It was cold and windy, and the dogs were as polar opposite as usual.

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The coast and the mountains looked amazing as the weather started rolling in.

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About 14 and a half years ago, my parents were out of town and my grandma was in the market for a new puppy. My sister and I jumped in the car with Oma and headed up north from our cabin in Brainerd, MN to a farm which had left an add in the paper saying they had six puppies up for adoption. One thing led to another, and not only did Oma adopt a dog, but so did I. I was 17 and my parents were not consulted. Nor were they pleased when they came home from their trip a few days later and found a new puppy in the house.

My parents were upset with me (and I can’t imagine what they had to say to Oma who let me leave that place with a dog) but they let me keep her because she was such a good dog.  She was easy to train and sharp as a tack.  Everyone she met fell in love with her. Here are a few of my favorite memories of her.

She was still a puppy when winter hit; at the time I was Nordic ski racing very seriously, so I typically spent 2 or 3 hours per day on skis during the week, and 8-10 hours per day on the weekends.  Obviously, that was too long to keep a puppy in-doors, so I often took her skiing with me.  Being a skier meant that I took the condition of the groomed trails very seriously, and I didn’t want her running on the tracks.  Within the first afternoon skiing with her, she learned to run alongside me in the ungroomed snow, avoiding the trails.  I’ll never forget gliding along with her running at my side.

When she was younger, she was very protective of our family and ferociously barked and growled at anyone who came to the door.  By the time my graduation party came along, she was still too jumpy to allow her into the party, so I had to lock her in my room upstairs.  At first, she was barking and whining constantly but eventually, she quieted down.  A few hours into the party, she was so quiet we decided to let her out and see how she did.  She was so relieved to be allowed into the party that she behaved herself perfectly and didn’t make a peep.  Ever since, she was perfectly socialized, charming the pants off anyone who came to our house.

When I went to college, my parents took over as Bear’s primary caretakers.  My dad is a professor and did a six-month exchange program with a University in France.  As Michelle and I couldn’t watch her in our apartment, my parents brought her to my Aunt’s house near Amsterdam to stay while they were away.  My aunt had a dog as well, Boomie, and the two tolerated each other but did not particularly care for one another.  Poor Boomie was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so Bear ended up taking advantage of him, often framing him for her crimes.  Her finest hour was when she ate an entire roast off my Aunt’s countertop.  The roast was resting under tin foil, and after Bear finished her stolen feast, she carried the sullied tin foil over to Boomie’s basket and laid it there to be found.

Some years later, Michelle and I got our own puppy (Mack) and had to move into an apartment that allowed dogs.  Obviously, at this point we were able to watch Bearje for my parents when they were gone.  As a young dogg, Mack was wound tighter than a drum.  He absolutely would not ever, under any circumstances, sit still for even a moment (like he’s doing right now, by the way).  One weekend, we watched Bearje and she just sat at our feet and was the most mellow and sweetest dogg ever.  Michelle and I realized how much company having a dogg could really be like; how nice it was to have a mellow dogg to hang out with.

They call this feeling I have “heartbreak” and it is amazing that my heart really does hurt.

This morning, I woke to the realization that I had no more coffee beans.  It had not escaped my attention that I was using the last of our beans yesterday morning, but I optimistically assumed I would remember to buy more before the next morning.  No big deal.  I am totally flexible enough to turn “walking the doggs” into “taking the doggs to Makeda for my favorite beans (Seven‘s Espresso Huli blend).”

Makeda is like most places in Seattle in the sense that there are dog treats at the counter for the dogs most store owners assume you have.  I got my beans and grabbed four little dog treats to give the doggs who were patiently waiting, tied to the bench outside.  I always have Mack sit and hold the treat on his nose, which he does no matter how badly he doesn’t want to.  So, I say, “Sit.  Mack, hold it…” and he sits and holds his nose steady for me to set the treat on.  Meanwhile, Beene sits down behind him and as soon as I set that damn treat on his nose, she dives over him like a giant oafish ninja and snatches that treat right off poor Mack’s nose.  As if that’s not bad enough, she leaves a bunch of slobber on his nose.

Ah well, some doggs have all the luck.  After all, I did give him the remaining three treats.

I feel bad for Mack that I write about Beene more than I do about him. It’s not that I like her more.  If anything it’s the opposite. But the fact is that he impresses me less often because my expectations are much higher for him than they are for her. With him, it ends up with me being annoyed with him because he forgot to take into account the curvature of space-time for the object (himself) versus the observer (everyone else) due to his current speed, whereas I’m overjoyed when Beene recognizes me when I wake her before 6 am.

I got the dogs up early this morning because Michelle and I had arranged to Skype at 7:00 and I wanted to be ready to leave for work when we finished up. Morning walks when Beene isn’t fully awake are pretty rough because she just plows ahead with her head down and doesn’t notice when we’re stopping to let Mack do his business. She outweighs Mack by roughly 100 pounds, so the poor guy doesn’t stand a chance. We use a Y-leash for them, so couple a 150 pound moron to a 60 pound mutt, and that little guy just gets ripped off the pot every time. When I raise my voice at her to tell her to stop and wait, she looks at me with those big brown empty eyes that say, “What? Am I not on the couch anymore?”

But it’s really hard to stay mad at her when we round the corner for the last uphill stretch to the house and she suddenly wakes up a bit and gets an extra spring in her step and holds her head a little higher. She’s so ignorantly optimistic, I just don’t have the heart to stay annoyed with her when she’s feeling so good about herself.

