Small world

I think that one reason that I get along so well with dogs is that interactions with them are always very personal.  We communicate to one another, without being bothered about making an impression, not only on one each other, but on everyone else around.  It is not about being important or attracting attention. It is between me and the dog and our own personal relationship and ability to understand one another.

With people, I have always been rather shy, certainly when I first meet them, and have never really wanted to be in the public eye. I have never cared about having my picture taken and prefer not to look at photos of myself.   I never really expect people to recognize me, if it is not someone that I know well, and I am always rather surprised when they do.  It is not that I am uncomfortable with people, I do like meeting people and lecture quite a lot and enjoy it – but the idea of lecturing is not to present myself, but to present a subject and have the listeners become fascinated by the material I am presenting, not by me.

Habibi and the other Canaans are particularly good at keeping me from starting to become too impressed with myself.  They know exactly who I am, and that there are some things that they know better. They are expert at expressing exactly what their opinion is.

So it has not been easy to reveal our current problems to the world and to ask for support.  Asking for help has never been something I have been very keen to do.

But I have been surprised and amazed at the response now that we have had to ask for help. It is heartening and inspiring to see what a small world the common passion for dogs has created and the care and concern we have for one another in that world.  People are ready to take time out from the important things they are doing to send messages of support and concern and to ask what they can do to help.

Is it because those of us that live with and love dogs also have learned from them how important the pack is and how important it is to cooperate and help one another for the good of all? 

The bigger world out there could certainly use doggy people as an example.

And many, many thanks to everyone, whose support is helping us to stay strong!

Shaar Hagai...

I have always tried to laugh at myself and at the vagaries of life that come my way.  It is the way that I have managed to stay (reasonably) sane. 

But there are times when there is simply nothing to laugh about.

The Israel Lands Authority, a government agency, has filed suit against us, to demand our eviction from the place we have called home for 42 years.

I came to Israel as a naïve American (and at least, in those days, there was nothing as naïve as a young American).  A dog and animal lover from birth, I quickly met a few other unconventional people who were interested in finding a place to breed Canaan Dogs, the natural breed of Israel that still existed free living, but was already starting to disappear.  We looked for an isolated place where the dogs would not be a nuisance to anyone, and found it at Shaar Hagai.

The buildings had been built by the British in the mandate period, for the engineers and workers that were running the adjoining water pumping station, the main water line to Jerusalem.  When they left in 1947, the place was abandoned and remained empty, not used for anything other than as an occasional campground for passing Bedouins with their flocks.

When we found it, the buildings were semi ruins, and the whole place was so overgrown that it was hard to even find the buildings.

It was perfect for breeding dogs.

After much searching to try and find who was responsible for the place, we were informed that Mekorot, the national water company, had the rights to it, and we signed a rental contract with them and paid rent for a number of years.

We never had any money, so just about everything that had to be done, we did ourselves.  I laid cement, plastered, painted, built fences, paved, dug out rocks, and a whole range of other activities that had  never entered my mind as a future occupation when I was filling out college applications.  But there is no feeling quite like being able to look at something that you have built, with your own hands.  We lived for 17 years without electricity (no, not with a generator, but no electricity – a kerosene run refrigerator, storm lanterns, and no telephone), but it was a great place for the dogs.  Generations of Canaans, and of collies, my other breed, grew up here, and went on to become breed founders all over the world and valued companions and working dogs.  There are footprints preserved in some of the patches of cement, where the dogs couldn’t resist leaving their mark while it was still fresh.

Some years after we moved in, Mekorot decided that they wanted to end the contract – and then we discovered that they had no rights on the place at all.  After being transferred from one agency to another, in the end the place was the responsibility of the Israel Lands Authority.  We contacted them many times to ask to clarify and legalize the situation, with no answer.

Meanwhile, we paid taxes and tried to behave like good citizens.  An official road sign to “Shaar Hagai Kennels” was even placed on the highway just before our entrance.

Then, a few months ago, we got notification that the Lands Authority intended to file suit to evict us.  Why now, after 42 years, when we were not significant enough to notice?  Who knows?  But where we live is within the boundaries of a national park, and people are not allowed to live in a national park (not dogs either, apparently).  It doesn’t seem to matter that the area was declared a national park some years after we were already living here, and the buildings we live in were built, long before any ideas of parks, for the purpose of dwellings places for people…

I have never been very good at or interested in, politics, and the whole game of using influence.  I have only been interested in quietly breeding good dogs and enjoying them.  My daughter was born here and my grandchildren as well, and they can’t imagine having to leave.  I certainly can’t. 

