#mazel the wolfdog

[gallusrostromegalus]

My housemate reminded me of a flashbulb memory I have that I really wish I had a photograph of because it would be a magnificent image to inflict on the internet at large with Zero Context, but I'll try to describe it here, and then draw it after dinner.

Image Description:

As seen from about three feet off the ground: Interior, the den of an american suburban house built at the height of the atomic age and still decorated like it years later. There's dark wood paneling about halfway up the walls that offsets the almost neon pink-orange light of late sunset visible through the large window. Every object in the room is highlighted by the last of the sunlight. The only other light in the room is a TV set that was manufactured the same year Howdy Doody debuted on air, now broadcasting PBS Newshour in black and white.

Closest to the viewer, there is a small end table with a Nearly Full Martini glass, and a Half-empty glass Martini Pitcher, indicating that two of the five martinis it holds have been poured out.

Just behind it, an old man sits in a chair that was bright green and yellow when it was new but is now more Grellow. The man is in his mid-sixites, somewhat heavyset, with a full head of snow-white hair and thick glasses. He's wearing a dark brown tweed suit with leather elbow patches, and a white cotton button-up. He's watching the news with a calm and dispassionate demeanor. Tired, but still engrossed with the world's events. He's wearing dark brown penny loafers and garish argyle socks.

Behind him is a couch that is a matched set with the armchair, with the same Grellow chevron pattern, but there is a very large crochet afghan that has been spread out over the back to be decorative and maybe protect the couch from it's current occupant: a 120lb Wolf Hybrid.

She's seated lengthwise on the couch, like she had also been watching PBS Newshour, posed like a sphynx. She's close in wieght to the man, and definitely taller than him if she stands up, with a dark gray agouti coat and a bit of white countershading from the trace of domestic dog in her. She's turned her head to the viewer, bright yellow eyes focused on them, and the fur of her head and neck haloed with the sunset. She is pleased to see the veiwer, which means most of the teeth in her lower jaw are visible in her canine grin. The effect is very menacing if you don't know her.

Clutched rather neatly between her front paws is a second, identical martini glass, only not nearly quite so full as the old man's.

Title: "Oh, I didn't think you'd be back for another hour/GODDAMIT EDWIN"

[gallusrostromegalus]

Mazel the "Husky mix" (the thing the husky was mixed with was a fucking wolf) did love to get herself up to high places so she could watch everything. Never got up on the cabinets or broke a vase though.

Because she'd get up on the roof.

[other-indoor-sports]

@gallusrostromegalus

Look I found Mazel.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Hi! where did you get the name Mazel from for your dog? my great-grandmother's name was Masel and we've been desperately trying to figure out where the hell it comes from for decades. thank you!

Mazel (Pronounced Mah-zell) is Hebrew for "Blessing" as in "Mazel tov!" and it was the name that was given to her by the Magician who used her as an animal in his magic show before he left her pregnant at the East Palo Alto animal shelter so who knows what he was thinking.

"Maisel" is a Jewish surname, which some modern people have considered as a given name but it's sorta weird, like naming your kid "Mendez Smith". "Masie" is a pretty common given name in the US, and sometimes first names get spelled a bit sideways, especially if it's the parents want to honor Grandma Mabel AND Grandma Hazel, which is how my friend's mom got named after her grandmothers Bella and Janet by being named "Janella". Which is possibly better than "Benet", but I'm not sure.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Hey! They had a thing like this at my preschool, because not only is it a great entertainment center, its also a great tool for teaching toddlers fine motor skills.

We also had a board with the fronts of shirts, jackets etc cut out and mounted so we could fool around with and learn how to use buttons, zippers, velcro etc, which meant I was dressing myself pretty early.

We also had leftover keyboards, computer mice (sans cables) and a mix and match board of connector cables (bolted down and too short to strangle ourselves with) because I lived in silicon valley in the early 90's when the tech boom was happening and parents would donate computer stuff for us to fuck around with.

Im looking at those gate locks up there and that's a bit of a bespoke parenting- Dad does run the risk of teaching this toddler how to escape a gated area like the yard, but if the kid isn't prone to wandering, it's a good safety thing for him to learn.

