Small Skunk, Big Victory

       
It had been ten days since I first saw the skunk, since Curtis first charged it and was stopped in his tracks by the horror in my voice. Each afternoon at 5 sharp, the little animal had trundled into the yard (usually from a different direction each time, telling me she had us on a route) and happily eaten a small bowl of Fromm's kibble. I'd kept Curtis inside at that hour, because who needs to tempt fate? I had no idea if the lesson of that memorable day had taken in his brain. I'm still getting to know him, and I have enormous respect for the power of his prey drive, the instinct bred into him to go for the kill.

The skunk and I had fallen into a routine. She responded to my voice by advancing toward me, not retreating. I could walk right past her and set her bowl down and she'd bumble like a stumbly kitten to the goods.  Charmingly myopic, she followed the scent of the food and seemed unperturbed by my watching and photographing her as she ate.

She was moving better, but she still had to hop with that broken hind leg. She would never win a race. A skunk doesn't have to be fast. All it really has to be is black and white, and armed.

It's funny how fast I can get attached to something like a crippled skunk. All I have to feel is that I'm somehow helping it, and I'm gone, all in. 

To be fair to me, she is absolutely adorable. Not the fanciest, by any means, but the cutest for sure.

After ten days of this, I felt I knew how she'd react, and finally felt comfortable doing another experiment with Curtis. I put his leash on and walked quietly out into the yard while the skunk was about. Watch what happened next!

               

I think you can hear how pleased I am that our dog has finally had a change of heart and mind about skunks. Because his hunting instinct is so powerful, I honestly never thought I'd see the day. That makes the gift of his cooperation all the more wonderful. I have the feeling this lesson will hold, on or off the lead. I think he's put it all together that Ma wants him to stay away from skunks. What a good boy!

As I write, it's March 20, and she's been here a solid two weeks. I hurried to set her kibble out this evening at 5 pm, as always. For the first time, she didn't show up. Aww, heck. Doggone it. Now what? Was she in a burrow somewhere, giving birth to tiny kits, broken leg and all? Had a great horned owl grabbed her? I hadn't smelled a struggle... Had she just changed her route, or found a carcass somewhere to feast on?

With wild friends, this time may be the last you'll ever see them, but each one I come to know, no matter how inconvenient or smelly they may be, is a gift. This little skunk stayed long enough to teach Curtis how to live with his neighbors. She was kind and patient and grateful, and those are good things to have in a friend. Here's hoping we see her again, farther on down the line.

Wait. There's more. 

Update: The compost area was heavily anointed with skunk aroma around 11 Friday night.  And the skunk was back at 3:45 pm on Saturday, March 21, hinting broadly that it was time for her kibble.  Being well-trained, I obliged. 

Sunday, March 22: She spent a couple hours in the compost pit from 3 pm on, sorting through some meat scraps that found their way in. Ignored her kibble. 

 This is her I-don't-want-to-talk-to-you-right-now glare. My kids, who are both in residence with me, eating like kings and sucking down every drop of bandwidth until such time as the world stops ending, are making fun of me as per usual.  Now, because of how obsessed I am with "that crippled skunk." 

Her name is SugarBean.

 That is all from Indigo Hill. 

Fun With Skunks and Dogs

I first saw her March 7, moving slowly, even for a skunk, across the sideyard. It took only seconds for me to realize that something was wrong. She was injured, probably with a broken left hind leg. The instinctive helper in me was instantly and permanently sad. There's really little way that I can think of to help an injured skunk, without getting yourself permeated with its noxious scent for the next few months.

Oh, it was so hard to watch her hobbling along. Try as I might, I couldn't think of a way to capture and hold her to get her into care, without rendering myself unspeakably smelly. I know of someone who recently tried; valiant Deb caught an injured skunk and took it in her car to a rehab facility, but even there, people were utterly amazed that she'd do that. She and her car got good and sprayed for her kindness, too. I love skunks, but even I don't love them enough to be willing to do that.

You can see the unnatural arch of her back that says she's favoring the near hind leg.

