He's been commended by animal welfare groups, and I'm sure none of the guys at the office has thought of ribbing him for snogging a dog. I like to think in the same situation I would leap to Pappy's rescue, but we're going to have to get him some breath strips or something.
Pappy started life with us using a crate mattress for a bed. We crated him for a grand total of about four days until we cracked and gave him the run of the house while we were gone. We moved the mattress into our bedroom and he continued to use it, but it is a little weird. It's got a "magic fingers" feature (no quarters!), but this entails a metal lump in the middle and a huge electric cord. That seemed like such a good idea when we were picking up our new dog, but we've long since lost the power adapter for the stupid thing. 
So, here we are a couple of months later. Pappy still prefers his crate mattress, but he does likes to rest his head on the red pillow. And then he likes to sprawl a bit off of the bed onto the floor. Except those times he doesn't feel like lying on the bed, and just plants himself out on the carpet. I think we're going to have to get a smaller bed for ourselves, because there's no room for us anymore.
We are still without a working shower at our house, and we've been asked to chaperon my niece's pool party for her birthday this weekend. Sounds like a match made in heaven. I hope my brother doesn't mind if I bring soap and shampoo.
Meanwhile, here's a little tribute video I found to commemorate the end of summer.
After returning from our three week vacation up north, it pains me to report that it's now dark during my early morning walks with Pappy. Pretty soon I'm going to have to switch to my winter walking route so that I have streetlights to illuminate my poo bagging activities. The excitement of the days getting longer in the spring never quite makes up for the despair when they get shorter in the fall.
To perpetuate the tag, I am going to pass this along to MJ and Buddy once they return from their summer breaks.
Umm, maybe the special order sink could be defective? Or the tile could be on backorder? Needless to say, we arrived home and our only bathing facilities are out of commission. Pappy is immensely relieved, since he has the stench of the clam flats about him and is overdue for a good scrubbing.
But how do people who want to get clean, you know, get clean? My wife took Pappy's mortar tub in the basement for a little private sponge bath. I followed a less demure route. I took my soap and shampoo to the back yard, booted Pappy out of his wading pool, and had a luxurious bath on the patio. Lovely view, but Pappy kept dropping his ball in my bath water. Yes, I did wear my trunks.
It was Pappy's first stay at a hotel, and he was very excited. As we turned out the lights to go to bed, he lay there and woofed once each time he heard a door close. There were hundreds of doors in the hotel. I had a fun little game going listening for closing doors that he didn't bark at. This kept up every fifteen minutes until we gave up trying to sleep at 3AM and hit the road. The upside was that we made great time.
Pappy has had the time of his life, but hasn't had many opportunities to play with other dogs. Back home he may have a tough time getting used to us not being around all the time, but I think he'll enjoy being back at the dog park.
But there is an upside too. When I let him out this morning, he had the freedom to saunter down to the beach in the early morning haze to lick spilled butter from the rocks following last night's lobster party.
For those of you who have expressed interest in seeing more photos of our Maine adventure, I've posted a few photos in a set on our Flickr page. Again, sorry not to be responding to comments, but while I am sitting here typing away in Suzy Q's, Pappy's waiting out in the car.
And one more thing-- we tried a little experiment. Pappy doesn't like the uncarpeted steps, so I carried his highness upstairs at bedtime and let him do something he's never done before. We let him sleep in our bed. My wife and I spent the night with no covers perched on the edges of the bed, so there wasn't a whole lot of sleeping going on. Pappy didn't take up that much space, but it's only a double bed and he's as hot as a blast furnace. The curious thing is that, this morning, Pappy was suddenly no longer afraid of the stairs. When I left him upstairs luxuriating on the comforter, he followed me downstairs after a few minutes. Then he headed back upstairs to idle away the early morn on his new bed. Seems I just had to have the right motivation to get him to test the stairs. But bad news Pappy, tonight it's back to the dog bed. Yep, we're putting the genie right back in that bottle.
Later update: When we went up to bed the next night, Pappy turned towards our bed and made ready to get right in. I directed him to his dog bed, and he sulkily went over to it. When we got back from brushing our teeth, he was happily wagging his tail from up on our bed. Unh unh, think again buster.
In recent years increasingly extravagant tire tracks have become ubiquitous on all the island roads. As I was recently tut-tutting it to a cousin, she told me that in fact it is a cultural phenomenon. One of the local Hardy kin is a recognized practitioner of the art form, and I've seen the evidence of his skills-- there are serpentine curves hundreds of yards long on some roads. Among the cousins there have been some heated debates whether this is environmental art or simple vandalism. If I heard right, there is even a documentary on the subject of peeling out. Final proof of the decline of western civilization.
