Our New Puppy Ethan
Tag Archives: pets
National Dog Day 2018: Reminiscing
We’re enjoying our dog Ethan, now a year and a half old, who just met my nephew’s new puppy at a family party. So you know I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by to present a collection of dog-related posts on my blog from over the years, for National Dog Day.
Essays & Stories
- Dog Blog: Don’t. Move. – stealth and a shape shifter
- Blogging 101: Dream Reader, the Irony in My Life – ouch
- The Perfect-Pooch Parade – dog shows and pets
- Elyse – a good-bye
- Letter to Elyse – in memory, looking ahead
- Helping Dogs That Fear Being Alone – separation anxiety treatment tips, resources
- Ethan Builds Frustration Tolerance – in himself and in us
- Backyard Brief: Unearthed, Part 1 – Ethan digs for treasure
- Backyard Brief: Unearthed, Part 2 – Ethan’s “digging” proves contagious and fruitful
- Resolutions 2018, Kept and Keeping – insight into Ethan’s place in our lives
Book Reviews
Poetry
- Wild Verses: Bits of Nature Poetry, 8 of 10 – a husky “battles” starlings
Phrases, Links, Photos
- Five-Phrase Friday (3): Pet Epithetic – nicknames for our dog
- Five-Phrase Friday (23): Cool Creatures – wild dogs, among others
- Five-Phrase Friday (33): Good Breeding – my canine aesthetic
Photos/Images
- Winter Warrior: Elyse the American Brittany
- Spring cleaning
- Our New Puppy Ethan
- Backyard Brief: Ethan’s Playground
- Pen Sketch of Ethan
Fellow Bloggers
- #InternationalGuideDogDay: A Reblog – from On the Blink
- Dolphin spotting with Captain Casper the sea dog! (a reblog) – from Scotland with the Wee White Dug
Culling the herd, an original poem
Here’s to a more contemplative, considered, measured Earth Day 2018 (on, around, or far from 4/21), as for all intended days of remembrance, tradition, action, and activism.
Here’s to an antidote to do-something-ism, the arrogance of action for the sake of acting without intelligent, careful thought, patience for information, debunking myths, withholding judgment, uncovering assumptions, probing conventional understanding, and placing a check on emotionalism. Certainty is impossible, but near-certainty must be earned, not used as an excuse or a form of denial beforehand.
Here’s to Earth, to people, to animals, to reason, and to love. To a balanced appetite for details and the big picture. To doubt, to questioning, to human rights, and never killing to punish. To you, if you’re with me on these–if you, too, would cull the herd mentality, whether it claims to come from truth, patriotism, freedom, control, justice, safety, mercy, love, or God.
And here’s a poem of sorts.
Culling the herd © 2018, Carrie Tangenberg Sometimes to love animal means to love human-animal balance, if love is a balanced act of compassion, reason, acceptance, for human is animal, too. I couldn’t pull the trigger in everyday conditions, but I don’t begrudge the hunter, farmer, game warden, parks ranger, zoo keeper, veterinarian, wild survivor, adventurer, conservationist, naturalist, lost traveller who may have to, want to. Who am I to stop everything? Save everything? Or anything? Start something? What exactly and why? What is wisdom, wise action here? Cull the herd, naturally. Cull the herd naturally. What does it mean? What is natural? What unnatural? Where is the line between? And which herd will it be? And how? Curiosity, discovery, fascination, wonder, awe, anxiety, annoyance, frustration, disgust, confusion, amusement, anger, sadness, startlement, fatigue, and sometimes fear— These are the feelings of living among wild prey when one owns a dog and a yard with grass you don’t want dug up by any but yourself, and a house built on pavement ant pandemic. But free will is never free, never without consequence. What if making a difference means doing more harm than good? Did you know? Do you? Always? Respect the what-if, at least. I don’t get squeamish reading about creature death, butchery, predation, and harvesting for food, watching wild death on TV or the Web, or watching vet shows, trauma, surgeries, sorrows. I would, I do not like to see blood up close, so bright, so red, so shiny, fresh, raw. All it took was a clip of the quick on my dog’s left back toenail to send me into panic where I’m usually calm. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. General Chaos conquered. It was Easter 2018. Bleeding eventually stops, and so do breeding, foraging, fleeing, hiding, sleeping, mating, hunting, scavenging, migration, habitats, and life. We can’t stop everything, but everything stops, even rivers, seas, forests, islands, valleys, mountains, plains, planets, stars, solar systems. Even senses, motion, heart, brain, growth, and breath. Even love, even faith, even hope, even panic, idiocy, evil, insanity, and this listing of word lists.
If this post or poem resonated with you, you may also enjoy:
Ethan Builds Frustration Tolerance
You’re only supposed to say it once, but here I go: “Ethan, come!” * smooching, thigh slapping * “Ethan! Here, bud! Come!”
Every day, several times a day, a high-pitched, friendly beckoning call issues forth from my lips. And every day, a big-eared, brown-eyed, wiry-framed, red/tan, 11-month-old, Vizsla/hound-or-something mixed breed dog stands and stares in the direction of my call. The duration of that standing and staring depends on several dog-driven factors: location within the house, outdoor circumstances, time of day, number and type of distractions, degree of hunger, sound of a rustling kibble bag, how long he’s been awake, mood or degree of playfulness or fear, amount of time I’ve been gone, and others.
My dog doesn’t come when I call him, whether indoors or out. Well, that’s not entirely true. He does maybe one-third of the time, but more often outside than in. What can one do but shake one’s head?
Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve read at least half a dozen dog training and behavior books at this point and watched videos and demonstrations. We’ve worked with a personal dog trainer and taken a group obedience class. We’ve consulted a separation anxiety expert and our veterinarian. We train and condition our dog in obedience, agility, and anxiety-reducing socialization every day. We try our best to follow the rules of training, to ensure the behaviors we intend to instill are the ones taking hold. We set boundaries, rules, and limitations, in the spirit of “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Milan.
Although still young, Ethan’s quirks seem to make him a peculiar case, which adds an extra degree of confusion to many things we try to do with him. And we do a lot. He’s our baby, after all, so we keep trying.
I take Ethan for a walk of at least one mile, on a long lead so he can trot and run a bit, almost every day, including 24-degree Fahrenheit, 18-degree wind chill days. The three of us even took a walk on a day in 10 degrees, until Ethan’s frosty paw pads sent us back home. We exercise him indoors when it’s too cold outside. We’re working on getting him comfortable walking on a moving treadmill.
