Of Dogs and Kids

Kids play with Eddie in the hay barn. From left: Geovanna, Karla, Eddie the Beagle, and Danny.

In the Dog World, there are two kinds of people: ‘Dog People’ and ‘Not Dog People’. Everyone here at Reserva El Tigre is a ‘Dog Person’.

Currently, we have 8 dogs, now that Eddie the Beagle has been accepted into the pack. Eddie came to us last week from a very nice, French-speaking family who named him, Idée Fixée - Fixed Idea. They soon learned that Idée Fixée was ‘fixed’ on having lots of fun all day long! But he quickly grew into a bit of a handful for their small children. So they needed to find a home for their beloved pup that would give him a chance to run and play all day long! Somehow, through six-degrees-of-separation, especially S.A.S.Y.*, Idée Fixée landed at Reserva El Tigre.
And the Yank in the household renamed him Eddie. With my appalling accent (my Parisian boss in Madrid once begged me never to speak French again in his presence), Idée and Eddie sound mas o menos the same.

Normally, we only adopt mixed-breed dogs - muts, zaguates - because they are healthy, sweet and easy to train. We made an exception in accepting a Beagle because we thought he would fit into the pack - not too big, not too fragile and easy to train.

But, boy oh boy, is Eddie a handful! Yes mom, you are so right - Eddie is not for small children. He is rambunctious, avidly curious, and wants to play with any species at all! Gracias a Dios, the children are home on a two-week school vacation - they can help train and play with Eddie. The kids belong to the resident employees and are aged 12, 10, and 6 - perfect for romping with the dogs. And that’s what they’ve been doing pretty much non-stop since Eddie arrived last Saturday. Kids and dogs: hiking, walking, swimming, football, romping…
…Eddie even went along with them horseback riding this morning. The kids had to cut the ride short when they turned around and saw him ambling along behind them - he is just a 7-month old pup after all! But the horses still gave him a good run and, after they got back to the stables, Eddie needed a long nap. Later, he joined the kids and other dogs for a game of soccer, which everyone else in the world calls football. Eddie made the kids play better because, if he could get his nose on the ball, he would run off with it, bouncing the ball ahead of him with his nose, with everyone else after him in hot pursuit.

During school holidays, dog routines and habits change from normal - in my experience, dogs always prefer to hang out with the kids. I’m sure that’s true in most households everywhere.

Once the kids return to school, however, the dogs revert to normal - hanging out with us adult humans; not nearly as much fun as the kids, but any human will do - the guys down in the pastures, the gals in the gardens, and often with me pretty much anywhere. If not with humans, then the dogs lounge together with the cats, either at the stables or over at the house, depending on where someone might be around to give them some attention. We keep fresh food and water out all day in both places, moving dishes around continuously to keep the ants at bay. It’s just easier that way, so everybody learns to share.

You can always see all the dogs together at teatime - around 4pm - when Gerald likes to go out and give all of them something good to eat, sometimes leftover stuff, like pork chops or paella with the works! But Gerald won’t just give the dogs a treat willy-nilly. Oh no! They have to work for it! They have to sit! We can hear Gerald out there with the dogs all around him: “Sit! You sit you! Sit down Spotty! There’s a good girl”. And you look out the window and see him with all the dogs sitting ever so obediently around him, Gerald walking around and putting tasty morsels in their mouths! After that rather agreeable session, the dogs split up once again and return to their favorite hang-outs to lounge and nap for the afternoon.

I take my turn with Eddie to help train him to respond to voice commands: Heel…Sit…Come…Stay. He is a smart pup, and has quickly learned to heel and sit. With help from the kids, we should have him fully trained on the other commands by the end of this week. Training is essential for the dogs living out here in the forest. We think of it as giving them survival skills. Dogs like to nose around, and sometimes end up nosing around where they shouldn’t. So, hopefully, they will never bite down on a harsh dose of reality - say the fiery burn of a hortiga plant or an army ant or a porcupine or worse - and learn their lesson the hard way.

At night, we bring Spotty and Flopsy inside to the laundry room, because they are used to it and accept the confinement. The rest of the dogs want to stay outside, sleeping up on terrace chairs, over at the stables, or in their own special hiding places. Eddie tried out sleeping in the stables, and even spent a night in a hollowed out Guanacaste tree. I was a bit startled when Hugo found him all curled up inside the tree sleeping peacefully the next morning, and I feared for all the creepy night-crawlers around, but the guys assured me, in their own words, that the expression, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’, is understood by species all the way back the evolutionary tree to worms and insects. The crawlies catch his scent and stay clear. Still, it’s funny how many animal expressions apply to human behavior.

