"Well we're movin on up..."

...but not to the East Side. As if! Once an Upper Westsider, always an Upper Westsider.

This is more of a virtual move, to my own domain: "got-wolf.com"

It was all change, over April Fool's weekend. I flew out to San Francisco to help my elder daughter move her 2 cats, Seamus & Finnbar [frequently featured on this blog] to Boston. Her quest for a "just right" city is chronicled on her new blog, "...Coasting. I think I need a new town."

In our few moments of downtime, between being profiled as terrorists by TSA & switching planes @ Midway airport, she persuaded me to "come up from the minors." [Sorry, blogspot. I will miss you.] The migration [a cyber term of art] of my data from the old website to the new one was meant to occur just as we touched down @ Logan. What a little gem of Jungian synchronicity that would have been, eh? [Didn't work out quite that seamlessly.]

Aside from a spiffier layout & an easier-to-remember web address, not much will be different. You are cordially invited to join us @ our new home.

To "Lose the Plot"

So, here we are again, with 3 shooters (one, as I write this, "holed up but in talks" with the French police), for each of whom the media & the public are trying to arrive at a differential diagnosis: "mad" (in the British sense of the word, meaning: "crazy") or "bad"? To cut to the chase, as usual, I think the more relevant distinction is between "mad/crazy" and "mad/angry." But I digress.

Into this quagmire of Anglo-American failure(s) to communicate, I am tossing an old expression [to "go haywire," from 1915] and a 21st Century one [to "lose the plot"]. Notice, if you will, my choice of the present participle, "tossing" ["used...to express present or continuing action or state of being" Webster's New World Dictionary, 3rd edition]. When we say an individual "goes haywire," or "loses the plot," do we mean to say [pace Sir Bob Geldof] "the silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload," and stays in the Overload position? [Notice how cunningly Sir Bob, who knows his English grammar, for all he's an Irishman, uses/used the ambiguous "gets"? Could be my least favorite tense, the historical present, or could be a recurrent thing that happens with this particular shooter's brain every Monday, that her chip always gets switched. Nar'mean?] If you were born yesterday, you may not know that the song's title, "I Don't Like Mondays," is the verbatim explanation that a real life school girl gave, for her shooting spree.

Americans who use the phrase, to "lose the plot," mean [according to the Urban Dictionary], an individual got mad/angry about something and acted out aggressively. The Brits say "He's lost the plot," and mean that an individual has gone mad/crazy and is now acting erratically, posing a danger to self & others. Who knows if it's "an on-going situation," or it will clear up at sunrise?

Now, I shall use an animal metaphor [as I am always doing, not just this one time]. I was watching the steeplechase (hurdle jumping) racing from Cheltenham [UK] on HRtv the other morning, with my usual attitude of neutrality. "Let all riders & horses survive these grueling contests of attrition without major mishap," I bid Poseiden. But, in two consecutive races [one for mares & one for male horses] several jockeys "came off" as they went over jumps. Unlike the Santa Anita flat races described in my last post, there were no outriders to wrangle the riderless horses. A few horses carried on jumping the fences, even though they had the option to avoid them and to "run on the flat" parallel to them, if they wanted to "stay with the herd" and cross the finish line. One mare seemed to "figure out" that she could make better time by going around the fences rather than over them; and she gave the front runner quite a challenge. If this had been a scene from a Disney-type movie [like Racing Stripes or Mary Poppins], it would have been easy to attribute the human motive to these riderless jumpers, that they "knew the mission and were going to see it through." Even so, what was the "mission"? [What was the "plot"?] To jump every fence on the course, or to cross the finish line first? Which horses, then, had "lost the plot"? Or had they all "lost the plot," when they kept on racing even though they had lost their riders? Cut them some slack, will ya? They're horses. Herd animals. Born to run with their reference group.

What about these 3 shooters? [There may have been more by the time you read this. I am referring to the Staff Sgt. in Afghanistan, the vigilante in Florida, and the Algerian in France.] Each one of them has been described by those who "knew" them, as "not the sort of person to do such [aggressive] things." Did they "lose the plot" and "go haywire," or were they "wild" all along, but no one knew it? Well, folks, we all are. That's the point of this blog. The specific "irritant" that "got up the nose" of each of these shooters [and led to their acts of aggression] may or may not ever be revealed to us; but it's a salutary exercise to try to speculate about it. Human behavior is complex, but not inexplicable. To say that an individual "must have just snapped" or "gone haywire," or [temporarily or permanently] "lost the plot," is to explain nothing.

After all, these are human beings, not horses. Yet, even the actions of horses are complex [but not random, although we cannot always predict them]. The horse in this picture is one of the wild ones on the Outer Banks, photographed by my 90-something mother-in-law (something of a wild one, herself).

