Category Archives: Poodle

It Was Only a Little Bear

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“Aki come back here.” The little dog ignores her person’s warning and continues charging the bear. It’s a little bear, born last year, just out on its own. The bear was sniffing around our wheelie bin when Aki charged. If we are going to see a bear in our neighborhood this time of year, it will be on garbage day. The little bear lopes over to our neighbor’s yard where it shelters behind a kayak. For a few seconds the poodle is well within the bear’s reach. With one swipe, the bear could cancel out Aki’s day, if not her life. But it just gives the poodle-mix a puzzled look and walks behind our neighbor’s house. Aki trots back to her people so we can drive out to the wetlands’ trail.

            Wild iris, paintbrush, lupine, shooting stars, and buttercups provide little islands of color on the green grassy plain. If that weren’t proof that we are in high summer, the height of the grass would confirm it. The grass forms a thick jungle for Aki to explore. Her humans break trail for her so she has plenty of energy when we return to a well-used gravel trail.

            A Savannah sparrow moves in a parallel course while we walk toward the Mendenhall River. It flits ahead a few meters and then lands on a stem of grass, driftwood log, or lupine, holding station until it can confirm our heading. Then it launches itself down the trail to its next observation post. Even though it gives me fierce looks, I can’t imagine what the sparrow would do if I left the path. Maybe it’s a one-bird honor guard, rather than a cop ready to call in back up if the poodle gets out of hand. 

Early Salmon

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Aki and I have just walked into the rain forest. I swear that my blood pressure dropped the instant we stepped under the canopy. Maybe it’s the muted light or the sound of a downy woodpecker tapping on a spruce trunk. It might be the lush green colors that dominate this time of year. Aki does her business and stares up at me, like she is considering calling an ambulance if I don’t come out of my trance. 

            After assuring her that all is if fine, she leads me down to the beaver pond and where the mallard family lurk in a blind of reeds. Later I’ll spot a rambunctious bird dog splashing into water near Shaman Island and assume that he did the same on the beaver pond. 

            Not wanting to contribute to the mallard hen’s stress, I follow Aki down the beach trail. A seal swims just offshore, hunting for silver salmon about to leave salt water for their spawning stream. Yesterday, I hunted salmon in Lynn Canal, boating a silver-bright chum salmon. Last night, while Aki chowed down a scrap of the salmon’s ski mixed with rice, her humans enjoyed what the seal sought.  

This is Only a Test

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It’s been more than a week since Aki strained a leg muscle. She shows no sign of soreness this morning. Keeping her leash in my pocket. I join the little dog on a gravel trail that crosses one of our mountain meadows. I slow my pace, like I had to when tethered to the poodle-mix. 

            Clouds hid the surrounding mountains when we started the walk. Now they lift to reveal peaks and ridges and let shafts of sunlight reach the meadow. This is a good wildflower meadow in a normal year. This one is exceptional. Magenta-colored shooting stars, bog laurel and rosemary for islands on the green muskeg. Yellow avens flowers surround the skeleton of a downed Douglas pine. Clusters of white Labrador tea blossoms line the trail. 

            Aki and I ignore each other, she mapping scents and me counting wildflowers. She ignores the robins dragging their skirts along the trail. But when something, maybe an ermine or mink slinks across the trail, she charges after it. Now I feel bad for not keeping her leashed. But she trots back, tail wagging, showing no signs of aggravating her injury.  

Sulking in the Rain

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Two teenagers, each weighed down by a large backpack, sulk at the junction of Dan Mollar Trail and the Treadwell Ditch. They must have spent the night at the Forest Service cabin with family members who are still up the trail. Aki usually draws “ooooo’s” and “ahs” from woman of this age. They ignore the little poodle-mix and her humans. I have to ask them to move so we can have two meters of space when are pass. 

            While walking up the plank trail that leads to the cabin, I wonder whether the backpackers were upset about the rain currently soaking into their fashionably bare heads or were going through no-phone withdrawal. They seemed happy to move out of our way and weren’t worried when I told them about the fresh pile of bear scat steaming nearby. Perhaps we had just crashed a counseling session. 

            Aki normally takes point on this trail. Today, she is content to follow at a slow pace. We cross wildflower meadows that look like threadbare carpets due to damage done last winter by snowmachines. A dark-eyed junko hops between magenta-colored clumps of bog rosemary and the yellow blossoms of large-leaved avens. 

It’s All About Attitude

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We pass a yearling bear on our way to the glacier. Grazing on meadow grass, it gives off a contemplative vibe, like a pastured Jersey cow. It’s brown like a grizzly, but lacks the shoulder hump of one. I suspect it is a cinnamon black bear. Being able to view the bear at a safe distance is cool. But this trip is about arctic terns.

While I get out her leash, Aki trots along the Mendenhall Lake shore. I need to get her on lead but the terns distract me. They hover over the lake, whipping their wings back and forth like a hummingbird and then dive into the glacier-silted water. Few catch anything. Those that do fly with it over to their nest. 

