Yesterday was a productive day in many ways, particularly regards the Copse Project. I went to the copse for the second time, where I will be working to improve a confused underused space, turning it into something like a community woodland. I met the people involved in the project and began to get a feel for how things work and who does what. We began clearing the overgrown edges to paths to reveal a labyrinth of small tracks.
I have never seen ivy on the scale it has grown in this copse. After initial research ivy is not the monster I had thought! It supports wildlife in so many ways and is a positive not a negative.
Anyway the reason this relates to Fred is because after talking with powers that be on this project I am allowed to bring Fred along while I work on my own in there! I have been given a key (great privilege) for such a newbie on the project. Made me feel part of a team and trusted already which is a great start and I am excited by the project.
I was going to pop over today to create a diagram showing the general layout of the space with the maze of paths and clearly defined areas already there.
You know what they say: Let sleeping dogs lie. I will have to wake him up and take him along for a taster session.
This morning we met a woman, who I nearly know. She enters local art competitions and I see her at private views at my local art gallery and things like that. Visually she is a very distinctive woman once seen you recognise her when you see her a second time. She explained she had walked three quarters of an hour to get to her beach hut because roadworks had blocked her car in. She said she probably could get her car out but knew her parking space would be gone when she returned. She then went to tell me she was preparing her beach hut for the annual Beach Hut competition. This year she was doing ‘Hoppers’…I was a little at a loss and said Edward Hoppers?
No she said ‘Oppers’ picking hops. This used to be big industry in Kent and poverty-stricken folk and working class families from the East End of London used to spend the end of the summer picking hops. It was described as the nearest thing to a holiday for east end families.
She’s turning her beach hut into a hop pickers caravan with cooking tins and what she described as tat, ragged clothes outside on the washing line. She was going to dress up in patched threadbare clothing for the day. There are some people who really take it seriously she said, with very elaborate designs. One year someone turned theirs into a bathing machine and had people inside a pantomime horse as if pulling it towards the water’s edge.
She had waked 45 minutes bringing a shopping trolley full of bits of wood and this and that in preparation. She told me it was good to plan and know exactly what you were doing on the day and was just starting the 45 minutes back to her house when we met her. I was impressed with the commitment for a fun event which is part of our local festival.
As for Fred I tried to get him to swim in the sea …… not having it for a moment.
The council have recently cut the grass on the downs as we walk to the sea shoreline. Not a sparrow to be seen, no starlings either. Perhaps short dry grass not their thing. I thought I would let Fred off the lead as the chase was not there – nothing to chase! We walked along the beach all fine, then ‘click’ he remembers that there used to be sparrows here and darts off to look for them. None to be found and though itching to find something to chase including a cyclist I just get his attention by the slenderest of margins and get him back on the lead.
Next, we see a man only a few yards out into the sea swimming with his black Lab. Fred is interested but does not swim. I sort of called out, sort of spoke loudly asking the man whether his dog had to be coaxed into the water or did the dog go in and swim of his own accord.
‘No this is the fist time he has ever swam with me’. he answers. ‘I had to gently coax him in, supporting his chest and in the end, he seemed to get it’
I watched as this Lab swam towards me, onto the shallows walked over the pebbles round behind me and Fred and did the twisting dogshake thing to get the water off.
In this hot weather I thought it would be a missed opportunity not to get in there with Fred.
When we got home I discovered Fred has brought a half a blue rubber ball home with him. Must have had it in his mouth for a while and smuggled it home. He’s munching on it now!
Graduation:
Yesterday Fred graduated and has a certificate to prove things! Completion of an eight-week puppy training course. This is actually the second puppy training course Fred has completed the other a six week course. So, I think Fred is good at being a puppy!
We have enjoyed the antics on the course and towards the end ‘agility’ was introduced and Fred was very good at that; running through tunnels, and in and out and in and out of sticks, sit on the box and jump over the pole, you know the stuff!
Advanced dog training could continue on a turn up and pay as opposed to signing onto a programme. We are seriously considering whether to take this on! Sitting here writing this, perhaps there is an element of competitive owners wanting to do this and Fred could actually take it or leave it ……….. on the other hand, its fun and what’s to lose.
Fred is very free spirited and perhaps at times wilful, and the more knowledge I have about him, the more he trusts me and engages with me the better I think. I want to be able to say I can trust Fred in outside situations, rather than him be the cause of anxiety.
This morning the sun was out, the tide was out and the sparrows were nowhere to be seen. Instead the seagulls were out, right out on the flats between the beach and the sea. This was the ideal pitch for a game of chase. The pitch probably not quite a mile long from Herne Bay Pier to the Hampton Inn and at least 150 yards wide as the sea is very shallow and goes out a considerable distance.
So, the easiest game of chase I will ever have the chance to referee. I lay down on the pebbles and watched. It made me glow with happiness to see Fred run free – free —- free. I know he will never catch one as seagulls are just better equipped to avoid such hazards. But the chase is everything, even though the gulls might fly 20 feet of the ground Fred is still after them, galloping through the shallows leaving a kind of vapor trail in the sea behind him. Then he spots another one still on the sand and he changes direction and makes a B line towards it. Seagulls are so lazy and leave it to the last minute to move and even then they can hardly be bothered to fly away and land again several yards away. Then they have to fly off again and it goes on like this for a while. I can hear Fred not barking but kind of squeaking as he charges around, vapour trail in the shallow water behind him.
I know he won’t come back for all the tea in China but I call his name anyway……he’s gone deaf, and I know it’s a waste of time. I start thinking about all the puppy training classes we have been to and start wondering what the dog trainers would say if they saw what was going on? There weren’t any joggers, cyclists or dogs not socially adjusted in sight. No small children, no cars, no vulnerable adults or even anyone anywhere to be seen. I was now feeling guilty that my dog was having the time of his life and doing something in his genetic code, it’s how he’s been put together.
He’s not going to come back for a tiny little dog treat .. he’s running… just running …. running free.
Lovely to see …… but somehow forbidden!
Makes me sad.
