The Hare-foot Dog

left to right - Hoss, Surley, and Addie - Addie's hind foot, showing the elongated structure

Addie is just 2 weeks off the race track!

I was begining to think I'd never get a hare-footed dog for my project, but Ellen Haas gave me the name of someone who is active in greyhound rescue, and I took a chance, e-mailing a request for help.

Moira Corrigan bravely agreed to meet me with her own 3 greyhounds, 2 she's fostering, and her 10 month old Great Dane, Cheif, too! Anticipating that it might be somewhat crazy, I also asked Shondell Kelly, one of this year's Rezzies, to go along to assist with the measurements.

Moira began by telling me that I might not want to track Hoss, as he's missing a toe...OH Yeah, I wanted to track him, and I'll share those photos later...

The dogs were delighful and we quickly laid down tracks because the weather was a bit uncertain. Shondell proved to be a great scribe, and it's the first time I didn't get my papers wet, sandy, and messed up. Should have thought of that before.

Did I learn anything? Oh yeah - the elongated hare foot has a HUGE gap measurement! This was proof that I'm on the right track with my original idea...It was exciting! Now I have some real data to work with and am so glad I got brave enough to ask - and that Moira was brave enough to respond.

Here's the link to the web site for the rescue group...they are in need of donations, supplies, foster families and forever homes for retired racing greyhounds...www.greyhoundpetsinc.org

Olympic Firsts

Since my last check in I've had some interesting 1sts in my life!

• First and second ferry rides - the Tracking Intensive folks said that Norfolk Lake in Arkansas didn't count! It was really COLD on the deck, but I enjoyed watching the gulls and cormorants! The return trip was the best-sunny and great views of Mt. Baker and Rainier. The Space Needle looked like a toy from the far side of Puget Sound.
• First trip to the Peninsula!
• First time in Olympic National Park!
• First mountain lion tracks! At the Sol Duc area...in snow...It was funny because they were of a size that could have been big bobcat, but as Marcus pointed out, the stride was 3 1/2 feet long.

Wonderful trip, good weather, fun group. I love TI weekends!

Off on Another Adventure!

I'll be leaving in about an hour for the Olympic National Park, yet another place I haven't been!
With luck, we will find tracks of the fisher ( Martes pennanti )...a rare animal that looks somewhat like it's kin, the mink and weasel. I'm hoping for clear tracks, and good weather...right now the sun is shining, but we are about 5 hours and a ferry ride away from the campground. I'll report back next week!

12 and Counting...

I've now tracked 12 dogs for my Tracking Intensive project! Only 88 to go...I think they will have to hold me over and not let me graduate this year. Oh darn, that would be a shame...not.

Here's the list:

• 2 Chihuahuas
• 2 Shih Tzus
• 2 lab mixes
• 1 Basset Hound
• 1 Great Pyrenees
• 1 Boxer mix
• 1 Groenendal mix
• 1 English Springer Spaniel
• 1 Leonberger

It's fun to see how the various breeds move and how their tracks differ...I could spend a lifetime and not get to all 400+ breeds of dog. I have to get busy!

More Bighorn Tracks For Your Enjoyment

It's been over 2 weeks and I'm
still absolutely astounded that
we had such good tracking conditions...This pair of tracks left in the mud may have been a ewe and her yearling - or it might have been a front (larger) and rear track. It's kind of far off to the side to be the front and rear of the same animal. We did see 9 Bighorns (Ovis canadensis) cross the valley ahead of our group. And it's an area that the animals use all the time. These tracks were not crossing the valley, but were going down the trail in the direction of the bridge and parking lot...others were going up the valley trail.
Bighorns are diurnal, meaning that they are active in the daytime. They typically sleep in beds on the hillside, and so I doubt that they gather in the valley at night when people are less likely to be found there.
The canyon is a big draw to hikers, fly fishermen, rockhounds, and dog walkers. I'm surprised - and blessed -that we saw the animals and found so many tracks.

