MONSOON IN PARIS?

Hey! Brenda gets to go to France, so why not me?

It's not that I don't like wine and cheese, like some guy I heard about on the radio.........

My people just won't let me enjoy their treats!

Safe Journey Brenda! 

Got Bat.........I don't need your fancy ball...........

Monsoon. Jackie Robinson Day. 2012.

Okay, so we go to the beach as usual and toss the stick. On the way back, here's a really nice softball washed up at the edge of gentle waves. I've tried this before and once in a great while it works. Not today........

I grab a stick. A good sized one I don't think Monsoon will like. I toss the ball up a bit, smack it in hopes of enticing a chase, but Monsoon lunges, instead, for the stick in my hands..........

Back home, I break out my old wooden bat from who knows when. We go out into the backyard and again, I toss the newly found softball up a bit and hit it gently, urging Monsoon to chase the ball.......NO WAY.

She comes after the bat! Designated hitter perhaps?

We'll see if she learns to pull a ball up the third base line............   

HAPPY SPRING

Madie and Sam

Here's Madie and Sam!!

Two friendly pups over from Grifith's Point to play on East Beach.

Nice thing about Marrowstone, there is a lot of beach to roam.

Like Monsoon and Lodi, Sam and Madie play stick and chase a lot.........AND,

they are friendly pups.

Minutes after I took this photo, I didn't photograph another island dog

that attacked Monsoon, leaving a bit of a scar on her neck!

So, be careful out there..........you can never tell when a seemingly friendly dog

turns on you or your pet. This encounter started just fine, but the Golden Retriever

lunged for Monsoon as soon as let free from its leash. Monsoon, timid as ever,

turned away rather than face the fight and before I knew what was happening,

the retriever was on her like a lion on a zebra. I pulled the attack dog off, and got out

of there as quick as I could. Next day, I saw the people of the attacker again and they

didn't even ask how Monsoon was doing........Go figure.........hmmmmm. 

WATER SAFETY TIP FROM JOBE

Jobe is looking great in his Dog Flotation Device.

Comfortable. Secure fit but loose fitting to allow him to

run up and down the dock and get around the island.

Jobe wanted everyone to know the flotation device

is a wise choice for dogs on boats, especially fellow Jack Russells and other small breeds.

A dog was lost last year down on Marrowstone Point and others have

nearly drowned. So, be watching your dog around swift, strong currents

that kick up on every tide change at the Point. It's like a river down there

and a dog swimming into the current can be carried half way to Whidbey Island

before you know what's happening. 

Another water concern is when dogs chase otters. Otters have become

more abundant on Marrowstone in recent years and are well known

as great teasers............tempting dogs into the water, swimming out a bit more,

then leading even the strongest dog into trouble. 

I now leash Monsoon when we get to Marrowstone Point and other

otter crossings. Leashes, Dog Flotation Devices, and paying attention

all make sense when your dog is around Big Water. 

Jobe's Pet Saver Lifejacket is from Outward Hound -

high quality dog gear.

Jobe can be seen most days down at Mystery Bay,

leashed and life jacketed when appropriate.   

Top Puppy For YOU

Not one to miss ANYTHING,

Ms. Lodi ran over on seeing St Petey's post yesterday..........

To Dog? Think she's special?

She is our Grandpuppy!

Happy St Patrick's Day to all dogs top, bottom, and in between!

HAPPY ST PETEY DAY 2012

St Petey, aka Monsoon

Wanting you to know how she rid this little island of crows, cats, and squirrels....

But wait............there she goes now, chasing another.............hmmmmmmm!

What a good dog! Returning with a Northwest choice, Widmer O'Ryely!

Happy St Patti's Day to one and all!

Lodi Model

Did I mention my Grandpuppy is a model for Lodi and Lewi???

Here she is with a small sampling of the most dazzling collars and leashes available today!

Check out my Favorite Daughter's collars, leashes, and more by clicking on Lodi and Lewi

over on the right side of the blog.............

