Mimo wandered over, “Is there some kind of Olympics coming up?”
“As a matter of fact they’re starting this week. How did you know?”
Appenzeller, “The way the dog goes chasing round the garden.”
Pecorino, “We assume there’s some kind of anti-squirrel event that he’s
training for.”
“I can check if you like but I don’t think that’s included in the Winter
Olympics.”
Mimo, “He’s probably not going to make the team.”
Pecorino, “He does seem a bit useless at catching them.”
I said in Hamish’ defense, “He’s got other things on his mind.”
Remember that line from American radio comedians Bob and Ray, “Write if you get
work”? Hamish should be writing. In addition to his self-appointed station in
life-- as chief rat and squirrel catcher-- he has developed aspirations
towards, and some experience of, the job of chief coyote chaser.
People believe that thinking outside the box is a good idea; Hamish’s variation
on this notion is that evening peeing outside the fence is also good. There’s
a vocabulary to the exercise that I’ve only begun to understand: some dogs’ pee
you want to mark thus; others another way. Occasionally you want to
obliterate all traces with swipes of your back feet. “This smell does not
deserve a place in the universe of odours.”
L. put Hamish out when she went up to bed. As I was shutting down the computer
I heard him barking over by the road. When I stepped out there was no late
evening dog walker passing so I reasoned there had to have been a coyote. I
thought I waited long enough to let it get away before I opened the gate to let
Hamish out to do his territorial claiming, but instead of the usual trot over
to a favorite stone and the wee placid whiddle, there was a sudden blur; he
raced round to the front of the house. I’m pleased to report he didn’t forget
the rules or himself; he stopped well inside our property line. Across the
road, trotting away slowly, was a coyote about the same size as him. There
followed an unusual amount of woofing, “Get off with you. A big dog lives
here. And no chickens.” He ran back to me, wagging vigorously, “Didn’t I do
well?”
Our neighborhood list says that not long after on the same evening a pack of
coyotes set on some poor animal. That’s my worry. Though I keep a long metal
rod (an old easel support) handy—the idea is to wave it and make noise--there’s
no way he or I could fight a pack. So Hamish may think he’s found a job, but
I’m not going to open the gate in similar circumstance. He can pee inside the
fence, color inside the lines, do what one has to do to avoid being overwhelmed
by the pack.
This week saw a return to “Christmas in the library,” which is an exercise for
a pack of students. I invented it to divert them from thinking that if they
type a few key words into a search engine they’ll find all there is to know
about a research topic. It works like this: the students write a caption or a
title or something that reminds us what we know about their inquiry. We then
take those pieces of paper in hand and search the library stacks for material
which we sense may be helpful to others. (It’s also O.K. to pull books and
magazines that seem worthwhile to your own project). Everyone comes back with
a pile of books which they distribute with the usual Christmas wishes, “This
reminds me of…I thought you’d like…You can return it if...” Receivers smile
and say, “Exactly what I wanted,” or “Thank you, that’s interestin" or “How did
you know?” The goals are to give students a view into how others perceive
their projects and to turn up the sort of stuff that you might not find except
by happenstance. Above all, there’s a lot of handling of books which this year
(unlike last where everyone took photos of books with their phones) led to
everyone checking volumes out. Huzzah! There are signs in the library
instructing us not to re-shelve books so all we have to do at the end is put
what we don’t want on the re-shelving cart. I use the exercise in my Masters
thesis class but it would be fine for upper division research projects. We all
learned, which is a pretty good outcome. I suppose I should re-title the
exercise though, “Non-denominational holiday gift exchange?"
David Ritchie,
Portland,
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