Edible Tulip

Beaver Sighting at the Humber River

There's a resident beaver, so I've been told, who resides in a dam on the west side of the Humber River north of Bloor. If I'd known that before traipsing around in the sticks and marsh-like mud and muck that extends down into the waterway that is a true urban dilemma - a fast running body of water full of fisherman, 2 canoeists and a beaver but sadlly due south of a water treatment plant so the area of land where the water has recessed is tattered with depleted plastic bags, hospital latex gloves, cardboard, fishing string, and chunks of floating foam. It was in the high 20s today - the first real glimpse of warmth for months and the walk through the new buds and ground growth was almost explosive with happiness. The garbage strewn everywhere however is depressing. And worrisome. Someone at the park told me a friend's dog got giardia from the Humber and had to be put on I.V. I won't deny my dog one of the nicest walks in the city for fear of maybe contracting something but I did scratch my leg badly on something and then have to wade into the river to retrieve Simon's ball (big shout out to all the retrievers at High Park who CONSTANTLY fetch Simon's bobbing ball for him as it floats down the rivlets). And when the cuts began to scratch I instantly became concerned with Staph and E Coli infections seeping into my bloodstream. I'd rather eat a fish with a bit of mercury in it who has been lured from a sparkling clear creekbed than worry about contracting a viral infection from a fast moving river through the city.

So, anyway, we ran into a HUGE beaver just hanging out in a tangle of dried sticks and mulch. Simon didn't even see it. I was watching Simon as he went straight for the water, went out up to his neck and sat down to immerse his full body. He won't swim but he'll wade. He won't jump off a dock like a retriever but he'll race out as far as he can with his feet still touching the bottom to fetch a stick. So as Simon sort of flits about like a minnow I see this enormous brown furry blob scurry off just a foot to the left of where I'm standing. Things then went blurry. Simon was at my side, I was trying to leap over an enormous fell tree trunk and the beaver was idly pushing itself off shore. I'm not sure what would have happened had Simon and the beaver met face to face, I don't know how vicious the buck-toothed creature really is, but I have a feeling by the pure might of its muscle and its bravado, story to follow, that it would have grabbed Simon by the nose and tugged him out into the river. I would then have to had bit my hypochondria adieu and raced in after him. But no, the beaver slinked underwater, and re-emerged downstream. Simon at this point was only picking up the scent and back at the beaver's sly stage exit. I walked south along the river and couldn't see the beaver anywhere. After a while, I looked out into the middle of the river - which spans about 75 metres in width - and I see the goddamn beaver fighting against the stream. He's swimming upriver into a fast current and is only a few feet from being swept over a dam into whirlpools. He's having the fight of his life. I notice a Japanese couple on the other side of the river with their cameras out and pointing and holy shit this beaver's fot fans rooting for him on both divides. He dives down to evade the fastest part of the current, pokes his sleek head upstream, and then swims on an angle to the other side of the river where he pulls himself out of the river and collapses out of exhaustion. After my experience with Simon, the deer and the Old Mill residents a few weeks ago I get him on leash. We pass an older couple sitting on a bench. I'm still riled up from the beaver's triumph so I say "there's a beaver over there, on the other side of the river, see it, see it right there, that big brown thing, that's a beaver!" They didn't really even look in the direction I was pointing but they thanked me and wished me well. They were American. From the south, it appeared. So now I've gone ahead and ruined Toronto as being chic and urban and cultural to these people. They're going to go back to Alabama and tell everyone they went to Toronto and saw a beaver.

(sadly I didn't have my camera to legitimize my beaver tale. later in the afternoon, we walked in high park. despite not crossing paths with any wild life, we still found a way to get muddy and wet. see picture.)

Super Mutt

I've spent many hours on the internet trying to figure out Simon's genetic make-up. In dogs, their breed(s) are such an integral piece of the mystery of their personalities. Before I received Simon as a "foster dog", I was told he was Shepherd/Husky. (People stop me on the street all the time and throw out their own ideas. I think there's also some Border Collie in him, and maybe even some hound.) Now anyone in their right mind in an apartment in downtown Toronto* at the kickstart of the winter season would pause, for at least a second, to contemplate the undertaking of a dog with that mix. Because I know now, a little terrier or a miniature anything would have been much much easier - the dog wouldn't be able to squash a cat with a paw, it could be picked up and placed somewhere if misbehaving, a long walk would mean around the block, and I could tie it up for 3 minutes in front of the liquor store without my worrying it would jump on someone and claw their eyes out. Simon, in truth, has never clawed anybody's eyes out but he does jump up. It was such an annoying habit of his, based I believe out of insecurity, that the first few months I was petrified to pass anyone on the sidewalk, in a hallway, invite guests over to my apartment, have him in any circumstance where he could jump up, because he inevitably did. Some people are okay with it. Many are not. The point is he shouldn't do it ever. He's too big. And too unpredictable. After many months of working on this, he only jumps up around 3% of the time.

