Dog-gone Guilt

Once in a while I catch the television show called, The Dog Whisperer. It's not a favorite show but sometimes I like to see how he can change bad-boy dogs into good dogs.

Then I feel guilty. I think back to my childhood. My dog Cindy. She was actually brought home by my sister. The neighbors had a litter of puppies which they were drowning because they didn't want them. My sister, eight at the time, could hardly keep herself in check as each little blind puppy was put under the water in the pail and became still. When she couldn't stand anymore, she cried out. "I'll take that one." This was Cindy, the runt of the litter, filled with lice and fleas, afraid of everything that came her way.

At first my mother took Cindy. She placed her in her kitchen apron pocket and carried her around feeding through an eyedropper. We never thought the puppy would like but soon she was eating bread soaked in warm milk. After her eyes opened and she began eating solids, Mom let my sister have her. It didn't last long. The dog was too much for my people-loving sister, so as I loved the dog and spent a lot of time with it, it became mine.

The guilt comes in because we just didn't know back then about dog psychology. Cindy should have been on a farm, running around under a farmers firm hand, instead of being cooped up in our house. I did take her for walks on the beach and in the forest but not enough, this is what I think now. She was constantly barking, which we thought was a personality tic but it seems it just seems the dog is filled with energy.

We laughed at her fears, which could have been dealt with. I fear that she might not have been a happy dog and it pains me because even though she died thirty years ago, I still consider her one of my childhood friends (I didn't have many human ones)

I know it's not good to let a dog think it's top dog, we didn't know we were doing anything wrong. Last, she had a habit of dragging her bottom along the carpet which we thought was gross and that she was wiping her bum. Well! It seems that there's a gland in a dog's bum which in the wild was for scent. In the domestic dog, it's residual, but can get fluids trapped in it. And it bothers the dog which tries to relieve the pain by dragging.

So when I watch dog shows, they make me feel bad at what I didn't know, at the irresponsibility that, I suppose, many people had back then. At least if I ever have a dog in the future I will know how to care for it properly. It's all I can do to make it up to Cindy.

My Childhood Hero

I firmly believe it is important for children to have a hero. I also believe that children will copy whatever they think is the best in that person. Some kids may have a sports hero and work hard at their own sport because of it. Or they may see Daddy as the bravest and strongest man there is. I've seen very small children copy exactly what their fathers are doing.

My own hero was the girl who got burned in the fire. I can't remember her name and I never met her but to me she was legendary even as a small child.

She had been in a fire as a toddler and had burns covering over 90% of her body. Her face was scarred and puckered beyond anything you'd ever seen, there was no nose or any 'human' face there at all. People and adults included would take one look at her and gasp in horror and turn away. She would see this and let loose an honest and hearty laugh.

She had more friends than any other person in the town. It never got in her way, she never didn't go anywhere or do anything, except swim, because of it. People horrified be her appearance soon got over it with the force and wonderfulness of her personality.

I used to think that if it had been me, I would have been angry at people...and bitter at being treated bad. I do admit that although I often compared my problems with hers and decided I had no good reason to be upset, I never did emulate her. She was too much above me, in my own estimation. She was a star, a princess, a true special person.

I don't know where she is today. I don't know whether the skin grafts helped or not. I only know that if someone is rude to me I think of her and her glorious laughter at any hardship and think. "This is nothing. Don't let this get you down, just remember the girl who got burned it the fire."

Mid-Winter

Well, it's about half-way through a Canadian winter. We've had it relatively easy this year although we have had a bit of snow. It took a while to get here - many were asking for snow for Christmas, there wasn't any - but it's here now and is taking it's mid-winter dirty look on.

Every year in Ottawa, at least once, we get freezing rain. Then it's too hard to walk as the outdoors is one big skating rink. This year they had a piece on the news. A man skating on the road to work because of the freezing rain made it impossible to get his car on the road. So many accidents this year, too. So unfortunate.

The light hours of the day are getting later. It's now light until about 5:30 PM. That makes me feel good because I like when it's light. I go out every day and although right now I have a cold, it's usually a time I like. Sometimes I find myself wishing that I had chosen to become a shepherd because then I would be outdoors all the time. Plus I'd be around animals. I'd have a dog.

