It is snowing like mad. White out! The weatherman predicts a storm to follow with winds up to and maybe exceeding 100 kmh. Even the locals are battening down. Tís weather not fit for man nor beast.

But exceptions can be made.

Bad weather is not such a big deal for us as a rule. We have ‘cocoon-ability’. And not much of a schedule to keep. The house is warm and comfy. We’ll be fine. We have all the food, wine, wood and shelter we need for at least week, probably two. The basics are covered.

Mind you, fresh air is a basic…………..

The real problem this time is only indirectly related to the weather. When it is cold or snowy, we (Sal) lets the dogs in. And we have done so these past few nights and even for good portions of the day. Some might call this ‘being humane’.

I have my doubts.

Sadly, I have to report that Meg has abused this privilege of extended hospitality. She is like fish and/or guests who have stayed more than three days. Odiferous in the extreme. It seems that Meg has discovered the motherlode of all otter latrines and has reveled in it. The smell is more than skin deep. Dogs like that sort of thing; eau d’otter.

I don’t.

So, what we have here is failure to relate on basic standards of hygiene. Communication is clear but polarized: she thinks she is irresistible. I think she is revolting. And Sal is trying to mediate this.

It is not easy. A cigar can be just a cigar but sometimes a dog is an otter’s anus.

Yesterday Sal washed the dogs and I dried them off. After drying Meg, it was worse. So, into the tub she went again. She emerged still stinky but not because we were running out of PERT Shampoo. She had been ‘perted’ generously. So, weakened in my resolve by PERT and OH! de POOP stench, I relented. She came into the house like the smell of a pulp mill in August.

Sal took them swimming this morning in the lagoon. She was the black creature from the lagoon. And she still stinks.

You might think that I should simply adjust. I can adjust to freezing temps, no water, isolation and, most of the time, to the inane nonsense spouted by CBC announcers (All Points West is so bad, I listen just so that I can write in to complain) but this is asking too much.

Tomorrow is a howling gale-cum-storm. I am going to lash her to an exposed tree. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Schlepping is a drag. Especially as you get older. It is inevitable, of course, if you live remote. You simply have to bring stuff in less frequently which means you schlep in larger quantities when you do.

Living out here, we naturally do with less. Somewhat. As I mentioned, a big portion of consumption is simply a result of exposure and opportunity. Without that, you buy less and, we are without that relentless exposure. In fact, we hardly participate at all in the three biggest discretionary purchases currently popular in North America. We rarely go to restaurants. We rarely buy tickets to events and we don’t continually buy electronic gear. The fifth biggest is tobacco products and we aren’t much of a player there, either. We still read, travel, drink and have dogs, tho.

And some things – and you’d be surprised what – are consumed at the same, if not greater level than when living in the city.

Like hardware and building supplies to state the obvious.

Food is consumed at the same, maybe a smidge less, since things like ice cream melt before getting them home. And we live and are influenced by a sub-culture that values home-made and home-grown. We do like to keep up with the Hatfields and the McCoys. But, generally speaking the consumption levels remain the same. The receipts seem to say that, anyway.

Then again, we try to buy in bulk and the social currency out here is in providing meals and hospitality to visitors and that happens at a greater frequency than in the city. So, there may be a bit more food that is consumed. Whichever the difference, more or less, it is negligible.

Booze is much the same but that is due to good planning, really. We have ‘wine on the go’ at the local DIY store and, when I buy scotch, I buy enough to keep abreast of needs. Rice, butter, milk……..we may run out; scotch? Never. Good planning.

Mind you, as we get older, we seem to drink less. So, I dunno.

Stuff and stuff-getting is still an issue to some degree, tho. Weather, topography, boats, ferries……..all the logistics come into play for everything – even a roll of toilet paper. But, by and large, after seven years or so, we have got our systems down pat and that is an accomplishment. Getting your systems working makes it do-able.

And so we come to one of the great ironies of ‘getting away from it all’. You spend a lot of time still getting some of it all and, even more ironically, you spend a lot of time designing ways to get more of it all easily. The irony, of course, is that getting stuff and getting it easily is best accomplished by living in the city. Sheesh.

The hardest items to schlep (for me) are food, gasoline and propane and, when we had to do it the hard way, water. The basics: water and fuel and food. Before the cabin planning: plan those.