Almost Like Cheating

The WAS Tracking Intensive class went to eastern

Washington this past weekend and had such an awsome time. On Saturday we tracked mule deer at Frenchman's Coulee, and then moved on to Bighorn sheep along the Yakima River.

The weather was sketchy, but we went hoping to find tracks...and as we pulled into the parking lot, we were greeted by this little band of 9. There are a couple of young rams with this group of ewes and last year's young.

We watched as they ran down the hillside and across the valley we were going to be hiking into! It seemed almost unfair to watch them and then go find the fresh tracks...almost, but not quite. How many times do you get to trail 5-minute old Bighorn tracks?

Sex in the Neighborhood

There was a pair of amorous raccoons in the Cedar tree by my bedroom window yesterday.

Clara, my cat, directed my attention out the window...I noticed that she was intent on something - her tail was thumping against the window in irritation.

At first, I only saw the one...and she was not happy that I'd intruded. She's hissing at me...this photo was taken in poor light, so I played with my "fun" options on my Easy Share photo software...I kind of like the cartoon effect, and it seems to fit the situation.

It was a first for me, watching a couple of raccoons go at it in a tree. They were about 25 feet up, and on a precarious-looking limb. Sort of reminiscent of satin sheets on a water bed...

I'm not even going to speculate on what it says about me that I watched...and took pictures. I'm claiming "naturalist curiosity".

Checkin' In...

Spring is trying to come in, but the cars coming down from the hills were topped with a bit of snow this morning.

Otherwise, the early flowers are popping up, and trees are budidng. The afternoon sunshine warms me nicely as I walk up the hill toward home.

Two Sundays ago, I saw the 11th coyote just down hill from my place. He - given the size of the critter, it had to be a male - was sneaking along the tree line at the back of a line of houses. I don't think the woman who came out dressed for church even saw him at the back of her lot. He saw me. We played a game of hide and seek as we both moved up hill. Neither of us bothered the other, but we were aware.

Then, last Friday evening a co-worker and I watched in fear and amazement as coyote number 12 made a mad dash across 3 lanes of rushhour traffic on eastbound I- 90 near Issaquah. We were on the way to Seattle for an event that didn't happen...and just in the right place at the right time to see the foolishly brave animal make his move. It had to be a male, right?

I've never seen a coyote move so fast. Ears back, hunkered down, racing across the highway...I don't kow how he managed to get to the median. As we passed, we had to laugh at the way he shook off the experience like a dog just out of the bathtub. The expression on his face made me wonder if he'd done it for fun. I guess coyotes get spring fever, too.

An Anniversary of Note

It took me a long time today to
realize why I've been in such a
strange mood the past week or
so. As I was preparing a bank
deposit around noon I had to
enter the date, and then it hit me.
February 17 used to be my anniversary. This would have been 30 years...The Ex left in the summer of our 24th year, and the divorce was final just 3 days before our 25th Anniversary...Oh, that's it. That's why I've been unusually distracted and even a little bit ... not sad, exactly... I can't even think of the word that would cover the feeling I've had this past week. There must be one, and I bet my friends Madonna and Sally will e-mail it to me right away. It probably has something to do with moving on.

What I do know is that once I got the connection I put on my coat, and because I now have the sort of job that allows me to do so, I took a long walk...and decided that I needed to mark the occasion in some way. Not a celebration, exactly, but a rememberance of sorts.

There's a grocery store down the street...I wondered around for a while, looking at the
marked-down Valentine's Day candy...that didn't seem exactly right, but I craved something sweet. What I took back to the office to share with my coworkers was a big box of Pepperidge Farm cookies...the Entertaining collection...9 different kinds of cookies...the ones I don't often allow myself. It felt decadent! It felt really good to offer my friends a sweet treat and to be able to tell them why I felt the need to mark the day. Best of all, it felt really good to be able to do it without tears...like the swans in the photo today, I feel like I'm finally moving on.