Some other things to put on a fine motor skills stimboard: doorknobs and handles, switches and buttons (esp of you can wire them up to do something- kids learn patterns way earlier than you might think), window locks and cranks, assorted textures like carpet, fabrics, those reversible sequins, pebbles, sandpaper etc, the tops of jars with different kinds of lids top open and close, and (if you can stand it) anything that makes noises.

But pretty much anything that can be fiddled with, changed by touching and is safe to nom on is a good thing.

An additional caveat, from my own youth: if the fine motor boards are down at toddler height, dogs, cats, most pet birds and some reptiles will also play with and learn to manipulate these things. Which is also good mental stimulation for them but you can give your animals interesting ideas about what is ok to handle and teach them skills you might not want them to know.

(photo via princessmisery)

[gallusrostromegalus]

Pls stop spreading misinformation on wolfdogs. Your wolfdog could have never been as docile or easy to keep as you claim, if it was a real wolf dog. Please stop making people think wild animals can be pets, it hurts real wolves and leads to the abuse and creation of real wolfdogs, that always end up in shelters for their extreme aggression, especially for children. packwestwolfdogrescue post 136651561365 explains how hard it actually is to keep a real wolfdog. Your Mazel story is a harmful lie

To be totally clear, I am of the opinion that people SHOULD NOT keep wolfdogs as pets, should NOT breed wolfdogs, or anything simmilar.  That post was a love letter to a good friend I had growing up, but should also be read as “HOLY SHIT THAT COULD HAVE GONE BADLY.”  My family got extremely lucky with Mazel, but if I found a wolfdog at a shelter now?  I’d do my best to make sure it got taken to a rescue.

Absolutely nothing in my post was a fabrication, and I have presented the facts about Mazel to the best of my knowledge.  However, some more context might be helpful in understanding WHY things did not go badly:

I call Mazel High-content in the original post because that’s what the vet told us.  Further reading from sources more diplomatic than yourself indicate she was more likely mid-to-low content.

Literally nobody in my house yelled.  Ever.  It was a rule.  If you had a disagreement, you took a time out and waited until you’d calmed down enough to talk about it in a civilized manner.  There was also no alcohol or other intoxicants in the house.  It was a very sober, calm and quiet place.

Mazel was probably five when my parents got her, and seven when I was born.  Very much a settled adult who had been living with humans her whole life by then, not a younger animal that wasn’t used to people.

Mazel was never allowed to play with us as babies/toddlers without at least one adult in the room with us, usually on the blanket right next to her.  More than a few times, mom and dad had to separate us because she wanted to play harder than we could handle, but they were there to make sure nobody got hurt.

When I say she went to pick me up from school- I lived immediately across the street from school, so I would come out of my classroom and call her to come... from where my mom was standing 50 feet away in the driveway.  She was also about 12 when we started doing this.

Mom and Dad put a HELL of a lot of time and effort into bonding with her, making the house a safe place and making her a part of the family.  She wasn’t like most dogs that are eager to please and easy-going, but they really rose to the occasion of training her, and continued to stay on top of monitoring her behavior throughout her entire life.

Furthermore- Have a little faith in the average reader?  I can read posts about jumping buses on motorcycles or eating cow brains or whatever and go “Wow!  So Cool! I’m never doing that!”.  The tags on the post are full of people who go “Neat!  But not a great idea”.  I can love the dangerous and dumb parts of my childhood without endorsing them, and I think most readers are smart enough to understand that distinction.  

I get that you’re upset- this is a sensitive and emotional issue for a lot of people, but inflammatory language and accusations are not going to do any good.  If you want to talk about the issue, come off anon so we can have an actual discussion, and mind your manners.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Is there a photo of Mazel??? I'd just really like to see her now :D

Mazel passed away in 2002, before my family got a digital camera- so all the photos I have of her are prints on the walls of my parent’s house.  I’ll be home in May, so I’ll scan and post them then, but in the meantime, here’s a quick sketch I drew of us going out for Froyo:

You can see why nobody ever bothered me.

[gallusrostromegalus]

jolly ranchers or disassociation bears

So when i was like… Six? Seven?  My family and my Dad’s parents took a trip back to Iowa to see the family there and record a video of all the places Grandpa grew up.  Which resulted, at one point, in all of us hiking out to a cement slab int he middle of a cornfield and Grandpa saying “This is where the schoolhouse USED to be.”

