Category Archives: horses, dogs & more

Mar16

trouble shooting

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Yesterday on my drive to see Nelson the Mustang, I found myself checking for trouble.  Scanning my mental horizons to see what trouble was lurking.  I noticed that it felt  like checking to make sure it was all still there, my little piles of trouble. “Isn’t that interesting,” I thought.  My trouble piles are the things that I have a habit of worrying about.  Money, health, safety, money, my daughters, the world, money.

Nelson is a stallion, and he poops in big “stud piles” around his field.  They are his way of delineating territory, and he goes around and sniffs them from time to time to see if they need refreshing.  I realized that my trouble piles are like that:  I go and sniff them from time to time to see if they need refreshing.  “Have I been worrying about this thing lately?  Does it need a fresh worry?”

What I see is that I am habitually pointing myself at what I don’t want instead of looking around for the things that I can appreciate, the things that are nourishing and playful.  I know this old habit, but thought I had pretty much cleaned it out.  As it turns out it has just gotten a little more elusive, a little harder to detect.

The key was that as I was driving, I was feeling a little edgy, a little anxious, instead of welcoming the astonishing sunny beauty of the day and the gorgeous upstate New York scenery I was traveling through.  Once I felt the feeling, then I started looking for things to enjoy.  Simple things, easy things.  Distracting myself from the trouble piles.  Like looking for the shafts of sunlight, instead of the dark shadows.

If all you did was just look for things to appreciate you would live a joyous, spectacular life. If there was nothing else that you ever came to understand other than just look for things to appreciate, it’s the only tool you would ever need to predominantly hook you up with who you really are. That’s all you’d need.   — Abraham

And just a reminder:

Breaking into Blossom:  the eBook is available for purchase.  Thanks to all of you who have purchased!

And I still have a couple one-to-one jump-start  creative living  FREE coaching sessions available.  To make an appointment for a free call, either email me or fill out my form.   

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Mar14

cho

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This is Cho, our Spanish Galgo.  The Galgo is a sight hound from the Andalucian region of Spain, used by the gypsies for hunting.   What I just learned from Wikipedia is that the name comes from the Gauls, a tribe of Celts who inhabited the Iberian peninsula  from 400-600 BC.  I am told that they have some Saluki in their background as well.

They look like greyhounds, but really that is just a ruse.  They are  a different kind of dog entirely.  We have had eight greyhounds over the years, and two Galgos.  The Galgo is built for distance running, which we found out when we first brought our  ten-year old Galga, Gordita, to Lucy Vincent Beach on Martha’s Vineyard.  We thought the cliffs would keep her on the beach, and watched in alarm as she scaled the cliffs as if they were flat.

Actually, it was Maria Wulf who inspired this post with her blog about watching her dog Frieda run free, and how she became this wild being.  (Read it, it’s a wonderful piece.)  As I read it I thought, “Ah, yes, I know that.”

Cho is a fence climber.  I took this picture because this is how Cho looks just before he goes over the fence.  He scrambles over it and is off.  Once over, he is truly gone.  Cho is now  17-years old, but to see him run is a miracle.  He is a blond ribbon of speed flying across our meadows, across the street, and up into the farm across the way.  He does not hear us, he does not see us.  He is hunting.  Unfortunately, he is sometimes hunting Mamacita, with whom he is obsessed, and at other times a skunk that lives under the barn. Mamacita has marked up his nose several times, which he does not find discouraging. And the skunk – well never mind.

One night last spring, Cho went over and out.  He tore across the road and into the farm.  We called and called.  We could hear him, feel that he was very close, but it was as if he had become the ghost dog, the mad dog.  Finally, after about an hour, he came in and threw up a clump of grass the size of a large raccoon.

We got Cho when he was 9-years old.  He had been returned to Greyhound Friends by someone who had adopted him and then not been able to manage him.  He is indeed a piece of work.  We think that this is because he spent the first 8 years of his life as a street dog, or a gypsy dog, which is pretty much the same thing.

This morning at 6 am he went over and stood in the middle of the field barking loudly at something very specific and very invisible, even to my binoculars.  Then he came in and jumped on the bed for a snooze. So there you have it:  the wild and the tame in no particular order.

 

Mar12

the jack

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Photo:  Pam White

This is Liam, the Jack Russell.  I have a complicated relationship with him.  This morning when I was letting the dogs out, Liam, who sleeps with us, charged the front door where our feral cat, Mamacita, was patiently waiting to be fed.  I heard his teeth hit the glass.  Hackles up, growling. This is the part I don’t like.  I don’t like the constant barking, the grabbing at our gentle greyhound Jules’s mouth when they go out.

We have tried the Cesar Milan “sshhht” sound, clicker training, the water squirter.  Nothing works.  He will sit but the moment our attention leaves, he is back into his jack mania.

For years Pam wanted a Jack Russell.  Our vet at the time said she would not treat him if we got one.  One day we were traveling on the ferry back to Martha’s Vineyard with our three greyhounds.  Up on deck we met a man whose Jack Russell had just died after seventeen years.  “You must be devastated,” we commiserated.  “Oh, it’s ok, he said, “it was actually a relief.”  He told us how every day for seventeen years, the dog had barked and jumped and attacked everything in sight.  I was sure this would put the Jack Russell issue to bed at last.

Then one day we went to a barn to visit my horse Goliath who now belonged to a friend.  In one of the stalls were four tiny Jack Russell puppies, just brought back from Ireland by the stable manager.  Our daughters raced in and five minutes later, Chandrika, the youngest, came out cradling a puppy.  “This is my baby sister who died,” she said.  Adopted from Nepal, she in fact did have a baby sister who had died.  At that moment, my heart sank and Pam, I am sure, did a mental fist pump.  Of course we bought the puppy, and named him Liam.

As I said, my feelings are complicated.  There is also  tame, sweet Liam who dives under the covers to snuggle behind my knees at night. There is creative muse Liam who sits on the floor at my feet when I write.  There is the Liam who has an interesting, obsessive relationship with our cat Tallulah.

It is not really that complicated.  I don’t love (some of) what he does.  Do I love him?  You betcha.

Mar10

the donkey’s tale

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Photo:  Pam White

Last summer Pam and I went to Bedlam Farm to interview Jon Katz for my book, Horse Dancing.  I had been reading his blog posts about Simon, the donkey that he and his wife Maria rescued.  The story he was telling in his blog was about a man who loves and knows dogs stepping, no falling, into the equine world.  I wanted that story to be a part of my book.  His book Rose in a Storm, which I read in a storm, is my favorite animal story of all time.

We have been trying to connect since summer and managed a meeting today in Rhinebeck.  It is interesting to move from a virtual relationship to a physical one.  For me it has been mostly the other way around.  But Jon and Maria have been taking friendly shape for me through their writings – Jon in his Bedlam Farm Journal and Maria in her Wulf Howling blog.  Today Jon, Maria, Pam and I stood outside at the farm where we board our horses.  I had just ridden Capprichio, and he stood with us as if he was hearing and understanding everything.  Interestingly, he was not obsessed with getting his nose in the grass, but kept gazing around the little circle, taking in his human herd.

We talked today about connection and finding and creating community through the internet.  About privacy and what we reveal, and how we control the message.  About what one’s story is and how that is shared.  About sharing an artist’s life in this intimate, anonymous way.

I do not always have a clear sense of my audience, and if it is growing or how much I should care about that.  Mostly, I try to find the thread for the day, the thing that I want to push into and explore.  Today felt like friendship steeping, taking on a richer color and fragrance.  Another beginning.