Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Meet the Cairns




for fb.jpg     By Florida Bill                           

                                            The Cairn terrier's world is an exclusive place to be.  Friends are welcomed, but interlopers must beware.  These fur heads are members of a special breed which came to prominence centuries ago on the Isle of Skye in Scotland and distinguished themselves for their abilities to hunt and rid farms of unwanted critters.
                              Cairns do not hand out friendships; they are something which must be earned.  And that applies to their four legged brothers as well as other intruders into their territory.
                              The cairns are considered small in the canine world, but don't let that fool you.  In their minds, they are giants, and any stranger on the other side of the door might agree. That bark can drive away much bigger dogs and any stranger who dares to knock.  But for affection and loyalty and unconditional love--tip your hat to the peerless Cairn.                          
                              So it was no small thing when my wife, Chris, and I sought to introduce our Cairns, Sammi, 11, and Sam's trusted housemate, Wendy, 9, to the 85 pound,  brown-haired  Lab mix named Gertrude.  Sammi and Wendy, both females, each weigh in at about 15 pounds.
                              Sammi is a wheaten-colored warrior who loves her family, has a big vocabulary, and comes when she is called  (most of the time), but stops short when it comes to welcoming or tolerating other dogs.  Men, women and children--they are okay, but canines rub her the wrong way and she will let them know it.  Wendy is a coal black Cairn who recognizes Sam as the boss in our house, but who is even more bullish when it comes to other canines, and is not all that enthused about unfamiliar humans until a little time passes.   
                              Our daughter, Mary, and her husband, Bob, are the owners of  Gertrude, a hefty female Lab and Irish setter mix whom they rescued a few years ago. However, Gertrude had never met Sam and Wendy.  Your scrivener and his wife, and Sam and Wendy,  had until last year been living in Florida. Upon our return to Illinois, we looked upon the introduction of a big dog to our little tough girls as just one more hassle involved in the move, and put it off.
                              Gertrude, known affectionately as Gertie, is brown haired and a  bit of a Gentle Ben.  Gertie seems to like almost everyone, dogs included, and and as Mary says, "doesn't have a mean bone in her."  Her business is eating and love and sleeping on a favorite leather chair. Walks with Bob are frequent, generally in the forest preserves sans leash.                                                                        The plan was to introduce  our Cairns to the gentle Gertrude so that in the future she could accompany her parents on visits to our home in Kane county west of Chicago. Mary and Bob reside in a home in northwest Chicago. 
                               The problem was our feisty pair have never experienced another dog in their house.  Just seeing another dog during a walk brings out the beast in them and they immediately begin growling, barking and lunging in an effort to escape their leashes and attack. At times, they have gotten so worked up they have turned on each other. The size of their target doesn't seem to matter, although they seem to save their most vicious outbursts for big dogs. Once, back in Florida, we were even asked to leave a dog park--we insisted another dog was to blame for starting the fracas, but we quickly departed anyway.
                                Laying the groundwork  for the meet, we consulted books by Caesar Milan, the dog whisperer, and chatted with Dr. Bob Andrysco, a Chicago area dog and cat behavior specialist we met at our veterinarian's open house. Their advice dovetailed nicely with what we had read online. 
                              First, this grand event needed to take place in a neutral area that would not trigger anybody's sense of dominance.  We chose a nearby path that wound around a small lake. The idea was to walk them together in a pack.  Each of the dogs were tethered to a leash and the initial encounter came as we walked one way and encountered Mary and Bob and the leashed Gertie walking into us.
                              There was an immediate explosion by Sammi and Wendy, growling and barking and straining at the leashes in  an effort to break away and attack the calm and peace loving Gertrude, whose big frame dwarfed our little Cairns, and who seemed oblivious to their carrying on.  
                               So, as prescribed by Caesar and Dr. Bob, we all began  walking in a single file.  First was Sam, followed by Gertie; with Wendy bringing up the rear.    We walked and talked for some time, as everybody--meaning all the cairns--calmed down.  We alternated positions in the single file and we kept walking and after about a half hour, some sniffing of rear ends began, with Sammi choosing to collect the most data: Gertie was uninterested, and Wendy still a little agitated. 
                               Amazingly, as time went on, and perhaps as they began to tire a little, Sammi and Wendy began to relax and their body language suggested that they might actually be considering allowing this big girl to become a member of their pack. As tension continued to abate, we got back into our separate cars with the dogs and and drove to the small fenced-in backyard of our home.
                                Sammi and Wendy were not happy about walking out the back door to find Gertie on the other side of the fence, and more barking ensued. After all, they are terriers.  Finally, we let all three dogs inside the enclosure, with leashes dragging behind them, available for quick action if hostilities flared. 
                             Sammi surprised us with her laisez-faire attitude, but Wendy remained true to her high strung nature, and periodically lunged toward the lounging Gertie. Bob managed to distract her with calming words, pats, treats, and a few little tugs to keep her off Gertie's back. 
                            Once we approached near calmness, we headed inside. This was the major testing ground. The cairns didn't have that much invested in the back yard, which had only been fenced for about 8 months, and was primarily just a place to do their business. Because of a field nearby that was home to coyotes, they  never got any extended time alone in the yard.
                         Once we got inside our walk-out basement, we were surprised that the barking did not resume. We let the dogs settled next to their families, spread out on the couches, while we chatted as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
                        Wendy maintained a constant stare in Gertie's direction,  but time passed and no new doggie comments were made.  Bob, Mary, Chris and I provided high praise and treats for the combatants and for the peaceful Gertrude. Gertie was then allowed to go upstairs and wander around the house a little, with no objections, except for a few wary glances. 
                      Certainly the first step has been made and it was a success. We look forward to many visits from Gertrude and her parents, and will probably continue to start them with a short group walk on our street. 
                        A great movie once ended with the line: "I think that this is the beginning of  beautiful friendship." We hope so too.                                  Or at the least, a canine truce.
                                                                        
