Kenai the Comedian…by Lisa Harmon July 30, 2008

Kenai and his lovely eyes, 30 wks old         (oh ears…why’d you choose to flop for this pic?)

Kenai gave me a bumper crop of great pics yesterday morning. The one above is the best picture of his beautiful soft eyes I’ve ever taken. (Never mind the clapping ears…). For some reason his eyes don’t show up so well in most snapshots, unlike his brother, BB.

Maybe all the extra skin he still hasn’t grown into? Or maybe he’s demure, a bashful beige beauty with a tail? Awww…NOT. Bashful he ain’t. Not Dopey, either, though sometimes he does a great impersonation of Sneezy out in the high grass. Whatever the reason, I’m just really pleased to finally show ya’ll his splendid eyes. He uses them on me regularly.

Once again, I deprived him of obedience class last night, though I am not so sure it was a deprivation. This slump in my health is really starting to concern me. Up until recently I’ve been able to push through, even if all I did was exercise, train, and take care of Kenai.

His care and training is something of a sacred cow, being my biggest priority in how I spend my limited energy. The edges of that sacred cow have some evidence of tiger teeth these days, darn it—our spit and polish has developed a slow bleed.

Nothing I do can sustain enough energy through the day for evening outside playtimes despite his needing it, and I’m only averaging 3 days a week on his outings. Naps have slid from occasional necessity to mandatory daily things. Not that I’m unaccustomed to getting worse and getting better then getting worse, physically. It’s been this way for years.

I don’t relish the thought of finding myself ailing, but that’s the vile disposition of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Up and down, with down being the most common.This is what I was afraid of: running out of strength before Kenai was really solid on his obedience and public work.

Guess we all have to face our fears, but I was hoping to avoid that one. 

There’s so much in our training that needs, really needs, attention and practice. His obedience training had been on a slow pace from the start because of my limitations. Now it seems we’re on a slothful one. I hate slothful, even if it’s slothful for a reason.

Thank God this didn’t happen back in May, and that is my poofy pink cloud in this situation. May was when Kenai got thoroughly depressed, his brother spending a solid month in puppy hospital. Among other things. Now he’s thoroughly bored a lot more than he should be. I despise the idea that he’s not having all the fun his puppy heart deserves because moi can’t manage it.

The world won’t end because of this decline in my health. I was just hoping to spare Kenai the consequences of it. He’s got so much squirrelly puppy energy by evening, he is getting scolded for things he wouldn’t do if he’d had a satisfying turn in the field. Or if I wasn’t weak enough for him to think he could get away with stuff. Weak energy don’t lead an independent dog, no matter how gentle and sensitive he is.

All that whiney stuff said, a long term perspective makes a world of difference in living with short term complications. Danes don’t really mature and get set in their training until roughly 2 years old. That leaves me a year and half to help Kenai settle into the well mannered gentleman he is already becoming.

He has an outstanding innate temperament, which is my ace in the hole. (Thank you Teri—you breed them well!!) Any behaviors he acquires or doesn’t can be unlearned or learned when my strength returns. So it’s a bumpier ride than it might have been…such is life, and I’ll have to deal. 

♥

We didn’t go anywhere yesterday, Kenai and I, and I doubt we’ll get out today. Mom’s heading into town today, for her hairdresser appt and errands, so Kenai gets to hang out in the living room, where we have the expen set up for his bro BB to nap and chew in. She’s usually gone 6 hours or more. Think I might use the time to sew up the swelling pile of fuzzy babies with holes or popped seams.

Some of the Brothers Grin’s very favorite babies are a bit raggedy. Kenai has 2 which he’s loved since the day he came home: yellow ducky baby and fleece lamby baby. All their squeakers still work, despite occasionally rough treatment, and if I take them up to put away for awhile, he goes looking for them. He misses them so badly, he won’t play with anything. You can guess what state they’re in: well used.

Making the boys wait for the repairs to be done is something of a misadventure. They see their toys in my hands and try desperately to let me have them. Kenai does his prettiest sits and downs, talks like Scooby Doo, pouts when all attempts fail… but when it’s done and I toss it, he has such a ball! The leaping and pouncing sounds like a herd of water buffalo to my brother down in the basement below. I don’t feel sorry for him.

Mike’s giving us a line that the computers will be down at work until Thursday, though I hesitate to believe him. Maybe they are. But what business lets their computers be down for 9 days? I think he’s quit, since he’s been bitching about the job for awhile, and he can use being unemployed as an excuse to make Mom not put him out.

Maybe I’m wrong and he hasn’t quit, but this is like his 3rd or 4th job in the past year. He’s just quit without having another job before, when he was still married and supposed to support his family. And he holed up in front of the computer for months while Mom paid our bills and theirs too.