So when I got here this year I was suprised to find that the floorboards had been pulled off the rowboat and carefully arranged on the lawn. It was sort of fascinating looking for about five minutes, whereupon it started to look like a truck on blocks. There are little nails sticking out of all of the ribs, and with Pappy constantly poking his ball underneath it's a bit of a menace. I briefly considered whether my cousins, who had been staying at the place before I arrived, would have done this. I quickly decided no, it had been my insane brother's handiwork.
My brother is a sprint hobbyist. Over the course of a vacation he'll take up guitar, or watercolors, or carving, or whatever for a couple of weeks. I haven't talked to him yet, but the word I am getting over the family grapevine is that last month he decided he was a boatwright and plans to restore the rowboat next time he comes up. Uh hunh, this sounds promising.
Pappy's also taken some notice of the crows, but we haven't had as many seagulls hanging around the beach as in past years. A pretty regular occurance is for a dog to tear off into the bushes and come back looking a little sad after getting shot by a skunk. My aunt's dachshund got sprayed earlier in the summer, so she keeps a ready supply of deskunking shampoo. Sea birds are pretty safe from Pappy's attention, but we have deer, foxes, and tons of mice. Yesterday I saw a reddish long bodied rodent wandering across the seaweed carrying a crab, but Pappy was oblivious. I'd never seen its like before in my billions of summers. Too bushy-tailed for an otter. Maybe a stoat?
Not so for indoors. His neurosis about uncarpeted stairs persists here, and early on he was about to drive me nuts with his crying when I was on the opposite end of the staircase. Before coming on vacation I special ordered some paw wax that was supposed to prevent slipping, but it didn't seem to do much to help with the loose screws in his bean. Now he's finally settled down-- he still won't climb the stairs, but seems satisfied to stay downstairs. Loon.
Update: I've been better informed in the comments that the werewolf was dear old Paugus, the building is not vacant, Sea Jerky is a dog favorite, and that Coastside Bio Resources is alive and well. But I still wouldn't want a sea cuke sitting across from me when I was trying to eat dinner.
The nice thing about an island is that you can be on the East Coast and still have a western view.
(Well, I'm parked in front of Susie Q's in Stonington filching internet access. I really would buy lunch there, except they are only open Thursday through Monday. Sorry not to be responding to comments, but my ancient laptop's battery is going down like the Lusitania.)
On arrival I was sad to see clear postings that no dogs were allowed on the trail in consideration of wildlife. The Island Heritage Trust, who runs a number of trails on the island, thoughtfully listed several nearby trails that do allow pets. With heavy heart, I rolled down the windows and left Pappy in the car as I jogged down the loamy path through the pines. I did pass one couple who were giving me furtive glances as they hustled their dog back towards the car park, but I wouldn't want to play that game. Next time we'll focus on the dog-friendly trails.
Well, I'm in my third day in Maine and the weather is beautiful as I post this. The island grapevine was saying that you could park in front of the hardware store or Pilgrim's Inn and poach broadband access, but no such luck for me. I'm trapped using my aunties dial-up access-- how does Frasier do it?
Here's my journal of the first days of Pappy and my vacation, the "War and Peace" of postings:
Day One
After leaving for Maine at 2AM, I left flaming tire tracks all the way up the coast and arrived before 3PM including a few stops and a nap on the road. I stopped at my aunt's house on the way to our place. Pappy was tearing in circles with delight to be free of the car, dive bombing his dog-cousin Polly. I ran into huge packs of cousins roaming about, but many were finishing up their visits. I was so tired I could barely maintain an intelligible conversation. 
There are two flavors of weather in Deer Isle-- glorious or dismal. Brilliant sunshine or chilling rain. Fresh breezes or pea-soup fog of the kind that drives people to murder. If the barometer needle is stationary throughout your first visit, you either had the best time or will never come back. Today was an exception-- I woke to gloomy overcast but we weren't socked in. There have since been periods of sun and a few passing heavy showers, but we get so little rain during summers in DC that it seems like a treat.
Pappy and I were playing down on the beach, and he's getting his first experience of sea water... and he loves, loves, loves it despite its being temperature challenged. He was dropping his ball in the water and bobbing for it over and over. I tossed the ball a little way out, and for the first time I saw him really swimming. He is a water dog. I'm a little nervous that he doesn't have the sense to come out before hypothermia sets in.
