The bigger the risk, the more the satisfaction if you succeed. Matters of the heart are always magnified, so a successful adoption of a rescue dog, allows for much reflection of the entire process. After slightly more than seven months since we brought Ellie Mae home with us, the fact is that she has settled in on this farm, and in our hearts, better than I could ever have dared hope.
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| Two days after we got our skinny Ellie Mae |
Without any specific information about her first three years or so of life, we welcomed in a 42-pound, under-nourished, skittish and impulsive female dog. One thing was certain: Ellie Mae craved affection. Because her impulses got the better of her at times in the early going, it was determined immediately that dog obedience school was a must.
Though we had to wait almost two months for the classes to begin, Gluten-Free Mama and I had access to some of the basic commands, and were able to commence early. I walked Ellie Mae every morning and spent a lot of quality time with her in those early winter months, we being trapped indoors when the snow and ice hit.
Ellie Mae was a quick study, and coupled with her almost palpable desire to please, we made rapid progress. Not even the farm-related catastrophe of having Ellie dispatch eight chickens, could deter us from the straight and narrow path.
As unfathomable as the disaster was, we recognized that Ellie Mae is a hound dog. The way she does the “pointing” thing, tells us that she has hunting in her blood. I have worked with her at two different sites, with chickens present, on the “leave-it” command, and feel at this point in time that we have put the issue behind us.
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| This is the far corner of the yard. |
In the beginning Ellie’s biggest goal was to escape the compound. She would stay with me outside, mostly while I was moving firewood, until I became too engrossed in my work. When I wasn’t paying attention, she would navigate her way around the six-foot-high fence, seeking ways to dig her way out.
Eventually she realized that going under was less efficient than going through the bars of the gate, three-and-a-half feet off the ground. "Coming through!" she might as well bellow, her actions those of the most graceful ballerina. On the one hand Ellie could leave the compound any time she felt like it; on the other I no longer had to go around patching up escape routes.
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| She can repeat this move as often as I ask her. |
Things came to a head one day not long ago, when she did her escape number right in front of me, responding to Emma the dog up the driveway, who was barking. I was flummoxed. Is nothing sacred? Though she stopped dead in her tracks when I hollered her name, she still gazed up at me as if to say, “What’s the big deal? I’ve been doing this for a while.” As if to prove it, I opened the front gate, escorted her outside of it, closed the gate with me inside and called her to me.
I photographed the result.
Now being the resourceful hippie that I am, I could easily have taken chicken wire and eliminated that escape route. The alternative was make her want to stay, which I had been working on since the day she arrived. Whereas repairing escape routes she created at the base of the fence was fun, it was not that much fun, so I decided to leave the gate alone.
With the arrival of May, I have been able to work outside seven days a week. My 185 tomato plants are in the ground, 162 in the orchard and the rest out back. They are caged, mulched and on emitters, all of this having taken long hours.
Accompanying me as I made my way around the farm has been Ellie Mae, no longer interested in vacating the premises. I commented to Maggie at the shelter not long ago, that overnight, Ellie had turned a sharp corner, and no longer felt compelled to seek escape.
My work in the garden is more centered than wheeling firewood around, so Ellie Mae takes up her station in the immediate vicinity of where I am, and assumes the role of the watcher. Among other things she watches for gophers. She has bagged-and eaten-two so far that I have seen, earning her my undying gratitude.
I tell her how good of a job she is doing. As always, I use an assortment of voices. Experts inform me that Ellie Mae knows these voices are being done for her benefit. In other words dogs recognize when their owner is addressing them specifically, and they respond accordingly. If my talking to Ellie Mae alarms you, it needn't. As long as I am not yet hearing her talk back to me, I think I am good to go.
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| The color of the grass says springtime. |
I pause regularly to lavish attention on her, maybe playing tug-a-war or tossing the ball, now that she knows what to do with a ball. Without taking away from my own endeavors, I make it worth her while to stick around. As I sweep the burgeoning cannabis plants of excess leaves and branches, sitting in the shade at the base of each, I share the space with Ellie Mae.
This payoff has been epic, the result being that I have the companion I never really had in Dozer, the English bulldog that preceded Ellie Mae. Dozer could not be outside in the summer because of the possibility of heatstroke. It wasn’t good; it wasn’t bad: It just was.
How I got along without a bowser to talk to in the past, I don’t know, but that has been corrected. In fact, with GF Mama having been in Willits for several days this week, it was just Ellie and I. Being the kind of person who hates to spend time by himself, having Ellie with me has been key.
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| Now things have dried up. |
Weighing in at 49 pounds these days, where she has been perched for about three months now, Ellie Mae is sleek and beautiful. I am proud of how far she has come, no moment finer than her behavior up at the Peg-House a couple of weeks ago, a food establishment just north of Leggett.
Having taken a spin up there to take advantage of the outdoors ambience, we found the Peg-House provided filled water dishes for the pets of its patrons. It was still early, there were few diners, but there was one other dog, a little terrier mix.
Though apprehensive at Ellie Mae’s public debut, we need not have been. She conducted herself with distinction, eventually feeling comfortable enough to simply lie in the shade under the table, and take a dog-nap. Those are the best kind. She ignored the little terrier.
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| Watching the Giants beat the Diamondbacks, yesterday, with me |
She loves to shake hands, give kisses and snuggle, and she knows what it’s like to finally be home. Lying right beside me as I word-process, she knows she does not need to escape anymore, because there’s no place she’d rather be than here.
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| This morning |
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