Noise Desensitizing

He'd rather be the one doing the killing but, all in all, Stoic could care less about firearms.

Sparta has developed a reactivity to sudden loud noises that, if I can not eliminate, I would like to reduce.

A local 4-H group had an air rifle competition this last weekend.  There were a lot of snaps and pops from the air rifles and some shotgun blasts from a trap shoot a few hundred yards away.  She's not cured.  It will take a lot of ongoing work.  By the end of the three hours, however, she was resting under a picnic table not thirty yards from where trap was being shot.

Aim to the left and a little low,
'cause those old iron sights shoot high and to the right."

Riverwalk

Wisconsin's public lands are never more crowded than during the nine day whitetail gun season.

They're rarely so barren as the week following that gun gun season.

I try to take the dogs out for a walk in that week as we look for unrecovered deer.  It became obvious that the area was much more heavily hunted this year than years past, but it was still fun to get out and continue to work on Stoic's field manners.

Only ten minutes out of the car and Stoic yelps and runs back past me as if he'd been nipped by a coyote.  A short investigation led to the only carcass we would find.  After a few seconds of checking it out, Stoic was ready to rag on it.  Once he was exposed for a few moments he started to get the idea that maybe raccoon isn't so scary afterwards.

Three brand new deerstands, shooting lanes, boxes to hold gamecams and scent lures.  There was a lot more human sign on this bit of public access than previous years.

Stoic checks out a den near the river.  Sparta and he left it on command, but I thought I was going to have to pull them out.

I do love me some upper midwest oak savanna.

We found to gut piles, relatively untouched by carrion eaters.  I took that as a good sign that they'd been eating meat and fat off of a unrecovered deer somewhere.  Maybe they were, but we didn't find it.  I let both dogs take a nibble before moving them on.  I don't care to clean vomit out of my car.

It feels as if there are more spaces along the river where willow saplings are growing larger and denser than years past.  If true, this has to be a good thing.  The river's cutting edge, seen in the background, is replaced by the growing edge.  Trees speed up the process of growing.  The Red Cedar moves so fast I might just live long enough to see an oak sapling growing on this GPS coordinate before my spark goes dark.

I have a whistle I use which all the dogs learn means "check in with me."  It isn't a hard "come" it is a "put your eyes on me."  I use it if I've gone a little too long seeing or hearing one of the dogs or when I am making a sudden change in direction or turning around.

Stoic ventured out a time or two but stayed close most of the time. It was the perfect set of events for him to learn the meaning of that "find me" whistle.

A tree falls in the river, the current slows behind it, an island is born, grass can grow.

Every time we're out here, I cross down tree to a large grassy island that I'm sure ought to hold something interesting to see.

Every time the dogs believe me to be nuts.

This beaver lodge has been occupied for at least the last four years.  Usually I can get them to come out, look me over, as slap their tail on the water in disgust at my rudeness of standing atop their lodge.  This year I heard them leave the go underwater from inside the lodge but no protest was forth coming.  Stoic was really, really, interested in the smell of what lived in there.  Yes, they're rodents but we're gonna learn to leave them alone.

A Good Dog's Pedigree

"Stoic the Vast"

Boston Terrier x Chihuahua

A friend has a four-month old Boston Terrier x French Bulldog mix and that let to some late night googling "Boston Terrier Mix."  Scrolling through the images and I come across an apparent doppelganger for our own Stoic.

I know very little about Boston Terriers and even less about Chihuahuas but the mix would account for the size and structure we see in him.

Ultimately the whole breed game is just that: a game.  It makes for interesting speculation but that is about it.  Stoic is an excellent rat killer.  He will make a fine therapy dog (he tests in two weeks).  In the months to come, I'll see if he can be turned on to tracking wounded game.

He is a bit barrel chested, "spannable" but just barely.  In the spring I will set up some dummy burrows to have him work through to kill mice and rats.  Given his prey drive and nose, I'm convinced he could master the go-to-ground sports but that chest might be too much for actual go-to-ground work.

My experience is pretty limited, but next summer the initial plan is to spend some time in Minnesota's public hunting grounds searching for groundhogs (groundhogs are protected in Wisconsin) and give Sparta a chance to explore and work real burrows and me a chance to see if I really can work a Deben Terrier Locator.  If circumstances allow I'll decide then to whether or not it seems safe to test him on some larger burrows.

My larger point is this, Stoic has all the promise to be a great dog, a working dog, a sporting dog, and a companion dog.  It matters a whit not the the pedigree (or not) of the bitch that whelped him or the stud that sired him.  If you're looking for a dog to do a specific thing (terrier work, tracking wounded game) it probably is a good idea to talk to a breeder who serves that kind of hunter, most of us, however, can be well served by a dog of proper skill set but unknown origin.

