Remember That Time…

My family has a travel adventure page on Facebook called WheelSpin Adventures. We just joined a group called Bookish Road Trip. A recent post on that group asked for members to submit a photo that was connected to a special memory of a place they love. Some of the commenters attached photos of Paris or Rome, photos of the beach or of some similar locale where one escapes from the life they have to the life they dream of having. I have not traveled the world, but I have been all over the 48 contiguous states. I have troves of getaway photos of places I would love to be at right now. Yet, I didn’t have to give a second of thought to the photo I would share. This is because the photo is connected to a galaxy of memories. It’s a photo that a stranger might smile at and ask a simple question about the location or the time of year. A photo that a number of my students might be surprised to know is connected to a deeply meaningful memory of their own. A photo that can shatter my heart, empty my eyes of tears, fill my soul with joy, my belly with laughter, and reshape my heart into a puzzle that looks strangely right with pieces missing. This one photo overwhelms me in the best and worst ways imaginable. This one photo is a blink of the eye for some, but it’s a day of feeling and thinking for me.

This is Camp Warren in Eveleth, MN. September of 2019.

I’d just been standing in a beautiful dining lodge full of field stone and hickory, and a group of my students, giving five speeches to memorialize five dogs from our local scent work community who’d passed away that year: Gromit, Emma, Bella, Lily, and Brio.

Overwhelmed with grief, I took my shivering soul and left the glowing warmth of the dining lodge fireplace to stand alone at the lake down the hill.

I’d memorialized dogs at our fall nose work camps before, but something inside me had crumbled under the weight of so many friends departing all at once. I needed to do something while my mind, body and spirit bartered with the beyond to keep the five souls I’d fused to my heart from being ripped out of me. I found a fishing pole in the boathouse and walked out onto the dock.

Casting mindlessly, I felt the telltale ghostly pull of a largemouth bass inhaling the lure at the end of my line. I set the hook and the fish immediately plunged towards the bottom of the lake, then surged up and burst forth from the surface, shaking the hook and disappearing back into the dark glassy water.

Damn. More loss.

I cast the line back and felt a sharp, snappy pull. Great, it’s probably a northern and I’m probably about to lose my lure. I drew back the rod slowly and felt the weight of a large fish. With a swift pull on the rod I set the hook.

Usually, one of two things would happen next: a wild fight would begin, or the line would go slack and I’d reel up nothing – no fish, no hook.

Neither happened.

So I began to reel, keeping tension on the line. I could feel the fish complying with the course my line charted, it’s body loose and wavy in the water. A few more cranks on the reel and I was beginning to think I’d hooked a garden of weeds or an old pair of knickers. I stopped reeling for a moment and peered into the water. A long, black and shiny backbone raised above the water line like a German U-boat surfacing at sea. It was a northern. A huge northern.

The universe had clipped a car battery to my ears! My body was on fire, my lungs were straining against my rib cage, and my eyes were like twin Hubble telescopes seeing everywhere all at once in brilliant detail. The massive, passive pike maintained his position at the surface by silently waving his pectoral and pelvic fins. His gills flared every few seconds, his mouth remained slightly agape with a yellow-green imitation grub stuck in his teeth like a piece of stale chewing gum. If I’d had a net, this fish would have been in it the moment he neared the surface. I didn’t have a net, and I didn’t have much time before the northern would plot a southern course back to the bottom of the lake.

I thought briefly about hoisting the fish out of the water onto the dock, but with what? The old pole in my hands might as well have been spooled up with a fart, for that would’ve been stronger than the hair-like monofilament tethering me to the fish. I’d landed a pike before by squeezing it’s back just behind the gills, but the dock sat several feet above the water and wobbled like it was on jello stilts. I was beginning to feel like loss was wrapping it’s cold fingers around me once again. Then I heard her.

“Hi! What a beautiful night.”

It was one of my students, Kathy Thacher. She was on a walk with her two fluffy white American Eskimos.

Without taking my eyes off the fish I calmly, but urgently said, “I’ve got a huge fish hanging by a thread. Could you see if there’s a net in the boathouse?!”

Kathy fumbled her words in reply, “Uh, I, um, oh, I don’t know anything about fishing. I don’t think I can be much help.”

“I just need a net, I can do everything.” I assured her.

