cavedog

one picture per week 2010

2010-01-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

I started too late to do one per day. One per week should be quite doable.

Dinner at Marche with Misha, January 4, 2010. Olympus E-P2, 25mm/1.4 Angenieux cine lens.

walking with an old dog

2009-09-09T18:33:00.001-07:00

Solo is ten years old, and the only old dog I’ve ever lived with. Fly is actually older than Solo, but she seems younger than Solo as she’s in better shape and still hurtling through the world. Solo, by contrast, is a long-retired prizefighter, grave and mellow and carrying the scars of his previous lives within a burly and slowly failing body. The aftermath of an old injury, incurred before I knew him, ruined his right hip, and the ways he has altered his gait over the years to compensate for his hip have corrupted his back. When he was young, when I first knew him, Solo was fast and strong and inexorable, and I kind of thought of him as the Incredible Hulk: intellectually brilliant, mentally unstable, and physically indestructible. But now he is stiff and damaged and deliberate, although his physical presence still evokes a feeling of threat and power, like the big hands and swollen knuckles of an old man who remembers how to tie on a pair of boxing gloves.

I like taking Solo for walks alone now, without the other two dogs, now that we have the luxury of a yard and everyone doesn’t have to go every time we go out. Walking Solo is a particular pleasure because Solo has never been allowed to run ahead of me on walks – it isn’t wise, as his reputation for bad-assedness is not undeserved – so he has always walked right beside me, and I can just reach down a smidge with my hand as I walk and touch his soft, rumpled ears. It’s almost as good as holding hands. No, actually, it’s probably better.

When we walk it’s like old times, before the other two dogs came along, except that the walks we take are different now. When Solo was young, he and I looked for big, open expanses that lent themselves to long throws, places where he could run flat out, and where I could see in all directions in case anyone else came along. Now that he is old, and slow, and doesn’t worry so much about passers-by anymore, we take pointless meandering walks through cluttered landscapes, where there is a lot to poke your nose into and plenty of sign to sniff. Solo shuffles along and reads every single tree, signs a lot of them, and I don’t prod him to hurry and catch up because without the other two shooting off ahead of us, there’s no need. We don’t play ball much anymore, because I am afraid I will break him if I do. Our walks are more interesting now. I stop and look around. I watch squirrels chase each other through the branches. I peek up at the sky through the trees, and sometimes I see eagles.

Solo loves to go with us when we gather chanterelles deep in the forest, because we’re all going nose to the ground, searching, doing just what he does. I’ll look up from a promising spot under the pine needles, and Solo will be there, smiling at me, waving his gallant tail gently. “Isn’t this great!” I like taking him to look for mushrooms because there are never any other people out there and we can go where we please. Sometimes I walk him in a cemetery on campus that is in the process of being overgrown and forgotten (most of the residents there died during the early 1900s), and we encounter other cemetery walkers there. When we do, I alter our trajectory a little so that Solo doesn’t have to encounter them, just in case. There was a time when I would have been ashamed of doing this, because it is an admission that even after almost ten years together I have failed to fix him and that Solo still has his demons. But you know what, I don’t care about that anymore. Solo has nothing left to prove to me or anyone else.

One of the luxuries of getting old is that people finally accept you for exactly what you are. I don’t know if it’s because people are more tolerant of the aged out of respect, or because people just don’t expect anything of the aged because they think the aged are too old to change. Either way, I have stopped worrying about all of the things that Solo is not. I have always loved him for exactly who he is, but I no longer look ahead to some indistinct point in the future when he will be better than he is now. I just enjoy him. Solo acts as though he understands literally everything I say; I would not be surprised if he actually does. I believe that this level of connection is something that comes only after you have been with a dog for a long time, and when that dog is old.

It will be very difficult to watch Solo fail in the years to come, as I know he will, but we are enjoying the last evening light together, that glorious golden light that comes just before sunset, late in summer, just as the days are beginning to shorten. May it be a very long summer evening, and a very, very slow sunset.

better lay off the sake

2009-03-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

Brooks PJ, Enoch M-A, Goldman D, Li T-K, Yokoyama A (2009) The Alcohol Flushing Response: An Unrecognized Risk Factor for Esophageal Cancer from Alcohol Consumption. PLoS Med 6(3): e1000050. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000050

I never thought I'd see the term "Asian glow" used in a scientific publication. (I always used to call it "Asian heat.")

Anyway, this is pretty important stuff: turning pink when you drink not only means you look silly at parties, but it may also mean you have an increased risk of contracting esophageal cancer. This hasn't gotten the play in the media that it might have if it were something that applied particularly to people of African or European ancestry, so I thought I'd do my tiny part to get the word out there.

I've never been much of a drinker, for precisely this reason. Well, not because I was worried about getting esophageal cancer, but because girls don't look very cute when flushed bright red from head to toe, and when one is at a party one is often concerned with looking cute. I am glad to now have a medical justification for not being able to knock them back like some of my friends can.

You have been warned.

freckle

2009-03-13T12:28:00.001-07:00

I was trying to get a photo of the freckle on Solo's nose, because I love to kiss it, but the best shot turned out to be the one where I focused on his eye instead. Of course.

Nikon D300, 17-55/2.8 Nikkor lens

slightly notorious

2009-03-06T22:01:00.000-08:00

My friend April Nowell (University of Victoria) and I recently published a critique of Kohn's and Mithen's "sexy handaxe theory" (short version: it is untestable and therefore not scientific) in PaleoAnthropology (February 2009). And this is very cool, and also very cool is that the paper was mentioned in the Random Samples section of Science on February 27 (volume 323, issue 5918, p. 1151). I guess this makes me slightly scientifically notorious, at least for the next five minutes or so.

I have recently discovered that I am also slightly notorious in the context of my avocation as a crazy dog lady. A haiku that I wrote several years ago for a BaggageAgility (an email list for people doing agility with rescued dogs) contest called "Ode to a Pre-Owned Dog" appears in a bunch of seemingly random hits should one choose to Google my name, something that I do occasionally because I am human. I am no poet, much less a haiku writer, but I am glad that people like it. I think it was written for a T-shirt contest or something, but I never got a T-shirt so I guess I didn't win.

Ode to a Pre-Owned Dog, by Melanie Lee Chang
How can it be that
Someone else didn't want you?
What an idiot.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.

my vote for First Dog

2009-02-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

OK, so it's been forever since I updated this. I guess I am just not that into sharing my personal life with the world.

That said, I feel the need to point out that in all the discussion about curly-poo hypoallergenic (there is no such thing, by the way) candidates for First Dog, almost everyone is overlooking what is, to me, the most glaringly obvious choice for a busy family with allergy issues looking for a decent-sized companion from rescue: a retired racing greyhound.

Check out Bob, to the left there. Best. Ears. Ever. Anyway, Bob is available from the Oregon Greyhound Association, along with dozens of other wonderful and gorgeous 'hounds looking for homes. Bob, full name Westcoast Bob, is five years old, ran in 104 races, and won 16 of them. He is now looking for his retirement home. Due to overproduction by the greyhound racing industry, there are thousands of perfectly wonderful dogs just like Bob available across the country, and the Obamas would have no trouble finding a perfect pet for their family.

Greyhounds are lean, fit, and athletic, just like our President. The White House comes with an enormous fenced yard that would be perfect for a hound like Bob to stretch his legs out in, since greyhounds like to sprint full speed a couple of times a week. Greyhounds hardly have any hair and are therefore ridiculously easy to keep clean and dander-free. Greyhounds are very unobtrusive dogs who rarely cause a ruckus in the house. I personally find them extremely soothing to be around, and if I were President, I would certainly value that quality in a dog.

I don't have greyhounds, but I've known a number of retired racers, think they are wonderful and gorgeous, and would like my own someday. I hear the Obamas have decided on a PWD, and PWDs are perfectly nice dogs, but I've still gotta throw my vote to the greyhound.

this is America

2008-11-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

There are so many optimistic messages to take from the result of this election, but for me, one really stands out. It wasn't just that they tried to make middle America fear Obama's blackness, and failed; it was that the other side tried everything they could to paint Obama as "not really American," you know, he's got a funny name, his father was from Africa, he "ain't from around here."

And it DIDN'T WORK.

As someone who has spent her entire life being complimented on her English, being asked about her nationality, being mistaken for "ain't from around here," this is really something. I think there are a lot of Americans who can relate to this feeling, and who might be thinking, as I am, that this really is a new day.

happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T17:35:00.001-07:00

what I saw today

2008-10-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I looked up and saw the biggest flock of migrating geese I have ever seen. The flock was so large, they were flying in a set of nested Vs. And I immediately thought to myself, "It's a flying cladogram." And then I thought to myself, "Wow, am I a dork or what?"

I wasn't quick enough to catch a photo, which I regret deeply as I could then have subjected generations of students to said photo in lectures about systematics.

first day of the rest of my life

2008-10-19T03:31:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: Joe Brier and Kayte Martens, The Happy Couple Wedding Photography

www.thehappycouple.biz

Misha and I were married on a perfect late summer evening last month.

Uluru, Red Centre. Panasonic LX2.

We went to Australia for our honeymoon.

Now we are getting back to "real life." It is looking pretty damn good so far. Perhaps I will elaborate and share more photos in a future post, but for now, all I have to say is that I am very, very happy.

day of sheep

2008-09-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

I dragged Misha out for an afternoon of sheepdogging at Laura Vishoot's beautiful farm in Cottage Grove. Therefore, I have photographic evidence of Jett's third time on sheep, which was rather promising. (As I write her sire is currently in first place at Meeker -- go Rye!) As you can see from the last photo, Jett thinks sheep are Way Cool. Thanks Laura! Thanks Misha!

All photos by Misha Amagasu, using a Nikon D300 and 70-200/2.8 Nikkor lens.

loving the Epson V750 Pro

2008-07-09T20:26:00.001-07:00

Yes, I realize it is somewhat geeky to write an ode to a scanner. Misha promised me a new scanner when I ditched my old one, an $80 Epson Perfection 2480 that couldn't really do medium format, during my move from San Francisco. And he went above and beyond the call of duty and got one of the best ones out there.

I rarely scan documents. I scan negatives, made with my antique film cameras (and I do believe that all of the film cameras I use are technically antique), because I like using my film cameras and tend to take better pictures with them than I do with digital SLRs (even the new hotness of the Nikon D300).

Some of my archaic film cameras, with a Holga and some digital stuff thrown in for good measure. Taken by a Nikon Coolpix 950, which was pretty hot stuff in 1998.

The quality of negative scans made with various flatbed scanners varies wildly, but most seem to agree that the Epson V750 Pro is at the top of the heap. Dedicated film scanners and drum scanners deliver even higher quality, but they cost as much as a small car and are total overkill (in my opinion) for creating files that will be viewed primarily on a computer monitor or online. If I wanted to make a giant fine art print of any of my photos, I'd just skip the digitizing altogether and get a nice wet print made by someone who knows what he or she is doing, which is not me as I don't know how to print yet. (I say "yet" since I do plan to learn some day. When, I don't know.)

So far my favorite features on the new scanner are the giant film holder that allows me to scan many frames in one pass, and its ability to figure out where the frames are and make them into separate files without me having to define the scan area and hit "go" for each one.

Misha on the Golden Gate Bridge. Leica M3, Summicron 50/2, Ilford XP2 (C41 black and white film)

The first negative I scanned was a shot of Misha on the Golden Gate Bridge in April. I scanned this one at 2400 and did some minor tweaking in CS3. My old scanner would have put weird horizontal lines into the sky (or any other large area without a lot of detail) but this one turned out perfectly. The file as a whole came out beautifully, required very little postprocessing, and it prints wonderfully too at standard sizes.

