A Thank You from Brou

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It was stingingly ironic that my next chronological tale after the lumber hauling incident was going to be the story of Brou. When he fell so quickly ill to parvo, I could not bring myself to write the story which was more likely to become a memorial.

Hopefully this site will display the animation, Brou's personal thank you for all the sincere get-well wishes. Click on the photo if the animation doesn't play. The sentiments are truly his and he is nearly back to his old rambunctious self; no sense in walking when a mad dash will suffice. When I looked up "Red Australian Shepherd", I laughed out loud. It must have been a British site for the opening gem of understatement was "They are an energetic breed." and I have repeated that sentiment often when faced with a new and confounding display of his zeal. Ohmigawd ... energetic does not come close to describing Brou's energy level. The only comparison I can come up with is little Ben, the ward of my Australian cousins. Now there was a young lad with Brou-quality energy, quite content to amuse himself in our back lot by playing baseball ... all positions simultaneously. The difference was that Ben had the most impressive manners of any creature I have ever met - this being largely due to my cousins' stewardship. Brou, on the other hand, still needs a little work on the social graces but he is coming along gradually. I was sorely tempted to box Brou up and send him over to Oz for my cousins to deal with and to provide Ben with an equally frenetic playmate. But my cousins are also getting older and tiring of the chase a little now - I can tell by the tinge in their later e-mails.

I had also considered signing him on with Slim's school of cattle dog training. Slim is our grazing tenant (what? ... you think we care to deal with cattle of our own at the moment?!). He is one of the last real Old West cowboys and there will be plenty of stories about our great friendship with Slim down the road. He really doesn't operate a school for cattle dogs but his two faithful companions are examples of someone who has spent some serious training time with them and has a deep and abiding love of their companionship. He talks a good game about being hard-nosed with them but you can tell that they are also spoiled rotten (when no one's looking, of course). What with the unusually snowy and tough winter though, we haven't seen much of Slim in the last couple of months so Brou will remain firmly planted into our own ranch life for now.

I am up early this morning, writing while it is (uhm, was) still quiet. Given that I went to bed way early last night, I felt no guilt about starting the generator and firing up the computer. Mark just arose and did his customary male morning shuffle past to the bathroom in his BVDs. Brou did the customary polite dog thing and excitedly stuffed a very cold, wet nose up into the top of Mark's retreating bandy legs - a far more effective eye-opener than any alarm clock or burly cup of java ... just trust me on that one.

So much for my quiet time to write undisturbed. Mark has now settled himself into the big wingback nearby to put on his socks and Brou is doing his part of the ritual to grab at the sockies with incredible gusto.

The Brou tale will hopefully continue at a quieter time to come. Brou has already announced that this day is off to another boisterous start and that there is no turning back.

All's Well

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I was going to describe Mark's return trip on Thursday but decided not to further alarm some readers. The roads are somewhat better now, allowing Brou to return home safely today. He is looking great and his appetite is back. He does tire more easily now so we will take it easy for the next few weeks. I am also watching his outings more closely to make sure that he doesn't wander into coyote scat again. A surprisingly large group of coyotes set up a noisy chorus this afternoon only a half mile away. We silenced them abruptly, that Brou and I did, with our own barrage of howls and barks. Showed them good, we did.

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The photo shows Mark's 'new' truck after this last town trip. Hard to believe that there is a dark metallic charcoal paint beneath the mud. I had originally suggested that we take a handful of mud to a paint shop and have them match the color but the cost of a custom paint job was not in the budget. If you're familiar with the looks of the Dodge Ram, you will notice that the black plastic styling effect beneath the chrome bumper is missing. It lasted all of about three weeks and was then scrubbed off by a sharply eroded bank on the other side of the creek. A neighbor said that she had seen the bumperette in the creek and tossed it off to one side before it got even more abused. The next day, Mark let me out at the creek and I slogged across to pick it up. Mark laughed when I returned with not one but TWO identical bumper pieces. I bet the Chrysler folks see brisk sales on these things. We decided to leave it off given the condition of our commuter roads. Also notice the aggressive BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain tires - one of the best investments we could have made for living out here.

