D. Caroline Coile, Ph.D.
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I Do My Own Stunts

12/25/2012

10 Comments

 
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Once upon a time, I lived in the suburbs with three  salukis. Every evening, I walked several miles around the neighborhood with the  dogs on retractable leads. I do not actually recommend this.


There is an art-form, a ballet of sorts, involved in  walking three salukis on three flexi-leads. The dogs dart to and fro, the lines  zing and zang, and the walker constantly exchanges leads and hands as the dog  perform complicated pinwheels in opposite directions, like a cirque de soleil  act. I don't like to brag, but I liked to think we performed like a well-oiled  machine, a precision dance troupe, and made quite the vision walking along our  neighborhood streets every evening. 

Or maybe, quite the scene...

 Now, to change hands and leads and keep your arms from  popping out of joint, you have to constantly lift the lines and leads over your  head. This is good exercise for the upper body, so walking the dogs is a full  body workout. My neighborhood didn't have sidewalks, but it didn't have a lot of traffic, either, so we generally walked in the middle of the road. So it was, one dark and windy night, I was climbing the hill on  the way home, the leads zinging and zanging overhead, when a) a car  unexpectedly rounded the bend, spotlighting us, and b) a gust of wind picked  up. 

Did I mention I have long hair? 

Turns out, when you call the dogs back to you, retracting  the leads, while holding them over your head, as the wind blows your hair up in  the air, several things happen. None of which are good. The dogs all fly back  toward you, from various directions, but not by straight routes. The leashes  retract---along with your hair. They suck your hair up all the way to root,  preventing you from unbraiding the tangle the dogs have made of the lines, and  in fact wrapping one around your neck when one dog changes direction. After that,  things go poorly.

The lines keep retracting, retracting your hair along with  them, pulling the dogs toward your head and toward each other until they all  meet in a sudden impact sort of situation. This in turn causes more things to  transpire: Your head is flung to dog head level in an attempt to not have your  hair ripped out and your breath cut off. The dogs, all now stuck together and blaming one another for the unawwarented collision, realize now is the ideal time to have a massive dog fight, even though they are now attached to your scalp by a matter of mere inches. OK, only two of them;  the third one is desperately trying to run away, dragging your head, now in the  center of a rapidly constricting cat's cradle, with him. Of course, since you face is being trampled by the other two, he can't pull you very far.

At least the car stopped. Who wouldn't, with that kind of  free entertainment is their headlights? I think he may have even turned his  brights on. Didn't get out of the car or anything rash or heroic like that, but he got a  good show. I may have even seen a flash from a camera. Because, you know, being  blinded also helped.

 I wish I could tell you how I got disentangled. In case,  you know, you find yourself in the same situation one day. I recall trying to  separate the fighters, but this is not easy when your head is the main thing  between them. Especially when your throat is being garroted by the third one  who just wants to get the hell out of there! So---just because I am spoiled and  one of my hobbies happens to be breathing---I unhooked that one, knowing she would run home. OK, maybe  not really knowing she would run home, but not really giving much a damn where  she ran right at that moment. The others---I somehow got to my feet, bending  over, and straddling one and unhooking both, holding them apart, one in each  hand. 

I am now in a position to tell you that retractable leads---or at least three of them---are really heavy when the only thing supporting them is  your hair. They unravel so they are hanging by about a foot of line from my  head, like some avant gard hair ornaments. I stand there, trying to figure what  to do. And this is when the jerk in the car decides the show is over, and  starts to blow his horn. We stagger to the edge of the road, the car guns  past---thanks for the help---and I trudge home feeling like Medusa (that's the  one with snake hair). Or maybe Methuselah (that's the one that was about seven  billion years old). 

I would like to say that once home, the dogs made up, the  leads came out, and we all had a fine laugh. Well, the dogs made up. My hair  came out. And my (now former) friends had a fine laugh as I explained the line  burn around my neck.  

Today's tenuously related tip: Don't you love the folks who show up at the vet's office with their dog on a retractable leash? And then seem to forget how to retract it? "Oh, he just wants to be friends," they gush, as he bolts across the room to snuffle at your dog---no matter that your dog is at death's door, comatose or in the throes of a seizure. I've tried to get my dog to sound like he's hacking up a lobe with kennel cough, but they seldom sound convincing enough, and the owners seem oblivious when you mention how contagious he is. But what does work is to bring a bit of whipped cream with you, and discreetly let you dog lap it up, making sure some sticks to his lips. Then declare, "I sure hope they can get his rabies under control!" Most owners, even the ones stupid enough to let their dogs wander about the reception room unretracted, seem to understand the word "rabies"--especially when your dog is foaming at the mouth. Zip!
 


 

10 Comments
Jerry Browning
12/25/2012 09:16:32 am

I met you at the national a few years ago and just love your dogs. The flexi lead story was so very funny. You are much braver than I though. I would never walk even a single Saluki on a flexi.

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CC
12/25/2012 11:54:57 pm

Thanks Jerry, for both nice comments!!! You are wise to avoid the flexi-menace...I walked just one dog on one this morning---I think my neck is now out of whack...

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David Wright
12/26/2012 12:16:57 am

Caroline, your story cracked me up , it was actually the best bedtime story I've read in years , as I slept all through the night ,,,,, except when I woke up both my shoulders were sore & twisted up , my neck seemed to to have a rope burn , & I heard a dog bark & I hid my head under my pillow . I look forward to reading future stories , please keep them going !!!!

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CC
12/26/2012 10:28:08 am

Yeah, I seem to have that effect on people's sleeping serenity....sigh....but I'm glad to hear it screwed up your night! Thanks!

