After I spent a day in Cooperstown meeting relatives who’d known my grandfather, many more side paths tempted me. I wanted to know more about these new-to-me relatives, Hugh and Eleanore. Eleanore also played piano and had learned from my grandfather’s sister, Lucy. I wanted to spend more days at the Inn at Cooperstown, which had been the Cooke (my maiden name) family home from 1893 – 1974. Further, Charles’ book held themes, which resonated for my running.
Charles had compared piano practice to being fanatic about healing fractures. Using a bone healing analogy throughout his book, he suggested bracketing the portions of a piece of most frustration to a pianist, practicing them over and over, until mastered. Years may pass, he acknowledged, but the pleasure derived in the process and the strength of the bone at the fracture make the whole piece stronger than it ever would have been without the work.
After healing from three fractures in my feet and many shredded body parts from tripping and falling on trails, I understood that, with work on specific weaknesses like downhill footwork or running uphill, I could get stronger and stronger in my running. After failing to find a path with the letters so many times and continuing to practice with them, I felt my story becoming stronger. I also felt a connection to Charles through my practice. I wondered if Louise had this lifelong relationship with her piano playing as well. I wanted to indulge the endless side paths to which I was being introduced.
While I didn’t want to leave Cooperstown, a puppy awaited my arrival. I reluctantly retreated from these new paths to proceed onto the one I’d planned. It was time to meet Terri and the team of people who surrounded Wee with infinite puppy love. As the miles increased on my journey toward Wee, so did my excitement. By the time I met Terri, I could hardly wait to meet him. When I finally did, he seemed as eager to greet me as his brother Ace, who was twice Wee’s size.
The afternoon flew by too quickly. Terri took me to lunch with Megan, who’d cared for Wee with two of his siblings, Brea and Ace. We talked about the dogs. I wanted to know everything possible about Wee. Terri had checked every medical and behavioral box and more for Wee, her first runt. We talked about Megan’s upcoming wedding, the book Terri was writing, and mine too. She mentioned several times in passing a writer named Lisa in Florida. The depth of their friendship would not become clear to me until months later. Wee, Jorge, and I’d come to know her better through her border collie, Mick, who was two weeks younger than Wee. It turned out to be Mick who would have the unpredictable health problems I’d feared for Wee. While we would have our share of health scares with Wee, the biggest problem we’d have was keeping what came out the other end solid.
We plays with Echo and Brea one last time.
After lunch, we returned to Megan’s home for the beginning of tearful goodbyes, but not before a final play date between Scout, Brea, Ace, and their dam (mother) Echo. In a short twenty-minute play session, I took over ninety photos and a video. I didn’t want the day to end, but Wee and I had already scheduled his first adventure: a plane ride.
A last stop at the Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center (VREC) so that caregivers Ashley (left) and Jen (right) could say good-bye.
We made one last stop at the Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center (VREC) so that caregivers like Ashley (left) and Jen (right) could say good-bye to Wee too. Wee’s mom Echo also came along to say bon voyage to her youngest and smallest pup. Then it was time for Terri.
I doubt I could ever be a breeder. Letting puppies go over and over would be impossible for me. Because this pup in particular had worried Terri for weeks, it was especially hard for her to let him go. Is there ever love without worry though? I doubt it. Terri’s tears tugged at me, and I found myself wanting to ease any additional lost sleep.
“I’ll keep you updated. He’ll have a Facebook page as soon as we decide on his Colorado name.”
Wee at the airport.
And just like that, the Wee pup became Mr. Explorer Extraordinaire. Terri helped me tuck him into the carrier, which would fit under the seat in front of me on the plane. Never would the Wee pup ever fly in cargo. I might have been more demanding on this point than Terri.
The first flight was short and uneventful. I expected some whimpering, but Wee had perfect manners. We arrived in Philadelphia and made our way through a crowded airport. Wee was a star everywhere. He was attracting so much attention that my good friend Jennifer, who goes by “Ifer,” couldn’t miss us. She’d been consulting in Philly that week. We collapsed into each other’s arms with hugs and girlie exclamations over Wee.
“Are you headed to or from Boulder?”
“To.”
On his way to becoming Scout, the most lovable Explorer Extraordinaire
After realizing we were on the same flight, Ifer hurried with me to check-in and upgrade her seat. I’d splurged in Pennsylvania at the airport for Wee’s first big plane flight to be extra special and we were flying business class. It paid off. The flight attendant not only kept Ifer and me giddy with red wine, but also instigated us to take Wee out of his crate for the entire flight. He wiggled around my lap and gave everyone kisses, something he still does today.
