Kenai the Overloaded…by Lisa Harmon September 6, 2008

A visual aid to understand Kenai’s state of mind Friday night…

Wow, just when I thought I had Kenai’s excited-dominant behavior waning…Friday night we had 3 distinct bouts in one hour of wild, complete with grabbing my arm in his mouth when I corrected him, and trying to smash me on the couch. The vet scale says he’s coming in at 119 pounds now. Too big for that.

The day began very well, having a really good run outside in the cool air, but that’s not where it wound up. By 9 pm I had a frustrated bull elephant pinned on the couch and held there until it withered his dangles. Then I took his still squirelly bum up to bed.

In between morning and night was where it all went wrong. I guess days always go wrong then. Our slide to infamy started at 10 am. We had a big day with lots of things that had to be done before my niece was supposed to come that evening. I could tell from the start my nap was in jeopardy.

Kenai was all mellow from his morning run, and I decided to finally give my room a quickie clean. It smelled, the carpet was toffee colored from his toffee tush, and my socks kept picking up bone bits. Time to clean. Mom was just about headed off to the store to restock the now working fridge when who should appear without any warning but my niece.

Now that my brother has twice been told NO WEEKDAYS, it hit the fan. Mom let him have it, she met his ex and Emily on the porch with less anger but definite displeasure, and then she left before she threw them all out permanently. You would think he’d have some idea how thin the ice is.

Once Mike had gone to the basement with Em, I went ahead with my plans despite BB’s howling from the living room. Suddenly crappy mood or not, even Mike wouldn’t have the temerity to pop up and yell at BB for barking while I cleaned upstairs. Not after that butt chewing from Captain Weaver.

I admit to being pretty impressed with how calm I remained, and how downright peaceful the boys were while I was with them. I did more housework than I should have, trying to reduce the load on frazzled Mom. That in turn reduces the frazzling of BB, who can come apart like an old t-shirt.

There was alot of walking and hauling salvaged frozen good back in from the garage, interspersed with getting some knitting done while playing some relaxation music…that quiet morning was so pleasant. Gotta love the power of music! It didn’t last.

Brown wound up being returned to the car for the first time in 2 months. He wasn’t doing too well, but not too bad, either. What did surprise me, and set off some alarms, was his big discomfort was about a table of men with a young child. Uh-oh.

But we were holding our 4 pack together in relative steadiness, I thought, as the day went on. There were signs of stress, but a little fun and play would take care of it. I wondered if we should give the boys another run a piece. But it seemed like we were okay, ya know?

Then Mike and his growing bad mood came up at 7:30 pm with Emily and her cranky one since I hadn’t made dinner. The thought of food made me queasy, so cooking wasn’t going to happen. BB got more jumpy. Kenai started winding up, but I’d had success all week at bringing him down from excited behavior.

Sometimes Kenai stays calm, even enjoying neck scratches and hugs from Mike, but the crappier he gets, the more out of control Kenai gets. The boys want to like him, yet they don’t really trust him. I guess Kenai’d had his fill–BB in a heightened state, a frustrating bunch of outings…

Anyway, both boys just escalated from then on. In one sudden outburst, Kenai let it all hang out and didn’t put it away until we went upstairs at 9 pm. I get him on his own, he starts winding down. There were a couple bouts of chaotic running from bed to couch, but he was chillin.

Tank slowed down and gentled down, eventually wanting to play a little hesitantly. I wanted him to relax, so I popped on a relaxation CD and he lay down to sleep it off. I stayed up, waking him around midnight for some attention and an offer to play.

Not in the mood, even for his beloved yellow ducky. Guess I should have played when he offered. Sometimes I wonder if I’m missing opportunities to reconnect with him before he feels insecure and withdraws. I let him rest awhile longer, then shared some of my crackers with him.

It’s no wonder Kenai has been schizophrenic in his puppy development. He’s lived here for 25 weeks, and only 3 of them without the unstable presence of my brother. It will make me sick if Kenai’s 22 weeks of stress has changed him long-term. He was such a happy little good toddles, then it all went to hell.