The dogs tell me that they will follow me anywhere.  But the possibilities are very limited – property is extremely costly here, and people are not very tolerant of barking dogs…

So we are doing all we can to fight.  You can help by signing the petition  (see the link), and spreading the word.  If anyone knows some rock star that loves dogs…

Meanwhile the dogs help me to keep laughing.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-shaar-hagai-canaans/

One of our earliest Canaans in the first days of Shaar Hagai

Update:  May 18:

We now have over 40,000 signatures on the petition.  I am so grateful for this proof of the interest of people in what we are doing, and their love for the Canaan Dog and dogs in general.  I wish I had a way to thank everyone.
However, to date, there is no change, the ILA is continuing with the court case and still refuses to even talk to us.
So we ask you all to continue passing the petition on, and spreading the word, in the hope that in the end, we will be able to go on with what we are doing here. In just the last month, we have managed to bring in three wild born dogs from totally new bloodlines...if we have to leave, this will end...

WII

About two years ago, I tore the meniscus in my left knee. I was getting out of the car, stepped on a rock which shifted under me, and collapsed in a wave of agony.  Habibi, who was with me and ran ahead to the gate, chasing away the neighbor’s cat on the way, came back wondering why I was being so slow.  With him as partial support, I dragged myself home.

I discovered quickly that this was not something that you could tape with an elastic bandage and recover from in a few days.  I spent a long time hobbling around, with the dogs wondering why I wasn’t playing with them.  Since I was not keen on the idea of an operation on the knee (which did not guarantee any long term success anyway), the only thing to do was physiotherapy and hard work to build up the muscles and balance again.

I have never been very good about going to the gym, or exercise classes or such things. Somehow there never seems to be time enough, and getting out and driving somewhere to exercise has never appealed to me either.  But I really had to get back into shape.

And then I discovered WII.  I am always surprised that so many people, when I mention WII, don’t have any idea what it is.  I always have the feeling that if there is anything involved with modern technology that I have heard about, then everyone must know about it.  I found out about it from my grandchildren, of course.  One day when I was at their house, I found them in the middle of a game of virtual tennis. And then they told me about the Fitness program.  I tried out the balance board – and I was hooked!

I have to say that having the WII has certainly made a difference in my level of fitness, and my knee is again as functional as it was before the injury. 

Habibi does not really get the idea.  He sits and watches me as I vigorously step along, and finds it impossible to understand why I should keep walking and walking and not go anywhere.  The downward facing dog exercise for him is a play request in dog language and is an invitation for him to bow in return and lick my face.

Since he likes to join in on everything I am doing, he finds it frustrating that he can’t join in on the WII exercises.  He manages to lie down in exactly the spot where I have to put my leg in the next exercise, and if I am just concentrating on the TV screen and not on him, I am very likely to find my foot in the air hovering over Habibi, as the trainer on the screen tells me, “You are not very steady!  Are you having trouble with this exercise?  You have to practice every day…!”

One of the nice things about WII is the feedback you get, which shows you how well you are performing. But that pompous trainer with his fake English accent does annoy me at times.  Some of his praise sounds like what you would say to a three year old just to keep him happy – “Great! Your balance is perfect! What great condition you are in!!!”  I know better! So does Habibi as he watches me wobbling around on one leg, trying to keep the red dot in the yellow circle…

Atonement

This is the time of year, these few days between Rosh Hashana, our new year, and Yom Kippur, our day of atonement, that we are supposed to think over what we have done with our lives during the past year, and to ask for forgiveness from all those we may have caused injury to, including God.  I am not a great believer, but being fallible at times, I do believe in the value of asking for forgiveness. 

Habibi doesn’t think about asking for forgiveness.  He acts according to what seems to him to be the correct thing to do at that moment, in order to achieve whatever goal he may have in mind – reminding me that I owe him a treat, warning off the neighbor’s pesky golden retriever, throwing a toy at me to get me to play, digging after a particularly fascinating scent in the garden, warning the approaching stranger that this is OUR territory.  Whatever results are achieved from his behavior, they are accepted, either as positive or as negative, and then it is on to the next activity of the day.  If his actions have resulted in what he wants, Habibi is satisfied, and if they have not, he shrugs and next time he will try something else – but he never sits around and broods about what he has done, if he could have done it differently, and what would have happened if he had, and could he be excused for his mistake, and has he hurt someone’s feelings…..

There is an “Oops!  Sorry!!!” moment, a sideways look, and then it is over and forgotten.

Dogs have no need for repentance or asking forgiveness.  Whatever has been done is in the past, and life continues on.  Only we sit and brood about the things we have done and how we might have changed them.  Habibi may have done something that annoys me, even seriously, but he does not sit and worry about the fact that I have scolded him; the next minute he is occupied with doing something else, which is intended to bring a more positive reaction and almost always has the desired result of making me move on from whatever he did. He does not atone for what he did has done,  life simply goes on and we move forward, not backward.