I don’t remember how we decided to give Wee the name “Scout.” I think I first heard the name when Terri mentioned one of her dogs, who was named Scout. Wee seemed to want to explore everything when he arrived home, so Scout Explorer Extraordinaire seemed a good fit. After we watched “To Kill a Mockingbird,” I was sure. Both Jorge and I love to go on adventures and we were hopeful Scout would go with us too.
In the year since he’s been with us, he’s documented all his adventures on his Facebook page, Scout, Explorer Extraordinaire. He never warmed my feet as I’d hoped when I wrote. I suppose those days may be ahead when Mr. Scouty boy mellows a bit and I make the time for the second book about the letters. We’ve had some rough spots where he was sick, once with kennel cough and a few times with things we never did figure out. He destroyed shoelaces (on our running shoes) and offered up a few baseboard corner casualties. Like Sadie’s those repairs will likely be de-prioritized for years. One of the most disappointing was being suspended from herding school. Scout had been doing well, but I’d not worked with him long enough on attention to give him a fair shot. When he bit a goat, Cathy, his handler, suggested he needed “some time.”
Scout did and does, however, accompany Jorge and me all around Boulder getting love and praise for his good behavior. At the post office, he’s allowed to “paws up” to the counter. We send copies of my first book, Running to Thousand Letters, about what happens when I open 100 of the 1,000 letters. He pokes around McGuckin, the local hardware store, for project stuff and obeys “lie down” for treats. He’s taken a few plane rides with us and had lots of training at the Boulder Valley Humane Society. He even goes to work with me now that I’m working in downtown Boulder at a startup. We stop at The Unseen Bean, a coffee shop run by a blind man and his canine helper dog. The Unseen Bean has Scout’s favorite treats and mine too: dirty Bhakti Chai (chai with espresso shots). That’s a treat for both of us as is running up Sunshine Canyon trail for our four-mile mid-day workout.
We still have yet to get Scout on regular long weekend runs with us. First, we have to learn recall together in order to earn his “Green tag,” granted for Boulder dogs, who’ve pass a program for good off-leash behavior. Terri tells me it takes a solid two years to get recall consistently. Scout does pretty well especially if I have the Chuck-It ball Megan sent for his first birthday.
Second, Scout continues to learn that biting our feet while we run is not cool. Both Jorge and I have learned new hopscotch-like foot moves when Scout goes for our shoes instead of running with us. Even so, his longest recorded run was thirty-one miles late this summer. For a few days after that run, every time we’d put our shoes on, he’d self-crate himself. I suspect we overdid him that day. It seems four-to-six miles is his preferred, non-meltdown distance.
The Wee pup’s story has a happy ending. From twelve-and-a-half pounds at the airport when we left, he’s now a healthy thirty-five pounds. Wee became Scout who is a classic Boulder dog, growing up outside and playing in the mountains. He asked for a GPS watch for Christmas. You can follow how that works out for him at facebook.com/explorerscout.
Posted in Wee
Tagged adopting a dog, border collies, choosing a dog, cute dogs, dog stories, dogs, family, inspiration, sheepdogs, temperament
“I think she’s having another puppy!”
“Another?!” My friend Megan had been helping me to whelp the litter the entire night. It had been two hours since Echo delivered her seventh and last puppy–suddenly she was bearing down and licking again.
I moved the other seven puppies to the far end of the box out of her way. While I assisted Echo, Megan got the hemostats, washcloth, bulb syringe, and scissors ready for yet another go. As we watched, Echo delivered what looked to be nothing more than a placenta.
“No puppy,” I said. As my hand closed around the mass, I felt something inside the size of a mouse. “Megan, hand me a wash cloth and a bulb syringe! I think there’s puppy in here!” I removed a section of the sac away, and there was the smallest black and white face I’d ever seen. Megan and I shared a look of amazement and fear. Afraid the puppy wasn’t breathing, I placed a bulb syringe in its mouth to clear away any mucus and wiped its teensy nose. Once Echo had separated the puppy from the umbilical cord, I massaged him in a towel.
“Is he breathing?” Megan asked.
I opened the towel to look. I had never seen such a tiny Border Collie. He was half the size of his littermates. “He’s gasping—hand me the bulb syringe. I want to clear his mouth and nose again.” I gently massaged him with the towel and waited for a little cry.