Training a dog is like packing a house up in preparation for a move. You start packing boxes and bags and days go by and yet the house is still full of stuff, there's hardly been an imprint of all of that work, let alone results. For the first 3 months, I worked Simon daily, commanding him to sit, down, stay 20 times a day. We would wrestle in front of his crate when on the 5th day he arrived he would no longer step foot in it. Even when his dinner was in there. He had decided the couch was preferable. I was in tears that night when through the saliva and vigour of both of us I succeeded in getting him in to the crate against his almighty protestations. I might have felt more badly but when his body went limp and he gave in he was in essence passing over the authority torch and I knew the significance of that.

It is difficult when you have a rescue dog who begins to take over your life. You have mixed emotions. Part of you feels like a saviour; the dog is a poor helpless creature who has been locked up in a cage, nearly euthanized, and devoid of attention and love. The instinct is to buy all sorts of expensive treats - dried liver, venison snacks, chicken jerky - get him a soft pillowy bed, give him lots of hugs and kisses, talk in a baby voice, and sacrifice your entire social life in order to make sure he isn't left alone. Do this, however, and your dog will whip your ass. He will jump up on your bed when he returns from a muddy walk. He will ignore you when you ask him to do something let alone command him. He'll growl at you if you try to take a toy away. He'll take over your life and make it so miserable you will lie in bed wondering how you spent hundreds of dollars adopting this awful creature, hundreds more securing his good health, endless hours making him chicken and rice for dinner, countless walks a day in weather no human should have to endure, and enabled yourself to almost get a concussion, a broken wrist, and the sorest ass in history from all that hiking in deep snow. I have been there. I have had those moments where I secretly hoped I could find someone else to adopt him. Maybe a nice family with teenagers who live in the country and he can ride around the back of a pickup truck. It'd be better for him, I thought. The reality is he is deeply attached to me. As I am to him. And he is unmistakably happy. The hard truth was that I was letting him rule the house and that was making me miserable and exhausted and losing weight. I am not good at confrontation. Even with a canine, apparently. I'm 115 pounds, Simon is 60+ pounds but his dead weight when he wants it to be is much stronger than anything I can muster. I learned pretty early on, although we still battle it out sometimes, that I had to turn into some sort of General, when required, and through patience and fairness, show this dude who's boss.

*(The reality of Simon's genetic make-up, that hyperactive hunting husky in him, means that the key to his good behaviour is simply exercise. For those who think it unfair to have a big dog in a city, when you enter into the rescue dog world there is no choice of an estate with a big backyard in Rosedale, or a home in the suburbs. These dogs require a lot of work and they are being fostered out because they have been unadoptable. A dog alone all day in a backyard is not necessarily a happy dog. Nor is one left to roam free in the countryside getting into all sorts of danger and mischief. I have undertaken the responsibility of making sure he gets out 4 times a day both for long, leisurely, urban leash walks and for ample play time where he can run hard for at least an hour a day. We have friends at the dog parks we visit but for the most part we try to include off leash trails and ravine meanderings into our regime. Luckily, my folks live north of the city and we go often and walk for hours along stretches of the Bruce Trail.)

The following dog books are my favourite so far for anyone looking to learn the basics of understanding dogs and how to effectively communicate with your dog. In addition to these, I ordered about 14 more through the Toronto Public Library and whipped through those too.

The Monks of New Skete. Divine Canine. The Monks' Way to a Happy, Obedient Dog. Everything You Need to Know.

Good Owners, Great Dogs. A Training Manual for Humans and Their Canine Companions. By Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson. Published by Warner Books.

Why Does My Dog Act That Way? A complete guide to your dog's personality. By Stanley Coren. Published by free press.

Hip Ideas for Hyper Dogs. By Amy Ammen and Kitty Foth-Regner. Published by Wiley Publishing.