Be sure to take a look at the dog water bowls too. Monsoon loves hers

and your pup will too. Dogs need water, even in cold weather, so

always travel prepared. To be sure, you must also travel with

at least a change of collars for each day away..........or maybe a morning and

evening collar AND (my common mistake) don't be caught

with mismatching collars and leashes!!! 

Thanks, My Daughter's Favorite Father

Dolly and Shelby

Dolly and Shelby Russell

Marrowstone Point. 23 February 2012.

Two of my all time favorite dogs, Dolly and Shelby are beach treats.

Or, should I say, Dolly loves nothing better than to beat Monsoon to

beach treats...........shriveled shore crabs, a special menu item tossed with fresh eelgrass. 

These are Karen and Chuck's dogs........Karen and Chuck Russell, true

community people. They are the ones who keep people in good steaks, fish and chips,

and refreshements at their Valley Tavern in Hadlock.

Karen is our historian, having written the Marrowstone Island History, now

out of print, but available down at the Nordland Store. Chuck flew helicopters in war time and

to haul logs from tough terrain. They both keep our local hospital functioning..........

I asked her tonight when she was going to bring out the revised edition of her book...........

we'll await her reply, along with Karen's stories about Dolly, Shelby, and life on the island

with her family and many, many friends.

I count myself lucky to be one of her walking partners. We meet up at the beach

often enough. Tonight, the tide was out far enough to allow a little bit of agate

hunting and Karen found her first of the year! A treasure to be sure. 

While Monsoon chased stick, Shelby walked along with us as Dolly lagged far behind,

content to sniff out her crunchy meals. In the distance, we could hear the sea lions barking 

on Craven Rock. Karen taught me yet another lesson in local history, saying

this entire peninsula and islands were once known as Craven Peninsula after some

guy who came out here with Vancouver. Or was it Wilkes. Will let you know..........    

Roscoe Leaps

Roscoe leaps to snatch just about anything on the counter

down at the Nordland Store.........and this, when Tom is around!

Go figure.

Roscoe is a blurrrr..........he leaps so high and so danged fast!

To date, Roscoe has snatched five credit cards, twenty beef jerky strips,

ten dog treats, and a bag of popcorn. Good dog Roscoe!

Red cape courtesy Blazing Saddles Dog Supplies.

Roscoe courtesy Kellie.......Thanks Kellie!!!

Credit or Debit Roscoe?

Okay. I'm waiting patiently in line and Roscoe sneaks in front of me.

Tom asks him, Credit or debit and the danged dog

wants to do his trick.............

Guess that is when you know you live on the right island.

Dogs have priority here in Nordland.

Thanks Tom......

But where's my treat?

Lodi Love

My Hearts Go Out to One and All!

Happy Valentines

Lodi

2012

Happy Valentines

Happy Valentines 2012

Love, Monsoon

Marrowstone Artists and Their Dogs. No. 1: Dan's Dogs

Like most islands, Marrowstone is filled with Artists. Dan is one of them. He and his Auggie just came back from the beach for a trip to see the Mastodon Tusk sticking out from the bluff. We hiked down the trail, hopped onto the beach, and walked beneath the high banks to where a small stream washes stone from eroding clays and where the tusk protrudes.

Auggie and Monsoon were unimpressed, being more interested in checking out otter trails and simply enjoying a warm day after a lot of stormy days............On the way home, Auggie had trouble crawling up the bank. Afterall, he is 14. Here is a photo of Auggie from today AND, here is a photo of a portion of one of Dan's many paintings..........I will ask him to add more story to both photos and will be posting more photos of island pups and paintings of these beautiful dogs.





as I say...........Dan will add story to this, especially to let you know about his artwork, including paintings of his dogs that came before Auggie. We should all be so lucky to come back as one of his dogs!!! Thanks for sharing. I'll also post information on his art, now showing in downtown Pt Townsend.

LABRADORS IN THE SNOW

Do Labs love Snow?

Monsoon loves nothing better than to follow the coyote tracks, sniff for meadow mice, and run around in circles after snowballs...........

