It's one of those grey days when it drizzles off and on and rains for a few minutes at a time, just to show it can. And it's just cold enough and certainly damp enough to bring to mind a fireplace, hot chocolate, a good book and a new love. Or if you're lucky enough, an old warm, comfortable love.

Fortunately, I walked the dogs before the rain started. Unfortunately I have to work today. Besides, we don't have a fireplace.

The other day, while Prada was still with us (no, she's fine -- we were puppy sitting), Carolyn decided she was going to teach the dogs to sit and stay. Now, all the dogs will sit. For about thirteen seconds, then they get distracted and walk away, lie down, chase a cat, watch TV, whatever.

So Carolyn had a bag of dog treats in her hand, which did tend to focus their attention somewhat, and was trying to teach them to sit and stay. Like a good Skinnerian, she rewarded them as soon as they did any part of what they were supposed to do. So as soon as they sat on command, she started to give them their reward. And as soon as she pulled out a treat to reward them, Cinnamon jumped up on her hind legs and continued to jump. You know those dogs in the circus that get up on their hind legs and jump around the ring? That's a natural behavior with Cinnamon. And probably with Poms in general. In fact, it's possible that all the dogs in the circus that do that trick are Poms, I don't remember.

Anyway, Carolyn would get them to sit. Then she'd tell them to stay. Then she'd make her mistake: she turned her back on them and walked away. And of course, our two, who aren't trained, would follow her. Prada, who used to be trained, sat for a few moments, THEN followed her. Eventually, the dogs trained Carolyn to face them as she backed away. Our two still followed her but Prada stayed seated. Fidgeting. She was wanted to sit and stay and earn her treat, but she was sure the other two girls who were closer to Carolyn, would get them all. How do I know what she was thinking? Trust me, you could read that dog like a thirty foot neon sign. When Carolyn walked back and only rewarded Prada you could see that smug look on her face as she thought "HA! You guys never learn!"

Bear Paw (the BDE*) would sit and stay like a champ. Which actually turned out to be a problem, one day. I had walked him and Lexi over to Susannah Mlynarczik's house one spring day, and left him tied up outside. They had cats that weren't used to dogs. After visiting for a while, I left Lex and started home. Abouut half way there I felt like something was missing. Something I had when I went there got left. YOU know what it was. When I realized I ran back (I was in better shape then, after all, we're talking about twenty five years ago) to get him.

And there he was, sitting patiently right where I'd left him. He knew I'd come back and get him. After all, I'd told him to sit and stay, and that's exactly what he'd done. Without a peep, as I'd walked right past him earlier.

Now THAT was a well trained dog. In charity (and embarrassment) I won't say much about the owner.

So Carolyn sort of got Midnight trained to sit and stay, some of the time. You could tell while the repititions were going on that Prada was thinking "OK, I'll help teach you two how it's done. See? I'm the role model." And Midnight would remember how to do this for about six minutes, thinking "OK, this is a new technique for getting treats -- helping Carolyn learn to train." While Cinnamon jumped around on her hind legs saying "See? I'm trained! I'm trained! Aren't I good?"

Lady of Discipline, indeed.

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Pictures of the dogs mentioned in this blog may be found in the Image Galleries.

*Best Dog Ever

And it’s rare that I have control of the radio. Usually my fifteen year old daughter imperiously flips from channel to channel searching for the most whiney repetitive singer she can find. There are a (very) few we both like, like the Decembrists ‘Sons and Daughters”. It IS repetitive, but the melody is so complex, it’s fine.

But that night I had control of the radio. I knew they would be willing to listen to me search the static for a really short time, so I made the most of it. We were in eastern Pennsylvania north of Philadelphia at the time, and I found a station in Wilkes-Barre. Okay, but no prize. Then I found one in Detroit. I was excited.

I said, “Listen! It’s in Detroit!” You could almost make out hat they were playing, through the static. In a chorus of dead monotone they said “Yes, Dad.” You know, the voice that says “in two seconds I plan to die of boredom. Maybe the experience will be interesting.” So I said, “No listen! The solar radiation isn’t disturbing the ionosphere, so the radio waves bounce off and come down to us. They travel twice as far at night as they would during the day. It’s really cool!” And they said “yeah, Dad” in exactly the same tone.

I guess there are some things you can’t share with your kids. Midnight put her head in my lap, and looked up at me with that “Oh, well” expression.

