Maybe Carl Jung Had A Malamute Associate

Okay, I already said Luky was excited this week. Actually, his excitement about this week's debut of the 25 (the) anniversary of COSMOS on the Science Channel was only one reason. He has been talking about that for weeks.

However, he's in a general state of enthusiasm these days. Why? It's obvious to me - having lived with him for nearly eight years - Winter is coming.

This morning's temperature was in the mid-60's. Why does he think that means we have to do a bunch of running and jumping? No telling . . . but it's no longer just about strolling through the dogpark and doing away with other canine scents. We're talking in the hallway, sniffing every mild rustle of breeze . . . plus, his tail has grown an exaggerated white tassel at the end which he flips and twirls to punctuate every word and movement. (Sometimes I envy his capacity for tail punctuation!)

Last evening we took a long walk - a long walk for Luky, that is. It was all of a mile and a half. Oh sure, he appears strong and virile . . . got that wolfdog-look going . . . but when it comes down to it Malamutes are all talk and little action! Sled dog!?!? Right!!

My opinion gets short shrift around here, though! Luky is surfing websites - like http://www.sleddog.org/; and http://www.sleddogcentral.com/; and of course http://www.iditarod.com/. He likes to compare the Iditarod to my marathons (I've run a few - officially 31 so far, plus four 50-milers, and a couple of 30 to 40 mile personal fun runs). Humans tend to call anything over 26.2 miles (the official marathon distance) "ultra" - as in, "ultramarathon."

Anyway, Luky seems to enjoy noting that all of my years of official marathoning don't add up to even one Iditarod (which is more than 1,130 miles). He also enjoys advising that the entry fee for the Iditarod is something like $1,800 and the winner gets almost $900,000.

Okay - okay!!! I guess there's big money to be found in most sports.

It was Carl Jung, I believe, who first - or at least most-successfully - alerted us to the idea of the collective unconscious. Luky's response to cooler weather - to the point of trying to abscond with the phone and my credit card so he could order one of the 2006 sweatshirts (http://www.iditarodstore.com/browse.cfm/4,3286.htm, which features the face of a dog with whom, Luky swears, he studied at Oxford . . .

. . . well, all I can say is I wish Carl could see Luky's behavior around the first of October!

What? Ann Coulter Is A Dark Ager!?

Oh boy, I'm in trouble now. Luky is hard at watching COSMOS. He's been talking about it for days, and not only did the 25th Anniversary broadcast premier last night on the Science Channel, but they are showing the first two episodes of the series yesterday and today. I think they go to one episode per week starting next Tuesday night at 9:00 EST.

Luky stayed up to watch while I went to bed halfway through episode one last night. I figured I'd catch both hours again today - and besides, I own them on video. The whole thing is more meaningful to Luky - after all, he's not even eight human years old - he was 17 and a half years from being born when the series originally aired on PBS.

Episode 2 - "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue" - is about the origins of life. As Sagan says, the arguments and evidence for evolution are unambiguous.

I told Luky I thought it was really odd that Darwin and Wallace did all the work almost two millennia ago, in the early to mid-1800's, and discovered the mechanism for evolution and the origin of species, and we still have people arguing against teaching that science in schools. It's almost like we desire ignorance.

Luky calls them "Dark Agers." He says it all happens for the same reason humans vote the way we do. Humans are afraid of truth.

"That's a little harsh," is my comment.

Of course, Luky is always the gentleman and never expresses things (like I do) in a manner to intentionally offend . . . heck, it's not really a desire to offend - it's just that I've lost my Rock 'n' Roll chops these days and have to do something to raise the temperature.

Anyway, Luky was quick to point out the segment in the first episode of COSMOS where Sagan describes the well-known, well-documented story of Eratosthenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes) who, about 250 years before the birth of Jesus, not only deduced that the Earth was round, but very accurately measured its circumference.

"And though YOU," Luky sort of grows at me with his enthusiastic disdain . . . he means 'mankind' when he says 'YOU' with that kind of emphasis . . . "had that knowledge way back then, your 'explorers' were still begging kings and queens for ships to go prove it fifteen hundred years later!

"Why?" he continued. "Because you elected ignorance."

"Yes," I was feeling a little defensive, "don't forget that back then the politics and the church were very close together - people got their heads removed for thinking or saying heretical things."

Luky just smiled at me. I could tell he was expecting me to connect the dots . . . like, for example, Ann Coulter's 2003 book, "Treason," really should have been called, "Heresy"!

I guess my frustration just comes out sometimes . . . "Hey, we're only human beings! What do you expect!?!"

Luky just shakes all over. Malamute undercoat goes floating off like dandelion seeds. He straightens himself and sniffs the air, and then looks around for four-legged females as if I weren't even there!

Cosmology Is A Blessing?

Luky's excited this week. Despite the seemingly unending bad news of the past several years, he says tonight promises a TV escape which, "is the ultimate 'Meaning Of Life' subject."

I live with him so I kind of know what he's talking about - it's the Science Channel's Tuesday evening (9/27/2005 - 9:00 p.m. EST) broadcast of the 25th anniversary edition of Carl Sagan's COSMOS (here's a link to the Science Channel's COSMOS website, but Luky says keep in mind that the Discovery.com website is thick with pop-ups and annoying navigation - http://science.discovery.com/convergence/cosmos/cosmos.html).

Luky has made this point to me a million times . . . that the methodology of science is the connection with God. He argues that science (by which he means the methodology - not necessarily every scientist) is about discovering what's true. Then he says that cosmology is the discovery of what's true about the beginning of all truth. So, I think it tends to be Luky's view that churches should be teaching cosmology.

I've argued with him about the idea that some things are simply too mysterious to be studied with the scientific method. Luky usually throws up his paws at that statement. He makes a more subtle distinction. He says that I'm expressing mysticism which is very different from recognizing mystery.

As I understand his point, mystery is to be studied and figured out while mysticism is the idea that some things will always be, and are meant to be, mysterious. I think he gets annoyed when I fail to really think through these ideas carefully and I treat all the unknown stuff the same.

"It's not the subject that is holy and meaningful - it's our approach to it," he tells me. "If we draw a line to separate us from the mysterious and treat that line as impenetrable then we are NOT simply recognizing mystery, we are, in fact, giving up to mysticism."

And for whatever reason, Luky says that God wouldn't want us to do that. Well, come to think of it, he always speaks the word "God" with more reverence than I do - but I can't tell if we're talking about the same thing.

Anyway, this whole line of discussion (argument) always ends the same way. Luky says that God and science (especially cosmology) have a lot in common. He keeps talking about truth - "truth" - where the heck does he get this stuff? Geez!?! Who ever said that God had to have any connection with what's true?

God only knows what he thinks about evolution!

Luky For President?

Luky refuses to argue politics with me. He says that Republicans and Democrats are both nuts.

