Midge alive

In a surreal event today we got a call saying midge was not dead. She is in hospital and in a particularly nasty scam some criminal had informed people midge was dead, then, knowing she is under sedation, began removing the contents of her home. So, the criminal knew her. Knew she was in hospital and under sedation. And also didn't care about the feelings of her dispersed family. Midge lives in Inverness but most of her freinds and family live down here in Somerset. So my partner, her brother and her son are now unravelling the grief they had begun.

Midge RIP

Had to drive my partner to get something from a different town. I'd already got the dog food. Yesterday kipper and his two dogs had stayed over the night which was good for Dook. Shep husks are pretty basic dogs. Not far off wolves so they lack a lot of dog skills. In a group of mixed dogs they want to be leader of the pack or fight it out. Our sleep,was only broken by a single fight on the stairs.Dook is the hardest if the daftest of them all. We took them up the fields and let them run wild, tumbling over each other at speed as our boots and trousers soaked .
Back home I'd promised a freind a lift so kipper was gone by the time I got in. I knocked myself out for the long day ahead. Various favours meant I didn't get loaded up till after twelve and drove to London , already tired.
I recognised the artist who answered the door from previous jobs who looked none plus send at a joiner arriving to unload stuff for a days work at 4pm. After some negotiation we broke the ice and I unloaded. A fireplace top, a tiny job that due to scale had somehow found its way to the back of my priority cupboard needed completion so the painter could complete his job. Them London tradesmen, arrive at 8am but they're off home by three. So I hope I left it all fit and ready for him.
As the artist wanted to be out by 6 I just unloaded all the component pieces of a bookcase in French oak. I'll assemble it in a week once the carver who, despite my leaving messages and generally coaxing him on has failed to deliver the top detailing. Mastercraftsmen sometimes permit themselves a more flexible adherence to punctuality.
The drive back was a smooth 3.5 hours. Dropping in to collect some bits for a freind.
No rest for the wicked so I knocked myself out with a pair of beers only to hear my partner shout up at threeish that her surrogate mother had died. She'd been on the way for some time but the shock is never diminished. I got up to comfort her and me, her and the dog took a drive to special places. The night roads empty somehow seem right. It'll take time. She visited her up in Inverness in a psychic imperative a couple of weeks back. A series of strokes and now Midge is gone. Original hippy, Isle of Wight festival, saw Hendrix, freind of peter Gabriel and a thousand other tales. I only knew her in her later years but she had lived a condensed life.  She was loved.
Where she came in to our story, well my girlfriends, was as a saviour on several occasions and as a surrogate mother. Some teenagers and mothers just can't get on and my girlfriend found herself homeless. Sleeping in barns, then living in a tent, trying to complete her schooling. Her life could have been so different if she could have found a way to bridge that gap from school to college because she surely had the talent. These years of homelessness were brought to an end when some New Age travellers took her under their wing and taught her how to build benders, scrapping and other ways of getting by on nowt. Sadly drugs were creeping in to what was once the new Albion. Thatchers war on these medieval brigands saw their caravans smashed up and torn apart. It was from here that Midge took my girlfriend in and tried to educate her in the rights and wrongs of hippydom.
I won't go on as these aren't my stories.   But it's now 6.30 and were awake and drinking tea. Sleep. Please bring us a few hours oblivion soon.

Focus

Focus is the secret, focus on anything. All we do is trivial in cosmic terms. Even the work of Nobel prize winners. Nothing really matters. But if you can convince yourself, and it helps if you can find a group of believers, then focus on something and explore your testing of it to its limits you can find a happy life. I have episodes like this. I also have periods where I find no point in anything and slump in to self destruction.

Dook dilemna

There's this secret path to the river I take, well not many people go that way so I use it as somewhere to let Dook off the lead. Often if he walks past people nothing happens, especially if they don't try to touch his face. A couple were walking up and Dook jumped up in greeting. The man, quite normally reached out and Dook bared his teeth briefly. The moment was over and I apologised profusely.
Essentially its either euthanasia or constant muzzle in public places, lead of course too. What to do?

In with the tribe

It is the over riding story. There's the pack. The accepted and acceptable. Then there are the weirdos. People like myself. At some point in early childhood or even puppyhood you react in a manner that the tribe dislike. A dog bites a hand that moved too quickly and they must from then on wear a muzzle .this informs the tribe that the dog is bad. From there on each interaction begins with the assumption that the dog is bad.
Children have a moment when n adult loses their temper and calls them a bad boy. From then on the pattern continues. The teacher encourages this feeling of being bad. I know personally that deep down I feel bad. And as life churns on these people find themselves with teachers, social workers, magistrates, judges, prison officers. Once you are in the bad club it is usually for life. A few recover but you are talking low percentages. From then on its crime, drug addiction.
I've always felt this strong tribe thing. The in crowd. The acceptable. Then the rejects. With people it is mental hospitals and prisons. With dogs its lethal injection.

Madness, self destruction and joy

We went to see the dog behaviourists and they were very helpful. If we work at it we may cure Dook of his violent outbursts. We walk with him muzzled and. Pedestrians tend not to want to say hello as much which is great. He hasn't bitten anyone for days now and seems to be getting the message. His beauty was always a danger. It draws people in, wanting to rub his face. Do you want strangers rubbing your face. I love him now so I won't let him down.

Dook

Dook the dog

Washing over me and stealing all I have is this disease. You can keep it at bay for a time but it will always worm it's way In again.

