Category Archives: Poodle

Squirrels with Attitude

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It’s late October, the feisty time for squirrels. A big grey one runs down the slanting trunk of an old growth Sitka spruce to stare me in the eye. I want to tell him that neither the dog nor I are here to rob his cache. Aki would rather eat cheese than the contents of the winter store of spruce nuts and mushrooms.

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All through today’s walk squirrels drop from their tree perches to challenge Aki. She falls for it every time, dashing a few feet into the forest and then stopping to assume a rigid, tails-up pose very like that the big grey squirrel showed me. I know the little dog has no interest in harming the noisy rodents. Last year, on the moraine, a squirrel actually turned to face Aki’s charge. The poodle-mix stopped abruptly and wagged her tail like she does when meeting a friendly dog.

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Fallen Pride

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While Aki slept less than ten feet away, someone rifled through our car. Nothing was taken. Nothing was broken except the little dog’s pride. Apparently, to rebuild her reputation, Aki growled at everyone we passed during our descent from Chicken Ridge. I apologized and chastised until she finally stopped. She could have spoiled the otherwise beautiful morning with its low sun milking remaining fall color for beauty. But, the ravens came to the rescue, mooching and hopping and giving Aki the eye. One climbed on top of an outdoor receptacle for spent cigarettes and tried to grab a butt. It hopped off when I tried to take a picture then affected interest in a nearby patch of grass.

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Mimics

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A raven, feathers fluffed up against the cold rain, stands exposed on a Gold Street light post. The pole has been scared so many times by climbing utility men that it looks as scruffy as the raven. I risk rain spattering my glasses to take several pictures of the bedraggled bird, wishing I had disabled the camera’s feature that announces each shutter snap with a beep. Raven stops preening itself and lets out a series of sounds that mimic my camera’s annoying beep.

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Aki drags me towards Gastineau Street. She is on fire to check out something carried on the wind. She remains engaged during the rest of the walk, taking extra care when patrolling the field of food shacks near the docks that are now closed for the season. While she searches the plot recently occupied by Little Manila, I try to photograph a sculpture of raven partially obscured by reddish maple leaves. Even though this raven is just a line drawing rendered in ribboned steel, then bolted to a parking garage, I wait for it to imitate the sound of someone welding together pieces of the new cruise ship dock.

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Patience

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The mountain goat is a surprise. I wouldn’t have thought to look in its direction if not for how bright and white its coat is in the morning sun. Did today’s spring-like conditions trigger a memory of the new shoots it enjoyed here last April? Even though it feeds high up a flank of Mt. Juneau, the goat turns to look at us when Aki barks a welcome to an approaching dog. At this distance, my eye bests the camera I brought for recording the goat’s presence. But, much to the little dog’s annoyance, I still try many settings to capture an image I can share on this blog.

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I put away the camera and we walk further up the Perseverance Trail. She forgives me after we round the next bend.

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Why are We Still Here?

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In pre-dawn light, it’s hard to distinguish the fisherman from the scattering of ruined wharf pilings that mark the mouth of Sheep Creek. On the opposite end of the creek delta two men in winter-weight overalls work a small gold dredge. Fish and gold, the two targets of Americans that moved to Alaska after Seward purchased the territory from Russia in 1867. Aki, who likes her fish fried and then drenched in soy sauce, isn’t on this beach for salmon or gold. She is here to inventory scents.

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It’s thirty-eight degrees but a light channel breeze makes it feel colder. As long as she has new territory to survey, the cold doesn’t bother the little dog. But, when we complete a looping tour of the delta, she refuses to follow me as I walk back toward the channel marker. She knows that no animals, wild or domestic, have marked the path since she trod on it. I walk on, wanting a photograph of the first sun strike on the creek waters.

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The gold dredgers have just pulled away in their pickup and the fisherman is packing up. Chilling in the wind, I wonder why I remain on this grey, cold place enticed only by the yellow light striking a cloud over Salisbury Point.

Wise Tourists

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Sealed up in high-tech rain gear, I lead Aki up Basin Road and overt the wooden trestle bridge that connects town with the Gold Creek valley. Tough little dog, Aki pulls ahead, an occasional body shake her sole acknowledgement of today’s storm. Ahead, four tough tourists walk up the road, their only defense against the rain are the whisper-thin ponchos they bought at a tee-shirt shop on South Franklin Street. One wears shorts and flip-flop sandals. Not one has a hat. Standing across the valley from a swollen waterfall, they discuss whether to press on or return to town. Normally, I’d encourage them to take the Flume Trail loop back to town but it’s only 45 degrees and a suddenly intense rain shower is defeating their cheap ponchos. If they give in to the storm, I’ll have to make sure that they recognize the initial symptoms of hypothermia. Wise, as well as tough, the tourist turn back to town.

