Nina Stories - Dog Parks

Last post, I mentioned that we had a park just outside the sliding glass doors of our end unit townhouse. That was convenient, but also not officially sanctioned by the association or the village. We did lots of walking up and down the bike path, and into town on occasion, but we had an active dog. Part border collie and part terrier, she had an insatiable interest in searching and sniffing, and nearly limitless energy.

All that considered, dog parks were Nina's Disneyland. We just happened to live in an area with excellent dog parks, and at a time when the best one was still free. That was Pratt's Wayne Woods, where the off-leash section was 23 acres with at least one water bog. We went there so much, that if it hasn't been altered, I could tell you the nuances of every step 13 years later.

Nina knew we were near when she heard me turn on the directional signal at a specific intersection, and would proceed to howl and caterwaul until we got there. (Always amused me to hear other dogs losing their minds entering the parking area, too.) We'd park the car, then walk to the entrance where there was a large shrub that must have thrived on uric acid. The beaten path was a giant loop around the perimeter, but there were also bisecting paths, which crossed in the middle.

Usually, we'd start out by heading left (clockwise) so we'd hit the mud pit first, then dry off as we walked the rest of the path. The mud pit/bog/pond was the big social spot for the dogs, and by proxy, the owners. The veterans were wearing old sweatpants or other unimportant clothes, knowing there was no way to avoid the mess. The dogs would run in and out, wrestle, chase, play king of the hill with toys someone left behind, and they all seemed to be super excited. In fact, I think it was this particular spot that caused them to wail when the blinkers went on.

When Nina was a puppy, all of this insanity was a little hard to take in, but she certainly enjoyed the rough play. If another dog was making a run for a toy, she'd take a shot, too. She was not aggressive, though, so if the other dog got there first, she wouldn't fight for it, she'd just come back out and wait for another opportunity. And there were endless opportunities.

The rest of the park was just prairie with a worn in path through it. The entire area was fenced, and the south and west borders had a trail on the other side of the fence where folks on horses would trot on by. I can't remember if Nina ever didn't take exception to the horses. For the majority of encounters, she'd run 30-yard sprints, back and forth along the fence, barking and yelping the whole time. When the horses were finally out of sight, she'd go back to sniffing and walking like nothing happened. (She'd sleep really well when we got home, though. The sleep of the righteous!)


As with the park by our house, the other dog owners were pretty astute, and while there were some rules posted, common sense still seemed to prevail. As such, with very few exceptions, the dogs were also pretty well mannered. To my memory, the dog Nina got along with best in her entire life was named Pebbles.

We only saw Pebbles and her people at the dog park but it was just as well - they would just run the whole time. Pebbles and Nina looked very different, but they must have had similar thought patterns. It was almost comical - they'd trade off chasing and being chased, using awesome speed bursts and athletic cuts and jukes - and then they'd both stop on a dime to research a new smell. Sometimes, we'd lose them in the tall grass, but we could still hear one of them yelping, in pursuit and so close to tagging the other. They both always came back and sniffed the periphery around us as we continued to walk.

Pebbles and her people moved to North Carolina, but it was around that time that we started hearing (and finding bloody evidence) of dog attacks at the park. New people were bringing bad dogs, and the word on the picnic tables was that they didn't care about the damage they were doing. Shortly after that, we heard about a child getting hurt by a dog and decided it was time to find a new spot.

Kane County has an awesome forest preserve system. We tried a number of other dog parks (including one in Naperville where Nina got backed down by a miniature pinscher) but the next best one was only a few miles from the original spot. Fox River Bluff had acre after acre of prairie, but sloped down to the shore of the Fox River. She could stay up top and stay dry, or traverse the hill and get sloppy in the muddy banks. Not only was it superb fun for Nina, but I can't imagine a more beautiful landscape for us to hike. Oddly, there were far fewer dogs there. If we ran into one or two it was a busy day.

Most other dog parks we encountered in those early years were okay or not much fun at all. Typically, it'd be an acre or two of flat, fenced-in land where dogs could socialize, but not really useful for exercise or exploring. 

Eventually, after we moved to Sugar Grove, we found a new dog park that was almost as nice as the first one, but those are stories for another day.

Nina Stories - the Very Early Days

It's important to note a few background items before launching back into the memories. The first thing is that I never had a dog or a cat growing up. I had a hermit crab in grade school who clamped down on my finger, and met his demise during my attempt to free myself from his grip.

I had friends with dogs and cats that I liked a lot, and they seemed to be comfortable with me. At one point, a person I worked with had found a lost miniature pinscher that had no collar. She couldn't bring it home, so she brought it to work, and I was pretty excited to take it with me. Sweet dog, and obviously well trained. When I called around to the vets, we found the owners almost immediately.

