Dog-o-paws

I'm sitting here on the porch with my bassador watching and listening to the rain. Twenty minutes have passed, and Grace has shown no interest in going for our morning walk.

Grace was born and raised for three years in a place where, if you didn't go out in the rain, you didn't go out for days at a time. Four and a half years later, she sits on the porch rather than walk.

I suppose she is showing her age. If the old seven to one ratio is applied, she would be fifty three now. We left Meadville when she was twenty one. I guess I was more hesitant to walk in the rain at 53 than I was at twenty one also.

But now she is ready to go. Signing off!

The Loop

Walking has always enabled my best thinking. The longer the walk, the deeper the thoughts. This morning we walked the loop. It's not the longest walk we've done, but it's in the top five. We've walked it maybe six times during the year we've lived in Jacksonville.

Standard walks go either north or south on San Jose boulevard, with twists and turns into businesses, neighborhoods, apartment complexes and/or down connecting roads. Then we come back home along pretty much the same general route. 

The loop goes south on San Jose, cuts west and north through businesses and neighborhoods to Beauclerc Road, then east to San Jose where we turn southward once more toward home - unless we go the counter-clockwise direction. 

Yesterday was my second session with my mental health professional. One of the coping strategies she recommended was to walk the dawg. (Gee, I wish I'd thought of that!) And as if she knew the plan, Grace led me all the way around the loop. 6756 steps, 2 hours and 25 minutes. I told her everything that was rattling around in my headbone. Grace is a very good listener.

The Quacker Factory

A few months ago we expanded our wanderings to the world on the other side of San Jose Boulevard. First we went under the road where it crosses Goodby's Creek. Soon, however, we discovered that even at the busiest times of the morning rush, there are occasional huge gaps in the traffic in both directions at the same time.

One of the most intriguing places we tour over there is the Beauclerc Bay apartment complex. It fronts on the creek, so I imagine it was a prestigious address (for an apartment complex) at one time, probably many decades ago. Now it is dilapidated, and the parts that are still structurally sound enough are home to low income people of all stripes. There are a few dogs there, and many cats of questionable domesticity. But the primary residents are ducks. All along the creek one will always find a plethora of ducks, but the rest of the complex is lousy with them as well. We never know where we might surprise a mama duck off of her nest of eggs. Ducklings ranging from newly hatched to nearly full grown follow their mamas across parking lots, through courtyards or into the water to escape the threat of our zealous bassador. I even watched a duck nonchalantly climb an outside staircase once - a jaw-dropping experience I'll never forget.

Unfortunately, here in the depth of Florida summer, full tours of the complex are out of the question. We wander in there once or twice a week, but in order to get home before the day gets too hot, we have to turn around way too soon and wander out again. We may not see any humans or dogs, but ducks we shall always have with us

A New Game

So here we are in a whole new location, with a wide open world to explore. At first Grace just led me around Solano Grove, our condo community, but I knew it wouldn't contain her for long. We just couldn't squeeze a two-hour walk out of this little place. First we tried going north on San Jose Boulevard, across Goodby's Creek, past the Hooters with its eight - count 'em - eight boat docking slips. We wandered into a couple of neighborhoods along San Jose, but nothing really clicked. We tried going south on San Jose, and that was much better. There were ponds and ditches and paths through wooded areas, as well as populated businesses where people could fawn over her.

A couple of days ago, we tried going north again, but very soon we turned left onto Beauclerc Road. This she liked because there were bushes and ditches and neighborhoods to explore on a long not-very-busy road that stretches for miles. I like it  because it has a sidewalk all the way along one side. Of course, she tries to drag me over to the sidewalk-free side, but I prevail (mostly.)

This morning we did the Beauclerc Road thing. She pooped in somebody's yard and I picked it up as usual. There were trash cans out in front of the houses all along the road, but they were empty so I didn't put my bag in them. I carried that bag for a long while, waiting for that golden opportunity to get rid of it. Then, up ahead I heard and then saw a garbage truck working its way along a side street, headed for Beauclerc Road. I quickened our pace, hoping to make it to the last undumped can  in time. I didn't. But I saw that the truck was mechanically picking up the cans and dumping them into a large opening just a few feet higher than my head. As the truck went by, I flung my bag into the opening. "Two points!" the driver called out, and gave me a thumbs up.

On we went down the road. Just a few minutes later, Grace pooped again. Wouldn't you know it, the same truck was coming out of the next neighborhood as we got there. I shot, I scored. "You should be playing basketball," said the driver. Yeah, right.

