Heart of Dogness

Yet another sign of Spring: at the beach

On Saturday, my Lovely and Charming Wife and I went to Long Beach (not this one) for a walk. We left the Mutts behind so we wouldn't have to worry about them terrorizing the dogs who walk there (that'd be Gus) or chewing the local fauna (that'd be JoJo). We wandered out to the end to see how Mutthenge had fared over the Winter.

On the way back, we noticed three tiny birds running along the edge of the surf (not much surf at Long Beach; maybe a couple inches). They weren't acting like sanderlings, which are mostly gone by this time of year anyway.

They were Piping Plovers, the earliest I've ever seen. Last year they were here around April 1; the year before, around April 15. Never before in March. At this rate, they'll be year-rounders pretty soon, cluttering up the parking lots at the Mall and demanding that Four Seas stay open through the winter.

Spring is here. WHAT? I said, SPRING IS HERE!

Just about a week ago, I heard the first Spring Peeper of the year. This us unusual. Most years, I'll hear one or two peepers on a warmish day in January. When it gets cold again, they slink back under the mud in embarrassment and pack it in until now. This year, we didn't have any warmish days in January, so the first peeper cranked up last week.

The next day, there were perhaps a few dozen peepers. The third day, pretty much the whole chorus, seven million or so strong. The fourth day, the American Toads added their trills. They're working in shifts, to cover both day and evening hours.

Today, there are flocks of mixed blackbirds: starlings, grackles and redwings, in trees all around my yard.

It's LOUD around here, folks!

The turkey wasn't Ethel's

Finally, we can put this story to rest. The turkey that was assaulting the mail truck in Centerville has been captured and interrogated, and has no idea who Ethel Kennedy is. It's also too old to be hers, and when caught, was wearing brown feathers rather than black.

With any luck, we can now forget this story.

Turkey Update

This is, like, the seventeenth day running that the Cape Cod Times has been following this story. Good thing there's nothing else happening in the world.

More on Turkey here.

Ethel's Turkey — or maybe not

I may be the last person in the country to have heard of this. A turkey has been attacking a mail truck in Centerville (my home village), and Ethel Kennedy says it's hers.

A local turkey expert says the turkey is too old to be Ethel's. Truth to tell, the bird in the video does look a lot like the wild turkeys that strut through my yard every year. Turkey gangs have evidently taken over Martha's Vineyard, leading to turkey-police shooutouts.

It's a vicious world out there, folks.

JoJo's cold-weather paradox

JoJo, a product of Texarkana, is not designed for cold weather. Small, short-coated and slightly built, she starts to shiver if the temperature goes below 30, which it does on Cape Cod for a good part of the Winter. This Winter, like last, has been unusually cold, so taking JoJo outside is a matter of seconds. Drag her out, she looks around, says to herself, "Yup. Still cold," and bolts back indoors.

Paradoxically, JoJo loves snow. Right after a snowfall (never during: too much like precipitation) she goes totally gaga, running, stopping, shoving her face into the snow, leaping out of it, running, stopping, running — taking twenty laps of the yard in four seconds in a process known to my family as Doggie Psychosis. When finally lured back inside, she clambers back up to her hidey-hole at the top of the stairs where she can make certain nobody sneaks up behind her.

 

This Just In: Dog learns 1,022 proper nouns

This story from the New York Times tells the tale of Chaser, a Border Collie from Spartanburg, SC, with a vocabulary of 1,022 proper nouns. This tops the old record of over 200, held by Rico, another Border Collie in Germany.

It's worth noting that all dogs aren't this smart. JoJo, for example, needs to be re-taught "sit" almost daily. And some of the remarks about horses are tendentious; I studied mathematics with Dr. Cleverhans and found him to be a very astute teacher.

The Mutts would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year

But the neighbor's fireworks scared them off.

Dogs ineffective at communicating needs

T​he Mutts have exceptionally poor communications skills.