Sometimes I do wish that life for me was as easy as it is for a dog, without all the worries and bad conscience and ”what ifs”….But since it isn’t,  – sorry!!! For the things I have done intentionally, the things I have done unintentionally, the things I  have brooded about, worried, and analysed about what would happened if I had done something else, for the words, and for the deeds, and for all those things that I have no idea that I have done and that they had any effect on anyone -  Sorry!!!

I ask for the forgiveness of anyone I may have caused grief to over the past year, and hope that I will be wise enough not to do such things again….or to invent new ones…and that I have the wisdom of a dog, to move forward…

Snake!

Kerrie is Habibi’s daughter, the one from his litter ten months ago that I decided to keep.  Her mother, Lilo, who I have written about before, is getting to retirement age, and although she dearly loves having puppies, the time is coming when she will have to be satisfied with grand and great grand pups. So I decided to keep Kerrie to carry on the family name.

She has shown that she has a mind of her own from a very young age.  She was very quick to become the leader of the pack among her own siblings, being the one who strode out first to explore new territory when I took the puppies out to new places for socialization, and then to immediately take possession and call her pack mates to watch her back and bark at anyone daring to think that this was not her personal property.  When her littermates left for their new homes, she became part of the collie pack, and keeps them busy, running off to inspect every new happening in the yard – a falling leaf, a bird on the tree, the neighbor’s dog barking 200 meters away….Life is always interesting, and she is always in control.  The collies don’t mind, and when she becomes too much of a pest, they make faces at her and she backs down with the “Okay, okay, I’m just a puppy!!!” posture.

At night, though, I don’t leave her out with the collies, as I do sometimes like to get some sleep, and am not really interested in the whole pack spending the night barking at moths and mice.  So she is closed in a yard of her own in the kennel, where it is quiet and there is nothing to bark at.

So I really couldn’t understand why, a few nights ago, she started barking and barking and barking when all the others were quiet.  This was definitely not normal, and the tone of her bark was of alarm.  I went out and looked around and saw nothing.  I firmly told her to shut up and went back in, but she again began persistent alarm barking.  Several times I went out to check, and found nothing, though she was standing off on one side of the yard instead of running around as she usually does.  But there was absolutely no apparent reason for her behavior.

Finally, I gave up and fell asleep, and either she got tired or she barked, I was too tired to know.

The next morning when I went out to take care of the dogs, there was nothing unusual.  Everyone ate breakfast, and Kerrie went out with the collies and ran around with them happily as ever. 

In the afternoon, when I went back out to the dogs, I entered Kerrie’s yard (where Lilo is during the day), and saw something that looked like a huge snake hanging down from the kennel roof along the back wall.  I had a moment of total panic!  One of the things that totally terrifies me is snakes in the kennel area, since we have poisonous vipers in the area, and over the years have had several very unpleasant experiences.  And this was huge!!!

After a moment of collecting my wits, I saw that it was not a snake at all.  It was a piece of old rubber hose pipe.  This hose, which was very thick and about two meters long, had been on the kennel roof for years – someone had thrown it up there and I had never been able to reach it to get it down.  The night before, it had been quite windy – the changing weather of autumn – and apparently during the night it had been blown to the edge.  Kerrie saw it up there, looking like a snake, and not having had any real experience with snakes, insisted on warning everyone who could hear her – “Snake!  Snake! Snake! Snake!!!!  The other dogs knew what a real snake was and ignored it.  I couldn’t see it, not having her sensory abilities.  During the day, the wind blew it further, until it was dangling over the edge and down the side of the kennel – and then I could see it.

I pulled it down and coiled it up next to the trash can to take out to the trash collection point later.  When I let Kerrie into the yard for the night, she looked over at it and then looked at me with satisfaction. “Snake!  I told you so!!!!”

The Ones That Stay Behind

I do enjoy some of the parts of travelling.  I enjoy seeing new places and in particular meeting new people and getting to visit old friends that I may not have seen for ages.  Since almost all my travelling has to do with dogs, showing them, judging them, visiting them, or whatever, it is of course a great pleasure.

But there are some things that are always very hard about travelling, and the greatest difficulty is leaving my dogs, even if it is for a few days.

I have never felt very worried about leaving family behind when I go away.  I have confidence that they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and of each other, and there are telephones, cars, friends, relatives, shops with anything they might need, doctors, police…not that they have ever had to use most of these things, but I know that the resources are available.

But the dogs!  How can they possibly get along without me?  No one else knows how to take care of them like I do, and they will miss me so much!  I have terrible feelings of guilt when I pack my bags to get ready to leave.  Of course there is someone reliable to stay and be responsible for them, armed with all my possible phone numbers, numbers of the vet, of friends that can help and advise, and anything else I can think of, but still, it is not me!!!

