11-21-2023, 10:06 AM
Hello death.
I give the dogs two walks in the morning. A long one before the son rises on streets where the only illumination is either starlight or porch lights. There are long stretches without any porches. The second one is after the sun has risen. The first one goes for about four miles with the majority on Road 600. Road 600 is the main thoroughfare between Oakhurst and Madera. Between 4 and 5:30, when I do my walk, there are few if any cars at that time. But that doesn't mean none. The days I encounter no cars are glorious. I revel in the silence. I don't wear AirPods on the first walk because I want to hear the cars coming long before I see them so I can move over to the opposite side of the road. There are no sidewalks, just an easement covered with overgrown grass before I get to a barbed wire fence. Stepping into the deep grass with is an invitation to hazard and a chance to pick up a lot of burrs. The whole walk is sketchy and unsafe, but this is the route that allows me a long stretch of road to tire out the dogs. The nightmare scenario is to have one car coming eastbound at the same time a car comes eastbound and I am at the point where they intersect. The chances of this happening are exceedingly small. Again, not zero.
I walk. I think about things. I keep an ear open for the sound of cars. The mountains does play tricks. The wind through the trees when the storms rolls through sounds like a car approaching. Further up the hill, a neighbor fires up a generator occasionally that sounds like a car. But not always.
While I walk the dogs do their thing. Lily loves walking on the double stripe in the middle of the road. I don't blame her. The thick paint is much softer on her paws than the rough tarmac. She is a joy to walk. She keeps a good pace and doesn't pull too much. When cars pass by us, she has three reactions: She does nothing, she sits, or she lunges at the car. I don't know what triggers the different reaction but it varies. My guess is the pitch of the engine of the vehicle determines her reaction. She especially hates the high pitch whine of this motorcycle that drives by us and lunges at the bike.
Then there is Aoife, my cross to bear. On the first walk, she can be good for about 85% of the time. She walks with us, sniffing the ground, weaving back and forth in front of me. She pulls but not too much during the good time. During the bad time, I'm ready to give her to the first person I see. She attacks her sister. She jumps at me and bites my arm. I'm waiting for the tear in my sweat shirt. The most annoying is the sudden lunge off to the side to attack something she heard in the grass. There is a lot of swearing during this portion of the walk. But she is getting better. For the majority of this morning's walk, she could see 'angel status' from where she walked.
Then it all fell apart. The hard part of the walk was over. We had finished the climb to the highest point on our walk along the road and were heading downhill to Lynch Lair. Going downhill causes the dogs to pull a little more, so I walk a little faster. We approached a point on Road 600 where there is no easement on our side of the road just a large granite mass that comes right down to the edge of the road. I hear a car coming from behind us. No, I hear a car coming from in front of us. Crap. I hear two cars. Never good. I think the car coming up behind us will arrive first so I move to the opposite side of the street.
Aoife decides to attack me and her sister while the car comes up quickly. Aoife's leash gets wrapped around my legs. We are safe as the car goes past us. One more note. Aoife wears a pressure collar. When I pull on the leash, the collar tightens around her neck to make her breathing difficult. It's a bit softer than a choke collar. She usually wears a choke collar. Aoife last week chewed through her pressure collar and we await the arrival of a new one. Until, then she wears a regular collar. During the twisting, leaping gyrations, Aoife pulled out of the collar. I'm now in the middle of the street with a car coming from the opposite direction with a loose dog and no real way to get Aoife out of harm's way. I drag Lilly to the side. Fortunately, Aoife comes with us. I have no way to hold Aoife without her collar. Aoife does not liked to be grabbed. I can't imagine the tableau we presented to the car driver as their headlights briefly illuminated the trio of man and two dogs. For a second, I saw Aoife, unleashed, look at the car like it was something she should attack. Looking at my watch later, I could see my heart rate was at it's highest at that point.
The car raced away. I was left with the proposition of trying to get the collar back on an excited dog. She fought me but I won this round. I had so much adrenaline in my blood stream. The dogs settled a little and we made our way back to the house with no further incident.