His assessment is that humans do such a bad job of running countries he really wishes we all spoke Canine because then we would be able to understand dogs - and that might permit dogs to run for office, debate other candidates, write legislation and so on.

"And you think THAT would make for a better world?"

In fact, his answer surprised me.

"No - not necessarily - but definitely a more honest one."

I Guess FALL Smells Good

I couldn't figure out why Luky was acting so restless these past couple of days. The unmistakable behavioral clue is when he starts shaking his head and talking to inanimate objects in the 3rd floor lobby, and then sticks his nose in the air to gather in all the available smells in the elevator car as we head for the main floor.

Was I really missing THAT much in the air!?! Apparently so! I didn't catch onto it until last night's news . . . yesterday was the first official day of Fall. I know it as the promise - if not the delivery - of cooling temperatures, and the guaranteed and annoying preoccupation of the media with football.

Luky cares about as much for football as I do, but he has been waiting for this change and sniffing its coming for weeks!

Traffic Laws - Give Me A Break

Luky has been mulling the question we mentioned yesterday (regarding Green Arrows and traffic lights), and this morning he was eager to prove his point beyond any shadow of doubt. He insisted that the answer was online - and of course he was correct (http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003_04/gacode/40-6-21.html). He says that the law is obvious - when a Green Arrow is part of the "indication" (as expressed in the Code), and there is no Red Arrow to indicate that traffic should specifically NOT turn, then the law ought to be interpreted based on any other intersection indications (e.g., the existence of the Circular Green indication which would permit a left turn as long as that turn did not deny right of way to other lawful traffic in the intersection).

Ok . . . are you starting to get an idea of what my life is like? Does anyone want to argue about whether Malamutes are serious regarding philosophical positions? On anything? Meaning of life? The existence of God? Justice? Social mores? Traffic laws? It's crazy around here sometimes! And don't EVER think you can watch an Animal Planet program and form your own opinion on the topic!!!

Separately, but in a related conversation, I was talking to the Prince of Avondale the other day (by the way - that's NOT Luky - it's a human kid - a very, very bright human friend of Luky's - I get to talk to him on occasion - but he keeps his identity quasi-secret - it's a middle name thing, and so for now he goes by "the Prince of Avondale," "Prince," or "POA"). Anyway, apparently he had been discussing this general topic of law with Luky. He was commenting on the distinction between Rules and Laws . . . like the fact that a school building can have a "rule" about running in the hallways, and though you might get into "trouble" for doing that you will not get arrested by the police.

Luky says that though both of these methods for directing behavior are probably necessary, and sometimes even overlap, society gets into serious trouble when it begins to confuse the two.

Yes, I'm not kidding. It was 5:00 a.m. and I was having to not only revisit the Green Arrow question, but to review most of the entire (it felt like) traffic code for the State of Georgia, and then force my somnambulant brain to consider the taxonomy of societal do's and don'ts.

It's going to be a long day.

Wolf Blood & Backseat Driving

Don't let anybody tell you that Malamutes are all about sled pulling and don't like riding. Not only are they excellent passengers, but Luky is a notorious backseat driver.

Of course, that means he has his own "pet peeves" (man, he REALLY hates that term!).

But his biggest complaint is with those wimpass, tentative drivers who pull up to a light in the left turn lane and stop at the pedestrian walk as soon as the turn arrow goes yellow. Luky says that unless there's a specific sign advising, "left turn on arrow only," then you are allowed to commit to the intersection and make your left turn as soon as the traffic flow permits.

I'm not sure if he's literally correct on his traffic regulations, but I do know I agree with his feeling of annoyance. Personally, I've been known to drive around those idiots in the next lane to the right and then zip real quick into the intersection in front of them. Not only can I imagine the red-faced, frustrated wimp who didn't make his move, but I imagine the two or three drivers behind him wishing they'd done the same thing.

I've occasionally heard the faint wailing of the pansy's horn as I turned and left him at the crosswalk. That always makes me wonder . . . what is he mad about? Presumably he's angry at the fact you refused to permit him to personally control your life with his lack of confidence, and gobble another precious three minutes out of your hectic day waiting at a light that a few more cars should have gone through!?!

Luky says those people have ZERO wolf blood. I agree!

Barketing The Moon

The subject this morning was marketing. Luky was still fascinated with the Moon and commented on the fact that it remains one of the few places within easy view of humans not covered with brand images. Yes, it does retain a few astronaut boot tracks, but in this (as Luky calls it) era of "badvertising" when - for the past couple of decades - agencies seem to have graffitied their clients' logos on every otherwise clean space, there's the Moon. Funny thing is . . . we know it's a ball of mostly ash . . . a giant crusty cinder - a briquette born of a fiery collision with Earth and still drifting slowly away into the night sky . . . and yet it looks to be the cleanest piece of real estate in sight.

Well, Luky says it's all just "barketing" . . . "the barketing industry," he calls it. I presume he recognizes his malapropism - and perhaps he intends it - but I think it's more the way he talks and it just turns out that his pronunciation may be highly apropos!

So, anyway, Luky has never believed in branding. He says that was an unfortunate term that crept into the advertising lexicon with as much rationality as a bumper sticker relays political philosophy or patriotism.

"Coke is a brand," Luky says, "and no matter how clever the campaign might be, there's no way to 'brand' a mousepad or a futon dog bed."

Actually, he says he doesn't even think GM has any brands . . . Luky says that branding is the result (and I think I agree with him) when a product becomes so associated with its category (like the way we once ordered "Coke" when we meant "any cola soft drink") that the brand has to start marketing against itself to make sure the public doesn't destroy the trademark.

"Remember when," he begins this question as he's walking into the weediest, woodsiest section of the dark, predawn dog park - so I can't effectively debate his point of view, "those restaurants started asking if Pepsi was okay whenever you ordered a Coke? Now that was an indication of branding! Nobody says they want to go 'Chevying' when they mean they want to go for a drive," he says. "Now, when that happens we'll know that 'Chevy' has been branded."

"So," I ask as we walked back toward the loft . . . the cool, early morning air rustling ever so slightly almost like the Moon itself was fanning us as it sailed by overhead, "doesn't that mean the Moon has been pretty well branded?"

Luky sometimes gets frustrated with me when I ask dumb questions but I guess he didn't consider that a dumb question. He just sat at the curb for a moment and looked up as if he were about to howl. And then he almost whispered through his whiskers, "Don't you wish THAT product was in your portfolio?"

Full Moons & Astrowolves?

Luky always gets a little extra alert and philosophical during the full Moon. That was Sunday the 18th. The Atlanta sky has been clear - nearly cloudless - ever since before Katrina so we enjoyed, as it were, the whole full Moon. Saturday evening, just after dark, Luky and I took a short breather outside and saw the Moon rising over a neighborhood church steeple. It was orange in color.