In another, similar episode, there was a black and white cat without a home and I thought it would be nice to have a cat around the house I lived in with Devin (AKA the Luxor). We named it "The Mad Bomber What Bombs at Midnight". Didn't take long before we knew we didn't need a cat after all, and I found a friend who was a willing taker. (That was a happy ending for the Mad Bomber.)

Not long after that, I moved out of DeKalb and into another swarthy bachelor pad, where the other two guys had a dog and a cat (the Mad Bomber, in fact, renamed "Sponge"). That was nine months of living with animals, and I liked it. All of my previous living situations would have been too perilous for a pet.

So after that nine month stint, Jennie and I got married, bought a sweet townhouse in Geneva, and shortly after that, we got Nina.

In the very early days, we didn't have a lot of toys for her and we needed to get to work on training. In the short term, we found out that she loved to chew plastic. She accidentally got hold of some Tupperware and dismantled it, tiny piece by tiny piece. She had no interest in eating it, just chewing it into pieces.

I know puppies chew, but ours was prolific. She had shortened one of the rockers on our chair by a bit before we learned about bitter apple spray. It was a reasonable deterrent, but she was so driven to chew that wood, she'd bite a little, then make a "blegh" face, then shake it off and bite it some more. There were a few compulsions back then.

Another one was sleeping with her head in a shoe. I'm not sure if the smell was comforting, or it felt ergonomically correct to her, but it was a regular occurrence. She also did not like to have any kind of block between her and her people. If we let her outside, she'd jump up and down at the door and yelp until we let her in.

We could also see signs of intelligence that I'd not seen in another dog (well, maybe that farm dog that was on Oprah). I'm sure my memory is compressing and distorting this stuff, but we tried a few different options for her for potty training with little success. But when Jennie put a bell on the door and showed her how to ring it, it really seems like it was only a few days before she was doing it regularly to go outside.

In fact, we were rewarding her for going outside (I remember having treats in all of my pockets all the time), and she pretty quickly learned to game the system. She'd ring the bell, walk down off the deck, then walk right back up without doing anything and ask to come back in so she could collect her treat. Smart! Sometimes I'd let her in and she'd ask to go right back out again.

Another thing that was a little different was how good she was on walks. Everyone (including Puppies For Dummies) warned us that too much walking could be dangerous for a small pup. She learned how to handle the leash immediately (I don't remember any actual training there), and she'd let us know that she wanted to keep going. There were a couple times very early on where she'd sit down at the far end of the bike path and I'd have to carry her home, but not many like that. Within a few months, we'd be knocking off five-mile hikes regularly.

Our townhouse happened to be an end unit, and the sliding doors looked out over a park. A few  nights a week, a bunch of dog owners would bring their dogs and let them play there. They were all excellent dogs, and well-behaved, so it was pretty fun to let little Nina run around with them and socialize. She loved it, for sure.

Our next-door neighbor was a police officer and his dog, Buster, was a drug and cadaver sniffer for the county sheriff. Nina and Buster got along very well, and there was another dog named Jade who lived on the other side of the park. The three of them did lots and lots of playing that first year.

Off the park, there was also a bike path, and we walked it regularly. Nina became pretty good friends with a dog from the other end of the path. Bolt would visit the park when the group assembled, but sometimes came down on walks just with her owner. We'd usually see them walking and come out to say hello so Nina and Bolt could play. Nina was much faster than Bolt, so they did more wrestling than chasing. Nina won a lot when they were both puppies, but when Bolt grew into her solid beagle body later on, the tides eventually turned her way.

It was a great dog neighborhood for a year or more.

Nina Stories - The Beginning

We lost our beloved pet and dear friend yesterday. She was my first and only dog, and she was the best. I can safely say that I'll never love another dog like that again, but instead of dwelling on the sadness of it, I prefer to recall what made her the magical Miyazaki creature she was.

The beginning was humble at best. Over the years, we've heard lots of great stories of wonderful dogs who were rescued from the pound or a shelter. That's not Nina's story. Nina's story starts with the first Krispy Kreme in the Chicago area.

Just south of I-55, on Harlem Avenue, I waited in line on one of the first days it was open to try the celebrated hot donuts. The parking lot was full, and I had noticed a sign for a place called Archer Puppies on a previous donut scouting mission, so I pulled in there to try the donuts, then check out the puppies. It was the first of a few visits to the place (both places, if I'm honest).

On one of the trips, I took our video camera along to give Jennie a virtual tour of the place. We had been talking about getting a dog, but the shelters were not helpful because we wanted a puppy. They said that a home with two people working full-time wouldn't be fair to a puppy. (I kind of agree, but we were prepared to make it work - and we ultimately did.)

Archer Puppies was different from most of the other puppy shops I'd been to. Instead of plastic cubicles for the dogs, they had wooden pens with airy chicken wire and fresh sawdust on the floors. Very farm-like. Each time I was there, someone was cleaning something; they were very nice, too. Also, they didn't have any purebred dogs - only mixes - and the prices were fair.

