Category Archives: Poodle

Natural Air Conditioning

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Aki spent much of yesterday afternoon panting in the shade. Her humans also felt the heat. To escape we packed up the car with camping gear and headed out to Mendenhall Lake. The dashboard temperature reading dropped as we approach the lake. It was ten degrees cooler there than downtown. A strong wind blowing off the glacier made it feel colder. Good thing we brought firewood. 

            This morning Aki joins two of her humans for a canoe ride on the lake. It is flat ass calm. The little dog makes the ride interesting by shifting the boat’s balance dashing from side to side of the canoe. 

The sun is up, turned red by the forest fire smoke. We paddle toward the glacier and then divert toward a spot where we found good blueberry picking in the past. 

            Aki hops out of the canoe when we beach and soon finds herself wading down a flooded trail behind her humans. She dog paddles over submerged blueberry plants and past white stalks of lady tresses. Soon she is back in the beached canoe, looking tiny against the still massive glacier.   

Aki’s Independence Day

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Yesterday morning, before the annual Independence Day parade with its marching bands and mining machines, Aki and I walked up Perseverance Trail. Cars filled the Mt. Roberts trailhead parking lot but none of their drivers could be seen. They must still have been above the mountain’s tree line where they had watched the annual July 3rdfireworks display at 11:59 P.M. 

            After we spotted a bufflehead hen and her chick swirling in the turbulent waters of Gold Creek, Aki refused to go further up the trail. Maybe she thought we were celebrating her independence day.  We returned home on a trail that dropped into the Gold Creek valley where ripe fruit hung from salmon berry bushes. If there had been any humans nearby, we could not have heard them over the sound of the creek. 

            A few red columbine flowers lingered on and along a small watercourse a pioneer monkey flower plant was already in full bloom. 

Harvesting

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It’s harvest time in the Rain Forest. Aki was barely awake when we headed out to a promising berry picking spot. The little dog showed great patience as her other human and I slowly filled our recycled buckets with blueberries. 

            Last year, a hungry sow black bear and her cub hammered the patch that usually satisfied our berry needs for the year. We turned to the mountain meadows as back up but their production was also down. On today’s expedition, which I thought would only be a reconnaissance mission, we picked close a gallon of blueberries in less than two hours. Most were plump and juicy.            

  When our buckets were almost full, Aki started keening.  It was clearly her time for attention and exercise. She led her humans us on a loop through the forest; stopping often to luxuriate in the rich smells left by other four-legged visitors.  

Another Bear Story

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Yesterday, rising trout in one of the troll woods’ lakes surprised me. A couple of the active fish appeared to have some shoulders, maybe enough body to fill a frying pan. Early this morning Aki I re-entered the woods. I carried a fishing pole. The little dog was armed only with her sharp noise and bravery too large for her 10-pound body. I tried to ignore a premonition that we would run into a bear. 

            Aki doddled behind as I quick walked toward the promising lake. Morning sunshine shone through translucent grass blades and made the little dog little squint. She was forty meters behind me when the bear appeared. Thankfully it was a boar, not a sow with cubs. It was, as seems to be the case in almost every Alaska bear story, the largest black bear male seen in some time. 

            Showing the considerate caution of its breed, the bear left the trail to shelter in a strip of alders that bordered the lake. I was about to trot back to retrieve the still ignorant poodle-mix when the bear started moving in her direction. If the boar continued it would soon find Aki blocking the way into the troll woods. I dropped the fishing pole and ran to grab my dog. The bear reversed direction and skulked to the very spot where I had dropped the fishing gear. Aki spotted the bear as it emerged onto the trail. She growled and barked, sending the bear rushing across the trail and into the woods. 

            On the theory that no bear would appreciate my performance, I sang an off key version of “Super Trooper” by ABBA on our return to the car. If Aki’s growling hadn’t been enough, my singing must have driven the bear deep into the Troll Woods.  

Inadvertent Interference

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I wanted to make an undetectable approach to the beaver pond so I left the usual trail for a more casual one. Aki waited on the good trail for me to return to my senses. In minutes, after I have made enough noise to wake a sleeping dragon, I rejoin the little dog. Well that blew any chance of sneaking up on the heron. 

            Aki and I had startled a great blue heron when we first circled the beaver pond. It whooshed over our heads and flew to the other side of the pond, squawking like a barnyard goose. Given the winged hunter’s reluctance to leave, I hoped that it might return while we walked to the beach and back into the woods. 

            With a faint hope that the heron was hard of hearing, I lead my little poodle-mix to the main trail and find, not the expected heron but a mallard hen. She stands, still as a statue at the edge of the pond. Three of her chicks, partially hidden by grass, sleep while their mom stands watch. 

Duck hunting season is closed or a hunter could easily orphan the mallard chicks. The hen isn’t worried about humans carrying guns. She doesn’t flinch when I move closer for a better view of her kids. But she twitches each time a nearby eagle screams. No one is going to cite an eagle or heron for hunting out of season. Had our earlier appearance at the pond saved the ducklings from the heron? 

Trying to Reduce Them to Our Level

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I just can’t help attributing human attributes to wild things. In the stare of a thrush I see defiance. A slouching marmot telegraphs nonchalance. This morning, on the way to the Rainforest trailhead, I tried to read the emotions of an adult bald eagle. 

