On snow and exploding whales

So... back in Oregon and finally coming to a full stop... boy am I looking forward to a few days of rest.

I'm happy to report that I was able to get just about everything out the door in good time for shipping and all local pickups and deliveries made, though a few by the skin of my teeth as a handful of pieces due for pickup the last Sunday of the market were still hot off the sewing machine as of five o'clock that morning, yikes! A couple red leads didn't make the holiday cutoff, due to a series of dismally poor-quality hides having to be sent back to the tannery. Those couple remaining pieces will be shipped out on Monday morning--and a million thanks for the patience of those kind folks. The quality of my raw materials is of paramount importance to me, and I refuse to spend either my money or yours on crummy leather. If it happens, I'm always happy to substitute another color of your choice if time is of the essence, but sometimes it takes a few tries to get my paws on a side of leather that's high enough quality for me to be happy to ship gear made from it.

It's been an action-packed holiday season and I am sure happy to have worked with some really great folks on a world of different projects. This here is a custom bear paw harness done for Yuki-san, the shiba "brother" of Jiro with the rad "green flames" harness.


The bear paw cutout on the back saddle was an awful lot of fun to do, and I was pretty tickled about the claw marks on the shoulder straps, too. I dug up some photos of bear claw marks on trees for the shape. I think I've mentioned before that I often work with veterinary tools--the claw marks were dug out with a surgical curette, rather than being cut, so that the slashes would look torn into the leather.

I'll have to sit down and look through my camera for more fun stuff... I was in such a sewing frenzy that I sometimes didn't even have time to stop and shoot portfolio photos, sewing long after dark and boxing things for shipment before dawn the next day. There was a fun set of tiny little vines and leaves collars for cockapoos Carmella and Tulip, and a mini version of the squares and dots collar for beagle Copper down in Sacramento... a flat collar for landseer Moses that's bigger than my friend Claire's belt size ;0).

Meanwhile, we wrapped up the last weekend of Holiday Market in fine style. I'd decided not to do the last Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday stretch through Christmas Eve in hopes of making it down to my parents' house for the holiday. It ended up being a wise choice because I went down like a poleaxed steer on Sunday night with what I am guessing is Giardia* though remains undiagnosed because though at one point I actually blacked out in my mews while feeding my hawk, I am either too stupid or too stubborn to have gone to the hospital when my medical professional of choice was unavaliable, being pretty firmly of the school of "that which does not kill you can probably be cured with ginger ale and crackers if you wait it out long enough". Perhaps not wise, but I really do hate hospitals exactly that much**.

Anyway, between the suspected flagellated protozoan parasites and the heinous ice storms, it was an hour-by-hour thing whether or not we were going to make it out for Christmas, and when we had a break in both situations we made a quick escape out with the bare essentials; the clean socks and undies, the Christmas gifts, and the dog all made it, but the camera along with several other helpful items did not. I'd have liked to post photographic documentation of the f*n Winter Wonderland that was the Siskiyous and the Shasta pass, but this awesome artist's rendition will just have to do:


That pretty much sums it up. In case you're wondering, the crack in the rearview mirror is one of Simon's few puppy indescretions. His sharky little puppy teeth can still be felt on either side--Mr. Armadillo thought until very recently that he'd bonked it while jumping around and cracked it with his noggin... no, he actually gnawed the frame top and bottom and cracked the glass by squeezing it when I left him in the car for thirty seconds.

So... we apparently timed it perfectly to make it through the passes while everything was just under siege by slush but the temperatures hadn't dropped below freezing yet. Yucky, but not really dangerous. We made it to my parents' house on Christmas Eve, stayed through the next day, and made a quick escape the next morning, again with perfect timing as the passes were frozen again just after we got back through.

I was apprehensive about having timed Gaia's feedings, but even that worked out as perfectly as possible; she weighed in perfectly to the gram for that day's flight training so we had a quick training session with a few mews jumps to the glove for a light feeding. Wild birds don't necessarily eat every day, and falconry birds often eat on a 48 hour schedule. It's not generally a problem for them to miss a feeding, but when you're not there to monitor the situation you tend to err on the side of overfeeding, particularly when you happen to be an apprentice with a bird at a tricky and very precise stage of training and the weather is potentially severe. Often when you feed them up in anticipation of going away for a day or two you lose several more days of training while your bird doesn't have any interest in food, sitting around instead on a window perch with that comfy meal percolating through their system and one foot pulled snugly up in their warm belly feathers. But! occasionally I do something right and she was spot on target for what we call her "initial response weight", or the weight at which she becomes interested in coming to the glove for food.
So we had a quick visit in the mews and the next day, yesterday, went out for her very first outdoor flight training. It went beautifully, though we had to go out a bit early--I'd timed the amount of food I had given her the night before so that she'd be hungry around late morning. We started getting weather reports for heavy wind and rain so I made a dash out a few hours earlier than planned. She wasn't as keen as I might have hoped but did respond beautifully with a series of half a dozen short flights from the training perch and happily enough recalled to the glove from the top of the weathering yard and out of a plum tree. All in all, a very satisfactory first flight session. She ate a little heavily so today we'll go out in the mid-afternoon assuming her weight and appetite are on target for our first session on a creance line--a weighted line of fifty-odd feet that we use for longer flight distances. In theory, if I'm managing her handling correctly, we'll spend a week or so polishing her whistle/glove response and doing a bunch of training to a lure (a vaguely bunny-shaped leather and wool pad on a rope, baited with meat) on a creance line, a few days of the same sort of training without the creance, and then we'll go hunting.
There's more to it than that, but... if all goes well, things should progress very quickly from here.

And lastly, this is already miles long, but I just feel the need to leave you all with this glorious incident from Oregon's news archives. The thing that really makes me laugh about this is imagining the scenario in which when considering how best to remove a manky dead whale from your beach, clearly a half-ton of dynamite is the go-to option.
There's really no other way to say it than the way Dave Berry did:

I am probably not guilty of understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most wonderful event in the history of the universe. First you see the whale carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy spectators shouting "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd's tone changes. You hear a new sound like "splud." You hear a woman's voice shouting "Here come pieces of...MY GOD!"



=D

Hope you all have the very happiest of holiday seasons... whichever you might celebrate, and an undisappointing Festivus, for the rest of us. ;0)




*note to self: be more careful in re: dead quail, whistles and hood braces (and other equipment that's likely end up in my mouth), and keeping better track of the pockets into which both are stuffed.

**I promise I'll call Dr. B on Tuesday, dad!

Projects:

I have been keeping a lid on all the neat stuff going out in boxes in the last few weeks, for fear of spoiling any surprises, but I can show off at least one set:



This went out to Hazel in the SF Bay, mama of Diablo and the rest of the pups discussed in one of the very early journal posts. Hazel's kind of a reddish, shepherdy-looking lady.

Hazel's gear is a set made complimentary to the set I made a year or two back for Diablo. His features the same bronze raindrop triskele, framed by a set of stylized phoenix shapes that match the pattern on his coat. His lead has phoneix tail feathers that wave in opposite directions up either side of the handle from the conchos. Hazel's collar has a set of wings, drop-stitched by hand, that match the "wing" patches she has on her shoulder blades. The feathers on her lead fall down from the concho at the base of the handle. The down fluff of the afterfeather is cut in with the tip of a surgical blade; you can't see in the photo but there are tiny razor scores along the rachis to suggest the barbs of the feather, too.

I was really thrilled to be asked to do this set for Hazel, and am happy to know these great folks and their ultimately cool dogs. Talk about down-and-out, Hazel really needed someone to come along and save her life, and these folks did... and put in an incredible amount of time and effort to raise and find find amazing homes for her entire litter, too.

To Jon and Brigette: thanks for what you did with those dogs, and thank you for asking me to do this set. I hope it does her justice.

Cheers!

Raw Dogs in Action!

Check out this pair of cuties!
Deshi and Tetsuya sport their new custom Raw Dog harnesses:




Thanks to Carina for the great video!

One of the best parts of my job...

...is hearing some great stories about folks and the pooches they love. I had the honor of building a collar for this gorgeous lady; below is the sweet story of how sometimes the right people and critters find each other in this world. Note: Greenhill is our local private, non-profit animal shelter.

