Putting things into Perspective

FINALLY, after 13 days of confinement, Chica and I have been sprung from the vet’s. We were left to languish in his wire cages because our master and mistress took a trip to New York and Canada. And believe you me, it was no picnic for us dogs.

Not only were we denied the table treats we get at home, we didn’t get our daily walk in the ’hood. When Mary and Lewis finally sprung us last Monday, we were both considerably thinner. And the devil of it is, Mary likes the way we look and is limiting us to what they gave us at Dr. Kothmann’s: a cup of dry food each per day. At least, however, she has been walking us twice a day, due no doubt to her feeling of guilt for having abandoned us for so long.

So what were they doing that justified leaving us in a virtual jail? Attending a celebration of the 200th year of the Fisher Homestead, Lewis’ ancestral home in Fishers, N.Y., and a week later, attending a family wedding in Syracuse. In between the family events, they put in 2,000 miles driving around the Gaspe Peninsula in the province of Quebec.

Now neither my mistress nor my master speak French, but they lost no time picking up words such as homard, meaning lobster. They savored homard more than once, along with cod and another local favorite, sugar pie. Sometimes they stopped at little open air stands to eat sandwiches and honest-to-God made-from-scratch French fries, sprinkled as the locals do with white vinegar. (Lewis never took to the quebequois preference for vinegar and stuck to ketchup; Mary, on the other hand went native.)

The high point of the trip was in Perce, a town at the tip of the peninsula beyond the mouth of the St Lawrence River. The picturesque community has two claims to fame: the Perce Rock and the gannet rookery. The rock has a surreal aspect, standing nearly 300 feet high just offshore. People can walk to it in low tide, but we when they were there the water was deep enough for large boats to circle it.

Perce’s other claim to fame requires a half hour’s boat ride and one-hour hike across Bonaventure Island. The nesting site of hundreds upon hundreds of gannets is an astonishing sight—and sound. The large white birds with funky green-lined feet are beyond noisy as they go about their day building nests, mating, sitting on eggs, flying out and back for food, greeting their returning mates, feeding young and fighting for territory. Observers within touching distance witness their every move.

On their way back from Perce, Mary and Lewis passed on taking a rubber dingy out to hunt whales in the Saguenay River for three hours and instead visited a foie gras farm. There they saw ducks slated to be stuffed so as to enlarge their livers. The owner described a process in which she used a machine to send dried corn kernels directly into the ducks’ stomachs. The machine has a Dr. Seussian appearance, but with a decidedly sinister aspect.

I must say that the idea of being force fed even if it is something to my liking is repugnant. So I’m going to quit complaining about getting a mere cup of food per day and give thanks that Chica and I aren't having ten times that amount jammed down our throats twice a day. It's all a matter of perspective.

Fourth of July Fun

Last Fourth of July, my mistress dressed me in red, white and blue for the Terrell Hills parade. It was kind of a relief this year when she and my master decided not to doll me and Chica up and instead to drive up to our country place. It was hot as Hades, but we loved the novelty of running up and down the dry Hondo Creek bed.

Chica—who is as fast as greased lightning—more than met her match when she came nowhere near catching her first jackrabbit. What she would have done with it is anybody’s guess as it stood way taller than she, not even counting the ears. I didn’t bother to make chase, instead savoring country smells (though the scent of coyote made me nervous enough to stick close to Mary at dusk).

Mary was elated to spot yet another wildflower she hadn’t photographed for the book she is compiling with her granddaughter. Called buttonbush, it looks like a spiky white ball.

After it got dark we enjoyed a dark sky spangled with an explosion of stars more spectacular than a fireworks display. In the past, there have been plenty of fireworks lighting the sky, but this year they were banned. Which suited me and Chica fine as frankly, the sounds and smells of gunpowder offend our canine ears and noses.