Simply Simon

I know it’s been 7 months since I posted. I feel like I’m creeping up out of the mulch. The landscape is different. Or at least I see it that way.

Last fall was one of the busiest most exasperating periods of my entire life. I felt burdened. Time was leaching away from me. My days had spiralled into a routine of over-thought chaos. So being my typical impractical self, I got a dog.

I’m convinced that some dogs are meant to be with certain people, and vice versa, and that the universe has a twisted way of making sure they find one another. I picked up Simon literally on the side of a busy road north of Toronto. It felt a bit like a covert operation – driving up to a tattered trailer home on a muddy lot amidst the sprawl of industry, sitting out front of the house because a sign reads “do not get out of your car until the owner comes out of the house”, watching a truck pull in and sit idly in the lot too, and then seeing a large man in a sweat suit with a long white beard emerge out of the front door. He was receiving the other dog. I was there to pick up Simon. And the truck belonged to the woman who was responsible for rescuing these two dogs from the Welland Humane Society before they were put down even though both dogs were only a year and a half in age and non-aggressive. She opened the back of her truck and Simon flew out. As I held his leash firmly, she ran through food, his background, her experience with him, what to do and not to do, all in less than five minutes. I brought Simon over to the car, obviously nervous about jumping in with a stranger, he required some coaxing, but then he got in and sat in the back seat looking out the window. Whimpering. Simon’s soft whine is a song I’ve come to know well although it’s abated as his confidence continues to grow.

The first month was probably one of the most hellish of my life. I have two cats. I live in an apartment. Fostering a rescue dog means these dogs are typically in dire circumstances and time is running out. Puppies you can mould and train to become the perfect family pet, these dogs are not. They require patience, discipline, unconditional love, and more of the same, until you think you don’t have an inch of patience left in your body, then they require love, and then when you try to discipline, they will test your patience all over again.

It became clear to me immediately that Simon had a few issues. He was afraid of Asians, in general. I live a block from Korea town. And so began our long walks along Bloor Street. As a person with various anxieties, I knew you had to face down your fears or they would grow and manifest into larger problems. He chased cars. While on a leash. Which meant his 60 lb. body flew up into the air and lunged towards moving vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, trucks, etc. He was frightened of children – they are often screaming and they run like prey. Umbrellas, homeless people, joggers, skateboarders, shrouded shrubs, neighbourhood cats, Falun Gong participants in white gloves, Rottweilers – Simon didn’t really like any of them. He’d circle, growl, and even attempt to bite.

The past 5 months, Simon and I walked through various snowstorms at 6 a.m., at midnight, after long gruelling days at the office… rain, snow, sleet, hail, -40 degree weather, we were out in it, 3-4 hours a day. During those initial walks I wouldn’t have dared let him off leash. He was a thrashing, yanking, hyperactive, skittish, unpredictable, stubborn mutt with the habits of a 60-pound squirrel. We would try to run together. Inevitably, he would run too quickly or in movement catch sight of something and pull in the opposite direction. And I’d get pulled down, or pulled up, muddy hillsides after my head had hit the frozen ground with all of the earth’s gravitational force. I fell a total of 4 body crunching times. There was the running away at the Kortright Centre, the running across an ice covered pond and falling in while in pursuit of geese (who were FLYING), the chasing of deer up into the backyards of estate homes near the Old Mill where owners, all female, all royally pissed off, came out to investigate this wild, drooling, wolf-like beast who was tearing up their back gardens chasing 5 deer and whose owner, that’d be me, stood there in an army-green rubber rain suit trying to call a dog who can go wilfully deaf. Not one of our better moments. There have been run-ins with pit bulls, encounters with policemen on horse, and too many discarded chicken bones pulled from his jaws. But there have also been moments of immense joy and fulfillment. He is a different dog now then when we first met. He's tamped down his neuroses, shed his anxieties, plays well with other dogs, mostly comes when called, is patient with me when I'm slowly waking up in the morning. When we're in the woods clawing through the thaw of 3 feet of melting snow or walking together through the thick of a busy urban sidewalk and he’s trotting along with his tail held proudly in the air and one eye cast in my direction there’s something very sweet that exists between us; like my neighbour said to me the other week, I see you two heading out into the day and you just look like you belong together. My thoughts exactly.

More food entries to follow. And a review of The Patisseries of Paris published by The Little Bookroom up next!