The whole thing is pretty hazy becuase I was having heatstroke/carsickness most of the time but I remember the following:  

Grandma in the backseat with me and my sister, working on the HUGE catherdal window quilt she hand-stitched to pass the time.  It ended up being about 9ft by 12 ft when she was done, and we still have it at my parent’s house.

an ungodly amount of corn

which I realize everyone says about iowa, but the corn is one of the few thingsi recall with VIVID detail- the musty but very ALIVE smell of it photosynthesizing, the rouch texture of the leave and how my bare arms and legs got scratched up from hell to breakfast when i went wandering it.  The violently geometric rows that would snap back to noneuclidian madness- I could never get to where I intended if i tried to cut across fields- Always on the wrong side or too far past where I wanted to come out.  or on the wrong property, on one occasion.

You’re never alone in those fields, not really.  There’s a distinct Otherness about being three feet tall in the midst of six-foot corn, the closeness, with gaps where you can see forever and ever, the constant rustling like you’re being pursued.  I’m willing to chalk a lot up to paranoia but I know the Wolfdog has better senses than me and that when she growled at something, she meant business.

The one thing we did find in a field was a swan.

Just chilling, sitting in one of the troughs.  It was there with a bunch of Canada geese, hiding in the shade from the midday heat.  It let me get within arms length before putting it’s head up, looking me dead in the eye from a sitting position. It began a low, continuous buzz, like bagpipes right before they scream.  Mazel warned it with a low “Whurf” noise, and it stared her down for a minute, before it decided I had some kind of prior permission and decided I could stay.

I also found a small ceramic otter, half buried in the dirt.

That field used to be a lake, apparently.

I’d also never been anywhere with lightning bugs prior to that august, and didn’t believe them until one of the Iowa cousins caught one for me and showed me that it was, in fact a bug and not the lawn about to explode from swap gas.

Maybe I was just sweaty and prone to spilling punch on myself but they rather liked me, landing all over my skin and hair.  I felt lighter than air when they came, like I could float away with them into the night.

To the point where I went chasing them rather far into the woods until I ran into an old barb-wire fence, mostly rotted and easy to pass, covered in blackberries. I was about to cross when half a dozen turkeys came running full-tilt at and then past me, hardly chattering at all.  I decided to take their lack of words and went hack to the cabin.

So you have some context for the WEIRD part of the trip.

We’re driving around the county of I can’t remember I was six and Grandpa is driving, and he turns down what I’d assumed was another dirt road when Mom starts asking about “Uh, do you actually KNOW the people who live here?”  “Oh pshaw. it’ll be fine.” and I realized we were in some backwater Iowan’s DRIVEWAY, pulling up to a house, right about the time when the Bull charged the car.

“EDWIN THERE’S A BULL.”  Shrieked my grandma, grabbing both me and my sister and heroically yanking us out our seatbelts and to the other side of the car, behind the quilt, in hopes it would protect us from potential impalement.  Gandpa, Bless Him, stopped the fucking car and leaned out the window to look.

“Aren’t you handsome!” He laughed and the half-ton of angry pot roast stopped up short, blinking stupidly, before cautiously trotting up the rest of the way and attempting to stick his head in the car for skritches.  He was stopped by the fact that his horns didn’t fit in the damn window.

Grandpa proceeds to drive the rest of the way up to the house, bull following us, before casually… getting out of the car, walking right up to the front door and ringing the bell.  A Pair of the most American Gothic-looking people answer, looking bewildered at the elderly, plaid-covered man in front of them, offering them a ham of hand.

“My name’s Edwin, and I grew up on this farm- Did you ever meet the Fitzgerald’s?  I was hoping I could show my family around where I was a boy.”

“Oh my god.” Said my mother, burying her face in the seat. “He’s going to be shot.”

“OH WELL COME ON IN!” The Gothic Americans say, apparently thrilled. “WE’VE GOT PIE AND LEMONADE AND AIR CONDITIONING.”

“…Or not.”  mom shrugs, relived.  For the moment.

So the family piles out of the car and into this house, which while rustic and probably charming, is also crammed to the brink with more fucking memento mori than a dutch painting museum that got invaded by a Dia De Los muertos parade.  