We eventually ‘bit the bullet’ and now have propane and gasoline delivered. A few years ago, John plumbed in a mile long one-inch pipe that carries enough water from our distant stream to our cistern. 85% of the on-going heavy lifting was alleviated by just those two decisions. And by heavy lifting, I mean 40 pounds plus. Under 40 pounds doesn’t count.

Get used to it.

Bookclub day today. Sunday. It is a local community habit of unflinching regularity. Regardless of the weather, the women travel by small boat every month from various islands to some pre-designated site and talk about their latest read. Wine and home-cooked dishes augment the literary and topics-of-local-interest-laced conversations.

I doubt very much that Christy Clark being ‘appointed’ premier by the Liberal cadre of ‘select electors’ will even come up in conversation. These women are too practical to bother with such nonsense. The Canucks don’t rate highly, either. Neither would the Oscars or Obama or any of the other more typical water-cooler topics of urban folks.

They might discuss their gardens, home repairs, boat repairs, dead sea lions and other local live and dead fauna, though. Wolves, for sure. Recipes, too, maybe. An environmental issue probably. I think. But I am not sure. I really have no idea what they talk about actually but the meetings take up about 5 hours and less than hour is spent discussing the chosen book.

“So, do you guys ever talk about me?” I once asked Sal.

“No, sweetie. We never talk about you or any of the husbands. Sometimes a kid or grandchild but never a man.”

“But what about some guy who sets himself on fire, falls out of his boat or runs off with a bar-maid from the Heriot Bay Inn?”

“Nah. Men do that all the time. These women have all had those experiences with the men in their lives already. It’s old news, like ‘Dog Bites Man’, ya know?”

“So, we never come up?”

“Well, generically, sometimes. You know, like when the subject of the book is a heel, a scoundrel and a creep who brutalizes the mother and children. And the dog. Then we talk about men but, generally just to condemn them all to hell and then we move on to lunch or gardens or something nice.”

As you can gather from that, men are not particularly welcome in bookclub. Which is OK, mostly. None of us brutes afoot would read the books they chose, anyway. But, sometimes, it seems like a bit of a harsh policy.

Dodger was always welcome in past years because he had a big boat and took several women with his wife when she attended. And then he’d sit there in the boat until he could take them all home again. He stopped doing that after about seven years. They may have talked about him now and then. But not much. Maybe the boat.

Last year I stood in the food shed for three hours until Sal came out and said I could join the dogs in my room if I kept as quiet as they did, kept the door closed and stayed put! So, I got to spend the last two hours of book club locked in my room with two dogs and happy for the concession. It was bloody cold in the food shed.

Today, however, they are meeting at Discovery Islands Lodge, the main disembarkation point for a Kayak Outfitter in the area. Discovery Islands Lodge is centrally located and makes winter travel a bit safer for all of them as a result. You can Google it. Plus more of the Quadra women can attend since the lodge is on that island and connected by road.

Bookclub has been regularly held for over twenty years. On average about 12-16 women attend each meeting. There are about 25 to 30 members in all. They were recognized by the CBC two years ago as one of Canada’s most interesting book clubs which, when one considers the CBC, is an unfairly diluted complement. They deserve better but, then again, so does Canada.

Don’t get me started on the CBC.

Regardless, they are an interesting group. They are quite neat, really – their book topics chosen and read notwithstanding. The Discovery Islands Book Club is as close to an institution as we have out here. And, unlike the institutions we have come to recognize in our society, they are growing, changing, learning and a vehicle for spreading good will in the community.

Better than that and most modern institutions – they do no harm.

BC Marine Mammal Response Network
IS LOOKING FOR PRIMARY RESPONDERS

The BCMMRN is a Fisheries and Oceans program which tracks natural and human caused threats to marine mammals and sea turtles in order to aid research and recovery. The Network’s members respond to reports of distressed or dead marine mammals and sea turtles to gather data and provide assistance where possible.

I had no idea. It is all voluntary, of course. And it is not like DFO has any boats at their disposal. But, they do seem to have a ‘program’ in place to keep track of such things.

So, I stand (seated, actually) corrected. Thanks, JW. Just one more thing out here amongst a gazillion that I have no clue about.