Day Three
A quick background on our history in Deer Isle: my grandfather's widowed sister, whose first husband was killed in a WWI-era naval gun accident, remarried to a man whose family had been visiting Deer Isle since the nineteenth century. After visiting for a number of years, around WWII my grandfather jointly purchased a 40 acre lot with three summer houses with his sister's two daughters by her first marriage. Four generations and many cross-family marriages later, we now have cousins spread across a mile and a half of coast and can all recognize each other by our family's distinctive sixth toe on each foot.
About 37 of the 40 acres are woods and wetlands, but the rest is lovely coastline. Our shared beach, to my mind the best in the vicinity, is called Brook Cove. This is a euphemism for "place where the swamp drains", but after a heavy rain the water running down the beach from the woods looks much less like over steeped tea. Our wonderful, open cottage was the Pressey Village schoolhouse relocated to the current site by barge a million years ago. They raised the roof to add a second story over the huge living room, and my grandmother later added a huge steel eye-beam from a navy yard to keep the second story from collapsing into the first. In the tradition of the islands where no brick went unrecycled, additions to the house were scavenged from elsewhere-- there are windows that were originally on boats, and untrimmed logs used as supports. From year to year, our main tasks are to keep the house from falling in on itself and keep it from falling into the ocean.
Tomorrow morning at this time I'll be on my way to Deer Isle. We'll see about posting; I don't know what internet access I'll be able to cobble together during my visit. Otherwise, have a great August.
With rocky beaches there is incredible variety. Where we go in Maine, you have dramatic rock faces and stones of every color and type. They generally form a gradient, with the big rocks driven above the tideline by storms giving way to smaller rounder stones as you move down towards the water. In a protected cove, you can get nice patches of sand or fine gravel which are great for lying around. On storm-driven coast you have boulders and big rocks with tidal life and interesting debris secreted around. Some beaches specialize in flat skipping stones. Others have enormous stores of sea glass, increasingly rare in the age of recycling. Passing feet leave little trace, so you can easily imagine yourself on an undiscovered shore. Plus a rocky beach provides an infinite supply of ammo for chucking into the water.
Now, if I can just explain how freezing cold water is vastly superior to a balmy warm ocean, it should be clear to everyone that Maine is the perfect vacation destination.
Here I am, anticipating Pappy's first trip to Maine. I've missed a year here and there, but I have gone to the same island for most of my 47 summers. In fact, I could lay claim to an extra summer visit-- there are pictures of my mother, hugely pregnant with me, sitting on a lawn chair next to the cottage. Smoking a cigarette and drinking a tumblerful of vodka. (Not really.)
Over the years I have garnered much knowledge of the island and its environs, and now I must pass this legacy on to Pappy. He will learn where to look for crabs, how long to steam a lobster on the beach, what are the master techniques in skipping stones, and how to walk the rocks from Brook Cove to Sylvester's Cove staying below the tide line. And he will meet all the generations of relatives, and learn the definition of second-cousin-once-removed.
Truth is I'll probably spend most of my time trying to keep him from gobbling down sea urchin shells and rotting seaweed, but that's fun too.
I have it all planned out in my head. A couple of years ago we left at 3AM on the Saturday of July 4th weekend for Maine. That may sound ridiculous, but we hit New York at 7AM with barely a car in sight. We were flying past Boston by noon. Of course then we got gridlocked by all of the Bostonians squeezing through the lousy New Hampshire toll booths on their way to Maine for the holiday, but the execution was almost perfect. Take out the holiday weekend, start on a Sunday morning, add an EZPass to speed through the toll booths, and we're there in a day. (I may make a dog-friendly hotel reservation around Portland just in case I am utterly deluded.)
All this assumes that I survive the week. Somehow the last days at work preparing for a vacation always make me need a vacation. But there are wonders that await Pappy and me at the other end of that highway.
Well, our back yard and garden is at a low ebb. Drought and Pappy have done their worst. The grass on the route that Pappy uses for fetch looks like the football field after a mudbowl game. The garden which Pappy runs around after catching the ball looks like the end zone. After the fans have stormed onto the field and torn down the goalpost. Set fire to it. And then stamped it out using clogs.
The photos above show one of the hosta plants, illustrating the stages of destruction. The shot on the left is from early in the summer-- showing a few torn leaves and broken stems from Pappy's victory dances, but still looking hopeful. Yesterday's shot on the right would just make a visitor wonder why we planted the homely thing. That settles it, no more visitors.
If it wasn't Flash, it would be Kaiser or Molly or Cassie or somebody else. It's a wee bit embarassing being the owner of the dog park's biggest chump.