I've been continuously living with this stench, both intense and faint,  ever since Curtis Loew came into my life, and I can tell you that it's not something I'd willingly invite by trying to handle a wild skunk. As of his last event in January 2020, he'd been sprayed three times in 11 months. The events were evenly enough spaced that juuust as he was starting to smell like potting soil and sunshine again, he'd go and get himself doused. It has been thoroughly discouraging. How can such a smart dog be so durn dumb about skunks? Is a fondness for playing with mustelids one of the many traits that got him surrendered by his former owners? I would bet so. In all his nearly twelve years, Chet Baker got sprayed twice. The first time was his fault (Ooh! Look at the kitty! Does it want to play?) The second was a complete accident (taking a 10:30 pm mad walk, we both tripped over a skunk in the pitch dark). And after that episode, when Chet saw a skunk, he'd immediately sit down, clear his throat, watch with great interest, and refuse to go any closer. He was not slow. Neither is Curtis; in fact in many ways Curtis is more clever than Chet. But he's also a cur, bred to hunt, and therein lies the problem.

 I heard Curtis one morning in the third week of January 2020, deep in our west woods, giving an angry, commanding bark. I didn't  like the sound of that bark. It sounded like he had something cornered, low; his treed animal bark is higher and more yelpy. And it wasn't too long before he came lolloping up the meadow, long strings of foamy slobber coating his head and chest. He'd stop to roll, then keep running toward home. What the heck did you get into? Oh. OH. OHHHH. Crap!! Not again!!

By this third time that he'd pulled this, I'd figured out how to handle it, and I told him he was NOT coming in the house. No, I left him outside while I prepared a bucket of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dishwashing liquid.  Here's the recipe:

• 1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide 
• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1 teaspoon liquid dishwashing soap

 I gloved myself,  leashed him, and made him stand on the sidewalk while I lathered him up, three times in a row. It was absolutely miserable for us both. Only when I got him to where I could stand to be near him did I carry him straight to the downstairs tub for more peroxide rinses and then a real hot bath. I did not allow him inside to jump up on furniture or rub himself on the carpet, all of which he did in the two previous episodes, anointing my house with a stench that lasted weeks. DisGUSting.

Far as I knew, I had a dog who was never going to learn about skunks. I realized that, in Curtis, I had a macho-a-s dog who thought it was worth it to get sprayed, if he could just get the right grip on that funny little animal. The first time, he'd rushed a skunk as the kids walked him out the meadow.  A good spraying ensued.  I had the opportunity to test him on a long lead not long afterward. I spotted a skunk feeding in a distant meadow and walked him obliquely toward it, leash slack, without saying a word. (This was a test.  Everything is an experiment). He spotted it, went on alert, stalked it (not a good sign) then, forgetting he was on lead, bolted toward it. I was only too happy to bring him up with the leash and give him a good scolding. You idiot! Unreformed, clearly, and utterly unrepentant. You want me to hunt, right??

 In our next encounter, he was walking at twilight ON A SHORT LEASH with ME HOLDING IT and Shila right beside us when he dove into a ditch and came up twirling around in a circle with a SKUNK in his JAWS. That time was extra special. There was so much screaming!  Shila and I still laugh our heads off when we talk about it. Spinning! Screaming! Cussing! A real stinky ride home in my car! Which stank for weeks! And in this fourth encounter, he'd cornered one deep in the woods and taken it right in the kisser. NOT LEARNING. Not even CLOSE. Some might call him an idiot. I knew it was something closer to invincibility, stubborn, butt-headed courage. It was worth it to him, for the thrill of the hunt. And this was bad.

And now I had a badly injured skunk right smack in my yard who couldn't go anywhere fast. Great. I could see this was not going to end well. A lot of people would have solved the problem with a bullet in the skunk. I am not like a lot of people. I prefer to lead a more interesting life than that.

Watching the little animal, I decided it was probably a female, since it was the smallest adult skunk I'd seen. I could also tell the injury was recent, and painful. I suspected she had been hit by a car, since both legs on her left side seemed to be affected. I don't think Curtis could have done it, because the last time he was sprayed was back in January, and here it was March 7. And he certainly would have been sprayed for his efforts had he grabbed her and injured her.