It is a veritable feast of learning out here. Every day!

Sally has a job. She is Postmistress #3. She is the second alternate to the main Postmistress and is called on to perform her postal duties about twice to three times a year. The first alternate does about the same but is usually asked first because she wants the work. Sal just likes the break.

On Friday, it was Sal’s turn. Postmistress #1 was a chaperon on a school field-trip and Sal stepped into the breach. She headed up that morning in her small boat in -11 degree weather with the wind on her nose (and Fid’s. He went, too). Just like the shopping day.

As she turned the last headland to the bay where the floating post office was located (it is one of only two floating post offices in BC. It has no electricity, no phone, no bathroom and only enough room for one customer at a time. The post office is heated by wood and is about 10 feet by 12 feet in size. It is located at the foot of the ramp on the government dock), she was brought up short by the sight of a large, dead sea lion floating alongside.

About 2000 pounds of golden-haired, bloated mammal.

She decided to call me but the walkie-talky transmission was blocked by that same headland.

“Why call me?” I asked.

“Well, I thought that maybe you should call somebody.”

“You mean like the Dead Sea Mammals society or the Morbid Mariners? Or were you thinking, perhaps, that the same DFO that can’t afford to put a boat in the water or who has overseen the demise of our fisheries on both coasts might want to know about that? Maybe the Coast Guard needed to ‘flag it’ as a hazard to navigation?”

“Well, all that did cross my mind. But I was thinking they might think me silly. Better you should call it in.”

“Yeah, they would think that. But, if it is any consolation, they would have considered me certifiable for calling it in. There is no way I am going to sit on an automated phone tree to leave a message for a bureaucrat who is unlikely to be aware that we even have sea lions in these waters just to tell them that one had died.

“And, anyway, what would you do? Sit there in the bay for hours while I talked to DFO’s imbeciles-without-boats?”

“Well, I was thinking I might slip a line over a flipper and then tow it ashore. At the very least, we’d have a dead sea lion out of the way. And, anyway, you know how everyone loves to get dead animals out here.”

“Now you are talking! They love that sort of thing out here. They seem to like skulls the best, I gather. I suppose the best thing would have been to simply cut off it’s head while you were there and just throw the bloody thing into the boat for someone to pick up later.”

“Yeah. I thought of that. I only had a small knife with me but I suppose I could have hacked through it. The big challenge was that it was floating head down so I think I would have to tow it to the beach and then decapitate it when the tide went out.”

“Good thinking.”

“Yeah. But I feel a bit guilty because I didn’t do it after all. I sort of felt that I should get on to the post office but I also didn’t want anyone to lose out on a good seal lion head. Tough choice, ya know?”

“Yeah. I know. But you could call one of them and tell them?”

“Are you kidding! I don’t want to get someone mad at me. What about the ones I didn’t call? They’d be ticked. No, it’s better this way. Wherever the sea lion ends up, there goes the bounty. In that way, I am not involved!”

“Yeah. Good thinking. Who would have thought you had to be careful who you told about dead sea lions, eh?”

So, with that thought in mind, I decided to tell you guys.

We planned on going in to Quadra today. It was ‘iffy’ but, if it didn’t snow last night, we had plans to stock up on a few necessities. Sal got out the keys and asked, “You comin’? I can go alone, you know. I’ll take Fid for company.”

“Nah, I’ll come, too. I can get a few things at the hardware store, maybe find a ‘space’ movie. I really need a good sci-fi movie with creatures and everything, you know? It’s weird. I might even watch Battlestar Galactica and it sucks!”

“Why rent it then?”

“Cause I’ve seen the others. And I just really need some spaceships in my life. It may be a male thing. Hard to explain.”

But then the phone rang. It was a ‘client’. One of those non-paying, pro bono clients that need as much if not more energy than the paying ones. Well, I think that, anyway. I haven’t had many paying ones for a long time.

Strange fact of life: a paying customer limits themselves because they think the more they need, the more it will cost them. Which, by the way, is not so since people/cases/disputes/legal issues requires what it requires and there is never any ‘padding’ when I do something. Paid or for free, the service is the same. But pro bono work is often like an open-ended invitation to do everything from the resolution of the problem to business advice and relationship matters. It is harder to get away from a free job than it is from a paying one. Weird.