We feed him gradually and dynamically with treat- and kibble-dispensing toys and puzzles to keep his mind sharp and digestion even. I’ve taken him to half a dozen different metro parks, a few pet stores, and people’s houses, including the neighbor’s with their dog who is a vigorous playmate.
I rub under Ethan’s chin for encouragement as often as he’ll let me, praise him generously nearly every moment of correct, compliant behavior, play with him daily, let him sniff my face frequently and sometimes lick my ears, and then further intensify our bond with belly rubs and traces of human food from this plate or that bowl.
I love affectionate dogs, and I hope mine becomes more comfortable with me one day.
Ethan was introduced to us as a “shy” dog, but the label isn’t a perfect fit anymore. He’s afraid of certain things and people in certain circumstances; he’s a bit unpredictable in fear and trust. There are things and movements that make him “shy” away from us, his owners, but sometimes those things only make him stop or sit and look at us funny.
Trust is first, they say, which means that after seven months together, we still can’t take him anywhere off leash, including our unfenced yard, because he can’t be counted on to obey us more than he obeys his fear. Sure, he’s got a collar with tags, an embedded ID chip, and up-to-date shots. But when your dog doesn’t fully trust you and is easily scared by unanticipated stimuli, he’s easily put in danger.
When I take Ethan for a walk and let him wander ahead a bit on the longer leash, sometimes he responds to his name by turning around, at which point I praise him enthusiastically and reach in my pocket for the kibble reward. He trots slowly back to me, sits readily (he sat well from day one) without being asked, and gobbles up the treat. I release him with an “okay” to continue walking, and we’re back in the groove. Sometimes it works; other times it doesn’t.
We spent a lot of time teaching him to bound back to us at the sound of his name, excited for the goodies at the end. But if he’s too busy sniffing, which he often is, or he’s found something on the ground more exciting to nibble on, also not infrequent, or, he’s too wary of us to return, then he will not respond to his name or the “come” command, either by returning or even looking up.
His mind is intelligent and stubborn. However ill-founded, when dogs learn them young, preconceived notions of danger and survival die very, very hard, if at all. Whatever happened to him, he’s having trouble “forgetting” what it taught him. Or, and this is also likely a factor, fear is in his genes.
Even the walk itself is not a foregone conclusion. Before we can get him out the door, we have to corral him. We’ve had Ethan since mid-July 2017, but a few months ago, into his adolescence, when new behaviors sometimes form, he developed a mistrust of the harness, the leash, and us with either tool in our hands. You’d think a dog so eager and apparently happy during the walk would be rushing to go out the door rather than bolting to hide from us in the other room. Not so with this one.
As far as we know, we created no negative association with the harness or the leash. It’s possible he could dislike the feel of the harness or being led as a condition of being allowed to walk, being pulled on, etc. It seems more likely, though, that he just doesn’t like being reached for with a tool he knows will control him in some way, or just being reached for, full stop. He’s up and down on that one, too.
Many hours have passed—days, at this point—hours of coaxing, treat luring, patient waiting, sitting in a chair, standing, sitting on the floor, following slowly, approaching laterally, backpedaling encouragingly, exiting the doorway to the deck, corralling him in the bedroom, switching leashes, collar grab desensitization practice (incomplete, I admit), trapping, cornering, tricking, switching directly from tie-out to leash, and rearranging our order of steps so we get dressed last of all before the walk.
We’ve eliminated sudden movement and surprise grabbing from behind. It’s all slow and steady now. After a few tries of our offering food, letting him have some, using yummier food, and trying to reach for him, he decides he prefers not to eat after all. And this is one extremely food-driven dog; we use his kibble as his most common treat. He knows us, he knows we won’t harm him (I hope), and he’s been on dozens upon dozens of walks with us before. Still, and more than before, Ethan’s intractable mind dislikes something about getting ready for a walk.
His extreme skittishness can be quite maddening. He’ll dodge the leash very skillfully for half an hour, and avoid crossing certain thresholds because he knows I can corner him there. I’ll stop trying and ignore him, and then, not five minutes later, he’ll hit the chimes to go outside. Other times, the leash or harness avoidance episode will last so long, and so mentally tax us both, that he’ll take a nap afterwards. Sometimes I join him. That’s one confused puppy—and owner.
To desensitize him to the fear and counter-condition him with a happier response, it’s our job to pinpoint the exact what, how, where, when, with whom, and why of his fear. We must identify the trigger, every trigger, of his anxiety, eliminate it, and replace it with bliss and passionate joy.
We’ve found sample procedures to follow, broken out step by step into daily and weekly schedules. We just have to choose, commit and see it through. Some anxieties will take weeks to treat; others, we hope, will go more quickly. I’m not looking forward to this work, which we’ve already started doing informally, and which is looking more and more compulsory the more I read about it and study my dog.
That crazy feeling increases with his next moves before an attempted excursion–whether a walk or a car ride. Like a light switch flicking on, once he’s captured, Ethan submits, albeit sheepishly, and waits patiently by the door to be led outside. Even better, once we are outside, he quickly falls into walking as if he’s fallen out of bed—exploring, scent tracking, surveying, and exercising along the sidewalks, yards, devil strips, clearings, and playground of our neighborhood. He enjoys car rides just fine, too, though he can get a little car sick with excess hills or turns.
These days, Ethan’s fears are overpowering his desires. Ethan has taken the same Intro to Agility course twice. He loved it the first time and seemed to love it the second time, though he also seemed a bit more confused about what to do, even though we did practice in between course runs. However, when we were practicing focus forward today for agility, even when I upped the ante with a higher value food reward—chunks of dried beef roll—he still wasn’t sure he could trust me enough to grab his harness without killing and roasting him on a spit.
After a few successful runs, his suspicion began to outweigh his interest in the exercise, so I called it quits. I preferred not to find myself chasing an unleashed, untethered, unfenced-in chicken of a puppy across the neighborhood—no matter how delicious he’d be.
Early on in our relationship, I wondered if he was showing aggression, but he’s more nervous in his warnings. He seldom barks, unless frustrated, bored, or playful. He has never barked at other people or dogs outside, only at us and our dog sitters in the house when he wants something or doesn’t like what we’re doing or not doing. Usually, it’s when I’m gone, and others are left to fend for themselves with him.
