Verbless Vendsday

Not a day for chickens.

A day for dogs.

Some dogs.

Some are thankful for leftovers

2009.

2011

And I am thankful for dogs.

The mad rat scramble

Last week a teenaged rat went on a shopping spree in the chicken coop. When not stealing food, he snugged up beneath the nest box next to the feeder where I discovered him when I lifted the box, actually a remodeled plastic tub. The rat dashed out the entrance, through the chicken pen and, with Miró in pursuit, across the yard and out a gap in the fence to the neighbors’ yard—like Peter Rabbit but not as cute.

nest box and feeder

Knowing he’d be back, I lifted the nest box daily to peer underneath, something I can do while standing outside the house and lifting up the hinged roof. The other day, there he was, peering up at me with startled, rounded eyes as I peered down at him with the same expression.

This time, I ran around the side of the coop and into the pen where I blocked the coop door. Out again and around to the side of the coop where there are cute little doors that slide up for you to stick in your hand and steal eggs right from under the chickens—if you put in the right kind of nest box in the right place, which I have not. Sliding open one door is useful, however, for giving a rat only one exit where a terrier awaits with big, black nose snuffling in the coop. If Miró had just stood there with his mouth open, events might have been simpler.

hiding place (bottom)

The rat scurried along the side of the coop and into the cinderblock on which the feeder rests. I lifted the feeder out of the coop and jiggled the cinderblock. The rat ran to the other side of the coop, only a few feet away but I was not about to reach in with my bare hands to catch him. I ran around to the other side of the coop and lifted the roof by way of a threat—he wouldn’t know I didn’t want to touch him—and he ran back to the cinderblock. After some more scrambling back and forth, poking, and swearing, he finally ran out the door and past the dog to the play area covered in wood chips.

signs of the chase

A person would stand there a moment thinking, “The expletive rat got past me;” but a dog simply acts. Miró and the rat ran in merry circles around the play area, throwing up wood chips as they skidded like a couple of cars in a movie chase. When Miró caught the rat by its head, I thought he’d break its neck the way terriers are supposed to do. No, he has having fun. He tossed it and caught the tail. The rat wriggled free, got caught, tossed, escaped.




feeder top/planter

 By this time, Alanis noticed something was happening. She joined in and both dogs chased the rat across the yard to the line of arbor vitae near the fence. When the rat bit Miro’s lip and hung there for a moment, I thought unprintable things, directed at myself for getting us into this. I grabbed top cover of the chicken feeder (a bowl-shaped planter with holes) and popped it over the rat, holding the cover down while dogs circled like sharks and dug at the ground around the plastic top, which sharks can’t do.

I squatted there a while trying to figure out what to do. If I lifted my hand, the rat could squirm out and/or the dog, who was unconcernedly dripping blood over the feeder top, would get the rat again. I pointed toward the trees and yelled, “Go get it!” While the dogs ran in one direction, I ran in the other to fetch the nearest heavy objects: the waterer from the chicken pen and a brick.


For unknown reasons, I felt it necessary to clean off the plastic planter. That, I explained to my son later, is how the rat got wet; it wasn’t all dog slobber. I decided to lift the edge of the planter and, if I got lucky, whack the rat with the brick. If the rat got away, fine.

size 12 boot

The rat was not as smart as I thought. It ran toward the fence, chased by two Airedales. At the last moment, it veered away toward the house, taking shelter beside my son’s black rubber size 12 gardening boots. Never leave your boots lying sideways; anything might crawl in.

I popped a boot, sole side up, over the rat and we all stood there a moment, panting. When I tipped the boot, I didn’t see anything underneath; but when I picked it up to peer inside, there was a tail sticking out from the toe of the boot. It was time for reinforcements, which had been indoors all this time talking on the phone to a friend in London, as I discovered when I carried rat and boot, followed by two muddy-pawed dogs, one dripping blood, around the side of the house and into the kitchen. I held up the boot and mouthed, “Rat.”


Choking a bit, my son said, “I’ll have to call you back. My mom caught a rat in my boot.”
He put the rat into a plastic storage bin in the garage while I fetched peroxide to swab around Miró’s mouth. The bleeding had stopped and I could barely see where he’d been bitten. Marty reported back that rat was still alive but wet. “I can explain that,” I said.
We discussed rat disposal. Marty said too bad it wasn’t a fish. You can kill a fish quickly by whacking its head on the dock. I wondered about carbon monoxide.

