Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

You are invited to join me on my great new experiment on Community Radio this Thursday at ll a.m. until noon.

Thomas Lawrence Toscano is a remarkable person, he is almost single-handedly keeping Community Radio Station WBTNAM radio alive in Bennington, Vt. He describes himself as a composer, conductor and philosopher and I can already testify that he is all of those things.

I call him “Maestro,” he has been working in the music world for 61 years.

Toscano is a former opera singer and the producer of a  Brooklyn Opera Company before he moved to Vermont. He is funny, outspoke, a fiercely individualistic man and he is working day and night to keep community radio alive.

He has the gruff Brooklyn exterior down, but he has a big heart, and a great passion for his bleeding little radio station. When I went to see him today, he was all alone in the station and had been for  hours.

Today, he and I spent a couple of intensely creative hours together putting together a promo for the dog/animal talk show I am trying to host for the radio station. Come and listen.

This is certainly selfish – I have always wanted my own radio show – but I also passionately believe in community radio, not easy for anyone anywhere in the country to listen to thanks to new streaming technology.

Just go to their website and click on “live.” I have volunteered (taking no money) to host a weekly one hour talk show focusing on dogs, cats and any other pets people wish to talk about.

We are doing a dry run on the station this coming Thursday at ll a.m. You can access this broadcast live here. The station is on the edge, perhaps a dog talk show could  help.

Thomas asked me who my favorite musician was and I answered instantly: Van Morrison. We went on his approved list of music we could play and we both went right to “Bright Side Of The Road,” which is my favorite Van Morrison song. It’s going to be the theme song of “Talking About Animals.” Come and listen.

If you live in the Southern Vermont area, you can call the show at 802 442-1010. If you live outside of the listening area, you can hear the broadcast free anywhere in the country  by slicking on the “live” prompt on the top of the website home page and streaming it.

It’s just that simple. You don’t need an app to do that and it costs nothing.

You can also call the show and talk to me toll free: 866 406-9298.

Thomas says the station has gotten few callers in recent months, I hope we can help alter that. I have high hopes for a hopefully intelligent talk show focused on pets and animals.

I also hope I can help draw some volunteers and sponsors and donations to the station, the equipment looks as if it was purchased just before the Korean War, there are almost no volunteers, WBTN is in dire straits, if you like the animal show, feel free to donate a few dollars directly to the station.

I told Thomas the cavalry might well be on the way, but you never know for sure.

I think this is a worthy cause for the Army Of Good, here pennies will make a big difference. You can donate online here if you want to support community radio – a true voice of the people – and push back on the hideous corporate takeover of our media – just see what that has wrought upon us.

We hope to find a local sponsor for my show, or a sponsor interested in pets and animals. We’ll see.

Thursday is a dry run, a test to see if this could work under very difficult circumstances.  At the moment, the station can only broadcast on AM. They are hoping to somehow acquire an FM transmitter.

I can talk a long while, but I hope there are calls, that some of you have questions for me on this trial run. Any questions relating to dogs, cats, horses, sheep, ponies, even fish will be most welcome. 866 406-9286.

I love everything about this station, it needs to live.

I’m heading to WBTN, a community radio station in Bennington, Vt. to prepare promo for a radio show – “Talking To Dogs” – that i am planning to do for the station. I am a great supporter of community radio, especially in this time of corporate greed and abuse of media power.

Community radio gives voice to people who don’t have a voice, and I’ve always wanted to have my own radio show. I’m  not sure why the Fish Fry wagon is out front of the studio, but I’ll find out today.

We’re doing more promos this Thursday, and hopefully the radio call-in show will air next Thursday from 3 to 5 p.m., pending some unexpected surprise. This station is hanging on by a thread, and I hope to help draw listeners, volunteers and maybe some sponsors.

This is the kind of media that needs to live. I’ll make sure to get the right call in number, I hope many of you will call in to talk about dogs with me, I see this show as a conversation, a safe and open place to talk about our love for animals, the challenges of training them, the joys of living with them, how to get them, etc.