Over the next few days, that skunk showed up in the compost area every day at 5 pm. OK, for now the plan was to keep Curtis inside in the late afternoon. It was a plan that could work in the short term, but it was only a matter of time before Curtis would stumble across her. I dreaded that, but all the same I was fascinated by her, and the way she was learning to compensate for her injuries. She seemed to move just a little better with each passing day. I hatched a plan to support her with food until she could get around better. I suspect that most people would think that was dumb. Even I thought it was about 85% dumb. But I couldn't help myself.

 It started innocently enough. She was rooting around in the compost pile, and I went over and picked up a window-killed cardinal that I had laid out for the sharp-shinned hawk who got robbed by a bobcat in my last blogpost. The sharpie had eyed the dead bird but never took me up on the offer. He is a grown male, perfectly capable of catching fresh food. Sharpies are not scavengers, like their phlegmatic buteo cousins. They're finicky hawk royalty. The cardinal had been lying in freezing temperatures for three days, was still good, and I figured the hurt skunk could use the protein. So I crept as close to the compost pit as I dared, lobbed the bird in a high arc and brought it to a perfect landing about 6" from the skunk's head. The skunk jumped comically, looked around, followed her nose, and immediately dug in. She ate the cardinal's head, crunching down its massive beak with impressive power. I cannot imagine swallowing a cardinal's beak, but she did it. (Maybe I'll find that poop!)  Then she picked the bird up and carried it into a trumpetvine tangle to finish her excellent meal.

I don't have photos of all that happened the next time I saw the skunk. It was a couple days later: Monday, March 9, a beautiful warm afternoon, and I had the windows thrown open to air the house out. I was in the studio,  washing the floor, and it suddenly occurred to me that the skunk ought to be in the yard about now. I looked outside and the first thing I saw was Curtis, moseying slowly across the side yard. Ut-oh. He stopped for a pee. I scanned the yard. His head came up, ears pricked, and he went tense. I followed his gaze to the innocent little skunk, bumbling toward the compost pit maybe 100' away.

Like an arrow shot from a crossbow, Curtis launched himself at the animal. And just as quickly, I hollered NO!! NO!!  NONONONONONONO CURTIS NO NONONONONO!!

Because the windows were open, Curtis heard me, picked up on the anguish in my voice. For once, he did not go selectively deaf, as he has so many times when I've tried to turn him off a scent. And that dog stopped in his tracks. Turned. Tucked his tail and groveled up to me (By then, I'd thrown myself out the front door and was headed out to get sprayed, too). The skunk stood her ground. She hadn't even lifted her tail. Curtis was at my feet, miraculously odorless and thoroughly chastised. Most amazing, he was saying he was sorry. Who are you, and what have you done with my bone-headed huntin' dog??

A miracle had occurred. To me, it was on the same scale as Moses parting the waters or a nun in a cinnamon bun. I had somehow called a thick-headed mountain cur with a prey drive the size of Nebraska off the easiest prey he'd ever get to grab. It all spoke to the immense value of offering a firm correction at the very moment it is needed. Which is exactly at the moment the dog is doing the stupid thing. Not before. Not after. 

At. That. Moment. 

I praised Curtis, laughing and crying at the same time. He sheepishly accepted my hugs, then slunk off toward the front door. I tried to call him to me, so we could go a bit closer, look at the skunk together and talk about why we don't mess with skunks. He was having none of my yammer. He was done with that scene. 

Score one for the skunk! One for Curtis Loew! Score a huge one for Zick!

Slow clap for the dog.

I was so pathetically grateful to the skunk for holding her fire that I put GoodBoy Curtis inside and fetched a handful of his kibble to throw to her. In this video, she's gladly vacuuming up my offering. Yep, 85% dumb, and 100% grateful, that's me. There's just something about skunks that I adore, and no amount of inconvenience and discomfort that they cause can change that. My heart surged with hope that, against all odds and Curtis' inborn ways, we had finally found a way to coexist.

                

You know there's more to the story. There's always more.

Chet Baker and Wally the Kooikerhondje: Trick Time

We kept a Dutch Kooikerhondje named Wally for a little over a week while his owners (Oona's family, for those who've been reading this blog since dinosaurs walked the earth) were at the beach. This dog was bred to play in the water and attract ducks so the ducks could be shot. A Kooikerhondje is different in build and coloration from a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, which is a better-known breed. But both were bred to lure in wild ducks by fooling around at the water's edge.  Now, knowing a little bit about wild ducks, I find this little breed purpose fable hard to believe. But that's the story and they're sticking to it. And Boston terriers were bred to sit by their owners in the stands while the owners watched dogfights. Uh-huh. Chet Baker would definitely want to help with the dogfight. He'd be the last person I'd take to a dogfight, a giant pain in the *** at a dogfight. If I were the kind of person who went to dogfights. As if anyone who owned a Boston terrier would be into dogfights. Honestly. You see the problem. It simply can't be.