Luky turned poetic on me and started describing it . . . "like a golden-orange doubloon wrested from the depths, with its face flushed working to relearn the breathing process, lying on the deck of a pirate galleon with that steeple-mast pointing in a new direction - opposite that former, gurgling grave."

I told him he was sounding wolfish! He starts breathing heavy and looking around as if he'd caught the scent of hoofed prey - like he might even know what that smelled like!?!

And then, on top of that, NASA just announced its new vision including a return to the Moon, Mars and other "lofty" goals. So Luky is panting this morning and all about letting the world know he's ready to suit up and get into the astronaut training program.

I was wondering about that orange Moon. Luky says a fellow Moon-sensitive associate of his has a website (http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/) that includes a description of it and features some of his (Keith Cooley) pictures. Keith's description is this:

"Have you ever wondered why the moon is more orange or yellow in color when it first rises at night. This effect is caused by the atmosphere of the earth. The reason for the orange color is due to the scattering of light by the atmosphere. When the moon is near the horizon, the moonlight must pass through much more atmosphere than when the moon is directly overhead. By the time the moonlight reaches your eyes, the blue, green, and purple pieces of visible light have been scattered away by air molecules. That's why you only see yellow, orange, or red.

The moon can have an orange color at any time of the year. Sometimes the moon appears orange even when it's directly overhead. This occurs when there's a lot of dust, smoke, or pollution in the atmosphere. The size of those particles will determine the type of color you will see." (http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonorange/)

Anyway, this mood is beginning to pass. The Moon had a bit of its edge rubbed flat this morning. It's very slight and had there been any clouds you might not notice at all, but at least Luky is starting to calm down. He is still surfing the NASA websites and (apparently) filling out applications, but as far as I know they stopped designing quadrupedal spacesuits years ago.

Sunday = A Fight For The Remote

It's Sunday - the weekend - and that means Luky wants the remote so he can keep clicking back to C-Span2-BookTV. I was cleaning up from guests last evening (we watched a DVD - one of my favorite themes: "Time Travel + Love" - Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio - highly recommended for anyone who likes Sci-Fi with intelligent, non-monster, conceptually challenging plots . . . Luky skipped it when he found out the protagonist is afraid of dogs).

So, I was straightening up and Luky was watching BookTV. He was engrossed with the presentation by one of his current heroes - Cornell University Professor of Astronomy and Principal Scientific Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover Project, Steven Squyres. Squyres is the engaging and articulate emcee of most of those Rover press conferences and he's written a book about his Mars adventure - Roving Mars, (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug05/Squyres.roving.lg.html).

What can I say? Luky has several intellectual areas of pursuit and interest. What is it about Malamutes that makes them so philosophical? Luky says it's because they have short lives - they have to do lots of thinking real fast! Anyway, I have noticed that Luky's intellectual hobbies have a few things in common - at least they focus on issues that lend themselves to truth and honesty. In other words he's not real big on horoscopes or new age religion.
I have to get back to the fight over the remote now. The kitchen is cleaned up and The Outer Limits is on a competing channel.

To Breakdance, Or Not To Breakdance - That Might Be The Question

Luky was really full of it this morning. He walked the entire park and sniffed out every errant misplaced odor, methodically eradicating each one with deft, predawn accuracy.

I was concentrating on my own version of biofeedback - that is, trying to think-push 200 milligrams of caffeine through my bloodstream as quickly as possible. Louis (pronounced, "Louie") and Gracie (two Papillons who live down the hall from me and Luky) were dancing on the corner. Gracie is the picture of 4-legged decorum, but her brother is a breakdancer. They are great neighbors, and Luky says he really hopes Louis gets a chance to turn pro one of these days soon.

Whether it was breakdancing or a morning of rich olfaction, Luky was full of thoughts on happiness. He says that happiness and contentment are the same thing when it comes to mood and identity . . . that when we say someone (and he says it's the same for humans) is discontent, we mean they are unhappy - at least, when we are not talking about a particular existential circumstance, like running out of Milk-Bones.

(By the way, forgive the endorsement, but Luky says I HAVE to put the link to the Milk-Bone website in here - he says there are lots of dog treats out there and lots of humans make their own macrobioscous, vegetarious stuff, but Luky says he loves Milk-Bones and thinks they can't be beat - so, I have to go along - www.milk-bone.com.)

Anyway, his whole philosophy on happiness begins by classifying the way in which one's identity is reinforced. Luky uses bigger, more clinical-sounding words, but at the end of the day I think they generally add up to something like "reinforce." And in Luky's analysis, it's about whether we see ourselves as beings who Are, Have, or Do.

Yes, of course I ask him what the hell he's talking about, but the best I can gather is it comes down to seeing our lives as more fulfilled by reinforcement to our "Being," (our concept of self as a combination of our personal attributes); or our "Having," (the concept of self as a collection of what we own or acquire); or our "Doing," (the concept of self as a sum of our endeavors).

Well, the bottom line of the morning was that I had to listen to Luky describe the balance of these operative principles in the construction of identity and happiness. Luky says he's changed his mind on the formula. He used to think that creatures who drew reinforcement from Doing stuff were on a faster track to happiness and contentment than those who desired reinforcement to their Being or Having. Now he's decided that those balances are not fixed. He thinks that his own contentment with life today is not as much about Doing as it once was - it now includes elements of Being and Having. For example, he says, he used to think of himself as the wolf-looking creature who marked daily territory and stood guard over three whole blocks of Virginia Highlands. Now he thinks of himself in terms of Having lots of friends and Being a gentle example to his canine and human extended family.

I asked a couple of questions, but I could tell that this morning was going to be a monologue from the start. Some of what he said made sense, but I think lots of it just inspired more confusion on my part. It didn't matter, Luky seemed confident that he was Doing a good job of explaining the way happiness works. And he delighted in his observation that Louis did not think of himself AS a breakdancer, but rather, as one who BREAKDANCES.

"Okay," I said, as we walked into the elevator, "does that also mean that he thinks of himself as one who Has breakdancing skill?"

Luky turned sideways in the elevator car and looked at me with forgiving eyes . . . "You just don't get it, do you?"

A Nap In Caninesville

Luky must be missing his cousins again. He reminded me that the last time I mentioned them I left out Georgia (who lives in Florida) and Blue. Blue is, one must suppose, a Yellow Lab. I say it that way because neither Luky nor I can really figure Blue out. There was some talk of him being from royal stock . . . like a blueblood Lab. However, I believe it's generally agreed that the "blueblood" reference was more about Blue's attitude than his bloodline.

Luky is full of himself now. We went for a short stroll and were stopped two or three times, by both pedestrians and cars, for him to receive compliments on his . . . hello!?!? . . . beauty! It was all I could do to talk him back to the loft - which might have been a bigger test had Sasha not been out there. Sasha is a newcomer to the building - an English Mastiff, or something like that . . . picture a 200-lb Saint Bernard with the coat and color of a Yellow Lab. She's a softy, but the sheer size makes Luky tread carefully - at least until he reconfirms her politics.