                                                XXX

Saturday, June 15, 2019

school cop







for fb.jpg     By Bill Juneau                         

                                   Deputy Sheriff Scot Peterson, the veteran Parkland school officer, has become a poster boy for cowardice.  But for him shirking his duty to protect and to confront a 19-year-old assassin, his accusers say, some of the 17 victims of the shooting might not have been killed.
                                   It appears that the 56-year-old sheriff's deputy, a veteran officer with more than 30 years on the job, ran and hid when gunfire was heard.  There is no way to excuse that.  He was a policeman with a special job to protect children, and according to all accounts,he failed miserably.  He might even wind up in jail like a common criminal.
                                   Reflect on what you might have done. in those seconds and minutes after gunfire rang out.  The arm chair analysts say that Peterson should have charged into the fray with his gun blazing and taken out the assassin.  It is hard to know what to do in those situations, having never walked in those same shoes.
                                   But aside from the alleged sins of  Officer  Peterson,  how does his performance stack up against the FBI's egregious mishandling of information concerning Nicholas Cruz as a potential school shooter.  Former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, now a US. senator, was so enraged over the fumbling performance of the FBI that he called for the resignation of the FBI Director Christopher Wray for ignoring tips that Nicholas Cruz contemplated a school shooting.  
                                     Cruz, 19, was well known for years in the Parkland community as a serious disciplinary problem.  He was a resident of that upscale city and had been expelled from the Stoneman Douglas High school for disciplinary reasons.  Broward county sheriff's policemen  were well aware of his  penchant for causing and getting into trouble.  In fact the sheriff's office had answered more than 30 calls and complaints involving Cruz over the previous four years.  Last January, some 11 months after the shootings, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ordered the removal from office of Broward county Sheriff Scott Israel for incompetence.
                                    On September 25, 2017, several months before the February 14 school shooting, the FBI  was notified of a comment on You Tube in which the commenter, identifying himself as a "nikolas cruz" posted,  "I'm going to be a professional school shooter."  That information wound up in a waste basket and agents subsequently have explained that they simply were unable to identify and locate the "nikolas cruz" who made the comment.
                                    On January 5, just five weeks before Cruz opened fire in the school and killed 17 and wounded others with his assault rifle, the FBI received a telephone message from a person who said he was a person "close" to Nicholas Cruz and that Cruz  had a "desire to kill people" and the caller said that he was worried about the "potential of him conducting a school shooting." 
                                    After the shooting and the capture of Cruz, the FBI back tracked and acknowledged receiving the message  about Nicholas Cruz.  "Under established protocols, the information  provided by the caller should have been assessed as a potential threat to life.......and the tip should have been forwarded to the Miami field office......we clearly should have done more, explained FBI Deputy Director David Bodich.
                                     As blame is being meted out, and the media is whipping Officer Peterson's for his "cowardice," the FBI needs to be reminded of its failure to take serious tips of this nature.   The FBI is still the most skilled and professional police agency in the world, but in this episode, it could have and should have done a better job.  


                                           xxx