caleb walker

rollei

Ten years ago our good friend Nancy took in an enormous black dog who she named Rollei. This was shortly after KR and I adopted Caleb, so we were pretty excited for her. My first impression was of a drooling mixture of black lab and, I think, moose. He was the tallest lab I had ever seen. He had a funny corkscrew tail (maybe there was some hog in his genetics too) and when he shook his head his jowls created the perfect launchpad for drool.

Nancy loved him from the first day. Rollei loved her back, and he went everywhere with her. When she bought a new house a year ago she chose one with few steps so he could get around with his arthritic hindquarters.

He was a terrific companion, and was always happy to see us. I stayed with him a few times when Nancy went out of town without him. He lay at my feet as I sat in the living room or on the back deck with my iBook in my lap. Even yesterday when KR and I went to say goodbye to him, he mustered enough strength to circle us and smile before folding his back legs under and lying down on his bed. We sat near, talking to him and petting him.

Goodbye, Rollei. You were a good dog, and a good campanion to our good friend. I hope Caleb is there, running with you.

birds (a scene in which poop is discussed in an entirely too-long sentence)

This morning I was only a few steps from the door to the concrete behemoth that the university trustees named Wean Hall back in the early eighties, after some wealthy donor, where I have my office. In fact, I was close enough to reach for the glass and metal door when I heard geese. I stepped back to look and there they were, a couple dozen geese flying north in an elongated checkmark formation. They reminded me of something I saw the other night.

Georgia and I were walking down our street at about 11 pm. We had walked up and around the hairpin turn, and we were on our way back home the same way, with a plastic grocery bag full of poop. (It wasn't really full - Georgia's just a little dog, and she doesn't produce much as she squats with her tail straightened out behind her, waddling in circles trying to check out what she's dropped while she's still dropping. No, she doesn't produce much, but she does distribute in as wide an area as possible. Anyway, when you've got any quantity of poop in a bag it's a full bag.) We both heard a noise. Kind of a high-pitched nasal hoot. We heard another, and another. Like an owl, I thought. I looked up to the peak of the nearest house and heard it again. The trees were bare of leaves and birds. Then I saw geese, each a faint white blur against the night sky, lit from the lights below. I was surprised since they didn't immediately sound like geese. I gasped, I think. There were about thirty flapping ghosts in a huge symmetric V, flying west toward the crescent moon. I heard their continuous honking even after they faded from view. They had not gone far - I figured that they had passed into an area where there was less ambient light. We both, Georgia and I, watched and listened, until we got tired of straining to see or hear anything. I said, "Okay, Georgie, let's go," and we went home.

clever

Last night Abi laid in Georgia's spot at the end of the couch. Georgia hovered around, eying him. Perturbed. She went to the front door and barked. Not her normal front-door bark, but it was enough to get Abi interested. He got up and went to the door. Georgia laid down in her spot.

laika

It's been two years and we still mourn Caleb's death. His ashes still sit at one end of our living room mantle in a small cardboard box, along with a framed photo and a couple sycamore sticks. In his honor, here is the story of another good dog.

Laika (Лайка) was a stray dog on the Moscow streets before she became the first living being to enter orbit around Earth. She was launched into space in a small capsule for the purpose of testing the effects of acceleration and weightlessness on a body.

Laika died on November 4, 1957, a few hours after launch, from stress and overheating. Her true cause of death was not made public until years after the flight, with officials always stating that she was either euthanized by poisoned food or died when the oxygen supply ran out. Russian officials have since expressed regret for allowing Laika to die; to this date, Laika is the only living passenger ever to have been launched into space without the intention of retrieval. [Wikipedia]

I know that Laika, in her tiny padded compartment, just wanted her people with her.

selections from my photo album

I've started taking some photos with my fabulous new Kodak EasyShare camera!

You know how, when you scratch a particular spot on a dog, his leg starts kicking? Here's Abi making his own leg kick by scratching himself under the chin. (Note: this is the first photo we've taken in the past year without Georgia in it.)

