Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Squirrel hunting is serious business on our off-leash adventures. Perhaps it is because squirrels have the upper hand (or paw) in our encased yards and leashed environments. They have an uncanny ability to dash just behond the trajectory of a dog's reach, tormenting him or her with taunting chirps from the safety of their geometrically calculated position. Leashless adventures level the playing field, and the dogs know it!

Such was the case the other day when Lizzy flushed out a squirrel from its oblivious foraging activities. "Sqog!" was the battle cry, (my alert for Squirrel on Ground!). A bugle blast wouldn't have rallied the troops any faster! All six dogs materialized instantly at Lizzy's side to aid in the acquisition of this rare find. (I wouldn't assist in this fox-hunt-like activity except I know my dogs. Passionate but incompetent. No squirrel is ever hurt by their frantic efforts. Once a squirrel even fell out of a tree onto their heads and they were so shocked that they froze with indecision of what to do!) All bark but no bite. Literally.

With seven dogs barking at the base of the tree, to which the squirrel had scurried, you'd think one of them would have noticed that the squirrel had jumped ship for a better branch on another tree. It was long gone. The dogs' frenzied barking continued as if convinced that their frothing demands would induce a surrender. I tried to tell them that they were now "barking up the wrong tree," but to no avail. That squirrel must be there somewhere, intimidated by their bluster.

The scene transported me to my counseling couch where much 'barking' also took place over the years. Identifying many "Sqogs" with my clients, we did a lot of treeing of tormenting squirrels. Flushing out a squirrel was always exciting, and some degree of expressing anger, frustration, hurt and desire for revenge was very healing. The problem came, like with my dogs, when the squirrel was long gone, but the barking continued. The had moved on, but the compulsive need to keep up the vigil had shifted from productive to destructive. Convincing a canine, or a client of this futility was often, in itself, futile.

So let's ask ourselves this question. What am I barking at? Sqogs that need treeing, or squirrels that have long since exited the scene? Is it treeing time, or time to move on? I can't answer that question for you. I know I've wasted time at the base of the wrong tree for long stretches in my life, so who am I to sort that out for you? I do direct you to God for those answers though. He's seen the squirrels' tormenting activities and knows the hurts in your heart. There is a time for barking and a time to cease barking. Learn to listen to Him as you discern between the two in your life. He loves you and doesn't want you to waste the time and trauma of barking up the wrong tree.

Independence is Over-rated!

Ever been around a Shih Tzu? (Pronounced like a sneeze sounds). Pug-nosed, opinionated and adorable. Boogers to house-break because they are too busy breaking you in to their wants and wishes to "get" that anything they deposit in the house is not considered a treasure. (Comes from being reverenced as a sacred dog in ancient times!) Eventually they learn to comply with social norms, but inside they are a bit incensed that they must bow to your wishes. If ever the independent American spirit was imbodied in a dog, it is the Shih Tzu!

Smoky is my resident Shih Tzu. Short of limb, he brings up the rear of our adventures...kinda. I'd like to think he is protecting our back flank, but truth-be-told, Smoky is simply taking his sweet time wandering wherever his interests take him. Hurry is not in his vocabulary. I will 'paw' it to him that at any given time he is vaguely aware of where the rest of us are, so he rarely gets lost, but independence is definitely his modus operandi.

Lest I be accused of picking sticks out of Smoky's eyes when I can barely see through my own logs, I must 'fess up to my love affair with independence. I obviously don't have Shih Tzu blood coursing through my veins, but I do boast some Dutch genes. I'm told the Dutch are absurdly independent... thus the commonplace phrase, "going Dutch" on a date, which translates, "I'll pay my way, and you'll pay yours." To them that's a celebration of independence, not an act of stinginess. Perhaps it's that Dutch mentality that makes me hate ever having to ask for help. The old commercial where the frustrated mother erupts with, "I'd just rather do it myself!", is all too familiar to me. Mostly it's voiced inwardly, but it is very much there. I've moved ridiculously heavy furniture by myself because I didn't want to need another person. Can you say 'sciatica?'

God gives me regular test retakes on this life lesson, but does it ever sink in? Nope. The next time a need for help arises, I creatively find a way to handle it myself. Most recent case in point... lost keys. I knew they had to be in the house somewhere, but 5 days of searching had not unearthed them. Frustration, anguish and necessity finally drove me to gerry-rig a makeshift set of keys to drive my car, enter the house and catch the mailman in the act of loading mail into our locked box. Did I think to ask for help in the search? Nope. Never even occurred to me.