Wally is one of the most beautiful dogs I've ever seen, with a kind, sweet demeanor and the most luxuriant silky fur imaginable. Note the little black "earrings" of hair adorning his ears. A breed trait. The function of the earrings is...oh, never mind.   Wally is a little timid compared to Chet, and his bag of stupid pet tricks perhaps not stuffed quite so full as Chet Baker's. They get along terrifically well, with only one big snarling bout when Wally tried to horn in on Chet's chicken livers. In order for any dog to get along with Bacon, he must acquiesce dominance entirely. Then things will go just fine. Wally was awesome on our runs, forging out well ahead of me and Chet, but always coming right back when called, and dropping to lie down on the shoulder when a car passed. Ol' Silverchops and I ran that dog's pretty little feet off. We did two 6.8 milers, several 4.8's...he loved it all.

Flashy.

So Phoebe thought she might send Wally home with a new trick for his family to enjoy, and tried to teach him to shake hands. Watch what happens when she settles in for a little training session. Please do not miss the very beginning of the video, when Chet Baker is just finishing an impressive Roll Over in an attempt to gain Phoebe's attention. Gack. I grabbed my phone and made this amateur vid. I did remember to turn the phone on its side this time. But forgot not to cackle into the mic. Sorry. Again.

I'm old enough to remember Jack Benny. If you are, and I bet you are, see if Chet's withering stares at me remind you of anyone...

Nobody puts Baker in a corner!

The Best Part of the Day

They often say it's the best part of the day. Whoever "they" are, I agree.

Dawn is the best. I feel like I'm stealing away when I wake up at 4:45, put on my shoes and go out into the fields. I go out to disappear into the light and the air, fragrant with the last of the honeysuckle and the first of the milkweed.

Indigo buntings sing very early. This male perched on a bluebird box along the driveway, singing his heart out in the darkness. Inside the box, a bluebird may be laying her third pale blue egg. So much blue. I stood and listened as long as he sang. 

Ground fog pours over the hayfield and into the road. I'm shivering a little this morning, a nice change from sweating.

The mackerel sky speaks of rain before this time tomorrow. There's been a lot of rain. I love seeing the wildflowers burgeon and grow huge. I almost don't recognize them, so lush they're growing.

It isn't hard to spot a striped skunk doodling along, digging pits in the haymeadow near the county road. Chet sees it too. He hangs near me, not giving chase. I think this dog's training is close to done. Only two days ago, he spotted three wild turkeys strolling on one of our favorite lanes, and didn't chase them, either. 

It is a beautiful thing to have a dog with judgement, who doesn't need a leash or even a word any more.

For a Boston terrier, such restraint is rare. They are half terrier, after all. My favorite part is that in both cases, I didn't have to say a word to him. He just knows that good dogs don't chase turkeys or skunks, no matter how alluring they may be. 

We move up on the skunk to try to get a photo with my iPhone. Chet sticks right by my side. He's been sprayed twicet. He knows. 

The skunk gets wind of us and does a meerkat act. It is very cute. Then it ambles over to a telephone pole and digs and digs. From the way it's digging and then pouncing, I suspect it has found  a nest of baby rabbits. But I'm not about to go investigate.  That's his bidness, and I'm not interested in bathing in baking soda and white vinegar today. We just watch. 

Here's the skunk, the dark spot at the base of the telephone pole, and Chet, watching without having to be held back. What a good boy. 

We leave him there, digging. And when we come back three hours later I go investigate and sure enough, there's a bunch of soft grass pulled out of a hole. He had found a nest of baby rabbits. They must've been small for him to gobble them up so cleanly. There are so many rabbits this year, and some of them are born to die. That's part of being a rabbit. 

 Mist hangs in the holler over Carl's house. 