It looked like I was going to be tied up for awhile so Sal waited and then, after about twenty minutes, quietly bundled up, gathered her stuff (packs, totes, coolers, list, keys, radios, life jacket, etc.) and kissed me goodbye. She decided to go on her own.

As the conversation endured, I would frequently look up and out the window to see her go by. Fifteen minutes after our ‘peck’ goodbye, I saw her little boat heading west over the channel. It is blowing about 20 and the temperature is, with the wind-chill, about 10-15 degrees F. Her 11 foot long boat is open and has only about 6 to 8 inches of freeboard. It is a ‘wet’ ride in bad weather and this was a little ‘testy’ to be sure. Whitecaps, spray, two-foot waves. All of it coming on her nose.

Well, better put: all of it on Fid’s nose. He was with her and standing at the bow like some live, furry figurehead at least 20% the size of the boat, it seemed. Ears flying back, face being sprayed, boat bucking and jumping (especially at the bow) he was in his element.

I was still in my housecoat.

And so the phone conversation continued until I could see Sal arrive safely at the community dock through the binoculars. I am not 100% sure I was completely ‘with’ the person on the other end of the phone the whole time. Sometimes the great plumes of white breaking over the boat in the distance would distract me. But, she made it.

And the conversation ended soon thereafter.

Sal will drive 20 miles down a partly paved, partly graveled logging road and do a bit of shopping at the store on the next island. She’ll stop in at the movie rental place and look for a space movie for me and, while there, pick up a few chick flicks that literally suck the will to live from me.

But I will watch them. They are all the same, really; 90 minutes of watching misery suffered slowly by a woman who is otherwise fabulous and ending in somebody’s death, usually hers and her protagonist. Sometimes it is the story of angst and fear and courage that ends poorly and the children, dog or gay person dies. Sometimes it is with sub-titles.

Whatever.

And people think Bruce Willis movies are predictable.

I much prefer the great big ugly bad guys dying in a hail of gunfire as their car and all the cars in the neighbourhood blow up. And our lone hero, with his jeans and t-shirt torn, walks through the smoke to pick up the ‘fabulous woman, child, dog and gay person’ and take them to safety.

It’s nicer, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, Sally will then turn homeward, drive back and drag all the stuff down the long frozen dirt covered hill at the end of the road, pack the boat, get Fid in and come home.

As she nears the house, she’ll turn on her walkie-talky. “Hey, sweetie! I’m home. Wanna come down and get the groceries?”

I’ll meet her at the wave strewn beach and she’ll pass coolers and packages while the boat tosses and bangs against the rocks. I’ll take them up and she’ll take the boat back to where we tie it up. I’ll put on some tea and greet her with it when she gets in.

“So, I am glad you took your walkie-talky. Glad you took the radio (VHF) too. Comforting, I’m sure. You know, it would be a good idea to turn them on while you are out there. You know, like for safety sake?”

“Oh, don’t start. You know I hate them. I only want them to call you to come down and get the groceries. Otherwise it is just a pain.”

And that, my dear readers, is how we (Sally) use the safety-first VHF radio and the stay-in-touch walkie-talky. Basically to ‘ring for the servant’.

More on dogs later. Unless you insist.

It’s -11 C but bright and beautiful. Our weather has been fairly good this year despite ominous warnings from the Farmer’s Almanac and people with steel rods in their legs who can ‘feel’ the weather several months in advance.

But I must admit that I thought winter was over a week or so ago. Lots of little plants were pushing up and it seemed like Spring was just around the corner. I was feeling good about my wood supply.

Not so much today. We’ll get through but there may not be much carryover for the next year.

I shut down the water system last night and I am glad I did. I have heat tape and insulation and all that but a harsh wind out of Bute Inlet will freeze just-off-the-boil water in a few minutes. The wind chill can get crazy. We once had an ‘overflow’ pipe from the stream that squirted water from a 1-inch pipe at least six feet on the horizontal – that’s good pressure. A winter Bute wind froze it in mid stream! A pretty impressive icicle was sitting attached to the pipe the next morning.

