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Deer TravvyApril 10, 2009 Trav got a break yesterday: he's young, after all, and he hasn't done this much off-leash running since early December. Not to mention that I spent six hours reconciling eight months' worth of bank statements (I know, I know: some while ago it got up to seven and I vowed I'd never, ever let it slide that long again), hard on the heels of posting five months' worth of credit card statements, and by the time I finished riding was out of the question. This afternoon we went out again. I won't say I was getting cocky, but I was a helluva lot more confident than I was a few days ago that I could pony Travvy from Allie's back and that Travvy wouldn't take flight for Gay Head or Nantucket when I let him loose. We headed up toward Greenlands. Trav was great. All was as it had been on our two rides earlier in the week -- until Travvy spotted the old deer carcass. Very old, and well picked over: apart from two recognizable legs and a ribcage, it was mostly fur and sinew. By the time Allie and I had retraced our steps, Trav had a hefty hairy hunk of it in his mouth. I dismounted. Several repetitions of "drop it" didn't work, so with the dead hen episode fresh in my mind I figured I'd try something different. I snapped the lead on Travvy's collar, remounted, and off we went. Surely Trav would get eventually sick of carrying the hunk with no hope of gnawing on it? When he pulled toward a little clearing by the side of the trail, my hopes went up. Maybe he wanted to bury it in the leaves and come back to it later, the way he does with bones and tennis balls and T-beaux's squeaky toys? No such luck: he wanted to settle down for a good nosh. Again, "drop it" didn't work. Neither did stamping my foot and pleading. Getting into another tug-of-war was out of the question: I held Allie's reins in my right hand, and I wasn't wearing gloves. I wasn't going to rassle this thing bare-handed, no way. I got back on Allie and tried to pony Travvy away from the clearing, with or without the hefty hairy hunk of deer carcass. Right. I would have had as much luck hauling a fallen oak tree out by its roots. Worse, Travvy slipped his collar. I held fast to the end of the lead rope, but there was no dog at the other end. Oh, shit. A 13-month-old malamute safeguarding his treasure off in the woods, with absolutely no reason to do anything I asked? Visions of Animal Control danced in my head. He growled when I got close but by now I'm about 85% sure that even when he growls a warning he's not going to snap at me. (That 15% not-so-sure keeps me cautious.) I was close enough to get the collar over his head -- but not over the furry mess in his mouth. Hmmm . . . Once again I was inspired by my opposable thumbs -- I'm homo sapiens, goddamn it, and he's canis canis -- and carefully, very carefully, I looped the lead rope around his midsection so it worked like a belly band, then lifted one forepaw then the other through it so the loop was around his neck. He still had the hunk, but I had some control again. We had a showdown by the side of the trail. He was showing small signs of putting the thing down, and I clicked every slightest motion of mouth in the direction of ground. When thing was on the ground, I used my paddock-booted feet to keep it there, while holding Allie and tossing treats just ahead of the thing. Finally it worked. Travvy abandoned his prize, and I kicked it into the scrub. I settled his collar, got back on Allie, and off we went. At the Greenlands sign in the corner of the state forest, I thought -- hoped -- it might be safe to let Travvy loose again. He'd been trotting along with no apparent thought of the deer hunk; the thought did occur to me, though, that he was trying to fake me out, but I didn't want to pony him all the way home. I unsnapped the lead. Travvy rooted around the trunk of a pine tree, then followed me and Allie back into the woods. We went to Tillo's house. Tillo was delighted to see him; they played while Elaine and I yakked. Other than trying to slip into Janka's stall to scrounge whatever fell from her feed bucket, Travvy was very good. And he followed me and Allie away when we rode back down the driveway toward the trail, even though Tillo really wanted to come too. Good puppy! Along the path that leads toward the Stoney Hill Road, he went chasing after two deer. He gave up and came back. A little further along, it happened again. Again he came back. At the foot of the hill just before the dirt road, I dismounted and got him back on lead. Very, very good puppy. What I've learned is that Travvy prefers me to adults, kids, and most dogs. He doesn't prefer me to a hairy hunk of long-dead deer. In human terms this isn't exactly flattering, but in dog terms I think it means Travvy thinks I'm OK.
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