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It's great to have everyone home again!

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"The Big Cojones of the Week Award" goes to ...

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So Brou is likely to survive, thanks only to Marks' fortitude and love for that little red dog and to his stubborn full-sized Dodge Ram. The roads were and are still nasty, so nasty in fact that the BLM has banned all heavy commercial trucks from coming out into the canyon until further notice. They are even patrolling the 'roads' and awarding heavy fines to transgressors. This will likely affect the supply of clean burning natural gas heading to green California as many wells drop or cease production. As we say around here at the rat when the kitty boys complain about their hard life, "Oh ... po', po' boys!" Hey, it's hard to work up a good case of sympathy when this ugly and sometimes dangerous infrastructure is sitting in your backyard and you can't enjoy any of its benefits.

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I also credit the journey's success to our procrastination on removing the last load of heavy siding panels from Mark's truck. Without their extra weight, I doubt that he could have made the emergency trek into town and back. The road conditions are such that even the lighter gas field vehicles ceased coming up this far a week ago for wise corporate safety reasons. We have come to understand that if the gas industry considers the risks too great, then we should pay serious attention as well. Before the Brou emergency, we had already decided to wait out the dangerous road conditions, for weeks if necessary.

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Although Mark was able to set off with Brou while the roads were still firmed up a little by the bitter cold of the night, it was a mixed blessing. Ice is just like that, often not any better than the slick clay slime revived by the melting heat of the sun - you may not get stuck but you can still slide off the roads. He would have to face the worst of both road worlds that day.

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He carefully minced his way five miles down our road towards the main canyon. As Virgil had promised, a load of large rocks had been dumped into our muddy creek crossing to sate its muddy appetite. Since the main canyon waterway had already begun to run, eliminating our usual crossing to the main road, he had to use the alternate route on this side of the canyon. We call this route "the goat path". Alternate route is hardly a fitting term. Think of the roads in the Wily Coyote cartoons, those high ledge paths where the coyote always met unexpected oncoming traffic with dire consequences. Even in dry weather, this road can take your breath away as the truck hood noses out and hides the edge of the road in sharp turns, revealing only the landscape and maw of the wash 100 or more feet below. There are turns so sharp that you'd swear you could catch a glimpse of the truck's rear end by looking out the side window as it seemingly twists itself in half to make the bend. Neither of us could imagine meeting an oncoming vehicle and having to decide who was going to give quarter on this barely one vehicle wide road. These thoughts were ever on my mind as I mentally paralleled this part of Mark's journey that morning, ever alert for a cell phone call from him and wondering if he would even be within the cell network's spotty coverage out here if he ran into trouble. Could my lighter, lower Dakota even reach him to perform a rescue? Probably not.

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By the grace of kind fate, he ran the goat path without meeting another vehicle, crossed the small wash which had been thankfully dry and made it over the bridge to the main road. The main road was hardly in better condition and he skipped around, either straddling or being entrained by choppy, icy ruts as much as two feet deep. Just before reaching our third closest neighbor's place some eleven miles away, he slammed down into a small wash so hard that his head jammed into the roof of the cab and he slowed to a stop to see if poor old Brou was still on the rear seat or now plastered to some new and unlikely part of the truck interior.

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After pacing out my estimated two hours to pavement time, I was reassured by his voice that they were already on pavement and headed to the vet's. One half of the ordeal down ... just the really tricky half left now.

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to be continued

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Update: Brou is coming home tomorrow unless the weather turns sour tonight!

Thursday's Trials continued

As much as I dislike cell phones, they have proved their worth out here many times over. I probably wore .002" of glaze off the ceramic tiles, pacing and killing time before I decided that Mark and Brou should have reached pavement ... 2 hours seemed about right considering the roads. Yes, they had made it and were now heading to the vet's office. So far so good.

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Mark checked in as promised as soon as he had some definitive news from the vet. The man listened to the list of symptoms, did some palpation of the abdomen and said that he would like to run another quick test before Brou went off to radiology. Results were quick indeed and Mark called me with the news. Although he was unfamiliar with the findings, my heart sank when he said " ... something called Parvovirus, I think?" I remembered back to my first run-in with it back in the seventies when it was first noticed by the veterinary community. And it was suspected that I had lost the dearest little flop-eared shepherd puppy to it. Those wrenching memories now returned when I needed them least.