Wolf Howl Video

The Tracking Intensive class went to Northwest Trek on Sunday, Feb. 15th. It was a great day to be out, as the animals were active...I'll be posting photos on my WebShots page in a few days! Today, I wanted to share the wolf howl I caught on video. I apologize for the camera noise...and the shaky video.

The howling was very exciting! I heard a coyote yip from the nearby pens, and first wolf made a really low, deep howl...that's when I turned on the video. You can hear the coyotes in the background, and they really set the wolves off! Just pretend that you don't see the fence in the background.

Just a Quick Update....

Wow, what a crazy week...I'm putting in late nights at work, but in return I'll have a new QuickBooks file that's going to make life easier in the future. I have to finish tonight because tomorrow is the Community School spaghetti dinner and silent auction.

I'll be there, straight from work and hungry. Last year I got a few cool things at the auction, and the kids made enough money to go to Utah! The photos they took were stunning with the red rocks and sunshine. It's a pleasure to see how hard they work and how happy they are to be able to plan another class trip.

These eagles were right outside the office a few weeks ago...I can't believe how lucky I am to be here. I love that I can run outside on a workday and take a few photos of these magnificent birds.

Tracking Intensive class is this weekend, and we will be learning about animal skulls and on Sunday will go to NorthWest Trek, which is down by Mt. Rainier. It's a long drive, but a cool place to go. It's a rehab center, but some of the animals are permanent residents because they are not well enough to be released.

My WARP class went in mid February in 20o7, and the cougars were mating...loudly...and often. I really enjoyed watching the paniced parents of young children try to pull the kids away once they realized what was going on. Perhaps next week I'll have "dirty" pictures to share.

Just Go Outside

It's a beautiful day in western Washington...I took the morning off and went to Monroe for some errands. It was a real treat to have to find my sunglasses as I headed north. Can't say I got everything done I needed to do, but did hit the used books at the library and added to my pile of "must reads". I do have to be careful that books don't keep me inside too much - It's a great time of year to just go outside.

The big disappointment was that the dog park by the river not only flooded, but seems not to be repaired in the aftermath. I'd hoped to make some connections there and find dogs to add to my Tracking Intensive project...but now I'll have to look elsewhere.

On a happier note, I was able to pick up enough Black Cottonwood (Populus nigra) buds to start a new batch of oil for making salve in the fall.

Just to spend a little while outside in the sun was fabulous! I've also noticed that the evening sky stays light a little bit longer - I'm so happy that spring is getting a little closer each day!

A Nice Surprise Today!

It's always nice to find a package in the mail! Today I got one of my favorite gifts - a book. My friend Madonna sent me a second editon copy of "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien. It's a wonderful book, and one I haven't read in many a year. I'm delighted to have it, and will enjoy it all over again.


It's the second book she's sent me recently. "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging" by Arianna Huffington and friends arrived in time for my birthday although she mailed it from St. Louis on December 12th. Given our record snows in December I'm surprised it's not still in a drift somewhere. It's a good book, and I have been using some of her hints in this blog. Madonna says I'm going to get rich off it someday. I could live with that. It's a great book if you are thinking about starting your own blog. You might want to check it out.


I've recieved other books as gifts this year, too...One of them I'll feature in another "episode" of my blog because it's a cool naturalist/travel book from my friend Laurie.

My Vision for the Dog Tracking Photos

This was Jackson, my last dog, and his tracks in the snow...It would be better if he was standing and outside, but you can see his body type, and his feet are visible...the track photo is not bad. The pink ruler stands out, and there are both front and back tracks in the picture. Can you tell which is which?

Jackson was a 40 pound mixed breed - my vet though Shar Pei and Jack Russell among other things...Don't ever do that on purpose! He was healthy, except that he was born with a shallow right hip socket, which caused muscle loss and pain in that hip. He limped badly when tired.

I think it will be fun to see how many dog and dog track photos we can collect in one place...we might even learn something. If your dog has any type of foot, leg, hip or shoulder injury or disease, please mention it, as we might see it in the tracks!

To be included in the experiment, send photos as a jpeg attachment in an e-mail to me at possum59@yahoo.com ...

I'll start putting them up as they come in.

The Domestic Dog Tracking Project

I've been wondering if anyone would like to play along with my Tracking Intensive project...Here's what I have in mind.

What if I invited you to take a photo of your dog and a photo of your dog's track?Would you e-mail them to me so that I could put them in a photo album on our new school "Village" web site? It might be fun to see a bunch of dogs and their tracks all in one spot.

Tomorrow, I'll have an example of what I'd like to see you send. I'm thinking a full body shot of the dog (no people - I'm not tracking people) and a good close up of the dog's tracks, preferably with something for scale - a penny works great if you don't have a ruler in your camera bag.

Is anyone interested? Let me know!

Substrate Happens

I bet you never thought you'd

be looking at a photo of cow

poop on my blog...

In tracker lingo, it's scat, not poop. In this

case, it's the only trackable substrate I found in Arkansas last week. Apparently the rainy season here in the Seattle area is not the rainy season 3 hours northeast of Little Rock.

My sister promised the opportunity to track armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) while visiting...I was excited because they are unlike any other North American mammal, and are the only living member of their family Cingulata. They are native to Central America, but have moved up through the Southern states. The order Xenarthra also contains anteaters and sloths...none of which I'll get to track in the Pacific Northwest.

This is not the track of an armadillo...I didn't see anything that I could identify as such...the red clay, rocky soil was too dry for me to see anything resembling armadillo tracks. I did find this nice front and back track of another Midwest mammal. Can you guess what it is? I believe a fat groundhog, or woodchuck (Marmota monax),passed through this nice round bit of "substrate" before it was completely dry. The closest thing I'll see here in Washington is a Marmot (yellowbellied or hoary), so it's still a cool track photo to have in my collection.

Travels of a Tracker

So here's the story I've been wanting to
tell for a couple of weeks, but couldn't.

My old Missouri friends sent me a surprise for my
birthday, and I couldn't blog about it because I didn't
know if my Mom reads my blog or not....and my sister and I have been planning a surprise 70th birthday party for her for months. She thought it was a party for Andrew, my great-nephew who turned 6 on the 5th!

My hospital co-workers sent me a banner that nearly 50 people had signed with good wishes and kind thoughts...They also collected $110 in one and five dollar bills to help me get to Arksansas for the party! I'm not the "msuhy" type, but their kindness nearly made me cry. I had been a bit worried about how I would eat on the trip...the tickets were bought, but I would be short on traveling money. You could say that it really met a need!

I flew out of Seattle just ahead of a storm that would cause record flooding in my part of the state, and which would have kept me from going at all if my flight had been 24 hours later. It was a bumpy ride out of SeaTac, and my seatmate was a twitchy fellow who wanted to talk all the way to Dallas/Ft.Worth. I hoped to sleep on that part of the trip because we left just after midnight, and I had worked most of Tuesday and was tired.

There was a 2 hour delay while our pilot to Little Rock found a plane that he liked - I'm not complaining...if the pilot doesn't trust it, I don't want to be in it. I was really gald to see my sister Susan at the gate.

It's still a 3 hour drive to Violet Hill, where she and Mom live, so we stopped to have a bit of dinner on the way. Out here in Washington, they call it lunch, but I always had breakfast, dinner and supper, so that's what we had. It's been a while since I enjoyed steak and loaded smashed potatoes with sweet tea...I have to say that Pacific Northwest cooking doesn't come close to Southern meals...I miss the food more than I realized.

Mom was truly surprised...and happy. We had a big combined birthday party for the two of us and the 6 year old. I bet that Andrew still has blue lips from the frosting on the cupcakes!