After making some headway in our first few months together, between teaching him to trust and teaching him to obey, now we’re not getting far with either. Some results have plateaued while others seem to have eroded from the hill of progress.
I think he knows what many words mean, even if he doesn’t follow basic commands consistently. He understands “no” and “ah-ah-ah” as deterrents, and he shows respect when we’re eating after we tell him to “go lay down,” sometimes with a follow-up gesture, eye contact, or saying his name low and warningly. His powerful nose makes him rude while we cook, too, but with repetition, I can get him to lie down and stay put–for a while.
Ethan reluctantly gets that “all done” means no more food. He knows to go into his crate when I say “in your bed” in the bedroom. He has been exposed to “sit,” “come,” “stay,” “down,” “up,” “look,” “place,” “yes,” “wait,” and “okay,” but his understanding of these is unclear because his reactions are inconsistent. He may realize that “stairs” means we’re going to throw treats up and down them so he can run and eat at the same time. He has learned to nose the chimes on the sliding glass door handle when he wants to go outside—even when he doesn’t have to relieve himself. Sometimes he just does it out of boredom.
He’s clever and sensitive enough to learn what he wants to learn, in his own way.
Although rather mellow when not afraid, Ethan is definitely an athlete. When he does make it out the door, he climbs on boulders and flat rocks around the neighborhood, jumping up onto higher ones and down off them again. Sometimes, while playing the mountain goat, he looks for a treat right away. Other times, he just moves on to the next thing, needing no more reward than the climb itself.
He walks the ledge perimeter of raised flower beds at the playground and allotment entrance. He ascends and descends hills, crosses streets, and trudges through snow happily. He even has the athletic build of a deep-chested, sleek-legged racing hound. He’s pretty fast when he can stretch those legs.
He is more curious than nervous around people and dogs on the walk. He likes to crunch on acorns, despite our protests, and he prefers eating rabbit and deer scat to sniffing it. Thankfully, we can prevent his ingestion of dog poop . . . most of the time.
As good, brave and adventurous as he can be, Ethan has had to learn to tolerate boredom because his indoor fears often prevent us from doing things. He has mastered destroying toys, for one.
Gradually, we got him used to a more flexible schedule than he started with, but maybe he still needs old routine more than we think. He naps for good portions of both day and evening, though, and he doesn’t freak out when we don’t go for a walk first thing. His acceptance of the new patterns actually seems pretty strong.
He has been learning frustration tolerance gradually, learning that he can’t always get what he wants, at least when he’s not too afraid to want. When he is afraid, all he wants is to be left alone, to flee, to hide, to run away, to duck and cover.
I think it’s fair to say he’s teaching us more frustration tolerance than he’ll ever have to know. It’s deeper than being incorrigible. Ultimately, it’s his tolerance of fear that we really have to counter-condition. Only in our dreams can we afford to believe it’s just a phase.
As I’ve said, Ethan does have his moments. He loves to play, he’s learning not to bite during play, and, once guided, he’ll stop playing and settle down. He greets known guests happily now, he falls asleep readily day or night, and stays asleep all night, entering his crate without hesitation or verbal command.
He hasn’t peed or pooped in the house even once since the very few times last summer during his adjustment to his new home. He chews on nothing but his toys, and he chews a lot. He’s not so high energy as to be a constant barker or annoying jumper, humper, or counter surfer. He’s pretty chill, he can be totally hilarious, and he is, of course, the handsomest dog on Earth. These are not small victories. We’re grateful that the rescue organization, who gave him his name, chose us to care for Ethan.
But Ethan’s got a long way to go to be a happy, comfortable dog most of the time. It will probably take years if he ever gets there. Although he’s a sprinter, this will be a marathon for all of us. It’s not what I was hoping for, I’ll admit. I really didn’t want a special “pet” project this time, which we had with Elyse, our chronically ill first dog. For now, Ethan does have good physical health, but we’re already dosing him with anti-anxiety medication to support his behavior reshaping.
I’m beginning to think my dog trainer’s preference always to look for a good breeder is the right idea. Rescuers, God bless you, she says. The thing is, when you’ve done all your homework and still end up with piles of work beyond the already large amount that comes standard with raising a dog, it’s sometimes, well, intolerably frustrating. Then again, it’s life, not just how one acquires a pet dog, that’s like that proverbial chocolates box.
I just hope we get a chance to see the benefits of what will become substantial investments of focus, time, money, energy, and emotion. Ethan has great potential, after all. I hope it’s true that, if anyone can do it, we can. Meanwhile, we continue enjoying the good stuff and eagerly await the spring.
If you like this post, you may enjoy more canine-related content on this blog:
- Winter Warrior: Elyse the American Brittany – pooch in boots
- Spring cleaning – a photo
- Dog Blog: Don’t. Move. – stealth and a shape shifter
- Blogging 101: Dream Reader, the Irony in My Life – ouch
- The Perfect-Pooch Parade – dog shows and pets
- Wild Verses: Bits of Nature Poetry, 8 of 10 – a husky “battles” starlings
- Five-Phrase Friday (3): Pet Epithetic – nicknames for our dog
- Book Review: Rose in a Storm – fiction
- Five-Phrase Friday (33): Good Breeding – my canine aesthetic
- Elyse – a good-bye
- Book Review: The Dog Bible – nonfiction reference
- Letter to Elyse – in memory, looking ahead
- Our New Puppy Ethan – a photo
- Backyard Brief: Ethan’s Playground – collage on the jungle gym
- Ethan Builds Frustration Tolerance – in himself and in us
- #InternationalGuideDogDay: A Reblog – from On the Blink
- Dolphin spotting with Captain Casper the sea dog! (a reblog) – from Scotland with the Wee White Dug
- Helping Dogs that Fear Being Alone – separation anxiety treatment tips, resources
- Backyard Brief: Unearthed, Part 1 – Ethan digs in the yard, passes the thrill on to me
- Backyard Brief: Unearthed, Part 2 – our “digging” proves fruitful and rather gross
- Resolutions 2018, Kept and Keeping – insight into Ethan’s place in our lives
- National Dog Day 2018: Reminiscing – list of my dog-related posts sorted by category
This Dog Builds Frustration Tolerance
This dog builds frustration tolerance in several ways, in us and in himself–our beloved, one-year-old puppy Ethan.