This morning, as I was making my roast beef sandwich for lunch, Gus and JoJo both came over to me. One sat on each side, and both stared up at me. Clearly, they wanted something. But WHAT?

I asked. They both just sat there, stock still. I asked again. No response. I offered them each a bite of roast beef. They accepted this with alacrity, but neither would tell me what it was they came for.

So I tried again. Again they snapped up the roast beef. Again they clammed up on the question.

We went through the same routine a third time. Same result.

I'm nobody's fool, and I know when a trick isn't working. So I finished making my sandwich, put it in my lunch bag, and strolled off. Whatever those dogs wanted, I'll never know. I only hope they're as disappointed as I am.

Hyannis Port Mystery 3: A Miracle Occurs

A striking development in the Shrine of the Immaculate Confection, in Hyannis Port. The head has now been somewhat awkwardly reunited with the body, and the whole thing has tilted alarmingly. This lends credence to my niece's theory that the head was propping the statue up:

 
At this rate, I'm expecting the fairy to close its book and walk away at any time. I also think the bottle looked better than the actual head.

Hyannis Port Mystery 2: The Mystery Deepens

For those of you who remember the Hyannis Port Mystery, I showed the pix to my family on Thanksgiving. My niece pointed out that the original head was right there in the tree with the statue, which I had overlooked:

 
Meanwhile, somebody has stolen the replacement head. Don't know why. It was empty:

 

There was a guy on the corner with a bunch of recycling bins on a trailer (they evidently only recycle once a year in Hyannis Port, but they make a pretty big deal out of it). Maybe he took the spare head.

Where'd all the Turkeys go?

Wild turkeys have become such a feature of life on the Cape that it's worthy of comment when we don't see them. We've had a flock living in the neighborhood for the last year and a half, terrorizing the Mutts. The Wee Lad was over on the Vineyard last week and a flock pushed him down and stole his lunch money.

So it kind of surprised me today to realize I haven't seen the neighborhood turkeys in my yard since Spring. Wonder where they've gone.

Hyannis Port Mystery

So there I was, driving through Hyannis Port, doing my job, minding my own business, when out out the corner of my eye I saw:

 
I actually drove past this at first, but backed up to get a better look:

 
That's a little Smirnoff nip for a head. Clearly somebody had waaaaay too much fun this weekend.

This is not precisely what I had in mind.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, vulgarity is the key to a dog's brain. So when it's time to get The Mutts out to take care of business, I generally yell, "Hey, dogs, let's go piss on stuff!"

Sometimes one dog hangs back to loaf, so I take the first out alone. A day or so ago, Gus was the loafer, so I took JoJo out by herself. She ran around the yard a bit, as usual, sniffed everything seven times, as usual, and then, not at all as usual, she came over and sat on my foot.

As I looked down to watch her staring up at me in rapt adoration, I came to realize that this wasn't her normal sitting position. And when she stood up and trotted off, It came to me that I'd never explained that "stuff" was not meant to include my shoe.

 

From Somebody Else's Blog: Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving

My friend Wit just shared this with me. It may be the most wonderful thing I've read all year. It's a fall-down funny examination of the inner workings of two very confused dogs. I can scarcely express how much it hurts that I didn't think this up. I'll try to do better in the future.

In fairness, I should mention that The Wee Lad showed me this last night, but Wit shared it, so she's getting the credit. Sorry, Wee Lad, that's life.

The Weather Finally Changes

After a solid week of rain, it finally cleared up this weekend. We can stop harvesting mushrooms off the windowsills. Left the mutts a bit confused, though:

 

The Weather

It's been raining for most of the past week, and it's supposed to keep raining for at least a couple more days. It's been so soggy the raindrops are starting to mildew. Interesting wildlife phenomena result:

 

Interesting meteorological phenomena, as well:

 
The mutts are not taking it well:

 

Extinct Penguin Wore Earth Tones, Fossil Shows - NYTimes.com

At least a large penguin that lived 36 million years ago looked nothing like Fred Astaire stepping out in high society. Nor anything like the house tom all dressed up in black and white with no place to go. Scientists announced Thursday that the fossils of the first extinct penguin to be found with preserved evidence of feathers showed that it had yet to adopt the tuxedo look of living penguins. Its feathers were predominantly reddish brown and shades of gray.

via www.nytimes.com

It was a more relaxed, informal time. Alligators wore sweatpants. Caribou wore antlers only on special occasions...