By jogging, I catch my little delinquent and snap on the leash. Now tethered, she stops every few feet to sniff and pee. Does she know that I am in a hurry to reach the Picture Point overlook for a better view of the terns? I try not to fume and remind myself that the little dog needs to take it easy or she won’t recover from her muscle strain. 

We take it very easy on the trail to Nugget Falls, stopping once to watch a tiny tern divebomb a raven. The raven, easily ten times larger than the tern, is hiding in a clump of willows. I suspect that the raven had been caught robbing the tern’s test. When the tern flies back to her eggs, the raven cruises over to a cottonwood tree and harasses a large bald eagle to flight. Attitude is clearly more important than size on the glacial moraine. 

The Experiment

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The editors of a literary journal called “The Dewdrop” were kind enough to publish one of my poems. Here is the website address, if you like to read the poem. Thank you.

http://the dewdrop.org

This is an experiment. Rather than restrict Aki to a short neighborhood walk. I’ve driven her to the False Outer Point trailhead. We will walk the trail while keeping Aki on her leash. This will keep her from running. It will also keep me pinned down each of the many times she will stop to pee or sniff. 

            Yesterday she paced about the house, letting me know that she needed more exercise than what she received during the short neighborhood walk. It takes twice as long as normal for us to reach the beaver pond. The resident mallard hen stands exposed on a tiny island. The remains of this year’s chick brood hides near her in the grass.  A bald eagle circles over the scene. Last summer she lost most of her chicks to an eagle and a great blue heron. I hope she has better luck this year. 

            We wander past the hen and move as slow as a geriatric drill team to the beach. Just offshore a belted kingfisher hovers fifteen meters in the air. Then, it drops like a dive bomber into the water. In another second it bursts skyward with a captured fish in its beak. 

Walking Over the Bones

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Tide and current often expose bones on the Sandy Beach. This morning Aki and I step over deer bones tumbled smooth in Gastineau Channel. They will soon breakdown into white specks to become lost in the pulverized gold ore that gives the beach its name. 

The little dog and I also step over bones made of iron, or ceramic—train rails, machine shop pulleys, slabs of ore cars, and pottery shards. These 100 year old relics of a collapsed mining community won’t be disappearing soon. 

Nature is working hard to reduce our human detritus to its base components. Mussels and barnacles have colonized the iron train rails and wooden wharf pilings. Wind, rain and sun work then over after the tide ebbs. Currents rub the rails together, scarping and scratching away tiny bits. But the relics will be rusting or wearing away long after Aki and I are gone. 

Shattering Reflections

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Today, we need to rely on reflection for beauty. The flat light lacks the strength to brighten colors on the moraine. But the lake water sharpens the lines of that it reflects. A breath of wind could take that away. I hurry the little dog down the trail to where I can photograph the glacier in the calm waters of Moose Lake. 

            Even though the trail offers a rich pee mail exchange, Aki doesn’t try to slow me down. I blame the birds singing concealed in the dense trailside foliage. I waste previous minutes trying to spot them. Then there was a robin that had managed to pluck a dragonfly out of the air. 

            The wind punishes me for doodling. Just as we arrive at the before reflection spot, a breeze ripples the surface, cutting up the glacier’s reflection into thousands of little pieces. 

Song Sparrow

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If Aki could choose a spirit animal, it would be the wolf. Today she powers ahead like one, ready to meet any danger or exploit any opportunity to feed. She doesn’t need wolf-like skills on this walk along the Auk Nu beach. We will hear an eagle but not see it. No crows or gulls loiter on the beach. No ducks float offshore.


If I could choose a spirit animal, it would be the great blue heron. Patient and quiet but able to move quickly when needed, the heron would make a good human. No heron has ever shown interest in me.


I’ve locked eyes many times with the song sparrow. Each time I’ve had the impression that the diminutive bird was taking my measure. This morning, I caught one bathing in a shallow stream, just where it curves away from a collection of flowering thimbleberry bushes. It bounced up and down in the water like an ousel and then plunged its head under the surface, filling the air around it with water drops. It stopped to give me a hard stare before splashing some more.

Manufactured or Invasive

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I am having a hard time keeping up with Aki this morning. She is powering ahead, as we walk along the edge of one of the Twin Lakes. It’s a major dog walking trail but the little poodle is the only canine in sight. She must be hoping to run in to a friend. 

Much of what we see is either man made or landscaped. An expressway borders the east shores of the lakes. A well-used highway mimics the curves of the other shore.  The lovely but stubborn knot weed once dominated the trail. But city gardeners, considering the plant invasive, have almost eradicated it. 

The red blooms of hawkweed and white daisy flowers color the areas once dominated by knot weed. Hawkweed is on the local list of invasive species and the cartoon-like daisies probably should be on it. Finding either plant thriving on a wild beach fringe would upset me. But here, on this manufactured park space, they just look pretty.