Midnight gave evidence that Spring was coming about two weeks ago. Suddenly her undercoat started shedding like slow black snow. One morning there was so much hair around her sleep crate you'd think she exploded and magicly put herself back together. And she just looks at you and smiles her "see what I can do?" smile. And you look at the pile and think "If I gather all that hair together and get an Acme Dr. Frankenstein Voltage Inducer, I can probably bring that pile to life. There's certainly enough there to make another dog.

Cinnamon also signals that Spring is creeping in, but more subtly. She always cools off by stretching luxuriously and rubbing her belly on the ground. On every walk when the temperature is above zero she does it at least once. To say Cinnamon has a thick coat is like saying Everest is a bit high. But it's mostly on her back. And throat. And legs, and butt, and so forth. Just not on her belly. Her coat is kind of thin on her belly, so when she wants to cool off, she rubs her belly on the ground.

Lately she is doing a great deal more belly rubbing on every walk. So you know it's warmer. So Spring is coming. At least her belly says so.

The dogs are perkier, the birds are chirpier, the neighbors are wearing less clothes, there are more cats on the street. It's Spring.

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You can see pictures of Cinnamon, Midnight, Prada and their friends in the image galleries, here on www.woofspace.com. You can add pictures of your dogs, too.

Midnight and Cinnamon seem to be a little confused. On the one hand life is back to 'normal' around here, on the other, there were three dogs for five weeks with the constant interplay of dominance, ganging up against the cats, play fights, real swiping of air borne treats, and so forth.

Midnight's eye-mouth coordination is superb. Prada could usually catch a treat if it was aimed at her mouth, otherwise she was kind of slow moving. Almost as if she said 'well, I want it, but it's beneath my dignity to make a big deal of it.' She's a very dignified dog. Cinnamon has the eye-mouth coordination of a rock. You can bounce a dog treat off her nose before she even opens her mouth. To make up for it she's a fast scrambler. If it gets to the floor, she's the first one there.

And her coat's ridiculous. For one thing, it's orange. Who ever heard of an orange dog?! For another it's so thick, with an over coat, an under coat, a loden coat, a fur coat. By the time you get down to the dog, she's as thin as a fistful of spaghetti. And she yaps. someone comes to the door, she yaps. The sun goes down she yaps. The cat walks by in the dead of night, she yaps. The sun comes up, she yaps. How excited are you at getting a message from the dog that the sun has come up? Every morning? I covered her sleep crate with a blanket: no joy. She still recognized sun up. Put her sleep crate in the basement, yap at dawn. Put her sleep crate in the basement, in a dark closet, made her wear a sleep mask: dawn yap.

Midnight could sleep through the SWAT team hitting the wrong address. Actually, if a burglar did get in, she'd probably lick him to death....

Anyway, I think the girls have noticed Prada's gone. Or at least something is different. Hard to tell. Dogs are so Primary Process in so many ways -- you know, they live in the eternal now. And yet you CAN train them. And they do remember places and people (and dogs, of course) that they haven't seen for a while.

Prada remembered Lexi. And unfortunately, Lexi remembered Prada: we put Cinnamon in Prada's sleep crate and put Prada's collar on her. When we took her out, calling her Prada, and put her in Lexi's arms saying "Here's Prada, it was nice having her, take her home." and tried to push her out the door with Cinnamon in her arms, Lexi didn't bite. Not even for a minute. Oh, how we hoped to get rid of that yapping, four legged, puff ball of a rooster. Robin was amused. I don't think she thought for a second that Lexi would take her dog. Oh, well. Carolyn and I thought it was worth a try.

She's kind of a goof. She's six years old, (Midnight is seven, Cinnamon is three) and she still thinks she's a puppy, sometimes. Maybe it's more accurate to say that historically Lexi leaves her with someone else for a five or six week stretch every year, so there's a new group of humans she tries to intimidate every year. And see what she can get away with.

Prada tows. Give her a bit too much leash and she'll pull you off your feet. After all she's almost ninety pounds and it's all muscle. And with four on the floor she's equal to two and a half times her weight in pulling power, and none of us are 225.

But she forgets that I taught her to walk on a leash when she was a baby. The trick to control her, then and now, is simple -- keep her lead short and when she starts to tow let her. If you hold firm, she'll walk her front paws right off the ground, leaving half her weight on her neck. You have to be able to lift 45 pounds, but only for a few moments. She doesn't like it and will back off. Of course she will give you a look like "Why did you DO that to me?" Which can be quite hard for some people to stand.