She is a beautiful girl and we feel very fortunate to have found her. She came into our life last January just a week after our old dog crossed over. Someone told us that sometimes the dying dog finds the next one. The day after Lexie died Patty was looking at the Greenhill website. She knew a person taking cat pictures for them and wanted to see them. We had talked about not getting another dog right away but there was Lily. We went out there to meet her. Most of the other dogs were bouncing all over the place but she was just sitting up on her bed like "Where have you been? I've been waiting." We had to wait for her to get spayed and recover from kennel cough before she could come live with us. She appears to be a purebred blue Weimaraner that someone socialized very well and she'd had at least one litter of puppies. We never could find out much of her prior history. The intake form said she had been around grandkids. She is an energetic girl and needs to play hard at least every other day. Perhaps her former owners couldn't do that anymore. We have been blessed to have her find us.
______________

Many thanks to George for the story, the beautiful photo, and for giving a home to a Greenhill girl!

Progress!

This bird is incredible!

We're making great progress; she took food for the first time on Sunday morning, eight days after trapping. It takes a pretty powerful motivation for a wild-trapped bird to overcome their natural inclination to believe that I'm about to eat her at any given moment. She was hugely well-fed when I picked her up off the trap, it took more than a week for her reserves to get low enough to even look at the food I offered her, but she finally took some food this weekend--it's the first major step in building a working relationship and very exciting.

Other than putting on her permanent furniture, there really hasn't been much to report up until now. Falconry birds are required by necessity, tradition, and federal law to wear particular equipment (called "furniture") which hasn't much changed in several thousand years. Now we use metal grommets on their soft leather bracelets and steel ball-bearing swivels for tangle management, but the basic setup is more or less exactly the same as King Arthur and Ghengis Khan used. Documents dating before 1000 BC depict equipment and techniques we still use today. One of the things I love most about this sport is true living history, with language, equipment, and techniques all reaching back with at least three thousand years of documentation.

Anyway, shortly after trapping we put on their furniture, and the taming process begins (called "manning"). We spend hours just sitting with them in the dimly-lit mews, touching them, picking up their feet to inspect toes and talons, opening their wings, just acclimating them to touch and proximity in the first 24 or 48 hours. People think it sounds nuts to take a wild bird straight off a trap and start "petting" them, especially those wicked-looking talons... but that first day or two they're really so afraid that they more or less accept anything. They're fully expecting you to start eating them at any second. It must be completely terrifying, like being in an alien world. As time goes on and they gradually lose the fear they start to take in more of their surroundings and adjusting to their new situation. I started taking her out of the mews, sitting or walking around the yard, sitting with her in the house while we watched TV in the evenings, acclimating her to the dog and the dog to her. There's really not a whole lot you can do with them until they're good and hungry, other than continue manning them as thoroughly as possible--until they start thinking about food, they're really just waiting to get eaten themselves, and still afraid of every new thing.

I'd offer her food on the glove every day, but she wasn't even looking at it. That's okay, and expected--as I'd said, she was very well-fed at trapping, so she had plenty of reserves to keep her comfy for quite a while. I don't think she even would have eaten on Sunday if I hadn't pushed the issue, but it's starting to get very cold here and she was shivering that morning when I picked her up. I was worried she was going low enough on calories that she was having trouble staying warm, so again I sat with her and offered her some food on the glove which again she didn't even look at. Eventually I offered her a big, juicy wad of liver on a pair of forceps, stroking it along the side of her beak to encourage her to open her mouth. Eventually she nipped at it, probably more out of irritation than anything else, but once it was in her mouth she sat thinking about it for a good five minutes, flashing her pupils. She took a few more bits off the forceps, but still wasn't hungry enough to take the food off the glove, so we were done for the day. It was a good sign though, and I knew she'd probably eat in the next day or two. At least I got some calories into her!

Sunday evening after the Market I offered her food again on the glove, but she was pretty uninterested. I figured she could think about it overnight and sure enough on Monday morning I offered her some more liver off the forceps which she snatched up fairly quickly. She sat flashing her pupils for a few minutes and thinking about that food... then leaned down and went straight for the food on the glove. Breakthrough!

It really is a big deal for them to lean down and take food from the glove for the first time. They handle everything amazingly well, but leaning down and exposing the back of their neck to the handler is a tremendously vulnerable position to put themselves in and they must be either very comfortable or very hungry to do it. She wasn't real hungry and only ate a fraction of what I expected her to take, but it was a huge breakthrough nonetheless and tells me she's making great progress... they say 90% of the work of manning them is done when they take that first food off the glove.

Once she started eating, it tells me she's relaxed enough to start leaving her unhooded in the mews, which feels great. Before this point, they tend to bate a lot, thrashing around and bashing up their flight feathers. Most birds have no sense of smell and rely on hearing only supplementary to their vision. By hooding them, and eliminating their visual input, it sort of shifts their attitude about everything into neutral. They don't fear what they can't see. We hood them and acclimate them to touch, to balancing and moving around the glove, to stepping on and off from perch to glove and back, all without the element of fear. By the time we remove the hood and let them see what's happening around them, they have some familiarity with all of these things, and it makes the manning process much, much less stressful for them.

Today at first light I went out to the mews and found her resting comfortably on her perch, a foot pulled snugly up in her warm breast feathers and looking out the window--a very relaxed posture. I picked her up for weighing (we monitor them very closely for weight and condition, and keep a daily log of notes), and offered her some food. She wasn't hungry, so instead we practiced picking her up and setting her back down on the perch, unhooded, as well as walking through doorways, going from light areas to dark and vice-versa, and spent some time just walking around the yard, enjoying the frosty morning.

I left her resting comfortably on a perch out in the weathering yard, and will try offering her food again in a few hours in exchange for hopping to the glove--the first step in a flight recall. Real progress has been made, and it's very exciting!

In other news, anyone have any good name suggestions? I have been calling her Gaia. I tried out Io and Spica, but nothing seems to quite stick. Until this point she's been so terrified I hadn't seen much of her personality... maybe in the coming days she'll calm down enough to tell me what her name is. I'd love to hear any ideas anyone has!

Bit more updating...

So, about that monster of a female red tailed hawk I picked up last week: if you're wondering where I disappeared to, it's there. Between keeping up with the sewing and Holiday Market stuff, this lady has been demanding every scrap of my attention and energy. I still haven't managed to name her. She's feisty and refuses to tame which is giving me much pause for thought. In this nutty season and through the growing pains of learning entrepreneurship, having something that demands I sit very still, watching and listening and learning, is something of a treasure. I tend to feel guilty when I stop working long enough to go for a run or do some yoga. It's good for me in a million ways, but I spend the whole time worrying about orders waiting to be filled, sketches to be sent, website updates... a hundred million other things that need my time and attention, and instead of coming back relaxed and ready to rock, I cut it short and come back anxious and stressed.

But in handling this bid, there are no other demands on your attention... there can't be. You clear your mind and you focus. There's a total art and science to the first week you spend with a wild-trapped falconry bird, going through the process known as "manning". It's not really a taming per se, but the building of an understanding. Thirty minutes after being trapped out of the wild, she's sitting on the end of your glove and you're eying each other. It's a lot to think about for both of us.

I also fell down a flight of stairs about a month and a half ago, and haven't been able to get a good workout, since. Like a jackass I didn't go see anyone at the time as "sitting in the ER for five hours between SARS and the bubonic plague, then being treated like a drug addict" isn't high on my ranking of favorite pastimes; a couple weeks later when I got around to mentioning it to my own doctor, she told me she thought I'd cracked two vertebrae in my lumbar spine. I may have also have effed up my right hip socket in the bargain. None of that has been super comfy, and so not being able to really get up and move in over six weeks is making me feel like I'm about to jump out of my skin. Dr. says nothing but walking for exercise until we get this back thing sorted out, and there again are not many things that rank lower on my mental list of "a million better things to do, instead".

There's a lot to be done this time of year. The demand for custom gear has exploded, and I'm learning to balance Raw Dog with the other things in life. My partner, my dog, my health, and this little, feathered dragon on the end of my arm are all reasons I wanted to spend my life working from home. It's sometimes a challenge to remember that. It's almost daylight and I'm going to head out in a bit to work my dog, to sweat, and then visit with my hawk... then come back and get some "real" work done ;0)

PS for Deshi and Tetsuya:

Very quick update

Brief for now, more later (hopefully with photos)...
First things and business first: things are absolutely manic on the Raw Dog front. Though I usually try to get orders shipped within 48 or 72 hours, I'm currently running at about 5-7 days for shipping for most gear ordered through the site, such as standard collars, leads and toys. Custom leads and basic custom collars are running at roughly the same time frame, and highly custom gear such as harnesses, highly customized and embroidered collars are taking about two weeks... so if anyone is considering ordering anything for Christmas, now's the time to get your order in. I'll likely stop taking custom gear orders for the holidays by the end of this week or middle of next, in order to have everything complete and shipped to arrive in time. I thank you all for your patience and support.