When I go away, Habibi goes to stay with my good friend who has a kennel.  Habibi is entirely too clever and too strong a personality to leave at home with anyone other than me.  There is no doubt in my mind that Habibi will immediately decide that he is in charge.  At my friend’s place however, where he has spent a good deal of time both with me and without me since he was a small puppy, I know that he is secure, and that everyone there knows just who Habibi is and what he is capable of.

But I see him eyeing my bag as I pack, and when I take his bed down to the car, he knows for sure….I can see the resignation on his face.

I can also see him thinking about what new tricks he will try out on my friends at the kennel.

At home, I make sure that everything is in order, all dogs are clean and groomed, and everyone is in the proper place, where they have others to play with, but no one that they will want to argue with.  This time, there are four week old puppies at home.  It is a litter of collies, roughs and smooths, just starting to eat, and not yet running around and getting into trouble.  My granddaughter who is the dog sitter this time has plenty of experience with puppies and has full instructions on what to do.

So I leave for four days (being almost at the end of the world here, two days spent travelling and two days spent with friends and dogs.)

When I am away, I am able, for the most part, to keep from being haunted by the fact that my dogs are left behind at home.  I am busy and occupied. But from the minute I start packing my bag to go home, all sorts of scenarios start running through my mind about what might have happened, what the dogs have been doing and all sorts of wildly imaginative ideas.  By the time I land, I am a ball of nerves, just wanting to get out of the airport as quickly as possible and get home.

My car is waiting in the airport lot, and on the way home, I pick up Habibi.  He has, without a doubt, heard and identified my car from a kilometer away, and is standing waiting for me when I arrive.  He greets me enthusiastically and tells me many stories of what he has been doing for the last four days, jumps into the car, and goes to sleep – everything is good now, we are on the way home.

When we arrive, of course I immediately make the rounds to say hello to everyone on four.  Everyone is fine and happy and they look at me, saying, “What’s all the fuss?  Life has gone on as usual!” 

Well, not quite as usual.  The puppies, as soon as I closed the door behind me, decided that they were big enough to climb out of the whelping box and run around the house.  Jenny decided that it was boring without me and pushed down the fence into the garden and chewed up a number of my plant pots.  Kerry, the young Canaan girl, also decided that she didn’t have enough to do and chewed up the hose pipe into many little pieces – my granddaughter had to buy a new one.

But she (of course!) coped with everything very well, and so did the dogs.  No one seemed to be depressed – after all, it was only four days, and dogs really don’t know how to count…

But I am glad to be home and in charge again!

Conscience

Having been raised by a woman of great integrity and unbendable moral values, I have often found myself suffering from pangs of conscience.  I still feel guilty about the day when I was eight years old and cut school and lied to my mother about it.  I find myself obsessing about stupid things I have forgotten to do, or not done correctly, about things I have said that may have been misinterpreted…Why a mistake I made countless years ago continues to haunt me is unclear, but I find these things popping up in my head, or floating to the surface during a restless night.

There are these frequent niggling thoughts running through my mind, even in relation to the simplest everyday things  – Am I doing this right?  Should I be doing it at all?  What will so and so think?  What do I think?

Dogs don’t suffer from conscience;  they live in the now.  What brings an immediate and positive result is what is they do, and what brings a negative result doesn’t get repeated.  There is no sitting and recriminating on what they did and what they could have done differently or what they might do differently in the future, there is only what they are doing right now.  “Live in the moment” is a dog’s motto.

We humans are really good at misinterpreting our dogs’ reactions.  You come home and find that your dog, bored out of his mind at sitting there alone for hours on end with nothing interesting happening – and you haven’t even left the TV on for him! – has demolished a few of the decorative cushions from the sofa and the whole house is flooded with tiny bits of foam rubber.  Doggy takes a look at your face and disappears under the bed.  “You see!” you exclaim, “He is feeling guilty!  He knows he did something bad!”

Well, think again.  Doggy had a great, fun time destroying household property and has no guilt feelings whatsoever. However, being a dog, he is great at reading body language, and understands immediately from yours that you are really angry and that he had better get out of range. 

He has no pangs of conscience about having stolen a cookie off the counter top when you are not looking, or sleeping on the sofa when no one is home.  “But he knows he shouldn’t do things like that!” you exclaim.  “Doesn’t he have a conscience?” 

Well – no!  His guilty look is only an expression of, “Oh,oh, you caught me and you are angry!”  Discretion is definitely the best part of valor…

Life would be so much easier if I could just live in the present like Habibi, never obsessing about the things that happened in the past, and that in any case I can’t do anything about, and never stressed about what might or might not happen in the future, which is not really under my control either.  Wouldn’t it be great to just enjoy the now…Wow!

No worries...