Here's Georgia looking all sweet and photogenic, like a Caravagio painting. (KR and I had this conversation last night: "What did you call Georgia?" "Bi-atch." "Bee-what?" "Bi-atch. Bee period, atch period.")

And here's one of KR's sunburnt knee. She went out on a Harley ride wearing her tough-ass jeans with a rip in the knee. It looks funny, ha ha! I say, ha ha, I do.

death in the morning on a stainless steel counter

This morning I noticed a small grey moth fluttering at the back edge of our kitchen counter. Right up against a window sill. As I scooped him up I noticed that I was bringing up bits of spider web. The moth had been caught in a tiny web made by a tiny spider, who was scurrying away as I destroyed his home. I took the moth outside and held out my hand. He was fluttering frantically, but not getting any air. Finally his wings jerked straight out and he stopped moving.

Killing a bug is easy. Squish. But watching one die slowly was upsetting. (It now occurs to me that maybe he wasn't dead, but only paralyzed. I don't know how tiny spider venom works. I also don't know if it will wear off.) On top of that, I felt guilty for stealing the spider's meal. Unable to think of the right thing to do next, I dropped the moth to the ground and walked away.

daily oliver

Sometimes I wish I were a dog.

squirrels!

This fall squirrels are so numerous that you can't drive down Wilkins without flattening a couple. And nearly half of them are black--little squirrel-shaped minks.

georgia's turn

A while back I wrote about Abi. It's Georgia's turn today.

I got home from work tonight and let the dogs out for a pee. When they came back in I went through the dinner routine, gathering their bowls and opening the closet where their food is. They approached and sat, like they're supposed to. I filled the bowls and told the dogs to stay. I walked across the kitchen and set Georgia's food next to the water bowl on the canvas floorcloth at the back door.

As I was setting Abi's on the floor by the stove, Georgia started toward her bowl. I yelled, "Hey!" and she skidded to a stop, inches from her bowl. Her momentum pushed the floorcloth into the wall, dumping the whole bowl of water into the corner. I said "Wow," and Abi remained sitting by the closet door.

I told Georgia to sit, and she looked at her food, inches away from her nose, and at me. I repeated the command, and she repeated the look at her food and at me. I felt a twinge of "what the hell," but before I could say anything she intuited it and dug into her food. Abi remained sitting, unsure what to do. I gave him the come-and-get-it command, "ok," and he strolled over to his food.

"simple" is the word we use

I haven't written nearly enough about the dogs lately, so today Abi just up and handed me a story about himself. Here it is.

I came home from work today and took down the baby gates blocking Abi in the kitchen, and opened the crate to let Georgia out. They took off on their routine routes: Abi stomped around chewing his frisbee with determination; Georgia took off like a shot around the house. I went to the back door, and they came running to go out. I let Abi out on his own--frisbee still in his mouth--and hooked Georgia to her cable.

Now, maybe it was my fault. I broke their routine by filling their bowls with kibble while they were outside. So when I let them in, maybe they didn't know what to do. Georgia got it pretty quickly; she immediately buried her face in her bowl. Abi, though, kept pacing circles around the kitchen, still clutching his frisbee.

I called him to his food. He came. He tried to put his snout in the bowl, but couldn't, with the frisbee in his jaws. So off he went, on another lap of the kitchen. I called him again. He came and stuck his frisbee in the bowl, then, God bless him, he dropped it. It landed square on top of his bowl, like a lid. He picked it up again and headed out for another walkabout.

I stood slackjawed in awe. A window into Abi's brain had been opened for me to glimpse its secrets. It took me a couple seconds to understand, with a touch of pity, what was going on in his big hard head. I finally grabbed the frisbee and coaxed him to let it go (he understands "drop it"). Once unencumbered with that obstacle, he happily dug into his dinner.

The End.

an anniversary of sorts

I had a dog named Caleb who died one year ago on September 3. I've begun to think of him as a symbol of happier times. He was a wonderful dog, smart enough to love us dearly, but dumb (we prefer to say "simple") enough to be fun.

