Dogs in Hats, Ticks, and Tee-Shirts

Several years ago, when a local bookstore was going out of business, I looked at the shelves to see what I might like to buy during the final sale days. There were three shelves of guide books, and I hoped to buy several "Golden Guides to [Insects, Mammals, Fish, Reptiles, Spiders, etc.]" for budding scientists among family and friends. Alas, I waited too long, and when I finally got back to the store the shelves were empty except for one lone, rather slim book: "A Field Guide to Ticks." After a moment of distress that I had failed Shopping 101, I picked up the book, paid for it at the register, and took it home. While i haven't consulted it too often, I do like to display it prominently on the living room bookshelf. In fact, I have brought several additional copies and given them as Christmas presents to friends with particularly tick-infested gardens and woods.


About fifteen years ago I drew a tee shirt for our Women n Science Program. There was a dog with a hat as the center piece, and with a nod to the multitude of biologists among us, the dog peers into a microscope at some unformed mass on the stage. The shirts went like the proverbial hot cakes, and gradually mine became thin and ragged and positively indecent to wear.

Time passed. On the occasion of a friend's retirement two years ago, I decided to reprint the shirts. The design, dog and hat stayed intact, but the second edition shirt places a tick on the microscope stage. What better research endeavor for a young dog scientist than to study ticks - and maybe provide some insight into how to thwart their efforts to creep out the world.

After the new shirts were printed and publicly presented to the retiring and slightly dazed colleague, I heard this story of what happened to one of our graduates during his time in graduate school out in LA.


One sunny morning, while riding the bus to his lab and planning his experiments for the day, his thoughts were interrupted when another rider started to ream him out because she objected to a woman in science being represented by a dog. And, a dog with a hat! After a few minutes of being the object of this public spectacle, he fled the bus. He mentioned this incident to his faculty mentor back home, who, the story goes, knew about "the problem," and that was why he had decided years previously to give his shirt away to a one of his students.


I love the shirt. Most people do. But now I am over-sensitized about the picture, and I honestly do not know what to do with eighteen new, lovely, women in science tee shirts, complete with dog, hat, microscope, and anatomically correct tick (using, of course, my trusty field guide to provide an up close and personal model of a tick).

Raging Grannies and the Pulaski Day Parade

Last weekend, the October holiday weekend, was colorful not for the leaves in the area, which had not yet turned, but in terms of people dressed in colorful outfits and having a rousing good time.

Coming out of church on Sunday we were greeted by a line-up of the Raging Grannies, a singing troupe that sings songs of peace, equality and justice, has a lot of fun doing it, and spreads good humor and joy in the process.

The next day Dover and I joined some friends downtown for the annual Polish parade in honor of Casimir Pulaski, a Polish nobleman and general who fought and died in the American Revolution, who saved the life of George Washington, and who was granted honorary US citizenship. This is a great parade with traditional costumes, the Hopkins Academy band, greetings in Polish flowing from marchers to spectators and back, and high spirits everywhere. The parade always ends in Pulaski Park, with speeches, the band again, tributes and singing.

The high points for Dover were first, being greeted by friends, and then, when marchers broke ranks to greet him. One marcher spotted him, pointed, and shouted:" Even the dogs are Polish!"

Dover practicing his look, hoping that someday he will 

be part of the royal court and ride in a sleek car like this.

Managing a Tennis Ball Collection

Night time photo: Lust for tennis balls never ends. Photo by Bridget

Maintaining the doggie in tennis balls is a mildly difficult proposition. First - I must collect them (from friends and from the woods outside the college tennis court fencing). Then my job is to whack them in the yard for Dover's entertainment and exercise routine - he races like a thundering herd from one end of the yard to the other in great glee and hot pursuit. Then, of course, I must regather them, invite friends to participate in games of Chase, Catch, Retrieve, and Release. Regathering is a job like that belonging to the poor gent who endlessly rolled the rock up the hill; they must be regathered over and over and over and over. The regatherer's job is never done.

Then they must be picked up before mowing the lawn or they get topped, and at some point, some must be thrown away because they are hopelessly beat up, or just vile beyond imagination. The end job is is to throw the grimey but still viable individuals into the washing mahine with the wash, but after the lovely days of downpour we have just completed, they are so mud-besplattered that I think the only thing to do is put them all in the washing machine. First, however, they have to be hand swished in a bucket to get the grit off them or we will become the plumber's dream. A friend to whom I sent an advance version of this essay was impressed: You wash loads of tennis balls!  Truly, a woman's work is never done.

 Dover is a very rich dog with lots of tennis balls in the bank and a good financial advisor to maintain his assets.

Washed tennis balls.

Three Dogs and the Sea

Dover and I and three friends (one human, two almost human) went to the shore this past weekend. In two days we experienced both wavy and calm seas, and the dogs said: "It is good."

For a glimpse into how to achieve pure exuberance and joy in life, check out "Sea Dogs" on YouTube:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8XE_NlV5Y8

This is only the start!

The problem with the name "Sea Dogs" is that there seems to be a hockey team by that name, so googling Sea Dogs comes up with piles of hockey videos. I haven't ventured down the sidebar in YouTube to see what others are there; I only hope they are all of the family-oriented sort!

Kites

A friend brought kites to the shore this summer - he got them out on a gray day when it almost rained, catching up the kids who flew them and the adults who watched. My granddaughter Mollie fell in love with this one - which she named Sunflower - and she stood on the beach with it for over an hour. Meanwhile, down the beach, another contingent got involved with with one that soared and swooped and required two hands and two leads to control it. Flying Sunflower was meditative - it just floated in the sky, always responding to the breeze, but ever so gently.

A well-earned rest.

Taking it easy in August

Dogs and Squirrels

Dover has several passions in his life. Perhaps the first has to do with tennis balls, although I think food might compete. But if no one wants to play ball with him, he avidly participates in the ancient canine sport of squirrel watching. He lies at the open slider doors at maximum alert, and if a squirrel trespasses his territory, he is off like a shot after the catch of his dreams. The squirrels, of course, are on to him, and they partake of the ancient squirrel sport of dog baiting. The score, at the moment, is squirrels 5,284, Dover 0.

Every time Dover tears out in hot pursuit and the squirrel lopes away in leisurely retreat, I empathize with Dover about lost opportunities and dreams.

A friend sent me a poem she wrote about her dog, now several years deceased, who also partook of this sport. One couplet in particular caught my eye:

To tree each squirrel is never a mistake

when desire is the truest path to take  .  .  .   

                           From "Apprentice," Gail Thomas, © 2008.

Reading this, I pulled up short. Dover thoroughly enjoys the chase - would he enjoy the capture and hunter's triumph as much? If he actually made the snatch, would he stand transfixed, wriggling body dangling from his soft, unharming mouth, eyes begging for information about what comes next? Perhaps I had been interpreting this game all wrong, and it is the sharp eye, the burst of speed, and the satisfaction of seeing his quarry speed away that Dover chalks up as a win. Maybe the score is 5,284 to 0 in Dover's favor, successful pursuits and triumphant returns marking the game as victorious.

I have to admit that I don't really know what goes on in Dover's mind, and the "nature red in tooth and claw" school of thought would go with the bloodiest outcome as being the best and truest description of this hobby. But there is an evolutionary role for play as well, and so I am pleased to think that Dover is into squirrels for the sport. I definitely like that there is more than one way to consider these games, and not just the one that chalks Dover up as a steady loser instead of a skilled and speedy gamesdog. So, just possibly, I really do not know what my fellow travelers value and hold most dear deep down at the core of their hearts and souls. That includes, but is not limited to, my dog Dover.

Dover's other passion.