We live in an apartment so I don't think a dog would do well here. It would take it too long to get outside for bathroom purposes, for instance. I would only want a dog if we had a property it could live on and roam around on.

On other days, I do think a cat might be nice. They're loving and interesting animals. But they do have a habit of scratching up furniture and such. And sitting on the very place you're trying to work on and things like that. So right now, we have an animal-free apartment. It's not something I would have predicted when I was a girl. I always planned to have at least two dogs. I wanted a Scottish Terrier and a West Highland White Terrier. I thought having black and white would be cool. Of course it didn't work out that way.

I like to listen to the birds in the early morning and watch the squirrels go about their business. They're interesting animals to observe. Over a decade ago, I used to watch them in an amateur way. I made little experiments to determine the size of their territories and such but I didn't keep it up after I got arthritis.

So I guess I'm hoping for an early spring. I would love to go out without my boots and coat and walk down along the river. Which meanders somewhat like this post. It's just some thoughts about the time of year and such. I'm looking forward to everything.

For The Love Of Animals

I used to walk down by the Ottawa River on the bicycle path. It's a lovely walk and I've been lucky to see lots of animals down there. Mostly squirrels but I've also seen Great Blue Herons, a pair, and it excites me every time to see creatures in nature.

I'm always surprised and I admit a little angry to find that other people who walk down there don't care for them at all. I was upset one day when a young man on a bicycle almost ran over a rabbit. He saw it but didn't feel he had to swerve to miss it. Why care about little defenseless animals, they think?

Now, I like animals and don't understand the reasoning that because something is harmless, it fair to hurt or torture it. I find it cowardly because it means that if an animal can 'whup your butt' you wouldn't be brave enough to challenge it.

Take bears, for instance. When I was up in Algonquin Park I found so many people who would never do anything to hurt a bear. They would not report when a bear stole their food so the bear wouldn't get shot. They do shoot them up there for that, too. But some nice, tiny, peaceful animal is fair game for attack. They don't care if they're being cowards, that's for sure.

So I wonder if there's an underlying Western thought behind this. As is being polite to your superiors, like your boss, even if he's a prick. Maybe it's so ingrained in Western people to bow down and not insult the stronger people of society that they even feel that way about animals.

Or maybe it's just a sign of the times, where people don't believe in fair competition anymore, but dirty tricks and getting away with things. I would faint if I ever saw a young man of these days look at another man and say, "Yes, I think I could take you on." It doesn't happen anymore. Most men believe that it's stupid to fight someone whose stronger than yourself. It's stupid to lose. So attack, take on, weaker things. Like disabled people or little animals. Or people who have no support, no friends. Losers, if you like. But why, if they're losers, would you want to waste your time besting them? Isn't it too easy? Alas, that's what modern people want.

So when I think of what I like in people, I think of the other young man down on the bicycle path. The one who saw a rabbit and called out "Hi, bunny." I love sweetie-pie people, I think they're the standard we should all attain to. I didn't even laugh when the young man waved a greeting to the rabbit. He was wonderful.

Marilyn Monroe

I don't consider myself a celebrity worshiper, I never read the scandal sheets and often can't put a name to a face, but one celebrity I do like is Marilyn Monroe.

I argue with those who consider that her life was not successful because she was unhappy, I'm not sure she was all that miserable until right at the end. I'll tell you why I think so.

Now Marilyn's mother and grandmother had paranoid schizophrenia, and so did Marilyn. Her mother spent most of her life in an institution and was very unhappy, if there is a tragic person, if was the mother. But Marilyn, despite her condition went on to become one of the most adored women in the world. She went to a lot of places and knew a lot of important people.

If there is a tragedy in all of this, it's that people with schizophrenia are seen as less than human. How much better would hers and other people lives had been if she could have spoken openly about her condition.

"How are you today, Marilyn?"

"I'm just hallucinating tigers right now but I'll be okay." Or something, so that she and other wouldn't have to hide themselves away for fear of being shunted off the the 'nut house'.

More than anything, fear of being institutionalized destroys any kind of happiness that the schizophrenic may have. To be constantly worried of being wrestled to the ground and injected with a substance that makes you drool all over yourself is a total mood killer

How would anyone like to be treated like that?