I’m talking taxidermy animals, portraits where everyone is skeletons, mannequins covered in flowing cloaks, pinned insects and pressed flowers, tiny skeleton dolls sitting in corners,  a literal wall of scythes, a hall of livestock skulls and on the mantelpiece, in a glass bell jar, an actual human skull.  I, six years old and a weirdo, am immediately in love with this place. 

“That’s Great-Uncle Richard.” The lady says, fondly.  “He’s the one that your grandpa’s family sold the farm to!”

“COOL.” I say as Grandma takes out her rosary.

“COME ON IN FOR SOME PIE.” hollers the gentleman from the kitchen.  We go in and there is not one but like, SIX fucking pies on the table and milk and lemonade and whiskey and an angelfood cake and it’s all very Norman Rockwell except for the part where the kitchen is Not Immune and there’s a centerpiece pf chipmunks taxidermied to be drinking tea in the center.  I am DELIGHTED, my grandmother is praying harder.  My mom had decided she’s going to enjoy this encounter and sits down for a lemonade and a slice of apple pie while my Dad gently tell my two-year old sister to not lick the skeletons.

Everyone has a grand time sitting around the table with these people, Lucille and Barry, talking about the history of the farm and long-passed relatives and crop yields and whatnot.  Except for my grandmother, who is Too Catholic For This, and when my ADHD ass gets bored and asks to go look at the animals, says she’ll go with me, despite being decidedly non agrarian.

We go outside to find Mazel sitting in the water trough, becuase being part husky in Iowa in August is HARD, and sometimes one needs to get soaked up to the neck to cope.  The Bull is displeased by Strange Dogs sitting in his trough, but she leveled him with a look and low noise that was more rumble than growl to remind him she was Canis Lupis Decidedly-Less-Familiaris and she ate his cousins ground up for breakfast and he decided he had important Bull Business on the other side of the barn.

We get into the barn where there were about 20 dairy cattle having a nap in the shade that afternoon before milking, and I point up and shout ‘LOOK GRANDMA JUST LIKE CHURCH’.  Growing up agnostic had left me fuzzier on certain religious matters, and I naturally assumed that the gaunt, rather tortured looking figure hanging from the rafters was a crucified Jesus.

It was not.

It was, I would later learn, a sculpture of Great-Aunt Margret, wife of Richard-on-the-mantle, who had a wild sense of humor and had left instructions that she wanted to be strung up to watch over her beloved cows and also to terrify any would-be rustlers. Her family had the good sense to not leave an actual corpse hanging from the rafters, but whoever made that scultpure did a Damn Fine job capturing the pants-shitting terror Margret had been after.  Grandma attempted to haul me out of there but I was much more interested in the cows, and merrily fed them scattered bit of hay through the bars of the queuing area before the milking stall under Margret’s watchful eyeless sockets.

I also found a nest of pitch-black kittens, a white and very arthritic hound that managed to get up and follow me around the barn anyway, and a fat, green-black chicken that came up to my navel and wanted chin scratches.  There were various other odd  decorations scattered around the property- the large, wrought-iron sculpture in the middle of the duck pond was particularly choice.  It was constructed of several arches and a few curled spikes, so that when it was viewed with a reflection on a still day, it formed an eye.  It was a splendid afternoon.

When I got back to the car, grandma had added another seventeen cathedral windows to the quilt out of spite and was ready to wring my grandfather’s neck.  We hauled mazel out of the trough, patted the bull goodbye and left with some lovely family history and a furious grandmother.

Lucille and Barry passed away a while ago, but we always exchanged christmas cards, and I’m still Facebook friends with their daughter, Juliet.  She;s thinking about turning the farm into an eco-amusement park.

So to actually answer your question, Jolly Ranchers.

[gallusrostromegalus]

See I don't think this is the case because Charlie causes almost no chaos at all ever, and he weighs only a few pounds more than Herschel. They do have a very similar mass and internal volume and wildly different total concentrations. Furthermore, Mazel was 125% the size of Tyr and a solid 75% leg and she had more chaos in her left dewclaw than the rest of the dog park put together.

No I have a borderline scientific hypothesis about this.

The thing humans call "Chaos" in dogs is really the ability to think independently- instead of behaving in predictable/trained ways, these are dogs that are capable of coming up with and executing their own designs on the world around them.