He says he wants to take a census of the neighorhood one of these days. He's right - it's Caninesville, for sure.

Ok - gotta run - his cell phone is ringing and he refuses to answer during his nooner nap!

Sheez!

The Cosmos Resolves Everything - But It's Not Breakfast!

It's an early day or a late night - depending on how you look at it. Let's put it this way, I'm up working, with washed face and brushed teeth, but I won't pop a slice of breakfast bread into the toaster for another two or three hours.

It's all Luky's fault. He's so disturbed by the last couple of week's worth of national distress - war, economy, gas prices, Katrina, bureaucratic ineptitude, empty Supreme Court bench seats, Judiciary hearings - he can't sleep. Well, I suppose the real problem is that we have hardwood floors so Luky's insomnia tends to prompt pacing, which tends to induce a loft-wide nail-clicking sound.

"These are claws," Luky protests any time I innocuously interpret his predatory equipment.

Fine, but his hypersensitivity is ridiculous. He spent an hour pacing our 40-foot foyer last Tuesday morning (a week ago yesterday) when we returned from our mid-morning walk. That was the first time - in recent memory - we'd passed a flag (BellSouth corporate) flying at half-mast. I explained that we'd lost our Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Rehnquist. Luky didn't know Bill personally, and I'm not sure they would have had that much in common, from what I can tell; but regardless, it was just another wallop in a series of hard national blows.

The one thing that will always bring him out of a funk like that is the Science Channel (it's a wondrously educational cable channel, but a pretty frustrating website - http://www.discovery.com/ - Luky says the navigation is terrible, the design is complicated, duplicative and too "busy," and he says the pop-ups are so plentiful and intrusive that this site ought to be linked by all pop-up blocker software promoters because it will likely sell any visitor on the service). In case you haven't gathered prior, Luky can get really picky and pointed in his criticisms sometimes.

Anyway, as I've reported before, BookTV is Luky's favorite programming on C-Span2, but that's only on weekends. The Science Channel is everyday - and what's more, Wednesday's are astronomy/cosmology day (sort of). The Science Channel tends to break days of the week down by scientific programming themes (e.g., different days for Earth sciences; oceanography; paleontology, and so on).

It turns out that Wednesdays are cosmology. Luky loves that, and he's especially excited about two weeks from now (Tuesday, 9-27-2005) when the Science Channel will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Carl Sagan's enthralling and groundbreaking PBS series, "Cosmos," by broadcasting an enhanced version of all episodes (on successive Tuesday evenings). Luky says it's a tribute to the original vision and quality of work by Sagan and his team that so much of the 13 episodes still retain so much of their value and import, especially in fields like astronomy and cosmology where technology has had such dramatic effect and enabled so much new information and learning.

Okay, "Mr. Predator" is clicking his oh-so frightening claws on the floor and offering his deep guttural harrumph - that's his own, original statement, and in this context it means something like, "I've been waiting patiently for breakfast, but it's almost 4:30 and your leg is starting to look tasty."

I'd better log out and fill a kibble bowl . . . while I can still walk! Right? He'll appreciate that observation - I might be in charge of foodservice, but it's clear I understand the power balance in this house!?!

Heads, It's BookTV - Tails, It's Sci-Fi

Luky loves BookTV, the 48-hour nonfiction book and author review programming every weekend on C-Span2. He says he learns a lot about the world as it is today, as well as human history and psychology. He also says it's commercial-free and the producers respect every perspective - conservative, liberal, religious, cultural, mystical, scientific - "you name it," he says, and cocks his ears forward as if he expects me to debate his choice.

I, on the other hand, prefer the Sci-Fi Network. Sci-Fi isn't the only source of science fiction, fantasy and mystery, of course, but I mention it only in juxtaposition to Luky's opting for BookTV, which is, by the way, not TV's only source of articulate information and authorship.

Luky accuses me of liking really dumb sci-fi movies. I think his assessment is a little unfair, butI guess I have to admit that I enjoy an occasional sequestration to either (and sometimes both) the extreme frivolity or serious scientific hypothesis in "flicks of fantasy" (that's Luky's term, which he uses thinking I'm missing his loaded alliteration to the idiomatic "flights of fancy"). He thinks he's so damn clever!

The thing is, bad sci-fi movies are an escape. Luky doesn't need escape as much as I do, I suppose. But even when I want to think about really difficult things - or, perhaps more appropriately, when I want to avoid thinking about those things - bad sci-fi can be the best retreat.

Well, these days we seem to be needing a LOT of retreats. Sorry, I have to stop now - Luky thought I said, "treat."

The Great Blue Yonder Heron

Luky and I decided to go to Kiki's for dinner tonight (Sunday night). As a result I am taking Luky's dictation while on a strange computer. It's a little more difficult because at home I'm able to simply minize or log-out and take a break - that is, if you-know-who gets too nosey trying to make sure his thoughts are accurately entered.

Anyway, we walked down to the lake with the Prince of Avondale and looked for the great blue heron (mentioned in a prior post). There may be some really excellent great blue heron websites, but Luky's current favorite is the United States Geological Survey site (http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i1940id.html).

He says it's not that important, but I can tell that he thinks there's something special about those birds. Who knows what dogs dream, but when I hear Luky's nap turn into whimpering and twitching, and his eyelids start coursing as if he were surveying a distant shore from 1,000 feet at high speed . . . well, it just wouldn't surprise me to learn he has a seven-foot wingspan!

You'd Think They Were All Just Dogs

Luky has lots of "cousins." Well, he calls them cousins. They are not blood relations. They aren't even Malamutes. They are dogs, though.

You've got to understand this about Luky and his ilk. Malamutes are really philosophical, but they aren't very smart. Take Luky for example. He can pontificate on the weightier issues, but he is all but totally incompetent at the basic tasks - calling Mellow Mushroom (http://www.mellowmushroom.com/) for a pizza, answering his fan mail, driving the car . . . you would simply NOT believe his idea of parallel parking.

Now, comparing Luky with his cousins - and I have to try to be discreet here since you-know-who will definitely be verifying this post - but, come-on, Luky, they are pretty smart dogs. Before I unintentionally raise additional hackles I'd better quickly recognize that Luky has other cousins, but they are even more distant. For now I'm comparing him to just the four cousins with whom he has spent enough time for such comparisons to be made. Okay, two of them are Yellow Labs (www.akc.org/breeds/labrador_retriever/index.cfm), one is a Flat-Coated Retriever (www.akc.org/breeds/flat_coated_retriever/index.cfm), and the fourth is a Doberman Pinscher (www.akc.org/breeds/doberman_pinscher/index.cfm).

Each of these dogs, as you might imagine, has a distinct personality. We'll get into all that later on, if I know Luky, but the only point I wanted to make today is that they are ALL smarter than he is. The three retrievers are sporting dogs . . . that's Barney and Blondie, the Yellow Labs, and Spanky, the Flat-Coat. The Doberman, Onyx, is a working dog like Luky, but Dobermans are (I think) smarter. Luky's going to be reading over my shoulder any minute so I can't write everything I want to write, but suffice it to say that whole sled dog image is really blown way out of proportion.

So it all boils down to this - Luky's cousins are all smarter than he is, but they don't bother with the spacey, universal stuff the way he does. None of them seems to mind that much. They all like chasing the same sticks and balls, and diving into the same kibble. Indeed, to watch them on any old Sunday afternoon you'd think they were all just dogs.

All Troubles Deserve The Number 1 Solution

Luky has an interesting, probably uniquely canine, way of avoiding the troubling issues of the day. More and more I find it quite enviable.

Certainly, any dog partner (forgive me if I've ever characterized myself as a "dog owner" prior to this - I'll have to get into the ridiculousness of calling relations like this "ownership" at a later date) will recognize what I'm describing. It's the seemingly very thoughtful process of smelling an acre or two at a time, and usually by a genuinely organized-looking methodology, and then systematically replacing bad smells (i.e., the scent of another dog's urine) with his own fragrant ambrosia.

In the first place, there are so many things today that get us into debate . . . politics, economic pressures, injustice, truth, war, natural disasters, undercoat shedding, biscuit bowl depletion . . . it's just one tough discussion after another. Well, when we get really on edge he will abruptly request a walk.

So we go out. We walk to a nearby dog-friendly park where I'm resigned to standing and waiting under the stars, or the Sun, under the trees, in the breeze, whatever the conditions are while Luky engages his search protocol.

If I weren't suspicious of his ability to assign symbols I'd say he was definitely attributing problems of the world to different spots and smells in the grass. He goes about eradicating all his demons, one scent at a time, with a deftly repeated slight cock of a hind leg.

There does come a moment when, regardless of where he is in the process, he just stops. All of a sudden he looks up and starts trotting over to me looking for a treat and fully prepared to return to the loft and turn on the TV and ignore everything, and everyone, else - no matter how vital and immediate I might consider some issues to be. I know what has happened. His reservoir is empty. He has literally urinated on every smelly issue he can personally deal with - his mind is clear and the rest will simply have to wait.

It's at those moments when I think almost everything about his approach to life is better than mine. I wonder what would happen if the next time I get angry I just go outside and piss on the world. Some who know me might consider it a highly preferable strategy, and I'm pretty sure it would relieve some of my pressure as well!

You Had To Be There

Luky is a little stiff and sore today. He's got that post-marathon type of soreness. That's because he decided to fly kites two nights ago in Piedmont Park (http://www.piedmontpark.org/).

After prancing around on the hills along Tenth Street for about an hour I knew he was going to be paying a muscular price for his exuberance.

Such exertions leave him exhausted, too. Sled Dog!?! Yeah, right! He raises his eyebrows with worry any time I say "I did" anything - because, I have surmised, he's afraid I'm about to mention the "Iditarod."

Anyway, he often takes a nap after harrowing efforts like that, and he definitely dreams. Like me, he doesn't remember them very well unless he immediately recounts his dream as soon as he wakes up. I've always wondered why our dreams can be so present of mind upon our waking and then so easily disappear just a few minutes later. In fact, Luky agrees that it's even weirder when you get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of a dream, and then with an odd kind of nostalgia for something you already know isn't real, you head back to bed trying to locate chapter and verse of the action. (Luky says the same thing happens to him when he stands up and turns around three times on his rug.)

So, yesterday afternoon as he was napping when he started trembling, his hind legs shaking like he was trying to run down a gift-wrapped refrigerator-box packed with Milk Bones, and singing his guttural howl as if hailing the entire wild pack of great northern ancestry, I couldn't help wondering what he was dreaming.

"I have to ask," I said. "What was that all about?" He had just looked up - I think he actually woke himself in mid-chase.

"I was saving us," he said.

"Us? As in you and me? What was the danger?"

"We weren't really in trouble. We were chasing."

"We were 'chasing' . . . chasing what?"

"Freedom from despair," he said with the certainty of one now awake and wanting to appear cogent in spite of the obvious circumstances. "You were trying to catch your tail and I had to explain that you didn't have one. You were having trouble with the verbal explanation and needed a demonstration. I think that was it."

"Wow!" I tried to express as much satire in one syllable as possible - but I think he was too awake - by that I mean, he was awake enough now to actually be making up a ridiculous story so he could avoid telling me what his real dream had been about.

"You had to be there," he said.

Luky Has Lots Of Friends

Luky has more friends than me. I have a lot of acquaintances and a few close friends. Luky seems to have hundreds of friends and an unlimited number of acquaintances.

He defines "friend" as any dog he doesn't have to completely re-sniff to confirm gender and last meal.

His enormous social life is pretty understandable in midtown Atlanta. It's an area of the city that boasts a large population of gays, artists, students, professors, and other kinds of intelligent and socially conscious expressions of human life. According to Luky, humans who own pets tend to be smarter and more - well, in his words, more "human," whatever that means.

I asked him later if "pets" really meant "dogs" to which he quickly responded "dogs, cats and birds," so apparently Luky has his favorites which do not include (I take it) snakes, fish, tarantulas and other pet categories.

Anyway, we made our normal visit to the park this morning at about 6:00 a.m. and met up with a couple of Luky's friends - Cole and Hitch. Cole is a Black Lab and Hitch is some sort of mix, I think, that would be impossible for me (as a human who doesn't know how to sniff out the truth) to properly identify. They are non-genetic brothers, and comprise a 2-dog gang of delinquency.

Luky likes them a lot. They are 2 of his favorite friends, but he's keeping his distance for about the last month. That marks the day when Cole and Hitch's mommy, Robin, was petting Luky in the absence of her own boys. Well Luky, being an only child, immediately decides that such attention means Robin now belongs to him. So, the next day we ran into the whole family - Cole, Hitch, Robin and daddy, Scott - in the park, and Luky ignores the rest of the world (including a sizeable and raucous group of other canine kids with respective parents), and beelines for Robin. Justifiably, Hitch lets Luky know just who, in fact, has dibs on her.

Being 125 pounds, with a thick coat of seal grey fur, paws the size of drink coasters and the overall look of a well-fed wolf, does not mean that Luky isn't a pansy. Now he keeps a respectful distance from Hitch until he's sure he's been forgiven for trying to steal Robin. The whole social scenario might be considered embarrassing, but I was proud of Hitch for taking the stand and happy to see Luky (who has plenty of protective fur to survive such warnings from friends) get the reminder that other human-animal families have their own personal relationships into which he is NOT invited.