How angry I could be at Mom’s blind foolishness about Mike and his ways—I knew this would happen, Mike’s ex knew this would happen, lots of people did…he’s a damaged person who inflicts damage without any clue of that. Yet she didn’t believe any of us, nor cut all this crisis short before so much long term harm was done. She had to learn the lesson, but we paid the price.

I guess that’s how it is on this earth, and Mom’s paid for some of my lessons. Maybe we ingrain expectations of fairness a little too much in our kids–makes it harder to accept the unfair dynamics of life. Teach them to be fair to others, but don’t assume it will be returned.

♦

Kenai was unusually muted during this past week’s rain. I think he gets the rainy blahs, myself. That or the cooler temps trigger some need to hibernate—he slept through most of Wednesday with barely picking up his head. The pale grizzly bear snoozed and snored, getting up only to eat, then back to the pillow, since a run outside wasn’t going to happen. Silly boy.

Maybe he just knows we don’t do much of anything outside when it rains unless we have to. Maybe he was just saving up for Friday night. Who knows? But it sure is starting to feel like autumn here, though it’s early. The nighttime temps drop into the 50’s more often, and some of the leaves are changing color. I don’t mind!

This sort of weather is so much better for sleeping, and I get to put a cover over my sheets to be comfortable. If I didn’t have to keep Kenai from getting cold at night, I’d leave the windows open some all winter too. I’m one of those people who love to pile on the quilts, and use a heated blanket.

This fall, I intensely hope to be out of doors a lot, getting yard work done. Thanks be to the exhaustive cycle my brother has forced us into, my front yard is almost gone again. The flowerbeds are badly overgrown with weeds, which will leave little generations-to-be for me to fight all next year.

Two of the flowerbeds Mike mowed and killed everything except the weeds. We can’t afford to replace the rhodies, but I’ll start my replacement perennials from seed over the winter as I did their predecessors. I’m getting tired of starting over because of someone else’s thoughtlessness.

What I need is a captured warrior from another tribe to shred the leaves, chainsaw the fallen trees, and spread several loads of mulch. That’s just the front yard… I will have a veggie garden not one day past April 1st!! Having my hands in soil is as needful to me as having tall grass to run in is to Kenai: primeval and nourishing.

Maybe I should capture two warriors from another tribe, one for the front and one for the back. Oh, wait. I have two of ‘em! Nah, BB would just carry my tools around, and Kenai would dismantle my neat piles of branches to chip for mulch. Guess I’m on my own, unless I can hitch Beebs up to a plow—he pulls like an ox on leash, so it wouldn’t be a stretch!

And Kenai will supervise. He’s the watching sort of fellow, standing guard while I muck about. Unless the pile of leaves is too tempting or it gobbles his ball. Then he can demolish an hour’s work in 5 seconds. I can see it now: kaaa-POUNCE, root, root, root, goober-run. Uhhh. I think I’ll just let him take sentry duty, and not help.

Kenai’s happiest outside. He’s very much an ancestral sort of dog. The instincts to catch a scent and follow it are very strong, and he is a different “person” out of doors. You can almost feel some primal switch turn on when he hits the field, and it seems to throw the circuit breaker put in with obedience practice.

Our ‘you can’t find me’ games are a hunting game of sorts, and interest him far more than recall. Even our outings through human places have a scouting party feel to them at times, seeing what he can see, smelling what he can smell as if he’s on a mission.

It’s like some relic of a distant epoch stirs in him when the grass is taller than his hocks. The beckoning of the wild has grown too faint through time to be recognized for what it is, but still potent enough to fully absorb his brain in the smells and sounds of the natural world.  We left the natural world long ago, but I don’t think our dogs have left it as entirely as we did. I know Kenai hasn’t.

His need to be outside is far more than entertainment, or a change of scenery. It has the significance of a necesity. Deny it to him and he is restless, disappointed with indoor games. Deny it to him long enough and he first becomes scattered then unruly, then depressed.

I learned that last spring when it rained almost continuously. He becomes housebound fast. Allow him a couple times a day outdoors and he will return to the confines of walls without complaint, and be satisfied to wait for the next time he gets to run.