COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Posted on March 20, 2014 by BigFootClub

Written 1/17/14

This afternoon was another example.  He was in a very good mood today, happy and warm.  He, like Banker, works to involve us in his world.  When he’s happy, he will make efforts to entice us to play, to get happy when we’re focused on something else, to be light-hearted instead of too serious.  Today he decided that we should go out and have some fun.  So, when I let the dogs out to go potty, he ambled over to the van.  His foot has another opening, where he had access to a bump before I realized what he was doing (licking), so he has pain walking.  I watched him walk with some pain to the van.  I knew where this was headed, that he wanted to go somewhere.  Sometimes he wants to go for a ride, sometimes he wants to go swimming, sometimes he wants to see the vet.  (fortunately not often, at this point)  Jade knew what he was doing, and she sided with Parker; she stayed on the sidewalk instead of coming inside.  Banner hasn’t been around long enough to “read the map” yet.  This was at around 2 p.m.  So, I shut down the laptop, put on some jeans and joined him.  I wasn’t sure what he wanted, and I wasn’t about to take him swimming (although Jade has been wanting to go swimming), so I took them to town, dropped off some mail, stopped at Braums for a cheeseburger (to share) and drove around the area where the lake is.  I rolled the windows down so they could “smell the air” and tell where we were.  I drove to the dock where I used to take him for swims and surveyed the goose presence.  It’s supposed to be nearly 60 tomorrow and he will get a bath, so I may let him go into the lake if he wants to, and Jade too.  As cold as it is, that won’t last long, but it may pacify them until a better day, and another, until warmer weather arrives.

His requests can be subtle, but clear.  His voice is getting weaker, but his heart is still strong, and he will tell you what he’s thinking about sometimes too.  He is very patient during the week, but Fridays are “fair game” for creating distractions, subtle or otherwise.  His timing is good for the “almost” point, like when the video, or the work week, is “almost” over.

Parker is like a bridge for the other Newfs too.  Jade often doesn’t know what to do to communicate when she wants something, and I’ve seen Parker pick up on this, do the communicating for her while she watches him with an expression of remarkable surprise that he knows what to do.  So, sometimes when he makes a request, it is on behalf of someone else.

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THE EXPERIENCE OF LOSSES

Posted on March 20, 2014 by BigFootClub

posted 3/20/14, written 2/6/14

When you grow close to another living creature who expires before you do, loss is inevitable, as is the grief that goes along with loss.  No matter how well you understand that the pain of loss is related to the joy that came from knowing this creature, time is always needed to adjust through the loss.  Different losses have different experiences.  This time, the morning after we buried Parker, I had this dream:

We were taking a trip with a group of other Newf people to a new location.  The water at this place was supposed to be very clear, and you could see the bottom.  No one had been here before, but we had decided to try it.  There was a bed & breakfast type of facility at the entrance where we stopped to register.  As soon as we had our room, we went out the back to where the lake began.  Other people were “jumping right in”, wading out and swimming toward the main body of the lake.  The lake appeared to have been more recently created.  It flowed into what appeared to have been part of the back yard at one point, including a fenced area with a gate that let you into the main body of the lake.  To take the dogs swimming, we put a long flat leash on the dog, waded in and began swimming as we approached the gate.  I wasn’t wearing a life jacket, but decided to go with the others.  The gate was a bit narrow, maybe 42 or 48 inches wide, and someone else was going through ahead of us on our left-hand side, trying to hurry past and bumping the side of the gate post.  I realized that we would be swimming beyond this point and didn’t want to bump the post, not being sure of myself once we were swimming.  I decided that it would be OK and relaxed.  Then Parker/Jade swam out strongly toward the middle.  (This Newf was swimming like Parker did in his later years, strong and calm, not excited and trying to break through the drag of the water.)  The lake became 4-5 feet deep at that point.  I became concerned that if he/she tired, I may be in trouble, not being able to swim.  I decided that I would relax and float, and we could drift toward the bank where it would be shallower if that happened.  So we continued toward where the water was flowing, and then it became clear, and you could see the bottom.

We swam on for a while, but he was becoming tired.  We moved toward the bank on the right-hand side and walked out from the beach onto a path, then up the hill to the front of a store, where we waited and rested.  Parker laid down and I sat in a chair on the porch.  A man approached and smiled, and said something as a friendly greeting.  I smiled and replied.  It was taking a while for Parker to rest and I thought he probably shouldn’t go back into the water, but we would walk to the hotel/B&B when we left.

Later when I woke, I was thinking about Parker where we had buried him, lying with a sweet expression on his face.  He was lying in his rug, surrounded by some of his favorite toys:  the Caterpillar, his first Giggle toy, a Squatty Chick, his favorite blue & black basketball, the bright yellow dimpled softball that he was very excited about this Christmas, a clown toy that had been Gracie’s, from Mary and also from Jade.  It was one that she liked.  I had asked her if it was OK to send that with Parker, like I would ask her if I could take a toy that was losing stuffing or for some other reason, and her expression was consenting.  She has never been through a loss before; I don’t know how much she understands of what has happened, but we let her see and sniff his body that morning.  Her response showed that she thought this was very weird*.