“Ok. I’ll look.” said Kathy, sounding less than hopeful.

While Kathy rummaged around in the boathouse, narrating her unsuccessful search, the fish began a bid to end our brief relationship, knifing through the water towards the middle of the lake. The drag on the reel sounded like a medieval drawbridge as the pike surged ahead in this sudden game of tug-o-war. I loosened the drag as I carefully directed the fish’s head away from one of the dock support legs. I waited for the moment the fish relented, then I cranked the reel. This was the fight I’d braced for, the one I knew I couldn’t win. Mysterious forces had to be behind the continued connection of me, my hook, and my line to this fish.

“How’s it going? Any Luck?” I called out to Kathy, trying to stay calm.

“Uh, no – wait! I found a net!” Kathy shouted victoriously.

Before Kathy could walk on the dock she had to loop her dog’s leashes around a post near the water’s edge, giving me just enough time to play the fish back to his original position. Ready for the net, but not ready to take my eyes off of the fish, I said to Kathy, “you can lay the net down by my feet.” And, so she did.

Now, a northern pike – even a small one – is a long fish. My inseam is 30 inches. If I wore this fish like a pair of pants I’d need a serious cuff. The net Kathy laid at my feet was a minnow net. The mouth of the net was no bigger across than a boy’s basketball shoe. The color went out of my face. The day might yet end with a loss.

“Thanks for looking, but I think that’s a little small!” I said with more than a hint of panic.

At that moment I felt a bit like someone who’s made it into his driveway after holding his bladder for a long time, only to find that he can’t get into his house. I couldn’t wait a moment longer for an easy way to land this fish. I opened the spool and laid the rod on the dock, then I laid flat on the dock, half hanging off with my right arm extended over the fish. If the northern wanted to make an escape, now would be the time. I had one shot at securing him and avoiding a hook in the hand or a mouthful of teeth tearing into my flesh. I thought of Steve Irwin hovering over a deadly viper in a brush pile, jabbing his hand at the viper’s neck with imperceptible speed, and I made my move.

Time jumped like a film reel with a few missing frames. I was standing now, with what I estimated to be at least an 8 pound northern in the grip of my right hand.

I asked Kathy if she could take a picture of me with this gift from the cold waters of Half Moon Lake. She took my phone and confessed again to knowing next to nothing about fishing as she captured the moment for me. I was about to shift the northern into a horizontal hold (better for the fish) for another picture when Kathy heard someone yell out from the rustic cabins a few hundred yards down the shoreline, “LOOSE DOGS!”

Kathy’s American Eskimos, Sprite and Crush, were still tethered to a post, staring at Kathy with indignation for having sidelined their after dinner walk to play with a fish. Not wanting her dogs ambushed, Kathy raced to the post, her hands working like two spiders in reverse to untie the knotted leashes.

Just as Kathy freed Sprite and Crush from the post, two large mix-breed dogs, one caramel colored, one black, exploded down the lakeside path like a mudslide. Kathy froze, she was nothing more than a paper wall shielding her dogs from eight crashing paws and two gnashing jaws.

In the flash of time that passed between Kathy taking my picture and Kathy preparing for her dogs to be mortally wounded by a pair of mutt marauders, I was in full stride off the dock, wielding the northern like a medieval weapon. I skidded to a stop between Kathy and the interloping dogs, kicking up a dust cloud that hid my secret weapon.

The auditory amalgamation of two wild barking dogs and two frightened barking dogs ceased at once as hundreds of razor sharp teeth cried out for meat in the faces of the attacking dogs.

“Go home! Get outta here. GO HOME!” I commanded, as I backed the dogs off with the continued threat of swallowing their muzzles in the northern’s tunnel of teeth.

I could feel the dogs losing their bloodlust; maybe the northern was a real threat to them or the sight of a man-fish was just too weird to bear. A few other people arrived to assist me and the northern in chasing the dogs off with a human version of barking. Deterred, but not defeated the caramel dog and the black dog raised their tails high and barked a “we’ll get you next time” chorus as they ran away into the trees.

My body relaxed, shrinking back to normal size like one of those hooptie cars rising and falling with air suspension. I turned to check on Kathy and her dogs. All three were a bit shaken and stirred, as if they’d just exited a roller coaster ride that their friends said would be “fun”, but was really terrifying.