Stoic Week 2015

Stoic Week begins tomorrow.

There is still time to register and get your free handbook.

What is modern stoicism?
I am so glad you asked.

Writing for the New York Times Massimo Pigliucci describes his daily practice this way,

Nonetheless, I think it is worth considering what it means to “be a Stoic” in the 21st century. It doesn’t involve handling a turbulent empire as Marcus Aurelius had to do, or having to deal with the dangerous madness of a Nero, with the fatal consequences that Seneca experienced. Rather, my modest but regular practice includes a number of standard Stoic “spiritual” exercises. 

I begin the day by retreating in a quiet corner of my apartment to meditate. Stoic meditation consists in rehearsing the challenges of the day ahead, thinking about which of the four cardinal virtues (courage, equanimity, self-control and wisdom) one may be called on to employ and how.
I also engage in an exercise called Hierocles’ circle, imagining myself as part of a growing circle of concern that includes my family and friends, my neighbors, my fellow citizens, humanity as a whole, all the way up to Nature itself. 

I then pass to the “premeditatio malorum,” a type of visualization in which one imagines some sort of catastrophe happening to oneself (such as losing one’s job), and learns to see it as a “dispreferred indifferent,” meaning that it would be better if it didn’t happen, but that it would nonetheless not affect one’s worth and moral value. This one is not for everybody: novices may find this last  exercise emotionally disturbing, especially if it involves visualizing one’s own death, as sometimes it does. Nonetheless, it is very similar to an analogous practice in C.B.T. meant to ally one’s fears of particular objects or events. 

Throughout the rest of the day, my Stoic practice is mostly about mindfulness, which means to remind myself that I not only I live “hic et nunc,” in the here and now, where I must pay attention to whatever it is I am doing, but, more importantly, that pretty much every decision I make has a moral dimension, and needs to be approached with proper care and thoughtfulness. For me this often includes how to properly and respectfully treat students and colleagues, or how to shop for food and other items in the most ethically minded way possible (there are apps for that, naturally).Finally, I pick a Stoic saying from my growing collection (saved on a spreadsheet on DropBox and available to share), read it to myself a few times and absorb it as best as I can. The whole routine takes about ten minutes or so. 

Finally, my daily practice ends with an evening meditation, which consists in writing in a diary (definitely not meant for publication!) my thoughts about the day, the challenges I faced, and how I handled them. I ask myself, as Seneca put it in “On Anger”: “What bad habit have you put right today? Which fault did you take a stand against? In what respect are you better?”

Stoic: Explode the Code

Two months ago a terrier showed up on our front door.

An intact male, he followed the scent of Sparta, who was in season.  Only by trotting her outside, was I able to get a leash around his neck.

No collar, no microchip, and unrecognized by any neighbor we visited within a three mile radius or vet office

A happy Stoic who didn't even know to ask for a French Fry.

within six miles.  One guy at the library had seen him trotting down the road about six miles from our house two days before I picked him up.

He was great with kids, other dogs, and domestic cats.  He did fine walking in crowds and was a natural taking a rest on a patio while I enjoyed a brew.

He could pass the therapy dog test in a second, only his sit/stay needs a little more work.

I suspect he was someone's house dog who got out of hand.  He demonstrated some marking behavior that we were able to rectify in a couple of weeks.  He has a desire to chew and lick obsessively, this seems well on its way to being regulated to the past with adequate toys and exercise.

His chest was spannable.  I guess I'd call him a rat terrier mix.  Still, he's built like he could still "go to ground."

He did not seem to have any experience in hunting mice or rats, but he killed them with a rapidity that seemed to confuse him. He air scented and would follow a trail, though both of these seemed novel to him.

 

"Explode the Code"

He didn't know what he was doing, but he liked it.

Patrick Burns over at Terrierman's Daily Dose coined the phrase "explode the code" to describe what has been happening since he arrived.  His inherent desire to hunt and kill has found expression.

Sparta will give voice, even if she suspects there might have been prey in the area sometime within the last 12 hours.  Stoic is silent unless there is something that needs to be killed right now.  So I got out of bed when he barked out the screen door thirty-minutes before my alarm was to go off this morning.

I've never had a dog catch a pocket gopher above ground before; but then again, I never had a Stoic standing guard before.

So I will continue to expand Stoic's skill set.  We will start some formal track training this afternoon.  Using the other terriers as mentors, I'll introduce him to larger prey: groundhog and raccoon.  I may even visit a few of the artificial earthdog events in the Twin Cities.  Sparta grew bored with them when she realized she was not allowed to kill the rat, but it is a good way to introduce dogs to underground work.

Sparta is great and the most enthusiastic hunter I have ever owned.  Stoic has the possibility of being even more gifted, if maybe a little less energetic.