Now, mere tolerance of frustration may seem like a low bar to set, but when barriers in training and in life occur, frustration is likely. And barriers always find a way to pop up. A more positive term may shift the outlook: resilience. But in order to get there, you have to recognize when you’re getting frustrated, when you’re not even tolerating being thwarted. Self-awareness, at least for humans, is required to improve our attitudes and, thus, our reactions to events. Simultaneously for Ethan, the less self-aware–and self-protective–he becomes, the better off we’ll all be. So at the very least, one way and another, our dog builds frustration tolerance, in himself and especially in us.
Come over, red Ethan.
You’re only supposed to say it once, but here I go: “Ethan, come!” * smooching, thigh slapping * “Ethan! Here, bud! Come!”
Every day, several times a day, a high-pitched, friendly beckoning call issues forth from my lips. And every day, a big-eared, brown-eyed, wiry-framed, red/tan, 11-month-old, Vizsla/hound-or-something mixed breed dog stands and stares in the direction of my call. The duration of that standing and staring depends on several dog-driven factors: location within the house, outdoor circumstances, time of day, number and type of distractions, degree of hunger, sound of a rustling kibble bag, how long he’s been awake, mood or degree of playfulness or fear, amount of time I’ve been gone, and others.
My dog doesn’t come when I call him, whether indoors or out. Well, that’s not entirely true. He does maybe one-third of the time, but more often outside than in. Undeniably, this dog builds frustration tolerance. What else can we do but shake our heads?
Applied knowledge builds frustration tolerance
Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve done. I’ve read at least half a dozen dog training and behavior books at this point and watched videos and demonstrations. We’ve worked with a personal dog trainer and taken a group obedience class. We’ve consulted a separation anxiety expert and our veterinarian. We train and condition our dog in obedience, agility, and anxiety-reducing socialization every day. We try our best to follow the rules of training, to ensure the behaviors we intend to instill are the ones taking hold. We set “rules, boundaries, and limitations,” in the spirit of “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Milan.*
Although still young, Ethan’s quirks seem to make him a peculiar case, which adds an extra degree of confusion to many things we try to do with him. And we do a lot. He’s our baby, after all, so we keep trying.
I take Ethan for a walk of at least one mile, on a long lead so he can trot and run a bit, almost every day, including 24-degree Fahrenheit, 18-degree wind chill days. The three of us even took a walk on a day in 10 degrees, until Ethan’s frosty paw pads sent us back home. We exercise him indoors when it’s too cold outside. We’re working on getting him comfortable walking on a moving treadmill.
We feed him gradually and dynamically with treat- and kibble-dispensing toys and puzzles to keep his mind sharp and digestion even. I’ve taken him to half a dozen different metro parks, a few pet stores, and people’s houses, including the neighbor’s with their dog who is a vigorous playmate.
I rub under Ethan’s chin for encouragement as often as he’ll let me, praise him generously nearly every moment of correct, compliant behavior, play with him daily, let him sniff my face frequently and sometimes lick my ears, and then further intensify our bond with belly rubs and traces of human food from this plate or that bowl.
Trust is the basis–on the horizon
Ethan was introduced to us as a “shy” dog, but the label isn’t a perfect fit anymore. He’s afraid of certain things and people in certain circumstances; he’s a bit unpredictable in fear and trust. There are things and movements that make him “shy” away from us, his owners, but sometimes those things only make him stop or sit and look at us funny.
Trust is first, they say, but our dog still doesn’t trust us, not completely. He’s very perceptive and quite suspicious. That means, after seven months together, we still can’t take him anywhere off leash, including our unfenced yard, because he can’t be counted on to obey us over his fear. Sure, he’s got a collar with tags, an embedded ID chip, and up-to-date shots. But when your dog doesn’t fully trust you and is easily scared by unanticipated stimuli, he’s easily put in danger, and of course, no one wants that.
When I take Ethan for a walk and let him wander ahead a bit on the longer leash, sometimes he responds to his name by turning around, at which point I praise him enthusiastically and reach in my pocket for the kibble reward. He trots slowly back to me, sits readily (he sat well from day one) without being asked, and gobbles up the treat. I release him with an “okay” to continue walking, and we’re back in the groove. Sometimes it works; other times it doesn’t.
We spent a lot of time teaching him to bound back to us at the sound of his name, excited for the goodies at the end. But if he’s too busy sniffing, which he often is, or he’s found something on the ground more exciting to nibble on, also not infrequent, or, he’s too wary of us to return, then he will not respond to his name or the “come” command, either by returning or even looking up. It’s like in my family when one of us is watching TV and someone tries to talk to us, we don’t hear a thing. We’re in a zone that builds frustration tolerance in our spouses, children, parents, friends.
A smart dog builds frustration “tolerance”
Ethan’s mind is intelligent and stubborn. However ill-founded, when dogs learn them young, preconceived notions of danger and survival die very, very hard, if at all. Whatever happened to him, he’s having trouble “forgetting” what it taught him. Or, and this is also a possible factor, fear is in his genes. If so, we have little choice but to tolerate it.
Even the walk itself is not a foregone conclusion. Before we can get him out the door, we have to corral him. We’ve had Ethan since mid-July 2017, but a few months ago, into his adolescence, when new behaviors sometimes form, he developed a mistrust of the harness, the leash, and us with either tool in our hands. You’d think a dog so eager and apparently happy during the walk would be rushing to go out the door rather than bolting to hide from us in the other room. Not so with this one.
As far as we know, we created no negative association with the harness or the leash. It’s possible he could dislike the feel of the harness or being led as a condition of being allowed to walk, being pulled on, etc. It seems more likely, though, that he just doesn’t like being reached for with a tool he knows will control him in some way, or just being reached for, full stop. He’s up and down on that one, too.
Many hours have passed—days, at this point—hours of coaxing, treat luring, patient waiting, sitting in a chair, standing, sitting on the floor, following slowly, approaching laterally, backpedaling encouragingly, exiting the doorway to the deck, corralling him in the bedroom, switching leashes, collar grab desensitization practice (incomplete, I admit), trapping, cornering, tricking, switching directly from tie-out to leash, and rearranging our order of steps so we get dressed last of all before the walk.