During Caleb's lifetime we all lived in a great little house within walking distance of a corner store, a movie theater, a bar/restaurant, a pizza joint, a bakery, a park, and bus stops. I read on the bus, finishing a book every month or so. KR and I traveled the world. I went to grad school. I had a good solid job at the university, then another as an honest-to-goodness Interaction Designer on the web team of a successful ad agency. KR worked at the art gallery around the block, then she bought the oriental rug shop. Life was good, and we had hope that it would only get better.

During and since Caleb's demise (over the past 2 years) I've been unemployed, underemployed, unpaid, and underpaid. We've adopted two dogs, each nice enough, but even combined, not as good as Caleb. KR's business is suffering. I'm often broke. We've stopped traveling to far away places. I've stopped reading regularly. We've given up hope for better times, and fallen into "survival mode."

Caleb, we miss ye.

abi

Look! It's Abi, our new old dog! Notice how Georgia has to be in the photo too.

a lone tumbleweed rolls across the blog

I haven't been away. I haven't been too busy to blog. I haven't lost my fingers to leprosy.

So here's a brief update, to clear the cobwebs from the corners of the place.

• Big Dog (Abi/Moby/Ted/Bigguy) is settling into his new home. Georgia's jealousy is diminishing, and Big's learning to bite her back. He had her throat in his jaws the other night. That's progress. They're just playing, and we'll stop them if they draw blood or get too noisy. KR and I both walk the two every morning and night, since Abi hasn't yet learned leash-manners, and Georgia is just beginning to. We've been thinking of alternatives to this: we could each walk them individually, KR doing two walks in the morning, and me doing the same in the evening; we could each walk one dog once a day (BD gets a morning walk, GA gets an evening). Neither of these resembles the good idea we've been looking for.
• My writing class started last week. I'm liking it a lot. We're learning the principles of fiction: setting, character, plot, and such. We practice them by writing stories from our own lives. There's a young woman in the class who I met at a party recently, and a guy who looks familiar to me (and vice versa), but we can't figure out why. I'll probably post some bits here.

digby, day two

We picked up the big guy from his temporary home yesterday after work. He's big. The vet records we were given indicated 115 lbs. My back aches just from the thought of carrying him when he's old and lame. Georgia welcomed him to the house by biting his ears and elbows, trying to get him to play. He did chase her around the house a bit (115 pounds of dog sounds like a freight train inside your house), but not usually for long. He loves his frisbee, carrying it around like a dolly. When I was home at lunchtime he was trying clumsily to hold the frisbee between his paws so he could get a good chew on it. I unwrapped a fresh Nylabone and handed that to him. He took it happily, and started to gnaw. Georgia, clearly miffed that I had given him one of "her" bones, got real close to his face and glared. Dog didn't even notice her.

He still needs a name. Mo? Garvey? Jet? Elmo? Allen Stewart Konigsberg? Leave ideas in the comments box.

digby

A few days ago one of KR's customers told her about a friend who had found a dog in their back yard. They already had two dogs, so they had to find a home for the renegade, who they had named Digby. KR and I were interested, so the customer, the friend, and Digby visited KR at the shop on Thursday. KR reported that Digby was a large 6-year old black lab - probably 80 pounds or more. So she made arrangements for all three of us - KR, Georgia, and me - to meet him today. Which we did.

Digby is a very cool, calm dog. We all met in the back yard of his house, where he made good eye contact with each of us, socialized with Georgia, chased around a little, and settled down on the ground in the middle of our conversation. And Georgia was good with him. She flirted and antagonized him a bit. He played with her when he wanted, and ignored her when he didn't. It was amazing how he ignored her.

So we agreed that we would pick him up on Wednesday evening, after Tuesday's obedience class (KR will be taking Georgia there alone while I go to my first writing class), and after we pick up a few supplies. We hope that he'll teach her some manners. (He'll probably teach the humans a little about patience.) We expect that we'll keep her in her crate during the days, and block him into the kitchen (where her crate is) until we know he'll be good with the run of the house. This will be a big adjustment, but one that should be for the better. We hope.