All our Labs have loved snow, even Olive. When I first met Olive, her name was actually Brenda......Long story, but her first owners had a lot of respect for Brenda and called to ask me if it was okay.......I didn't know what to say........Eventually we got to change her name, this after I got close to the little Black Lab, going up to where she lived on the Jumping Horse Ranch. I needed to check on her and the other animals. Tom, ranch manager and Olive's owner at the time, was in the hospital in Bozeman and so, I had this duty, driving around the lake and up the ranch road through snow drifts to break some ice in water bowls and give the dog a run.

Like I say, it is a long story I'll fill in, but sadly, Tom died and we inherited Olive. It was the same winter it was 40 below one day when I went up to the ranch, shortly before we took Olive home for keeps. Her water dish had one of those heater elements in it, but froze up solid nevertheless........Olive seemed not to mind

the cold and would spring out of her doghouse and run up a side hill, me trailing behind. She was a fireball and not one to avoid ice or snow, sleet or hail. I guess if you can sleep in a doghouse and suvive that kind of cold, you probably gain some toughness. Her feet were a lot like the skin of a well worn hardball. Her toenails never grew, she ran so much and so very hard. She was always on or off. 

Daisy liked the snow too, but she was more of a hunter like Monsoon, preferring to sniff for stuff. But then, Daisy and Monsoon were/are stick dogs. Olive was a tennis ball dog and quite simply, a running fool. She could run half way up the Bear Trap Canyon along the Madison River, miss every prickly pear cactus spine, then join me for a moment or two before racing off again, checking on any fisherman who happened to be lucky enough to make her acquaintance. She figured, like most Labs, everyone comes to see them.........Got a ball? Toss it for me!

So, today, we went out and around the island during a western Washington winter storm. Schools are closed, even the local QFC closed along with the bank in town. Here on Marrowstone, the roads are packed snow and ice and most people are walking.

This photo is down at Mystery Bay Park. She was chasing snowballs tossed by Brenda and chewed up quick enough.........Toss me another snowball..........Couldn't find a stick. Right now, as I type, she is spread out, sound asleep at my feet. Only an hour from running in the snow, when I shut this machine down, she will hop up and demand another romp in the snow.........It's a toasty 32 outside, far from that 40 below mark, one I will never experience again.......But I can remember it, mainly because I can see Olive in my mind, running up that hill above the river. It hurts to breathe at 40 below and the snow is far too dry for snowballs. That's probably why she turned to the tennis variety.

BEST DOG TOYS: Sticks versus Balls at the Beach

Try to convince Max there is another toy, better than his tennis ball!!!

I met Max and his person at the beach today. She was armed with one of the most valuable inventions of all time........The Chuckit Ball Launcher, widely available and so very cool. Max was at East Beach on Marrowstone today, but he lives in Port Ludlow and his owner tells me he once swam all the way across Ludlow Bay, another way of saying he is a strong swimmer. Max is also a well behaved dog, or one like our former Labrador, Olive.........so focused on the ball that nothing else in the world matters. 

I remember the days before Chuckit.......I wore out the toes of running shoes, kicking the tennis ball for Olive after tiring of throwing it for her. When we finally got our first Chuckit, a gift from somebody at the beach who felt sorry for me, or enjoyed Olive a great deal, I don't remember which. Anyway, Olive would run after the ball like Max, endlessly in pursuit, bringing it back, dropping the ball and bouncing up and down until I tossed it again. 

One beauty of the Chuckit --- you can pick up the ball with the scoop end, never having to touch the slimered tennis ball, gripped firmly in the launch pad. The handles of a Chuckit come in different lengths and even in small sizes for dogs not so big as Max. He is a good sized Labrador and can pounce through major waves to swim after the ball.

When Olive was still in the waters of the living, I could toss the ball out about 75 yards. She would splash through surf, swim as strong as any dog, and fetch the ball, turning around while ignoring birds, otters, boats, fishermen, and all else so she could bring it back for more. Once, she lost sight of the ball at a place where the current is strong. She swam past the target, got caught up in the outgoing tide, swam about half a mile north, ducked under a bridge, leaped ashore, climbed a 100 foot high bluff, trounced through the woods, and arrived at my feet about 15 minutes later. On arriving at my feet, she wondered where the danged ball was.......Lucky for her, I carried a spare and we simply went on with the game, avoiding the brightly lit pieces of water.........

Today, Max ignored our Monsoon just as she ignored his "silly" game with the ball.......Monsoon is a totally committed STICK DOG!!!

Once in a great while she will play tennis ball with her buddy, Aurora. Aurora's people, Charlie and Sally, toss the ball with a Chuckit and I can coax Monsoon into joining the play if no sticks are in the vicinity. She will compete for the ball, but if a stick comes into view, forget it......

Sticks have a lot to say for themselves and I've had two stick dogs. Daisy was the first. Also a Yellow Lab, Daisy was not exactly an athlete.........She was a character and became so much of a loving pup that nothing surprised us, even when she began bringing me sticks I do believe she wanted me to admire for their other purposes.........In fact, she brought me sticks I eventually planted along the Madison River in Montana. She truly seemed to want me to have these pieces of wood, most of which came originally, from beavers. They cut the sticks, Daisy fetched them, and I put them to use. 

We lived along the Madison during Daisy's middle years. She joined me on fishing trips and loved to fetch elk and deer antlers in thickets along the river, or the beautifull gnawed beaver sticks so common in the Rockies. She liked them, but usually cared little about the continuous toss and fetch routine enjoyed by the tennis ball crowd.

She brought me dazzling red osier dogwood stems from heaps of beaver chewings and long willow wisps, some still partly covered with fresh spring bark. Used to planting willow stakes for riparian habitat projects, I looked at her gatherings as a way to improve the Madison's streambanks. And so, we started poking the sticks from Daisy's collecting into the soft mud and wet soils near the spots we fished. Had Monsoon been along in those days, she would have ripped them from the ground as quickly as I put them in place.....Daisy simply went off in search of more stems and before we moved, I guess I planted more than a thousand willows and many dogwood trees......Some, I bundled into the shape of Shoshone Lodges, placing forty or fifty willow stems together to form sculptural features. Look for them along the river.........Last time I checked, there were some still in place. Not all the willows sprouted, but enough have grown tall in the past 15 to 20 years so that Daisy is remembered by the river.

Monsoon is a different kind of creature........Well, let's just say she is far more athletic than Daisy. She is as focused on her sticks as Max on the tennis balls.........Not just any stick will do, but this is more from my choosing than her picking them from the hundreds that wash up on the beaches along the shores where we walk in the evening.

A stick has to be strong enough to keep from being chomped into pieces Monsoon might swallow and  light enough to toss. They can't be too long and not so thick; Monsoon has to be able to grasp and (maybe) return the offering........She also has to be able to fetch it if tossed out into the waves. Most importantly, she has to be able to see it in heavy seas because she isn't as strong as Olive and far more easily distracted. Once, she took after an otter and they tumbled together in the water for a while. Monsoon wasn't harmed and the otter appeared okay too......But, otters are well known for teasing and drowning dogs in our area, so I always keep an eye out for them. 

I'll post a photo of this sometime.........but some of you will know what I am talking about. It works for some tennis ball dogs and every stick dog I've ever known.........Toss the stick a few times and chances are good, dogs begin to dig near the "prey" as if trying to bury a bone or whatever they imagine the stick to be. Wierd behavior. Monsoon is a champ at this and she will spend as much time digging alongside and atop the stick as she does going after it in the first place. 

If this was a video of Monsoon digging, digging, digging, digging, digging........I'd put it on the Tube and we'd get a million hits. Especially, if she was joined by Lodi, who also enjoys the stick games. When the two of them join forces to dig alongside a mutually attractive stick, a hole soon appears in the sands and the dogs begin to disappear. Up to their elbows, they toss out sand fifteen or twenty feet behind them. Monsoon will dig with both front feet tossing sand in one, harmonious motion, checking behind her once in a while to see if the stick was launched in the process. So, watch where you tread. Circle wide when a pup pounces on a stick and puts paws to the beach sands.  

Red Dog in the Snow by Doug Rose

Doug Rose is a writer and flyfishing guide as well as an old friend. When I share his work with others, I generally introduce him as a mix of Brautigan and Hemingway, but I also think of his direct way of writing as if it came from pages of those first Field and Stream articles I read as a teenager. I couldn't wait for the next issue just as I look forward to anything Doug puts down on paper.............Here is his first, and I hope not last, contribution to our Best Dog story lineup: Red Dog in the Snow, written in the past couple of days out in Forks, Washington where Doug can put you on to cutthroat, steelhead, and perch in the surf.........Read more of his work and book a fishing trip at his Doug Rose Olympic Peninsula Flyfishing website and by all means, pick up a copy of his Flyfishing Guide to the Olympic Peninsula..........

A RED DOG IN THE SNOW.   

By Doug Rose


I am absolutely certain that the best decision I ever made in my life was to move to the Pacific Northwest. I love the ocean here, and the mountains and Roosevelt elk and rain forest and the glacial rivers. Most of all, I love the beaches, with their clams and crabs and eelgrass and oysters and cutthroat trout. But, after nearly thirty years on the Olympic Peninsula, there are still things I miss about Michigan, where I grew up. The two that I daydream about the most are pheasants and snow. And my most vivid memories of Michigan contain both pheasants and snow, as well as an Irish setter named Cindy.
We had a succession of mutts before we got Cindy. This was back in the early 1960s, right after the movie Big Red. It was about a lanky, elegant Irish setter. My father hunted pheasants in the fields and corn and swamp behind our house before the movie. But pheasants are cunning and prefer to run rather than fly if you don't have a dog. Hunting was tough. I think the movie was the stimulus that my dad needed to actually get a bird dog. He liked the way the Irish setter looked in the movie. Not long after that, he brought a fat red puppy home. 
Our Cindy wasn't as tall or lanky or glamorous as the dog in the movie. But she was beautiful--an autumnal red, with the long "feathers" on her legs and tail, and a little blush of white on her chest. Her eyes were brown and her head had a little dome. Contrary to the conventional wisdom about Irish setters, she wasn't particularly high strung or headstrong. I think a lot of the degradation of setters was a result of the movie, when people wanted the larger classier looking dogs. Cindy was a country-bred dog, from hunting stock.
There were a lot of pheasants around our place in those days, and as soon as Cindy was old enough to hunt, our success rate went way up. No one knew anything about shock collars back then, and the training she got was perfunctory. She simply knew, somehow, that pheasants were what we wanted her to pursue, and she went about it diligently. She quartered through the corn stubble, she pushed through the burdocks and cattails, and she nosed through the tussocks and brush. We always knew when she was close to a bird because not only her tail wagged back and forth (that was the first clue that she was on a pheasant), but her entire hind end.
I know that there wasn't always snow on the ground during pheasant season back then, but nearly all of my memories of us hunting have snow in them. Even as a self-absorbed, not-particularly bright, pre-teen, I was aware of how beautiful the sight was of Cindy, in her mahogany coat, moving quickly but purposefully over the snow. I can close my eyes anytime, anywhere and instantly see that image.
My most vivid memories of all are of when the snow was coming down hardest, in the near blizzards, when it was like a veil between us and Cindy. On those days, she was the only bright color against the pewter sky and faded corn stalks and snow. That is until a pheasant, as garish as anything imaginable in southern Michigan in winter, exploded from a tunnel of brush. And then there was the hollow boom of a shotgun. Then the pungent, familiar scent of burnt gunpowder, hanging in cold air.
Good bird dogs are smart. They know how to do a lot of things naturally, right out of the box, and the best, intrepid dogs like Cindy, learn and absord new things each year. By the time she was four or five, she knew birds, and she knew the fields and swamps and thickets near our house.
One time we were hunting the edge of our neighbor's cornfield. It had been harvested a couple of months earlier,and the stalks stuck up out of shin-deep snow. We were working the hedgerow between the corn and a marshy pasture. Cindy got hot and trailed the pheasant down toward a narrow triangle where the pasture and corn ended. There was a bare patch of land beyond the cornfield, and then a wetland, with snow-covered cattails, and a frozen-over pond.
Cindy knew or sensed--whatever word you want to call it--that the pheasant would not want to run across the open ground. She moved quickly, pushing it hard. Suddenly she stopped. Moments later, a large rooster burst from the corn, cackling. My dad knocked it down in one shot.
As I said, I don't have any trouble at all calling up that memory. I can see Cindy, red against the snow, and the corn stubble, and the russets and tans of the cattails, and the frozen pond, and the hill sloping above it to the stand of dark bare winter trees.
Cindy wasn't just our bird dog, of course. She followed my brother, Scott, and me pretty much everywhere we went. Over to the Rearing Ponds to fish for trout or bass or to swim. Back behind the United Brethren campground to the big swamp. She went out with me on dark winter mornings before school when I checked my trapline. She was with me the day I got my first muskrat, and I had to hold it above my shoulders all the way home because she wanted to get hold of it.
Unlike most bird dogs today, Cindy also had something of a life of her own. A few times a year she would disappear for a day or two. This was a long time ago and people in the country let their dogs wander more than they do today. We worried about her but she always came back, often with a pheasant or other creature that she'd managed to catch by herself. Her feathers were usually matted with burrs.
I have talked a lot about the things Cindy did, but not much about her as a creature, with feelings and ideas of her own and funny quirks. Well, she was quiet and sweet and loved all of us, maybe my dad best of all, because she knew he was boss. She wasn't supposed to go in the living room, but just about every time we left her in the house alone, she would sneak into it and lay on the couch. When we came home, and she heard our car in the driveway, she would raise her head up above the couch and look out the living room window. It was sort of a family joke. She liked ice cream.
Like all of the best dogs I have had--the second Cindy, Leo, Darcy, Lily and now Ruby--she was brave and decent and optimistic.
In the sporting literature, we are always told that we learn how to conduct ourselves from our fathers and other older mentors. And that is certainly true. My father was a wonderful role model as an outdoorsman, one that has stood me in good stead for a half-century now.
But having spent all these years around bird dogs, I have also come to realize that a boy or girl who spends a lot of time around a good dog has an additional, different kind of teacher. I have thought about this a lot in recent years. I am absolutely positive that the dogs that I have owned and loved have had as much a role in shaping me as anyone or anything in my life.      
That was certainly true of Cindy, my red dog in the snow.

 

Project Lodi

For sure, Lodi is a project..........A goofball, always willing to wear the many costumes Brenda makes for her and Monsoon. Here, she models the flowery retro swim hat after chasing Monsoon into Admiralty Inlet. Just a year ago, she would not swim. Urged on by many many tosses of the stick, she eventually got the basics down and now, she will (sort of) swim if Monsoon is in the vicinity.

But that's not what I really wanted to share here and now..........I will post many great photos of Lodi. She is so beautiful and photogenic. Maybe that is why I started the sketches and paintings........

This is a rough for my most recent painting. I've sketched this version a dozen or more times, working the eyes and now, the nose to get it right in my mind before painting. Nichol calls this version, Puppy Lodi. Not a bad choice since the photo I'm working from was taken a few years ago. Lodi and Monsoon are now both six, still act like puppies, but have sort of calmed down a bit unless they are just meeting one another for a trip to the beach or after not having seen one another for a few days.

I'll post some of the finished paintings soon. They all hang in Nichol's house.........She may not have wall space enough since I seem inspired by my Grandpuppy. Something about her. And, Monsoon isn't jealous at all...........We have a beautiful painting of Monsoon by Heather Anderson hanging in our living room and I don't believe I need another, hers is so very wonderful. If you visit Lodi and Lewi at Etsy, you will see the painting Heather created for Nichol.

Okay..........it is a holiday of sorts, January 2, 2011 and I have time to paint.........

.........and now it is the next day and the painting is dry........a first attempt for this project: Redeye Lodi:
Approximately 10x14......Not for Sale:

And, by the way.........it is Low Dee, not Low Dye as in the wine country and wines from that piece of California. And, of course, Loder, Lodinator, LongLeggedOne, and LoLo.............it seems when you love a dog, she or he acquires more names. Much to love about Lodi Pie!!!