Well, after results like that I had to keep scanning.

Solo in Portland's Washington Park Rose Garden amphitheater. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Fuji Provia 100. This one also printed out very nicely.

Sheep grazing "backstage" at the Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Trial, Heber Valley, UT, August 2007. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Fuji Neopan Acros 100.

Anyway, I'll be scanning and posting more on Flickr as time allows, and if I can get past Misha who has discovered the joys of scanning his old negatives.

P.S. -- Can someone explain to me why, when I edit Blogger on a PC instead of my Mac, it keeps throwing extra carriage returns into my post at totally random times? Or not putting them in where I want them? And not center justifying stuff after I center justify it? And just generally misbehaving?

Stella

2008-06-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

Stella at Dexter Fish Rearing Station, Lowell, OR.

Panasonic LX2, AKA the "Panaleica."

Misha and I got new bicycles. The Eugene area is so bike friendly, I expect we'll be logging some serious miles around here in the coming months. Mine is a Trek 1.2 and I call her "Stella."

at liberty in Scio

2008-05-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

Looking up the road in Scio.

Nikon D300, 35/2 AF-D Nikkor lens

Jett and I went out to Scio, Oregon to the sheepdog trials last weekend. Since I wasn't running a dog I brought just her with me as she could use the continued socialization. She had a good time. If I'd brought the other dogs I would probably have returned with dozens of glamour shots of just Solo, as he is so much easier to photograph, but I need to learn how to make Jett's eyes show up in shots sooner or later.

I am learning my way around Photoshop CS3. Some of the photos I took came out a bit cooked for my taste. Too much postprocessing can definitely be a bad thing. Jett looks pretty though. She's growing out quite nicely.

stalled out

2008-05-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Nikon D300, 35/2 AF-D Nikkor lens

Jett is seven months old today and seems to be stalled out at 30 pounds, as she has not gained weight in over a month. I am wondering if I should be on the lookout for a late growth spurt. Both of her parents are fairly large (dad=50 lbs and mom=45 lbs) so I was expecting her to be bigger. It doesn't make a difference to me one way or another. She's a fantastic pup and a pleasure to live with.

Jett has been learning to mope from Solo, who is a master of the art, and she's getting very good at it.

New World Order

2008-04-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

Jett's claimed her place in the pack. Fly's nature is to make herself the lowest woman on the totem pole in any group, and she seems perfectly happy there on the bottom, so I'm going to leave things be.

Fly, Jett, and Solo, Big Rec fields, Golden Gate Park.

Solo is, of course, still Number One.

Hanging out by the fireplace.

Jett turned six months old yesterday, and weighs about 30 pounds. When I think of her as a puppy, she seems huge, but when I think of her as a dog, she seems rather wee. Even though she's got a big adolescent body now, and is fast as all get-out, her expressions are still all puppy.

Did you say something?

She saw sheep for the first time last weekend and did well. Stay tuned for training updates.

All photos Nikon D70s, 18-70mm AF-S DX kit lens

Growing up Jett

2008-03-09T18:47:00.001-07:00

Jett, Solo, and Fly on a hike up Mt. Pisgah, Eugene, OR. March 2008.

Nikon D70s, 18-70mm AF-S DX kit lens

Jett is just shy of five months old now, weighs about 25 pounds, and has legs that stretch from here to Kansas. She's intrepid, fast, and extremely interested in movement. Although I'd planned to wait, I am sorely tempted to try her on sheep before she turns six months old.

Family portrait, March 2008. Nikon D70s, 18-70mm AF-S DX kit lens

Happy New Year!

2008-01-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

Jett on her first showshoeing expedition in Oregon. Photo by Misha Amagasu.

I hope the New Year finds you and yours well (assuming anyone reads this). I'm looking forward to 2008 and all it holds for me and mine.

Jett and Misha, on the hunt for a Christmas tree.
Leica M3, Summicron 50/2, Fuji Neopan 400, D76 100%

Gang of three on the Baquiano trail, San Mateo, CA, New Year's Day 2008.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm AF-S DX kit lens

Jett

2007-12-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

Jett at Crissy Field, December 10, 2007.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm AF-S DX kit lens

In what you might consider a fit of carefully planned insanity, I have added a puppy to my household. Jett comes to me courtesy of Elizabeth Baker at Steadfast Stockdogs, a daughter of Rye (Stuart Davidson's ##Craig x Amanda Milliken's Grace) and Mist (Dale Montgomery's Tim x Lacey). Yes, she is all Border Collie. No, she doesn't have much white on her. I think she's super cool, although she'll be pretty damn hard to take photos of.

Her "full name" is Steadfast Blackheart. If you get that reference then you, too, are a child of the '80s.

Picture the Cure

2007-07-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

Picture the Cure 2007 is a month-long gallery show at the Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto, opening July 4. Photos and artwork donated by various artists will remain on display during the show and be sold in a silent auction on July 30. All proceeds will benefit the Canadian Cancer Society.

Three of my photos are in the gallery show, and one of them is a portrait of Solo, Canis lupus familiaris.

Leica M3, Summicron 50/2, Tri-X 400

All of the available photos can be seen here.

A selection of these photos are available for purchase through an online catalog, links (for 2006 and 2007) here.

If you're looking for something to hang on a wall you could do worse. My mother is a breast cancer survivor, and I'm proud to be part of this event.

Solo's vital stats

2007-06-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

Solo at Fort Funston, summer 2006. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Tri-X 400.

Name: Ashfall Solo River, CGC, TN-N (“Solo”)

Solo is named for Ashfall Fossil Beds, Nebraska, a remarkable lagerstätten preserving loads of three-toed horsies, and Indonesia's Solo River, where fossils of Homo erectus were first found.