I felt Sprite and Crush looking at me sideways, then I felt the northern in my hands. This plucky piscivore saved the day, but might lose his life if I didn’t get him into the water fast. Not wanting to waste a moment, I stepped off the trail and plunged down the steep bank towards the lake, carried along past exposed tree roots by the loose dirt under my boots. I had a plan to stop myself where the bank met with the water, but the dirt and roots weren’t in on it, so into the water I went.

My feet found the sandy lake bottom and I stood up in the water, empty-handed. I looked around and found the northern floating on its side a few feet from me. This fish had just been in two battles – one at sea, one on land – the subtle expansion of its air bladder and the faint undulation of its gills signaled it was already fighting a third battle.

I cradled the northern in both hands and delivered it just below the surface, slowly moving it back and forth through the water. Its only chance of survival was to remain upright and in motion. I let my mind wander while I held the fish. What an absurd end to the day! Five years at Camp Warren doing nose work events and this was the first time I’d put a line in the water. I didn’t even think the lake had fish in it! At dinner I was crying over dogs I had formed years long friendships with, and here I was, knee deep in the lake, shedding a tear for my newest friend and hoping for a happy ending to our brief time together.

I stopped moving the northern in the water. This was its movie moment, its time to gasp back to life and swim away. I could see the pectoral and pelvic fins waving in an effort to maintain balance. I let go of the fish. It lolled to one side and rose to the surface. I righted it and gently dove it below the darkening waters of a rapidly approaching night. Not being a pike paramedic, I gave my best effort at resuscitation one more time and wondered if I should be pounding on its air bladder screaming “LIIIIIIIIIVVVE!” like Ed Harris did for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in James Cameron’s film, The Abyss. I let the fish go again. If another loss was what life wanted me to experience, I guess I had to take it.

This time, the northern did not rise to the surface like a pair of swimmer-less trunks, but it didn’t move, either. It just hovered in place. The pike paramedic school I never attended didn’t cover what to do next. So I just stepped away and waded back to the steep bank, pulling myself up by the very roots that couldn’t be bothered to stop me from falling in the lake. When I reached the top of the bank I looked out into the darkness and convinced myself that I saw the northern’s gills flare out in an understated gasp back to life. I guess that was our “Abyss” moment. Real life is rarely as exciting as a James Cameron movie.

I dried myself off and joined my students in the lounge attached to my sleeping quarters. One student had brought some home-brewed beer, others shared fireball whisky, hot chocolate, wine, or maybe just a soda and a chocolate chip cookie. I showed a few people the picture Kathy had taken of me and the northern and tried to explain what we had been through, but I was exhausted and telling the story brought too much pain and happiness.

About a year and a half later, I attended Kathy Thacher’s funeral.

She messaged me on December 3rd, 2020 to cancel a nose work lesson we had with Sprite and Crush. She said she’d received a really bad medical diagnosis and she had to do some crying and some planning. May 26, 2021 she was gone. She did not back down from her battle with Sarcoma, the same way she stood her ground that day at the lake. I did not give a memorial speech for Kathy, but I mourned the loss of Kathy. I replayed all of the nose work lessons we’d had and re-watched all of the video searches she’d sent me during the COVID lockdown. I’m grateful I got to know her better through all of the email conversations we shared during her cancer treatments.

Now, when you look at the photo from Camp Warren, you might understand why it’s special to me. You might understand how it could change the track my train of thought is on and deliver me to grand memory station, where I might connect to five special dogs and their people, one special camp by the lake, and dear, wonderful Kathy, who shared a surreal sunset with me and Mary Pikelizabeth Northerntonio as we fought and won the battle to save Sprite and Crush.

Searching Through Pictures Of Odor

I know what I experience when I look at a picture like the one from Camp Warren. I don’t know what a dog experiences when he smells an odor picture, but I think he sometimes experiences something much more rich and complex than we expect.

Why might an odor picture be worth a thousand words to your dog? Sometimes it’s because the odor picture connects him to the dog from earlier that day who clawed at the ground excitedly pulling her handler towards a squeaky blue ball; and it connects him to the joy he experiences in standing on his hind legs and stretching his head skyward like a giraffe stretching for some leaves just beyond his reach; and it connects him to the sound of ducks laughing in a creek, reminding him how much he loves waterfowl.