We’ve eliminated sudden movement and surprise grabbing from behind. It’s all slow and steady now. After a few tries of our offering food, letting him have some, using yummier food, and trying to reach for him, he decides he prefers not to eat after all. And this is one extremely food-driven dog; we use his kibble as his most common treat. He knows us, he knows we won’t harm him (I hope), and he’s been on dozens upon dozens of walks with us before. Still, and more than before, Ethan’s intractable mind dislikes something about getting ready for a walk.
Tolerance or madness?
His extreme skittishness can be quite maddening. He’ll dodge the leash very skillfully for half an hour, and avoid crossing certain thresholds because he knows I can corner him there. I’ll stop trying and ignore him, and then, not five minutes later, he’ll hit the chimes to go outside. Other times, the leash or harness avoidance episode will last so long, and so mentally tax us both, that he’ll take a nap afterwards. Sometimes I join him. That’s one confused puppy—and owner. And, if we’re lucky, perpetual confusion does what? It builds frustration tolerance.
To desensitize him to the fear and counter-condition him with a happier response, it’s our job to pinpoint the exact what, how, where, when, with whom, and why of Ethan’s fear. We must identify the trigger, every trigger, of his anxiety, eliminate it, and replace it with bliss and passionate joy. We’ve found sample procedures to follow, broken out step by step into daily and weekly schedules. We just have to choose a course, commit to it, and see it through. Some anxieties will take weeks–make that months or years–to treat; others, we hope, will go more quickly. I’m not looking forward to this work, which we’ve already started doing informally, and which is looking more and more compulsory the more I read about it and study my dog.
It’s painstaking, meticulous, repetitive work. It can become tedious, and even when you follow the program precisely, it doesn’t always pan out, which is even more maddening. It can feel like regression, negative progress, not just spinning your wheels but working twice as hard for less effectiveness. What do we call that but failure? Routine and consistency, I must admit, are not my forte.
Corralling the beast
That crazy feeling inside increases with his next moves before an attempted excursion–whether a walk or a car ride. Like a light switch flicking on, once he’s captured, Ethan submits, albeit sheepishly, and waits patiently by the door to be led outside. Even better, once we are outside, he quickly falls into walking as if he’s fallen out of bed—exploring, scent tracking, surveying, and exercising along the sidewalks, yards, devil strips, clearings, and playground of our neighborhood. He enjoys car rides just fine, too, though he can get a little car sick with excess hills or turns. But it should make us happy that he likes to walk, right? The dance beforehand means nothing.
These days, however, Ethan’s fears are overpowering his desires. Ethan has taken the same Intro to Agility course twice. He loved it the first time and seemed to love it the second time, though he also seemed a bit more confused about what to do, even though we did practice in between course runs. However, when we were practicing focus forward today for agility, even when I upped the ante with a higher value food reward—chunks of dried beef roll—he still wasn’t sure he could trust me enough to grab his harness without killing and roasting him on a spit.
After a few successful agility runs, his suspicion began to outweigh his interest in the exercise, so I called it quits. I preferred not to find myself chasing an unleashed, untethered, unfenced-in chicken of a puppy across the neighborhood—no matter how delicious he’d be.
Backward slide
Early on in our relationship, I wondered if he was showing aggression, but he’s more nervous in his warnings. He seldom barks, unless frustrated, bored, or playful. He has never barked at other people or dogs outside, only at us and our dog sitters in the house when he wants something or doesn’t like what we’re doing or not doing. Usually, it’s when I’m gone, and others are left to fend for themselves with him. With every unanswered bark, the dog builds frustration tolerance with his sitters. They just have trouble resisting answering him, eventually. No, not by barking–well, not usually.
After making some headway in our first few months together, between teaching him to trust and teaching him to obey, now we’re not getting far with either. Some results have plateaued while others seem to have eroded from the hill of progress.
I think he knows what many words mean, even if he doesn’t follow basic commands consistently. He understands “no” and “ah-ah-ah” as deterrents, and he shows respect when we’re eating after we tell him to “go lay down,” sometimes with a follow-up gesture, eye contact, or saying his name low and warningly. His powerful nose makes him rude while we cook, too, but with repetition, I can get him to lie down and stay put–for a while.
Ethan reluctantly gets that “all done” means no more food. He knows to go into his crate when I say “in your bed” in the bedroom. He has been exposed to “sit,” “come,” “stay,” “down,” “up,” “look,” “place,” “yes,” “wait,” and “okay,” but his understanding of these is unclear because his reactions are inconsistent. He may realize that “stairs” means we’re going to throw treats up and down them so he can run and eat at the same time. He has learned to nose the chimes on the sliding glass door handle when he wants to go outside—even when he doesn’t have to relieve himself. Sometimes he just does it out of boredom.
He’s clever and sensitive enough to learn what he wants to learn, in his own way. Quite often, it does feel as though it’s his way or no way at all. So who’s in charge? We’re supposed to be the alphas. It’s hard sometimes not to interpret my dog’s behavior as passive aggression, underhanded undermining of our efforts. Even it if it is in some way, getting angry doesn’t solve anything, and a heavy hand of dominance will only lead to backward sliding with a “soft” dog like Ethan. Soft and sneaky.
Mental focus builds frustration tolerance
Although rather mellow when not afraid, Ethan is definitely an athlete. When he does make it out the door, he climbs on boulders and flat rocks around the neighborhood, jumping up onto higher ones and down off them again. Sometimes, while playing the mountain goat, he looks for a treat right away. Other times, he just moves on to the next thing, needing no more reward than the climb itself.
He walks the ledge perimeter of raised flower beds at the playground and allotment entrance. He ascends and descends hills, crosses streets, and trudges through snow happily. He even has the athletic build of a deep-chested, sleek-legged racing hound. He’s pretty fast when he can stretch those legs.
He is more curious than nervous around people and dogs on the walk. He likes to crunch on acorns, despite our protests, and he prefers eating rabbit and deer scat to sniffing it. Thankfully, we can prevent his ingestion of dog poop, most of the time.
Controlling fear
As good, brave, and adventurous as he can be, sometimes Ethan just gets too stressed out, panting incessantly, shivering, working himself up to the point of taxing his body on a cellular level. So, because his fears have limited our adventures, Ethan has had to learn to tolerate boredom. For example, as the dog builds frustration tolerance, a coping mechanism he has mastered is toy destruction. Hey, some people punch a pillow . . . It’s money down the drain, which also teaches us.