Smoky's irksome independence on the trail got me evaluating my own go-to stances in life, so I broke down and asked Ed for help in my quest for my keys. Within 15 minutes he had procured them from the top of the dryer, above my eyesight. Ed's size and different vantage point rendered them visible to him, while still invisible to me. Dependence paid off! But how much energy I had wasted in the process?!

So my take away lesson? Seek help? Probably not. My mind is already concocting a device that I can attach to my keys that will beep when I call out to them. "I'd just rather do it myself!" I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Sniffing Down a Scent

People often like to identify my profession by the title, "Dog Walker." I bristle at that term! My dogs are definitely not 'walking' and the leashes required to make them walk have long been abandoned. Besides being free to run and play as they please, they have been given another gift that goes paw-in-paw with the off-leash experience... freedom to sniff down a scent!

If you've ever watched a dog on a leash, despited their deep, drooling desire to please their master, the intrigue of a juicy smell will compel them to stop the forward motion to check it out. Risking their owner's wrath and impatient yank on their leash, they have to respond to the siren call of scent. It is hard-wired in them! If you've ever experienced watching TV without control of the remote (if you are female, this is your lot in life!), and you've found yourself at the mercy of a channel-flipping fanatic, you get a whiff of a dog's frustration. Just as something interesting catches your attention, it is whisked away in a frenzy to keep moving at all costs. For me it is easier to leave the room than wrestle with my thwarted interests. Dogs however are more faithful in their devotion to just being in your presence, and gradually learn to ignore the summons of their scent glands.

'Sniffing down a scent.' Something in this phrase resonates within me. What is it?... Freedom. Freedom to pursue a thought to fruition. Bingo! That's it! A long forgotten skill that was lost in the commotion of cradles, commitments of motherhood, carpooling and choreographing the dance steps of a busy family. Lots of leash yanking when a interesting thought presented possibilities. No time, no energy, no creativity left to sniff it out. Just tuck it away in hopes of pursuit on another day.

Empty-nesthood has been a discovery of the joys of 'off-leash adventuring.' Freedom to sniff down a thought to fulfillment and closure. Rediscovery that my scent glands still work! In fact they work even better for having experienced all the aromas of motherhood. Thoughts are deeper and richer like wine that was stored away in the dark cellars of my preoccupied brain. Finding these fermented treasures is a daily delight! (Sorry for the gush of mixed metaphors all at once...the well-spring of creative contemplation has erupted...opps, that was another one!) Bear with me as I reacquaint myself with my mind that I thought was long gone! My mental stuttering is slowly smoothing out. I now 'woman' the remote control to my own gray matter!

If you are still in the midst of leash-yanking interruptions in your life, take heart. Your ability to sniff down a scent doesn't diminish with lack of use. Store away the idea for future perusal, and as often as you can, unclip your collar for a mini 'off-leash adventure' of your own making.

Perpetrating Prejudice

There is a dog that I've been trying to recruit for my adventures. He is an Airdale named Winston. Such a distinguished looking gentleman with his bristly whiskers and jaunty stride. I've accosted his master a few times with requests to take him to the park along with my pack of loonies. I always figured his consistent "no" was a reaction to the chaos he witnessed in my car as we stopped along the street to greet him. The roar of yelping and barking emanating out wasn't exactly ice cream truck melodies. (I've spoken to my crew about their poor marketing appeal, but they just don't get it!) Finally one day the owner 'fessed up'...Winston has a problem. He despises boxers...goes ballistic, despite his distinguished manner, when he comes face-to-smashed-in-face with a boxer. It used to be just one specific boxer, with whom he had had a tiff, but now it had escalated to include all boxers. Winston is a perpetrator of mass prejudice.