The cold stopped the Q-hut work today. We thought it too cold to work so a few quick calls in the morning postponed activity til next week. Sal decided to just add some glove-liners and off she went up to the school to have a quasi-council meeting. She’s a director on the board of the group that manages the school buildings. Then she’ll do something else up there with the neighbours and then get the mail and then come home. Weather doesn’t deter her.

Very little deters her.

Yesterday we built the second raised garden box. It is 4×11 and about two feet high. It doesn’t seem like much and, of course, it isn’t. But it is approximately 80 cubic feet and, in a place without soil, the task has just begun to make it into a functioning garden box. It looks good but that is not the ultimate goal. Lettuce and tomatoes are the goal in mind.

Soil gathering, making, nurturing and, naturally, composting is 75% of the chore. Maybe more. Planting and harvesting is nothing by comparison. This year we gathered some sea weed and we’ll bring over some peat moss after our next trip to town and we compost all year long. We’ll supplement the whole thing with steer manure and maybe a few buckets of sawdust. When it is a working garden box, we’ll make enough ‘greens’ during the summer to be ‘full of salad’ for at least four months. And the herbs, we think, will last much longer. But, really, our two and half garden boxes are not yet a ‘supportive garden’. We have to do more.

To do this right, I would think one must have the equivalent of a garden about 60 x 60. I don’t really know but that seems about right, especially if you plant potatoes. But they are easily bought and stored so we won’t.

But once you have a producing garden, then the work really begins! When you have that much produce, you have to ‘can’ it, preserve it, dry some of it, process some it and on and on and on. Gardening is not easy even if just on a supplemental level.

Thank God Sal likes to be busy.

I mention this mostly because when people think of a cabin in their future – especially one that may become their full time residence later in life – they think primarily about the structure. I did.

But a cabin lifestyle is so much more. The actual building is, when all is said and done, not half of it. I have mentioned ‘infrastructure’, ‘systems’ and ‘material handling’. I have mentioned ‘boats’, ‘transportation’, ‘lifestyle’, ‘projects’ and ‘building’, too.

You have to address ‘safety’, ‘health’, ‘community’, ‘income’, ‘communication’ and a host of other things as well, of course.

But food-gathering is or should also be considered. Food and food storage is more important out here than it is in town (at least as long as the urban systems are working, anyway). Home grown, gathered and stored food not only tastes better, you have less access to simply buying it the further away you are from the store.

-11 degrees outside reminds me of that.

I am not really the best person to write about dogs because, for the most part, I think of them as dogs. Call me crazy.

They are not ‘people’. They are not ‘part of the family’ (except in a dog sense which is just a few notches above a pair of comfy slippers and an old housecoat to me). Frankly, I am disinclined to have them as ‘pets’ insomuch as that means petting them and playing with them and, God forbid, talking to them. To me, they are sentient beings that deserve my respect and assistance once in awhile. Period.

OK, I’ll throw the stick once in awhile if I am really bored or trying to get Sal to forgive me for something. I throw the stick a lot, come to think of it.

Probably have to throw the stick after Sal reads this.

I am, it seems, in the minority on that score (dogs should be dogs) and I am quite wrong, wrong, wrong as far as Sally is concerned. For Sally, they are peers, friends, family, and her posse. I have not yet fully reached that status myself. She has boundaries with me.

She talks to the dogs all the time. Full sentences, whole paragraphs. I would even go so far as to say she has whole conversations with them if she thinks she is out of earshot of me. She thinks they understand her. They do not.

Hell, I barely understand her most of the time and we speak, it is assumed-but-not-yet-confirmed, the same language.

I know they are pets. But my idea of a pet does not include an animal that lives in the house with me. I think dogs should live outside like…..well, wolves. You know? If it is below freezing, I will let them in but only because Sal threatens me if I don’t. But freezing is the ‘let-inside’ point.

Well, except there is ‘their time in the morning’ that Sal has institutionalized. It begins when she gets up and last until I can’t stand it anymore. About 2 hours or so. Then there is their ‘evening time’ which begins immediately after their dinner (5:00 pm) and lasts until our usual bedtime at 11:00.

But except for those eight hours or so, they are not allowed in!

They are also on a special diet. Raw meat. I am a proponent of that. They are remarkably healthy and their teeth and breath are as clean as any dogs. I didn’t think it was possible to have tolerable ‘dog breath’ but they do. And you know how some dog poop seems to last like it is partly fossilized? Laying there in the same spot on your lawn for months? Turning white and hard? Well, raw meat-fed dogs have dissolvable poop. I swear. Leave the damn thing on your lawn for a few days (not a hard choice for me) and it disappears! Really.