A few folks are still waiting for photos of sketches or work in progress. I've been unable to get the software for my rockin' new camera set up on my work machine, so I've put my husband (Senior Vice President in Charge of Electronics) on the case and he's promised to have it set up pretty quickly.

Holiday Market continues to rock, one of my favorite things about it is all the folks we run into while hanging out at the booth. We had a surprise visit from my banker Sid and his lovely wife, Katie, always a treat, Kim Anne and Autumn, Maria, Heather and Mike, Jon O.'s lovely mama stopped by to say "hi"... if you're in the area, the Market is a great place to get your shop on. There are some absolutely incredible artists and artisans who set up shop here for these six weeks, and aside from booth after booth of art and craft-work, there's good food, good music, and the greatest parade of people-watching I could ever imagine.

Lastly, and the reason I mostly haven't been heard from in a couple days... after nearly a year of unsuccessful trapping efforts around Eugene, I've recently picked up a monster of a female redtailed hawk. Her trapped weight was 52 oz--as a point of comparison, Arion, the little male I had last year, weighed around 31 oz at trapping. She's tremendous, well-fed and feisty. I have high hopes for putting a dent in the local bunny population. Hell, at her size, maybe we'll chase a few geese, too ;0)

If you need to reach me, my cell phone is currently the best point of contact, that number is 541.520.5713. I'm sticking pretty close to the sewing machine, probably for the next few weeks, and any free second not spent sewing will be spent handling my hawk in this early, critical taming period. I'm checking my email first thing in the morning and last thing at night, but making a concerted effort to stay away from the (time-sucking) computer during the day, so if you have a question or need help right away, please do give me a call. I always have my phone on me and check it frequently. If I don't answer it may be because I've got a little, feathered dragon on the end of my arm, and will call you back soonest. ;0)
Mr. Armadillo (Senior Vice President in Charge of Invoicing and Orders) is taking incoming orders and handing them off to me as they come in, so be assured your order has been noted and will be handled as quickly as possible, even if you don't hear from me right away.
Again, thank you all for your patience and support, y'all are great.

More updates and photos to come!

Hooray for birthdays!!!

Oh man, do I love birthdays. I love the celebration of one more year on this remarkable planet, all the things I saw and did this year, living in a community I love in a place I love and surrounded by people I love, and by my side through it all the most amazing partner any handcrafting, stair-falling, critter collecting, entrepreneurial dog- and art-geek ever could have imagined. This past year I made the leap into legitimate self-employment, the scariest thing I've ever done by far... and it's thanks to you that I'm able to do this remarkable thing. Every single day of my life I love going to work. In what assuredly ranks amongst the most cliched things I've ever written: I am the luckiest person in the world.
I had a hobby that just got completely out of hand. I fell into this business a little by accident and a lot because I love dogs. It's my birthday today, and I wanted to thank you all for the friendship, love, support, and encouragement you all have given me over the years. I've met a lot of incredible people and even more amazing dogs (and a few super-rad cats ;0) ) through this business; my life is infinitely richer in every intangible but thoroughly soul-fulfilling way for knowing you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Every year during the summer I pick a load of those incredible Oregon blueberries and freeze them, so that in the full swing of chilly, rainy Autumn I can bake myself a birthday blueberry pie. The ever-practical Mr. Armadillo suggests that it's possibly not a good idea to tuck in a slice of sunny birthday blueberry pie with your gear, so all orders placed today will include a little birthday present in lieu. ;0)

Cheers,
~mixie

Back at it!

Well, I made it home mostly uneventfully. My outgoing flight apparently moved much slower than expected and we almost didn't land in time for me and one other guy to make the connecting flight. We made a mad dash to the terminal and hopped on two minutes before the doors closed. Whew!

I'm back at the sewing machine as of 5:30 this morning and beginning to plow through a backlog of orders from the week. I won't be at the computer much through at least the next couple of days while I clear things up, so if you need to reach me quickly please feel absolutely free to give me a call at 541.520.5713. That's my cell, it's always near to hand so is the fastest way to reach me. This weekend is the opening of the Eugene Holiday Market at the fairgrounds, I've got that to get ready for as well, so I have a feeling the next five days are going to be a bit of a challenge!

This just in: thieves suck.

...the most.
It's my last day here in Minneapolis, and unfortunately my sister-in-law and I got a harsh reminder last night that for all its mid-west, Minnesota Friendly, people still occasionally suck here just as much as anywhere else.

First things first though, I have to admit this has been quite a trip. I'm not generally much for urban areas. Cities make me feel claustrophobic, and a little harried in all that hurry and asphalt. I'm surprised, though, how much I liked Minneapolis, right off the bat. The pet boutiques I visited, and the areas around them, were artsy without pretension, urbane without being supercilious. There are several lakes, a chain of them in fact, scattered right through the heart of the city--beautiful stretches of greenspace and getaway with over forty miles of foot- and bike path crisscrossing the city. As previously mentioned, the skyline is gorgeous at night, and the historic warehouse district (former home of General Mills and Pillsbury processing plants) still keeps the Gold Medal Flour marquee burning. The MIA and Walker museums are here, along with some of the most beautiful period homes I've seen.

Our trip to the northern Minnesota wilds was everything I could have hoped for, if far, far too short. No amount of time spent there is ever enough. I was incredibly fortunate to have married into a family of the most kind and caring folks I have ever known in my life, and spending a weekend every few years with them just doesn't even begin to approach enough. We arrived Friday around lunchtime and spent the rest of the weekend chatting, napping, laying around and enjoying the solitude, and stuffing ourselves silly with wild fish and game, Sharon's remarkable (secret recipe) coleslaw, blueberry pie and peach cobbler. The one downside to visiting this time of year is that we showed up right smack in the middle of the full swing of the two-week shooting season for deer, so long, early-morning runs in the Chippewa national forest which is their back yard were unfortunately out... both to avoid being plugged by an over-ambitious gun hunter and to avoid disturbing the hunt for people who hunt for subsistence, living year-round on what they're able to harvest in this short window of opportunity.

We were back late on Sunday for JJ's return to the pressing matters of life and law school. Charles and I are hoping to make a trip back maybe this summer in a repeat of the Great Road Trip of 2006 wherein we made a 6500 mile trek around the western half of the US with all my gear and a big, white dog in the back seat. I'd spend all summer at that cabin if I could.

Monday was great, Docent Larry was kind enough to smuggle me into the MIA for research purposes on a day where the museum is closed to the public. We visited a few of the permanent collection exhibitions we'd not had time for on Thursday and did a little more communing with Olive Trees. I brought along my sketchbook and pencil roll and took a lot of sketches and photos for research. We attended a discussion group regarding museum acquisitions, which was really interesting, and later in the day met with Larry's friend Margaret Osbourne, an emerging lampwork glass artist with whom I hope to align on some upcoming collar projects. Dinner time rolled around and we decided to pick up JJ at the law library and grab some moussaka and spanakopita at a Greek restaurant voted best in the city for eight consecutive years. The food was great, but after a leisurely and enjoyable meal we strolled out to find Margaret's car windows smashed in, with my semi-professional digital camera and JJ's backpack being the casualties. I'd thought to bring my camera in to the restaurant but decided against at the last second, instead stashing it under the seat, figuring that in such a busy area such minimal precautions were enough. The real tragedy, though, was JJ's backpack, which happened to contain her laptop (lame, but not a complete crisis) and a zip drive containing the entirety of her law studies along with all her photos from her European travels. In one fell swoop a couple theives walked off with her entire professional portfolio--something completely useless to them. My camera is easily replaced--lame, but no big deal. I'm far more bummed about the loss all the photos I took of the trip, the cabin, the art, but that doesn't even begin to touch the tragedy of the loss of JJ's work. Countless hours of study and labor, lost in an instant, and she's understandably devastated over the loss.

We walked through the alley, checking all the dumpsters, circling the block in case they'd grabbed the laptop and tossed the bag, but no luck. The Minneapolis PD showed up. They were very nice but pretty thoroughly unhelpful. They basically took a report and said they'd give us a call if either item showed up, but really not much else they can do. I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, I'm heading out in a few minutes to spend a last hour at the MIA in the Egypt and Chinese ceramics collections before Larry drops me off at the airport and I begin the trek home. Please send your very best wishes for an uneventful trip home!