“In the lab, we put mice in a plastic box and ran carbon dioxide through it,” Marty said. “I don’t think it’s safe to mess with car exhaust.”

“I could drive it to the park and let it go,” I offered.


Marty said the rat seemed injured and it would be cruel to leave it. I said something would surely eat it quickly. Finally we had to agree on the whack-it-with-a-brick idea, except with the sledgehammer.

Fetching the hammer, he said, “I’m not going to wear that boot again.”

“Sure you can; I’ll disinfect it with bleach,” I said.

“It won’t be the same.”

“In the Southwest, people have to shake out their boots every morning because scorpions and all kinds of stuff crawl inside.”

He just shook his head and politely invited me to leave the garage while he dispatched the rat. He was only thirteen when his father died, but I guess that was old enough to imbibe the lesson that killing and disposing of vermin is a man’s job. Gratefully, I left him to it and went to feed the dogs. I wrestled Miró into a headlock while I searched his lip; there was only a tiny mark to show the skin had been broken.

When Marty came back inside a while later, the dogs were happily snoozing off their adventure and the laundry room reeked of bleach as proof that the boot was now perfectly clean. “Well, I said briskly, “what would you like for dinner?”

“Not meat,” he said.



the final resting place



rat catcher

Gods of Frolic

The dog is the god of frolic.--Henry Ward Beecher

Because he grew up in a household that didn't allow such frivolity as birthday parties, dancing or theatre, it's easy to see why Beecher admired dogs' ability to play. Unless he disapproved of frolicking even as an adult.

Hmmm, I'm thinking "Gods of Frolic" makes a better blog name than "The Farm House," which I never liked but tacked on when I began this blog because I couldn't think of anything else. The name has to encompass all the animals, even Matilda the cornsnake who has spent most of the winter sleeping in her box.

I guess you can't accuse Matilda of frolic, though she is endorsing a famous sport-shoe maker. Will have to keep cogitating on the name thing.

What do we miss when the dogs aren't there?

My son returned from a few days with friends on the Oregon coast--aquarium, whale watching, beer and beach. One of the first things he said after walking into the house was, "I missed the dogs." Although he has been living here only a couple of months since college finished, he stepped so immediately into Life with Dogs that being without them for only four days felt strange.

This morning a visiting friend said, "I miss my dog." Her dog died over a year ago and she doesn't plan to get another until after retirement in a couple of years.

This evening I stood on the deck watching Miro begin his bedtime tuckbuttrun dash around the yard while Alanis found herself a quiet, comfortable place in the dirt; and I wondered about the importance of their presence. It has nothing to do with "unconditional love," a phrase so over-used as to be meaningless. Whether dogs even feel love, as we know it, is not a question I concern myself about. What they give is not as important as what they are.

A dog is a warm presence, a touchable, huggable, glowing presence, the heart of what makes a home. The barf stains on the carpet, the chewed-up wainscotting (that was yesterday), the muddy prints or bits of leaf always on the floor, the streaks where they've rubbed on the sofa, my faint scars from being chewed on by generations of puppies, the dreaded toenail clipping sessions, the cloud of gas that sends me running from the room when I'm trying to sit and read.... Life would be flat without these things.

And when we're not experiencing such excitement, when the dog is just hanging out? I know he's a blessing that is granted to me for only a short time; but he knows unconditional happiness--perfect, immediate happiness of the kind we experience only in flashes before our brains start churning distractions and worries in their human way.

"The dog," I think. "The dog is with me." That's the answer.

Rude people and badly behaved dogs

With my son's help, I've taken Miro to the nearest Sunday farmer's market a couple of times to get him used to being around crowds and other dogs. He won't pass a Canine Good Citizen test until he can learn to walk calmly (maybe in 10 yrs) past other people and dogs, so we need lots of practice. My son hangs onto Miro while I buy fruit and vegetables, then I walk Miro around and reward him with bits of chicken when he (Miro, not my son) behaves.