‘Course our front lawn is at a 45 degree angle so maybe it just all rolls away. More research needs to be done, I suppose.

The dogs have hair, not fur. Like a poodle. So, they don’t shed. But it does grow and it grows fast. I bought a trimmer and every two months or so, I give them a haircut (see pic below). It is hell. I really should do it every month to keep the chore manageable but I don’t. I put it off and then have to ‘mow’ and ‘hack’ at them. Meg is pretty easy to trim but Fid has hair like a Brillo pad. Well, more like Persian Lamb after Monsanto has had at it with some gene modification for indestructability. Really. It is curly, tightly bound and thick like a Russian peasant woman’s leg…….thicker hair even!

We can leave them alone when we go to town for the day but Sal won’t leave them overnight. I would. I would give them some raw meat, some water and a few bones and see them in a fortnight but Sal thinks that is just plain mean. So, if the trip is longer than a day, they come along.

Our location is ideal for a dog. Their ‘roaming space’ is the small 10 or so acre peninsula we live on (counting the lagoon) and they can cover the whole area in less than a few minutes or spend hours upon hours exploring. I am pretty sure they love the place as much as we do. They sure seem to.

Sally exercises them (and me, if she can) every day between 4:00 and dinner time (theirs). Of course, they do all sorts of things with us when we are doing our projects and chores but sometimes they get underfoot. They have both learned not to get too close to me when I am working. I have been known to yell at them. Sally, on the other hand is often laughing when she is interrupted by Fid’s nose in her face while she is drilling, hammering or sawing something in a tight space. He likes to get ‘in there’ and see what is going on. I have to admit that Fid is ‘game’ for anything and ‘at the ready’ to get involved even if he has no clue as to what that means. And, of course, he never does.

PWds don’t always do as they are told. If they are interested in something or bored with you, they just carry on as if you weren’t calling them or trying to get their attention. On the other hand, we hardly did anything to train them and they always do as they are told or do the right thing when it is needed.

Megan even will play fetch with herself. If we say, “You do it!”, she gets her toy, takes it to the edge of the front deck and pushes it off with her nose. It falls. She looks to see where it landed and then races off down the stairs and gets it. Again and again. Sometimes she does that ‘throw’ for Fiddich to ‘fetch’. Sal finds this amusing. Every time.

It is a simple life we lead. A dog’s life, really. A happy dog’s life.

I am not so sure that the ‘dog’ posts are well received so I’ll add one more and move on. I can always add more later but when Anonymous stops commenting, that usually means he/she is bored with the topic. Plus, I confess, that I went on a bit too long for a blog. Sorry.

Meg did well her first year. So did I. Sal was ecstatic. Even our kids took to Meg knowing full well that she was a kid-replacement. It is a good statement about your kids when they can love and accept the ‘new’ dog that Sal inadvertently called Emily at least half the time. ‘Course, she evened that out when Em came to visit by calling her Meg virtually all of the time.

Ben went through the same thing with Fiddich (Fid).

And so we come to the dog who thinks he is God.

We went to see the breeder one day a year later just to ‘check in’. It seemed only fair to show her that we had turned out to be worthy owners after all and, to be honest, Sally was just a bit proud of how happy and healthy Meg was. It was time to show off a bit.

When we arrived, we went through much the same ritual of ‘talking dog’ and oohing and aaahing over the latest batch of puppies. Then the dogs were loosed and all the females ran around fetching. Bogart stayed in. Then the breeder let out Fiddich (named after the scotch, wouldn’t you know?).

This guy was about 13 to 15 months old and easily as big as Meg. It was hard to tell because his feet hardly touched the ground! I swear this dog held the same kind of ‘air-time’ as a Gazelle. He just leapt and bounded and jumped and flew from one place to the next. A veritable rust-coloured ball of energy that rarely and barely touched the ground.

Honest, I have had kites that spent less time in the air.

In a moment of weakness I said, “Geez, he needs some space, that boy. If you ever want to let him go on vacation sometime, we’ll take him for a week or so. You know, like a parole?”