Yes, dogs are fun.
I give the dogs two walks in the morning. A long one before the son rises on streets where the only illumination is either starlight or porch lights. There are long stretches without any porches. The second one is after the sun has risen. The first one goes for about four miles with the majority on Road 600. Road 600 is the main thoroughfare between Oakhurst and Madera. Between 4 and 5:30, when I do my walk, there are few if any cars at that time. But that doesn't mean none. The days I encounter no cars are glorious. I revel in the silence. I don't wear AirPods on the first walk because I want to hear the cars coming long before I see them so I can move over to the opposite side of the road. There are no sidewalks, just an easement covered with overgrown grass before I get to a barbed wire fence. Stepping into the deep grass with is an invitation to hazard and a chance to pick up a lot of burrs. The whole walk is sketchy and unsafe, but this is the route that allows me a long stretch of road to tire out the dogs. The nightmare scenario is to have one car coming eastbound at the same time a car comes eastbound and I am at the point where they intersect. The chances of this happening are exceedingly small. Again, not zero.
I walk. I think about things. I keep an ear open for the sound of cars. The mountains does play tricks. The wind through the trees when the storms rolls through sounds like a car approaching. Further up the hill, a neighbor fires up a generator occasionally that sounds like a car. But not always.
While I walk the dogs do their thing. Lily loves walking on the double stripe in the middle of the road. I don't blame her. The thick paint is much softer on her paws than the rough tarmac. She is a joy to walk. She keeps a good pace and doesn't pull too much. When cars pass by us, she has three reactions: She does nothing, she sits, or she lunges at the car. I don't know what triggers the different reaction but it varies. My guess is the pitch of the engine of the vehicle determines her reaction. She especially hates the high pitch whine of this motorcycle that drives by us and lunges at the bike.
Then there is Aoife, my cross to bear. On the first walk, she can be good for about 85% of the time. She walks with us, sniffing the ground, weaving back and forth in front of me. She pulls but not too much during the good time. During the bad time, I'm ready to give her to the first person I see. She attacks her sister. She jumps at me and bites my arm. I'm waiting for the tear in my sweat shirt. The most annoying is the sudden lunge off to the side to attack something she heard in the grass. There is a lot of swearing during this portion of the walk. But she is getting better. For the majority of this morning's walk, she could see 'angel status' from where she walked.
Then it all fell apart. The hard part of the walk was over. We had finished the climb to the highest point on our walk along the road and were heading downhill to Lynch Lair. Going downhill causes the dogs to pull a little more, so I walk a little faster. We approached a point on Road 600 where there is no easement on our side of the road just a large granite mass that comes right down to the edge of the road. I hear a car coming from behind us. No, I hear a car coming from in front of us. Crap. I hear two cars. Never good. I think the car coming up behind us will arrive first so I move to the opposite side of the street.
Aoife decides to attack me and her sister while the car comes up quickly. Aoife's leash gets wrapped around my legs. We are safe as the car goes past us. One more note. Aoife wears a pressure collar. When I pull on the leash, the collar tightens around her neck to make her breathing difficult. It's a bit softer than a choke collar. She usually wears a choke collar. Aoife last week chewed through her pressure collar and we await the arrival of a new one. Until, then she wears a regular collar. During the twisting, leaping gyrations, Aoife pulled out of the collar. I'm now in the middle of the street with a car coming from the opposite direction with a loose dog and no real way to get Aoife out of harm's way. I drag Lilly to the side. Fortunately, Aoife comes with us. I have no way to hold Aoife without her collar. Aoife does not liked to be grabbed. I can't imagine the tableau we presented to the car driver as their headlights briefly illuminated the trio of man and two dogs. For a second, I saw Aoife, unleashed, look at the car like it was something she should attack. Looking at my watch later, I could see my heart rate was at it's highest at that point.
The car raced away. I was left with the proposition of trying to get the collar back on an excited dog. She fought me but I won this round. I had so much adrenaline in my blood stream. The dogs settled a little and we made our way back to the house with no further incident.
Yes, dogs are fun.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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