Some people surrender and let her do anything -- tow them hither and yon, eat garbage off the street, lunge across traffic to meet and greet other dogs, etc.

It's true that all dogs go to heaven, and under her testing, she's a good dog. In a sense she just wants to know what the limits are. And once she knows what they are, and tests them a few times to be sure you actually mean it, she's fine with them.

In Austen once she was attacked by a cloud of Yorkies, yapping and snapping at her. She developed a health dislike/distrust of them. Now Cinnamon, although too large to match breed standard for a Pomeranian, is still no bigger than a large cat. So when Prada came in and met her, you could tell she was wondering "if this thing gets to be a problem, can I kill it, or will that be too far over the line?" Gradually Cinnamon won her over by enlisting Prada in attacking Bubbles, a big, laid back Siamese. Before that Cinnamon would fake charge him, and Bubbles would lie on his side and yawn. And stretch his claws. And close his eyes. Which is kitty cat for "I dare you, Doofus."

So when Cinnamon could get Prada to snap from the other side, at the same time, Bubbles beat a retreat. It was a leisurely, strolling retreat, but still.

So now Cinnamon and Prada spend hours rolling on the floor, nose to nose, fake growling at each other and kind of putting their open mouths on the other's open mouth. It's playing. Kind of like young teenagers trying out French kissing.

But her family's back from this year's trip, so she's leaving Tuesday. I think we'll actually miss her. Maybe not Bubbles.

They reran The Hunt with Arthur Hunnicutt and Jeanette Nolan (1962). It's the one where the old mountain man and his coon dog are out on a hunt one night, and they both drown, but don't know it at first.

The crux of the story is after he figures it out, they're walking along this dirt road and come to a gate. The road's well kept and tree lined, and the old man is invited in, but the dog won't go in, and the gate keeper says, that's okay, we don't allow dogs, anyway. There's a nice place down the road for them.

The old man says, "Well, if yer place is too good for Rex, it's too good for me." And refuses all arguments and enticements. They proceed on down the dirt road and come to another side road which is all woodsy and a bit rough, but Rex likes it, so that's the one they take.

You can guess which one's heaven.

Obviously, we haven't walked that dirt road, yet. And I often think she's too friendly. But Midnight's never been wrong about anybody she *doesn't* like.

Sam went mostly blind. Permanently. Well, first she went deaf. At first, no one knew. They just thought she was getting pig headed in her old age. She was twelve, and a lab, like me. When she responded to hand signals, but not words, they figured it out. I don't really know hand signals. I guess I'll be in trouble in five years.

First she went deaf, then she went mostly blind, then she became incontinent (that means she peed all over, and she was deeply embarrassed by it, and they were mad at her. She hadn't done THAT since she was a puppy!) and then she lost her back legs. At first she was just wobbly, then she started to fall over, then she just couldn't walk. I hear it happened in about a week. The vet couldn't do anything but put her to sleep. So he did.

She had had a good life. I have a good life. There's really no point in worrying about it. As the Spanish say, 'what will be, will be.' Living in the moment is easy. Introspection is hard. I think I smell something baked. I wonder if one of the kids dropped a cookie...

We live in Brooklyn, in a row house near the park. If we all get up early enough on the weekends, a lot of the dogs are running off leash. You couldn't really call them a pack, since almost all the alphas have two legs and they can't be bothered to run. So alpha-for-a-moment is fluid. Mostly we run where our noses take us. Mostly, we don't get to the park, we love to sleep in too much.

But at Midnight, no one is on the street, there are few cars and I often go without the leash. In mid winter it's cold and still. Scents stay close to the ground. I LOVE the snow. Hot pee tunneling down through the snow mound scraped up to clear drive ways. It's a wonderful sound. And searching - the snow covers all kinds of secret, pungent things.

Even in the summer, if we go out late enough, it's cooler than it was during the day. I like the smell of fresh baked sidewalks. And there's no salt.

At Midnight I can go where I like. I can wander front yards, I can follow scents right up to strangers' doors. No one cares. No one knows. It's dark, I'm black. I'm invisible! I move like a shadow in a dream! Ok, except for the big white spot on my chest. And the jingle of my collar. Ok, Ok, and the click click of my claws on the concrete. Mostly invisible. Well, not too visible. Unless you're looking in my general direction.

The point is the late night is full of peaceful wonders. There is a quiet, welcoming darkness, a cool easy breeze, and a feeling of freedom. Try it. Come out and I'll show you.