This just in: it is effing cold in Minnesota...

...just in case anyone had any doubts about that.

Marching right along in a tour of recommended pet shops and boutiques, I'm having a great time in chilly Minneapolis. This city is completely different than I expected. Actually, I'm not entirely sure what pre-conceived notions I had about the Twin Cities, but at least a couple things have surprised me.
First of all, y'all have an incredible skyline! Who knew? I'm staying with my sister-in-law who is a law student here. When she told me how much she loved the Minneapolis skyline, we were on our way out to dinner (more on that in a moment) and just hopping on to the 35 freeway. We came into sight of it and... sure enough, it's spectacular! The buildings were all lighted with the Target building being particularly lovely.
Also, when I think of the midwest, ethnic food isn't exactly the first thing that springs to mind, but holy buckets have we had some fantastic meals. The main focus of these visits is to tour the great little shops and boutiques which come most highly recommended by my customers, so the first day I spent in town was dedicated to visiting the short-list of places that seemed to fit my general philosophy of business and which feature the sorts of products and services which might be a good match for Raw Dog gear. Good food has been a completely happy and indicental accident, but a completely happy one it is, for sure.

On Wednesday my sister-in-law and I had what must be one of the most incredible meals I've ever eaten at a place called El Meson. She'd been there for lunch before where they'd had a lunch buffet and said it was good but the dinner menu was just absolutely remarkable. Everything around us looked and smelled wonderful and we couldn't decide on an entree, so we ended up ordering a pile of tapas and appetizers and a carafe of sangria.
The stage was set with the freshest calamari I've ever had prepared in a wonderful light breading, quickly followed by the ceviche of the gods which was served with thin slices of fried plantains and some little rounds of garlic-buttered toast. After that came a little cluster of asparagus wrapped in chevre and prosciutto and grilled together as one piece which... just defies description. We had a little plate of cured iberian meats with a lovely Manchego and a little handful of Spanish olives. A salad with spinach, fine curls of sweet carrot, slices of strawberries, tiny chopped fruits and pecans. It was just one amazing bite after another. The whole incredible experience was capped with a grilled pear half stuffed with French brie and served on a bed of fresh spinach. It was just amazing--and what's more, this isn't anything like the kind of place where you'd expect to find such delights. Prices are completely reasonable, even cheapish, and we went dressed in sweats and jeans expecting a casual meal. Our waitress was patient and funny, just a great, unexpected experience.

The next day I spent in a dual pleasure/business visit to the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts with my husband's cousin who is a long-time volunteer docent. Two art nerds and eleven solid hours worth of art later and we only made it maybe two-thirds of the way through their incredible collection. I have a bachelor's degree with a dual study in studio art and art history; as a student we spent quite a lot of time discussing the completely definitive collection of modern and contemporary art at the Walker Art musuem but I'm not sure the MIA was ever even mentioned. I had -no idea- going in what we were going to be seeing, but their collection is absolutely encyclopedic. We spent most of the day on the second floor moving through a dozen very fine collections of textile arts. There were special exhibitions of Indian and African textiles along with an incredible collection of Native American textile crafts. There was also a really great exhibit of contemporary textile artists with a focus on the use of the natural world in pattern design which just thrilled my little heart.
After half a day spent in textiles and contemporary crafts we headed upstairs for the more contemporary section and just got lost in a world of French impressionists and post-impressionists. I could have spent hours in front of their van Gogh, Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun, alone. I'm still thinking about everything we saw, so I think that's going to need to be a discussion for later. Art takes some processing.
We had a great dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place and then headed over to the Walker which, for an art nerd like myself, was like seeing a rock star in person. I never thought I'd have the opportunity to actually see the place, so when I bought the plane ticket to Minneapolis, the very first thing I did was call Larry the MIA docent and ask for an art date. They're showing a companion exhibition with the MIA of Eero Saarinen's work--if you are in the area and have the opportunity to see it, I recommend you do. They've also got an enormous exhibition of Tetsumi Kudo's work which doesn't do anything for me in the least, but... there you are. I was, on the other hand, totally beside myself about theirJoseph Beuys collection and was thrilled to get the chance to see Coyote: I Love America and America Loves Me, snippets of which I'd seen but never start-to-finish. We got a small sampling of Abstract Expressionist love in one gallery, and individual pieces throughout by artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono, Franz Kline and Jasper Johns. I'd have loved to spend an entire day with the artists in the first three galleries, but unfortunately most of my favorites were only represented with single selected pieces and most of the gallery space was dedicated to Kudo, who I didn't appreciate one modicum more after what seemed like several floors of his work.

So, now I've got eleven hours worth of art to digest. We're heading North to spend some time with relatives in a cabin a mile away from the closest neighbor, where I hope to spend the next three days thinking, sketching, reading, and maybe even ice fishing. My internet connection will be more or less completely non existent, so any orders or questions will be addressed ASAP when back in civilization, early next week.

Beta-testing the Bulletproof tugs. Also: projects!

As you may have seen, we are completely stoked to be in full production of our new Kevlar Bulletproof Tugs, and no one is happier about this than the Raw Dog himself. He's incredibly, remarkably hard on his toys. As a baby I made him those gorgeous sheepskin tugs, with a soft, plush grip--good for puppy mouths. As he got older (and stronger, and more destruct-arrific) his toy needs also evolved. As wonderful as that sheepskin is, these are dogs bred to catch and hold giant wild boar and mountain lions. His grip and pulling strength is absolutely indescribable. Eventually he was able to rip the double layers of sheepskin after a fair bit of use, so I started making his toys out of sturdy bullhide, or rough elk suede.

The bullhide tugs satisfied for grip and strength for a good long time, but in listening to the needs of some professional agility and obedience folks, we developed a tug with the comfort and grip of a braided toy, with the kind of tensile strength a hard-core tugger needs. Simon -loves- this tug. He can grip it so securely that he was almost able to out-wrestle Mr. Armadillo. In the photo you can see Simon's feet are blurry--that's because he'd brace himself and launch his whole body sideways and backwards for full-body tugging action. After countless tugs, they still look like new. I'm impressed with the materials and am happy to have found them.


In other news, a couple of this week's projects...
A sexy spikes-and-domes collar for brindle boxer-mix Karma up in Alaska:











And in progress, a custom harness for Jiro:
What you are seeing is the back saddle and belly band, with the shoulder and chest straps in progress. I'll be working on the chest plate over the next couple of days. Once the chest plate and padding are fit to the body harness, I'll adjust, decorate, and finish the shoulder straps.
The ring at the top of the saddle where the flames point is part of an optional seat belt system.



I -love- building harnesses. For one thing, it's always a chance to stretch my craft muscles. It's also a challenge to custom-fit something to a body that I can't actually put my hands and eyes on. It's for this reason I don't offer standard harnesses. I think any equipment--but particularly a piece of gear that fits around the chest and body--should be properly sized and comfortable and built to suit the individual needs of the dog and uses of the equipment. A tracking harness is built differently than a draft harness, which are both built differently than service harnesses and casual harnesses. All are designed to suit specific tasks and performance needs with the comfort and individual body shape of the wearer in mind. Building custom harnesses is a real treat.

Website updates, slowly but surely...

As you may have noticed, we're working on an update of the entire site. My portfolio has grown, as have my photography skills, so I figured it was about time (okay, so I've been saying that for a while but... for reals, this time).

The awesome Helmi Bastami of FlyBorg.net (flash artist extraordinaire) has been kind enough to 1) put up with me, 2) help rebuild the various flash galleries and generally help me touch up the site, and 3) set up a couple neat new things yet to come. He's very patient.

I've updated the text on most of the pages, set up a handful of new ones, and -finally- gotten the majority of my catalog at least viewable online. Formerly you pretty much had to contact me directly to order most things. It's set up now for you to be able to order all sizes of leads and flat buckle collars as well as my entire catalog of toys, squee!

On that note, we are abso-friggen-lutely thrilled to announce the launch of Raw Dog's long-awaited Kevlar(R) Bulletproof Tugs! These tug toys are the ultimate in tensile-strength. In response to demands for a hard-core braided tug for professional agility and obedience competition dogs, we set out to find a material with enormous tensile strength that would still provide a soft and comfy grip. Results: Kevlar, a light, strong para-aramid synthetic fiber. From the Wiki page: "Kevlar has many applications, ranging from bicycle tires and racing sails to body armor because of its high strength-to-weight ratio—famously: '...5 times stronger than steel on an equal weight basis...'^[1]"

These tugs should last well-nigh forever. The Kevlar can be "cut" with dedicated chewing across the fibers, so don't leave them unattended--they aren't chew toys--but the Bulletproof Tugs should give you a fair lifetime of tugs.

As Charles can attest, I absolutely hate the idea of throwing things away with useful life remaining, so like all Raw Dog gear, I'm absolutely happy to repair them for a lifetime, as long as the piece remains "intact". That is to say if you ever need stitching, or handle replacement, or seam repair, just send 'er on back with a few bucks for shipping and I'll be happy to patch it up if it's within the realm of possibility (and structural integrity).

Keep an eye on the site for more updates to come. Currently in progress is a complete revision of the feedback gallery featuring teeming masses of your wonderful Raw Dogs in action and some of the lovely notes we've been honored to receive over the last few years. Also, all-new custom galleries with a better chunk of my custom portfolio available for view and divided into sections.

More to come!

Raw Dog hits the bay!

Well, it's been quite a week here in Raw Dog land. My sister and I just wrapped up a brief tour of the central California coastal area pet boutiques for some hot reconnaissance and networking action.

I drove down from Oregon last Thursday to attend my baby sister's college graduation, then after some family time over the weekend, we took off in the awesomest car ever created... a bright orange convertible VW new Beetle.

California very helpfully provided us with absolutely pristine and spectacular weather, we couldn't have asked for a nicer excuse to drive with the top down.
Our first stop was the fabulous Argonaut hotel--free in-room yoga kits greatly appreciated. We spent two gorgeous days hanging out in San Francisco, which is one of my very favorite places in the world. We hit up a couple amazing little shops and had a couple beers with friends Jon and Brigette, owners of Diablo who sports a custom set of Raw Dog gear.

After San Francisco, we headed to Santa Cruz for one more boutique stop and a night at an awesome little 50's beach mod motel with a gorgeous view of the ocean. The next day we did a bit more exploring and headed on home.

These trips are an awful lot of fun, and I'm making a lot of good contacts around the country... but it sure does reinforce how nice it is to be home.

Next stop: Minnesota in November, a return to California in December, and possibly Virginia/Washington DC in January. After that, I hope to stay in one spot for a good, long time. ;0)

Raw Dog does Austin!

Ohhhh man, does it feel good to be home safe and sound after quite an adventure.
First, I've got to say that the specialty was a great success--though many of the DACA board were unable to make it for various reasons, there were some beautiful dogs at the show, and I got to meet Eduardo Lavado of the great de Los Medanos kennel; as dogo folks will recognize, a great honor.

The adventure started with the random sighting of... a sleepy plott hound!

Now, coonhounds, and particularly Plotts, are not dogs one expects to randomly come across outside the deep South. Spotting one sacked out right in front of you at the airport is pretty random indeed. Bob is actually part Rhodesian ridgeback. He and his littermates ended up in coonhound rescue when the hunter who bred them decided he didn't want to bother with placing them. Luckily Bob seems to have found himself a great home and is on his way to Boston with his new owner.

The show itself was fun, watching
the baby puppies strut their stuff is always a complete crackup.



Here's a winners' photo:












And a shot of the Uniqo trophy collar. PPC Uniqo is the second ever Dogo Argentino Club of America dual-titled Grand Champion. Uniqo is the second recipient of a custom-crafted Raw Dog trophy collar.

After the show I spent a couple days exploring various pet boutiques and shops in and around Austin. Turns out Austin is a fabulously cool city with a true funky and individualistic vibe. It's much like my beloved Eugene in urban form.

One thing I've got to mention. If you ever find yourself in Austin and have even the remotest chance of doing so, you must hit up Chuy's for what can only be described as a "masterpiece of Tex-Mex cusine" (thanks, Sid!). Possibly the highlight of the entire trip, a spicy, creamy concoction of chicken enchiladas in a white jalapeno sauce just... defies description.

I'd gotten the recommendation to stop there for dinner, and due to a total of eight(!) hours worth of flight delays putting me into Austin at 10:00 pm, thought I'd missed my chance. I got a bit lost looking for my hotel, and suddenly, without warning, found myself on a freeway frontage road that spit me directly into a Chuy's parking lot. Clearly, it was meant to be.
I picked up a T-shirt and an order of enchiladas to take back to the hotel which turned out to be just up the street. After sixteen straight hours of travel, I can't even begin to accurately describe the bliss that was, when the very first bite bit back. I've found that meals described as "spicy" on a menu almost never actually are, so that these were really and truly spicy right off the menu was a real treat... but aside from that, they were just... delicious. Sid was not kiddin'.

Save the Pets 5K run/walk

Well, the Save the Pets 5k run/walk was a total blast. Our booth was right next to Bark Magazine who was conducting a "cover model" search, so we had the pleasure of seeing every aspiring pooch prancing by. A "flames" collar was featured on a gorgeous malamute in the fashion show event, and weatherdog Helmsley of local news KMTR stopped by for a pat and a cookie. All in all a fun day; we'll look forward to future events with Save the Pets.

Ack!

So, in the very most charming tradition of everything that can go wrong doing so, our cable internet connection is more or less non-existent at the moment. For the past week, we've had no more than a few minutes of connectivity at a time. I'm able to access my email very occasionally and receive orders in batches when the connection is live, so as far as I know there shouldn't be any serious delays in orders submitted through the website or through Raw Dog Etsy, but if you have emailed me in the last week and haven't gotten a response, please know I'm doing my best to respond to all messages as soon as possible--and please, absolutely feel free to call, my cell phone is going to be the absolute most reliable way of getting ahold of me until the issue is resolved. According to Comcast that may not be any time soon, so we've gone ahead and ordered a wireless setup and cards with which to equip all our personal and business computers. Turns out it's cheaper to do that than to pay Comcast to take care of their own installed wiring and equipment. Le sigh.

Meanwhile, we're looking forward with great excitement to the Save the Pets 5k Run/Dog Walk held at Alton Baker Park in Eugene. We'll be there bright and early; registration begins at nine and the walk begins at eleven. It's a good cause and should be a blast--if you're in the area, come by and say "hi"!

Cheers!

Shoutout for photos!

One of the big upcoming projects is a series of updates to the site. The feedback page is starting to become a bit cumbersome, and I've still got a metric ton of photos and sweet feedback notes from all you awesome folks to add to it, so we're building a whole new feedback gallery featuring your awesome Raw Dogs sporting their gear. I figure this is a good time to send out a call for photos and a reminder: if you send us photos and feedback for the site, we'll give you 10% off your next piece of Raw Dog gear!

The other perpetual deal on offer is our "Raw Dog for Life" puppy collar discount. If you buy any puppy collar and send photos and feedback, you'll get 10% off any adult collar when the pooch is done sprouting.

Quite aside from the call for content, I do fully admit that I'm a tremendous dog geek and just enjoy dog pix--I love it when people pass along photos of their hounds when placing an order, it's nice to see who I'm working for!

Recent projects:

Oh man, fun stuff in the past few weeks! I've had the honor of working on some really great projects lately. You can click any of the photos for a larger image.

First, a cool tiger-stripey collar in the LSU colors, with stripe pattern pulled directly off the side of a tiger:













Next, a couple views of a sweet embroidered name collar with nods to the first national DACA Grand Champion trophy collar.
This piece features Mason's name embroidered on black calfskin and overlaid with a frame of boar tusks. Mason's collar is built with solid brass hardware secured with brass Chicago screws, and is lined in natural buckskin. His leash is custom-built to match and features a solid brass locking livestock clasp. This is a super classy collar--embroidery takes quite some time to arrange, but it's worth the wait!












The last piece I'm hankering to show off is a pretty variation on the stars and vines pattern commissioned through Raw Dog Etsy. This is a black collar with stars and vines set in a royal-blue deerskin overlay. It's lined in an unbelievably gorgeous charcoal-gray shearling lamb.














Thanks a million to all involved! I really enjoy doing custom work--it's a real pleasure to help bring someone's perfect piece of gear to life.
Cheers! ;0)

News and stuff

Well, here we are, wrapping up an absolutely manic period of activity, and boy do we have some catching up to do!

Let's see...

First things first. In the falconry world: despite high hopes and set-teeth determination, I made several trapping attempts over the first few weekends with the hope of trapping a late 2007 passage bird, but didn't see a single juvenile in the entire Willamette valley over several weekends. By that, I mean zero. None. Shortly thereafter, the nesting period was in full-swing, and so a break was taken to allow the young nestlings to fledge and start learning to hunt.