Early Christmas

Poop bags come in a huge variety of  sizes, shapes, weights of plastic and colors. The bigger and heavier weight ones are less apt to be parties to unpleasant direct physical encounters with poop. Bright colors, while not appealing practically speaking, are nonetheless appealing to me aesthetically. I tend to buy packages with a variety of bright colors, and I take pains to rotate the colors as I use them Why? Well, let's just say that spending two hours following a dog around and picking up poop is largely uninteresting, and anything I can do to spice it up, I do. 

This morning, I was carrying a bright yellow bag, looking for a place to deposit it. After about ten minutes, we were finally approaching a dumpster. It was the kind with the sliding door on the side, AND the door was open. As soon as we were close enough, I flung it in. Coming closer, I could see inside. My bright yellow ball of poop was hanging in the branches of a discarded artificial Christmas tree. Now there's an idea I bet nobody has thought of yet for Christmas decor! 

An Unintended Act Of Kindness

Wow, it has been a long time since I've written anything for any of my four blogs. Possessing a mindset similar to Mister Ed's, however, I rarely write unless I have something to say.

Every now and then, my girl invents a new addition to our standard menu of walking activities. Her most recent started around two weeks ago. On our way to the railroad tracks west of home, fully anticipating crossing those tracks and touring the River Plantation condominium community, we halted abruptly in the grassy stretch between Bellevue Road and the tracks. Her nose was in the grass, her tail was wagging furiously, and she began pulling me around and around this way and that. I watched intently, and finally saw the object of her search. A small, mouse-sized grey something skittered away from her and disappeared into another clump of grass. Her face was up to her ears in grass, so she didn't see it. We kept on, around and around, this way and that. Several more tiny grey somethings appeared and disappeared. This went on for about twenty minutes before I had had enough. I dragged her away, and we went home.

The following week we were back there on several afternoons. The search expanded to other sections of grass, always along the tracks. Little grey things skittered, she still hasn't caught one. One evening this past week while we were dancing in the grass, a little grey thing broke cover and ran across a bare patch of ground. In a flash there was a red tailed hawk diving down from the nearby trees. It hit the ground for a brief moment, then flew back up to its perch with a little grey something in its beak. Before we were done, it dove down twice more, but I couldn't see anything in its grasp.

So Grace hasn't been able to catch those little devils, but she provided a nice little snack for another hunter. And she doesn't even know that she did.

Decisions Decisions

This post has been rattling around in my head for years now. It started with sticks. Years ago, Grace was way more interested in sticks than she is now. But not just any old stick, oh no! I entertained myself by attempting to predict which would be a good stick. Some she would barely glance at. Some she would sniff and even pick up. Some she would carry for a few steps, then drop. A few were good enough to trot merrily with for a while or plop down and gnaw for a spell. On a couple of occasions, she carried a spectacular stick all the way home. I still am unable to differentiate a completely uninteresting one from a spectacular one.

Then there were gloves. One morning, she happened upon an abandoned pair of leather work gloves. She sniffed them, then picked up the left one and carried it all the way home. The right one stayed where she'd found them for more than a week. She barely glanced at it.

Balls. Tennis balls are often ignored, sometimes picked up, sometimes carried ten meters or so, but always dropped and forgotten. Big bouncy balls can be ignored, picked up and shaken, or meticulously ripped to shreds. Baseballs -  ignored, carried, gnawed or buried.

So now we come to the main event. What constitutes an acceptable burial site? There are criteria that are fathomable to me. Soft ground is definitely preferred. Beside a tree, bush or building is very important. Beyond that, I'm mystified. I can pretty much always tell when she has something she aims to bury. She takes on a whole new attitude. She no longer is sniffing and scanning for the next adventure. She is purposefully seeking a burial site. She'll walk for many minutes, looking right, left and ahead. She'll  stop at a tree and paw the earth, then move on. Sometimes she sniffs and paws seven or eight perfectly good (to my obviously inferior senses) possibilities before she starts digging in earnest. Then she drops her prize in the hole, pokes it in with her nose, and very meticulously covers it with the earth she dug up and then some. After that, we're immediately back to business as usual. And out of maybe two hundred items she has buried, she has gone back to retrieve three. What was it about those three items that made them worth digging up? No idea.

I know that I'll never figure out any of these conundrums. She's keeping the mystery alive.