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ImpApril 02, 2009 In case you're been worried that Private Travvy of the MRM (Malamute Resistance Movement) has exchanged his single stripe and his hope of promotion through the ranks for a halo -- worry no longer. Since he'd been so attentive and mature lately, I took him to the barn with me yesterday. I'd just met one pressing deadline but another was hanging fire, and I was trying to be a responsible adult. You know, like mature: put work ahead of play, no riding yadda yadda. I could walk Travvy around the place and if he was calm enough I could put him on his tether while I cleaned Allie's stall and picked manure out of the pasture. It all started pretty well. Gene was sawing, Sam was running around, Gattu (the adorable Lhasa-type dog in residence) was running around, but Trav was doing OK. Excited but OK. He wanted to poop but clearly didn't think the pasture was the place, so we stepped through the wire (unelectrified) fence. Trav spotted the dead hen carcass before I did, and he had it in his mouth before my mind caught up with my eyes. "Drop it" didn't work. Myriad variations of "drop it" didn't work. Clicking every (very) slight hint that he might be relaxing his jaws didn't work. He did put it down at one point but he still had possession and I didn't move fast enough. The short version is that time passed and dark fell and I yelled and Trav growled and I told him that the MSPCA shelter in Edgartown better not close before I could abandon him on its concrete doorstep. There really wasn't all that much to the carcass beyond feathers and very large feet, but Travvy wanted it. No way was I letting him in the truck to go home with the dead hen in his mouth. Finally we got into a serious tug-of-war. I played dirty, trying to pinch his nostrils shut and find whatever pressure points would make him open his mouth. Finally I won possession of the carcass. If Trav was perplexed that I didn't eat it but tossed it back over the fence, he didn't let on. Today I took the first installment of another desperately rushed job down to the UPS Store in Vineyard Haven and overnighted it to New York. Then Trav and I went for a great walk at the Mai Fane land bank property off State Road. Later I left him at home when I went to the barn, and I was gone less than an hour, but when I got back Trav had spilled baker's cocoa powder and unpopped corn on the rug, finished off a canister of raisins (there was only about one bowl of oatmeal's worth left), and eaten most of a tin of Crisco, along with the butter wrappers I keep with it for greasing bread pans. So far he's showing no ill effects. He didn't eat much, if any, of the cocoa powder. The raisins won't do him any harm. But with all that Crisco, not to mention waxed paper, in his system, I have a feeling we may be going out in the middle of the night.
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