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Although no Pollyanna of optimism, the vet did state that Brou had an 80% chance of survival but they would need to hospitalize him for a week or so and our thoughts lightened a little accordingly. The most disconcerting part was that we knew very little about this killer virus. Where and when did Brou get it? The vet presumed that we lived in a populated area and that Brou had poked a nose into infected feces. Mark explained that the nearest dog was 5 miles away and that no one had brought a dog by in a month. The vet wasn't ready to buy into Mark's suggestion that he might have been infected by coyotes. Although the very young gal at the front desk thought that coyotes were not even members of the canine family (?!), there was something in this idea that made sense to me so I did research that night when the generator came on. Yes! There were ample reports on parvovirus exposure within not only the coyote population but that of wolves and even foxes and these reports went nearly as far back as the first reports of parvo back in the late seventies. When testing and studies were done on specific regional populations of coyotes, it was noted that the presence of antibodies to parvo ran as high as 95 to 100% exposure level. Brou's unusually long time to return when called one day has me thinking that he wandered far enough away to run into coyote scat (poop) if not the wily critters themselves. And Brou, being Brou, would no doubt have to investigate and maybe sample this new and exciting discovery. Oh Brou. If only he had stuck to old cow paddies.

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Given that the culprit is a virus, there is no way to kill it off with veterinary medicine. Antibiotics would be used to quell any secondary infections caused by bacteria. Dehydration and malnutrition are the real cause of mortality and these would be addressed by intravenous treatment. The idea is to support the dog while its own immune system develops its own antibodies to fight off the virus. Puppies are more likely to die since their immune system is not fully developed but Brou at least had the advantage of being slightly beyond true puppyhood.

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Friday: Meanwhile back at the ranch (I just love being able to say that literally now), Mark talked with Virgil and gave him the news on his buddy, Brou. As always, Virgil was quick to respond to the problem with a solution. His mother had a dog which she had nursed back to health with a natural compound - he would call her for info immediately. And she responded like the Marines hitting Iwo Jima (selfless goodness must run strong in that family). By the time I finished reading all the info, it occurred to me that I already had 95% of the medicinal herbs used in the medicine. Not only that but I was now inspired to mentally add another few herbs. So ... when Brou comes home, he will be getting the full blown Granny Clampett elixir.

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After talking with Virgil, Mark called the vet's office for an update. Good news! Brou had been responding remarkably well and might be sprung much sooner than they had estimated. It was now a matter of waiting until Brou could keep down foods and liquids. Oh ... but the roads. Mark eventually described his trip into town and back home. He started with "It was a good thing you weren't with me or I would have been dropping you off at the coronary ward first ... " His account will follow next.

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Waiting for doG

No, the title has nothing to do with a dyslexia moment, at least not this time. The weather turned mild and brought a half inch of rain with it. Between the rain and the existing 6" cover of snow, there was a whole lotta water going on ... and it ran towards the creeks as usual. We even made the treacherous trek across the canyon to confirm our suspicions. Yep, running, and running well. It would be very telling that we wouldn't see a single vehicle go by for the next several days.

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The timing was not good, at all, at all. Our exuberant pup, Brou, became ill just before the rains set in. He could no longer eat without vomiting and his tail-less behind became a mess from scouring expulsions. His joys in life and exuberance dwindled rapidly over the following days and we watched with incredible anxiety as the creek ran free. From his dog owning experiences, Virgil seconded my suspicion that Brou had probably consumed something or perhaps a collection of things which had blocked his intestines. We waited and we hoped to no avail as he continued to decline. Not even a kitty passing by or trying to put a sock on would now arouse his old passions.