This is actually an extremely desirable feature in many types of dogs that humans have selectively bred for. Indepenent intelllect is GREAT for herding dogs who have to theory-of mind the Livestock they're sorting and how the human wants them sorted and work out how to actually DO that. It's also desireable in a lot of small game dogs- there a great number of dogs humans have bred for the task of "Get under the house/behind the farming equipment in the shed/in the little crevices of the kitchen and murder tf out of any small to medium animal in there, and flush out any large ones. LGDs on the other hand, need to behave in extremely predictable ways so the human can make an educated guess of what the hell the dog actually DID with all the livestock while out in the back of beyond and find them again. Retrieving and hunting dogs need to be extremely predictable for much the same reason- if you send a lab out after a duck in the foggy marsh and it doesn't come back right away, there's only a handful of reasons that are easy to check so you don't have to grid search the marsh, and once it's got the deer or rabbit at bay, that the hunting dog can be relied upon to not tear the meat to shreds before the hunter can catch up.

Therefore, a peculiarity emerges- due to the fact that independently intellectual dogs often have to work in close spaces (Dachshund, basset hound, chihuahua) or need to keep low to avoid high-kicking livestock (Corgi, Australian cattle dog), a lot of the dogs that have been bred to be the change they wish to see in the world were also bred to be short stack bitches. And many dogs that need legs too long for the cover of vouge to run hither and yon after sheep or stag were bread to be loving little bimbos.

...Mazel, on the other hand. She was a Beautiful crime against nature and an affront to both God and The Devil. Mazel was a Malamute/Timber Wolf hybrid with the cunning and ruthless mind needed to lead a pack to dominate the Taiga and Tundra alike combined with the unfettered and joyful hubris of something that runs the iditarod for fun and play-bows at polar bears. It would be great sport for her to chase the devil through all nine rings of hell and then when that got boring, steal God's place on the throne of heaven to chill and Observe From On High.

The real predictor for how much chaos is in a dog is to consider the shape that humanity intended this creature to occupy in the world, and how the wolf within would cheerfully misinterpret that intent.

Do you have a theory about why dogs with short legs are so chaotic?

All dogs are chaotic to at least some degree, it's just more shocking from the short ones because they bear an uncanny resemblance to plush toys. They look like teddy bears, but make no mistake, this is a wolf with social graces and the knowledge that you are VERY easily manipulated by Cuteness.

[gallusrostromegalus]

JUST TO BE CLEAR:

So, uh, the Post with mazel, my family’s hybrid wolfdog, took off in a big way, and while I mention dome of the drawbacks of having her as a pet, iw ould like to stress the Following: IN GENERAL, WOLFDOGS DO NOT MAKE GOOD PETS, AND SHOULD ONLY BE HANDLED BY HIGHLY EXPERIENCED OWNERS.

My mother had experience with a wide variety of animals including several large dogs and a Neurotic German Shepherd, and even then, Mazel was hard work to train and keep safe/healthy.  We really lucked out on her health and temperament, but the following issues are frequent with hybrids:

PREY DRIVE: I am absolutely not kidding about the Getting-Woken-Up-By-Having-Half-A-Possum-Thrown-At-You.  Mazel frequently hunted, caught and killed the local wildlife.  She got along with the two cats in the house but definitely stalked the neighborhood ones.

AGGRESSION WITH OTHER DOGS: Mazel was very much the Alpha Bitch at the park, but was definitely more than willing to snap at and tackle the shit out of other dogs who rubbed her the wrong way.  Mom had to break up more than one scrap.

HEALTH ISSUES: Again, we were really lucky with her, but just because an animal is a hybrid doesn’t mean it’s going to be healthy.  Part of the issue is that people aren’t really supposed to be breeding hybrids- Owning a Pure wolf is illegal in the US and many states (they ARE an endangered species), counties and cities ban hybrids.  So anyone who’s breeding them intentionally is... probably not engaging in best practices.  Issues like Inbreeding and Mill conditions are common among “backyard breeders”, which can lead to VERY sick animals.  Accidental Wolfdogs may fare better, but it’s still very much a lottery.  Mazel specifically, was probably the result of breeding an illegally owned animal.

KIDS: Mazel adored me and my sister, but we ended up with more than a few bruises and cuts because she was too rough playing with us or gave us a light snap to tell us she’d had enough.  