I’m excited about this, it is a natural evolution for me, and a good thing to do these days. This station needs to live, and I’d be excited to have a place where I can have a running conversation about dogs.

The station is live-streamed everywhere, everyone can hear it and everyone  can call in. ((Some people might need an am radio app.)  I’ll report back this afternoon.

I’m working daily to train Bud to be around the donkeys and sheep in the pasture. Maria took this video of the training this morning. I wanted to walk you through my process.

First, I’m training Bud to ease off on eating manure and sheep droppings. It isn’t by itself harmful, but it is usually the sign of an aroused dog, and he needs to learn to be calm in the pasture.

I’m also teaching  him to respond to me. Out in a farm field with real animals, control is everything. When a border collie or other dog is too aroused, they don’t hear human commands or  respond to them. That is dangerous.

An aroused dog can also hurt a sheep or even a donkey, or provoke a dangerous counterattack. Anybody can get hurt when animals panic.

So I need to acclimate Bud to the pasture, show him what his work is out there, and make sure that if I call him, he will come.

If I need to use my foot or a sharp voice to get his attention I will do it. He must listen to me out there. So much dog  training depends on the mindset of the trainer. If I give a command, it must be responded to. My dignity and control everybody’s safety depends on it.

I believe I must be the pack leader for Bud, and he is a dominant dog. That means we will clash from time to time, and I must win if we are to have the live together that I want and he will love.

Dogs are  very quick to pick up on multiple choice humans, those who bark commands but don’t insist that they be followed. That costs many more dog lives than abuse. It also sets the tone for a contentious and frustrating relationship.  It’s not fair but Bud must do what I tell him to do, and quickly.

Here, in the video, I have brought treats so that I can reward Gus for coming to me, and I always make eye contact before I hand over the treat. I also almost always ask for something in return – sit, stay, etc. In dog training, nothing is free.

This training session went very well. Bud, who has a lot of prey drive, was highly aroused at first. I put him on a leash, moved slowly and deliberately, called him to me repeatedly, rewarded him each time, asked him to sit before each treat. More and more, he is.

That was the positive reinforcement part.

The other part was when he started gobbling up chunks of donkey manure despite my repeated commands to “leave it.” When he blew me off for the fourth or fifth time, I had to regain control: I shot my foot out and tapped him in the side, which startled him but also got him to pay attention to me again.

I also offered the treats as an alternative food, and I believe I saw him start to prefer the treats to the manure.

Bud remained calm after that, and stopped scarfing up gobs of donkey manure. All in all, a very fine training session. I was patient, clear and vigilant. He did everything I wanted him to do.

This kind of training will take patience and clarity, it will challenge me to focus and think. I’ll keep you posted. It will take a couple of months and there will be ups and downs, mistakes on my part and lapses on his. We’ll get there if I am serious about it.

He is a great dog to work with, full of energy, instinct and intelligence.

This is one of those photos that you may not see anywhere, and in fact is not supposed to occur. I’ve heard of Boston Terriers working on farms, but I have never heard of a Boston Terrier who wanted to herd sheep.

Even Gus didn’t want to herd the sheep, he just wanted to hang around with us.

Bud is very focused on the work Red does, and on Fate’s love of sheep and passion for being around them, even if it’s not exactly classic border collie herding, to say the least.

I either have some magical attraction for Boston Terrier weirdos or I’m onto something. Bud is actually somewhat serious about working with the sheep, he doesn’t have the border collie herding instincts, but he does challenge them and try to stop them or move them.

He has no fear of the sheep (unlike some border collies I could mention) and he seems to be studying Red and almost mirroring him. And the sheep do respond to him, they don’t challenge him the way they challenge Fate.

How far can I go with this, I wonder?

I don’t want to push it, I can’t imagine Gus actually moving sheep from one pasture to another, but maybe that’s because I’m not imagining it. I’m taking him out for short bursts of work, staying close, encouraging him when he holds his ground and is calm.

I think we are working together now. But I am impressed with his instincts. We’ll see.

