Change and hitchhikers

These days we seem to be spending almost as much time cleaning up afterwards as we did romping in the woods. Wet spring weather inexorably moved on to clear skies and warmer days, giving us respite from the post-walk rubdown with the tattered bath towels set aside for the dogs. But as dry weather persists and the season progresses, I find myself doing a lot of nit-picking when we finish our walks. Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and Mackinnon, Lone Pine Publishing, 1994, tells me that the culprit is Osmorhiza chilensis, commonly known as mountain sweet-cicely. We find it along the wider sections of our wooded paths, an unassuming perennial member of the carrot family, about a foot tall, and notable for its spread of coarsely toothed, slightly hairy leaves. It seemed to me that the plant has something of a quiet dignity about it, but in my earlier spring walks I was more interested in the forest superstars: trillium, starflower, and the emerging sword and bracken ferns.

O. chilensis gets harder to ignore as the season progresses. Intent on watching the trillium blossoms morph into seedpod (with the view of picking a few to cultivate in the shadier parts of my yard) I failed to notice the carrot cousin taking on a rangier aspect. The little non-descript white flowers weren't all that appealing, and besides, I was having to keep one eye peeled for the stinging nettles also lurk along our route.

The solstice came and went. The damp carpet of compost and loam dried out and the newly hatched winter wrens grew up and moved on. And all this time mountain sweet-cicely was developing its fruit, about which Pojar and Mackinnon have this to say: "black, needle-like, 12-22 mm long, narrowing below tip, broadening into a beak, bristly-hairy, often catching on clothing or fur." My emphasis. What the guidebook fails to mention is that the mature seeds spring from the weed at the slightest disturbance, show an unfortunate affinity for athletic socks and the knit fabric that lines our sneakers and that, once imbedded, are the devil to remove. And "needle-like" hardly does them justice.

So what began in the spring as an attractive and unassuming border at the edge of the path has become a fanged gauntlet the dogs and I have to run if we're to impose ourselves on the forest across the road. As I go at my socks and sneaker insides with tweezers this morning I take pale solace in the knowledge that the dogs and I are helping to broadcast the message of Osmorhiza chilensis across the face of the green earth. May I get as many trilliums in my yard next spring as their carrot cousins from hell.

Open Adoption

While Joanna and I may be the dogs’ owners in the eyes of the law, the idea of “ownership” doesn’t convey the true nature of the relationship as we see and experience it. We are responsible for the dogs (and to them); we provide for their needs as best we can. But the idea of an intelligent sentient being reduced to the level of property just doesn’t feel right to me. The pickup in the driveway is mine. The dogs sleeping beside my chair are good friends who live here.

When Elky & Tassel came to us we welcomed Marv and Ellen, their previous owners, to come for a visit with the girls any time they wish. We could see that they were pleased at placing the dogs in our home, and we wanted them to be able to maintain their long friendship with the girls in whatever way they were comfortable. We knew the dogs would be delighted to see them, and we figured it would be best for all of us if they did. Our daughter Kelly laughed when she heard this, saying it sounds like we’re part of one of those “open adoptions” you hear of these days, where the birth mother stays in contact with the child and the adoptive parents and is involved to some degree in the child’s life.

I’ve been sending regular reports and photos to Marv and Ellen, letting them know how well the dogs have adjusted to their new routine, and how much we enjoy having these beautiful and intelligent animals in our lives. Thus it was with delight that we received Ellen’s request to come over for a visit. They are about to embark on an extended vacation, and they thought it would be nice to see the girls before they left town.

This afternoon Marv and Ellen rang our doorbell and were welcomed by two very happy Corgis. After brief pleasantries they took Elky and Tassel to the wooded trails of the Grand Forest park just down the road. They returned in an hour or so and the dogs sprawled on the floor while we went over the details of an adoption agreement Marv had worked up. It contains the usual things: that we’ll maintain the dogs’ health and see that they have regular checkups at the vet; notify them if the dogs become critically ill, die, or we are no longer to continue ownership (that word again) of the dogs. We also agree to allow them future visits and to continue to send pictures and updates occasionally.

Marv & Ellen posed with the dogs for pictures on the front porch and then walked to the car. Elky and Tassel, who were off-leash, stood on the porch and watched them go...both pairs of ears in the full-up and forward position. I briefly worried that one or both would break away and perhaps chase the car but they simply sat at attention and watched their friends drive away. We came inside for cookies, and once again I marveled at Corgi resilience.

The swallows

We were heading into a stiff south wind in early afternoon a few days back over at Battle Point Park. Elky and Tassel were off-leash, alternately poking into the margins of the islands of blackberry and wild roses that break up the meadows at the north end of the park. (Yes, we knew this is a technical violation, since all dogs are supposed to be leashed at all times, but we had the fields to ourselves and the joggers were a quarter-mile away at least. And besides, both dogs are so conscientious about coming when called that we don’t worry about bothering the innocent civilians.)

When we came out of the brush into the open meadow we found ourselves surrounded by a dozen or so of the barn swallows. They were feeding on insects we flushed from the tall grass, and as they came upwind the birds would glide slowly by, giving us a good look at them before flashing across and racing downwind to start the circle again. The picture shown here is one I grabbed off the web, and it doesn’t show the buff underbelly or the flash of white you see when the bird flares its tail when suddenly changing direction. They encircled us all the way across the 90-acre park, and I stopped every few yards or so just to marvel at how close they came.

