Oxytocin

I thought I knew all the basic stuff about oxytocin and its role in human sex, parturition, lactation, and pair bonding. But I have just found out that you can raise your oxytocin levels by interacting with your dog--especially by gazing into your dog's eyes lovingly and lingeringly . Patricia McConnell, who wrote The Other End of the Leash does a good job of summarizing the research here .

Last night I was watching one of those Nature shows about how wolves evolved into pugs and borzois, all in the service of man, and it was stated that the repeated stroking of a dog raises the dog's oxytocin, as well as the owner's. I'm sure the same principle applies to cats, and probably ferrets, but I'm not so sure about turtles and snakes.

Aren't we lucky to live in a scientific age? For eons we've known that hugging babies makes us and the babies happy, that petting dogs makes us feel calm and contented. And now, thanks to scientific research, we are reassured that those warm and fuzzy feelings were real, after all, since they are caused by the rising levels of a certain hormone.

It's good to know that all this time we haven't just been imagining things.

Book Sale

In late July every year my favorite community event takes place: the Library Benefit Book Sale. Volunteers fill the local elementary school gym with row upon row of cafeteria tables, and cover them with rows of used books: fiction, non-fiction, nature, cooking, self improvement, foreign languages, how-to, art, photography, history, poetry, biography. The covered walkways outside the school are lined with dozens of boxes of paperbacks. The historical society sells homemade cookies and cakes.

This is where Vermonters come to stock up for the winter. They line up on the sidewalks well before opening time, carrying canvas bags and pushing luggage carts and even small grocery carts.

I usually go to the fiction section first, stand by the table, and proceed sideways in merengue-like steps, perusing the spines of books as I go. It is important to keep ahead of the person behind me, while not pushing too close to the person ahead of me.

Every so often one of us stops, picks up a book and reads a paragraph or two. The polite thing, in that case, is for the person behind the reader to step behind him or her and take the next place in the line. That means, of course, that the person stepping behind the reader misses a number of titles, the exact quantity depending on the reader's girth.

Some intense, compulsive types refuse to step behind you as you read, but will stretch their bodies across you and practically push you away from the table, just to make sure they are not missing the book of a lifetime. In my experience, these persons are usually male. When they reach across me, I make a great show of stepping back and waving them to pass in front of me, saying "please, go ahead." But the irony is invariably lost on them. All they care about is finding books.

And finding books is important around here, what with the prospect of winter and sparse village library collections and the scarcity of bookstores. I always find terrific books, many by English women of the last century: Rumer Godden, Barbara Pym, Iris Murdoch, Penelope Lively, Vita Sackville-West--hardback books with front-page dedications in faded, spidery handwriting, smelling of mold and wet wool.

As I sift through the fiction offerings, I note an unusually strong presence by Thomas Kincade, "the painter of light," who, having desecrated the visual arts, is now making a stab at the novel. I also see a lot of books by Jan Karon, who tried to transplant the English-village comedy of manners into a small southern town, and didn't quite make it.

By the middle of the morning, my canvas bag is so full I can hardly lug it around. That's when I try to find a quiet corner, take stock, and force myself to return some books to the tables. This year I made myself discard several novels by Daphne du Maurier, and regretted it immediately. Maybe they'll be back next year.

Crafts Show

Went to a crafts show nearby yesterday, with the intention of getting mental stimulation and some pottery bowls.

It was a big show, with potters and jewelers and weavers and woodworkers and glassblowers, and lots of people looking and buying and trying on stuff. I wandered from stall to stall, eyes glazed , barely stopping anywhere, hardly seeing anything. I stayed a little over an hour, but it felt much longer than that.

I am not a good crafts fair goer. My problem is that I fantasize about the crafts people--what they must be thinking, how they must be feeling, what their lives must be like. I worry that if I stop and look, let alone handle, anything, I will get the potter/weaver/jeweler/woodworker's hopes up, only to dash them cruelly when I walk away without a purchase.

Instead of looking at the objects, I play movies in my mind of the hardscrabble life of the craftsman, who labors in the workshop all winter long and travels to shows all summer, feeding year-round on beans and rice. I think of the dreams and visions that must sustain these people--dreams of working with their hands, making an honest living, maybe attaining a measure of success. I think of them sitting on a wooden stool three days in a row, watching the crowds go by, hoping that somebody will buy their stuff.