Today we'd just arrived and were walking from the car to the market when a couple with a sheltie on a flexi-lead came walking straight toward us. Normally people with another dog move to one side or another but they didn't. Their dog pulled to the end of its lead and barked. We stopped, not knowing which way they were going. The sheltie charged up to Miro and would have gotten right in his face if I hadn't stepped between the two dogs while Marty held a jumping Miro back. The woman holding the sheltie's leash made no effort to pull her dog back while she and her companion came up to us and started walking by.

I said, "Would you please move your dog away from mine?" instead of the "Control your dog!" that I actually wanted to say.

She laughed and said, "You're in public."

I thought she said I was impertinent, though I realized people don't talk that way any more. I said, "I'm trying to train my dog."

Walking away, she said, "Well, you're still in public." As if being in a public place gives her the right to let her dog go where it wants and be aggressive to another dog.

I was both angry and puzzled that she would think it was OK to let her dog charge at mine when I was clearly trying to prevent that from happening. For the sake of politeness alone, wouldn't you haul your dog back if someone asked you to?

Arming up for July 4

I hate July 4th and New Year's Eve because my neighborhood sounds like a war zone during those holidays. It's hard enough for me to endure the explosions but it's torture for a dog who is afraid of loud noise. Having been introduced to noise from an early age, Miro should be OK. Alanis is another matter; even the occasional distant booms of the past few days have sent her running indoors from outside or searching for me if she's inside.

As much as I'd like to hunt down and do violence to the people making the noise, the law forbids. Instead, I'm getting the dogs ready, laying down a stock of Melatonin and Acepromazine for Alanis and conditioning the dogs as best I can with bubblewrap practice.

This training exercise requires sheets of the large-size bubblewrap, high caliber treats like chicken or stinky liver, and the ability to hop around like a fool while chanting, "Oh boy good doggies," and such. A little bit of dexterity is needed, as you crumple the bubblewrap in both hands so that it goes pop-pop-pop like firecrackers, hop around, praise the dogs, and hand out treats at relatively the same time. We have been doing this nightly. Miro thinks all excitement is good; even Alanis is working up some enthusiasm. Whether or not bubblewrap explosions will help inure her to real fireworks remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, a spur-of-the-moment view of Biteyface:

A long story about a short life

On Friday I got off the bus after work across the street from the Park & Ride where I’d left my car. I had a message on my cell phone from the veterinary oncologist. Keeper the Airedale should come in for her chemo treatment that afternoon. It would be a quick appointment because she had had her blood work done the day before.

I was not looking forward to a slow drive north in Friday traffic. I crossed the street with the other commuters, mostly students because this was 2:30 pm, not 5:30. Walking past the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store, I saw a crow on the ground close to the cement side of the building, beside a tuft of grass. I stopped. A woman passing said, “That’s an unusual sight, isn’t it?”

I said, “He’s probably dying.” The last time I had seen a crow on the ground, sitting at the base of a tree in my yard, it had died not long after I took it to the wildlife rescue center.

Not a happy camper, I walked up the street to where the sheriff’s office is conveniently located, thinking someone there would know which wildlife office you’re supposed to call when you see a sick or dead crow. Then they would pick up the crow and I would not have to worry about it; I would worry about my dog instead. The unhelpful young woman at the front desk handed me the phone number for animal control—like they’d come rushing over from 20 miles away to pick up a crow.

So I had to pick up the crow and take it somewhere. A lot of people had walked past it, doing nothing more than giving it a glance. I thought of wrapping it in my coat but then I’d have to dry clean the coat if I didn’t want to share it with the mites and such that wild birds carry. Thought of taking off coat and sweater to retrieve my tee shirt, which was the last layer next to a bra, but I’m not the sort of person who enjoys drawing attention to herself.

Duh. The crow was sitting outside a thrift store. I dashed inside and bought the first towel I found. When I came back out, the crow had struggled to its feet and was hopping into the busy street. I put my briefcase on the sidewalk and followed, holding up one hand at an oncoming car like a dorky police officer in a movie. Coming from the other direction was a school bus. Both vehicles stopped while I stalked after the crow, towel ready to wrap around it. I didn’t want it to panic and flap over to an even busier street.

So much for not calling attention to myself—a middle-aged woman in office-work clothes following a crow up the street and holding a towel.