Over time, he got used to a more flexible schedule than he started with, but maybe he still needs old routine more than we think. He naps for good portions of both day and evening, though, and he doesn’t freak out when we don’t go for a walk first thing. His acceptance of new patterns actually seems pretty strong.
Ethan has been learning frustration tolerance gradually, learning that he can’t always get what he wants, at least when he’s not too afraid to want. When he is afraid, all he wants is to be left alone, to flee, to hide, to run away, to duck and cover.
It’s obvious that he’s teaching us more frustration tolerance than he’ll ever have to know. It’s deeper than being incorrigible. Ultimately, it’s his tolerance of fear that we really have to counter-condition. Only in our dreams can we afford to believe it’s just a phase. For now, Ethan does have good physical health, but we’re already dosing him with anti-anxiety medication to support his behavior reshaping.
Loving a dog builds frustration tolerance
As I’ve said, Ethan does have his moments. He loves to play, he’s learning not to bite during play, and, once guided, he’ll stop playing and settle down. He greets known guests happily now, he falls asleep readily day or night, and stays asleep all night, entering his crate without hesitation or verbal command.
He hasn’t peed or pooped in the house even once since the very few times last summer during his adjustment to his new home. He chews on nothing but his toys, and he chews a lot. He’s not so high energy as to be a constant barker or annoying jumper, humper, or counter surfer. He’s pretty chill, he can be totally hilarious, and he is, of course, the handsomest dog on Earth. These are not small victories. We’re grateful that the rescue organization, who gave him his name, chose us to care for Ethan.
So the dog builds frustration tolerance in himself and in us, but Ethan’s got a long way to go to be a mostly happy, comfortable dog. It will probably take years if he ever gets there. Although he’s a sprinter, this will be a marathon for all of us. It’s not what I was hoping for, I’ll admit. I really didn’t want a special “pet” project this time, which we had with Elyse, our chronically ill first dog.
I’m beginning to think my dog trainer’s preference always to look for a good breeder is the right idea. Rescuers, God bless you, she says. The thing is, when you’ve done all your homework and still end up with piles of work beyond the already large amount that comes standard with raising a dog, it’s sometimes, well, intolerably frustrating. Then again, it’s life, not just how one acquires a pet dog, that is like that proverbial chocolates box.
I love affectionate dogs, and I hope mine becomes more comfortable with me one day. As our dog builds his and our frustration tolerance, I hope we get a chance to see the benefits of what will have been substantial investments of focus, time, money, energy, and emotion. Ethan has great potential so I hope it’s true that, if anyone can do it, we can. Meanwhile, we continue to enjoy all the good stuff and eagerly await the spring.
Loving a dog builds frustration tolerance, and so does hope.
* Essential guidance for a manageable existence with your best friend can be found at Cesar's Way.
If you liked learning how my dog builds frustration tolerance, you may enjoy more canine-related posts:
- Winter Warrior: Elyse the American Brittany – pooch in boots
- Spring cleaning – a photo
- Dog Blog: Don’t. Move. – stealth and a shape shifter
- Blogging 101: Dream Reader, the Irony in My Life – ouch
- The Perfect-Pooch Parade – dog shows and pets
- Wild Verses: Bits of Nature Poetry, 8 of 10 – a husky “battles” starlings
- Five-Phrase Friday (3): Pet Epithetic – nicknames for our dog
- Book Review: Rose in a Storm – fiction
- Five-Phrase Friday (33): Good Breeding – my canine aesthetic
- Elyse – a good-bye
- Book Review: The Dog Bible – nonfiction reference
- Letter to Elyse – in memory, looking ahead
- Our New Puppy Ethan – a photo
- Backyard Brief: Ethan’s Playground – collage on the jungle gym
- Ethan Builds Frustration Tolerance – in himself and in us
- #InternationalGuideDogDay: A Reblog – from On the Blink
- Dolphin spotting with Captain Casper the sea dog! (a reblog) – from Scotland with the Wee White Dug
- Helping Dogs that Fear Being Alone – separation anxiety treatment tips, resources
- Backyard Brief: Unearthed, Part 1 – Ethan digs in the yard, passes the thrill on to me
- Backyard Brief: Unearthed, Part 2 – our “digging” proves fruitful and rather gross
- Resolutions 2018, Kept and Keeping – insight into Ethan’s place in our lives
- National Dog Day 2018: Reminiscing – list of my dog-related posts sorted by category
Noveling in November
It’s that time again!
Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month
And I didn’t yet finish that epic Alice books spin-off project, my vision of Lewis Carroll’s classic story from the Jabberwock’s perspective. In fact, following a fellow writer’s advice, I took a long break from it entirely after I got stuck in concept analysis and rehashing the outline for the umpteenth time. It felt as if it had become too unwieldy to manage, so from late May to mid-October 2017, I set it aside.
The story started at the July 2016 Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), then I continued to develop it during NaNoWriMo last November, and I even managed to attend to it roughly weekly through early 2017. Après tout cela, le déluge. . . .
A lot has happened in the four and a half months since (in well-blended order):
- read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- tutored English, essay writing, career help, and social studies through the summer
- shopped for a dog
- became addicted to Gold Peak green tea
- read Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire and watched Brando in film version
- gardened and weeded all summer
- took a memoir writing class; planned and drafted the start of a memoir about teaching
- took on more responsibility with my local writers group
- hiked the Glens Trail at Gorge Metro Park for the first time
- started a new endocrine medication
- watched the scandalizing History Channel documentary series America’s Drug War
- painted a portrait of Texas bluebonnets in vases
- traveled to Pittsburgh to meet a puppy for adoption
- same weekend, in Cleveland: Gold Cup double-header, nature hiking, Hofbrauhaus
- adopted the cutest puppy in the universe two days later
- nearly lost the puppy, who escaped his harness, in a plaza parking lot during the 1st week!