So, in my opinion, the only tragedy in MM's life was the one that all paranoid schizophrenics suffered along with her, having to hide and be ashamed of their condition and being treated like some sort of terrible lunatic. If only she and others could have talked about what they had, they wouldn't have had to hide and in her case, she might not have over medicated herself.

In view of the fact that most of her kind spent their lives in mental wards, I see her life story as a success, albeit a short one.

And speaking of horror...my e-book, The Mountain City Bronzes is available at Amazon.com and Kobo and Smashwords along with being available for download at the MuseItUp Publishing bookstore.

Times Changing

I can look back now at age fifty-four (almost) and see how different things can be. Now-a-days, when parents want to take their children on a vacation, they ask them what they want. They gather them around the kitchen table and discuss everything the kids want to do and give them what they want.

When I was young, though, my father never told us where we were going until about two weeks before. The idea was that the parents would show the kids something they hadn't seen but might enjoy. To give them an experience they wouldn't otherwise have.

One summer day, Dad said to us kids, "we're going to Prince Rupert." Prince Rupert? What on earth is there to do in  Prince Rupert? The idea, he said, is to travel up the coast and we will be sailing on a ferry out on the ocean. Oh.

We set off in the car when the day arrived. We stopped at a motel. The cupboards were locked but Mom refused to pay the two dollars they wanted to open them. She thought they were ripping her off and instead made us sandwiches. The next day we drove some more and then parked where the ferry was. In those days parking at the ferry terminal was free. We would not take our car to Prince Rupert.

So we boarded. It always seems to take a long time for boats, trains etc to leave when you're a kid. It seemed like forever before we pulled away from the quay. It did not take that long to find out that I was terrified by being on the water. As soon as the ferry got out of sight of land, I panicked and ran to my stateroom. I lay down and felt sick. I didn't come up again until land was sighted again.

I must say here that I loved my stateroom. It was tiny but I thought I might like to live somewhere like it someday. When I grew up I like bigger rooms but then I liked tiny.

Off the coast of Prince Rupert we saw some whales. And a couple of older American tourist ladies, going on to Alaska expressed surprise that there were bald eagles flying over Prince Rupert. "But bald eagles," they insisted, "are American birds." They were nice women but not knowledgeable about animals dispersion.

Prince Rupert made almost no impression on me. I have no memory of the town, the people or any stores at all. I know we went ashore because the ferry was going on to Alaska. So I guess I didn't learn anything from our trip. But I find myself wondering if any of those kids today are missing out by not being surprised by something new their parents picked out for them. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Genealogy

Once in ninth grade, my class was taking gym outside. We were playing grass hockey. I overheard our gym teacher say to the other gym teacher. "I don't know why, but this grade is the worst grade I've ever had." To which the other teacher replied. "I had them last year and they were the worst I ever had, too."

I wondered about this, about why this should be so and I think I've finally got an answer. As smaller children we were directly influenced by the older kids, the teenage hippies, who were telling us not to trust anyone over thirty, ie our parents. Of course our parents were telling us not to trust hippies, they would take you away and feed you drugs, you would think you were a bird and jump out the window and all sorts of other things. So I wonder if we just said to ourselves, since we can't trust anyone, we'll trust ourselves. As we know from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, children doing what they please does not set them free, it turns them loose.

One thing above all that I carried with me for most of my life was a distrust of older people. Now I consider it benign, I was not one of those who were frustrated at old people who took too long in line or couldn't move fast enough on the street, but still I thought of them as people who spent their life dreaming of olden days and forgetting what they were doing.

Then in the nineteen nineties, I began to do something I'd always wanted to do and that is trace my family genealogy. Instantly I found that not only were old people wonderful but irreplaceable. I found a woman near one hundred who had known my great-grandmother. She told me my great-grandmother used to pick up an onion and eat it like an apple. Priceless!

Other old people knew other things. Like one of my McLaughlin great-aunts married a man who was so strong that once, he walked into a restaurant he owned and found a man robbing the till. The man raced away, my relative followed. Deciding he might need a weapon, he reached down and picked a manhole cover up from the street and ran with it above his head, until he caught up with the guy, who surrendered.

Anyway, in some eyes it may make me a bad guy to have had such opinions of our aged folk but I'd be willing to take a little disparagement just to be able to realize that I've found something so much more precious in the minds of the old people.