Camping with Serenity and the dogs

First of all, a note about Serenity. Serenity is doing great! When I look at facebook, it sometimes makes me wonder, OMG, what exactly is going on up there in Boise?!?This weekend we were able to hang out together and it was very reassuring for me. All seems to be fine.

The latest is Serenity may change their legal first name to Callan, which is Scottish/Welsh/Irish for rock. They still want to be called Serenity as their nickname, with they/them pronouns. It’s been fun to watch the evolution of this as it is unfolding. And quite the learning experience!

We met in Nevada to go camping, with the practical purpose of giving our dog Kai to Serenity and their roommates. Kai has been challenging me lately and Serenity and their roommates have kindly agreed to adopt him.

It took us a day and a half to get there from Albuquerque, because we couldn’t leave until mid-afternoon. We made it as far as a rest stop near Flagstaff. We have been finding rest stops to be decent places to stay in the camper van overnight; the trick is to find one with parking behind the facilities, well away from the freeway so it’s not too loud. This can be assessed ahead of time using google satellite view.

Along the road we saw the recent aftermath of several accidents. Traveling never feels safe to me.

Finally we made it to our destination, Big Rocks Wilderness in Nevada. It’s at the halfway point between Boise and Tucson. Turns out we weren’t coming from Tucson, but that was the original intent!

After getting the van situated and sending Serenity updated, detailed directions to our campsite, we went for a walk.

We didn’t go far, just a bit of a wander around to stretch our legs before dinner.

We were poking around a little in the boulders near our campsite when suddenly we realized Kai was gone! We had seen him right behind us just a moment prior, so we knew he was nearby. We called him, but Kai has been less and less willing to come when he’s called. For one thing, he’s getting deaf. For another thing, he just doesn’t seem to care too much what we may or may not want him to do nowadays.

After looking around and calling for a few minutes, we started to get really worried. The desert is no place for a small dog to be lost. He wouldn’t survive long with no water. And he would be an easy target for coyotes.

I figured he had just gotten hot and laid down in the shade, but where was he?

After about 10 minutes of frantic calling and whistling, we decided to split up and I would head back to the campsite to see if Kai was there. We were only a few hundred yards from the van, not even a quarter mile. There was just a low ridge between us and the van, so no chance that John or I would get lost.

We agreed that if I found Kai, I would honk the horn three times so John would know to come back. Otherwise, we would meet back at the van in an hour.

I went over the low ridge and intersected the road just a short way down from the van. The moment I got onto the road I saw Kai, a few yards ahead of me, ambling casually up the road toward the campsite. I called him. He heard me, glanced back, and kept walking slowly along. It was as if he were to say, “Oh, so you got tired of this stupid hike too? It’s nearly dinnertime, time to be getting back.”

He was not lost, not worried, and not excited to see me. He was completely indifferent, trudging up the road toward the campsite. When we got to the van I honked the horn 3 times as agreed, put Kai on a leash, and set back out to find John.

Well, Kai was having nothing to do with that. He was done walking! So I left him in the van, honked 3 more times, and went to find John. It turned out John never heard the van honking. We were both surprised the noise didn’t travel such a short distance. No wonder rescuers come within a few hundred feet of people without finding them! If John couldn’t even hear the van horn, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to hear me whistling.

Kai was once an extremely well behaved dog. He’s very reward oriented, so with the proper reward structures set up, he was motivated to follow the rules. For example, if he sat quietly, he got dinner. If he whined or barked, he didn’t get dinner until he sat quietly. So guess what – he aways sat quietly!

But unlike my other dogs, who tend to get into good habits, Kai will try to get away with anything that he can. When the rules are consistently rewarded in the expected manner, Kai will behave flawlessly. But any confusion and he will regress badly, because ultimately he’s not a people-pleaser; ultimately it’s just all about what’s in it for him.

And lately, as he ages, he is showing an increasing indifference and impatience with the rules. He’s getting to be a grumpy old man! Unfortunately, he’s also becoming more of a bully. It was a few years ago when I realized I needed to keep him away from small children. He never really hurt anyone, but he would get growly and snappish, which isn’t appropriate and worried me.

He also started bullying the other dogs. Again, nothing serious, but still annoying. He growled if one of the other dogs sat down to close to him, yet he would sit right on top of them if he wanted their spot! We started calling him Butthead because that’s how he was acting.

Then when I was sick on chemo, he started being a butthead toward me too. Again nothing serious. But more and more frequently he would act hostile, and I just wasn’t up for it mentally or emotionally. He also snapped at me a time or two, completely unprovoked. At first I brushed it off, figuring I must have accidentally scared him because he is losing his hearing. But I started wondering if he might someday actually bite me.

My friend Sandy volunteered to take him for awhile. At one point she was considering adopting him, but then she got a new job and is planning to move away this summer. So she was going to keep him just until later this spring. Then while we were in Florida Kai’s behavior tanked, badly. So we picked him up from Sandy’s as soon as we were back from Florida, and brought him to Tucson.

I didn’t want to be bullied by that dog again. I got an idea. I figured he would be nice to me if I was the source of his food. I asked John to let me be the one to feed and care for him. At first that totally worked! Kai is too smart to bite the hand that feeds him, or so we thought at the time. For a whole month it seemed to work very well. I gave him his food and all his loves and cuddles and he treated me very well – because, basically, he had to.

Until Saturday. We were all sitting around in camp chairs in the middle-of-nowhere Nevada desert having lunch, when suddenly Kai tried to steal Serenity’s bratwurst sandwich. Serenity grabbed it back from him and Kai bit Serenity’s hand and wouldn’t let go! I rushed over to rescue Serenity, and Kai bit me too! Hard. I was bleeding and I have bruises under my fingernails. And all I had done was reach toward him.

Meanwhile, the other dog, Kira, was acting like a good dog should. In the confusion of both of us being bitten, we abandoned our sandwiches on our camp chairs. While John leashed Kai and we all searched for a first aid kit, Kira was left alone with bratwurst temptations right at nose level. But she just sat there, sniffing the air hopefully. She’s a sweetheart and I really miss her (I gave her to Serenity last summer because Serenity was lonely and really wanted a dog.) So of course I gave her some bratwurst when everything calmed down. She earned it!

Here she is right after having rolled around in the grass. Kira’s favorite thing is playing ball, her second favorite thing is jumping in water, and if there are no balls or water, she will just roll around in the dirt, lol.

I was surprised Serenity still wanted to take Kai after the inauspicious biting incident. But Serenity’s roommates have been really enjoying Kira and were looking forward to getting Kai too. So we’re giving it a try. If it doesn’t work, John and I will take Kai back, and then we’ll have to see how it goes. Kai is 15 years old and won’t live forever. He probably has the beginnings of dementia. The end of a dog’s life is often difficult and we’re just going to have to address things as they arise.

Despite the dog issues, we had an excellent visit with Serenity. Here they are with Kai.

That tattoo isn’t finished by the way – it will be filled in and colored. When done, it will be a big dragon.

Big Rocks wilderness is aptly named.

Hey, get that dog away from the cliff edge!

Ok, that’s better.

We didn’t go on any long hikes because it was too hot mid-day for the dogs, and Kai has limited energy nowadays. We just mostly walked around a bit in the morning and the evening.