Confession time. I am wrestling with this oozing energy myself, though boxers aren't what set me off. It started during the battle over the dog park issues. One of the 'deal breakers' for the park rangers was the conflicts between dogs and cyclists. Up to that time I had been very accepting of the bicycle crowd that raced through the dog park area. I just worked around the shortcuts they forged through parking lots, their indifference to stop signs and their determination to ride 2 or 3 abreast on the narrow road leading into the dog park. I was actually glad to see people enjoying themselves out in nature. Like Winston, my slate was fairly clean until an altercation occurred. In an effort to help solve the dog/cyclist conflicts, I began asking cyclists to simply stay on the road instead of cutting through the parking lot where excited dogs were loading and unloading from cars. This required almost nothing on their part to tweek their route to avoid this hotspot... maybe it added an extra 5 seconds to their course. I didn't even try to point out the stop sign at the entrance end of the lot, since 98% of the riders totally ignore this irrelevant obstruction to their flow of freedom. (Being on a bike somehow exempts a person from the need to comply with the rules of the road). My 'Winston moment' came when one of the bicyclists responded to my carefully crafted request to avoid detouring through the parking lot with, "Nope, this works fer me." Something about that self-centered retort kicked me deep down in my gut. We were losing access to this beautiful part of the dog park largely because of this kind of attitude on the part of cyclists. Suddenly, I hated cyclists...all cyclists. I didn't want to, but that kick broke something open inside of me that gushed out to include anyone pedalling on 2 wheels.

Poison, absolute poison! I can sympathize with Winston's prejudice problem. I would have loved to nurture the passionate energy of this poison except for 2 reasons. One, most of my favorite people in the world are cyclists. And two, Jesus calls me to love, not hatred. Damn! So, like the cleanup of the oil spewing in the Gulf waters, I have some mopping up to do... and a leak to plug. Not an easy task when I (we)'ve lost the dog park battle, and the cyclists (who pay zippo to ride through there), lost nothing. I guess it did "work fer' that cyclist...worked us right out of our park.

Luckily God is the 'mop-up' specialist. His indwelling Spirit busts me every time the adrenalin of anger roils up within me. "Lynette, we need to talk." And so we do. I talk it out with Him and ask Him for forgiveness and new power to love. Sometimes I can even feel my old vicarious joy at seeing a cyclist delighting in the freedom of the road. The parking lot is a mute issue now since that no longer officially belongs to the dog park, so mostly I feel numbness as I watch the bikers pedal happily by. I still must confess that I long to see a park ranger pull over a cyclist for blazing through a stop sign, but I doubt that will ever happen. God obviously still has some work to do in my heart...just like Winston's.

I used to cringe when I heard Randy Newman's song, "Short People" with the reoccurring lyrics, "Short people ain't got no reason to live!" What about being short disqualifies us from contributing in life? Izzy, a canine, not a people, would take exception to this demeaning decree! A Norwich Terrier of miniature stature (stands all of 10 inches high), Izzy is a tornado of activity! Not only does she keep up with the hairy monsters that thunder all around her (imagine yourself running at knee high level to a pack of giants), but she often leads the "posse" in their wild chases. Undaunted when they roll her in their clumbsiness of foot, she has earned their respect to participate in their lives! Small isn't just cute; it is agile, resilent, determined, resourceful and... sneaky.

Case in point...Izzy once again. She leverages her tiny body and irresistable facial hair that pokes out in all directions, onto my lap as I am driving the gang to the park. No one else is small enough to solicit that privilege. Then she nestles in adorably and all but purrs. Only when I lift her off to exit the car do I realize Izzy's "nestling" wasn't about affection, but about working the zipper open on my fanny pack (turned to the front), which held all the yum yums for the trip. She had successfully consumed a big handful of dog treats single-muzzledly! Ah, the little sneak...maybe Randy Newman was right after all.

But that got me to thinking about small things. And that's probably what got me making a radical U-turn along a busy highway when I saw a "Bonsai Trees For Sale" sign, strategically placed in my path. The miniature oaks and elms sitting on the hood of a beat up car were irresistible! I was on my way to somewhere important, but something yelled "squirrel" inside of me and I was forced off course! I almost plunked down $195 for one of the rugged-trunked beauties. Something about their big tree appearance in Lilliputian form so captures my imagination that I am transported, like Gulliver, to the shade below their canopy of miniscule leaves. Perhaps it was the shrinking of my brain that made the $195 seem like such a deal. At least I had enough wherewithall to look at the small, younger, less expensive trees, but they just didn't have the character or transportive magic that the older, mature trees exuded. I wanted maturity, but I wasn't willing to pay for it.

Now that statement rattling around in my brain really got me to thinking. How like that I am in my willingess to allow God to form me over the years? I want the deep, wisdom-etched character of my bonsai beauties, but I want it now. Instant maturity. Those two words form an absolute oxymoron! And even more so in God's curriculum of character development! Like my bonsai friends, some wires are required, some branch trimming, some root restrictions... and lots of time! You can't rush such a work of art...it's a living thing that must grow into genuine maturity. That's what makes it valuable.