I got a phone call from my sponsor a few weeks ago, about a crazily-colored recent fledgling near her house. I immediately threw my trapping kit in the car and flew down there to make an attempt at him. We hiked out to where she'd seen him earlier; he had swooped low over her horse, while she was out riding, so it's encouraging that he's not terribly skittish about people. We threw the trap in a little clearing near the top of the hill, moved back a bit to keep from crowding the trap, and set about looking for him. We could hear him calling, but because we're on a hill, sounds bounce and it can be really difficult to pinpoint the source of a call. Finally, after about a half-hour, he showed up in a soar out over the valley, a good three hundred feet up and circling. We know there is a pair of nesting adults in the area, but baby calls are very distinctive and frequent, and because he's so weirdly light colored, we could tell that it was the bird we were looking for.

We watched him circle and call for a few minutes, and after only a short while, he stooped the trap from the soar! This was really a cool thing to see--from that high up, waaaaaay out over the valley, he spotted the tiny little trap and made a pass at it. It seems he's still pretty naive, as he landed in a snag directly above the trap and made "mama, feed me!" calls for the next twenty minutes. He knew there was food there, but either wasn't sure what to do about it, or wasn't confident enough to take a shot at it.

We hung out for a while, and eventually my sponsor had to split for another appointment. Oregon law requires apprentices fly a bird "wild-trapped under the direct supervision of their sponsor", so I was obliged to pack it in for the day. Since then we've made several more attempts at him, but though I've tried being there at dawn, dusk, and midday, I've yet to manage to spot him again when he's actively hunting. The trapping itself isn't terribly difficult, the tricky part is being at the right spot, at the right time. But! We'll keep at it, he's only got another few weeks before he's likely to be chased from the nest site, so it's a small window I have to trap him before he lights out for other territory.

In other news, business is rockin'! Upcoming August events where you can come visit us include the Save the Pets Paws for a Cause 5k fun run and dog walk at Alton Baker Park in Eugene on August 24th, and the Dogo Argentino Club of America 2008 national specialty show in Hutto, Texas the following weekend.

That Paws for a Cause event should be a total blast--there are going to be a bunch of great local vendors there, and a sea of waggly tails. I'm also really, really looking forward to the DACA specialty--old friends, dogos, and BBQ, I am totally beside myself that we're able to arrange to go this year. We missed the 2007 specialty, but made a road trip of it the year before, and it was the best vacation we ever had. This year I'm flying in myself instead of driving, and hoping to meet up with some sweet pet boutiques in Austin while I'm there. If anyone has any good suggestions for shops to check out, I'd love to hear!

We've made some new friends this past month, so here's an official shout-out to Sid, Dorinda, and Heather at LibertyBank. There are a few major business and personal principles we here at Raw Dog hold close to heart, and after having interviewed quite a number of financial institutions with the intent of moving our business to a more commercially-oriented bank, we are awfully proud to have hooked up with this fine bunch of folks. I can't say enough how pleased I am, not only with what LibertyBank has to offer me and my business in a banking sense, but in a personal sense as well. Big things are on our horizon and they've worked awfully hard to help us make it happen. If you're in the market for a new bank, give them a call and tell them we sent you. ;0)

Everything Pawsible, Inc.

We are more than thrilled to announce that Everything Pawsitible, Inc, of Salem, Oregon has become our newest store-front retailer!

Everything Pawsitible is a really great little shop--not only a beautiful, locally- and independently-owned dog-oriented pet shop and gift boutique, but also features day care, training, and the only canine therapeutic swimming pool in this side of the state.

Aside from outstanding training and canine physical therapy services, they've got a really great array of unique dog-themed gifts with at least one item in the store featuring almost every breed. I didn't spot any dogo stuff, but it sure was neat to see things like a little pewter Ibizian hound, or a piece of art with a smooth collie--breeds you don't often see featured!

We couldn't possibly be more thrilled to be aligned with such a shop, be sure to drop by if you're in the area!

Fun projects, big things on the horizon!

I'm sitting down at the computer for a moment, taking a breather. We had a rockin' April, with a couple of really neat projects to keep us busy.

Remember those nice McNab mixes I mentioned? I had the privilege of gearing out one of the pups, named Diablo. He's got an interesting Phoenix ascending his back, and in that spirit, here's what we came up with.

The lead has a matching triskele concho on either side of the base of the handle, and green phoenix feathers coming up the handle itself on both sides that mirror and continue the line of tail feathers on the collar. We're really pleased with the set and can't wait to see Diablo filling it out!


Also, we had the pleasure of hearing from Masako and the lovely Winnie, for the building of a custom harness to match her nifty two-tone lead:


It'll take a bit of tweaking for a perfect fit, but definitely a fun project--and nets us smiling Shiba photos, which is always a nice perk.

In tangential news, we've upped production approximately 6000% in the past couple weeks, with a couple neat discoveries.
First of all, http://librivox.org is a free source for public domain recordings of public domain books. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I likes me some literature, and all the sudden here's all the Twain, Dickens, Wodehouse, and Thoreau you'll need to keep you busy for a good while. You got'cher Oscar Wilde, yer Leo Tolstoy, and yer H.G. Wells. Edgar Rice Borroughs brings us the amazing Tarzan books, there's Dr. Dolittle, Sherlock Holmes, and a hefty lot of Oz books. I'm pretty sure Mr. Armadillo is quite (Plato!) through with hearing me randomly (Tom Swift!) shouting out nice finds throughout the last week or so (Dostoyevsky!).

I love to have an audiobook running while I work. It keeps my mind busy and I love to spend an afternoon tuned into a reading while making neat things. Audiobooks are hard to come by, though. They're pricey to buy, and it's hard for me to get them back to the library on time. Plus, our little branch has a pretty dismal selection, and the good ones can be hard to get ahold of. Finding LibriVox is like I've suddenly fallen into this amazing treasure trove, I can't even adequately describe how tickled I am over the whole thing.

I've already signed up to volunteer a reading, and I've got a really neat little collection of very old children's and young adult literature that will be fun to share, most are about dogs or horses or general adventure-type stuff, pirates and shipwrecks. If you know anyone with a Scottish or English accent that would be willing to do a reading, I have copies of Bob, Son of Battle and Greyfriars Bobby that I would give a great deal to hear properly read. Bob, Son of Battle is written in the Cumbrian dialect, but I imagine any English accent is going to do it more justice than my profoundly American voice.

The other fun thing I found was an el-cheapo set of public domain TV westerns on Amazon.com. With 300 episodes of a giant array of classic TV westerns like The Lone Ranger, Annie Oakley , Sugarfoot, and Wagon Train, this has been a fun find, too.

In other news, trapping season opens the 17th and we've got big plans for the late 2007 passage red tail population of Salem, Oregon. We are hoping for (predicting?) an according sharp drop in production, briefly following ;0).

And speaking of taking the occasional Saturday off...

I woke up this morning to a frickin' winter wonderland out there. Snow! I decided on the spot it was a good Saturday to stay home and catch up on some sewing. We're a bit swamped at the moment, and have some really neat projects in the works, to boot. So, in the interest of spending a quiet weekend rockin' the Juki, see you next Saturday!

Looking for a dog to keep you on your toes?

There's a couple of McNab mix pups in California looking for a good home. Mama looks like a shepherd cross; in an early post they call her a Canaan dog, but no real way to know. Mama was found roaming, in wretched shape. In being nursed back to health, she began to look a little suspiciously puffy around the middle, and a phone call confirmed she'd been consorting with a ranch dog in the area where she was found. In speaking with Jon, the owner, it sounds as though he's done a thoroughly conscientious job in raising and placing the puppies, and with two left, I offered to help spread the word.

McNabs are smart, busy, and serious working dogs. They need a job and to be provided with both physical and mental stimulation. These likely won't be "easy" dogs to raise, but put in the effort and you'll have an unparalleled companion. Plus, look at the faces on these guys!

Hercules and Agamemnon (AKA "Aggie"):






















Click here for the full story and more information on these guys!

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday Market!

Yesterday was Raw Dog's Eugene Saturday Market season opening day. Actually the second weekend for Market, but due to the addition of Wags to our roster, we bowed out of the first weekend.