The little moments that make us dance...

The dogs and I have been exploring the 40-acre wood across the road almost every morning for the past couple of months. The narrow paths cut through the thick understory below second-growth Douglas fir and Western red cedar trees, interspersed with big leaf maples and alders. Head-high huckleberry, salal, and salmonberry crowd the trail, the ferns are thick underfoot, and we have to scramble up and over several deadfalls along the way. Where the brush thins out in heavy shade the forest floor is covered with moss, ferns, woodland wildflowers, and jumbles of fallen trees and branches, some rotting away as “nurse logs” where seedlings take root along their moldering forms.

We have seen scattered starflowers succeed the trilliums at the foot of the alders near the corner where we turn back toward home. We’ve met a family of winter wrens, the parents scolding us as their young took what seemed to me their first forays from the nest. One, a little fellow not three inches long and possessed of more down than feathers, landed in the scrub nearby. The bird and I looked at each other for a minute and then he took wing—and how he managed to fly at all with so few feathers still astounds me.

Corgi resilience

Since we adopted Elky and Tassel they have taught me a wonderful lesson about dealing with change. On the day of adoption the owners brought them to our home and stayed for an hour or so telling us of each dog’s quirks and preferences and letting the dogs get comfortable with us.

The first indication of Corgi resilience came when the visit was over and the owners climbed into their truck and drove away. As I’m sure you can imagine, leaving the dogs was very hard for them. I was fairly choked up with sympathy for their having to part from old friends, and I know there wasn’t a dry eye in the cab of the truck as they drove away. I had put the dogs on leash because I was concerned that they might be distressed at being left behind and try to chase the truck but, aside from some puzzlement at not having been loaded into the truck with the owners, neither dog seemed all that concerned.

Over the next couple of weeks I remarked to friends how quickly the dogs had adjusted to their new surroundings. They seemed entirely comfortable even the second day with us, which was no small feat, given that it was Easter Sunday and our house was invaded by a chaotic family gathering that included six new people and their four dogs. After the company left Elky and Tassel stretched out on the rug and napped as though it had been business as usual.

“But don’t they miss their previous owners?” a friend asked. “How sad! You’d think they would grieve at least for a week or two.” Not that I could tell, I would reply. Each morning Elky and Tassel emerged from their crates with tails wagging, exuberant barks, and every sign of eagerness to welcome the new day. They happily explored the winding trails in the woods nearby, challenged the UPS truck each time it drove by, romped across the vacant fields next to the college, and trotted around the house behind me as if asking, “O.K., Jim, what’s next? Wanna go out and play?” Their appetites remained robust. I could detect no signs of grief.

Now it may well be that this behavior is typical of Corgis, or it may reflect a sense of security and confidence borne of the previous owners’ good training and loving care (I’ve never met better behaved dogs.) Or maybe it’s simply the way dogs look at things. I have no doubt that if/when the previous owners come for a visit or borrow the girls for an overnight or weekend at their old home, as we’ve invited them to do, Elky and Tassel will be jubilant at seeing their old friends: there will be dog kisses all around. But as for hanging on to the way things used to be, or bemoaning their losses, it doesn’t seem to be the Corgi way. Whatever memories they have of pervious times, they don’t let the past get in the way of the delicious present. I hope some of this rubs off on me as I share my life with these two wonderful dogs. I hope I can achieve some degree of their uncomplicated, uncontrived joy at whatever the day offers, that I can come out of my crate each morning, you might say, with tail wagging and exuberant barks.

About Jojo...

Why Corgis? My daughter Kelly and her family got this guy for Christmas four years ago. (He's about three months old in this picture.) Since everybody in their house went to school or work every day, I started taking Jojo with me after I'd helped my grandkids off to school. He'd spend the day with me hanging out, running errands, going for walks where he was admired by one and all, and so on. I'm convinced he's the smartest dog in the entire world (though Elky is giving him a run for his money) and he'll always be my first love when it comes to Corgis. Jojo is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, cousin to the Cardigan, and thus was born without a tail. I took Jojo to basic and intermediate obedience lessons and we now work very well together...but he was a handful in the beginning.

How it all began...

We adopted Tassel (red & white) and Elky (brindle & white), these beautiful eight year old Cardigan Welsh Corgis, on Easter weekend 2007. It was hard for their owners to let the dogs go, but they found themselves increasingly away on travel and the dogs were being shuffled from one temporary situation to another. So with great reluctance they asked Denise Waiting, Regional Coordinator of the Cardigan Welsh Corgi National Rescue Trust for help in finding a permanent home for the girls. Two years later, as I was looking for a breeder who might have a Corgi pup for sale, I came across Denise's flyer seeking homes for the dogs. We met Elky and Tassel and their owners and quickly realized that they were the dogs for us. Since the dogs have been together for almost their entire lives, I couldn't imagine taking only one of them...and besides, I figured that two Corgis would be at least twice the fun (subsequently proven to be the case). Voila!