 18. No party, except for my nephew, who has the same birthday.

I love these woods. Few people go there and Maya and I usually have the place to ourselves. She runs freely and to her heart's content. We're constantly discovering new things about it. It is easy to imagine as farm land by the way the land rolls and the stone walls and obvious tacks of old access road. It has such a spirit about it. But the trails lead down to the reservoir and the valley that would have also been farmland once. Like I say, it has spirit. It's like it wants to tell its story.

Corn dog

Maya is a corn dog. Well, according to our trainer anyway. I mentioned to trainer Mike last week that Maya had an ear infection, her second in the last three months. He asked what we fed her. Purina One dog food. That, he said, is the problem. He said that food contains corn and Maya is getting an allergic reaction to it. Corn, wheat and soy are not good foods for dogs. I noted that her skin is red and our friend, who is a vet and came to see her last week for the ear infection, told Meche that the redness was an allergic reaction. Mike said she has sensitive skin and her ear infection is related to that. He said changing her food to one with more animal protein would be better. Not sure of the name of the brand he recommended but I'll check again this week and write it down. Several brands I checked on line have names that sound like what he said, Abundant Life or Bountiful Life.

Then this week I saw a commercial for Blue Buffalo dog food and they emphasized the issue about corn. I might try that and Mike mentioned it as well. I know Innova is also supposed to be good--and they have a commercial with an Irish red and white setter that looks just like Maya. Gotta try it if for no other reason.

Twilight Trek

Over the weekend I filled in some of the holes Maya made in the yard. I dug up topsoil from the little woods back of my yard and filled in the most jarring scars. It will take a fair bit more dirt to fill all the places she has excavated but that may have to wait til spring. She hasn't been at it much this week, and I suspect she's spending more time indoors during the day. Her fault. Not sure dogs can be trained not to dig but since we go to training weekly and Maya is moving up this week to the Obedience II class, maybe I'll find out more about what can and can't be expected of her.

Actually, she's doing so well around the house. She rarely tries to get out when we open the door and she is much more inclined to sit when people come in, though that depends on who is entering. She rarely jumps up on me and if we're alone she won't even come over to me unless I call her. But when the kids or Meche are home she's already excited and then comes scurrying over to me and sits for some attention. Still, she chews indiscriminately and yesterday gnawed on Fionna's Nook cord. It was on Fionna's bed plugged into the wall. Not cool for Maya, and not F's fault since she had shut her door, or so she says. But others open it and don't bother to shut it. Unfortunately, Fionna was only one page short of finishing a novel and is pissed at the dog. She was complaining about my dog and disavowing family ownership. Too bad. For that disrespect, she can pay for her own new Nook charging cable.

Meche and I took Maya for a walk on Sunday afternoon about 4 o'clock, up the mountain I discovered in the summer. It was Meche's first outing there--and only the second time she has accompanied me to walk the dog, though once I went with her and the daycare. We didn't make it to the top of the mountain, but almost, turning back at a junction where the trail splits in three places, one going left vertically up to the peak, such as it is, and one going around the side and approaching the high point from a more gradual ascent. The other trail, a mountain bike route, goes right and loops back to the main trail. We turned around as the sun was setting and I wasn't sure we'd get back out before it got to dark. Daylight savings time ended over night and I didn't want to overestimate the day. It was a good call.  It was pretty well into twilight when we reached the car and Meche admitted she'd been scared the whole hike. It's a pretty isolated area, though there are houses along the road. It has a lonely quality to it and I seldom run into other people there. I like that about it. Meche said she didn't know how I could go alone there all the time. I said I have my trusty dog with me! I've been slightly spooked a couple of times there when I've stayed too near to darkness, partly because I've noticed Maya doesn't like it when she can't see and gets more nervous at dusk. I wonder what would happen if we encountered a coyote or a bear. Not impossible at all.

It was nice of Meche to go with me. Hardly anyone ever does.

The next day I was off from work and took Maya to the wilderness. We met eight or 10 dogs at different points on the trail and Maya was happy to romp a bit with the others. She behaved super, too, coming when I called her to walk in the opposite direction from her friends, and she waded deep into the stream, getting herself cleaned off nicely. We also ran into Karen and her dog Maggie. They  originally told me about the wilderness after I met them on a walk in a leash-only park, so after I started going to the wilderness and met her and her husband and baby there a few times, I told her about the mountain. I've never met her there but she told me they'd gone various times, usually midday, and love it. Maybe we'll meet one of these times. I don't tell many people about the place. I don't want to spoil the quiet, spiritual tranquility I sometimes feel there. It's like having my own private woods, almost.