Her worst time is on the morning walk. She’s usually sufficiently groggy that she has a hard time pulling together all the factors that go into squatting to pee. This is more complicated than it may seem, so let me outline the major factors that need to be controlled in order to execute. These are in no particular order, and are of approximately equal importance, meaning that failing to control any of these factors is likely to result in abortion of the attempt. Also note that some are compound factors, contributing to the complexity of this seemingly simple (and biologically fundamental) activity:

1. Realize she has to pee, that she is outside, and that outside is the venue for this activity.
2. Find a suitable spot. This involves smelling the ground, but she and I are both at a loss for what constitutes an appropriate location. Corners are better than open areas, but that’s about all we know.  It’s more of a “feel” thing, apparently.
3. Not get distracted by unforeseeable and potentially fatal events such as birds chirping or wind rustling leaves.
4. Bending her legs into the “pee squat” position without loosing focus and thinking she is just trying to sit. It’s tempting because sitting is easier than squatting.
5. Have full confidence that she has to pee and not poop. She also needs to be fully committed to one or the other if she needs to do both.

This morning was about average, I counted six tries before a successful execution.

What this means is I have lots of time for thinking, but sadly the morning walk is usually before my morning espresso, so I’m not that much better off than Beene. Which explains why I haven’t solved the Construction of a Consistent Quantum Theory of Gravity problem. Instead, I count how many times she tries to pee.

Sorry to disappoint, but she does say that the set of entries about Dutch guys doesn’t intersect with the set of entries she likes.
It has something to do with you not being as cute as Mack.

Well, give the people what they want, I guess.

Photo

Naturally, we bragged about Mack’s newfound skill to our friends. Their dog, Bromley, is a prodigy: she can eat watermelon and ring a bell when she needs to be let outside. With their interest piqued, they investigated to see if Bromley’s repertoire could be expanded to include eating corn off the cob. Not surprisingly, it could.

Mack and Bromley rule at eating corn, Beene is confused. Enjoy.

Note: The quality of this version is lower than the Quicktime version available here. For best results, watch the Quicktime verison.

Two good things came out of it, though.

First, we are heading down to Ballard with some friends from up the street to hang out at Portalis, imbibe, and watch the bike race. The rain today is a good thing because the rookie Cat 4-5 race is going to be spectacular. I’m putting $5.00 on some douchebag deciding he’s going to win the race by launching his attack mid-corner while he’s still in the middle of the pack. That will be totally cool to watch.

Second, we got to try out the rain coats we just bought the dogs.

Mack, I’m quite convinced, was a gladiator in a past life. He is incredibly smart, built like a brick shithouse (or was it a shit brickhouse?), and the most insane athlete you can imagine. As a gladiator, he would have had absolutely no problem taking out Tigris of Gaul. In fact, even in his current life, he still routinely tears through one of his toys, jumps up, and gives us a defiant look that says, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?”

He’s wicked smart, and, in sharp contrast to our other dog, actually has instincts left. (OK, technically Beene does have one instinct, but I’m not sure “run like a retard in the opposite direction of the noise” really counts as an “instinct” but serves more as “strategery to make things suck”.) I’m convinced that if Mack broke out into the wild, he would not only thrive, but be considerably better off than he is now. He would also somehow overcome the handicap of having been neutered and still father a gaggle of mini-Macks.

As you may have noticed in the many photos of Beene, Mack is missing from all of them. This is not because we’re ignoring him or Photoshopping him out of the pictures. No, this is because during every moment spent out of doors, Mack is engaging in one of the following activities:

• Patrolling a Pachinko
• Making sure no armadillos are infiltrating our perimeter
• Squeaking any and all squeak toys he can find
• Verifying that any toys that were not squeak toys upon last inspection have not become squeak toys since then
• Trying to eat bird seed that the birds have knocked out of their feeder (slobs)
• Calculating the various trajectories that woud need to be employed to neutralize any threats that might present themselves

None of these are frivolous activities such as cold chillin’ on someone’s lap and demolishing chairs in the process. No, he is involved in practical tasks that serve to better the world.

So, I mentioned he is really smart. That’s cool, because it has made him a really well-behaved and well-mannered dog. That said, it also means that once he gets something in his head, he is completely one-track minded about the affair.

Take, for instance, our most recent trip to the pet store, Bark, in Ballard. We took both dogs down to buy rain coats for them. Yes, I know, this is idiotic. However, as you may have heard, rainfall is not entirely rare in Seattle, and while Mack has a downy layer of fur to keep him warm, Beene is an evolutionary anomaly and, due to the chilling effect of wet fir, reacts in one of two ways to rainfall. The first is to shake like a leaf and refuse to move. Not good when the dog weighs 150 pounds and shrieks like she’s being murdered when you pull firmly on her leash. The second is to bound and leap, no doubt in an effort to stay warm. This is also bad if the dog weighs 150 pounds and you like the way your vertebrae and shoulders are configured. Also see the note about shrieking in response to a firm yank on the leash, which inadvertently happens while she’s lunging around. (Then combine that with her one “instinct”. That is what I call a “vicious cycle”. The end of the cycle, incidentally, involves the person at the other end of the leash trolling for asphalt with their face.)

Anyway, we were in the market for doggie rain coats, and Bark had a sale. We figured it would be nice to get Mack one while we were at it. When we brought Mack into the store, our normally well-mannered dog went bananas in response to all the animal smells he encountered. When the lady behind the counter gave them each a treat, his ears stopped functioning and his brain simply became an ornament. All he could hear was a loud buzzing sound. I’m pretty sure he was also cross-eyed during this time. He scrounged around like a damn bloodhound with his nose to the ground, or balanced on his back legs, looking for treats on counter tops. There were several cases where he was chewing something crunchy, but I’m not convinced they were treats. I don’t want to think about what he actually did find.

We were never able to get him to sit still long enough to try a coat on and we had to guess what size to get him. I hope it fits.