“E-what?” Leo Rousseau, a film maker in Gardner joked. It seems people are much more aware of ecology than they were in the late 1960’s when Earth Day got its name.

Rousseau was in Los Angeles working as an educational film maker on hot new topics like composting and organic gardening. Los Angeles was the last stop for a earth awareness march down the California coast. Participants held meetings in towns they passed through, hoping to spread the word on how the world’s systems interact. As Rousseau puts it, “basically, ecology.”

Although the end of the march was publicized, fewer people attended the meeting held in Los Angeles than in any of the smaller cities and towns along the route. However, the meeting had repercussions that still ring today. 

Realizing the earth did not have a birthday, the marchers and organizers designated April 22 as its birthday, now known as Earth Day. 

From this small beginning of what Rousseau referred to as farmers and hippies, environmental awareness has entered the mainstream. Venerable institutions like the Grange, founded in the mid 1800s, are now involved in Earth Day events.

The path around the reservoir is mostly flat with good footing. Walkers and runners enter through a service road the water department maintains. A berm separates the water from the road for the first several hundred yards. It’s lined with aged pine trees that look like they were planted when the pond was dammed. There are only a few holes denoting fallen trees. 

A few paths lead to the water. These are favored spots for the dogs who run down to drink or swim on hot days. Unfortunately, since it is so near the parking area, it’s also a magnet for the offenders leaving poopy diapers. 

After passing the beach on the right hand side, the chicken wire fence on the other side of the road disappears. More than one unwary dog has gotten caught behind this fence while in pursuit of small game. They always figure out a way around the blockade and come back no worse for the wear. An old civil defense structure with a horn lurks behind a chain link fence a little further on. Dogs have been known to run around this enclosure and roll in nasty things behind it. Not Doll though. 

The reservoir is long and narrow, no longer used as a water supply. The north side is short, basically an earthen dam. A brick pump house sits in the water about 20 feet from shore. During the warm summer ropes hang from the opening, placed there by illicit swimmers. Henry lurks, waiting to catch the scofflaws. 

The dam is a canine hot spot. Swimmers rush to the water, antsy individuals race up and down the hill on the back side. Here the grass grows high, reaching over a foot tall; some dogs graze their way through in the never-ending search for the roughage not found in the obscenely expensive food we all buy. 

The most magical dog spot appears where the maintained roadway turns into a footpath, entering the woods up a slight incline. Dogs go nuts just before making the right turn. They run in circles, they run back and forth, leap around like psycho-dogs and generally let their hair down. 

“Look at Dolly!” “Star!” “Watch out Lulu!”

Lulu, Karen’s dog, is frequently knocked over by the larger dogs. She is small and round, yet fierce. Fortunately she rolls well. “Good thing Lulu’s not a pit bull,” Peter said one day as she fended Dolly off with a determined grrr.

Karen falls frequently on the walks too. She carries a cane but a misplaced foot or a good nudge from a careening dog is enough to drop her.

Dolly gets ready for her busy day.

It seems like we all have a proper name and then the name that people call us. Same thing happens with dogs.

Dolly’s real name is Dorothy Ann O’Connor. We call her:

•  Dolly
• The Doll
• Dollie-o 
• Dollster
• Duckie- this seems to embarress her
• Ding-Dong
• Sweetie
• Sweets
• Fierce One
• Trouble

and a few I won’t list here.

Please chime in. What do you call your best friend?

Come back Sunday, February 21 to learn Bubba’s fate.

Here’s a fun link about naming dogs. http://www.dog-names.us/database.asp

As it turns out the list of rules for a newly adopted pit bull is endless.

1. No heavy duty playing for a few days. She just had her operation.
2. The dog enters the house behind the person.
3. The dog cannot go on the furniture until she earns the privilege.
4. The dog walks beside or behind the person, not in front.
5. Never leave the dog loose in the house.
6. No tug of war.

I did my best. Dolly came home, followed me inside and checked the joint out. Dolly went on walks around the neighborhood. Dolly chewed through three leashes, five dog toys and one chair arm the first week. Dolly chewed through the wiring for the tow hitch in the back of the Jeep the next. At some point she gnawed a bit of molding into oblivion.

Then she learned to sit and to come. She learned to walk on a loose leash on the sidewalks and snowy paths. In just a short time she learned to walk without the leash on the trails. She lost two pounds of pound excess during her first few months home. She met her grandparents and tried to chase their cat. She charmed Cathy and John downstairs into waiting for her to come home so they could give her a cookie. Their cat chased her.

I kept a close eye on things. Dolly never was allowed to play with more than one dog at a time at the shelter and never with another pittie. She became nervous if people loomed up at her out of the dark. That quirk was okay with me. Iignored the fact if I didn’t have to walk the dog each night I wouldn’t be out in the dark in the first place.

One fateful day we went to a different entrance to walk the trails. Several cars were parked at the end of the road near Flat Rock Reservoir but I decided to walk there anyway. There really wasn’t enough time to drive somewhere else that morning. A bit leery, we leashed up and headed out. Immediately we met up with a group of three large dogs and their person. Off leash. Uh-oh.

“It’s okay, let her go,” the woman urged. “Was this a ‘try it, you’ll like it’ tactic, would these big dogs maul my now-slimmed down pittie?” I wondered. If one of those mammoth dogs was injured would there be another “pit bull attacks innocents” story in the local rag? Needless to say I was cautious but didn’t want to cheat Dolly out of any play time.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s lots of us up here. We meet at 10.”

“But I’ve never had her loose with other dogs,” Lucy countered.

A pitiful whine came from down below. The leash was stretched taut and the dog was quivering.

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

Life was never the same.