While driving Pappy and neighbor-dog Molly home from the dog park last weekend, a pinhead idly pulled out of a driveway into traffic, panicked on seeing approaching cars from the other direction, and solved the problem by angling into my lane and coming to a dead stop. I came to a tire-incinerating halt with two dogs loose in the back seat, and thankfully they seemed to be unaffected. After the incident I happened to be heading into the same shopping center as her, and noted that she proceeded to drive diagonally across the rows of parked cars rather than use the access road. I've long since learned the futility of lecturing knotheads, so I took some deep breaths and let it pass.
My real point is that Pappy and I are getting ready to take a long drive to Maine in about a week, and this situation kind of brings home that I am a dope for not getting him some kind of safety restraint. Preferably a comfortable one that gives him the freedom to move around during a long trip. If there are any geniuses with wonderful solutions, I'd love to hear about it. And if it is something that is likely to be available at my local pet shop, even better-- special ordering will be a problem with this little time to go.
Pappy and I went out for our morning walk, and two young deer wandered from a neighbor's back yard and sauntered down the street and around the corner. This was a pretty singular event-- we live not too far from a park, but we are less than two miles from the DC line. I'm not talking the sticks here.
Pappy was highly intrigued as we followed behind them. He walked for half a block on two legs as he strained against his leash, silent but for his gasps of excited strangulation. I pointed them out to a slowly passing car, and the deer trotted across the street and took up stations on another neighbor's lawn. Just shy of passing out, Pappy distracted himself with a discarded tissue on the street and settled down. The deer just stood on the lawn and stared at us two predators passing below them, the brazen ungulates.
Apologies to my doggy readers. Now we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Our long-time blogging friend, Oscar the Airedale from Swindon, UK, passed away unexpectedly this weekend. Judging from his exploits, he had a great life. We'll miss you buddy.
Thanks enormously to Jackson for his generous prize.
Well, our time is Texas is at an end and we are heading home to Pappy tomorrow. Time for a road trip-- 1,400 miles from Dallas to DC. We should be reunited with our pooch by late Thursday. The friends we left him with say he's been wonderful, but, as predicted, he's gotten a little freaky about the uncarpeted steps and has to be carried down to their lower level. I've already budgeted for another couple of years of therapy.
As we left Fred and were saying our goodbyes to our host, I was worried that my wife would crack since Fred was such a part of our visits to her mother in Dallas and a channel to a lot of memories. Nope, it was me.
Since I got here one of the notable presences has been Fred, her poodly mutt. More than any other single reason, Fred is why we have Pappy. He has always been my sidekick on visits to Texas, and he is why I gave serious consideration to overcoming obstacles and reservations in getting a pet. He is not just a good dog, he is a great dog. Even my mother in law had trouble pinning down how old he is, but the best guess is about 14 years-- as long as I've been married. He's still pretty spritely for an old guy, but he is slowing down.
A dear friend of my mother in law is looking forward to taking Fred in. She lives alone, and I think both of them would benefit from the attention and activity of each other's company. We took him this morning to get him groomed, and he was fluffy and sparkling white this afternoon when she came by for a visit.
The weird thing for me is, when this trip is over when will I be back to Dallas? Am I ever going to see Fred again? My wife and I have talked about taking Fred, and I am still torn. He's always been an only dog, Pappy and he have never met, and we are gone much of the work day. I've always told myself that in a few years I will retire and Pappy will get more time and attention, but Fred doesn't have a few years. He has done a good job caring for my mother in law, and a full-time companion looking after him would be a wonderful retirement.
Pappy has this particluar weird thing he does (among the many). Sligo Creek has mysterious patches of sand scattered next to the path. On walks, Pappy gets absorbed sniffing around the sand. Then, like clockwork, he'll suddenly get startled, race off taking my arm with him, and stop and glance back at the sand. This isn't occasional, I'm talking every time.
For a while I was thinking that I must be inadvertently kicking sand on the back of his legs causing a freaky sensation, but recently I've noticed I am standing on clean pavement when he does this. It makes me think of the time I was hiking in the desert north of Tucson and noticed an interesting pattern next to the path, and then did a record long jump when my brain realized it was a rattlesnake. There must be something creepy lurking under those patches of sand. Giant trapdoor spiders perhaps.
We were tagged by Oscar to think of five things to put into Pappy's time capsule for the benefit of the denizens of the distant future. I spent some time with Pappy considering the question. After extensive consultation, this is what we came up with:
Meanwhile I am now revising my calendar of unlucky days to include Thursday the 12th. After being unable to get back to sleep at 3:30AM this morning, I stepped into the shower and the hot water wasn't working. After racing into the basement, I was relieved to see that there wasn't a river of water running from the hot water heater (this happened to my wife while I was traveling when we first got the house). After a bracing shower, I went to iron a shirt and the iron started throwing off sparks. As a result, I'm a bit rumpled today.