While I project my own hangups onto the craftspeople, my fingers are itching to feel a delicate, barely pink woven scarf, try on a pair of carnelian earrings, test the "hand feel" of a wooden crochet hook. But the craftsperson is right there behind the counter, and if I linger for even a second he or she will make eye contact with me, and then I'll have to say something.

I know that craftspeople are advised that it's good for sales to stand up and make eye contact and conversation with whomever stops by their stall. That doesn't work with me. I am much more likely to browse if the seller is either out of sight or occupied with some knitting or a book.

I heard the environmentalist Bill McKibben on the radio say that people shopping at a farmers' market have an average of fifteen conversations in the process of buying their food, as opposed to just one (with the cashier) when they shop at a supermarket. McKibben cited this as one of the benefits of farmers' markets. To me, who have been damaged by a lifetime of anonymous shopping in supermarkets and department stores, it's a reason to avoid them.

I suppose I could train myself out of this. I could work to recapture the spirit of the daily errands on which as a child I accompanied my mother--to the baker, the fishwife, the vegetable seller, the seamstress, the shoe repairman, and the lady who mended stockings. I suspect that I am too goal-oriented, too driven to go into a store, buy whatever I need, and get out so I can get on with my life, whatever that is.

However, I'm beginning to suspect that life may be what happens while you're chatting with the lady who sells thirteen different kinds of potatoes, or the man who whittles crochet hooks out of wood.

P.S. I did buy, and manage to converse with the maker of, nine adorable little pottery bowls.

Shepherd In Autumn

The moment our guests departed yesterday, the weather changed from stupefying heat to autumnal splendor: bright blue skies, cool breezes, low humidity. The kind of weather that makes a dog prick his ears, point his nose into the wind and put on sudden bursts of speed.

Wolfie is participating in a herding demonstration today, somewhere in the Adirondacks, about two hours from here. I am not feeling well, so my saintly spouse volunteered to drive him to the event. I stayed behind with the girl dogs. Bisou, who thought she should have gone along, is lying morosely by the back door, watching the frogs; Lexi is stretched out on her spot between living room and kitchen and thinking about the next meal.

At the demonstration, Wolfie will work the sheep under the direction of his herding teacher. She will introduce him to the crowd as a dog of East German descent, which accounts for the herding instincts running in his blood (Shepherds from American lines are practically never used in herding). She will mention that despite his fierce looks he is gentle as a dove; that he has never even tried to hurt a sheep; that in fact his owner (moi) uses him to help her catch errant hens. She will emphasize that Wolfie's disconcerting habit of "air snapping"--opening his jaws wide and clicking his big white teeth--is an expression of joy and excitement, not a sign of impending carnage.

Then she will put Wolfie on a sit-stay several yards from the sheep and walk away from him, with the sheep following her. At one point she will say "walk up!" and Wolfie will trot (not too fast, I hope) towards the rear of the herd, close enough to the sheep to keep them moving, but not so close that they scatter. This is the part that Wolfie does well, having figured out that he must control his pace to keep the herd together.

After dog and sheep have walked around the ring a few times, the instructor will say "go by!" meaning that Wolfie must circle the sheep in a clockwise direction. Wolfie does that really well, too. He's a "go by" kind of dog.

But eventually she will command "away to me!" and he will have to circle in a counterclockwise direction--or, as the witches call it, "widdershins." And unless a miracle happens, Wolfie will try to do a "go by" instead. Or he will look away and pretend he hasn't heard. Or, heaven forfend, he will pick up a mouthful of sheep poop and eat it. It will probably take several commands--perhaps even a shake of the stone-filled soda bottle--to get him to do a proper "away to me."

I have a little theory about Wolfie's preference for the clockwise direction, known as "go by" in herding terms, "deosil" in witchspeak. In the Wiccan tradition, "deosil" is the positive direction, the direction of growth and abundance. "Widdershins"--"away to me" in sheepspeak--is the direction of negativity, hindrance, and opposition (don't ask how I know this). I believe that Wolfie senses this, and being of a sunny disposition, opts for deosil every time.

Regardless, I hope Wolfie acquits himself honorably, pleases his teacher, and doesn't horrify urban spectators by eating sheep poop. But those are human wishes. From Wolfie's point of view, short of being kicked in the eye by a sheep, practically nothing can go wrong. Cool weather, a car trip, and sheep to boss around--what more could any dog ask for?