All Bets Are Off

Greek mythology has it, that when Zeus' brother Poseiden was wooing Demeter, she set him the challenge, "to create the most beautiful animal that the world has ever seen"; and he came up with the horse. As a Navy kid (already familiar with Poseiden as Ruler of the Waves), I knew about his thing with horses by the time my sister & I invested in 2 Cheap Day Return rail tickets, for a Day at the Races at Sandown Park in Surrey, England. At 12 & 13, we were only making friendly wagers with each other; but every time I expressed an interest in a horse, it either threw a shoe, or its rider, or otherwise came a cropper. So I made a promise to Poseiden, which I have kept, never to "have a horse in the race."

That hasn't kept me away from racetracks, mind you. When my girls were 6 & 9, I took them by subway to Aqueduct [we were already visiting NYC at the time], where, it being early on a weekday, the only other punters were the Damon Runyonesque characters so endearingly portrayed in the HBO series Luck [filmed at a favorite SoCal track of ours, Santa Anita]. Overhearing my girls' uncanny handicapping skills [especially the 6-year-old's], one railbird approached her as we were leaving and offered, "Girlie, I would buy you sodas and snacks all day, if you would stick around and pick horses for me." We had other fish to fry that day; but similar offers are made to them, every time we go to the races. True to my promise to Poseiden, I keep my money in my pocket & my havoc-wreaking opinions to myself.

Last Saturday, on the 3rd of March, on Big 'Cap [Handicapping] Day, our family had just arrived at Santa Anita in time for Race 3, when "Muny," the horse in Post position 3, broke through the gate early, and chaos ensued. As reported by Tracy Gantz in Bloodhorse.com/Horse Racing News, only 3 of the 7 horses "came out of the gate properly." 3 assistant starters were able to hold their horses, as it were; but "Mr. Bossy Pants," "Oak Kye Why," & "Sky Cape," were off to the races, even though, "before the horses had traversed even half the distance of the race, the stewards posted the enquiry sign." Meanwhile, back near the starting gate, "Lord's Minister" had thrown his jockey, Martin Garcia, and "proceeded [riderless] down the hill after the other 3" before being skillfully wrangled by an outrider in the stretch. Both horse & jockey were unharmed [thank Poseiden]; and Garcia went on to win an impressive victory in the very next race.

As "Mr. Bossy Pants" romped home for the ostensible "win," the huge crowd went silent, as the track announcer intoned, "Hold all tickets, please." We were standing at the rail, just behind the fancy box seats, not 10 feet from the Luck actor, John Ortiz [later joined by the jockey-commentator-actor, Gary Stevens]; but everyone seemed baffled. As we wandered back into the betting hall, the tote board flashed the message, in huge red letters: "NO CONTEST"; and seasoned punters explained to rookies, "All bets are off. Everybody gets their money back." One railbird quipped, "Does this mean I get back all the money I've lost all day?" Well, no, but "all 7 horses were considered winners for the purposes of multi-race wagers, except for daily doubles." The only possible loser was "Mr. Bossy Pants" and his connections, who must have felt "they was robbed."

Now for an analysis of Magical Thinking [which is inherent in the Sport of Kings]. Seriously, do I believe that I have such powerful internal locus of control, that my mere presence at a race meeting was enough to cause all this mayhem? Never mind me, how 'bout all those 3's? Don't you just bet a lot of punters played "the 3" in all subsequent races? Both my girls stuck to their usual [intuitive but effective] wagering strategies, with the younger one winning more than her sister, while Chris lost a few bucks. In the last race we stayed for, the 10th, our elder girl pulled herself "out of the whole" by betting the 9-to-1 Irish-bred longshot, "Willyconker," who won by a neck in a thrilling finish.

As the old Irish joke goes, when asked if she believed in fairies, the country woman replied, "I do not; but they're there." Do I believe that a deal I made with a Greek god, more than 50 years ago, helps to bring all horses and their riders "safe home"? Well, now, I wouldn't be bettin' against it.

"You can't handle the truth!"

Back in the less politically correct turn-of-the-20th Century, there was a cartoon with the following caption: "Leading cause of adult illiteracy: CATS." In our household, Zanzibar (pictured here "censoring" the New York Times) often makes it difficult to read All the News That's Fit to Print. It's fun to attribute to him the Jack Nicholson motive of shielding his lily-livered owners from the Inconvenient Truth.

