It's been extremely hot here. Not as bad as 90-squared, but it's been 90 plus 60% humidity, which is bad enough for me. Makes you just want to lie down. Turns your spine into rubber. Just walking across the room to get a glass of water brings on a sweat and you have to go lie down again. Then the mattress on the bed gathers all the heat and starts par-boiling you from underneath. Suddenly you know that if you don't get up you are going to be cooked to death.
We got the great idea to go out to Olnes Pond last Tuesday. Take the dogs, go swimming! Picnic on fancy schmancy sandwiches from Alaska Coffee Roasters! Play a little music, relax and cool off!
I have to take a side-track here, and tell you about the Amazing Stevie the Wonder Dog. If you have been a reader of this blog for a while, you will know that sometime back in April he was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, that is, cancer of the cartilage. Stevie had this in his sinus cavities and was giving one to six months to live. We didn't think he'd live more than two months, as he was bleeding from the nose a lot, having a terrible time breathing and was in so much pain that at one point I was giving him morphine every day for a week. I thought the time was coming soon that he'd have to make that final trip to the vet hospital. I cried a lot. Stevie is at least 16, but looks and acts like a much younger dog. We did tests, all his organs were functioning perfectly. I know he has to die of something, someday, but this seems like a particularly nasty way to go.
While I was house-sitting for a friend in town, Stevie had a terrible episode of nose bleeding, and he literally blew out disgusting tissue from his nose for three days. It was horrifying. But after that he recovered, stopped needing pain medication, and has gradually gotten better. And when I say better, I mean BETTER, 100% bouncy dog better. No trouble breathing at all. No nose bagpipe rehearsals when he tries to sleep. No choking, no gagging, nothing but healthy dog! He plays, he runs, he's great! He's still a little weak in the hindquarters, but that's to be expected at his age. He's been all better since May. Is it just remission, or is he cured? I don't know, but I'm very happy about it. When my boyfriend suggested we take him and Sofie to Olnes Pond, I had no problem with it.
So we did exactly that, and even took our bathing suits just in case there were other people there. The dogs rode behind the seats of my little extendo-cab Nissan truck, panting all the way and as we drove a stream of dog hair marked our passage.
Upon arrival it was easy to see that there would be no skinny-dipping today. It wasn't crowded, but there were enough people around that someone might be blinded if I bared my winter-white-Celtic body. Just my legs showing under my shorts were causing people to slap sunglasses on and shoo small children back into their RVs. So I put on my neon-yellow one-piece bathing suit. Why I thought that would be an improvement I have no idea.
Putting Sofia on a 50-foot rope, and cutting Stevie (Doberman/Rottweiler) loose, we all stepped into the water.
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.
Sofie was running back and forth, plishy plashing with her feet. Stevie was following along with her, not going in too far. But after a few minutes, he waded in to his belly.
Rottweilers don't like water. Stevie, when he lived in New Mexico, was legendary in his hatred of water. If I opened the door for him to go outside, and it was raining or wet, he'd walk backward rather than go out there. And cross his doggy legs. He wouldn't mess in the house, but he also wouldn't go outside in the wet, either.
Since coming to Alaska Stevie has decided that snow is pretty fun, and he will go outside in the rain, too. Perhaps being friends with another dog (who was more of an outside dog) helped him decide these things. But it certainly was a different behavior from a dog you could herd with a squirt gun.
At the pond I decided to go for a swim and headed out, slowly breast-stroking my way. At a shout from my boyfriend I looked back, and sure enough, there was Stevie, following me, all four legs flashing under the water. When he reached me he looked at me wide-eyed and turned around, looked at me again as if to say, "You stupid human, what are you DOING out there? You force me to save you!"
So we both swam back to shore. I never thought I'd see Stevie swim!
Then, to top it off, he found a large log and towed it back to shore. We tossed it in the water. He swam out to it and towed it back to shore.
Hmmmmm.
Never in my life have I ever seen Stevie look so Labbie-like. Because he has red-doberman coloring, people would often say "Oh, he's lab and what else?" But he's NOT. I SWEAR! He's doberman and rottweiler! He's a hard-wired watch dog, all his behaviour has always been exactly that.
Except here he was, jumping into the water and retrieving. True, he didn't really bring things back to us so much as to try to drag them back to the truck to pile them there, like he wanted to take them all home. This looked pretty funny, Stevie walking along with a big, old, wet, mushy log by one end, slowly but surely heading back to the truck. Apparently he likes his new toys.
We spent about three hours in the water and got cooled off and had a great time.
Yesterday we went out to Chatanika and took the dogs, the goal to hang around one of the little ponds there, let the dogs swim, draw, cool off, relax. Now that Stevie swims, we thought he'd have a great time.
It was a long walk over lots of rock. Hot rocks. We passed the gold dredge and kept on going. Heat was radiating up from the rocks, the dogs were panting like locomotives. I was beginning to worry about Stevie gettinig heat stroke. We kept walking. We came to a low spot where he could get a drink from a somewhat scummy pond, but he wasn't interested. We kept going.
Finally we found a nice, shady spot under some birches next to pond. These ponds were created by the dredge going through, and all the rocks I've spoken of were pulled up by the dredge buckets.
Close to our spot there was a small corner to the pond and it was filled with old boards and algae. I didn't want the dogs to swim in there, because the thought of wet, stinky dogs all the way home wasn't a good one.
We kept Sofia on a long lead again, (it was like holding onto a fishing rod with a big fish on the line), and let Stevie go loose. He toodled around, we lay in the shade and went "Ahhhh." It was idyllic.
Then Stevie jumped into the pond. Okay, we thought, he LIKES swimming. He swam back and forth for a minute, then headed straight to the boards that were in the corner. He grabbed hold of one and started paddling furiously. Obviously he wanted to repeat his play with the log, just like he did the other day. One there was one problem. This board was stuck, it wasn't moving at all.
He paddled harder. He gripped the board with his teeth and tried to pull it free. The board was stuck fast, and Stevie's hind end was starting to go down. I could see the whites of his eyes. He didn't know what to do. If he let go, he'd drown.
"What do we do? I can't swim!" says my boyfriend.
"I can!" I said and I jumped into the pond, knowing full well how dangerous this rescue action could be. Stevie was in a panic, we could both drown.
I swam the eight feet out to him and while treading water, grabbed his collar. He let go of the board and immediately sank completely underwater. Praying that he'd hold his breath, I grabbed him and hauled him to the surface. He was breathing! Then I grabbed onto the board myself, praying that if a 75-lb dog couldn't budge it, that neither could his master.
It held, and I held Stevie, who hooked his feet over the board, too. We rested for just a couple seconds, and then he got his hind quarters back up under him and I shoved him toward the bank, yelling for my guy to grab him. He did, and Stevie made it up onto shore. Then I needed to be pulled up myself, and was likewise hauled up the bank.
I realize now that it was semi-miraculous that I was able to grab Stevie when he was underwater, without going underwater myself. I knew at the time, though, that we were both lucky not to have drowned.
Even people panic when drowning, and sometimes drown their would-be rescuers. Stevie is a dog, and couldn't be grabbed in a regulation hold to keep his head above water. I had to improvise. If that board had given way, we'd have drowned. If I'd gone underwater, Stevie would have pulled me down.
My boyfriend said he was very much afraid that he was going to see both of us go down and not come up. It was a close one.
And yet, I saved Stevie! I'm so glad! I had to go back to the Chatanika Lodge and eat a second lunch because I was famished afterward.
The moral of the story is: Stevie remembers. If you take Stevie swimming, (his new favorite activity), be sure you don't do it where he tries to find his own toys!