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A new snow came late Tuesday night and left 4 inches of itself behind. Brou ran off and disappeared Wednesday morning in his last request for a widdle outing. He would not respond to our calls as usual. I paced for a couple hours and then set out to track him down, very grateful for this new snow in that regard. With his declining energy, it was an easy enough trail to follow until it reached the mesa wall. From there, his lighter weight body left tracks ascending up the face. As I followed, I crashed down through layers of snow which had been nothing more than a covering over boughs and vegetation, my ankles and knees breaking through and hitting hard on the jagged rocks below. I finally had to plant my bare hands down into the snow ahead to disperse my weight and steady myself. It was a laborious climb and I was heaving for breath by the time I reached Brou. I had been scanning the likely coyote holes in the eroded sandstone when I finally saw Brou. He was lying out in the open on a snow drift. When our eyes met, his look was one of "Please just leave me alone here to die, okay?" My own tormenting miseries of late and similar feelings came back to haunt me. I pleaded to no avail and then felt compelled to turn back and descend the treacherous path back down to the rat trailer, utterly heart broken. I did not have the heart and hypocrisy to enforce upon him that which I would not have wished for myself. But that could not ease the torturous thoughts ensuing.

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Mark and I spent the remainder of the day in abject but silent misery, both too upset with the possibilities of being stranded here with a little friend's likely fatal illness. It was one thing to rationalize the situation if either of us should became this ill but quite another to consider a little creature who relied upon us for his welfare. The tension was mud-thick with quiet sorrow. Among many thoughts, I angrily recalled the 'prophecy' which the vile creature who bought our house had cast upon Mark. She was a Soviet mail order bride and probably the most unpleasant and self-serving creature we have ever met. No, not probably, she was. Whether in an obnoxious pout for not being the center of attention as we helped her husband prematurely unload their belongings into our house, it's hard to say but when Mark kindly tried to make conversation with her, she offered this charmer: "I hab geefts, you see. For eenstance, when I first see you, I see that you veel suffer a longk and 'orreeble, 'orreeble death". It took Mark a few months to relate this disturbing pronouncement to me but it clearly had upset him. And now it upset me. "What a nasty, snake charmed bit of vitriol to share" I thought, "Even a two bit carnival fortune telling shyster knows better than to say such a thing." This comment would return again and again to haunt us and taint our joy of finally being remote enough to avoid such uncharming entities and their ilk in the future. This moment with Brou's severe troubles rekindled those thoughts of "a longk and 'orreeble death" and they hung like a black cloud over our painful, deep torments.

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Considering the weather circumstances, I was incredibly reluctant to have Mark risk crossing the running washes and roads into town. I too well remembered the stories of the ranch matron neighbor who had lost her husband on these roads. And so we both quietly agonized over the prospects of inaction.

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As the late afternoon forced the sun to dip behind the mesa and the long shadows brought the deep chills, I decided to go for a walk. At least for the previous couple of days, this event would bring Brou to rally and follow. I slipped on the mud-slogging boots and stepped outside, convinced that my departure would lure Brou down from his dying place of choice. No response, just a deafening silence from the wilderness. Then I heard Mark's muffled voice from inside the rat, "B-r-o-u-u-u-u!" and I flung the door open for an explanation. Brou had decided to come down and nestle in the sage just beyond the 45 footer. He looked at the house only furtively as though he was caught in severely conflicting thoughts of either dying alone or being comforted.

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Mark was the one to pick him up and carry him inside despite the yelpings of pain expressed by Brou. I had become personae non-grata with my previous and completely failed attempts at home remedies so was thankful that he still trusted Mark. Mark laid out a number of salvaged old curtains under the coffee table and Brou settled in. He no longer had any interest in eating or drinking but at least he was as content as the situation could allow. It had now been several days of agony for Brou but he eventually accepted my offers of tiny amounts of water. I dared not give him too much at a time now least he immediately expel it all again.

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I awoke unusually early this morning. The greater part of this urge was to see if Brou had survived the night. I was incredibly grateful to see the faint swell of his chest and his head rise a little in acknowledgement. Mark arose shortly after, clearly with the same hurtful question on his mind. We placed a call to Virgil and got a fresh assessment on the road conditions. The recent snow and the normal accompanying drop in temperatures had made the roads safely passable enough for a town trip attempt if Mark hit them before they thawed out.