CONTAINMENT:  Wolfdogs need a TON of exercise and mental stimulation to be happy, along with WAY more spatial reasoning capacity than domestic dogs, all of which adds up to an animal that WILL break out of the yard and take a joyrun around the neighborhood for shits and giggles.  Mazel was being walked/run an average of six miles a day, PLUS two hours cardio in the dog park. And that was when she was a senior citizen.  You need a high-grade enclosure, lots of things to do and the time ti exercise them.

TRAINING:  Dogs are trainable mostly because they have a high social intelligence and a general want to get along with people.  Wolfdogs... have differing social priorities and absolutely will train you back, and many dog training methods simply will not work.  Mom said training Mazel was more like raising an unruly teenager than training a dog.  

http://www.missionwolf.org/page/wolf-dog-questionnaire/ is a great and informative website with a good list of Thing To Ask Yourself Before Getting a Wolfdog.

[angstandhappiness]

LMAO, WILD

My housemate reminded me of a flashbulb memory I have that I really wish I had a photograph of because it would be a magnificent image to inflict on the internet at large with Zero Context, but I'll try to describe it here, and then draw it after dinner.

Image Description:

As seen from about three feet off the ground: Interior, the den of an american suburban house built at the height of the atomic age and still decorated like it years later. There's dark wood paneling about halfway up the walls that offsets the almost neon pink-orange light of late sunset visible through the large window. Every object in the room is highlighted by the last of the sunlight. The only other light in the room is a TV set that was manufactured the same year Howdy Doody debuted on air, now broadcasting PBS Newshour in black and white.

Closest to the viewer, there is a small end table with a Nearly Full Martini glass, and a Half-empty glass Martini Pitcher, indicating that two of the five martinis it holds have been poured out.

Just behind it, an old man sits in a chair that was bright green and yellow when it was new but is now more Grellow. The man is in his mid-sixites, somewhat heavyset, with a full head of snow-white hair and thick glasses. He's wearing a dark brown tweed suit with leather elbow patches, and a white cotton button-up. He's watching the news with a calm and dispassionate demeanor. Tired, but still engrossed with the world's events. He's wearing dark brown penny loafers and garish argyle socks.

Behind him is a couch that is a matched set with the armchair, with the same Grellow chevron pattern, but there is a very large crochet afghan that has been spread out over the back to be decorative and maybe protect the couch from it's current occupant: a 120lb Wolf Hybrid.

She's seated lengthwise on the couch, like she had also been watching PBS Newshour, posed like a sphynx. She's close in wieght to the man, and definitely taller than him if she stands up, with a dark gray agouti coat and a bit of white countershading from the trace of domestic dog in her. She's turned her head to the viewer, bright yellow eyes focused on them, and the fur of her head and neck haloed with the sunset. She is pleased to see the veiwer, which means most of the teeth in her lower jaw are visible in her canine grin. The effect is very menacing if you don't know her.

Clutched rather neatly between her front paws is a second, identical martini glass, only not nearly quite so full as the old man's.

Title: "Oh, I didn't think you'd be back for another hour/GODDAMIT EDWIN"

[gallusrostromegalus]

So the Context for this is that this was the third or fouth time this had happened.

The FIRST time was when my parents decided to take a long weekend up in Mendecino to concieve me. It's apparently highly unusual for people to know within a 72-hour window of when they were created, much less what album their parent's packed (Paul Simon's Graceland) but I have to say, the amount of forethought and planning that went into my creation makes me feel very loved.

One of the things they had to Plan was for someone to watch the "Dog". Mazel had already been banned from two pet daycares and forsaken from three different petsitting services and most of my parent's coworkers in the two years that they had had her, mostly because she was distressingly smart, extremely good at leaving anywhere she did not want to be, and was entirely willing to take people with her when she wanted to go.

She was, however, exceptionally fond of my grandparents, probably because my grandfather could make friends with anyone, and my grandmother was also That Bitch (TM) when needed so Mazel felt very secure that Grandma could handle any REAL problems that might occur, so she was free to manipulate grandpa into doing whatever she wanted. Like going to the extremely expensive Golf Course nearby and letting her stalk the Bourgeoisie for fun.