Sometimes, an odor picture is a trip to grand scentral station, connecting the dog to scent memories of similar searches, or to memories of his handler. If you can imagine your dog showing you a photograph and telling you all the meaning and memories connected to the image, then you can accept that he might sometimes show you where and how odor collects with a motive other than sourcing the hide and receiving the reward. He might want you to understand what the picture means, and he might want you to visit a memory with him – maybe a memory you’re an important part of.

Kathy & Sprite shared a number of searches where the odor picture was worth a thousand words. On one occasion, Kathy placed two hides on each side of a building and had Sprite search for them all. Afterwards, she used a plastic baggie to test airflow near each hide. She was astounded to find that Sprite’s most difficult find was perhaps not “difficult”, just fun and unusual. When she let the baggie go near this hide, the airflow sucked the baggie up the building wall where it hovered and danced, then launched away from the wall circling and whirling and falling to the ground 20 feet away from the hide. Kathy was surprised and fascinated by the path the baggie took. She shouted out, “WHOA!” Could Sprite have been surprised and fascinated, too?

When Kathy searched her weekly training space with Sprite he would sometimes perform a 4-5ft high standing jump along the wall where he’d once searched for a hide behind a clock. He didn’t do this all of the time, just when the odor picture connected him to the memory of finding that clock hide. He wasn’t sourcing in the strict sense (Kathy sometimes thought I really might have put it behind the clock again), he was just leaping up memory lane.

Kathy and Sprite would sometimes search right out of the car and have no search boundaries. One of these searches occurred at a nature center in winter. Sprite figured out which direction to go to get into odor, and he took Kathy all around the building to find a variety of hide placements, and each one was a fast find. No doubt, this kind of “picture worth one word” search was easier on Kathy – and still fun for Sprite.

Kathy set a variety of challenges for Sprite and she always gave him clear communication to search and proper reinforcement when he found a hide. He was not a dog who didn’t know his job. He was not a dog with a weak connection to odor. He was a dog with a lot to share about some odor pictures. And if he thought an odor picture was worth a thousand words, it was up to us to listen to every one.

I’ve seen many dogs express much more than a robotic directive to drive to source. In a previous post I described a black lab working tirelessly for a very complex hide in the seam of a service door on the side of a large brick school building. This same dog was in a CrossFit gym recently working on the eighth of eight hides tucked underneath a plywood platform snug against the floor and butting up to a bunch of wooden boxes stacked along the wall. I swear he was reminiscing about the door seam hide. He had come very close to sourcing (showing behaviors of sourcing) this hide under the platform – so close it didn’t make sense why he wouldn’t have just finished the task. But watching him dance in the air 15ft away from the hide and sit down and look at us, he seemed to be pausing the search as if to say, “remember that time…”

If you can’t bring yourself to believe your dog is capable of experiencing a memory, you can at least believe your dog remembers things. Like the dog who races back into the training space hoping to find the tug toy he sniffed out at the top of a shelving unit a month prior. Or the dog who avoids going in the bathroom where the automatic hand blower scared him that one time.

Otis the doberman searched a park where he was compelled to picnic table surf, leaping from table top to table top as he worked odor. Months later, he returned to that same park and worked the playground. He found a hide at the top of a ramp. Even though he was handsomely rewarded, he kept running up and down the ramp, inviting us to understand him. Maybe the odor picture and the search reminded him of the picnic table experience in some way? Maybe it connected him to some other memory or memories.

Just as a picture or an album of pictures can light up our neural pathways and connect us to memories, a search for a hide or multiple hides might do something similar for your dog.

Bittersweet Search Memories

With every passing year the memories connected to the Camp Warren photo weave tighter together into a bittersweet patchwork. The joyful memories take on a patina of sweet sorrow as they are the moments I wish I could relive, the moments that remind me time is diligently emptying the sands from my hourglass. The heartbreaking memories of dogs and people who have passed away slowly become heart-mending as I reflect on how grateful I am to have known them all and to continuing knowing them.

These days when I watch dogs search for odor, I think of all the experiences they are having, all the memories they are making and what those memories become over time. When we are perplexed by our dog’s behavior in a search, it might not always be something so reductive and human-centered as a “training issue” it could be that they are connecting to a galaxy of memories or maybe even inviting you to “remember that time…”

Memorable Sniffing!