Alas, as libel lawyers grow rich demonstrating every day, just cuz it's printed don't make it the truth, innit? [See all my previous posts under Murky Research, to bang home this observation.] Every morning I do a side-by-side comparison of articles in the NYTimes & Washington Post, which 2 "reliable sources" often use the same photo for a given story, yet recount Rashoman-like variations of the "facts." Then I go online and use the Manchester Guardian as the tie-breaker, especially for reportage on American politics. As the not-untainted-erstwhile-NoW-editor, Piers Morgan, put it on Chelsea Lately the other night, the Brits don't have "a dog in the race." [A slightly more humane metaphor than the American "dog in the fight."]

Yet, even if we are in a newspaper-free zone [like a hotel, where all they offer is The USA Today], our dear little heads do Zanzibar's job for us. We edit incoming data heavily. We say to ourselves, "I don't wish to know that!" and either block it, forget it, or distort it. The clinical terms for the first 2 defense mechanisms are denial & repression. The 3rd is called PR.

This morning Lili & I got to the sports park early enough that we had the place to ourselves. "Good-o!" thought I. "No worries about fraught encounters with other dogs. We'll just enjoy the gorgeous morning." We had completed half the circuit when we met a leashed terrier mix & his owner, so I put Lili in a down-stay to let them pass by. I was succeeding in being Lili's Pack Leader, until the man asked, "How are you today?" When I replied, "Fine," Lili sprang into action, dragging me across the path, so she could bark & lunge at the now-also-barking & lunging terrier, as I profusely apologized. Oy! Such humiliation I suffered! More than 7 years of daily training exercises, and I still can't reliably control my dog. So, as we pounded the pavement even faster, to "burn off" my anger (and, possibly, Lili's), I formulated a face-saving, fact-bending "press release," for the next time Lili shows me up in public: "Sorry. She's a rescue."

Then I could imagine Jack Nicholson sneering & Zanzibar sprawling, and I pulled myself together. Amended press release: "Sorry. She's a work-in-progress." [And so is her owner.] I had just loaded Lili back up into the Jeep, when the terrier & owner reached their nearby car. He gave me a not-at-all-condescending wave [completely neutralizing any residual humiliation] and his terrier (perhaps noting that the fearsome wolf-like beast was safely locked up behind metal & glass) gave a farewell bark & lunge display.

The truth is, every dog & owner partnership is a work in progress. I think I can handle that.

No Polar Bears' Picnic

It's been such a freakishly mild winter, so far, that I plumb forgot to put Lili's snow boots on this weekend, for our walk in the Smithsonian woods. Here she is with Chris, just before [and after] flinging herself down on her stomach, to dramatize, "Large, painful snowballs have formed in the impractically luxuriant fur between my toes; and I can't walk another step until you pull them out!" What was up her nose was unmistakably pain & suffering.

What was up my nose was the humiliation of having, through my silly mistake, inflicted needless discomfort on my trusting pet. What was up Chris' nose was the intrusion of having to stop so often to perform the snow removal ceremony on Lili's paws. "Tatsu" [to get her to stand up from her flung-down-dog position]; then "Su wa te" [to get her to sit down]; then "Gimme a paw" [well, you get it...].

And so as we made our halting way through our beloved woods, I chanted in my head Albert Ellis' mantra ["This situation is not awful; it is only highly inconvenient."], until we encountered our old nemeses: the girl with the unleashed retriever. Figuring that Lili's limbic system was even more lit up than usual, Chris dragged her off the path into the trees, where she barked & lunged, embarrassingly but harmlessly, as the runner and her [short-haired] dog passed by, unhindered by snowballs between the toes, apparently.

But, as they say in the UK, worse was to follow! A few hundred yards later, we encountered an older woman running [sine cane]; and Lili gave her the full bark & lunge routine, just for nothing. The lady, whose limbic system was the least aroused of any of us, remarked cheerfully, "He's lucky to be wearing a warm fur coat on a day like this!"

Later, on the ride home, Chris remarked, "I was afraid Lili would pull me off my feet back there!" [Welcome to my world, even when it's only muddy underfoot.]

So, what's it all about, then? Despite daily training exercises, to gain mastery over the howling wolf in Lili's head [and, ahem, mine], we are still very much a work in progress. But wallowing in humiliation about it only adds fuel to the limbic fire [and more resulting anger]. The best thing to do is to use the cheerful lady in the woods as a role model: to Keep Calm & Carry On.

Born This Way?

This, from last Tuesday's Washington Post: "Fido won't sit? Blame his genes." This slipshod article is loosely based on a study conducted at the Department of Ethology & the Department of Medical Chemistry at 2 separate universities in Budapest, Hungary, entitled "Polymorphism in the Tyrosine Hydroxylase (TH) Gene Is Associated with Activity-Impulsivity in German Shepherd Dogs." Still paying attention?

