Motley Moose – Archive

This is Dedicated to My Pal Shauna

.

.

The What, I walk dogs, I care for cats and occasionaly an odd assortment of little pet creatures. By industry standards at three years plus, I’m a longtime veteran.

I had planned on telling you how phenomenal my employers are, about how our mission statement might be a model for other businesses to emulate, but I made the doing the fun part first mistake of writing about the woozles, heh so this diary will be too long if I did.

The What part can wait and probably deserves it’s own diary.

.

The Why, well that’s easy. I’m an animal lover, always have been and always will be. My wife is too and the joke around here is that we have 10 pairs of legs in our family: 2 humans, 2 pooties and 2 woozles. There hasn’t been a time when I didn’t have a pet and when it wasn’t a cat or dog, it was a lopp eared rabbit.

The more immediate question is why now, at 58? That answer has some history, all recent and none of it very positive really. Although I’m happy doing what I’m doing, the journey to get here was painful and there are scars still healing.

I’ve been self employed almost my entire life and I’ve reinvented myself three times, starting three completely different businesses on a shoestring, chasing a passion. At 48 I was ready again. I loved to cook, I’ve always wanted a little cafe and at that age, cooking seemed like a career I could continue until I was ready to retire or unable to work. Industry people I spoke with had their doubts but I know what I can accomplish when I make up my mind, so I went for it.

I spent two years learning in kitchens, working 14 -16 hour days, commuting for hours and honing my craft. I applied for line cook positions at two restaurants and set up both interviews in one day. The restaurants were across the street from each other and I was hired for both jobs, one morning shift, one afternoon.  

I worked my way up to managerial positions at both spots, trying new recipes, designing menus and managing staff. I was seemingly on my way, it all pointed positive until the the bottom fell out of the restaurant business here in Chicago, between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2007. It was the foreshadowing of our Great Recession and of worse things to come.

I was laid off from both restaurants the same week and I spent the next two years, the most difficult years of my adult life, without work. We’ve all heard the horrible stories about the new discrimination of fifty year olds, I was suddenly a statistic with a very odd resume. I never gave up looking and in a very quirky,

‘I really don’t care what I write on this application because no will really read it’, answer to a question about something I was passionate about, the answer got my app noticed.

I wrote paragraphs extolling the many virtues of our Honda Element. Worried sick about having to sell it because we were getting so heavily into debt, I was already beginning to miss it. I recieved a call from the interviewer the next day. We spent an hour talking Honda, he finally decided to buy the one he had test driven, oh and I was hired.

.

It’s Time to Meet Some of My Weekly Woozles

Meet Toby

.



.

Toby is a Jack Russel Terrier and a dream client: 2 floor walkup, perfect keys, alarm right there when you open the door, parents never complain and there’s always parking available. He’s super friendly although I did have to break his dog aggression habit and now a simple tug on his leash, accompanied by a very deep voiced, ‘Leave it’ slows his hyper-ventilating when other dogs approach.

He’s a male ‘smeller and marker’ and if I let him, would sniff and mark every blade of grass along the way, but I don’t. We’re walking for a reason, we have a 25 min. time window, dogs have business to do and it’s all about business on the walks. Our little game after his walk is to chase a toy, bring toy back, drop the toy, turn over on the couch where he offers me his belly to rub.

Every  s i n g l e  time.

.

Here’s Maddie S.

.



.

Maddie S is a Sweetheart, a shortish Black Lab with a gentle soul who never makes a sound or a fuss. Another dream client, she lives in a beautiful house with a single perfect key, her parents are sweet and there’s always parking.

Maddie S for all her charms is also very dog  aggressive or was. She no longer displays that trait with me and I help her out by always crossing the street when dogs approach, she appreciates it too. She sometimes stops in the middle of a walk, turns over right there on the sidewalk to give me her belly to rub. Maddie is uber affectionate and is constantly looking for validation. I always oblige.

Her treat after the walk is any chew that’s available, ‘gimme your paw’, then I chase her around the dining room table a few times pretending to want it back,

‘Maddie, gimme that thing’, and she loves it.

.

This is Storm

.



.

I like this pic of Storm because like a lot of dogs, they have boundaries and you have to learn what they are. Storm is a Belgian Malinois, one of the four types of Belgian sheepherding dogs and she is..well, tricky.

She’s leash averse, always a little difficult to get her to stop hiding the collar ring which, she does by lowering her head and walking in circles. She also has an aversion to being touched along her torso, she’s a little snappy that way.

She is an absolutely beautiful dog, elegant, graceful and a cool customer. I liken her human traits to a runway model, leggy, aloof with perfect posture. If you put the proverbial apple on her head while she walked which is more like a glide, it would never move. She doesn’t chase squirrels but she does disapprove of their presence in hers. Her habit is to slowly walk up to them and G L A R E until they retreat to the tree, where they belong. She howls and looks just like a coyote when she hears sirens too.

She gets a frozen filled KONG after the walk and that pic is her daring me, just go ahead and see what happens daring me to take it away. Very early on in our relationship, I took a step towards her and she showed me teeth, lots of ’em.

Boundaries, ‘ya gotta’ know ’em.

.

And Maddie D.

.



.

Me and Maddie D were at a relationship impasse for a few months, it happens. She is a rescue, she was mistreated, she is very powerful, she has some Pitbull in her, she’s very dog aggressive and eyed little kids warily, she’s a Hoover and will eat anything she can and she never wanted to look me in the eye, another big red flag: in short, she’s JINKY, unpredictable.

Unpredictable is not good for a walker’s
health and well being or anyone else’s either. Dealing effectively with a jinky dog requires skill and practice, we must have control at all times and commands. Luckily the owner hired a trainer right away. I’m not an authorized trainer but I can follow their instructions and have some tricks of my own.

Maddie D was a very tough nut to crack, altering her many behaviors required patience, diligence and a little creativity too. She would sense immediately if I was not paying attention or if I was letting her stray from the disciplined walks we took. She’s very bright and there was a loving, affectionate dog in there, just wanting to come out. She was one of my first dogs and she is a success story.

Look at that pic. That’s her sitting still as best she can, after doing four or five whirling dervishes when I arrive. I always stand on the edge of that rug and say ‘HERE’ and she stops dervishing, rushes over and sits so I can leash her. Always eye to eye. Good Girl! Our post walk game, is her facing me at every landing of a three story walk up, so I can scrich her chin, eye to eye. She’s always a very late afternoon walk. Tired one afternoon, I tried getting away with only 5 scriches.

‘Duh. Three flights up, 6 landings = 6 scriches.’

She refused to let me pass until I scriched #6.

Maddie D says,’Discipline works both ways dude.’

.

Oh and You Gotta’ Meet Henry!

.



.

Henry is a Great Pyrenees, weighs about 150lbs. and his head is the size of a soccer ball. He’s a slow mover, a male ‘sniffer’ and will if I let him, stand in one spot and sniff it for the full 25 minutes. He needs coaxing and excercise, he’s a bit of a sloth with a great big heart but moves only when he wants to….. or when we play our post-walk game, ‘I’m A Big Bad Meanie!’

The above pic is him waiting for me to jump out from behind the wall, I whisper menacingly, ‘HENRY!’, he gallops in full retreat to the livingroom, runs around the coffee table a few times….  

.



.

waits for me to arrive slowly in a mock monster crouch,’Henry, HENRY!‘,

he charges and in one giant leap we meet nose to nose. I stand firm,

‘Henry, HENRY!‘ and then………..  

.

.



‘I’M A BIG BAD MEANIE!’

.

He’s really a white paper tiger

but I let him pretend otherwise.

.

Hey, Welcome to my World.