Yesterday's weather was pristine--a gorgeous, clear and sunny, mid-seventies, perfect-for-misplacing-your-shoes April Saturday. I started out the market day by snagging the very last 4 x 4 space available, but ran into Jacqui of Rory's (delectable) Doghouse Cookies, with whom I share the Holiday Market booth. Jacqui's Saturday Market space is a lovely little inside corner with open space on one side, a rock wall and trees all around and behind. It's shady, across from the fountain, and at the cross of a T intersection. Also, it's a corner space so she's got two open sides. It's a sweet piece of Market real estate, and we're thrilled to be invited to share.

What this means is through this Market season you'll generally find us at Market space 39, on the fountain block. If you're crusing around the sidewalks, turn South at the pie lady, but don't forget to stop and buy all the blueberry pie she's got on hand. Trust me on this one; if we haven't cleaned her out, you'll want to get in on that action. We do occasionally take a Saturday off, especially likely when the weather is miserable, and if Jacqui's taking the day off we may take another booth space. If you need help finding us, you can always ask at the Info booth, on the Courthouse corner. Just keep an ear out for the drum circles if you misplace the info booth. ;0)

Meanwhile, highlights of the day kicked off with a cup of Dana's Cheesecake Factory's delicious hot chocolate and a chance encounter with a girl fairly new to the area who'd bailed out of New York City a few months ago, evidently having decided there were better things found elsewhere. In the first few sun-shiny market days, it's hard for new vendors to actually set up a booth space. Space allocation is done by seniority, and early (high-traffic) days are more likely to see vendors actually show up. And show up they do, everybody and their dogs.

Well, not their dogs, because believe it or not, the City of Eugene doesn't allow dogs within park borders. Let me say that again. A park that doesn't allow dogs. But, I digress.

So between high attendance among the veterans and scads of plucky new vendors yearning to hawk their wares, there are just aren't enough spaces available for all, and dozens of folks who took their market point and spent the day in the crowds, instead. My spunky East Coast friend managed to wrangle my empty 4 x 4, so more than one of us won out, there.

Other highlights of the day included RollerGirl Susie B. stopping by for a visit, Market lemonade and barbecued asparagus, the sweetest bluegrass I've heard in dog's years, and the chance to buy a hand-knapped obsidian skinning knife which hopefully will be seeing some use here, soon. We sold gear for a bloodhound, two dauchsunds, several labs, and a herd of pits, amstaffs, a toy poodle, and bulldogs of all types.

All in all a great kick-off to the season. Folks were out in droves, we ran into a bunch of old friends and made several new ones. We did one of our best days of business at Market in over a year, but it's a great way to spend your Saturday even when sales are slow. Come see us!

Onward and upward!

Today Raw Dog picked up a third retail account.
Wags, on Coburg, is now carrying Raw Dog gear!
It's a gorgeous little shop, check them out!

Welcome to Scrabulous.com

As though I needed another way to use up my time...
http://www.scrabulous.com/ --an online scrabble network!

I... really did not need to know that website existed, but now that I do I think my life is just about complete =D

Arion

Well, I released Arion the other day. It was a long and somewhat agonizing decision. I kept starting to write about it and then could never decide exactly what it was I wanted to say.
He was a great bird to handle, but I never could get him to fly. We think he may have had something going on--may have run into a power line or something prior to me picking him up. Whatever was happening there, there wasn't anything physically wrong with him, but I never could get him to fly past a certain distance. Even off the creance and free-flying, he just wouldn't fly more than about 70 feet.
We ruled out any physical, health issues and my sponsor had given me an enthusiastic pair of thumbs-up about his training, which she'd said had gone perfectly. It's just par for the course that not all birds are going to be suited for a working partnership with a human being.
It could be he had a hidden health issue, could have been neurological damage from hitting a power line or being hit by a car prior to me picking him up, could have just been an ultra laid-back bird that didn't have much motivation to fly when he was getting fed routinely anyway. Who knows?

In any case, it was a tremendously valuable experience. We fed him heavily up for several days, then set him out on a fence row in the middle of miles of wide-open grass pastures less than a quarter-mile from where he was trapped. No predators for miles. A small copse of trees nearby for cover. A little stream for water. No haggard birds nesting in the area to chase him away. We left him with at least a day or two worth of food and a full crop. He was so comfy that he stayed put on the fence post, even after we removed his furniture and walked away. We sat watching him for a while just to see if he'd go up in the trees or fly away, but he just sat there on his rat with a full crop digging the sunshine.

A friend asked me if I was worried about him, and my response was something along this line... he was doing just fine before I interrupted his life, and will do just fine without me. He might make it or might not, but their mortality rate in the wild is around 80% even under the best circumstances, and I kept him fed and flying through the rocky first year--so if nothing else, he's back in the breeding population with a season's worth of good food under his belt.

Good luck, big guy!

Dogos Rock!

A shoutout to the Dogo Argentino Club of America. The March fundraising auction is on in full force, and I invite you all to visit the Ebay auction--proceeds go to funding the national specialty and events hosted by the club around the country.

Raw Dog is represented in the auction, so if you're thinking of ordering something out of the online catalog, please consider bidding on this listing--the winner can choose any single item from the entire online catalog. The bidding is currently at $26, so you've got a chance to get yourself a piece at half or even a third the catalog price! 100% of the proceeds go to the DACA, so it's money well spent in two directions ;0)

Cheers!

RIP, Rubester =*(

My lovely Ruby died on Tuesday. She was thirteen and had lived a good, long life for an amelanistic cornsnake, but I sure am going to miss her beady-eyed, expressionless little face.

I'm surprised I'd never gotten around to taking more pictures of her. I took that one of her being held by a friend's little sister just after I'd graduated high school, when she was given to me as a graduation gift by my mentor, my high school art teacher. She had been the class pet. He said he wanted to see us both off and doing bigger and better things.

She wasn't much of a conversationalist, but she made for a nice terrarium decoration and liked a sun-warmed rock and thawed-out rodent as much as the next guy.

I planted her in my lily bed; the tiger lilies will be a nice way to remember her in the Spring. I figure, with her coloring she'd have clashed with the stargazers.

Goodnight, Rubester, I'll miss you. =*(

Optimism?

I've been hesitant to post until I know what's happening for sure.
What seems to be happening is improvement. They say aspergillosis is a one-way street. If he gets sick from it, he dies. Quickly.
Well, he's not dead, and he is preening, interested in his surroundings, bright-eyed, and responsive. He doesn't look like a sick bird.
He's fat, so he's fairly uninterested in flying, but it's definitely a different kind of uninterested than the lethargic, lackluster, mussed-up, and dull-eyed bird of a week or two ago.
He spent several cold nights in the house, both to save him the calories of keeping himself warm, and to keep him off the floor where he'd been spending all of his time. Spending a lot of time on the floor is bad for his feet, and a sign of a very sick bird. I put him in the mews yesterday after our daily workout, or non-workout as the case may be with a fat bird, and lo and behold not only did he spend the day on a window perch, he spent the night there, too.

All good signs.

He does have some bumblefoot issues, one big sore and lots of little ones, presumably from bacterial incursion into some scuffs he'd gotten over Christmas. All that standing around on the floor brings fecal bacteria into contact with the feet, and the abrasions turned into bumblefoot.
Randy Carnahan, a master falconer of some many years' experience took a look at it for me, and has given me some advice on how to care for them. He thinks that, despite my panic at their appearance, they're fairly minor-to-moderate but not terrible, and that if kept clean, they'll heal up just fine on their own.
If all goes well, we should be back to regular training soonish. I'm trying not to get my hopes up... too far.

Welcome to falconry, eh?

From an email I just wrote

An excerpt.

---
He is free-lofted in the mews, but has been spending all his time on the floor lately, and has gotten less and less responsive when flown. In retrospect, we think this is due to the frounce, but today Mr. Carnahan suggested he might have aspergillosis, which would explain why he was so tame right out of the trap.
I've attached a bunch of photos of the mews from all angles. It's 10' X 14', perches by the windows and a bow perch in the middle with a bath pan. One of the photos shows the corner where he's been spending the night, you can see the mutes where he stands. Normally he's been free-lofted, but after the foot treatment I figured it was better to keep him out of that corner, so I tethered him to the bow perch and put down some astroturf-type mats just now in case he goes to the floor tonight.
His response to food is getting better; after the flagyl he cast a pellet and then immediately started eating anything that looks even remotely edible and tears into food like he's starving, which I imagine he was. He's packing on weight but the state of his keel hasn't changed much, not that that's the most precise indicator. He's now at exactly the same weight he was when trapped. Mr. Carnahan told me to feed him up as much as he'll take and build his weight up, until he starts acting like a real ass, then keep him at that weight for a couple days before starting to work him down again. He thinks if his weight was like this when I picked him up that he was in pretty bad shape on the trap. He is very weak, he can only jump a few feet from the ground to the glove, and will only fly about ten to fifteen feet before hitting the ground and running the rest of the way.