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Mark warmed up the diesel and then collected whatever items were necessary; tire chains, cell phone, shovel, check book, extra coat, etc., etc.. The last of the items to be loaded was Brou, not that he was a willing tourist but we managed any way. I watched the truck until the very last of the steaming exhaust plumes were lost from sight. And then I pleaded as always for angels to guard their full journey's progress before I turned away to pace anxiously and incessantly thereafter, awaiting further word.
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Our Big Saturday Night Thrill

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You had to know that I couldn't stay quiet this long even though the antibiotics have yet to prove the ultimate panacea I had hoped for in this last miserable episode. It did, however, provide some relief for the creeping staph that threatened to completely block my nostrils with its colonial agenda. Many thanks to those of you who sent the messages "Don't reply - just wanted to send you our best wishes". It really helped boost my thoroughly depleted morale to know that someone out there really cared. I have just swallowed the twentieth remaining pill in a regimen of 56. I am NOT a pill taker so this is a milestone of accomplishment for me and I am patting myself on the back vigorously for being so disciplined.

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Tonight is Saturday night and the highlight of our week here in the hinterlands. It's not that Saturday marks the end of a hard week of M-F, 9-5 but that our favorite on-line radio program comes on. I have to put this into perspective: With no radio signals reaching this far into the wilderness, we have to wait until 'generator time' and satellite access to the outside world. This arrangement might be considered unacceptable in the current world of immediate gratification but it makes the occasion all the more precious to us. Saturday's particular thrill is Randy Bachman's CBC Radio Canada show. Remember Bachman Turner Overdrive, the Guess Who? Randy is now a 60ish old fart but retains a fairly amazing memory for the minutiae of rock background and history of pop music dating back into the 50s. He is promising to do another popular radio lesson on guitarmanship with his Fender in the future so if you have any long suppressed rock star fantasies still seething in your veins, you might want to keep track of that upcoming event. Just be forewarned: he gets preachy about global warming.

We click on: http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html#

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Our Saturday night big thrill reminds me of my mother's tales about their first 'crystal set' radio back in a young 20th century when one of the siblings was elected to be the crystal meister, the one who touched the probe to, hopefully, just the right spot on the crystal to bring in exotic broadcasts, oh, maybe as far as 500 miles away. The 'crystal meister' would endure constant abuse for losing a program just as it became interesting. This, in turn, reminds me of television in the 60s when one person would adjust the steel wool pads or aluminum foil on the 'rabbit ears' and have to remain motionless in place until the favored program had finished. This emotional urgency has not changed for us as the spotty satellite reception and this miserable XP operating system choose to fade away for no apparent reason. Then we are like a couple of sullen kids who didn't get a ride down to the ice cream parlor as promised. But some nights are good as this one is proving itself so far.

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Our other auditory treat is tuning into the various programs available through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. My favorite physicist had turned me on to their web presence and it's been another great blessing, especially if you like classical music. Unlike CBC, you can play a current program at any time. This is a good thing when you don't feel that you can stay up all night to play a program live. Look up:

http://www.abc.net.au

and give it a try. If you like classical or jazz, there are plenty of programs to satisfy your soul's desire.
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An Unexpected Blog Hiatus

Our Spartan situation has bested me for the moment. I have not only become sick with a cold or flu-like illness but apparently I have been brooding a colony of far more vigorous staph germs. Yesterday was one of the more event-free trips out of the canyon with the truck only leaving the road twice in the process - a cake walk compared to some previous trips. There remains one more canyon trip tale, the more disturbing one, but I am in no frame of mind to relay it at the moment. The agony of this latest affliction has me wishing to shear the flesh off my face and head with what remains of my fingernails. I will, therefore, take a leave of my blog entries for a short time, being far too down and demoralized to continue on with reports of our adventures out here. As of yesterday's trip, I have started a two week regimen of heavy duty antibiotics and am desperately hoping for some relief soon. So forgive me if I post no further entries during this treatment time. Until some relief becomes apparent, any writings would be tinged with the odious torments of this latest affliction. Personal e-mails would be likewise tainted so please understand that. When I get this sick, I wish for nothing more than to be left alone. Hopefully my normal love of writing will return soon since there are so many more tales that I would love to share with you.

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Next likely post - better give me a couple of weeks.