We run down the dip and up onto the ridgetop, and it's so beautiful I can hardly believe that everyone else is asleep. The milkweed is about to burst into bloom. It's untouched. I haven't seen a monarch yet. I will wait, and so will the milkweed.

The scene is so perfect in the diffuse morning light it reminds me of a diorama painted by Frances Lee Jacques. But it's real, and I'm in it, and I'm grateful to be there. I couldn't do everything I have to do; I couldn't be who I need to be and take care of the people I care for without starting my mornings like this. Everyone has things that get them through their days. I wonder what the world would be like if we all got up in the dark and took three hours to dwell in, to move through such grace. I find it transformative. 

A Facebook friend whose updates often make me snort wrote this:

"I run. I run until I don't want to stab people. Sometimes I run a long time."

I'd never say that. But I'm glad I have a friend who would.

I'm also glad to have this friend, this solid dark polished ebony chunk of love. There's something to be said for being able to get a kiss whenever you need one, even if it's only from a dog. He's quite a dog.

The landscape looks to me like a little farm set, and I feel like a child again, creating perfect scene after perfect scene, lining up the white plastic fencing, the barns and the tiny brown and white cattle. This world is in order. I have only to move around to frame and appreciate its exquisite symmetry. 

Today I record birds, as I do every time I go out, on a little folded bit of paper. Today I hear or see 63 species in three hours, which feels darn good to me for late June. I say that because everything I'm logging now is likely to be staying around to breed. This is the second run in a row where I record rose-breasted grosbeak, two different males  a couple of miles apart. I'm very excited about that. I've never had June records of RBGR. Only one July record in 22 years. I also log five singing yellow-throated warblers and two worm-eating warblers, in addition to ovenbirds, Kentucky warbler, American redstart, yellow, blue-winged, and black and white warblers. Life is good.

Recording the birds I hear every morning has become a comfort thing for me, like doing a crossword puzzle or reading the newspaper. I am reading the newspaper, the news that means something to me.
For those who can read bander's code (or my bad approximation of it), here's June 22's list.

COYE
NOCA
EATO
EABL
FISP
INBU
WEVI
MODO
CHSP
WOTH
AMCR
BLUW
HOWA
REVI
BGGN
YBCH
BASW
YTVI
NOMO
SOSP
YSFL
PIWO
RBWO
WBNU
RWBB
BHCO
TUTI
AMRO
OROR
EAKI
DOWO
EUST
TRSW
GRCA
YEWA
CEDW
CACH
OVEN
EWPE
BAOR
BAWW
TUVU
AMGO
SCTA
HOFI
EAME
RTHA
BRTH
RBGR
HOSP
RTHU
HAWO
EAPH
YTWA
WBNU
AMRE
KEWA
WEWA
BHCO
ACFL
RSHA
YBCU
GCFL

Chet Baker Suffers for Our Art

 Chet Baker tries. Oh, he tries so hard to please us. This video neatly encapsulates his relationship with Phoebe, who torments and bedevils him for her own (and her mother's) amusement. It is subtle, but it is all there for those who know this little gentleman. Like a fine actor, he can convey raging emotion with the twitch of an ear or the turn of a flew.

This particular evening, Phoebe had the idea to offer a bikkit to Chet Baker, without telling him what she wanted him to do to get it. So The Bacon ran through part of his trick repertoire, casting about until he settled on the one that would unlock the bikkit hand. Play Dead and Stay Dead was the key.

Do not miss the disgruntled look he gives me, the snickering videographer, at the outset of the bad dog training session. Why do you let her do this to me? Nor the stink-eye he levels at her. You and your stupid hand signals that don't mean anything.

 Phoebe often proclaims that Chet Baker secretly hates her, but we don't think that's true. When she gets home from school he's a black inky streak out the door to greet her.

At the end of the session, we had to wipe up a small pool of Baker drool on the kitchen floor. How this dog suffers for our art.

As I write, Chet has a red bow around his neck and a cookie sheet sticker on his back. He is working on getting the neon-green fur off several tennis-ball type dog toys, using a wadded-up Christmas stocking as he platform. He started raiding all the presents, taking each one to the back of the couch, and chewing holes in the paper at about eight this morning. As soon as he figured out there wasn't a dog toy inside he was on to the next. He made an exception for a Hickory Farms summer sausage... Don't worry. He got five of his own presents. It was a very Bacon Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Chet Baker fans everywhere.