- watched the affecting A&E documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath
- discovered the puppy had worms (gross) and fleas; got him de-wormed and cleaned house
- worked with financial advisor to improve our finances
- bought some new, softer bed sheets—nice
- fell in the garage, bruised/scraped up my right side (mainly knee) trying to corral the puppy
- rehabilitated and trained a fearful puppy in a month-long, self-imposed boot camp
- dealt with 4 dogs who got loose in our neighborhood at different times
- bought a new lawn mower after the handle on our old hand-me-down broke
- consulted a dog trainer for the first time—helpful
- fell in love with Panera’s green goddess salad and chipotle chicken avocado melt
- took the puppy to an art festival only to discover no dogs were allowed
- wrote a few journal entries
- became less motivated and energetic for writing once we got the puppy
- experienced and photographed the solar eclipse
- watched the classic horror film Rosemary’s Baby for the first time
- exercised a lot more because of the puppy, lost a few pounds
- enjoyed a Labor Day party at our nephew’s new Columbus apartment
- discovered new hiking trails and parks because of puppy
- discovered we have a grub problem—evidence of skunks digging in the yard
- took the puppy to a local mum festival (first time going)
- saw Blade Runner 2049 and Wonder Woman (both great) in theaters
- learned some agility basics and obedience training for the puppy
- had several massage, chiropractic, and doctors’ appointments
- replaced our ancient water heater after losing hot water
- wrote a couple of poems, drafted some political essays
- bought a UV light to kill mold and VOCs in our house
- decorated indoors for autumn and Halloween
- met lots of new people because of our puppy, including a neighbor friend
- weaned myself off daily ibuprofen per my rheumatologist’s instruction
- created a template permission contract for others’ use of my creative work
- tried a few new recipes, including a great one for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
- stopped tutoring social studies after a trend of low ratings from students
- wrote some blog posts and reblogged others
- considered but decided against participating in volunteer community theater production
- Droughtlander finally ended and an excellent Outlander season 3 began
- attended some pre-NaNoWriMo meet-ups with our municipal liaison, seeing friends again
- started feeling more pain in my left hip and left knee after stopping ibuprofen
- signed on to help a writing teacher guide her students through NaNoWriMo
- cooked a new turkey and white bean chili we enjoyed
- started reading The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck for classics book club
- made oodles of to-do lists and one done list like this one; took tons of notes
Not exactly achievements for a traditional resume, but I wasn’t a bump on a log either.
Now, I’ve returned to the same Jabberwock novel to finish the story I started, and all that outlining is paying off. Having an established story structure–plus all my previous character development, world mapping, analysis, and storytelling–has prepared me to pick up where I left off. Now that I’m reoriented, it’s much easier just to show up at the computer, find my place, and write the next scene. I am free to be more creative and explore what remains: the story itself.
The following poem is a sample of my latest work on the novel during NaNoWriMo 2017:
To the Ray Harvesters from Cheshire Cat’s Pub
Let me sell you some sunshine
from the broad eastern plain
so you won’t have to reach so high up that tree
to catch the sun’s rays, blocked by dense
branches and lofty foliage from harvesting.They have plenty of sun back east
where drought is too long creating
mirages in a soon-to-be-desert
and the drunkards stumble to the tavern’s threshold
only to find invisible smiling cats.The sun is not useful there
where they block it with blinds
of thick wool and old wood planks
in the one building where infamy lives,
but barely, while liquor flows and cats nap.The ground there is golden
with burnt grass and bright dirt, mocking
the yellow of sun beams wished
for growing green things, which you have
in abundance in your abundant shade.Could we make a trade, perhaps,
a bargain of sorts? Rain for sun,
damp for dry, and a stoop of rum
or a sprig of thyme, for good measure
and good faith, or if you’d prefer,
some visions ground from your own toadstools?It won’t be long now before you’ll
pale in the dearth of light on your western earth
and we’ll shrivel in the hot white searing
of sod and sand and roof on this edge of things.
We must take care of each other, or what are we?
Somehow, I rattled that one off in about 25 minutes after drafting a scene that takes place at the Cheshire Cat’s pub, a place I invented. It probably helped that I came fresh from studying poetry and contemplating the craft of verse writing as part of my responses to a friend’s questionnaire for profiling me as an artist on her blog.
The great thing about NaNoWriMo, which started midnight on November 1, is that there’s always another one around the corner for creative fuel injection. Now a global phenomenon, nearly half a million people are participating in this, its 19th year.
The NaNoWriMo Mission Statement:
“National Novel Writing Month believes in the transformational power of creativity. We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.”
The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel between November 1 and November 30. As the website explains, “Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.”
It sounds like a lot of work, which it can be, but it can also be as enjoyable, enriching, and fruitful as you choose to make it. In the organization’s press release for this year’s program, they describe their enterprise as “one part boot camp, one part rollicking party.”
People unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, or the impulse to write long-form fiction, often ask why on earth anyone would schedule such a project during the busy holiday season, but there is method to this writing madness. Also, as part of that “structure, community, and encouragement,” there’s at least one article on time management tips by NaNo novel writers (see the sources at the end of this post). Authors whose NaNo novels have been published include Sara Gruen, Erin Morgenstern, Hugh Howey, Rainbow Rowell, Jason Hough, and Marissa Meyer.
I’ve blogged about the NaNo program and my involvement a few times since I started my blog in 2013:
2014 – NaNoWriMo blog “Now What?” post-noveling resources
2015 –
On Finishing That Novel
Literary April: National Poetry Month and Camp NaNoWriMo
Five-Phrase Friday (16): Alphas and Omegas
2016 –
Packing for Camp
Last Week of Camp: Ready to Start
This Hunted Story
Novel excerpt: Song meets Alice
2017 – Camp NaNoWriMo: Song of Spring
As I explained in my April 2016 post about my writing progress after the April camp:
“winning” [NaNoWriMo] is a formality and having some semblance of a recognizable tale when you reach the 50K happens only by the honor system.
[Unless you want them to,] no one reads the final product you upload for official validation to be classed among the winners. It’s all self driven.
This will be my fifth year participating since 2011. (With 2015’s fall workplace stressors, I opted for doodle-and-loiter therapy at those write-ins.) Raising a puppy this summer has worn me out a bit and thickened my usual brain fog, which always makes regular writing a challenge, but I’m hoping for an air-cleansing lightning storm from this year’s NaNoWriMo. There certainly is no shortage of resources for planning, pep talks, and inspiration. It has also helped that the puppy is more comfortable with us after almost 4 months and doesn’t need quite as much attention.
Here’s another excerpt from my first week of NaNoWriMo noveling:
Scene: The White King and Queen confer after the murder plot she has overheard.
The White King sat at his writing desk with yet more papers to go through from the post and the cabinet members’ council meeting of the previous day. The piles were piling up, and these clandestine rendezvous and illicit assassination pow-wows were starting to take their toll on his schedule. His large lower lip pushed out into his usual pout, though it was thin and hardly did a monarch’s pouty face justice.