The big bird was perched in the top of a short spruce tree. I stopped the car just twenty feet away. The eagle looked to be contemplating the view up Lynn Canal or maybe just enjoying the feel of sunshine drying out his rain-dampened feathers. An audio version of Nina George’s “The Little Paris Book Store” was playing on the car stereo. As one of the actors described the meeting of the protagonist and his lover, the eagle turned and looked at us with its eyebrow raised, as if questioning my taste in books.  

It’s early morning so there is only one car in the trailhead parking lot when we arrive. In an hour or two the eco tour vans will disgorge cruise ship passengers more interested in wild things than jewelry shopping on South Franklin Street. They are my favorite kind of visitors but I’m pleased not to have to share the trail with them today. 

The leaves of understory plants in the forest are still weighed down with rain from a recent shower. They sparkle when struck by sun shafts. Above the trail a gray thrush mom tries to induce one of its chicks to fledge. In a nearby hemlock, a red-breasted sapsucker stops hammering the tree’s bark to give the little dog the stink eye. 

Stink Eye

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Aki, do you have the feeling that every animal is mad at us today. We are in the car about to leave the Eagle River picnic area. A marmot eyeballs us from a few feet away. It sees the poodle in a yellow wrap sitting in the lap of a guy in a blue hoodie. The marmot, probably on guard duty to protect its clan, looks more bored than scared.

            Aki growls at the big rodent through the window glass. Now the marmot looks put out. It reclines facing away from us as if to say. “You are death to me.” Minutes before we got similar treatment from a thrush. The songbird had just landed in an alder ten feet away and gave us the stink eye. 

            Looking back on our hike along the Eagle River, I can’t think of any reason why the wild residents would treat us with distain. Aki did bark at a raven, but it barely reacted. Otherwise we passed through woods and meadows without incident, feeding multiple mosquitoes but seeing little wildlife.  

Maybe we can blame the Siberian husky that gave Aki a thorough look see as we approached on a path lined by lupines and Indian paintbrushes. It was a big dog, capable of putting wild things under pressure if so inclined. The little dog could be taking the blame for the husky’s carousing. 

Back Together in the Rain Forest

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Yesterday I rode an Alaskan ferry home from Skagway. Aki greeted me at the door. She looked a little sad, like she spent the whole of my absence in an unlit cell. Even though I knew she had enjoyed herself when I was away, I gave her cuddle and promised that after we both slept we would go on an adventure.  This morning we are heading for the Troll Woods. 

Bird song brightens what otherwise would be a gray day. It helps me to ignore the rain that dimples Moose Lake and slowly soaks into my sweatshirt hood. The rain softens the air but not Aki’s interest in a patch of nagoon berry plants. In August, when ripe fruit weighs down the plants, a berry picker will approach the patch with a combination of greed and fear that a bear or other berry picker will chase them off the patch. He or she won’t know what Aki does—that at least one dog had marked the patch with its pee.

 On the path to Crystal Lake, in one of the more remote sections of the woods, we pass shy maiden flowers. Gently I lift one of the white, star-shaped blooms for a proper look. The flower offers less beauty than a shoot star, not as much drama as a lupine stalk, but has no reason to hide its face. 

Steep Learning Curve

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Last night Aki capped the last of a string of sunny days mooching for food around a campfire. A bank of clouds climbed over the Chilkat Mountains and onto Lynn Canal while the little dog’s human family roasted hot dogs over an open fire while The clouds robbed us of a sunset and brought today’s rain. 

            This morning Aki and I explore the Sheep Creek delta. The sun worshipers who gathered on the delta last evening are gone. Only those with serious purpose are here. Two men clothed in thick gauged raingear mess about with a little gold dredge. Soon their machine will begin sifting through beach sand for gold washed down by the creek. 

            Closer to the stream, two great blue herons hunt the shallows for food. A crow dives on an adult bald eagle, trying to dislodge it from its spruce roost. The eagle, its beak pointed up at its tormentor, screams defiance. 

            We have to cross squishy ground to get a decent view of the herons. By the time I figure out that one is a juvenile, Aki has moved to a drier part of the beach from where she tries to plant the idea in my mind that “It is time to get out of the rain.” 

            I ignore the message and watch the juvenile heron fish. While the adult bird freezes in place to wait for opportunity, the young bird plunges it beak again and again into the water. Once it managed to lift of a stand of seaweed out of the water. The rest of the time it speared nothing. To make matters worse, it had to struggle to free its right leg from a tangle of rock weed. 

Empty Nest Syndrome

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Aki and I are in the Treadwell Woods. Rather than taking our usual course, which gets us quickly to the beach, I lead the little dog up a hill to the eagle’s nest. It had a chick and parent in it last time we visited the woods. It’s empty this morning.

            Trying to be as patient as a heron, I stand beneath the nest tree, watching the wind sway it back and forth like a mother rocking a cradle. Is the sound of wind as comforting to a eagle embryo as the a mother’s heart beat is to human fetus? 

            When no eaglet pokes it head about the woven nest, I give into Aki’s silent plea and let her lead me down to the beach. The place is deserted except for one adult bald eagle. It sits on top of the old mine ventilation shaft, looking down Gastineau Channel. This must be one of the nest minders, now free to do what eagles do: scavenge, hunt, express opinions, and soar.