By now Echo was nudging my hand, demanding her puppy like the good mother she was. I set him in the box between her front legs. She rolled him from side to side, washing him from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. She didn’t seem concerned about his size; she was as diligent with him as she was with his littermates. Surely she would have sensed if he was disastrously abnormal.
“His color looks good,” Megan said. We were both looking for whatever reassurance we could find. “He’s breathing steady, right?”
“True,” I sighed, and sat back. “But I’d hoped to hear a little squeal out of him by now.”
Once the pup was sufficiently washed, I leaned over the whelping box and moved him into position to nurse. Much to my delight, the little guy latched on and eagerly suckled. We began to relax, and fatigue set in.
“Let’s weigh them. After we’re done I’ll go wash Echo if you’ll freshen up the whelping box and put down the fleece.”
“You bet,” Megan said. All seven puppies weighed either fifteen or sixteen ounces. The wee one was eight. Megan recorded their weights. “He is literally half their size!” she said.
“C’mon Echo, let’s go for a walk,” I said. Echo jumped out of the box and ran out the door. Once back inside, I placed her in the bathtub for a quick rinse. Wyn, who is a daughter of Echo’s from a previous breeding, took over licking and fussing after the puppies while Megan was busy wiping down the whelping box and lining it with a large piece of soft, warm fleece. Echo never minded Wyn caring for the pups in her absence.
After Echo was dried and clean we returned to the puppies. Echo immediately jumped into the box and gingerly lay down with all of her puppies. The puppies were squirming and squeaking while making their way to the “breakfast bar.” I placed little wee puppy at the nipple closest to him and helped him latch on. Once latched, he eagerly nursed. Megan and I watched in dismay as the stronger puppies pushed him away from the “milk bar” as if he was nothing. It was going to take a lot of management to keep this puppy going. I wasn’t going to be able to do this alone. It’ll take a village, I thought.
My mind went a million different directions all at once; I’d never had a runt. I feared the little guy wouldn’t make it through the night. I tried to prepare myself for worst, but except for his size, he was vigorous. He was determined to survive. If the little guy was giving it his all, I would give him mine.
Posted in Wee
Tagged border collies, cats and dogs, cute dogs, dog breeding, dog stories, dog training, dog-friendly, dogs, family, health, inspiration, rescue, sheep herding, sheepdogs, stockdogs
Casey
After moving my only immediate family member out of my house, I drove the forty-five minutes home thinking about everything other than the fact that I’d just cut my heart out and stored it in a cement-block dorm room. When I got home, I took Casey outside to play Frisbee, just as we did every day. Delaney might as well have been over at a friend’s house for the afternoon. I sat on the grass, and Casey dropped her Frisbee near my feet and whined until I threw it. When I did, rather that rocket after it the way she used to, she watched it sail and skid onto the grass, then whined at me. We weren’t the creatures we once were, she and I. “I can’t reach it,” I said, and she fetched it. I threw the Frisbee and Casey panted to and fro, stopping occasionally to drink out of my water glass, which made it her water glass.
Against the horizon in my mind, the sails of dark thoughts approached: my mother, my stepfather John, my father. Casey was in her final years, but for me, there were more to come. . . . I decided I had stuff to do. I got up, and we went into the kitchen, but when we got there, it turned out I had nothing to do in there.
So I took the stairs two at a time, Casey behind because she wasn’t fast enough anymore to head me off the way Border Collies do. When I burst into my bedroom, I stopped short, and Casey bumped into me. I had nothing to do in my bedroom either.
I veered toward the rubble in Delaney’s bedroom, but at the sight of my only child’s ransacked room, a howl rose in my throat. Casey knocked into me, and I closed the door before I made a noise.
Casey and I swerved and trotted down to the kitchen. I had people to call—my mother and my friend Nina, or maybe someone in the tribe, or maybe Fred or Dan or Vito, three men whom I kept as friends as long as we never discussed falling into love or falling into bed. But when I sat on the kitchen stool and picked up the phone, I was wrong about that, too. I put the phone back on its charger.
I’m here! I’m here!
Casey suggested we try the living room and led me in there, but I couldn’t think of anything to do there, either. She looked at me sideways, her jaws parted slightly in a leering pant. Her body seemed padded and ponderous as she stepped toward her orthopedic dog pillow, glancing back at me over her shoulder to see what I thought of her suggestion that we maybe lie down on it together for a while?