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Sharon
12/27/2012 02:30:14 am

What a great tale! Bruce and I enjoyed every minute of it...while reminiscing walking all of our guys on Flexis! Sometimes I would attempt walking 4 at a time...two in each hand...and you're so right about it being a dangerous dance. We worked on teaching them to jump over each other...and sometimes us...to get untangled!

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Emily link
12/27/2012 12:16:20 pm

I used to walk 2 coonhounds on one lead in Brooklyn NY. Hound hunters have these gizmos called "couplers" that allow you to walk multiple dogs on one lead. I used a 2-way coupler, but I've seen ones that can link up to 5 dogs. They work pretty well most of the time because the dogs generally pull against each other, which relieves the pull against the human some. However, coonhounds are hunting dogs, and occasionally they catch wind of a critter they both want to hunt--like a Brooklyn alley cat. That's when the trouble started... They both pulled in the same direction. I wasn't able to hold them back, but I was able to keep up pace until they vaulted the cast iron fence with a spiked top. They flattened me as I opened the gate and they dragged me down the asphalt alleyway shredding my new pants even though I weigh more than both put together. Luckily the cat got under the fence at the other end and they got hung up in a patch of bamboo after it finally occurred to me to drop my end of the leash... Of course, they were barking at full cry all the way.

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Marsha
6/10/2013 10:37:23 am

Love this story, sorry but it is so funny.

You know I have stories about walking 6 Italian Greyhounds and one large Grey but they don't compare to yours.

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Dorothy
9/13/2013 08:12:17 am

CRAZY, WHAT WE DO FOR DOGS! What can I say, except I am also guilty! Guilty of walking the cast off my broken leg while walking my beloved 120 lb Labbie....(YES he was a BIG dog) Trying to explain to the Vet that we were FINE as he dragged me across the floor to sniff his crotch..Leg cast flopping...(he LOVED the vet, in spite of having lost his manhood to his surgery). Still miss that dog, but he, like the others before him were always "the best dog I EVER had". I have a hole in my heart now that he is gone.

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Lisa link
9/14/2013 01:06:34 pm

Caroline,

I am sorry to say that is essay made me laugh harder than anything in recent history; for two reasons. First of all I have done the Flexi lead thing with 3 or 4 dogs at a time--how else would you get all the dogs walked late at night at a dog show? Second, I had (notice the past tense) a very long french braid that I could sit on.

I have found that walking dogs of the same size is much easier with 3 or 4 on Flexi's than walking 1 or 2 big dogs and 1 or two little dogs. I have walked Coonhounds on Flexi's for a very long time. Recently, however, I have had two Beagles and a PBGV come into my life. If you try to walk the big dogs with the little dogs it is even more entertaining. The big dogs seldom try to walk underneath each other but the little dogs have no such problem. So, not only do the dogs run to and fro and zig zag but the little dogs do this underneath the big dogs. From experience I know that it is way faster, and there is a lot less hollering, to make two trips, one with the big dogs and another one with the little dogs. I think retractable lead walking needs to be an Olympic sport! Like all other sports, only the elite can do this.

A friend sent me your essay, I think, to help console me with humor about the loss of my braid. As I mentioned, I could sit on the braid. One day early in July I was at said friends house, who was recovering from surgery, and decided to help out. I decided to weed wack the yard for her. I had just picked up my weed wacker from another friends house where, several weeks earlier, I had done some weed wacking for her. A long story short, while I was out-of-town a neighbor of hers used my weed wacker and never told us he BROKE it. When I went to use it at my other friends house I did notice that the cover around the pull rope was missing but it NEVER occurred to me that this could be fatal to my braid.

I started it up and it ran fine so I figured I would take it and get it fixed after I was done. However, after about 20 minutes of weed wacking, all of the sudden I thought someone dropped a huge limb on my head. I was stunned and was trying to figure out what happen. My first thought was, put the weed wacker, which at this point had shut off, down. Still trying to figure out what happened I just let go of the weed wacker. My head went towards the ground with it. OK, pick the stupid thing back up. What the ..... Oh no, the weed wacker is now attached to me, as you said, like an avant gard hair ornament. If you think retractable leads are heavy you should try a Poulan. I was under some illusion that I would just gently pull said braid out of the intake. Then I was under some illusion that I would not-so-gently pull said braid out of the intake. After about 15 minutes of being firmly attached to the Poulan I finally broke down and cut myself loose. I went in the house, took a shower, washed what was left of my hair and asked my friend how bad it looked. She said it looked like it had been weed wacked and proceeded to cut off about 5 more inches of hair to even it up; in total I lost about 15 inches of hair. While I was very unhappy about loosing my braid (everyone told me to quit whining it was still long) I was very thankful that I was not hurt.

So, I guess the moral of our stories are, "if you have long hair that you like, and you don't like avant gard hair ornaments, put your hair under a hat or up in a clip when your are competing in retractable lead walking or weed wacking!" I will pay more attention when I am doing the Flexi thing from now on (well, when my hair gets long enough to worry about since it is not long enough to get caught in anything right now) and I will never leave my weed wacker any place that some unauthorized person can use it.

Thanks for the wonderful story and I am glad there is no permanent retractable lead damage.

Lisa :-)

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Jackie Ferrier link
9/20/2013 01:04:11 am

This was hilarious - particularly since I have been there! Great writing and storytelling! Thanks!

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    Caroline Coile

    Dog writer, science geek, Saluki savant and communicator of all things dog. I'm concerned about hereditary health problems,  the decline of purebred dogs and the changing climate of dog ownership. I compete with my Salukis in conformation, agility, lure coursing and obedience. I write about science, breeds, health and competitions---and I don't believe in blindly folllowing the accepted dogma of the dog world.

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