I had picked up the Woody Woodpecker toy, one of his birthday presents, to leave also, but it was still sitting in the cab with us when we left.  I kept some toys that remind me of his personality, including the purple chick and the Frog.  There are other reminders, too, and eventually many of these will be stored or expire from use by other Newfs.  Knowing the eventual process that results in loss of memory, I want to keep some things that can freshen memory, so that memory, and the emotions associated with it, stays more real than intellectual.  Parker has always had a very good memory.  He knew many toys by name.  With age, I may not be as lucky, so I take pictures, I write and I keep mementos.  His was an experience that I would not want to forget.

How Sweet the Sound

[*Since then, whenever the Newfs go with me in the van, she doesn’t want to get out.  I thought she may have expected that we were going swimming, but last weekend, while we were camped at a dog show with the trailer, I made a comment to Banner about being like Parker, and when Jade heard his name, she suddenly looked at me with intense concern.  I wonder whether she thinks when we leave that maybe we are going to get him to bring him back.  When we got back home after this long trip, she still refused to get out of the van, in the way that she and Parker used to stage a “peaceful protest” when they wanted to go swimming.]

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A DOUBLE RETRIEVE?

Posted on March 10, 2014 by BigFootClub
IMAG0358

Parker, June 21, 2012

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THINGS THAT MAKE YOUR HEART GO “THUMP!”

Posted on March 6, 2014 by BigFootClub

Written 5/15/06
(In memoriam series)

With yesterday being Mother’s Day, Greg drove west and I drove east.  I enjoy long drives by myself, somewhere less than 15-20 hours anyway.  It’s a good time to explore thoughts, uninterrupted.  It’s a good time to listen to the radio, too, when you forget the CD cassette for the vehicle.  On the way there, I found a good bluegrass channel.

Parker accompanied me for the trip.  He usually lies in the back seat and sleeps once we get onto the interstate, and if he had any catching up to do on naps, he had plenty of opportunity.  We left about 6:30, stopping for a visit with a very excited great neice whose black mare just had a loud paint baby.  This is her first horse, and she has had the mare for only a few months.  My nephew and his wife were picking up a car they had just bought.  I caught them as they were leaving, so we visited through the windows of our vehicles for a while.  This nephew was very bonded to my dad, and in visiting at length between the vehicles, it reminded me of when I was a kid.  More than once I was late for a horse show while Dad visited with one of his friends who drove up just as we were leaving.  I could see a familiar expression on my great neice as she waited, hostage to our conversation.  His wife decided to go on in the car with the other two kids.  Of course, there was a lot to visit about – gas prices, cars, recent tornados, vacations – there was no shortage of topics.  This characteristic was one that frustrated me about my dad when I was a kid, but one that I learned to appreciate as I grew up.  I later understood that it meant that he placed a lot of value on the person he was visiting with, and it was his way of extending love to that person.  My parents grew up in the early 1900’s.  Visiting was very important to them.  When someone came over for a visit, short (hours) or long (days or weeks,) it was a joyous time.  Some of my Mom’s favorite memories are of friends coming to visit.  She still talks about “Tankie and Maggie Powell,” a couple who came to stay with them after cotton harvests.  Maggie played a guitar, and my grandfather played a violin.  One of my grandfather’s tennant houses was used to hold dances to give the young people in the community some entertainment.

On the trip back, there was more to think about, more beautiful scenery to enjoy, and a good blues station.  When that expired, I skipped around for a little while then found a station that renewed my hope in good music.  Since The Planet was taken off at KC, I thought hope for finding quality on the radio was gone.  It wasn’t just in my area.  I enjoyed listening to something from Hootie, then another, and suddenly there was a “THUMP!” against the back of my seat.  That made my heart rush, but I quickly realized that Parker had fallen off the back seat and realized that he must have been sound asleep.  But then, he didn’t wake up.  He was lying in an awkward pile on the back floorboard, with his head behind the front console.  I touched him and talked to him.  A sudden new rush of fear swept over me, and I felt a slug of force in my heart.  How could something so sudden happen to a perfectly good Newfoundland?  I talked to him again, reached back and touched him, but he didn’t respond.  Fear escalated.  I looked at him in the rear view mirror, then turned and looked over my shoulder as I touched him, without response.  Then I saw a movement above his eyebrow.  I took a deep breath and relaxed, and laughed at myself and at Parker, who was beginning to awaken.

I have seen several of my Newfs sleeping at home when something happened that I thought should have awakened them, only to find that they were in a deep state of sleep.  Since humans have deep sleep levels, I don’t know why that should be surprising that Newfs or other animals do also, but they do seem easily awakened – usually.  This is the first time one of them has fallen so soundly asleep in a moving vehicle.  (and yes, the Rough Rider should have been on the dog instead of hanging in the grooming room)  Probably the rhythm of the road is hypnotic, like Parker’s snoring is to me when I am trying to work on the computer.

If I was beginning to become tired at that point, I was fully awake for the rest of the trip home.

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