We're looking for a new name for him. (Check out this site.) Possibilities so far: Augustus/Gus, Po Campo (both from Lonesome Dove), Abi ("big brother" in Turkish, a respectful way of addressing an older man), and others that we thought were good, but forgot.

an omen-dream

Last night I dreamed that Clyde was running. The big Sheepdog was barreling around our yard at top speed with his fur flying in the breeze. At one point he lost control and tumbled down a steep, wooded embankment, barely staying on his feet. At the bottom he looked up at us and smiled, panting.

Then I woke up. A few minutes later our neighbor phoned and asked us to come over and help get Clyde out of bed and into the yard. He had just come home from a week's recovery from stomach surgery yesterday, and was little more than an 80-pound sack of bones. We had loaned our neighbors our station wagon to pick him up at the vet's, and once he was home the four of us pulled him from the car, but he could go no farther. He seemed to have no control over his feet and legs. His paws curled under as we tried to hoist him up. He was finally carried inside.

We all four fought tears as we watched him lie there on his bed. His eyes were bright--he was clearly happy to be in his own home, among his people, but he could barely move. KR and I had flashbacks to Caleb's weakness during his last days.

So this morning KR and I ran next door to help get Clyde outside. He hadn't urinated since coming home, and was now whining. We got him to his feet and he shuffled outside, nearly on his own. I held a strap that supported him under his belly, but I wasn't lifting much. He took a massive dump, squatted to pee, moved aside a bit, and flopped down in the mud. We were ecstatic. It was such an improvement from last night, when he couldn't move at all. We got him on his feet again and back into the house to his bed. So maybe there's hope for improvement. Maybe I had my first omen-dream last night.

Yes, Georgia and Clyde had stomach surgery a few days apart. Georgia has her stitches removed tonight.

it's a long story

It's been a day. Georgia's been vomiting near continuously since Thursday evening. So I took her to the vet this morning, where I talked with the lovely Dr. Christiansen (our regular vet, the lovely Dr. Yager, was unavailable). They took x-rays while I waited. In the crowded waiting room I met Max, a blind Australian Shepherd who looked a lot like a puppy, with his soft coat and big feet, but who was eleven years old, with cataracts. I saw a beagle puppy, tiny, with full-grown ears. I saw a big yellow lab with several bandages and a plastered and wrapped back leg, yelping and crying as two techs and his owner tried to get him out the door and to the car. He would walk three-legged, occasionally bumping his pegleg, which would have hime yelping and lying down. My heart broke for him. I didn't see, but heard a parrot saying hello and bye bye from inside his box. There was a butt-ugly pug wearing a lampshade on his head, bumping into everything within bump-into distance.

I was called in to look at the x-rays, and deja vu kicked in. There was an opaque mass in Georgia's stomach. The vet suspected it was an obstruction: most likely gobs of blanket from her crate, where she spends several hours each day. The next step was to give her barium. If it passed, there's no obstruction. If not, then it would provide a better x-ray image. So I went home to let them do the 1.5 hour procedure.

When I got home, there was a phone message waiting for me. They couldn't do the barium procedure since she vomited it up immediately. Immediate surgery was the next step. After a consultation with KR, I talked to the vet again to okay the surgery. KR called soon afterward, asking me to come help her at the rug shop. So I spent the day there and met a very interesting man who bought two small rugs - one as a graduation gift for his daughter. "She's 5-foot-4, but buxom," he told me. What's the appropriate response to that statement?

We came home and again there was a vet message on the machine. The surgery was over, and Georgia was fine, but they found no blockage. Just a terribly inflamed stomach. Next step: a biopsy of her stomach tissue to see if it's C. That'll happen Monday, the day we can bring her home. We miss her (this is a defining event in our relationship with the little terror-dog), and we miss Caleb as we remember his final vet visits.

monday update: Everyone we've talked to at the animal hospital has said that Georgia has been really good. I think they must say that to everyone. I wonder how many technicians she's bitten.

In this morning's phone call we learned that, again, Georgia is doing very well. She hasn't vomited the water she had yesterday, and the hope is that she'll keep down the bland food they'll give her today. They will hang on to the tissue sample they took during the surgery until we see how the medication works. If her stomach doesn't heal, then they'll have the sample tested. We still don't know what caused her stomach to become so inflamed and sore. Maybe she ate something bad and threw it up.