When I wrapped the towel lightly around the crow and picked it up, it didn’t struggle at all, which indicates it was in pretty bad shape. So off we went to the Park & Ride to get my car, drive home, put the crow in a box, wedge the box in the front of the car, look up the address of Progressive Animal Welfare Society’s wildlife rehab. center, get the dog—the one who loves to kill things—and put her in the car, and set off for the town of Lynnwood where north turns into south and east seems to be in the direction of west.

Even with a GPS, it is not easy to find your way around Lynnwood. I decided to drop off the crow before going to Keeper’s vet. Just about any vet will euthanize an injured wild animal at no charge. But not crows. Because of West Nile virus scares, they can’t deal with crows.

The wildlife center is tucked away in an obscure corner of Lynnwood but I got there and handed over the boxed crow to the woman at the front desk. I wanted to look at it one last time but she said not to open the box in the front lobby. She said I was one of two people bringing in sick crows that afternoon.

I’ll bet the other person didn’t get sniffly about it, but I do have a good excuse. I have accumulated an awful lot of dead things over the past few years.

It’s a rare wild animal that dies of old age. Most die from illness, human interaction, or being eaten by another animal. If I see a downed bird in a wooded area where it won’t get kicked by a person or eaten by a neighbor’s cat, I leave it alone. Interference isn’t always a good thing. Prolonging your sick dog’s life isn’t always a good thing. But sometimes they are. I just try to do my best guess at what’s right.

greatest accomplishment of 2008

We’re talking only one day so far. No big deal, you might say; but I’ve spent the weekend finishing up procrastinated projects, including clipping and bathing one of the dogs without setting up the grooming table, moving the last ten or twelve boxes of books from the garage to the downstairs, and today trimming Peaches’ beak which is the most disliked of many dreary tasks.

Most parrots keep their beaks trimmed by chewing on toys, scraping on perches provided for the purpose, and eating. In the past few years, none of that has worked for Peaches the Amazon. I wrap him in a towel and he swears, struggles, and bites at the towel while I try to maneuver various clipping instruments to take off just the tip. When he needs a major trim, I take him to a vet. Last summer I saw a vet use a cuticle clipper to trim and shape his beak perfectly, so that’s what I tried this time. Because the blade is small and curved, you can clip off bits on each side of the beak’s tip, keeping it pointed and symmetrical. A major load of guilt is now gone, with the trimming followed by major cleaning of cages.


But that is not the big accomplishment. Even the fancy new chicken house (stay tuned for that) is not the big accomplishment.

The big accomplishment is rearranging the garage and putting my car inside. Other than a few weeks in Portland when I put my car in the garage before using it for storage, I have never used a garage for storing a car. In some houses, this was because the birds lived in the garage and in some there was simply no room. In this house, however, the birds live in the mud/laundry room, much to the dogs’ delight because they can nose around for dropped food every time they go in and out of the house. With the books out of the garage and many of the packing boxes flattened and put away, I drove my car inside and pressed the button for the door to roll shut. So now there’s a dark red Saturn LW2 taking up what was this nice, big empty space.

I don’t know if I like having a car in the garage; it makes the garage smell like car. This does not seem healthy for the food, artwork, wrapping paper, portfolios, camping equipment, tools, gardening equipment, extra table linens, and many other items stored there. Will they all wind up smelling like car exhaust?

Sharing space with the local wildlife

I am not surprised to be sharing chicken feed with a rat. It dug a nice little tunnel under the wire on the south side of the coop. I’ve contemplated putting out a trap during the nights when the chickens are locked up.

The rat doesn’t worry me as much as the raccoon in the neighbors’ yard. I first saw it at night crossing the road to the bushes at the side of their property. A few days ago, I saw it in their driveway when I went out to get the morning paper. I took a few steps closer, then stood very still. The raccoon slowly bobbed its head around, as if trying to catch a current of scent of something it could not see.

I’ve since read that raccoons’ daytime vision is good, so I was left wondering if the slow movements indicated a sick raccoon or if the animal was habituated to people. So far it does not seem to have entered my yard but it must have been close-- the dogs spend a lot of time coursing back and forth along the fence between that neighbor’s property and mine. I hope the raccoon avoids the dogs because I certainly want them to avoid it and any diseases it might carry.