So, Randy Newman, take your diatribe against short people (and the millions you raked in from that song as tall people launched it to a #2 hit), and consider the irrepressible Izzies and the character-carved bonsais that make "small" absolutely delightful in this world!

Dog Magnet

I secretly must admit that I am vicariously enjoying my daughter, Bryn's college experience almost as much as she is! My college years (Viet Nam era) found me riding my bike through police blockades, tear gassed streets and curfew shutdowns. Isla Vista, the town attached to UC Santa Barbara was a military zone after protestors burned down the Bank of America and threw off all restraints in their determination to have a voice in the War. Though not a protester myself, the energy of the era (and the moisture of the ocean) freed my hair to frizz and fuzz to outlandish proportions. Thus the nickname, "Bushwoman." Definitely not a man-magnet! More like Bride of Frankenstein! Bryn, however is quite the magnet and school is a safe, fun place to express her magnetic energy.

I can, however, make a strong claim to magnetism, just not in the human realm. Throw a party and no one will show up, but walk out into the street and every dog in a quarter mile radius will come a'runnin'. Given dogs' strong sense of smell, my aroma must be the calling card. Not exactly something you want to bottle and market though. I have spent some time analyzing this magnetism that attracts dogs, but not humans. Could be my quirkiness...habitual hummer, energetic verging on spastic, willingness to wiggle with delight at the sight of them, drooling when retainer is in...all potential canine turn-ons! Ed tells none of this does much for the male species...so I guess this explains my desert experience in college.

I was filling out a gifts and abilities survey the other day and couldn't find a category for canine allure, so I went to God and asked Him about why He wove this into the fabric of who I am. (I'm guessing you've had this conversation with Him before as well.) Why the strange combination of gifts, abilities and interests that pull me in 10 different directions at the same time? Well, no specific answer appeared in the clouds but I was reminded of a shepherd boy named David who probably hurled a thousand stones with his sling as he herded his mindless sheep across the grasslands of Israel. I doubt that he ever thought God could use sling, his songs, his dancing, his passions and his deadends to bring about amazing things in his world. But God did. So there's hope for me too! I will join with David in saying "I will praise you Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!"(Psalm 139) Dog magnet, that's me...and proud of it!

Coming Up For Air

Well the ordeal is over, verdict in... we are losing the Dog Park as it presently is and getting a shrunken, diminished and fenced version instead. Government at its best! Our voice made no difference in their tank-like determination to plow through their plan from the get-go. What a loss for canines and humans alike. Barring an administrative miracle, my "Happy Dog Off-Leash Adventures" will be history come the turn of the year. But, with effervescent tenacity, we will keep adventuring until they cuff and leash us into submission. I'm told that they have wifi coverage in the county jail, so perhaps our correspondence via blog can continue!

Genuine tears and sarcasm aside, this whole season of "social action" has been an enlightening experience for me. Don't ask me why, with all the blatant injustices in the world, this one swept me into action. "Dogs' rights!" Not exactly at the top of God's eternal issues to address. Yet it possessed me these past 6 months. Just ask my husband Ed. Though supportive, I'm sure he was ready to take me to the pound and put me up for adoption! I couldn't exactly blame him for all the yapping and howling I have done in his ear, on paper to the powers that be and to friends who innocently ask me how things are going. Anything and everything launches a diatribe on the evils of government and their indifference to our needs and issues. I am scheduling a total body waxing to rid myself of all the werewolf fur I have forged in the fray of the struggle.

So where does this leave my blog? Well, luckily I brainstormed a whole page of possible entries before I became obsessed with saving the Dog Park, so hopefully my brain will be able to detox enough to write something fun, enlightening and spiritually edifying. Stick around. I promise life lessons will be worth drooling over in the weeks and months to come. As for now, the main lesson learned from this ordeal is that even if you go into something, knowing there is barely a shot in hell to succeed at it, the real success is that you went anyway. You rode the wave of your convictions with passion and abandon. The outcome wasn't as soul-defining as was the process of giving it your all. My dogs didn't see the stack of letters I wrote, or the hours I spent on the phone, or the ink cartridges I blew through printing copies to hand out to impassion other people to action, but I know they sense my commitment to them. They express their thankfulness as only dogs have the freedom to do! That's the freedom I was fighting for!