JoJo goes shopping

When we first got JoJo, we started noticing that paper of any sort was no longer safe withing dog range. Since Gus had never shown any proclivity for chewing our belongings, we naturally assumed that the newcomer was responsible. After months of trying to discourage this activity, we bit the bullet and got JoJo a crate. At last, our stuff was safe.

For about a year our stuff was, in fact, safe. Then we started coming home and finding our books, magazines and newspapers shredded again. Just like the old days. But JoJo was in the crate. And unless JoJo was letting herself out of the crate and getting back before we got home, the culprit had to be Gus. Maybe he'd been setting her up the whole time. Or maybe Gus was acting in solidarity, protesting to get JoJo freed.

Since keeping her in jail wasn't preventing crime, and the crate took up a lot of room, we set JoJo free. We've pretty much gone back to shredding our own paper.

But not our own underwear. Lately, JoJo has conceived a need to try on my Lovely and Charming Wife's panties, which of course can't be done without chewing a hole for her tail:

Sometime the tail-hole gets a little overchewed. We're not going to re-incarcerate her. Just got to remember to keep the bedroom door shut when nobody's around.

Mutthenge

From Time Immemorial, the Summer tribes that migrate through this area have built submegalithic ceremonial structures out at the end of Long Beach. Cairns, stone circles, columns, whatever it takes to appease the voracious gods of these vagabonds, these they have built.

The Winter gods don't much care for the submegaliths. Or maybe they're miffed that the ceremonies and offerings stop with the changing season. For whatever reason, the waves and tides of Autumn and beyond disarrange the monuments, and they must be rebuilt each summer.

I seldom see the construction. When I walk the beach, it's usually with the Mutts, and the Mutts are forbidden from May 15 to September 15. We took our first stroll on September 15, but it was dark and we didn't see anything. Thursday the 16th the tide was way up and the surf was rough, so we didn't go all the way to the end.

Saturday afternoon was lovely and peaceful, and all the other dogs were near the beginning of the beach, so Gus and JoJo and I were all untethered and frolicking down to the far end, where the channel runs into East Bay.

This Summer the nomads outdid themselves and built an actual henge. Since Gus and JoJo were the first of our civilization to see it, we decided to name it Mutthenge:

Mutthenge

The four trilithons are situated roughly on the Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and Southeast sides of the henge. The big altar in the middle is about two and a half feet high. I neither know nor care what this is in centimeters. The trilithons appear to be oriented so the largest is opposite the large cairn known locally as the Pile o' Rocks:

Another view of Mutthenge, showing the Pile o' Rocks

If you squat down low enough to look through the Northwest, or biggish, trilithon, pretty much all you can see is the altar, and beyond that, the Pile o' Rocks. What significance this may have for the Summer people is anybody's guess. Maybe they were just sick of looking at the water. Further excavations may reveal what, if any ceremonies or sacrifices were performed here. So far, none of the usual biirkanz or ziggaratbutz associated with these sites have been found.

Incidentally, when I say Time Immemorial, I mean Time Immemorial. While Mutthenge is the newest submagalithic structure found on the site, there's a stone circle about 200 feet away that's been being rebuilt since long before any member of our civilization was around to record it. There used to be evidence of some sort of fire ceremony that was carried on here, but that's been gone for ages now.

The Ancient Stone Circle

If anybody knows the purpose of these structures, please don't hesitate to write. Meanwhile, I'll track the annual dissipation of the submegaliths, and if I learn anything interesting, I'll report.