Aliases: Problem Dog, Goofus, Mr. Scary, Rug, Babyface, Bizarro Lassie, The Canine John Nash

Breed: Border Collie

Age: 9

Birthday: Cinco de Mayo, 1999
Kept as a veal: June 1999 - June 2000
Sold/placed and returned five times between July and August 2000
Got Day: September 11, 2000 (really)
Completed his CGC: 12/19/2000 (my birthday)
First agility trial: 3/2003
First (OK, only) agility title: 10/2004
First sheepdog trial: 11/2004

Got me a job: 8/2005
(click for the Canine Behavioral Genetics Project website)

Favorite things: Melanie, sheep, racquetball
Hobbies: stock work, agility, hiking, mechanical engineering

Solo is popular! See Solo's Dogster page.

For all of Solo's pages, go here.

something beautiful

2007-05-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

Fly and Solo at Crissy Field, summer 2006. Nikon D70s, 55-200mm AF-S DX kit lens.

Fly came “over the water” to live with me and Solo in February 2002. I wanted a trained sheepdog, one who could teach me, a novice and enthusiastic handler with one green and hardheaded dog, to handle. Solo, my green, hardheaded, and psychologically disturbed dog, needed a friend, and I decided that after living with me for two years, he was ready to share me with one. Fly arrived in a big wooden crate on a Continental Cargo flight, with her neat tidy white stripe, her great brown eyes and large, upstanding, white-flecked ears, surprised at her new circumstances, unsuspecting. I expected so much of Fly. Could she possibly measure up?

Fly was born in Wales, honed her trade in North Yorkshire, and came to live with me in downtown Philadelphia, the city that, several years ago, was declared “The Most Hostile City in America” by USA Today. She had to take a crash course in traffic, crowds, large expanses of concrete, walking on lead, and CSX freight trains that periodically thundered through the local park. She had everything pretty much under control right away – with the one exception that she apparently considered the area within a two-mile radius of my apartment building to be unacceptable for peeing. I spent those first few days wandering the streets with Fly on an extending lead, chanting, “Please pee. Please pee. For the love of God, Fly, please pee.”

Because of Fly’s little problem, I found myself taking her and Solo to the fenced dog run near my apartment during the wee hours one night. It probably isn’t advisable to wander around the city after midnight, but with two dogs, and at least one who certainly would attack anyone who tried to harm us, I felt pretty safe. I hoped Fly would empty herself so she could sleep loose instead of crated.

We had the place to ourselves, of course. I stood in a corner of the run looking determinedly nonchalant, hoping that Fly would eventually wander off and pee somewhere. Solo was (and still is) not used to unstructured outside time – we’re usually doing something like playing ball, or doing fake agility on playground equipment – so it took him a while to stop staring expectantly at me and wander off as well.

It was a cold night, with a dim, hideaway moon and a couple of yellowish streetlights casting long shadows over the dry, flyaway mulch that served as footing in the run. Solo and Fly made white puffs in the air as they panted. Fly trotted purposefully back and forth, sniffing everything, but not peeing. Dammit. My feet drifted off to sleep. Slowly, Solo left his independent trajectory, and began to follow Fly. What she sniffed, he sniffed. When she walked, he walked, she trotted, he trotted. Both of them carried their tails in easygoing Cs up in the air, over their backs.

Solo spied a deflated, abandoned basketball and leapt to snatch it from the ground. He tossed it into the air to get a better grip on it and then surged off with his prize, hindquarters tucked for extra speed, white teeth clenched on the flapping rubber, eyes wild with that Crazy Running Look that dogs get. (You know the one I’m talking about.) He left a cloud of mulch dust behind him and I thought about all the little pieces of wood I’d have to pull from the plume of his tail when we got home. (Solo has quite a magnificent tail – it resembles a flag, or one of those big fuzzy things people dust window blinds with. Debris loves to hide in it.) It dragged on the ground as Solo continued his butt-tucked run.

Fly wheeled and sped after Solo, a compact, efficient, black and white blur. Solo skidded to a halt, dropped his deflated basketball and spun to face Fly, startled, clearly believing that he’d offended her somehow and ready to defend his toy. I held my breath. But Fly danced like a cat. She tucked her chin demurely, pranced before Solo, and dropped into a low curtsy.

Solo just stared at Fly in blank confusion. He all but looked around behind him for whoever she was really talking to and then cocked his head. You mean me? Really?

Fly grinned, waggled her tongue, and smacked Solo gently on the shoulder with one of her oversized white forepaws. Then she curtsied again. After a stunned second, with an expression of pleasant disbelief, Solo returned the favor, and dropped into a low, formal play bow. If he’d had a hat, he would have whipped it off for more effect. Fly flipped her tail, and ran off, daring Solo to chase her. He did.

They played for almost an hour, a pair of dark shadows with white flashes flying back and forth, laughing, growling, wrestling, tackling, hip-checking, and I stood there watching, thinking, I did the right thing! I did! I got Solo a friend! I was so happy to see them playing together, I started to cry. Embarrassing, huh? It was so beautiful, you see? So normal.

The thing you have to understand is, no one ever wants to play with Solo. Other dogs think he’s weird, unpleasant, “not from around here,” wherever “here” is, he is an outcast. Solo is diffident with other dogs one on one, and worse around groups of dogs. Even mixing with dogs he knows well, he is always on the outside of the scrum while everyone else plays with preferred partners that are never him, his eyes blazing, circling, stiff, awkward, trying to dart in and being rebuffed. When the other dogs get sick of playing with each other, they never decide, “Hey, why not play with Solo?” They just leave the field, while Solo stands there like the last kid to get picked for the kickball team, the hopeful grin dying on his face and his gallant tail tentatively waving back and forth, watching them trot away.

But Fly – she sees the Solo I see. A big, handsome, sweet boy, just a little rough around the edges maybe, standing over in the corner. And she, the forward little minx, thinks nothing at all of asking him to dance. I would love Fly anyway, but I love her for this.

Some of my friends wondered why I would go through the trouble of getting a trained bitch and flying her all the way from Britain. They teased me and referred to Fly as Solo’s “mail order bride.” It would have been simpler to fall for the girl next door, it’s true, but nothing Solo and I do is simple. He fell for the gal with the Welsh accent and bless her heart, she fell for him. I fell for her too.

Solo and Fly at Fort Funston, summer 2006. Olympus 35 SP, Tri-X 400.

eulogy for Harley

2007-05-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

With Harley on Discovery Beach, Seattle, 1999. Olympus Stylus Epic. Photo by Jim Schlenker.

Harley: May 1993 – 1 September 2000

My girl is gone. The skin biopsy they took the last day of August revealed the root of her puzzling illness: lymphangiosarcoma, a cancer that cats get sometimes, and dogs, almost never. It’s true; life really isn’t fair. Just three days before we had toured the halls of the vet hospital, Harley happily skipping along, thinking that it was just another day at school, greeting everyone we walked by and trying to duck into every room or office to see if she’d missed anybody. The last three days, she was so tired, she mostly just followed me with her eyes. She was so weak, she would take a treat into her mouth and only hold it there. In some ways, she was already gone.

When I knew there was no hope it wasn’t a hard decision to make. I think that maybe she didn’t even notice – she was merely trading one state of being for another quite similar. I only wanted to make sure that she never had any bad days. Harley was a fighter, or maybe she was just incapable of comprehending evil, or even plain bad luck. She had never in her life known pain, or fear, or anxiety, or defeat – only that terrible lassitude of the last three days – and all that mattered to me was to keep it that way until the end. She was such a good girl. She went easily, in my arms. It actually wasn’t so hard for me to be there, and I want everyone who reads this to remember that: it is the last act of love you can do for them. If I who loved her so much could be there for her then, anyone should be able to find the strength. What I have to go through now is the hard part.

There are a thousand stories I could tell about her, every single one of them about her beauty, her wit, her brilliance (did I ever tell you that she would unwind herself if her leash got tangled around a tree?), her athleticism (you read that right!), her honesty, and none of them would even begin to explain why I loved her the way I did. Who would have ever thought that someone who weighed ten pounds could leave such a hole in my heart? Some dogs have one-note personalities; hers was a richly layered composition. She was often pensive, always mulling over something – I never caught her with a blank look on her face. She was such a beautiful creature that everyone loved her on sight, and she returned that love a thousandfold. She was supremely confident: she knew that the world adored her, and because she never questioned that love, she gave it back to everyone with love to spare. All of us should be so lucky. If she had a funeral, hundreds of people would show up. More, I am certain, than would come for me!

Because she was always with me, there is nowhere that she shouldn’t be, nowhere that I don’t expect to see her, and nowhere I am safe from missing her. I see her everywhere – laughing at me from the top of the stairs. Toddling busily ahead of me as I walked to campus (she always had to be ahead, even if she had never been there before and had no idea where she was going). I ran home to my mother’s house in Virginia and still she is everywhere. A glimpse of russet fur in the passenger seat of the car. Peeking out of the dining room, where she liked to hang out under the table. Squeezing herself into her favorite space under my bed. I walk through her as I traverse the second-floor hallway. Harley loved liminal spaces, like doorways and halls. I hear her tags jingling. I hear her nails clicking on the floor. (She submitted willingly to all manner of grooming with the one exception of having her nails done. She hated it. I would have to hold onto her paw and she would lean in the opposite direction to get the rest of her body as far away from the evil nail clippers as possible. So, her nails were always too long.) In some ways I am glad that I keep seeing her, because she is as she always was, not as she was during her last days. Maybe it’s her way of saying goodbye. Maybe it’s mine.

I loved her, I loved her and now she is dead, so much sooner than she should have been. Maybe dogs are only allowed so much happiness in their lives and Harley used all hers up. Because every day, she felt joy. You could see it in her eyes. Harley, my good girl, I miss you. You were everything a dog should be and nothing she shouldn’t and you were perfect in every way and I was so very lucky to have you. As much as I hurt now, I wouldn’t trade a second of it. And if I had it to do all over again, I would, in a heartbeat, even all the bad parts. Except this time I would let you eat jerky treats and forget all that low-sodium diet nonsense. I’m sorry about that. I love you. I love you.

a dog of middling talent

2007-05-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Solo fetches the sheep back to me, December 2006. Nikon D70s, 55-200mm AF-S DX kit lens.

This is the story of Solo’s first sheepdog trial, which took place in the fall of 2004.

While Solo is a brilliant dog, recalling in his looks, charisma, intellect, and psychoses the famous John Nash, he is not a brilliant sheepdog. Although he sometimes displays working genius, it tends to be highly situational. Unfortunately, many of these situations are not of the sort that are rewarded in sheepdog trials. Solo is a dog who needs to be able to reason his way out of difficult situations, and when working stock, things happen so quickly, and involve so many variables, that when his lack of innate talent lands him in such situations, even a dog of his mental abilities cannot think fast enough to succeed. (Imagine trying to think your way through a stadium jumping course if you’re a rider of middling abilities – it won’t be long before you’re breeches-up in the dirt, even if you’re a Nobel Prize winner.)

For many dogs, even the entry-level class of your typical sheepdog trial (and I mean real sheepdog trials, as in ISDS-style "Border Collie" trials) is prohibitively difficult. Most trials require that novice dogs be able to do an outrun of at least 100 yards while the handler remains at the post, and be under sufficient control to negotiate freestanding obstacles (unlike in some other venues, where you can wear around the perimeter of a pen in beginning levels and therefore always have a fence to guide you), including a freestanding pen. Solo has it in him to do all of these things, and he has done all these things, but we find it difficult to reliably replicate the performance in practice, never mind with a judge, timer, and audience. This is why for four years, whenever someone at a trial (where I’d be running Fly, my trained, imported, talented dog) asked me if I was “ever going to run that red dog” I’d merely laugh nervously and change the subject.