I think of Michael as a pilgrim, really, a fellow traveler on the Hero Journey. We are quite different, yet we are also quite similar in ways I can’t really define.

I’ve written some here about my struggle to understand and define friendship, and my failure to keep friendships.

I always seem to be making friends and then leaving them behind, and I want to warn new friends to be wary.  I am restless and distracted and obsessed with moving forward, perhaps still too fearful of that kind of intimacy, especially from men..

I have in recent years, begun to redefine friendship as somewhat different from the shallow and impossible comic book notions of friendship that I grew up with.

Friendship has been a source of great pain for me. I wanted it so much that I often lost myself in the search for a true friend, even though I could not really tell you what a true friend is or was.

I  got discouraged after the many times when a friendship I hoped for did not materialize, or one began with great expectations and did not last, or  ended abruptly and completely, in drama and anger, or for no reason I ever really understood.

In my mind, there is a gallery of friendships lost, faded or just ended, I sometimes see these faces in my dreams. I blame myself, I know something is broken in me.

Michael lives hundreds of miles away, he has been, along with his then girlfriend, now his wife, who is, in fact, a friend of mine, to two Open Houses, one several years ago, one this weekend.

Michael is a veteran, he has suffered greatly from Post Traumatic Stress  Disorder, and has worked bravely and painfully to recover and interact with the world. He and Becca got married and he came up to see our farm with her.

At one point, Michael told me lived in a trailer for seven years and only ventured out in the middle of the night when he knew he wouldn’t see a soul.

And he didn’t. When I first met him, he could barely handle being around people, could not  join us for dinner, and stayed in the shadows, if he came out at all.

This time, it was different. Michael looked great, he mingled, looked me in the eyes, talked about his recovery, his true soul seemed to have emerged.

I found myself talking to a shy, but warm and open and honest man, I felt an instant connection with him. He  talked very honestly about his time in Hell, I told him some truth about mine.

We were different people, but often ended up in the same places. I lived in a bunker, also, for nearly seven years, my home was a moat, a prison, no one got in until a kind of Princess came and kissed me on the lips and woke me from a dark dream.

Fairy tales do happen, I told Michael, dreams to come true. He felt the same way about Becca.

We know we are both broken, but we both refused to leave it there, we climbed back to a better place.

We all went to dinner Sunday night, and we talked and laughed together for several hours. In the middle of dinner, I talked about my own issues dealing with friends. I was surprised at how comfortable I was with Michael, how much I admired him.

Michael leaned over and came close to me, and said in a low voice, “I would like to be  your friend.”

I felt a surge in the heart and offered my hand, and said, “I would like to be  your friend also.” And we shook on it, traded e-mails. I told Maria afterwards that I felt a strong connection to Michael, I admired his sensitivity, his honesty, his warmth. He was even proud of the fact that he often cried.

I sent the first e-mail, he friended me on Facebook. A start, a channel opened. If feels a bit like two lovers meeting for the first time.

We’ll see what happens. in a sense, friendship takes courage,  you have to dare to love to  be a friend. True friendships are eternal because true love is eternal.

The early Christians – you know, the real ones –  believed that friendships were a personal gift from God, so that we could learn how to love one another. Love  between people, they believed, was offered by God and was stronger than death.

I may not see Michael again for years, or perhaps,  ever. There are few ways in which our lives will ever intersect.

We will not go to ball games together or yak for  hours on the phone or sit and drink beer and watch football games. We will certainly not play golf. I am making some friends with women, I am hopeful about those friendships.

But I learned a lot about friendship from Michael this weekend, and it gave me comfort and hope.

Our friendship is simple: it is heart to heart, a friendship from one soul to another.

I believe the Prophets when they said that every friendship has no end.

Those we have loved deeply and who have died live on in us, and not just a memories. I felt that with my friend Ed Gulley before he died of brain cancer.

Those friends whose hearts have touched are also forever, the friendships cannot be undone or end in drama confusion.

I felt with Michael that our hearts had touched, and I saw that he understood and felt the same way. So I will keep on trying to find true friendship that does not end, and is beyond the grip of foolish and tormented humans.