Eddie has reminded us of another expression exclusive to the puppy world, ‘Anything you let drop to the ground instantly enters the dog’s domain’.

In any case, Eddie has lately developed a preference for sleeping outside the house in a big comfy box that we found for him.

Do our dogs wander into the forest? Well, they love to follow us humans down there, and we’ve trained them to stay with us on the trails. When I go out by myself hiking, Flopsy will almost always scent me out to catch up, even if I have an hour head start. The bigger dogs only go into the forest to follow the workers or to chase off other animals and even other dogs and cats (usually abandoned to the forest by their owners). Sometimes, however, our pack accepts an abandoned animal. The last to get accepted was a scrawny cat we named ‘Skinny Bones’. He disappeared some months afterwards, when a big cat - described as either a Jaguarundi or a Margay (Caucel) - started mauling our male cats. The dogs managed to chase it off, but they sure didn’t want to tangle with it. Luckily, the big cats have big territories, and there’s much to hunt in the forest, even small deer.

All the resident dogs and cats recognize each other and only chase each other to have some fun. Eddie already knows the others, and moves among them at this point without needing the leash. He was freed from the leash on Tuesday - and immediately got into trouble. We always have more difficulty getting new dogs to recognize our free-range chickens as litter-mates, and this has proved no exception with Eddie. We had to rescue a chicken he had in his mouth on Tuesday. Luckily, she survived, and Eddie learned his lesson from Marcia - a housekeeper with a very good voice, “NO, NO, NO!!!” - and Eddie got the message. It’s tough being a dog…

And chasing after prey is so much fun for dogs, but they really must overcome their instinct to hunt, and replace it with an instinct to please humans. That’s why we like mixed-breeds best. Hunting breeds, especially those genetically disposed, or bred, to hunt and kill - like the Poodle - have a killer instinct stronger than the instinct to please their master. And it’s almost impossible to completely train out that instinct. The only way, perhaps, would be to raise the pups in the hen house. The farmers we met in Spain and France did that with amazing success. The hens could even wander around the house without getting harassed, not even by the housekeepers!

However, the gals just won’t abide chickens in the kitchen in this day and age. Reminds me of what Armando’s mom, Dona Rosa said to me once:

“Kids today are just so lazy!”

Well, we’ve heard that line from all sorts of people over the years, and whenever we ask them the reason why, the answers are all different. But I shall never forget Dona Rosa’s answer:
“Kids are lazy today because they don’t know how to kill and pluck a hen!”

How could I fess up to her that I don’t have a clue how to do that either!

In any case, luckily, Eddie has a strong instinct to please and learns quickly. We are confident that he will do just fine with his merry pack of canines, felines, equines, etc. here at Tigre.

So, to the young man who seemed a bit glum about leaving his first beloved dog to a new family, please don’t worry. Eddie will always have you as his first best friend. Someday, you will have another pet to play with. In the meantime, if you ever find yourself hiking with your parents near Tigre, do call us up and come visit Eddie. I have a feeling he will remember you with great joy!

In other news, the road from Ciudad Colon to Rodeo closed again Friday at 10PM due to a landslide. I like saying goodbye to the outer world - kind of like blizzard days in the North - awesome! We would telecommute and go skiing or snow shoeing or build a snow fort…

Well, Gerald wasn’t happy about it at all! And when the workers plowed a kind of mucky lane open by Saturday afternoon, I still didn’t want to take the risk to go out, in case it closed again and we got stuck out there. Gerald really wanted to try out this new restaurant in Santa Ana, and was just furious that we were stuck - trapped, as he put it - here at Reserva El Tigre. And this was despite a delightful meal we prepared him, with ingredients all grown fresh here at the Finca. Gerald was not to be appeased, but did relent and relaxed a bit more after opening a bottle of Marques de Riscal Gran Reserva ‘95…

*S.A.S.Y.: What is it?
Stop Animal Suffering Yes! - run by a group of smart, stylish, accomplished, multi-cultural, DROP DEAD GORGEOUS women, who came together to stop animal cruelty here in Costa Rica. And within a few short years, S.A.S.Y. has become an amazing fundraising organization. Their 2005 Calendar of - you guessed it - gorgeous women posing in the buff with their favorite pet, has become quite a collectors’ item. The funds raised from S.A.S.Y. go to support various Costa Rican animal organizations that rescue, shelter and/or spay & neuter cats and dogs, and sometimes also help other animals like horses. They also support educational programs aimed at preventing animal cruelty and teaching kids how to care for their pets. Google their website for more information on the tremendous work they do.