Scott asked me how Luky types this blog and I had to admit that I take dictation. It's a little humiliating, I suppose, but I explained to Scott that since I'm in control of the keyboard I can editorialize a little bit. As I said that I looked around to make sure you-know-who could not hear me. All of a sudden the fact that Luky was still maintaining a respectful distance from Hitch (who was on the short leash and close-by) had added benefit.

Luky is not reading this as I write. He's listening to John McCain's conversation with Don Imus on MSNBC.

Luky Hates Politics

Luky refuses to talk politics. I told him that humans are scared and frightened creatures. We sometimes care about other human beings, but often we act simply on the fear of losing our place, our safety nets, our bank accounts, our tax bracket. And sometimes we can define those types of things so closely with our survival that we treat other people like they were less than human.

That's when he walks away. He hates that term. He says it's "der-dogatory."

But I think we agree on George Bush. He says "W" (which he pronounces, "Duh-B'ya" with emphasis on the first syllable) would have made a good dog because he would eat out of all the bowls in the neighborhood and pee on all the trees.

I'm not sure what that means but it as deep into the GOP platform as Luky cares to go.

The Labor Day Walk

Luky and I visted Kiki's neighborhood this weekend. That's Avondale Estates (http://www.avondaleestates.org/). It's a pretty amazing community.

Before I learned it firsthand - i.e., met some of Kiki's neighbors - I thought of it as a "Stepford Wives" kind of place. You know what I mean - sort of an overly-controlled, programmed and somewhat sterile neighborhood. There are lots of places like that which, in my way of thinking, can be pretty scary. Luky says that we are going to see more and more of these communities in the extended wake of 9/11 . . . communities with their own private militia and strict rules. He doesn't dislike them, per se, but he says he thinks they will not be that good for dogs. He says a little urea-watering of the plants provides nitrogen and other vital fertilizing minerals. I guess he's afraid that dogs will be unwelcome anywhere canine excretions are not respected for their true chemical value.

He didn't say a word when Kiki bought her home in Avondale Estates. He rode over there with me a couple of times prior to her official decision and we walked the immediate few blocks, including down to the park and lake, which are all of a half-block down the street. Dogs' noses can often see a good thing when hours of human reason leave you blind as a bat. It wasn't until after Kiki closed on the place that I learned the two neighbor houses to the East both had resident dogs.

So, the upshot of the move is Luky's mom lives in a wonderful neighborhood with some of the nicest and smartest neighborhood friends you could ever hope for.

Luky just interrupted me to make sure I add that the lake is also home to a sizeable flock of ducks, a gang of fifty or more turtles, a gaggle of geese, and at least one great blue heron, in addition to lots of other local reptilian and amphibian fauna. He loves snooping around under the bushes and I keep waiting for him to come up howling with a snapper attached to his snout.

We went for a noon walk on Monday, Labor Day, and Luky noticed that Kiki's Azaleas were blooming. He says Atlanta has multiple blooming seasons, depending on the flower, but he thinks that Kiki's Azaleas are the late-blooming variety. I have almost no interest in flowers which is, at least partly, due to the fact that I am significantly colorblind. So lots of his floral observations are lost on me.

We walked down to the park and lake, and across the bridge. We came upon a young couple having a picnic and they were joined by Hank, their new, five month old Malamute-Shepherd mix. Predictably, Luky was all about educating the young'un on how to deal with his new humans. In spite of the gems of wisdom that Luky might have had to share, as I say, Hank is five months. He was 100% into smelling and licking everything, no matter how much energy and jumping his target might require. At nearly eight years, Luky has decided that his sophisticated, thoughtful, less-is-more approach is not only preferable but ought to be the rule. I've often noticed that he seems far more forgiving of humans than he is of other dogs.

It wasn't a long walk, and we were probably back at the house in less than thirty minutes, but you would have thought he'd held a morning-long seminar for lost puppies. And his mom listened and acted appropriately impressed. I relaxed to watch Sci-Fi while they discussed the scope of Hank's future educational hurdles. I heard Kiki's biscuit jar open a couple of times, so clearly she was letting him get away with his wise-dog of the neighborhood routine. As long as Godzilla had to deal with Megalon, I figured I had no reason to butt in!

Luky's Concerned, Too

Luky does a lot of deep thinking, for sure. He also contemplates some not so deep subjects. But this week he has been so concerned about the victims of Hurricane Katrina that every one of our conversations has touched on it somehow. I have not written about that, but our omission of those thoughts has not been out of lack of concern.

Actually, Luky has asked about the entire range of victims, including canine and other pets. He was conscious of the human disaster but he reminds me that most dogs (with notable present exception) are not prolific communicators and are not likely to get interviewed by news crews or have their pains, injuries and needs easily understood. His solution was to prompt me to include a number of shelter and rescue organizations in a post.

We do not pretend that the list below is the best, or anywhere near exhaustive. Anyone interested in more information should plug terms like "pet rescue" and "Katrina" into their favorite search engine and learn more. You might be surprised to find groups even local to you (e.g., see below the North Shore Animal League America based on Long Island) doing as much as possible for animal and pet rescues. Also, note that many breed groups and clubs have specific efforts to reinforce the overall impact.

So, here are links to a few of the big orgs and their immediate info on Katrina plans. (Note also, Luky prefers that I include info about the organization so that anyone who might not be familiar with them can do a little homework before cold-clicking.)

Petfinder - http://www.petfinder.org/disaster/
Petfinder is an on-line, searchable database of animals that need homes. It is also a directory of over 9,000 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the USA, Canada and Mexico. Organizations maintain their own home pages and available pet database. Our mission: to use Internet technology and the resources it can generate to 1) increase public awareness of the availability of high-quality adoptable pets and to 2) increase the overall effectiveness of pet adoption programs across North America to the extent that the euthanasia of adoptable pets is eliminated.

North Shore Animal League America - NSALA - http://www.nsalamerica.org/
North Shore Animal League America is the world's largest no-kill pet rescue and adoption organization. We are a 501-c-3 not-for-profit, charitable corporation, not a private foundation. Port Washington, NY 11050 - 516-883-7575

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer
ASPCA - Hurricane Hotline - http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=hurricane_hotline
The ASPCA mission is to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.

United Animal Nations - http://www.uan.org/
The vision of United Animal Nations is to improve the lives of animals throughout the world by empowering our members, the public and the media with our action, commitment and ideas.

Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) - https://secure.hsus.org/01/disaster_relief_fund_2005
From the HSUS "About" page: The human-animal bond is as old as human history. We cherish our animal companions for their unconditional affection and acceptance. We feel a thrill when we glimpse wild creatures in their natural habitat or in our own backyard. The Humane Society of the United States makes a difference in the lives of animals here at home and worldwide. The HSUS is dedicated to creating a world where our relationship with animals is guided by compassion. We seek a truly humane society in which animals are respected for their intrinsic value, and where the human-animal bond is strong.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) - http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx
Katrina Fund - https://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=141400&MSOURCE=NL10201DUS
From the outset, the founders of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, or IFAW, rejected the notion that the interests of humans and animals were separate. Instead they embraced the understanding that the fate and future of harp seals - and all other animals on Earth - are inextricably linked to our own.

Also, the Houston Chronicle reports that individuals and businesses are making the kinds of humane compromises and concessions that you might hope. This story was especially comforting to Luky, who knows how stressful it can be to find yourself in a strange place.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3330497

This note from me and Luky does almost nothing to ease the pain of the victims, but we both hope that this bit of information will aid anyone interested in taking further action.

Meaning, Men And Women?

Luky hit on one of my soft spots this morning. Perhaps I was expressing that modest discontent or lack of fulfillment that I sometimes do. I suppose I do that a lot when I'm talking to him. He doesn't stop me but he calls me on it.

He says my problem is all about capital "M" Meaning, but he also says it's a particularly human thing. In fact, he says it's even a human sexual thing - as in gender, not procreative. It's Luky's opinion that human males (yes, that's me so far) express inordinate need to create something lasting - to leave behind ("behind" is his word - I argue a preferred "during") a legacy that is greater than the sum of one's living and breathing.

Actually, he sounds pretty sexist because he keeps saying it will always be "a man's world." He doesn't mean it like that, I know, because, in the first place he loves human females. And I don't mean in a ridiculous and superficial way. I mean he respects human females more than he does human males. It's a whole philosophical thing, but even he admits that his feelings may be based in something rather personal. He has tended to respond to almost any human female ever since I can remember. Not only have all the women in MY life been adoring parents and partners to him (especially Kiki whom he calls "mommy" now) but he spent a good portion of his formative years at Canine Academy (www.canineacademy.net) where he was nurtured and loved on by lots of female teachers and guardians. (Jenny Baum, the owner, hires good people.) Anyway, all those girls loved him and he knows it.

Well, all those things add up to partial explanations for his position, but he goes much further. He argues that females, usually, (that is, with very few species exceptions - e.g., Seahorses - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/seahorse/) have the ultimate creative drive exorcism. They actually give birth to other beings. According to him, this doesn't take on Meaning-scale importance until you get to humans. Less self-aware species act and react far more on instinct, which he also considers preferable. It's the human desire to understand our place that makes us want - need - to evaluate our impact and role in the overall. That's why we walk around in a funk every time we get a failing grade or lose a job, or worse (that is, dumber) someone says we're losing our hair, or we drive the wrong kind of car, or we serve the wrong type of wine. (Luky really hates that car comment. He has never cared about the wine thing, which I'll admit bugs me a lot more.) Indeed, Luky says we'd be a far more successful species if we more quickly accepted certain kinds of measures as hints for direction and focus and just moved on.

Malamutes don't really laugh out loud, but I can tell he's smiling when he says humans hate to admit failure in those personal set-backs and so we keep pursuing success in those same arenas which have already proven to be beyond our natural talents and capabilities. He would advise that we do life like wolves . . . look for food where we know the terrain and smell our own mark, and avoid territory that has no prey, or could harbor traps or threats. He amazes me with those kinds of theories. I have no idea where he thinks he gets his lupine wisdom. After all, his most frequent canine conversationalist is a little black and white Pug street gymnast named Zoey. But I listen as if I'm taking notes.

I suppose when you think about it he makes a good point about success and survival. Luky has a way of boiling complex things down to their basics.

Getting back to the Meaning thing, and females, it's Luky's contention that human males will always tend to be the best known architects, writers, composers, painters, and so on and so on, not because they are technically, much less genetically, better than females (you know, women), but rather because men are simply going to have numbers on their side.

I asked him about politics, bureaucracy, and that host of human cultural innovations that seem to reinforce our worst fears and prejudices. Luky says that those things do facilitate our chauvinism but that basically that's just a competitive expression of men trying to make sure they have the arena for their work. If culture operated based on the innate power dynamic (I'm paraphrasing because he hates the word "dynamic"), then according to him, women would never have to let men take the stage.

Oh well, by the time we got to that point in the conversation we were already back in the building and on the elevator. That's when he starts thinking of nothing else but the biscuit he gets when we return to the loft. I told him this whole discussion wasn't over and that I still felt a little dissatisfied and unfulfilled - at least today. He smiled and pranced into the kitchen and stood beside his biscuit bucket. He was done for the day.

Luky's Picture - What Was I Thinking?

I've got stored pictures of all the Malamute family, of course. I was going to get around to plugging everyone in, but I made the BIG mistake of including reference to Pioyok in a post about hair and Summer heat, and for no particular reason I just decided to include a picture of Pioyok. I figured Luky would understand. He's the conversationalist, after all - he's bound to get his picture in here many times.

No way! What the hell was I thinking? As soon as he heard me editing to include the jpeg he got up and walked over with his faced so scrunched up he looked like he had an owl mask on!

So, ok . . . here's a picture of the prince himself. He's happy now, and that means we're all happy now.

No Haircut - Even In Summer Heat

It's been a hot Summer in Atlanta. August is usually hot, but Luky says this has been the hottest August he can remember. Of course, he may be 53 in dog years but he's only seen seven Augusts.

The Malamute who replaced Piitok was Pioyok (picture at right - we pronounced his name, "Pie-Yawk" - the Inuit word means "is good" - and his middle name was Pikattar which we pronounced, "Pick-a-Tar," and which means "companion" - so his Inuit name, as near as we could translate without really understanding the language, was "A good companion"). Anyway, Pioyok was a big boy - about 125 lbs. He was born in Nashville, TN and became an Atlantan when he was about four. That was 1985. I've already admitted I'm not sure I was a very good dog parent back then, but I do know that Pioyok benefited by a quality of parenting that was magnitudes better than Piitok received.

However, Luky's comment about the heat reminded me that Debbie (she was my wife at the time - well, for a long time actually, but like so many diversions that's yet another story) . . . anyway, Debbie and I arranged for Pioyok to be shaved a couple of different Summers. Pioyok knew we did not mean any harm by that. We were only trying to make him more comfortable, but he got kind of pissed off. I can't blame him, though. In the first place, it was very humiliating.

Malamutes are supposed to look like giant Huskies - you know, sort of wolf-like. They don't look like bears, but "bear" is a popular name among the professional Malamute kennels and breeders. Think of it as a name of respect. So here's this somewhat regal, maybe slightly predatory-looking, black and white, plus a color I've heard called "seal grey" (I don't know if it has anything to do with seals, and for all I know it's a mispronunciation of "steel grey" which would certainly work just as well) . . . and all that proud cloak of thick undercoat and guard hair gets clipped reducing him to a look that is significantly wimpier.