I decided to take the plunge on a beautiful fall weekend. The novice outrun at the trial I chose was less than 50 yards and the entire field was small enough so that if the sheep ran, they couldn’t go too far. And many of the other novice dogs at the trial were, er, quite green, so I figured no matter what Solo did, he would fit in. At least, I hoped so.

It felt odd to be grabbing my crook and walking Solo, not Fly, to the post. Solo was preternaturally calm. I, on the other hand, was nervous like I never am when I am walking to the post with Fly, but with Solo, my favorite dog, at my side, I was happy in a different way, too. We stood at the post. I asked Solo to lie down at my left while the sheep were set where they needed to be for him to go out and lift them. I took Solo’s leash off. He gazed up at me, eyes feral with excitement. It was the moment I’d dreamed of for years. I said to Solo, very quietly, “Come bye,” a command meant to send him on a grand, sweeping outrun clockwise to the left.

Solo ran straight up the middle of the field.

The sheep took off in the opposite direction from the way they were supposed to come (i.e., to me), heels kicking up and tails going around like pinwheels. Solo widened out, too late (instead of a pear, his outrun looked like a keyhole) and then stopped, and looked at me, and tilted his head.

“What do I do now?”

This surprised me, because what he normally does when sheep run from him is run even faster, and then try to grab one, and then spit the wool out from between his teeth, and look back at me, and say, “Oops.” But where I thought he might be out of control on the trial field, instead, he was over cautious.

So I did what they always tell novice handlers with novice dogs to do when their dogs are in trouble – I left the post and helped my dog.

Technically you retire if you leave the post early, but I figured we’d try to make something out of it anyway. We got the sheep collected up again and brought them down the field, turned two out of three of them around the post the correct way (the other one was floating around out there somewhere) and then did a pretty decent (relatively speaking) assisted drive through the wear panels. (A wear is when you proceed leading the way with the dog holding the sheep to you, a drive is when you and the dog are on the same side of the sheep and the dog takes the sheep away from you. An assisted drive is when you walk along behind the dog so that he is never too far from you even as he moves away.) We got the sheep through the panels and then lost them when we tried to turn them for the pen. That’s when I decided to quit while we were (figuratively speaking) ahead. We took the sheep back toward the exhaust, which was easy because it was where they wanted to go, and then Solo called off of them like a very good boy and we left the field.

Solo’s probably not cut out to be a trial dog. Maybe someday in the future, when we have more time and maybe our own sheep we’ll get to the point where I can send him from the post and he’ll run just like I imagined he could. Or maybe not. I might never learn to handle him and he might never be better than he is now. I do think he could have been a dog in the right hands. But all novice handlers say that about their first and favorite dogs.

I’m not sorry, though. It wasn’t a glorious run, but no one can take that moment – the one where I looked down at him, and he looked up at me, and I sent him – away from us. You know, the moment right before he ran straight up the middle of the field. Hey, it’s my memory, and I can edit it any way I want to. At least he didn’t grab anything.

Solo's Got Day

2007-05-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Solo enjoys the wind in his face in Zamora, CA, winter 2006.

Written for Solo on September 11, 2001.

This is the one-year anniversary of the day I got the dog I didn’t want.

It was a scant ten days after my heart’s dog died and he was nothing at all of what I was looking for in a dog. He was too big, the wrong color, the wrong gender – the wrong dog – but when the leash was offered to me, without thinking, I took it anyway. I named the dog a name I didn’t even particularly like. It was just the first one that came to me and it didn’t matter, it was as good as any other. It didn’t feel like he was my dog anyway.

As the days went by Solo’s issues made themselves manifest one by one. I realize now that in a weird way I started to see Solo as an adversary. There was a part of me that just couldn’t believe the best dog ever was taken from me only to be replaced by a dog like this.

Oh, I got so much advice. Most of it excellent. Some of it questionable. I solicited opinions from everyone I knew about what I should do with this dog. I solicited opinions from people I didn’t know -- rescuers and trainers and Border Collie folks. The contacts I made then, I value still.

Deep in my heart what I wanted them to tell me was that I couldn’t keep him.

I didn’t want him. I wanted permission from someone I respected to replace Solo with a “good” dog; I wanted to be able to mouth with perfect conviction that “it was the right thing to do” and “he would be better off somewhere else” and “he was the wrong dog for me.” More days went by, one week, two. Solo would not sleep and he wouldn’t eat hardly anything, either. I threw away so much uneaten canned food that I ended up with a maggot problem in the kitchen garbage. On trash day, after being paralyzed briefly with disgust, I hauled the entire trash can out to the curb wrapped in three plastic bags, hoping the garbage guys would forgive me. I bought a new one.

I made the decision to try and find a rescue that would take Solo. That day, when I went out to get my lunch I bought Solo an entire hamburger with cheese and mayonnaise and fed him the whole thing. (Despite the hunger strike he was on, he couldn’t resist a hamburger.) I figured, he’s not my dog, it doesn’t matter anymore and how nice I am to spoil him. All the rescues were full. I amended my decision. I would keep Solo until a space at a rescue opened up. Another week went by. I realized slowly that I could end up keeping Solo for a very long time.