He’s been playing his flight simulator game for 12 hours or more at a time since last Wednesday afternoon. He says he’s putting in job applications online, but he sure hasn’t left the house for over 7 days. He only takes a break from the swearing and comes up for coffee or to eat horrendus amounts of food at supper.

I think he’s quit, and plans to lay around the rest of his life. He’s been saying things around me that indicate he has completely blown off Mom’s telling him he can’t stay here much longer. The human black hole strikes again. He made a mistake and let one slip in front of Mom over the weekend while trying to soothe his daughter during one of her tantrums. 

He told Em she could help him put up our tree this Christmas and what decorations he was going to use in the house. Mom got mad and asked him what made him think he was going to be living here at Christmas, or putting up our decorations. He’s going to make her evict him. That’s a hell of rotten thing to do to a mother who’s done without for you all her life.

♥

I don’t want to discourage anyone from helping the disabled, but when you feel the compassionate urge to offer your assistance, may I suggest you don’t do what my brother has: come in and take over, arranging things to suit yourself. It can be really offensive that he assumes we want to be “taken care of”, and does things we tell him not to do, like cutting the grass because he thinks it needs it.

It’s always a commendable thing to offer your help to someone, but please respect that the person may not want it. My brother’s attitude is ‘well this place is a mess, and since you can’t do this and that, I’ll do it’. He’s rather insulting, without even knowing it. The property and house doesn’t look good enough to satisfy him, and that’s his motivation. What we want means nothing.

There are alot of emotions that the disabled feel, and alot of “shortcuts” to getting things done that wouldn’t occur to someone who’s healthy. Everyone has their ways of doing stuff, and you could unintentially make more work not less for someone if they feel like they must go along behind you and fix “mistakes” you’ve made.

You can also find yourself wondering why they are so grumpy, even rude to you, since all you want to do is help. The attitude you have towards them and their difficulties can either make having your assistance a pleasant experience or a damaging one.

Your attitude can make someone feel that you’re there to do a little something as their friend, just helping out like you would any other friend. Or you could make someone who is struggling to be functional and productive feel like they are helpless, useless, and always will be.

It’s all about approach. People with limitations are often a little sensitive, having their self-worth a bit dented, especially if the limitations are suddenly imposed. What once they could do for themself, out of the blue they can’t. It’s a rough sea when that happens. When in doubt of how to be helpful, take a page from the doggie book: touch, sit beside, give hugs, and make ‘em laugh.

I hope if you know someone who’s struggling you can offer a helping hand, but keep in mind that what a person wants from you might not be doing for them, but being for them: being a friend, willing just to sit and listen, or hang out for no particular reason at all. When I fell really ill, nearly all my friends faded away since I couldn’t do stuff with them or for them anymore.

There was one person, one fine and noble soul who was just THERE. She didn’t clean my house, cut my shrubs to the ground, or decide to decorate my Christmas tree for me. Arlene was magnificently, encouragingly, humanely still there. The days she popped in for a visit were bright spots in a dark place. I was her friend, and that was the greatest help anyone ever gave me. 

She wasn’t at all afraid to ask me to bake a batch of cookies for her visiting daughter’s birthday, or ask me if she could have a split off a pretty hosta in my yard. She knew my limitations were there, and never once made a big deal out of them–she focused on, and helped me see what I could still do. I still had immeasurable worth, even if I wasn’t quite as useful as I once was: usefulness is not the measure of a person’s worth.

♥

I hate to read something that ends on a down tone, so let’s have a laugh. With all the pictures out in cyberspace of Great Danes, looking regal, imposing, and elegant, I thought I’d let those of you without a Dane see the Marmaduke side of the breed. Those of you with a Dane may recognize some of these poses! Most of the time, my boy is dignified and calm.

Then there are the goober runs, aka zoomies. That’s when he gets all the Goofy, Dopey, and Engelburt out of his puppy system. There’s not a way to describe the hysterical funnies of a zoomie and do it justice. You just have to see for yourself. So here is a small gallery, Kenai the Comedian’s impressions of other critters, taken in mid-goob:

Kenai’s impression of a Neopolitan Mastiff, complete with smunched down ears and droopy face skin! Gravity does terrible things to the beautiful sometimes…

Kenai’s impression of a Philidelphia Eagles halfback, or a really really short cutting mare!

 

 

 

Kenai’s impression of a parachuting greyhound… love the lips! Talk about drag…

Kenai’s impression of a wild boar. Notice the skin on his back? Can’t defy physics…

 

 

So there is Kenai in all his undignified glory, enjoying the devil out of his goober runs. Then its back to stateliness and grandeur! (Minus the messy eating habits). When he was a toddler, the zoomie took about a 20 foot circle area, but now he’s closer to 1/2 an acre! What a good boy he is. I’m so glad to have him.

♥

There’s a difference between compassion and pity: one maintains respect for them as a human being, the other makes a project out of what used to be a person.