Sal looked at me. The breeder looked at me. They stared like women do.

“What?!”

“Are you saying you want another dog!?”

“No. No! NO!! You women! Everything has a double meaning for you. No, NO. NO! I just said that we’d give this poor bastard a chance to be free, that’s all. A chance to fly, a chance to feel alive, a chance to explode on this planet like he obviously wants to do. Then, of course, We’ll lock him away like an old winter coat just like you’d expect. No. No. NO! No more dogs!”

And so it came to pass that Fiddich joined the family.

What can I say? He flew and leapt and jumped and landed here. I had very little to do with it.

Meg was pretty good. Weird. But good. She was not ‘socialized’ as a result of being in a kennel for her entire life. Not with dogs, not with people and, to an extent, not with the great vastness that is the outdoors beyond her own yard. Basically, she had been in jail most of her life.

She was quite fascinated by all that was going on around her from behind the backseat window but fearful and intimidated whenever she was removed from the love cocoon that had become our car.

This did not bode well for the protective role that I had envisioned for her.

PWDs don’t really protect so much as ‘alert’. They tell you when something is coming and then, especially in Meg’s case, head for the safest place possible leaving you to deal with it. Given that Meg was mute from the surgery the best we could hope for was being alerted by noticing her leaving the scene rapidly. “Hmmm……….Meg’s bugged out. Wonder what’s coming?”

Occasionally, when she deemed the matter urgent, she would attempt to ‘do her job’ by barking in her own special way. But all you could see was a dog in minor convulsions with the odd ‘pfft’ coming out the back end as her internal pressure built up from the attempt. We came to know these mild indiscretions as signs of impending doom.

I have to say that a convulsing dog with it’s mouth opening and closing rapidly but with no sound coming out is a bit intimidating in itself. Looks bloody mad, it does. More than a few people and animals backed off when confronted by such a sight. So, in her own way, she was scary.

And her perceived impending doom was rarely ever any real threat at all. Meg is not brave. For instance, she was and still is to some extent terrified at pressurized air – like when one is filling a tire or hearing the ‘air-brake’ releasing from a big truck. When that special hell was encountered, we had to console her for what seemed-like-forever while she trembled until her attention span waned. Which was usually helped along with lots of hugs and numerous treats.

PWDs are really quite water (and treat) oriented. It is definitely in their genes. But with a kennel-kept dog, most of their natural inclinations have been left unfulfilled or unexpressed. When we first brought Meg home we had to depart the car and embark on a small boat. And there was a dock ramp to be negotiated in between. Meg looked at all that as if we were asking her to walk a tight-wire over a burning inferno. She refused to go down the ramp and, when eventually carried down and placed on the dock, she stood looking at the water like she had landed on Mars.

Getting her on the boat was an exercise in gentle cajoling and steady leash pulling with lots of assurances and baby talk to help in the decision. But she came and, after another ride or two, she was a bona fide sea dog and looked forward to zooming about in boats. She swims almost every day in the summer and does so on her own if she is feeling overheated. Meg is definitely a water dog. Now.

She is also a good dog and makes Sally happy. But, of course, some rules had to be put in place to ensure harmony and life in general was to Sal’s satisfaction. So Sal laid it out clearly, forcefully and, as we all know is needed, repetitiously. To me. And I eventually got it.

Things changed for me (not for Meg – she still had the ‘fur’, the ‘cute’ and the ‘trembling factor’ going for her so she was exempt from any rules whatsoever). But it was OK. I adjusted. I am still very thankful that I am still allowed on the bed and on the couch even if I am #5 in a group of three.

I was taught to clean up my messes, fetch dog toys and to entertain Meg whenever she wanted it. I even learned to do ‘monkey-fists’ from odd pieces of rope because she liked them. I may be an annoying person but I learn new tricks quickly. Sally was pleased. She gave us both treats. At the same time. In this way, she hoped that we would bond as a pack.

I hoped that she would eventually get a grip.

Meg hoped that I would go away and leave the bed and the couch to her and Sally.

She’s not the first sentient being to have had those thoughts.

Anyway, we all carved out space for ourselves or, better put; I was left with some space after they had claimed what they wanted. Things weren’t normal but they were live-able.

And there were the treats.