We'll pick her up this evening after work. Poor little dog probably thinks she'll never see us again.

tuesday update: Georgia is home, happy and wiggly, with a long crudely-stitched incision on her belly, and following a bizarre food and drug regimen. A little food four times a day, a red pill and a Pepcid three times a day, and half a white pill twice a day, but not within two hours of the other pill. It's like an eighth-grade story problem. Last night we took turns lying on the floor in front of the tv with her. Her vomiting seems to have passed, though the surgery was ultimately unnecessary.

so anyway...

You know how you lose your job and stop paying for stuff like photo processing, then your dog gets a fungal infection in his lungs and dies, and rolls of film pile up in your fridge for a year until you start getting regular paychecks again, then you send them all in at once, so you get a big box of photos back all on the same day, after your new dog has been such a little terror for three and a half months, and the first photos you look at are of your old dog? Yeah, that's kinda rough.

meet georgia

hunting dogs

Almost three months since losing Caleb, KR and I started looking for a new dog a couple weeks ago. First, we visited Animal Friends, where we found Caleb nine years ago. There we saw a pair of smallish shy dogs, a tall slender collie mix named Pippin, and a dalmation mix named Virgil. But we didn't get any help while we were there, or on a phone call a couple days later.

Second, our neighbor got a tip on a young black lab mix (his mother has papers, but the father is unknown) who was being given up because there was a newborn baby (and a mother who doesn't like dogs) in the house. The owner brought him to our house where he jumped, and licked, and barked, and acted like a year-and-a-half old dog. We called the next day and declined; we weren't interested in taking on the work this dog needed.

Third, today we went to the Humane Society. It's in a new facility in Pittsburgh's North Side that's only a couple months old, but it doesn't take long for a place to stink when it's full of shitting and pissing dogs. We bonded with a few dogs - young and old - but there was one that we especially liked. She was a mid-sized (maybe 40 lbs) brown and white six-month old dog. A shy beauty. She seemed to want to approach us, but was afraid. We crouched against the bars, letting her approach at her own pace, and offered our fingers so she could sniff and retreat as many times as was necessary. We finally all went to a quiet room with a handler so we could get to know each other. The dog (she had no name) slowly warmed up to us, eventually running, licking, barking, wagging, and smiling. Her data sheet claimed she was Lab and Sharpei, but none of us in the room saw any of that. We saw mainly Terrier. She was deemed "soft," meaning that she seemed trainable, yet not already trained.

Finally, KR and I walked away, promising to call tomorrow with The Big Decision. We went directly to Dunnings, where we go to eat and drink while making Big Decisions. Nancy met us there to help. The Big Decision: we'll be taking her. First order of business: Name. We came up with Libby and Mabel (nearly a Caleb anagram) in the car, and Nancy offered Georgia (we said she was curious about things, therefore Curious Georgia). When we say it, it comes out "Georgia Blue." Send further suggestions to ken at this domain.

Update: Thursday after the roads were cleared of snow (we miss our Honda) we went to the Humane Society to sign the papers and write the check. She's being spayed and having an ID chip implanted in her shoulder, and we'll pick her up tomorrow (Friday). I'll spend all day tomorrow buying accessories: crate, toys, food, collar, and all.

caleb comes home

Thursday night Deanna from Backyard Burials brought Caleb home. He's in a wood-grain-printed cardboard box. There's a little plastic rose held to its top by a rubber band. She also presented us with a lock of his hair in a zip-loc baggie, and a stack of papers. Included in this stack are two copies of a certificate we can fill out if we choose to. The jaggy type and smeary print suggest that they've been printed on a textured paper with an old ink-jet printer. There is also a list of support groups, copies of a lot of people's stories about losing their pets, and order forms for memorials. These include grave stones and plaques. All pretty cheezy stuff, but strangely comforting. Deanna stayed with us for half an hour, talking about her dogs, and about the grieving process. She suggested moving the furniture, rearranging our schedules, coming in the back door. But I like seeing Caleb from the corner of my eye. I like expecting him to be at the door wagging and jumping. I don't want to forget him, and I'm afraid I'm beginning to. It's beginning to take some effort to call him up in my mind's eye.