We tried that. I stroked her shoulders and face, and she put one paw on my chest and pushed until her elbow locked, keeping me at arm’s length. She’d always done that, as if she liked being close, but not too close. We lay there for several ticking minutes. Her eyes closed. Her locked leg vibrated. The air conditioning shut off. The refrigerator shut off. On nearby I-19, the traffic amplified its stage whisper, giving its incessant soliloquy that this was the most densely populated county in Florida, with an average of thirty-three hundred people per square mile and three-hundred-and-eighty thousand cars on the road, an average of fifty-two highway deaths a year on this stretch, far, far from woodland and farmland and sheep, under a sky scribbled with wires and littered with billboards. My stomach growled. I asked Casey, “Want dinner?”
Casey was stone deaf, but we understood each other. We both got up.
I bounded to the kitchen, and, laboriously, she followed. It was time for dinner, time to scoop some dog food, haul open the fridge, and start cooking, as I’d done nearly every day since I’d gotten my own kitchen twenty-four years before—but I was wrong again. Once I’d poured kibbled into Casey’s bowl, there wasn’t anyone else to feed.
Casey inhaled her kibble like a Shop-Vac. The cat slithered seductively against the kitchen faucet. I opened a drizzle for her. A stillness settled in my brain.
Casey tiptoed up behind me, panted, and burped.
I went down on my knees and wept. With her paws, Casey pried my hands away from my face to bump me with her nose and lick me, and I rolled away and keened. I had loved every second of my days and nights as Delaney’s mom. I had loved her and loved the woman I was in her company. Frightened, Casey came around and shoved her nose between my hands and face, and I got up. I rinsed my face in the sink, then went down again. If I couldn’t be Delaney’s mom anymore, I didn’t want to be anyone else.
I cried until a headache shut me up. I ate a bowl of cereal so I could keep an aspirin down and went to bed. About three in the morning, I woke and remembered. Delaney’s room was located exactly where it always had been, across the hall, behind a closed door, but now it gaped in the dark like the maw of a mausoleum. I slid off the bed to cry on Casey. We huddled on the floor, clinging to each other, the lone survivors.
Audrey the Afterthought Cat
And somewhere in the house, there crept an afterthought, a cat.
Day after day, night after night went on like this. Casey had always slept near the foot of my bed, which meant that I had spent fourteen years making a Border-Collie-sized birth around the foot. In the middle of these post-apocalyptic empty-nest nights, I had to get out of bed and crawl on the floor if I wanted to sob into her coat. I had never before made such use of my dog, but it became a midnight ritual. Like other physiological acts that involved uncontrolled bodily sounds and fluids, unhinged grief was best performed behind a locked door, with access to toilet paper and running water.
The dog was wet for two months.
Posted in Mick of Borderland
Tagged border collies, children, dog stories, dogs, family, herding dogs, pictures, sheepdogs
Mick and the rest of us at BCIPosted in Pictures and Posters
Tagged border collies, dogs, family, herding dogs, humor, inspiration, pictures, sheepdogs, stockdogs
“He just wanted some rest.”
After we dressed John in new pajamas, (“He just wanted some rest,” my mother had said), we sat on the patio, my mother on the swing, I in a chair across from her, each balancing a sourdough baguette, cheese, and tapenade sandwich on a plate. We ate like the damned, tearing the bread with our eyeteeth.
We had swallowed the last, thick bites when we heard the thump, jingle, and rattle of firemen rolling the stretcher down the front hall, and then, a duller sound, the firemen rolling the stretcher, more slowly, out.
“You miss your dogs more than you do your husband.”
For about a week after John’s death, I stayed to help with the kind of paperwork that requires other papers you don’t have. We got none of it done. I did what I could: I wrote the obituary. I opened an account online for John’s mourners to leave digital notes on a virtual grave. Mostly, I kept my mother company in person, my daughter company through Skype, and endured more time without the company of my dog. Being dogless is a hardship I don’t understand, but I suffered it from the time I was a toddler until I got my first dog at eleven years old. When I was married and my daughter and I flew to California without my husband, my mother used to tease me, “You miss your dogs more than you do your husband.”
Then came the day when my mother heard the thump, jingle, and rattle of me rolling my suitcase down her front hall. We heaved my suitcase into the trunk and headed for the airport shuttle depot. My mother gunned the engine to merge into traffic on Interstate Route 1. “Humans aren’t made to live alone,” she said. “I’ve never lived alone.”