The Mature Boston Terrier

Walking to the bus stop is a ritual for us, when the weather is nice enough to permit it. Liam always wants to walk, no matter what. He likes the extra time, the smell of wet leaves, the chance to run around and around.This year, the district clamped down on a lot of stuff that was going on on the school buses. And one of the new rules was: No animals on the bus. This broke a four-year tradition of letting Chet Baker on the bus to greet his beloved chirrun each morning. There is another new rule: No pencils on the bus. Which means the kids don't have a chance to do their homework on the ride. You might poke your eye out!!

Please.

When he was a pup (which, in Bostons, lasts somewhere into Year Three), Chet needed a leash. Period. Without it, he'd get up on the seat, sit down and say, "Take me to the school. There are more chirrun there who need their faces washed."

Here comes the bes. I love it when the bes comes.

I still kept him on a leash in Year Four, but I stopped holding it. In fact, when he was done greeting all the kids, he'd pick up one end of it and take himself off the bus, romping back down the lane to home. Watching him decide that the session was over, pick the leash up in his teeth, turn his back on the outstretched hands of the children, and get off the bus always amused bus driver Sue so much. "He's done!" she'd say, and we'd both laugh.


By Year Five, we could dispense with both the leash and the collar, and Chet was completely cool. And then came The Rule Change, and poor Chet was no longer allowed to greet the chirrun. Back came the leash, for a short time, until he understood that these humans, in all their capricious wisdom, suddenly decided that his beloved ritual was not to be. I think he understands that it wasn't my choice. I think he knows the meaning of "I'm sorry, Chetty."

I am proud to say that little Chet Baker, at five, is now self-policing where the bus is concerned. He just needs to be reminded with a quiet "Stay."



Any of you who own Boston terriers will understand my pride in this fact. Boston terriers have SO much wiggly love to give that it is very, very hard for them to resist rushing up to every human they see and giving them a thorough tongue-lashing.


And Chet especially loves children. It's hard for him to let Liam get on that bus alone.

(Please note the adorable strip of white on the back of his head). God done dipped his paintbrush one last time.


The ultimate test: one of his little friends lowers the window and hollers, "Here Chet!! Come here, Chet!!"

To my great amusement, Chet responded not by rushing to the bus, but by roo-roo-rooing at her until it pulled away.

I cannot come to the bes, little girl! They will not let me! So do not tempt me! You are being very bad, very very bad! Roo roo roo roo!

Good dog, Chet. All you with exuberant young Boston terriers, take heart. It gets easier, much easier.

Dog Training, Boston Style

I'm not sure what the point is, of training a Boston terrier to shake hands and roll over. Perhaps it's just to be sure you can teach him something, when he seems to be the one who's always teaching you. I do see the value of Stay and Sit and Come and Down, but beyond that, it's pretty much parlor tricks, like teaching your two-year-old to recite the ABC's for Grandma. Oh, yeah. There's Heel. We haven't quite got that one down, because we're never on a lead...

Chet Baker puts up with Phoebe's training with dignity. As long as there's a liver treat or a piece of sharp cheddar involved, he'll go along with the act. He ain't nobody's monkey, though, and he won't perform without the treat.You had better have a treat in your hand, Miss Phoebe, or nothing doing.

He hates Roll Over (gee, wonder why?), but he'll do it, as long as you trace an arc with the liver treat that tells him where to go.
Shake has turned into something that better resembles a High Five. He'll slap his paw over yours, verra cute.
Just give me the treat, and I will go back to chasing bunnehs, which is my Real Job.
He is really good at Stay, which is probably one of the best commands for an enthusiastic Boston terrier to master. It comes in handy around cars and cows. Notice that I did not include cats in that lineup. Nothing will make him Stay around a cat.
Oh, Miss Phoebe, please do not make me wait any longer for that delicious strong smelling pellet of textured protein.
Sweetness, thou art Baker. Here you go, good boy. Now you can go back to doing dog things.
Offisa Pupp, at your service.

This is a happy birthday to my dear friend Jane, who has brought black-and-white bundles of joy to so many people, and without whom there would be no Chet Baker. Imagine!