On my word of honor, Wendy is the real deal according to the Times Colonist. It seems that the protein myostatin limits muscular development in humans and a variety of animals, and Wendy basically has none. Zippo. A less severe form of her genetic mutation, where the dogs produce very limited amounts of myostatin, is relatively common among the top-performing racing whippets.
It's a relief that Pappy has plenty of myostatin. I don't need him kicking sand in my face and demanding treats.
Since my wife headed down to Texas for an extended stay, I've been faced with relearning a number of things that people who live alone don't even think about. The one I find most troubling is remembering stuff-- remembering to lock the door, remembering to switch off the iron, remembering to turn off the coffee maker, remembering to turn off the oven and burners on the stove. My wife always catches me, and I've come to depend on that safety net. The worst thing is that I'm too forgetful to develop the neurosis that would have me triple checking this stuff. Seriously, this is going to send me home from work in the middle of the day in a panic.
After an exchange with Johann and Abby on the Bone Zone, it occurs to me that this is a good time to get my blog roll in order. And I'm too poorly organized to figure out whether I have reciprocal links to all you folks out there in blogland.
Please leave a comment if you are missing from my link list, and let me know the correct address. I'll turn on anonymous comments to enable all you Wordpress and Typepad folk to leave a message, and will fend off comment spammers by hand until I get fed up with them again.
Wait for the tone...beep!
A while back my wife heard about a casting call for the National Geographic Channel. They were looking for dogs and owners to participate in a local shoot for a program called "Dog Genius". I emailed a photo, and the producer started drooling over Pappy's untapped marketing potential. As it turns out, they weren't casting Pappy in the title role-- the show is about the intelligence of all dogs in problem solving and reading human expression, not a specific dog's genius. They scheduled us for an appointment at a studio in DC's Chinatown.
We went in through the loading dock, and joined a number of dogs in a waiting area. True to form, Pappy pounced on a Husky and started wrasslin'. So much for dignity. Eventually we were led back into a big all-white studio. To be frank, Pappy probably did way better than me. He was rock solid on his sit-stay so that they could get all their shots in. They also took a lot of shots of his spectacular tail wagging. That's my favorite feature.
Then they asked me to sit in front of the camera and make a variety of expressions-- I'm pretty sure that's all going to end on the cutting room floor, as I kept cracking up. For our action shot, I took a high risk path of having Pappy play with his ball. That was probably impossible to film, but it could be pretty snappy if it came out.
In the end we were compensated with a National Geographic TV baseball hat and paid parking. It was well worth the effort for our 15 minutes of fame. I think they said that the show would air sometime in December, so if you see a skinny balding guy and a dog with messy hair that's us. Trust me, I'll remind you.
Like many of the pet bloggers out there, I received an invitation to submit an interview at the Bloginterviewer.com site. If you have a vote left in you, go out and rank all your favorite dog blogging sites.
Well, starting this weekend Pappy and I will be two wild and crazy bachelors. My wife is headed south for a while to help out her mother, leaving us boys with a freezer full of casseroles. I had a sampling of what it's like to run the entire household operation solo a couple of weeks ago, and that was really the first time I've had to do it since we got a dog. Whew, the morning drill is a handful (shower, dress, make coffee, pack lunch, fill Kongs, eat breakfast, feed and walk dog, watch and read news...)
She may have a fairly lengthy stay, so Pappy and I are going to have to come up with some activities and getaways to pry us out of the house while our social director is away. I'm thinking I may line up a weekly walk on a new trail, maybe look around for some dog related activities. If I'm not careful, I may be reduced to growls and barks by the time wifey returns.
By the way, Jackson's World Beard and Moustache Championship for Dogs is over, and Pappy eked out a win by a nose against a strong field. Thanks to everyone who voted. Joe definitely needs to get himself that cookieduster.
We took Pappy this morning to his first parade. Living in an alt-dot-odd city, the parade had it's peculiarities, to wit:
After being tagged by Lee of This Other Eden to come up with seven things about Pappy, I wanted to devise a way to avoid repeating myself... too much. So here is Pappy through my rose-colored lenses.
Since this tag has been making the rounds, I am going to take a novel approach to passing it along. A lot of bloggers have been hit already, but if you would like to be tagged just let me know in the comments-- then I'll getcha.
In honor of the World Beard and Moustache Championships, Jackson is currently running a contest allowing dogs to face off over facial hair. Go out to Jackson's blog and vote for the dog with the most wonderful whiskers. We broke out the wax, and Pappy is in the running.
Just to remind you, you know how Pappy hates to lose.