“No way.” My mind flickered with views of every place I ever lived alone, from my graduate-school apartment to summers in every home I ever shared with Delaney—she’d abandon me for six weeks with her father. After she left, I’d spend a few days crying with Casey on the couch, then get up and love my life. I’d learned I could live alone anywhere, anytime. Try me.
The turn indicator clicked, and my mother piloted the car into a narrow gap in traffic. I gasped as the hood of her car eclipsed the license plate of the car in front of us. I put my foot on the imaginary brake on the passenger floorboard. “Mom. Slow down.”
“I’ll be back next summer, me and my entourage.”
“I lived with my parents, then my roommates, then I married your father.”
“How about we slow down so we can see that car’s license plate?”
“When he left, I had you kids, then John. I’ve always lived with someone. My whole life.”
Until today. It dawned on me, when I left, she’d be alone for the first time in her life. “You have Ginger.”
“She’s John’s cat.”
I said, “If we survive this drive, I’ll be back next summer, me and my entourage.”
“Laura says I tailgate.”
“That whole multi-car pile-up thing? You’re how it happens.”
“Laura texts and drives.”
“You’re what? Seventy-one? The world is supposed to be tailgating you. Could you please just tap the brake, like three times?”
When I landed in Florida, Delaney and I had three days of her childhood left. I ferried her to Home Depot and Publix and Target and Borders and Bed, Bath and Beyond. We ate at all our places: Eddie and Sam’s New York Pizza and Sea-Sea
No room for Casey.
Rider’s and Tum Rub Thai and Gino’s. We went to Tampa Theatre and the Clearwater Cinema Café. We took Casey to the dog beach at Honeymoon Island. We found my heirloom steamer trunk and packed it with a desk lamp and a purple tool kit and a box of thumbtacks and Scotch tape and tampons, and lastly we tucked in a rolled-up Donnie Darko poster and the plush George the Curious Monkey doll that I bought for her when she was nine months old. When I heard there was a kitchen in the dorm, I hand-copied recipes for Delaney’s favorite ragout and vegan cupcakes and curry and Penne Franco. Delaney got mad at me when I fell asleep during our Kill Bill marathon. On campus move-in day, I took a picture of the loaded car with Delaney and Casey beside it. We were sad there was no room for Casey , but we were running late for the prescribed move-in hour, which made me anxious as we stood in line for the dorm key and then had to go to billing to clear up a mistake and then back in line for the key. When we finally got into the dorm room, Delaney’s roommate hadn’t yet arrived. I helped her rearrange the furniture and make her bed.
I was just hanging her second Audrey Hepburn poster when she said, “Mom!”
“What?” When I saw her face had gone still, I froze.
“Thanks,” my daughter said.
She hugged me, and the strangest thing happened: my mom-life flashed before my eyes, or rather, it howled through me. Again she opened her eyes wide as the obstetrician clipped the umbilicus and convulsed as if she felt it. Delaney sat at her child-sized table and played with her Playmobil. Delaney swung her little fist at the dogs when they eyed her pizza. She waved good-bye when I left her at saxophone lessons, at horseback riding lessons, at math tutorials, at the airport gangway to board a plane to visit her father alone. Sunny Florida afternoons she sat with me on the lawn and debriefed me on her school day while I threw the Frisbee for Casey. Again Delaney and I laughed ourselves blue the time I pretended to aim the car for a squirrel and horrified two mommies walking their children—I had to pull over down the block, out of sight—only the two of us knew why it was so funny. Again Delaney and I sniggered in the grocery store aisle because I was so impatient behind a slow old man that I mocked his gait outrageously enough to make John Cleese proud. Delaney and I bundled under a blanket in the dark to watch Ghost World. Delaney and I ate ice cream topped with chopped “Famous Anus” cookies and watched “Absolutely Fabulous” marathons. Again Delaney burst into my room in the middle of the night after a bad dream. Delaney strolled into my bedroom while I got dressed and said, “Wow, I’ve never met anyone so determined to look like a goober.” Again Delaney and I rode to school together every morning and home together every afternoon day after day, year after year, in city after city after city after city. Delaney and her girlfriends quipped downstairs in our living room while I crouched upstairs grateful that my home was filled with such rambunctiously sarcastic young women.
I loosened my grip and pulled away. Our curls tangled together, just for a moment, then slid free with soft, separate, bounces. “Okay,” I said. “That’s it, then?”
“Bye, Mom.”
Posted in Mick of Borderland
Tagged border collies, children, dog stories, family, herding dogs, inspiration, pictures, sheepdogs
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The Border Collie Inquisitor 