On Thursday, Mom followed me around for a couple of hours while I tracked 4 more dogs, and found groundhog tracks in a cow pie in the pasture. We spooked a whitetail doe from the old slave cemetary . No armadillos or tracks were found, much to my dismay. Susan had promised I'd see and/or track them, but the ground was dry, hard and rocky, and we didn't even see any road-killed ones to check out.

Since Tracking Intensive class was this weekend, I flew home on Friday. About 130 miles out from Seattle, the pilot noted that we could see Mounts Rainier, Adams, St. Hellens and Hood all lined up against the horizon! What a beautiful welcome home it was.

Saturday we learned about bird feathers, and on Sunday we played in silt under bridges at Fall City and Carnation...one thing about floods is that the tracking is really good when the water goes down. Look for more photos soon!

"Happy Birthday" as sung by the coyote choir

January 3rd was my 50th birthday. I celebrated by taking a long walk in McCormick Park. The path was still quite icy and I walked really slowly, enjoying the bird activity. Only the Stellar's Jays had been active in my neighborhood, and the robins I'd seen earlier in the week looked so stressed by the cold and snow that I worried about their survival.

I saw several small flocks of Trumpeter Swans, and was able to get one quick photo before they flew out of range. The Chickadees were busy and entertaining. I spooked a flock of Mallards off the water, and watched a noisy Kingfisher fly past.

The highlight of the walk came when the fire department sirens went off. A coyote howled from the brush on the hillside to my left! More than one, but probably fewer than 5 answered from my right...it sounded as if I was surrounded by coyotes! It was the best verse of "Happy Birthday" I've ever been privileged to hear.

I walked a bit further and saw coyote # 10, the lone voice on my left. He was limping, but still actively hunting the hillside. I wondered if he'd hurt himself on the ice...I was limping a bit myself, having slipped (again) on an icy patch. He lives close to the highway, with cars always a danger, and at least one frequent dog walker braggs about letting her labs chase the coyotes in that stretch of park. Whatever the reason for his injury, he looked in good condition...I hope to see him again soon.

It Can Stop Snowing Now...

I got out for a walk this morning for the first time in a couple of days...except for a short hike to the Post Office on Christmas Eve, I haven't left my apartment since Monday.
I've heard on the Seattle area newscasts that this is only the 10th white Christmas in this area since 1891...seems like we got ALL the snow that was allotted to us in the past 12 days or so. Looking out my window onto the roof line below, there's easily 12-14 inches of powdery white stuff piled up there.

At first I was excited, because the dog tracking project seemed to take off...but then the neighbors stopped walking their dogs down the street. I've been there...when it's too cold or the snow is just too deep to be fun, the dog walks stay pretty close to the front door. And I've found it to be unsafe to be crawling around in the snow at the edge of the road trying to measure tracks as cars slide by.

I've just called in to Ben Franklin at Monroe, and found that I'm not on the schedule for this weekend! I missed working Sunday because I can't find a safe way to get down to highway 203. As much as I hated to call in, I was afraid to try to make it down the hill to the highway. 25 years of working at a hospital where calling in was not an option makes you want to try no matter how stupid, but I'm glad I've learned this: It's not worth risking your life or your car for a few dollars more in the paycheck at the end of the week. I don't think I could have said that before my Residential Program year....funny how the most important lessons you learn are the ones you don't even realize you were enrolled in.

Yikes!

This is a short but sadly funny comment...As I will be turning 50 on January 3rd, I suppose it should not have been a surprise to get a letter from AARP. Somehow, it just seems wrong to wind up on this mailing list. I don't know if I should be mad or sad. I don't feel older than, say 47 or 48. And what makes them think I'll be able to retire, anyway? Probably the smartest thing I've ever done was to cash in my retirement fund and come to the Residential Program. Given the current ecomomic news, it seems smarter than ever...but I'm wondering, will anyone of my generation and ecomomic status ever really be able to retire? Right now it does not look likely. But I'm so thankful that I took the money and ran when I did...I wouldn't have the option now.