A Time For Listening To Bach

A few years before she died of breast cancer at 52, the mezzo soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sang Bach's Cantata "Ich habe genug," ("I have enough"). For the performance Lieberson dressed in a hospital gown, with tubes emerging from her body, signifying a sick woman's readiness to die.

I have a recording of that performance, and I've been listening to it these days, along with other music by Bach, as the news about my mother oscillates between "not so bad" and "definitely worse."

I hear from my sister, who is taking care of our mother, almost every night. In between the phone calls my mind endlessly replays the latest information, weighs alternatives, imagines outcomes. It seems that no medication exists that will relieve my mother's post-surgical pain without knocking her out for the better part of a day. But sleep is treacherous, for while she sleeps she is immobile, and immobility brings the danger of stroke, pneumonia, and a host of other ills.

Also, while she sleeps she is not doing physical therapy, which means that she is not improving, which means--and this is what my sister and I dread--that she will not be allowed to stay in the rehab facility where she is presently receiving wonderful care. She will have to go to a nursing home.

The doctor, who seems kind as well as wise, has recommended that my mother receive only palliative care. But how does "palliative" translate when blood sugar levels rise sky high? And does "palliative" mean that we abandon all attempts to keep her moving? Does it mean that she is constantly on pain meds, i.e., unconscious? Then there is the matter of my mother's mind, which runs the full gamut of dementia stages: unable to make any sense on some days, "almost herself" on others.

The doctor tells us that it is time to begin thinking about hospice.

How does one "do" end of life? My sister and I are woefully inexperienced. We've never done this before. We have good will, but no skills.

There is something about the music of Bach that makes me feel that he knew everything there is to know about being human, especially the stuff that cannot be put into words. So I listen to Bach these days, and wait.

Since You Asked...

Here are a few photos of Bisou's early days that foretell her future career.

Notice how nicely the black-and-tan puppies are resting in their bed. Bisou, however, has decided to set off on an adventure and collapsed on the way. (Photo by Alix Leopold, Bisou's breeder.)


Soon after she came to us, Bisou started putting her head inside Wolfie's mouth. Here she is, goading him into opening wide.



The end, however, is always idyllic.

They still do this every morning after breakfast, with much yodeling and singing, usually passing a bone back and forth.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Girl dogs, that is. And, in Bisou's case, they just wanna have fun with frogs.

Ever since the frogs moved into our fish pond, Bisou has been obsessed with them. Wolfie was obsessed for several days, and then he gave it up, but Bisou continues to think about frogs day and night, despite having fallen into the pond twice.

I must say, those frogs are quite endearing. They are mostly on the small side, with iridescent green heads and mottled brown bodies. Their eyeballs are bronze. They do all the adorable frog things, such as squat on the lily pads or under the spray of the little solar fountain, or float around in the heat of the day, their heads out of the water, their muscular, human-looking legs splayed out behind them.

Periodically they come out of the water, hop across the patio, and dive into the mint-filled flowerbeds next to the house. I can't decide whether these frogs are lethargic--you hear about all kinds of frog diseases and malformations these days--or extremely courageous, or simply friendly, because they let me walk right up and practically touch them.

So I can see why Bisou likes our frogs. I, however, don't like what the frogs are doing to Bisou, namely, taking over her brain. Every time she goes into the back porch, from which you can see the pond, she flings herself at the door, moaning and whining in the throes of frog frustration. She wants to go out to chase the frogs. Never mind that she was out there just three minutes ago. She wants to chase frogs again.

The frogs are o.k. as long as they're in the water. All Bisou can do is stand teetering on the edge, her ears soaking in pond scum, pointing like an Irish Setter at the disappearing frogs. If, however, a frog happens to be in transit between the pond and the apple mint, that frog is in danger. Bisou goes right up to it and bumps it with her nose, at which point I yell "LEAVE IT!" and she does. If she caught a frog, what would she do? Would she eat it the way Wolfie eats turtles? I can't have two wildlife-crunching dogs.

At one point last week, Bisou started pooping in the house, in the mornings. I was outraged and confused. What was causing this relapse? Would she never be reliable? I thought we were done with house training, and now this!

Then one dawn, when I first let the dogs out I saw that Bisou, instead of focusing on doing her business, like Lexi and Wolfie, was standing with her ears in the pond, watching frogs, and didn't move until I called the dogs inside. No wonder that, after breakfast, her peristalsis had been getting the best of her. Now in the mornings I have to chase her away from the pond, shouting "Bisou! Do your business! