Last night, we let Bud sleep out of the crate for the first time, he is housebroken and has stopped marking furniture. At first, he hopped up into our bed, but I think we must have moved around a bit, which we do.
He jumped off the bed and went to Red’s bed by my side of the bed, and he just curled up next to him and went to sleep and spent most of the night there.
It was a very beautiful thing to see, Red has never let any other dog get that close to him, or share his bed. Fate never tried, Gus was quickly rebuffed.
But loves Red, and Red completely accepts him, even this close. This friendship has been powerful and grounding for Bud, and in ways I don’t quite understand, also important to Red.
He had no trouble chasing Fate or Gus off when they got to close, he has never snarled or barked or pushed Bud away. As much as anything, he has helped his little pal adjust to life her, after the difficult time he had before that.
It lifted my heart to see these two wonderful dogs curled up like that, each one getting something they need and want.
Love is the thing, for animals, for us. I must say I identify with Bud. I have always wanted a safe and peaceful place to lie, and I found one. I am so glad that he has also.
Emma rarely sees a photograph of herself that she likes, but she likes this one, mother and daughter huddling in the cold in a windswept apple orchard.
It was, for me, a stirring image. I often think of myself as not having a family, yet there are this extraordinary people not too far away, yet very far away.
And she gave me permission to put it on the blog. I used to put photos of Emma up all the time and it bothered her. The reporter in me never asked for permission, but the human in me now does.
I always ask people for permission to take their photos, in my grandiose period some years ago, I often didn’t.
She always thanks me for asking, she is not quite past it.
I’m her father, of course, and she is always beautiful to me, as is her daughter Robin.
Emma and I talk often about my coming down to New York City more often, to see her and to see Robin, but it a complex thing for me to do, given the way my life is structured.
She wants me to be involved more in Robin’s life, but I will be honest, it’s difficult to see a path in that. Sometimes I just feel stuck in the issue, we go back and forth, we never quite get anywhere.
I admit to having some emotional issues with the grandfather thing. I will be 80 when Robin is 10, and how close can we possibly be given that I can only see her two or three times a year?
I recognize that this is another version of my old moat complex, where I lived in a castle for years with a moat, and nobody could ever get close except for people who should never be close.
But there is also some reality to it, and I have had bitter lessons in life about how to accept life rather than deny or fight with it.
I am just now learning how to choose the people I should be close to and the people I should not be close to.
How curious it is in my life how poor my judgments of people have often been, no wonder I have had so many struggles over the idea of friendship.
I love Emma and Robin very much, but we have rightly chosen our own very different paths in life, and it is no easy matter for me to leave the farm, my blog, my Army of Good work, my doctor’s appointments, my book deadlines.
New York is always an expensive trip, no matter how you go and I have some substantial expenses coming up. None of this is an excuse or reason not to go see my daughter or my granddaughter, and I will figure out how to do it.
I would rather that people not write me and send me scolding messages about how wonderful it is to be a grandfather. This is not something I’m seeking advice on. I have to figure it out.
I am very proud of Emma, in her work and in her life. She is the most wonderful mother, loving and patient and intuitive. She is very successful in her work, like Freud said, love and work…
I sometimes think I must have done something right in all of those troubled years.
I love this photograph, the love in it leaps out of the image. Lucky mother, lucky child. Lucky me.
This was my best session with Bud, training him to “sit” and to “stay’ and to a lesser degree, to “come,” which is getting very good at. I’m speaking less, I’m more confident, I’m visualizing what I wand and projecting it, and Bud is mastering all of the distractions of the pasture.
Teaching him to “lie down” will be quite a challenge.
For an 18-month old dog with no kind of training in his life, I am very pleased with our seventh day of training. My training is two or three times a day in short bursts. I have not been so happy with my training, I feel good about it today.
To this end, I am looking at my own video and e-mailing them to trainers I know and respect, and they are giving me feedback, I am also looking at my videos and critiquing myself. There is a lot to criticize, but I feel we are both getting a handle on working together. I’ve never trained a terrier before, and it is way different than training a Lab or border collie.
I’ve kept to the track on positive reinforcement, which is important. Bud looks forward to working with me, it is fun and there are many rewards (more and more, I’m backing off the food). He never leaves the session feeling anxious or like a failure.
My professional trainers are encouraging me to be sparing with my words, to mix up the signals, to turn around and change the dynamic. Today, Bud and I clicked, we were in sync, I could feel it, and to be honest, this is great progress for a traumatized dog who came to us three weeks ago.
And for a sometimes anxious and impatient human like me. This us also it great progress for me. Bud is a great dog, smart and willing. It’s my job to make it work and never blame him.
Today, I felt the best I have yet felt about my training Bud. When you do this in public as I do, you invite everyone in the world to chime in and offer their opinions.
Some are very good and helpful, others not to much. It’s important to sort through what is helpful.
And people do, of course, become very wedded in their own ideas, which is not helpful.
I think many people lose sight of the fact that every dog and every person is different, and because something worked for them and their dog, doesn’t mean it will work for me and my dog. We are all different, we live in different environments and bring different baggage to the table.
I have a lot more emotional issues than Bud does, and if you don’t really know me, you can’t really know how I should train a dog, and if you don’t know the dog or my family, or the donkeys and sheep and other dogs, the same thing applies.
Bud trains in a very unusual environment, with donkeys, border collies, sheep, chickens and barn cats just a few feet away. It is good to train him with those many distractions, if challenging. His head is always turning.
But I see his focus grow every day. How many people train a dog that way, or should?
When we got Bud, I was warned by the rescue group to keep him away from cats. I was told he was “not good” with cats, and it was good to have that warning.
But the first thing I did was bring him to the cats (and donkeys) on a leash, he lunged at Flo once or twice and got a bloody nose out of it, Minnie paid no attention to him when he came at her. They all get along famously now. You have to get them a chance to succeed, rather than just anticipate their failures.
Dogs are the great adapters of the animal world. That’s why humans treat them so well. I need to trust my dogs in order for them live well with me.
But I have picked up some valuable pointers from people online, and I’m grateful. I appreciate my trainer-mentors very much as well. But I always have to pick and choose thoughtfully, because almost everyone in the dog world believes they have all of the answers.
So take a look, I think if you look back to the beginning, Vol. 1 and 2, on You Tube, and look at today’s video, you will see some progress in me and Bud. For me, training never ends. I learn something about my dogs every day, and I learn something about myself every day.
I take very seriously my responsibility as a steward to show my dogs how to live lovingly and peacefully in our world. Terriers have their own agenda, it is not always mine.
I am respecting Bud for his patience and intellect. We will make a great team, in training and in life.
Joan had an accident over the weekend, she is in a hospital and she is expected to recover from her injuries. She will go to a nursing home as soon as one is available, and everyone at the Mansion hopes she will be able to come back there after her rehabilitation.
I sure do, I have come to love Joan and her spirit, I love reading special books to her, pulling stories out of her.
I love sitting with her in the Great Room and pulling stories and memories out of her swiveling mind. I love standing with her when she looks out the window and sees bright flowers, even in the middle of winter.
Sometimes she gets so frustrated, she can’t find the words. But she has so many gifts. I have one of her paintings on one wall, it’s called “Joan In Blue,”she signed it for me, I gave her $30 for it, but she gave the money away.
I have one of her poems on another wall.
Her memory is sometimes gone, but her heart and soul are strong and clear.
I cannot go into the details or say exactly what her injuries are or what hospital she is in, not until I make sure it is all right with the Mansion and her family, they have repeatedly given me permission to write about her and her health.
It is, to be honest, not clear what happens next. If Joan recovers fully from her injury, she can return to the Mansion. If not, she will never come back.
That’s the nature of life at the Mansion, there are sudden disappearances, some people surprise everyone by returning, some are never seen again.
If Joan is impaired, and in any way not ambulatory, then she can’t, by Medicaid regulations, return to the assisted care facility, which has been her home for some years and where she is dearly loved.
I have said before with permission, that Joan has memory problems, and they are severe.
She has great reservoirs of hope. Every night, she packs up all of her things in the expectation of going home, to her family, and to the lovely lake where she lived with her daughter before she was murdered by a boy friend.
Sometimes Joan remembers that story, just a bit of it, just a flash.
When the Mansion opens its new 10-bedroom memory care unit right next door, it is expected that Joan will be living there, if she can return.
I have become close to Joan in this past year or two, I love her sweet and open soul, her creativity, her innate sense of joy. We connect with each other, we just light up when we see each other.
When Joan sees me, she runs up and gives me a big fat kiss on the cheek. She always tells Maria, “you’ve got a sweet one there,” but she can never remember my name, she calls Red “that red dog.”
The other night, she was Bingo Champion, she didn’t quite know what that meant, but she knew it was a cause for celebration. Joan is always ready to laugh and smile. Or almost always, sometimes her memory troubles bring her down in frustration and confusion.
Memory is precious, we sometimes take it for granted.
We’ve done reading together, we’ve danced together, we talk and laugh and listen, gone on boat roads and had lunch together, played bingo and made clay dolls. I got a bunch of special memory restoration books and she did so well with them. She loves to read.
I will figure out where Joan is tomorrow and go see her, I think I’ll bring Red, and put his therapy tag on. Think of Joan tonight, perhaps pray a bit that she can come home. She is a light in the Mansion, she helps make it bright.
I am touched by the deep and lovely friendship between Bud, our new Boston Terrier, and Red, an ll-year-old border collie and therapy dog with failing eyes.
Red is slowing down, and I am more careful with him now, he only works with the sheep for a short time in a limited way.
The two dogs could hardly be different, except for their markings and coloring. Red is very quiet, so still and calm when he is not working and even when he is.
Bud is a holy terror, racing from one room to the next, hiding our shoes, hyper vigilant, on and off couches like a rabbit, bothering the cats, occasionally marking a chair or dog bowl.
Yet Bud adores Red, he showers him with kisses, and when he can, he curls up next to him. Red loves Bud back in the way of older dogs, he tolerates him completely, he has never snarled or barked at him the way he did Fate and Gus when they came.
Bud loves to rest with Red, to sleep alongside of him, to curl up with him when he is puzzled, or even frightened. Once or twice, when he scraped a pad, he ran to Red for comfort, and nuzzled with him.
I’ve never seen this sweet and deep a friendship among dogs, one on the outer edge of life, one young and full of himself. They come together. Red accepts Bud completely and silently, and without any overt affection.
But you can see how much they each love the other. Almost had me teary tonight.