The eyebrows were another matter. Bushy, white streaked sparely with silver, and often scowling. He brooded over the documents, with one pudgy hand rubbing the barely touchable stubble of his rounded but well-proportioned and well-positioned chin. No one would have seen the stubble from across the room or even a few feet away. The King himself was conscious of it mainly because he had a hand on it, and because he knew he had one of those clandestine rendezvous not long into his future.
The white robe of the White King was made of mink and studded with onyx pyramids projecting from their impossibly soft surface and lining the length of the hem up over his pot belly and all the way around behind his white heeled buckle shoes, usually at least two feet in front of the draping train of the robe.
The White King wore a ring of the monarchy on his right pinky finger, this time a pearl set in 14-carat gold etched with mountain-range like ridges and curving round the stocky little finger with delicate scroll work in bas relief, projecting out like the studs on the robe. The pearl was bulbous and large, comically large against a little finger, however stocky it may be. It resembled a boil or a corn or some other nasty protuberance one does not want to see growing on the skin of a finger or anywhere else.
As she entered the brightly lighted room full of tapered candles and the elaborate royal chandelier just out and above the desk top, the White Queen’s eye fell instantly on that boil of a pearl she always felt compelled to lance, at least for that flicker of time before she again realized it was not illness or injury, but simply jewelry.
She looked up and stopped, raising herself to as majestic a height as she could muster in her diminutive stature, with a neat button nose, silvery hair not yet fully white and a smooth pallor to her facial skin worked in concert as an ensemble complexion that belied her significant age, near to the King’s own.
As was her custom, she folded her hands diagonally to one another, keeping her elbows bent above the hips, her chin up and back, shoulders back and low, elongating that petite frame in the neck and torso so that it almost did perceptibly increase her height. And there she waited for her husband to look up.
Concentrating as he was on the papers and matters of state demanding his attention, he neither heard nor saw her enter. See this, she subtly shuffled her slippered feet laterally beneath her long straight gown, and this did the trick. With almost a jerk, and possibly a shudder, the White King’s head turned up and to his left as he sat in his masterly chair.
“Ah, my queen,” he said mildly, attempting to conceal his startlement. “A word.” He had not summoned her. She had arrived of her own volition and initiative. But he behaved as if his will dictated her every move, even though he knew it did not and never had.
Amused, she waited for the “word” from her lord and master, neither approaching closer nor changing position nor slackening her dignified air. She simply blinked and smiled slightly.
Unperturbed, the King began. “Yes, I am glad you are here. There are some matters I would like to discuss with you, matters of some urgency that we must attend to, my dear.” His round chin drew up into a polite smile but his bushy brows remained concentrated and serious.
The White Queen replied with a soft, silvery tone, like a sword quietly unsheathing itself. “What is it, my lord?”
“Come here. I have something to show you that I need your opinion on.”
The White Queen suppressed a sigh, as was frequent, while she approached the King at his desk throne. She thought to herself, Ah, if only you had consulted me sooner, I would have steered you rightly. She was of course thinking of the plot to kill Jock Warber, which she had overheard her husband, not an hour before, assisting Humpty Dumpty to arrange with the White Knight.
“Yes? What is it, my dear?” she inquired, smiling as she reached his side and brought her hands with open palms on graceful limbs down to the desk surface, tilting her head to see what it was the King was looking at.
I’m a member of the Canton Region of Ohio’s NaNoWriMo participants, also known affectionately as Cantowrimo. Our municipal liaison has kept the Canton group going strong for 15 years. I enjoy attending write-ins, but just knowing the group is there keeps me honest and motivated.
This year for the first time I’ve been asked to join a local middle-grades writing class as an experienced NaNoWriMo participant and cheerleader. We’ve had two classes so far, and the kids are a true inspiration with their massive word counts and clever story ideas.
NaNoWriMo might just be for you, too.
Write on and on and on.
Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month
SOURCES
About NaNoWriMo: https://nanowrimo.org/about
Press Release – September 25, 2017: https://d1lj9l30x2igqs.cloudfront.net/nano-2013/files/2017/09/Press-Release-2017.pdf
8 Best-Selling Books Written During NaNoWriMo That Show You It Can Be Done: https://www.bustle.com/articles/192069-8-best-selling-books-written-during-nanowrimo-that-show-you-it-can-be-done
7 Time Management Lessons from People Who Write a Novel in a Month: https://www.fastcompany.com/3038045/7-time-management-lessons-from-people-who-write-a-novel-in-a-month
Our New Puppy Ethan
#InternationalGuideDogDay: A Reblog
Happy International Guide Dog Day.
Image by C. L. Tangenberg – Our first family pet Elyse, an American Brittany (spaniel). Although not a certified guide dog, she taught us a lot and guided our hearts.
April 26 is International Guide Dog Day, a chance to celebrate the countless beautiful handler-guide dog teams around the world. It is a day to honor not only the hard work we do with our companions but the circle of loving support that makes this work possible. From the families that encourage us to go in for training to the trainers, volunteers, and administrators who get our pups ready to work with us, we are surrounded by a web of kindness and commitment.
No handler can reach for her guide dog’s harness without realizing the power of collaboration. None of us could do this alone.
So, to celebrate guide dogs, I’m sharing a few of my favorite posts about York. Some of these have only lived on the blog while others have gone far afield into literary journals. Each piece immortalizes the intense gratitude and love I have for my brown-eyed boy, and for everyone who helped bring him into my life.
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Backyard Bloodshed
cutting flowers in sun a pinched caterwauling behind no sign of a child peek around the dogwood glimpse a grey cat passing in its mouth a small eastern cottontail now silent limp dangles by the neck the cat walks body beneath to the evergreen shade rips at its prize I am near trying to see cat disappears I go around fence's other side wide-eyed rabbit sees me begins to move from side lying to upright and staggering comes toward me toward the fence pokes nose through slats where a sale flyer rests it retracts stops in the sun I back away look over the fence see the bright red hanging out along its side toward the back muscle bone or organ I don't know second wound behind it stays put I curse the cat not finishing off am I to blame? not my place not my yard no one home and no gun only hammer shovel spade and would not reach I walk away the robins hop the sun shines the flowers beam I go inside write this
For a lighter take on bunnies . . . and blood, you might like:
Philosofishal by Carrie Tangenberg 