Notes during a break in the carpet cleaning

If posting around here has been light this past week, which it has, it’s because a small dog has more or less kidnapped me. For the past ten days, Sadie has been learning exciting life lessons, including “the carpet is not a toilet” and “small children are not chew toys.” Consequently, I have done neither reading nor writing. I had forgotten how much work this is.

And we’re just getting started. On their way chez moi are Gun-Dog Training: Spaniels and Retrievers by Kenneth C. Roebuck, and Urban Gun Dogs: Training Flushing Dogs for Home and Field by Anthony Z. Roettger. That one title hyphenates “gun dog” while the other does not is disturbing, because in dog handling, consistency is key. Keep this up, and Sadie will never learn to write worth a damn—but she will make a good bird dog.

What the hell am I thinking?

One of my early childhood memories is of Doctor Who, sometime in the mid-1970s, in black and white. The Daleks have invaded Earth and taken over London, and the Doctor is in a wooded area, talking to a member of the resistance. He wants to know how to get into London. “Are you crazy?” says the resistance fighter. “Nobody wants to get into London.”

Similarly, nobody gets into hunting these days; the accepted wisdom seems to be that hunting is an ugly throwback involving guns (which are of course bad) and appealing primarily to rednecks. Which, I mean, yeah … I dunno. Do we really need to have this discussion? I mean, is there any point? Really?

No, I didn’t think so.

It strikes me as ironic that the self-same progressive mindset that promotes eating locally, growing one’s own food and boycotting the factory farm is also likely to view hunting as cruel, archaic and “ugly.” Cities are nice, but I think we should spend less time in them.

Dogs lead simple lives, and there’s something to be learned from that.