Wrack and ruin

Sometimes it seems like Maya is intent on alienating herself from me. She is repeatedly digging up the yard, which I reseeded only about a month ago. Last night I came home to find five (yeah! five!) holes, some of them four or six--maybe eight--inches deep in some cases, in a nice straight row. It's like she just went down the line digging like crazy. Why? She needs more exercise and attention. This is happening during the day when I'm at work. But Maya isn't at home alone. She's being allowed outside alone and without supervision and is tearing the place apart. The solution is getting her out more, and when I close this issue of the magazine (and get over this wicked cold) I'll work on that, but with the days getting shorter and colder, it's likely to get more and more difficult. But the short-term answer is not letting her dig, watching her, just like any of the other children. She's still just a pup.

The reality is I feel really let down. I've worked so hard on that yard this year, and worked all summer long alongside the guys building the stone retaining wall and then the deck, taking advantage of them working to do other jobs that were best done while their work was going on, or working with them to assure that things turned out the way we wanted. I've tended that grass repeatedly trying to restore it to a half-way decent lawn. In the end, I feel that my sweat and my aching muscles count for nothing and my labor--given on my weekends and days off and after work--is taken for granted. A big joke. The fool working his ass off for nothing.

I get mad at Maya, but she's just a dog and is trying to burn off energy. She is being allowed to dig. So why am I wasting my time--my life--even trying? I feel like saying, to wrack and ruin with the whole friggin' place.

Fall snow

Snow today. Record early storm, I think. Maya loved it. She's seen it before but I don't think she remembered. No photos. Well, none with Maya. She really didn't seem to mind it as long as she could tear around the yard, but she kept losing the white tennis ball. So, I tossed a half deflated red soccer ball and she went crazy. When I tried to get her to go in she refused to go and I had to kick the ball around a few more times with my hands and feet freezing in the wet, heavy slush. Plus we had to stay near the house because branches, still laden with autumn leaves, were falling every few minutes. After a few more kicks of the ball, Maya decided to go in ... on her terms.

Clashing spirits

An example of clashing restless spirits today. Maya and I met up with our neighbor with the rotweillers tonight and I let Maya free to run and play, but things got very rough with one of the rots. Maya was running like crazy and coming back to them brushing by them with lightning speed and the bigger, older rot got angry. Maybe he was upset because he was on his leash and couldn't run free.But his owners said it was Maya's instinct to run that way but the rots' instinct to herd and control. Ah ...the restless spirit issue we discussed in my dog training class.

I had to grab Maya, who hunkered down in fear when the big rot aggressively pinned her to the ground, and I put her back on her leash. The wet weather might be making them all a little cranky.

Below are some of the photos I couldn't upload the other night. Maya the water dog:

Maya needs to be off leash, and she's been such a good dog about coming back to me. Still going to dog training and I think we will for a good while. She's too smart a dog to ignore training her. Plus I met a guy one day with a German short-haired pointer who does field trials with his dog. Maybe I'll try that with Maya.

Sun and water

Wow, three months without updating this blog and so much has happened with Maya.

She discovered water this summer, first at one "dog park" with open trails where I was taking her for a bit in the summer and then at the "Wilderness." It's really not wilderness but that's what it's called and it's a great place to walk Maya, or better let her run loose, and there's a great stream that she owns now! No more the water-shy puppy.

I've been trying to upload photos but for some reason am not getting the right pop-up menu when I click on the 'insert image' icon. And it is late. I'll try again tomorrow ... or soon.

Also discovered another great place to let Maya run: a mountain down past the preserve with the lake where I used to take Maya when I started this blog. Looking for a place to let her run free I took her on the trails through the swamp and explored the trail leaving the preserve. I came to a road and found another park where mostly mountain bikers go. Occasionally I meet another dog owner. The trails there not only go up the mountain but go to the reservoir. Unfortunately, the path to the reservoir crosses state land where hunting is permitted. That starts this week. Maya loves it there, though she also likes the wilderness and I'll probably go to the wilderness more often during hunting season, which goes to the end of the year. No point in risking someone mistakenly entering the park with a gun. Maya's white hide could easily be mistaken for the rear end of a white tail deer.