The Warped and Twisted Detours of Skreeworld

Time for Skreeworld Change

More Dook (dangerous dog)

There is this field knee deep in grass that stretches for half a mile and I love to take Dook up there and watch him bound the ought the grass. If you had to make a film displaying pure joy this would be it. Makes me smile, even cry just to see him so happy. He's unbelievably lithe amd athletic. He'd got in to a boggy stream to drink then wandered up in to the grass. I called him, he turned and lept this river ditch in a single bound, some 15 foot. I thought then I can't give up on him. So what? Some series of human mis treatments has made him cagey in tight corners with bigger men. The behaviourist from the bath cats and digs home was very adamant about the dichotomy she saw. Months of intense training or death. I will not succumb to her pessimism. I will put the hours of training in. Make him keep away from dick heads. Because this ought to be born in mind. Dook has nipped, bitten or snapped at some ten individuals in ten weeks, each and everyone has been a dickhead. Today a man saw him tied up outside a shop waiting for me. What drew him over god alone knows. Seeing an animal tied, defenceless, clearly feeling vulnerable. Yet something went through the idiots small brain to go approach him and do this by moving his hand swiftly towards dooks face. It is true. The only dog we can permit life in this society is one who will tolerate the utter extremities of human stupidity. The dog must be 100%. However asinine, however bereft of common sense, the human must be permitted to interfere with the dog without complaint. I often imagine what parents would feel like if their children had to be tied up outside shops. Many adults take a similar approach to children, "aren't they lovely", followed by the fingering of the hair, the touching of the skin. There is a common heald view that interfering with a strangers dog is some how acceptable. It now pretty much the consensus view that people ought not interfere with other people's children. Each of dooks misdemeanours have involved someone putting their hands in his face.
Returning to my point. I vowed to rescue Dook and this is my duty. I will make him a dog able to live within this stupid world. I accept I am taking on a major task, one that will take up much oh my time, a job that will involve a hell of a lot of learning. Though having twenty years dog ownership I know little about traing problem dogs. And the rather overexcitable behaviourist I spoke to has already said he qualifies as a dangerous dog. She struck me rather like UFO hunters who's excitement ticks the boxes for any airborne curio from mistle thrush to kite. Anyway. Here we go. Dook, you and me, bring it on. That faultless informational distributsry of great esteem Th SUn ran with the headline, "Doga ate my babies head off" a few weeks back. This is what we are up against.

More on Dook

Rang the behaviourists today and it looks like either we dedicate our lives to working with Dook, wearing a muzzle at all times, spending hours each week working with behavioural professionals. Or Dook takes the needle and is no more. I've thought of passing him on to traveller tribes with much closer community and family ties than conventional society where we hardly know our neighbours . But I fear at some point Dook will do something really nasty. He is now classed as a dangerous dog.
I am in tears as I type. I took him out through his favourite fields and we're both soaked and dirty. I know his future. He doesn't. He doesn't have much of one.

Dooks dark day

What can a poor boy do? I've always had a few freinds no one else would bother with. A few schizophrenics, a few homeless, a few addicts, a few violent psychos. I won't list them here nor tell theirs stories but I've always felt there but for the grace of god go I. No one sets out to be socially dysfunctional, and to be fair unless you want to hear the same mind set, the same blinkered thinking you need to be broad in your friendship selection. There is a misconception. All people are equally loveable. It takes place in the lover not the loved. This is true with dogs too.
Dook, our new dog is proving a problem though and decisions need to be made. I took him out on a couple of walks and one time a young lad took unpredictable walking roots and Dook took a snap at him. Jumping up and scaring him. We hadn't had him long so I thought forgive and see how it goes. A week later down a dark alley a twenty something came running past on his way to some rave and Dook jumped up and nipped his arm. No flesh wound but a bite. When you tie a dog up outside a shop he feels totally defenceless and vulnerable. Only a fool would approach a dog they didn't know in these circumstances. Two of these fools have felt impelled to go say hello to Dook and both times he snapped. I know people are idiots and I often wonder what it must be like having to endure strangers rubbing your face in the street. Yet if a dog is to survive these idiots must be endured.
Tonight my partner took Dook up the park and found herself in a tight alley with two large gypsy lads intent on introducing themselves. At first Dook was ok but then he lost it and attacked the intruders arm. My partner apologised offering addresses names and the inevitable execution.
What to do? I'm growing to love him but you can't have a dog who bites people. Tomorrow I go to the dog home he came from to talk. They never warned us of these tendencies. Perhaps they never knew. All they told us was he came from a broken relationship. If they had warned me of his dysfunctional habits I may still have taken him.
Ill fill you in with the progress but tonight is sad.

Odd animals die

A serious plan to get out of this one. Even with a guardian angel it can be hard. Out walking the dog while tripping yesterday afternoon I saw a lad lost and lonesome, wandering, studying, off his head, perhaps his own nature, perhaps drugs. Tonight I saw the homeless guy I got to know last year sat on his bench, waiting for it to quiet down enough for him to make his bed. Hes been there three years now. few notice him. he doesnt drink or drug it to get through. There s a bender outside frome I drive past sometimes. Two are living there. This is not including any of the travellers I know. Just Stray humans. Out there.
I don't know how anyone else's mental illnesses work. Mine aren't that bad really. Ican see them growing. But I still manage self employment.i know how close it is to be on the street. Some play the services and get flats and key workers. The madder ones don't.
There's also the urge to just letit go. I've in trying to fit in. I know its a struggle for many.
This is the animal world. Some are born strong, alpha makes. Some girls are pretty and alpha males support them, feed thir offspring. But nature is cruel and the weak or weird struggle then die.
Our society has its social workers that help the weak. But it can never be enough and each night some poor vagrant rolls in to a ditch drunk and leeds his last. Some junky, perhaps after a lucky days begging puts that little bit extra in the syringe, and finds his peace.