Burt diagnosed frounce due to his behavior and the regurgitation. I couldn't see any cheesy plaques, at all, but could feel some lumpiness around his esophagus and crop. He was having trouble swallowing food, and there was that regurgitation, was weak, only moderately responsive, and a little wheezy. I have not fed him any pigeon at all, just goose, quail, cottontail, and nutria. I picked up some duck yesterday and have started giving him that.

He was very calm on the trap and easy to man. He's trained easy as pie, which though great at the time, in retrospect I find worrisome. He was always very eager and responsive, but would never fly past a certain distance, about 100ft along the creance line. We started free-flying him, thinking he just didn't like the drag of the creance, but he still wouldn't come any further, though he was eager and responsive up to that distance.
We decided his weight was too low, and I began to feed him up to bring his weight and condition up. Even still, he became less responsive, which may be because he was comfortably well-fed and thus not motivated, but also in retrospect may be because he's getting sicker and sicker. One day he just refused to fly more than a few feet, and was gagging like he was attempting to cast a pellet. He hadn't cast in several days. Eventually he chucked up a few small bits of meat, which he promptly grabbed and ate again, and regurgitated again, and ate before I could grab it, and so on. He had, previously, had some difficulty swallowing. Burt dx'ed frounce based on these symptoms.
We treated for frounce, his condition seemed to improve--or at least his appetite did, anyway, but he flies shorter and shorter distances, and now will only jump about ten feet to the glove, or about two feet ground-to-glove. I haven't heard any gurgling or wet wheezing sounds, but have heard noticeably "windy" breathing after light exertion--though only sometimes. Definitely no open-mouthed breathing, or labored breathing, just... windy sounds. Slightly noisy breathing, but like I said, not all the time. He eats everything I put in front of him and is heavier now than trapped, though his keel still feels very sharp to me. I've been dusting his food with vitahawk, if that matters.
He also had a wound in his foot which I've been treating with betadine flushes and packing with TAO.
He seems to bathe daily, but hasn't preened himself much in the last two days or so and is looking decidedly roughed-up.

My sponsors are currently travelling out of the country. The prognosis as given by the master falconers I spoke with said that if he does have asper, there's not much to be done, and I should just keep feeding him up and providing supportive care, and see how he does once fed up. It seems a reasonable course of action, but I would like to know, and to put him down if the alternative is to let him slowly die from lung infection.

Welcome to falconry, eh?

Climbing back up...

Things seem to be slowly improving. He's back up above his trapped weight, but keel still feels very sharp. He was so fat yesterday he didn't want to fly at all, just pulled a foot up in his belly feathers and sat there looking at me, whistling away at him. Hrmph!
So he went out to weather and enjoy the chilly Oregon sunshine. I pulled a 3/4" disc of ice out of his bath pan, brr... no wonder he hasn't been bathing! He's looking decidedly worse for the wear, as I don't think he's been preening for the last week or so. His tail is also pretty ragged, he's been spending nearly all his time on the gravel floor of the mews instead of perched.
Was hoping to take him to hunt this weekend at the Oregon Falconer's Association Winter field meet, but he's pretty weak, so no hunts for us for a while. We're just doing relays of ground-to-glove jumps, and short flights to build up his flight muscle and bring him back into condition. I may haul him to the meet just to have a field of experienced folks look him over and help me figure out how to proceed from here, but we'll see.
In either case, I'm really looking forward to the meet. It's a lot of fun to hang around these folks, quite aside from the incredible hawking I expect we'll see. Also, I have for donation to the raffle, an amazing handmade hawking hoodie from Heidi of Urban Ninja Wear, with a hawk pulling-up on one shoulder and running rabbit coming around the hip.

I'm down with some kind of stomach bug today, but even still there's no break from this. He's exactly at trapped weight today so should be expected to show some kind of response--on the theory that if he was hunting when trapped he must have been hungry, or he wouldn't have come down to the trap. Combat weight is expected to be roughly ten percent lower than trapped weight, but his keel still feels awfully sharp to me.

Blue skies! (Kind of)

Well, the last treatment was yesterday, he's tearing into food like he's never seen it before, and cast a pellet early yesterday morning... SO, by all indications things should be just fine. Blue skies for Arion, though overcast, gray skies for the rest of Oregon =).

He's weak, he's lost a lot of muscle mass between being sick and lack of flying, so we'll ease back into it with a series of short vertical jumps, then short flights, working into longer flights on the creance, then back to free-flying and hunting as soon as possible. My main concern right now is packing the weight on him to bring him back up to his trapped weight, so we can get a real picture of what his healthy combat weight should be.

This second go-round will be interesting from a training point of view, because he may (or may not) be a totally different bird this time. He was awfully quick to train, which is not unusual, but may not be so laid-back when he's feeling good as when he was ill, and handling may be more of a challenge. We'll see! Never a lack of new adventures, that's for sure.

Scary stuff

Arion is ill.
We couldn't figure out why we were having to push his weight down so far to get an active response--24-25 oz is low even for a tiercel RT. His keel was so sharp at that weight, by all rights he should have been ravenous... but at 28, 27, 26 oz he just wasn't terribly interested. He'd fly, he'd eat, he responded, but not with any particular zeal.

We took him out for his first free flight last week and, as usual, he was responsive but not keen. He had a couple decent flights, things went okay, but something just wasn't right.

Over the next couple days he became less and less interested in flying, until one day he just sat on the perch with no response at all. He was acting like he was trying to cast a pellet, over and over opening his mouth wide, bobbing his head, trying to yak it up but nothing was happening. After a few minutes he chucked up a small piece of meat he'd flown for a few minutes before.

That's when I called Callan and that's when the connections were made. He has frounce. It's a protozoan, Trichomonas, if you PPH ladies can believe that old friend.

Thinking back over the past few weeks, I remember hard flights and very slight wheezing. I remember taking longer than it should to swallow a tidbit of food. I remember slow response times and low weights despite huge volumes of food. I remember sudden sharp yarak, pleasing to see at the time. The one thing missing is the classic symptom--cheesy plaque in the mouth and throat. He could, and very likely does, have it built up in his esophagus or crop, invisible to me but making it difficult and painful to swallow, another reason he hasn't cast a pellet in five or six days.

This, among a million other reasons, is why we serve a two-year apprenticeship in the US. Frounce is, luckily, easy to treat and red tails are difficult to kill, good for both Arion and me as untreated it's likely to kill them in fairly short order once they start exhibiting visible symptoms. Wild animals don't get sick and languish; visible symptoms make a you an easy target. When birds of prey get sick, they're fine one day then belly-up the next and you get your answers in a necropsy.

The symptoms I saw, painfully clear in retrospect, went right by me. Without the guidance of my sponsors I'd have had a dead hawk in a few days. He's been treated with Flagyl, last course tomorrow, and with any luck the disease is dead and the plaques will recede enough for him to eat comfortably and gain weight within a week or two. The chances are very good he'll be just fine. I'm feeding him ground cottontail, small amounts several times a day, and he's stuffing down everything I offer him and is severely pissed there's not more when he's done. He's drinking and bathing daily, is preening and he's in good feather.

Even still, every time I check on him I'm terrified I'll find him dead.

I will never, never forget how incredibly, remarkably easily I could have killed my hawk in sheer ignorance. I've got two years, and a whole lot to learn.

On the horizon...

Just now back to work for real, for the first time since all the weirdness. Am cranking through orders like mad and promise to have everything in the post on Monday! We have stuff shipping out to Texas, Illinois, and Florida, amongst others.

Arion and I are getting along quite nicely. After a couple days of terrible weather and surly attitudes about flying in it, we had two very nice workouts over the past two days. I think we're at combat weight--or he is, anyway, I've still got a bit to go on that one ;0)--and Callan thinks we're ready to ditch the creance as soon as there's a good, clear day for it. Hooray!

In the meantime I'll keep working on making him to the lure and conditioning his flight muscles with ground-to-glove jumps and increasing flight distance on the creance, though I think he hates the feel of the drag.

Yesterday we were flying on the football field at the local middle school. I didn't know anyone else was there, but we gathered a bit of a crowd when they came out to see what all the whistling was about. Oops.