I remember the moment I decided to keep Solo, no matter what. We were at Petco, in the food aisles, and I couldn’t find anything with ingredients I was willing to feed him (or that I thought he would eat). I turned from a bag of kibble to look at Solo and he was standing there like a dead dog – head and tail hanging limply, eyes glassy and blank. Drooling. Sides heaving, dry, dull hair. Every rib showing. He looked like he was waiting for someone to come and kill him. My heart finally opened. I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around him and put my face in his ruff. He wagged the tip of his tail, this little, tentative wag, like he was afraid to commit to it. And he leaned against me. I think I remember this, but I probably made it up because it sounds too perfect. Probably what he really did was just keep standing there, drooling. I can’t remember. I was too sleep-deprived.

That was when I started putting him back together.

It has been a year now. He is the same dog he was then. He is a different dog than he was. Both of these statements are true. Solo has come a very long way – you may not be all that impressed, given what he is now, but regardless, it is true. In the past few months, in particular, he has improved dramatically, to the point that most of the time I can almost forget that he ever had problems. He’s coming to events with me and going to school and running errands and really seems to be getting it as far as the sheep thing. He’s making friends with men he’s been scared of for months. He can be left alone for several hours, loose, without panicking. He’s happy and he smiles a lot. Like a normal dog.

Will he ever really be normal? I doubt it. But I think he is capable of approaching normalcy – maybe asymptotically, but even so.

I am no longer sorry that I have this dog. I am thankful for all he has taught me. Solo has taken me places I never thought I would go. He has introduced me to people I would never have met. All of the things I wish I hadn’t taken for granted with my last dog, I treasure with Solo, because we had to fight so hard to get all of it. I would not trade him for another.

Happy Got Day, Solo.

My dissertation: Middle Pleistocene Systematics

2007-05-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

Saint Césaire, Bordeaux, France, 2002. Nikon Coolpix 950.

NEANDERTAL ORIGINS, MIDDLE PLEISTOCENE SYSTEMATICS, AND TESTS OF CURRENT TAXONOMIC AND PHYLOGENETIC HYPOTHESES

A DISSERTATION in Anthropology and Biology

Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
May 2005

Melanie Lee Chang

Harold L. Dibble, Chair (Anthropology)
Arthur E. Dunham, Chair (Biology)

To download the acknowledgements, abstract, and table of contents of my dissertation as a pdf, click here.
To order a copy of my dissertation, click here.

ABSTRACT

The “Neandertal problem” is paleoanthropology’s oldest question. Although the debate over the position of the Neandertals in human phylogeny has historically considered their fate rather than their origin, recent discussions focus on the composition and relationships of European and African Middle Pleistocene fossil taxa that precede them chronologically. These taxa, previously referred to as “archaic Homo sapiens,” include H. antecessor and H. heidelbergensis. Researchers who accept these named paleospecies as valid taxa also elevate the Neandertals to specific status (H. neanderthalensis). There is, of course, disagreement about these taxonomic hypotheses. This discourse reflects the broader debate over the pattern of evolution that culminated in the origin of modern humans and the place of the Neandertals in that pattern.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate systematic hypotheses concerning the Middle to Late Pleistocene fossil sample from an explicitly phylogenetic perspective. Discrete and continuous characters, emphasizing those previously identified as taxonomically or phylogenetically significant, were recorded for a diverse fossil sample that consisted primarily of European, Middle Eastern, and African specimens. Individuals and site samples (“exemplars”) were employed as operational taxonomic units (OTUs). By using only “natural” groups as terminal taxa, it is possible to explicitly test taxonomic hypotheses because conspecifics should reflect their close relationship in the results of a phylogenetic analysis. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted using cladistic methods that yield hypotheses about relative recency of common ancestry and order of divergence. Clades that were supported across a wide range of analyses that differed in terms of taxa, characters, and coding schemes, were identified. The composition of these clades, and their relationships to each other, were evaluated for congruence with taxonomic and phylogenetic hypotheses concerning these fossils.

The results of these analyses support the taxonomic unity of Neandertals. H. heidelbergensis is identified as a probable grade taxon. The hypothesis that Neandertals played a major role in modern human ancestry is not supported. The present study yields explicit, testable hypotheses about the natural groups present in this enigmatic assemblage. This information will allow paleoanthropologists to better understand the nature and pattern of human evolution during this important time period.

Solo's pedigree

2007-05-22T00:27:00.003-07:00

Solo (registered as Franklin ABC 147618)
Breeder: John Noerpel, Gardners, PA

My apologies for the tiny size of this pedigree. I'm in the process of moving content from my old Earthlink webpages (I hate Earthlink, they do not deserve a thin dime of my or anyone else's money) and some things just don't move well, like this pedigree that was originally a nifty bit of html generated by the nifty Pedigree Generator at Sitstay.com. I'm still figuring out the best way to do this, so this page will hopefully change in the future.

ode to Fly

2007-05-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

Fly is not a pretty dog, but since she is usually in motion, most people don’t realize that. Some strange alchemy occurs through which her rat face, chicken legs, and large, splayed feet become something entirely different when she runs: true, guileless, joyous. Fly’s natural gait is a rollicking gallop – she only trots when on lead or indoors, and rarely, if ever, walks. She hurtles around the park where I take her and Solo, my other Border Collie, to play, and people watch her flash by, a black and white smear of pure momentum, and they smile.

“Wheeeeeee! Yay!” Fly says as she goes. She runs like a kid who hears the ice cream truck coming, white forelegs reaching in great ecstatic bounds, spindly back legs with clown-shoe paws doing an enthusiastic swimmer’s kick, tongue flailing from the side of her laughing, Cheshire mouth. Fly slaloms this way and that, dodging trees, giggling over her shoulder at other dogs, who struggle to keep up, and trying to anticipate where Solo and I will walk next so she can beat us there and hunker down, waiting, waiting. As we approach she does the mental geometry required to predict the next part of our trajectory, and she’s off again.