For me, the most fascinating finding was that, regarding this herenow gene, there was great variance between different dog breeds. (Which wasn't the point of the study at all, mind you. They were supposed to be focusing on within-breed differences. Seem to have gotten a little sidetracked, no?) "For example, the frequency of allele 2 is 31% in Groenandaels [Belgian Shepherds to you & me], 0.89% in German shepherds, and 0.73% in wolves." Got wolf? Yes, I do, near as dammit.

Now, to the weakest link of the study: the operational definition of Activity-Impulsivity in dogs. First they modified the standard parents-kvetching-about-their-kids ADHD checklist to "apply" to owners-kvetching-about-their-dogs. No items from this questionnaire appeared in the article. Trust them, it had great inter-rater reliability. Swell. How about validity? What they call ADHD, I might call hypervigilance [which is what my wolflike German shepherd manifests, ja?]. Or, possibly, Separation Anxiety, which she also has.

Next they conducted a 4-task individual test for 104 dog & owner pairs, with a female experimenter present. (1)"Spontaneous activity." Dog on leash with owner [not giving any commands] for 1 minute. [How many leg movements did the dog make?] (2)"Separation & play." With owner "hiding" behind a nearby tree & dog tied to another tree, the experimenter tries to engage the dog in a game of tug-of-war. [How active was the dog?] (3)"Lying on the side." Owner commands the dog to lie down, then has it lie on its side for 30 seconds. [Does the dog obey?] (4)"Approaching the owner." While experimenter holds the dog on a leash, the owner "hides" behind a tree. Then the dog is let off the leash and given the command "Go!" back to the owner. Now, get a load of this! The more quickly the dog returns to its owner, the more "ADHD" it is! Seriously.

Who knew the Hungarians placed such a premium on taking your sweet time when summoned by "the boss"?

Ooh! So, would they then predict that wolves [with an even lower frequency of the TH gene] would return to their pack leader even faster than our dog Lili? [Which I would have thought had survival value...] Wolves must be "ADHD" as all getout.

Notice that nowhere in the study was "Sitting on command" assessed.

May I suggest that you henceforth take the "Science News" section of the WaPo with a grain of salt? As they sing in Porgy & Bess, "It ain't necessarily so."

Why the long face?

Chances are, if you are a horse or a human at an equestrian barn, that hang-dog look means you have just suffered a humiliation.

The other day my San Francisco daughter (who has been riding horses since she was 7, including, in better times, our magnificent 18hh Hanoverian, Owen) called to say, "Well, good. I finally met the Barn Bitch." She had decided to reallocate her discretionary income, from hanging with 20-somethings at Frisco watering holes, to hanging with a 20-something horse in Oakland, name of Zachary. (Which is also her boss' name, innit?) Until that day, everyone she had met at the barn had been helpful and welcoming.

I, too, began riding at the age of 7; and have never, in more than a dozen different barns, in the US and Europe, failed to encounter at least one trainer stuck in a permanent state of rage. There is also always at least one horse in a permanent Bad Mood. In the UK, where horses are not exotic, and mingle freely with motorists and pedestrians, such a "known kicker and/or biter" is likely to have a red ribbon tied to its tail. If only the Barn Bitch came with such a warning label!

Let's do a bit of ethology, to try to figure out why "There's (at least) one in every crowd." Horses, it must be understood, are both pack animals and prey animals. In the wild, survival depends on being "well in" with the herd, whose members can better fend off predators. Yet, when forage is scarce, survival depends on being of high enough status to get first dibs on the food. Battles for supremacy involve biting and kicking; and size does not always matter. (Even a fierce little dog can growl a horse away from food which is of no nutritional value to the terrier, itself. Hence, the English expression, "to act like a dog in the manger.") Indeed, at riding barns, it is most often a small mare or even a pony who wears the red ribbon.

And so, to the psychology of the Barn Bitch. It is rarely the owner of the establishment who snarls (at potential customers). It may not even be the head trainer, whose alpha status allows first pick of horses, tack, and students, making it more likely that they will win the on-going zero-sum-game, into which all human/horse endeavors [not just show events, or races, but even lessons] morph. It is the "Not Quites," the Wannabe trainers, who are left with the nags, the old tack and the less promising students, who suffer humiliation, which they pass along, like the Old Maid card, usually to unsuspecting newcomers.

Once you know who should be wearing a red ribbon, it's easier to put out your own subtext message, loud & clear: "I'm not your enemy, but I'm not your victim." Now, jump out of the manger, and let my horse eat. An old hand at such scenarios, my daughter held her ground; and the erstwhile Barn Bitch morphed into a lap dog.