Body Parts

Bear Trapped Under Bed

Bear woke me about three oclock this morning. Usually, she sleeps at the foot of our bed on a comfortable dog mattress. She is not normally a restless sleeper, but she usually gets up once or twice to walk around our bedroom or sniff the air coming in from the opened porch door. I can interpret her needs by the rhythm of the clicking of her nails on the hardwood floor. This morning, however, she was making different noises. Scrambling sounds, as if she were in distress. I listened in the dark to her sounds, sorting out my wife's breathing and Bear's breathy breathing and intermittent scrambling shuffle. After a few minutes, I decided something was wrong. I got out of bed and looked for her. I didn't turn on the bedroom overhead light, because I didn't want to wake my wife. I could not make out her large labrador figure sprawled on the floor by the porch door or on the small carpet by my wife's side of the bed. But she seemed to be somewhere in the room. Then it occurred to me to look under the bed. I got on my hands and knees and looked, but I couldn't see her. Of course, she is a black lab and would be difficult to discern in the room lighted only by soft, ambient, urban light reflected off the marine cloud layer into the room. So I reached under the bed feeling for her. And touched a paw. She was under the bed. But unlikely so. The bed frame is only eight inches off the floor. Bear would have had to crawled on her belly, legs splayed outside her body, rather than under her, to get under the frame and mattress.  That shuffling sound must have woke me.  How to get her out? I assumed she wanted to get out. I went around to the foot of the bed and moved the dog bed aside. Her head poked out at me from under the frame, her muzzle open, tongue out, happily panting. I reached in and gentled pulled on her front legs. She began to push with her hind legs. She shimmied her long body out, pulling her front legs under her and lifting herself up when her front was clear of the frame. Then her rear creeped out. Once free of the bed, she did a little labrador dance, jigging around in a circle, bobbing up and down, happily panting. If she had intentionally crawled under the bed for some reason, she clearly did not want to be there once arrived. She had been trapped. I wondered if she had been frightened, when she realized she might not be able to crawl out. My heart slowed in empathy for her plight and fear she felt. But now any fear was behind her. She was freed from her trap. She had risen from the bed.

Spring Joy

Then, Bear Got Her Reward

She had an audience. A group of children, at the Nati Fuentes preschool in the park, watched her water ballet from the back side of their playground. They knew her. They shouted, Bear, Bear.

First, Bear Romped, Ran, Splashed, Dug, Sniffed, Dashed (After Mallards), Putting On A Show

On our morning walk, at Suburban Park, we were alone to enjoy the forty-foot wide swiftly moving stream of storm runoff over-flow in the parks grassy swale. So much to sniff, so little time ...

Ah, Rain

At last, in Southern California. Real rain, even if not a drenching downpour. Bear and I walked for over an hour in the shower as it gathered strength, progressing from sprinkles to a gentle rain. I was garbed in my hiking rain gear, dry and warm. Bear didn't even notice the rain. She did notice the puddles, the wet grass, and the mud at the park, however--all of which she explored, stomped in, lay in, and rolled in, with a delighted, drunk Black Labrador look on her face. She found three new golf balls in the grass. When I threw them for her to fetch, she skidded and splashed in their capture, bouncing with refreshed elan. Wet. Cold. Muddy. Smells. Ah, 'tis heaven, indeed, when your breed was bred to retrieve ducks and fish from cold Canadian waters!

As I Walked Out Last Evening

Our neighborhood streets were empty. City lights dimmed and pulled aside, like theater curtains, to reveal the evening. The night air was crystalline and soft with a warm Santa Ana breeze.The black and blue sky at ten rose overhead as a vaulted roof above the columns of trees lining the streets. Adjacent suburban yards shrank back behind their sheltering grass, gardens, fences, and flowers. The houses were to all appearances empty. No one passed before lights in living rooms. And no one came out to walk the streets with my dog and me. No cars passed us by. The quiet evoked meditation.  Bear's nose was to the ground, but my eyes were on the stars. I was filled with gentle wonder. Tomorrow would be our birthdays. My daughter and I share birthdays. She was born on mine when I was twenty-eight years old. A portentous gift. From God? When I was young, I was an atheist and wouldn't have said, from God. But now, I find the word, the religious vocabulary, and religious feelings occur unbidden to me. A grand liturgy is needed to express the grandeur of life and love. Religious liturgy is the only repository of such devotional lyric. So began thirty-nine years ago life's journey of my daughter and me. Walking Bear in this cathedral scene, I was suffused with humble gratitude, that my daughter should have been born, and that I should have lived so long to share her love and life. It is more than luck. Happy Birthday!

The Diverse Protein Diet ... My Dog Gets

I am supposed to be on a four-day rotational diet, while avoiding foods to which I am sensitive, avoiding cow's milk, and severely limiting refined cane sugar. I am urged by my naturopathic doctor to eat only organic foods. The diet is wonderfully healthful; but I would like to expand the variety of meats and grains we consume. Meats are difficult. Our supermarkets carry mostly the commodity meats, chicken and turkey, pork, and beef. Occasionally, lamb. Seasonally, frozen duck. We don't eat pork, as my wife is Jewish. Southern California fish selection is very limited. Only salmon comes reasonably fresh. I once asked a local market, famous for its meats, if it carried goat. The butcher was offended, implied that I was a spy for a competitor market, and directed me to a Mexican market. I discovered that our local health food store carries frozen venison and bison ground meat. So we added them to our menu. But no store at all carries game birds.

Then one day, I discovered a store that does carry an extraordinary variety of unusual meats. I was replenishing Bear's supply of canned dog food at a pet store. I decided to expand the variety of foods our black labrador eats, though she eats enthusiastically and indifferently everything she is fed. I don't think she even tastes any of it. Nonetheless, I began reading can labels. Lo and behold. Merrick Pet Care of Texas cans an astonishing variety of wonderful meats, with can labels distinctly appealing to human pet owners. Here is Merrick's "Harvest Moon": "Duck, Pheasant, Quail, Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans, Minnesota Wild Rice". Duck! Pheasant! Quail! I have never found these game birds in a local supermarket. The clerk at the pet store, an earnest, smiling, and beautiful young woman, explained that Merrick's is human quality dog food. To prove it, she said, the Merrick salesman came to the store and ate dog food out of the cans with a spoon. A great salesman. A great demonstration. Quality level helps explain the price of the food. Over $2 for a 13.2 oz can. Nonetheless. I still haven't found a local market that offers for humans the game foods available for dogs by Merrick. I'm not desperate, however. I haven't started to eat my dog's gourmet canned food. I am thinking, however, of going back to the pet food store and asking the young woman clerk if she has tasted "Harvest Moon".

A Dog's Day

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A Wet Lab Is A Happy Lab

 

Rain makes happy holidays!

A Black Lab Saves A Boy From Drowning

Bear and I are satisfied that his canine heroism is just what we expect from Labs. Read this account.