Pioyok was probably being courteous. He never expressed any real frustration with us, but he clearly did not want to go out in public shorn like a toy poodle. And on top of that, I don't think the shaving made him feel all that more comfortable. I learned later that a Malamute's thick hair is as protective in the heat and Sun of Summer as it is in the snow and cold of Winter.

But then, as Luky will tell anyone who cares to listen, Summer is for lying in front of the air conditioning vent and waiting for humans to open the refrigerator.

Hollywood & Meaning Of Life

It would be crazy to look to Hollywood or Madison Avenue for meaning in life, but Luky comes up with some pretty profound insights sometimes - and often based on the most inane movie and advertising examples. For example, we were watching the 1998 New Line Cinema movie, Pleasantville, and Luky just had to comment on the implications for our lives.

First of all, we'd seen this movie before - maybe a couple of times - so I sort of knew the scenes and could anticipate some of the dialogue and action. That made it all the more annoying when his analysis seemed to open my eyes to additional symbolism. How is it that I could have watched this movie enough to know it this well and still be missing these ideas?

Anyway, Luky says that when the individuals turn to color from black and white in the movie, it's NOT because of sex or even, as I tried to argue, strong emotion. He pointed out that Jennifer (Resse Witherspoon's character - who also turns into Mary-Sue) who admittedly and overtly engages in all sorts of carnal sport, finally wakes up in "technicolor" (as Jennifer/Mary-Sue describes it) after reading a novel all night long. Granted, it was D.H. Lawrence, but the specific title was not mentioned so obviously the subject matter was not the point.

Luky says the color transition resulted from the respective character's discovery of a new aspect of his personality - a new passion, or capability, or even fault. Of course, I argued that movies are rarely that philosophically consistent. I explained I was certain I could take whatever theory he ascribed to the entire movie and find at least one or two counter examples. In spite of my confidence on that point I was hard pressed to find any as I thought through his notion of "new aspect of personality."

When David (Tobey Maguire, who turns into Bud after Don Knotts sends him and his sister into the Twilight Zone-esque world of a Mayberry-like fictional TV show . . . oh well, I guess you have to watch the movie to get all of this, but) returns to his real world from Pleasantville he finds his mother (played by Jane Kaczmarek) crying in their dining room. David, freshly wiser from his fantasy adventure, then advises his mom on the meaning of life. As she recalls having had (and apparently having lost) the perfect house, the perfect car, etc., etc., David tells her (in that uniquely Tobey Maguire voice of lilting authority) that there is no perfect house, or perfect car. So, I told Luky that there was, indeed, a subtheme to the whole movie - that being there are no "rules" with which we can comply, or "possessions" we can obtain, that will then place us into some sort of harmony with "what it's all about."

Maybe I was just trying to contribute something original to the conversation, but I thought I made a good point.

Anyway, Luky sat up and pushed his ears straight back. He didn't say a word. He was clearly going to give me the point, but he let me know it was a gift! When he turned and walked over to his rug I heard him muttering something like it was still a scene of personal revelation.

I'm not sure what he has planned for this afternoon, but I really hope we can just relax and not work so hard watching old movies!

Cooler Is Better

Luky was pretty calm this morning. I guess we went out late enough last night that he wasn't in a great hurry for anything more than breakfast this morning.

However, when we walked outside and into 65^ breezy, clear air, he got a predictable burst of energy.

Yes, Atlanta is finally getting a little cooler - at least for a day or two. September is traditionally no reprieve from the heat of July and August. Of course, Luky doesn't pay much attention to the calendar. I've noticed that he almost totally ignores the big holidays and family birthdays, etc. He acts like Saturday is just another workday . . . or, I guess I should say, he acts like everyday is Saturday! However, he does seem to pay close attention to the temperature.

This morning's cool breeze must have reminded him of one of my old stories because he asked me to retell it. It's the story of one of his distant cousins - my first Malamute, Piitok. "Piitok," which we pronounced, "pee-tawk," means something like "has-nothing" in the Inuit language. The name was chosen to be purposely, if modestly, ironic in that, at the very least, Piitok was in possession of much adoration. That said, I have to admit that Piitok was also bought and raised by a couple of naive, recently-graduated college kids . . . that would be me and my partner at that time (an otherwise very bright, Cuban-import, math major named Margarita).

We loved Piitok, of course, but like many young people we were not very good dog parents. Looking back I realize that we didn't even know HOW to be good dog parents - and that was the case even in spite of the fact that I grew up in a dog-oriented family. But, that's another story and Luky gets frustrated when I digress into such historical self-reflection. He says it's completely egotistical by which he means it takes time away from him.

So, the story he wanted to hear was about the time we drove over to Yosemite. Yosemite was slightly south and significantly east of Berkeley (where Piitok and we lived at the time). As anyone with geographical commonsense would surmise, east from Berkeley also means inland and coincidentally toward the mountains. It turns out that Yosemite is nearly a mile higher in elevation.

As I recall, it was late Summer or early Fall when we made this trip and Piitok was in the back seat, as travel-calm as any Malamute I've known. The nearly 4-hour drive, with occasional stops for water and perhaps a scenic view, did not phase him in the least. However, that sedate manner and contentment at watching the road and trees fly by (punctuated by his occasional squinting lean out the window to dose himself with a blast of onrushing air) all came to an abrupt halt when, just inside the Park boundary, we crossed over an elevation level above which the ground was completely covered with snow. And that put an end to Piitok's "travel cool."

He stood up in the back seat, tail banging us both in the head (ours was a small car), and he started talking to the snow. I say "talking" because, of course, Malamutes do not bark. His eagerness to touch it and play in it became so frenetic we were forced to locate the first snowplow-generated rest stop with enough room to safely park and exit. Forget facilities of any kind - this was not about taking care of business - this was about primal connections.

Later that year I was paging through a work by Carl Jung and was reminded of his theory on collective consciousness (more recent checking verifies that it is a theory that is not likely to be unique nor original to Jung, but at the time I associated it with Jung so . . .). And regardless of how I might mistake the theory's tenets, I recalled the hypothesis of there existing a sort of genetic-type of subconscious memory that would be passed down through generations. I'm not familiar with any studies done on this idea, but I can tell you in no uncertain terms that if you ever care to see an example of what might pass for evidence, then I suggest you take a Malamute that otherwise knows only Sun and blue skies and warm weather into cold, crisp, Wintry air and snow-covered ground.

For Piitok's part I might just as well have taken a child orphaned from a native land at an early age back to his parent's front door. His reaction can only be described as deep recognition and longing. He played and danced in that snow. He talked to it and rolled in it and acted as if he had finally found a close friend whom he'd lost - perhaps many lifetimes before.

I will never forget my vicarious experience of that dog's inner joy. And, as you can tell, Luky loves that story.