Fly is innocently humorless: she’ll throw herself with abandon into any sort of fun activity (she’s a fun junkie), but is incapable of understanding a joke, least of all a joke that involves her. Solo loves to tease her, picking up a toy, giving Fly a narrow sidelong glance, and then squeaking the toy for all its worth. This, Fly can’t stand. Her body tenses, she dances, she spins, squeals erupt involuntarily from her. Solo redoubles his efforts. “Squeak squeak squeak squeeeeeeeeeee!” His white teeth flash, his yellow eyes crinkle in an evil grin.

“YARK!” Fly screams, dashes in, and nips away with the toy. (She’s got the most awful bark anyone ever heard. It’s really more of a shriek.)

Any other dog would pay dearly for stealing Solo’s toy, but he merely sits back with a self-satisfied smile and licks his feet nonchalantly. It’s a side of Solo I never saw before Fly came along, and remain grateful to Fly for revealing. Fly, for her part, has no idea she’s just been made the butt of Solo’s joke and settles on the bed with her soggy prize clutched between giant forepaws. Since the toy is not self-animated, it quickly loses its appeal, so Fly decides to leap atop Solo and drag him around by the facial hair instead. He thinks this is just fine. Solo’s got this grin on his face like being dragged around is the best thing ever. They take turns biting each other’s heads. “Now you.” “No, it’s your turn now.” “OK. Ha! I got your ear!”

My silly black and white dog is truly beautiful working sheep. She creeps like a commando behind them, chin skimming the grass, hindquarters in the air, one foot after the other, purposeful, steady. Her white-flecked, prick ears cant forward slightly, like devils’ horns. The sheep, like everyone else who meets Fly, are enthralled, and happy to march along quietly at her command. She is the consummate professional in this milieu. The only token of the headlong girl I live with is the look of maniacal glee she wears on her face as she takes her sheep along.

I call Fly and her head shoots up. “Really? Oh well. OK!” And she comes bounding over, tail flying, oh so pleased with herself. She screeches to a halt at my feet and rolls over shamelessly. I like to make fun of her as I rub her belly. “Oh Fly, poor Fly, ugly Fly. So ugly, look at you,” I croon. “Ratty face. Ugly feet. What good are you? You aren’t even soft.” And she wags her tail.

“Yay!”

Fly makes people happy. She makes me happy. She makes Solo happy. How lucky Solo and I are, to have a dog like Fly. Shouldn’t everyone?

an analytical dog

2007-05-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

Solo on the trail in Larkspur, CA, fall 2006. Leica M3, Summicron 50/2, Tri-X 400.

Solo was born on May 5, 1999, spent his first year locked away from the world, and every year after that trying to make sense of it, to make up for what he’d missed. Cinco de Mayo is an incongruous birthday for a dog with Solo’s characteristic mien. Solo has gravitas. It’s impossible for anyone who meets him to miss it: this is a dog who thinks too much. Dogs were not meant to ponder the mysteries of the universe, but that’s what Solo does. He ponders, and he worries. How do those airplanes hang in the sky like that, why don’t they fall down? That guy coming down the sidewalk, what are his intentions? Light, is it a particle, or a wave?

Shepherds are wont to say that a Border Collie isn’t really mature until he has as many years as legs under him. And I think they’re right, and I think Solo has changed a lot in the time he’s been with me (he seems to have grown out of his tortured artist phase, for example), but at the same time he’s always been a little world-weary beyond his years. Solo has ancient eyes: tip-tilted, deep-set, a pure, feral amber, shot through with bright yellow at their centers, deepening to antique gold at their edges. I’ve seen Solo’s eyes gazing at me from countless wildlife posters. They hold the relentless, unwavering regard not of an observer, but of a judge.

Most people talk to their dogs using baby language. I speak to Solo in complete sentences. I have perfect faith that he understands me, and that if it weren’t for the bothersome fact of anatomy, he would answer me in complete sentences, too. I only wish that he would believe everything that I tell him. “This man wants to be your friend.” “That train is not thunder, and it does not want to kill you.” “Just because I am running water in the tub does not mean that I plan to give you a bath.” He trusts me, but he is an empiricist, and a skeptic. He believes things when he sees them with his own eyes.

Solo pads down the sidewalk with a muscular, leonine gait, shoulders sliding easily under the mantle of auburn and white he wears over his withers, head down, eyes forward, tail slung low and businesslike between his hocks. I don’t lead Solo anywhere; he walks with me. It’s not the same thing. People invariably stare when Solo goes by, and often hold themselves very still, the way they might if they encountered a large and beautiful predator in the forest, watching until it slipped off between the trees. Solo has star quality. It’s ironic, and unfortunate, because I think if Solo could have just one wish, it would be to be completely unremarkable – to pass through the world unknown, hidden in the shadows, never subject to display.

Although his tastes can at times be quite rustic, Solo has the heart of a poet, and the intellect of a scientist. He appreciates clearly outlined parameters. If he were a musician, he would undoubtedly be a master of some expressive yet regimented form, like jazz. But really, I think he would like to be an engineer or a mathematician – engaged in finding underlying principles and rules, and using them to understand the structure of the world around him. He delights in manipulating objects, in determining all their properties, their smells, their weights, whether they can be easily disassembled, whether they roll. When he figures them out, they get assigned to a category and filed away in his brain and he never forgets them. When he encounters things that don’t fit into his categories, it vexes him. And then he ponders them, and he worries.

His favorite games have lots and lots of rules.

Solo has opinions about everything, and he is extraordinarily unforgiving. The things he likes, they are the Best Things Ever. The things he doesn’t like, they are Dangerous and Should Be Avoided. There’s not a whole lot of in-between with Solo.

The people he loves he would die for.

How could I not be totally, hopelessly enamored with this dog?

Solo is not what most people expect in a dog. He is a cipher, carefully blank, impassive, and wary, lest he make himself vulnerable. I only wish everyone could know the dog I know.

Everyone should know a dog like Solo at least once. I know, and regret already, that I will never know another dog like him again.

Solo and me in Golden Gate Park.