The video went over pretty well, so we visited the store one weekend. We did a couple of laps around the place, and the first time, this crazy little pup was rounding up and cornering its siblings in one pen. When we walked by, she stopped and popped her paws up on the fence, as if to say "check it out - look what I can do!" The next time by, she again stopped what she was doing to pop up and greet us; tail wagging and ears at full attention.

We took a different dog out of the pen and sat with it for a while. It did normal dog stuff. We decided to take the crazy one out and sit with it for a bit. Out of the pen, she was totally different. She shrunk into Jennie and barely moved. We had read "Puppies for Dummies" and some other dumb books about what to look for in a pet, and she checked most of the "avoid" boxes. Skittish, mildly aggressive (with her siblings), energetic, but also frightened in new situations.

Of all the dogs, she clearly stood out to us. It's like she made an attempt to greet us, and we noticed she didn't do the same for other people in the store. But, like most big decisions, we decided to sleep on it and consider our options.

The next day, Jennie had thought about her so much, she was getting upset at the thought that someone else might pick up that little sweetheart. So, we went back. We hadn't noticed that she only had one white paw. We did notice that the second time we played with her, she still stuck with Jennie, but was a little more adventurous. Still, it was very clear that she belonged with us, so we took her home.

On the way, she vomited twice in the car. I don't think it was my driving. It was still pretty cold out, and Jennie had her bundled up in a blanket on her lap. We got back to our house and had nothing prepared for a dog, so I ran out to Petsmart and got some food and a few other things. She was still snuggled up with Jennie in the same spot on the floor when I got home, and a little tentative about me.

We were playing and wrestling before the end of the night. Also, we didn't have a crate, so we kept her in a box with blankets next to our bed for the first few nights. She really, really didn't like being alone in there, so I would sleep with my arm over the side of the bed, hand in the box.

And so, we were off and running. We had just gotten married and bought a townhouse, and now we were expanding our family as well.

Our Girl Nina

We're at the end of our run with Nina. She's been hobbled with a mass (cancer, essentially) and this morning, she wouldn't get up for anything. Her breathing is labored, and the mass has depleted her of muscle and bloated her right rear leg. It might not be today, but it won't be very long before we have to say goodbye for good, and it makes me very sad. Since two days before Christmas, we knew we were closing in on the end, but it was pretty shocking. Just a month before that, she was still chasing rabbits and jumping for snow balls like she was a puppy. Quick and sharp, right up to December. Then, she had a limp, and then she started coughing abnormally. Her white blood cell count was elevated, which prompted an x-ray, which exposed the mass. Kind of took the joy out of Christmas for us. (Except for Eli; he's a bit too young to process this stuff appropriately, and I think we did a decent job of keeping things fun for him.) So, today it seems pretty bad and we do not want her to hurt. I also know that she keys on our emotions as well, so I'm trying to be cool around her. She's getting table scraps for the first time, and all the treats she's interested in gobbling, once her pills are taken. This is the sad end to 13 years of puppy frenzy, singing, running, jumping, chasing, consoling, wagging, licking, protecting, and amazing. I will miss Nina terribly. I love her. We all do. She made us a family a year after we got married and was with me for a full quarter of my life. She had a knack for knowing what to do, almost unbelievably so. I'll write about that stuff in the coming weeks because I don't want it to fade over time, but it feels strange to eulogize her when she's still waiting at home. The hardest part about all of this is that I know she'd want to put her head on my lap to make me feel better, but she just can't. I will say this - I've been around lots and lots of dogs in my life, but I've not met one like Nina. She's the best.

Minutemen - Nothing Indeed

One of my all-time favorite bands. These guys were on SST when that label was bringing the heat, heavily entrenched in aggro punk rock. They did not fit that mold at all, but were accepted, and even revered. They jumped genres way before that was a thing, just by being the dudes they were, and preaching truth over frenetic beats and melodies. Some were not so frenetic. Some had flat out soul, like this track:


For you young'ns, here's the whole album side, youtubized for your modern pleasure:


If your only exposure to the Minutemen is the theme to the show Jackass, you're missing out on one of the great American bands. Hit the 'tubes!

Slothrust - In a Sexual Way

I don't know what their overall deal is, but usually, it's best for me to not know. On the other hand, and I realize that I'm judging a book by its cover here, I get the feeling I'd enjoy a few beers and a chat with these guys. This song is a short but thorny journey, and it goes places that are unexpected. If there's such a thing as post-punk, then these guys are post-L7, specifically. That might be too narrow a scope, but either way, the music scratches an itch.

Observe:


And another because it verifies to me that they're not just cobbling together cool sounds, but rather really listening to music and crafting a sound of their own. (Then applying it to a song that I wouldn't expect, but perfectly fits their style.)