another dog

KR and I are starting to talk about thinking about looking forward to sometime getting another dog. We're considering adopting a retired guide dog (seeing eye dog). After a short google search, I come across two national organizations that do this (The Seeing Eye and The Puppy Place). Anyone who has other resources for us (especially in the Pittsburgh area), please send me a quick note: kenmohnkern (at) yahoo.com.

re: coping

Yesterday KR and I, with the support of two friends, took Caleb*, our dog, to the vet to be put to sleep. He went peacefully, just rolling over onto his side after the overdose of anesthesia was administered. Everyone at the vet's office was very good to us. We snuck in the back door, directly into a room, where they gave us as much time as we wanted with him. We told him a hundred times how he was a good boy, and stayed afterward for a few minutes to stroke his head and ears. All along I had the uneasy feeling that making this decision was not something that humans are equipped to do with confidence.

These last 3 months have been bad for him. He was diagnosed with cancer in his lungs in June, and was put on a series of medications. From that point on, he got progressively worse. He saw four different vets (some agreed with the cancer diagnosis, others didn't, but in the end they really didn't know if it was cancer or a fungal infection, which is just as bad). He had violent coughing fits, and stopped eating, quickly withering to skin and bones. We'd been force-feeding him baby food, and carrying him up and down stairs.

We're having someone pick up his body at the vet's and perform the cremation, then bring him to our house, where we'll bury him with his tennis ball and two biscuits. No offense to those of you with pets, but Caleb was, without exaggeration, the best dog in the world.

* Caleb is the namesake of this site. Get it? If Caleb's the dog, then I'm the Caleb Walker, right?

coping

It's a coping day. A day for holding tight to your emotions, A day for not thinking about stuff too much. That is, it's a day for daytime television. And maybe a movie tonight. (More later.)

dog name of the day

Precious Baby Doll. I hesitate to categorize the critter attached to this name as a dog. KR and I were talking with a former photography teacher of mine (she had her little white dog with her) on Walnut Street and an old guy approached with a tiny white fluffy hyperactive thing on a leash. He started talking to my teacher, as his thing-on-a-leash got tangled up with her little dog. We disengaged from the scene shortly after, and my former teacher started talking with this old guy, asking the name of his dog, and so forth. Very gracious, I thought. Precious Baby Doll, he said. I shuddered.

new neighbor update

The nest-building continues. The Coopers Hawk seems to spend the mornings working on the nest, then she's gone the rest of the day. We assume it's a female, though one book said that it's the male that builds the nest. We've only seen one, though. When I left the house yesterday morning she scrutinized me from a branch in the sycamore I passed under. She then gave me a sharp warning ("KAK") and flew to the neighbors' maple until I was gone. There are actually two squirrels in the sycamore hole. They appear to be nesting too. At one point the hawk was sitting on a sycamore branch when a squirrel approached. He seemed confused. He really wanted to get to the hole, but the bird was in the way. He almost tried to scramble past, but thought better of it. We watched, expecting carnage. But the Coopers Hawk preys primarily on smaller birds, and she seemed to be more interested in nesting than feeding. I might be calling the local Audubon chapter.

new neighbor

When we got home last evening, around 5:00, there was a hawk in our front yard. It picked up a stick in its beak and as it took off, it quickly took it in its feet. It flew right over the car, across the road to the bird sanctuary. "The Bird & Wildlife Sanctuary: Forest Hills Woodside Site" is really not much more than two empty lots grown up with trees and shrubs. The nest is in the top of a tree over there, but it's so far down the hill that it's almost eye-level from our living room windows. So we've been watching all morning. The nest is visible now from the house, but once the leaves fill in a little more we might lose sight of it.

I need to do a little more research, but I think it's a Cooper's Hawk (there's a good picture here). Reddish brown underneath, dark grey above. She has a reddish face with a dark grey cap. Beautiful. Sadly, her presence here will pobably scare off all the other birds and critters. A squirrel has been hiding in a hole in the sycamore in our front yard, and the blue jays have been screaming their heads off all morning.