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Another Moraine Bear

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Aki and I are back on the glacial moraine. It’s early in the day—too early for wind to raise a ruffle on the Dredge Lakes. It’s also too early for other dog walkers to appear. On our last visit my little dog discouraged a black bear that must have been attracted by the herring scent floating off my coat. But since then I’ve washed the coat and we are on a different section of the moraine.

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We drop off a raised trail to where we have an unobstructed view of Moose Lake. A white strip of fog separates lakeside cottonwoods in full fall yellow from a spruce-green mountainside. Reflected in the lake, the fog underlines the cottonwood trees. I take several photos of the scene and look at them on the camera view screen as we return to the trail. “This is why we are here, little dog,” I tell Aki and then say, “Uh-oh.” Aki, who apparently knows the meaning of “Uh-oh,” goes on alert and looks down the trail where a 100-pound-plus-pound black bear has just stopped walking toward us. With fluffy, shinny back fur and round belly, he has the just-moussed look of a bear full of fish fat. When Aki growls, it slowly turns around and trots away from us down the trail. “That’s it, little dog, I tell the ten-pound poodle mix, we are not coming back to the moraine until hibernation time.”

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Light Before the Storm

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Even as we enter gray autumn, Nature can splash Chicken Ridge briefly with sun. It usually happens when night gives way to day. This morning we had the added bonus of a double rainbow that arced above Gastineau Channel from Douglas Island to Mt. Juneau. It faded as the wind rose and rain began to spit. With the windshield wipers engaged, Aki and drive out to North Douglas to get a feel for the coming storm.

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We walk along a boardwalk trail protecting a fragile muskeg meadow from foot strikes. This is not a popular dog trail so Aki has to make do with the scent markings of wild things. When not sniffing, the little dog walks at my heals, stopping when I stoop to test the ripeness of lingon berries.

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The trail leads to a beach where small surf breaks on the rocky shore. Light fog softens the profile of Admiralty Island but we can clearly see an adult bald eagle trying to fish. It fights for hovering position over a fish and then flies over to a beachside spruce with nothing in its talons. If the wind rises any more, we will have to hunker down.

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Well Adapted

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Aki, fur plastered by a downpour to her nose, whines. It is a pleading whine, not one expressing misery. Even though rain pounds down on this mountain meadow from clouds that make day seem like night, the little dog still wants me to play catch with her Frisbee. The orange saucer lies at her feet. I pick it up and toss it out over a wet, undulating blanket of fall colors. She dashes after it, sounding her predator growl.

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Aki is not the only thing on this meadow adapted to inclement weather. Round, red cranberries lie by the dozen on top of crimson beds of moss. The rain enhances their beauty as it does the yellowing deer cabbage and blood-red bear berry plants. I head over to a pocket pond to check how this heavy rain affects the water skimmers. They ride their’ home water’s surface, bobbing slightly as the rain ripples pass under them.

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A Dangerous Coat

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Aki and I head out to the moraines, trying to squeeze in a visit before a promised Pacific storm slams us with high wind and heavy rain. Already the leaves of our cottonwoods weaken from green to yellow to brown. This afternoon’s storm could strip some of the moraine’s trees bare.

On the drive out I think briefly about bears. A sow and cubs have been feeding on salmon spawning near the glacier. We should be ok, a half-a-mile away on the moraine trail. Even if we come near bears, they shouldn’t be interested in a little dog and her scruffy master. But, I haven’t factored in my fishy coat.

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Without thinking about anything other than convenience as we left the house, I pulled on the coat I used on yesterday’s fishing trip. A person with a sensitive nose might detect the faint odor of herring rising off its sleeves. But to a bear in autumn, the jacket must smell like an unguarded fish market.

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Ten minutes into the hike, Aki growls and makes a faint into the woods. The branch of a trailside alder quivers above her head. Suspecting she is flushing a bird, I call her back. We walk on, enjoying reflections of yellowing leaves of willows and cottonwoods in the moraine’s pocket lakes. Far from the quivering branch, Aki growls again and breaks into the woods. Another branch quivers. After I call her back, a bear lets out three huffs and climbs ten feet up a spruce tree.

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We divert into the troll woods and swing a wide arc around the bear visitation spots. At home, I drop the herring coat into the washer.