Now, my grandfather was never drunk in front of his children, absolutely never got behind the wheel of a car if he was not 100% alert and was one of the gentlest souls on the planet, but he lived before they invented SSRI's and so he coped with the Depression, ADHD and PTSD he never talked about by coming home from work, sitting down in His Chair and drinking an entire pitcher of Martinis while he watched the news.

It's what passed for Self-Care the 1950's.

Anyway, before they left, Mom happened to mention to Grandpa that Mazel sometimes liked to sit on the couch and watch the news with her, so don't be surprised if she wants to do that with you.

What my grandfather apparently heard was "She's a sociable creature, you should be sociable too, and in the style of a Silent Generation Irish-American Man, pour the nice lady a drink as well :)"

Both my parents lectured Grandpa extensively about how YOU SHOULD NOT GIVE DOGS ALCOHOL, AT ALL, EVER! WE DON'T CARE IF SHE DIDN'T SEEM TO FEEL IT!!

What my grandfather apparently heard was "It's fine but you shouldn't worry your daughter-in-law while she is carrying your first grandchild, so just don't tell her next time :)"

A few years later my parents took another trip to Mendecino to make my sister and I spent three days with one of my parent's friends and her pet macaw that gave me a permanent and entirely justified fear of parrots, but they came back, collected me and took me with them to collect Mazel. We made startlingly good time for California Traffic, and I, age three, sprinted into the house to see my beloved Lupine Guardian, to be greeted with the scene described above.

Granpa, realizing he'd been caught in the act, decided to pretend the thing my parents were turning red about was him not meeting them at the door and not, say, the fact he'd been lightly poisoning Mazel or the prospect of having to take a drunk wolf to an unfamiliar vet, said "Oh sorry, I thought you wouldn't be here for another hour!"

Which is how I learned my grandpa's middle name was "Richard" and that you could all-three-names an adult if you wanted to, which is an unholy amount of power for an autistic preschooler to have.

(I decided it looked a bit like an Album Cover, so I made it one. Feat songs like "Three-name family" and "Pebble Beach Predator Bedlam")

---

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My housemate reminded me of a flashbulb memory I have that I really wish I had a photograph of because it would be a magnificent image to inflict on the internet at large with Zero Context, but I'll try to describe it here, and then draw it after dinner.

Image Description:

As seen from about three feet off the ground: Interior, the den of an american suburban house built at the height of the atomic age and still decorated like it years later. There's dark wood paneling about halfway up the walls that offsets the almost neon pink-orange light of late sunset visible through the large window. Every object in the room is highlighted by the last of the sunlight. The only other light in the room is a TV set that was manufactured the same year Howdy Doody debuted on air, now broadcasting PBS Newshour in black and white.

Closest to the viewer, there is a small end table with a Nearly Full Martini glass, and a Half-empty glass Martini Pitcher, indicating that two of the five martinis it holds have been poured out.

Just behind it, an old man sits in a chair that was bright green and yellow when it was new but is now more Grellow. The man is in his mid-sixites, somewhat heavyset, with a full head of snow-white hair and thick glasses. He's wearing a dark brown tweed suit with leather elbow patches, and a white cotton button-up. He's watching the news with a calm and dispassionate demeanor. Tired, but still engrossed with the world's events. He's wearing dark brown penny loafers and garish argyle socks.

Behind him is a couch that is a matched set with the armchair, with the same Grellow chevron pattern, but there is a very large crochet afghan that has been spread out over the back to be decorative and maybe protect the couch from it's current occupant: a 120lb Wolf Hybrid.

She's seated lengthwise on the couch, like she had also been watching PBS Newshour, posed like a sphynx. She's close in wieght to the man, and definitely taller than him if she stands up, with a dark gray agouti coat and a bit of white countershading from the trace of domestic dog in her. She's turned her head to the viewer, bright yellow eyes focused on them, and the fur of her head and neck haloed with the sunset. She is pleased to see the veiwer, which means most of the teeth in her lower jaw are visible in her canine grin. The effect is very menacing if you don't know her.

Clutched rather neatly between her front paws is a second, identical martini glass, only not nearly quite so full as the old man's.

Title: "Oh, I didn't think you'd be back for another hour/GODDAMIT EDWIN"

[arbane235]

#children#animals#it wasn't arwen we got her well after i was an adult#mazel the wolfdog though?#loved my fine motor skills stimboard#and probably learned how to open the gate from it

(photo via princessmisery)