ALOHA PUKA

 POST # 504

                                      PUKA'S FINAL HEIST OF MY READING GLASSES

There is a young bonehead named Puka,

Whose barking near drove me quite cuka.

Yet in spite of the noise,

She displayed so much poise,

That she helped me re-focus on dukkha.*

                                                                A FAREWELL RAINBOW

*noun Buddhism.

the first of the Four Noble Truths, that all human experience is transient and that suffering results from excessive desire and attachment.

grateful for every bark (and breath),

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

PS.  A special thanks to Benjamin the Donkey, king of the limerick.

                                                  Benjamin the Donkey, aka Herb

PUKA'S ONGOING TRAINING OF THE HOUSE SITTER

 POST # 503

Every now and again, Puka stops barking for a while, and that should be my cue to find out just what she is up to.  It's been a slow learning process for the house sitter.

If she can get it, she'll most certainly do so.  It, in this case, is anything that is within reach.

This past week, I caught her red handed, red pawed???,  with a variety of items in her mouth.  Socks, shoes, hair brush, scissors, and finally this morning,  my toothbrush.  My solution to trying to stop this behaviour was to close all of the doors that lead into rooms where my possessions are located,  but every now and again, I forget to close the door behind me.  At least when she's involved in this behaviour she's quiet, so it's not all bad.

Puka is careful not to chew up any of my things, and she worked out pretty quickly, that if I want to get them back from her, there will most definitely have to be a treat in exchange.  Sometimes it takes multiple treats, like the day she took my scissors.  The back door was open,  and she bolted out into the yard with them.  I was most concerned that she might injure herself.  The more I tried to get the scissors away from her, the more she ran just out of reach.  Taunting me.  So out came the treats bag, her favourite, dried sardines.  Usually, just shaking the bag is enough to get her to come running.  But not this time.  I guess she decided that if I really wanted to have my scissors back, it was going to take more than just one dried sardine.  I stood on the grass, just in front of her, and dropped one on the ground.  She continued to hold the scissors in her mouth.  A second sardine. Her jaws continued their grip on the scissors. A third sardine. Still no luck. Finally a fourth was placed on the grass in front of her.  The drool which began dripping out of her mouth at the sight of the first sardine, was by now a waterfall splashing on the grass in front of her. She decided that four would be a reasonable reward in exchange, so she dropped the scissors.  I was most relieved to get them back.

After that incident, I thought that I was being very vigilant with closing doors and keeping her away from things, and then just prior to starting to write this post, she came out to the living room with my toothbrush in her mouth. I was pleased to see that she was considerate enough to hold it by the handle.

You guessed it.  I forgot to close the bathroom door yet again, and she was quick to take advantage of the opportunity, and teach the house sitter the rules one more time.  For whatever reason, in Puka's mind, a toothbrush was only worth one dried sardine, so I managed to get it back without too much effort.  

I've got one more week to go here, and I'm going to try my hardest to keep all the doors closed.  I wonder how successful I'll be?

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

PUKA

 POST # 502

                                                                     PUKA

The owners told me that their dog's name is Hawaiian, and they have a Hawaiian-English dictionary to prove it.  Of course I had to look it up, and of all the many definitions of Puka that are available, I couldn't find the word "bark" amongst the list.  Barking seems to be Puka's favourite pastime.  So I decided to look up the word "bark" in the English-Hawaiian section, and one of the Hawaiian words for bark is "Haehae" so maybe I'll re-name her that for the time that I am here.

When I arrived three days ago, all of her barking was directed at me, a total stranger.  It took less than a day for that problem to be resolved, as she has now fallen under the spell of the resident dog whisperer.  However, she has plenty of other things to bark at in the meantime.

Puka will be turning nine months old on May 22nd, so she's the youngest bonehead that I have ever taken care of, so far.  I have to be extremely vigilant, because she likes to grab hold of anything that she can get at.  Just a few minutes ago, it was my glasses case.  I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and the next thing I know, she's walking by with the case in her mouth.  Thankfully, there are plenty of dog treats here to tempt her with, and that usually solves the problem.  Yesterday it was my socks, and tomorrow who knows what she'll grab onto.  

It has been a steep learning curve so far, at least for me.  Mind you, I'm probably teaching her a few things as well, so we should both be a lot smarter by the time this house sit is completed later this month.

When we are out on our daily walks, I have to stay completely focused on where her head is, because if I don't, she'll have some new object in her mouth.  It's amazing just how much trash there is around, and she's very good at finding it.

By this time next week, we should have a much better understanding of each other, and that should make our journey together easier.  And maybe, just maybe, she'll have less to bark about by then.

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

MY HEALTH

 POST # 501

The Thoughtful Wanderer at six months of age (August, 1955)

At the moment I am in between house sits, and seeing as I have no boneheads or furballs (aka dogs and cats) to write about, I thought that I would explore another topic.  My health.

For more than two years now, it seems like people all around the world are more concerned than ever about their health, and that got me to thinking about my own health.  I wanted to remember, when was the last time that I was really sick?  I can actually come up with three different years, 2003, 1980, and 1979.

In 2003, I was sailing with two friends across the Indian Ocean from Durban South Africa, to Perth, Australia, and I contracted food poisoning from of all things, uncooked lima beans, which I learned later on can be extremely toxic, and can cause death. I was basically down for the count for two days, and let's just say that my body found ways to eject the toxins in a timely manner.  I'll leave it up to the reader's imagination as to how that took place.

In 1980 after a suspect dinner at a restaurant in Pokhara, Nepal, on the eve of setting off on a trek through the Himalayan mountains, I felt extremely unwell, and ended up with a case of amoebic dysentery.  As one can imagine, that certainly didn't get my trekking off to a very good start, but eventually I regained my health.

Finally, in 1979, the first time that I lived in Melbourne, I contracted something that to this day I don't know what it was, but it put me out of commission for about four days.  I had an extremely high fever, hallucinations, and other bodily aches and pains.  Thankfully, I had a couple of room mates at the time, and they kept a close eye on me.  And then, just as quickly as it started, one day it ended, and I felt better once more.  My immune system had gone to work and somehow managed to get me back to health.  

The first two cases were obviously food related but the last case was most certainly something else, yet my body repaired itself, without any outside intervention.    That was forty three years ago, and I've barely had a sniffle since that time.  I suspect that I have been blessed with a fairly robust immune system.  It has been bolstered by the fact that it has been subjected to more pathogens than the average individual, due in part to my extensive world travel, in some countries that shall we say have less hygienic environments compared to Canada.

In the past two years, I've travelled around from one place to the other and been exposed to many individuals along the way, and yet I still remain healthy.  In all probability, I too have been in contact with the pathogen that has caused so much trouble around the world, and yet my health remains intact.  I struggle on a day to day basis with the thought of injecting something into my body, that could in fact compromise what I consider to be a healthy immune system.  It has been without a doubt, the most lonely path that I have ever followed, in more ways than one.

Yet, the journey continues, and tomorrow is another day.  In the meantime I remain grateful for my health for as long as it lasts, and I am reminded on a daily basis, just how fortunate I have been on this journey through life.

Still wandering, and still reading (Thanks Ted)

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer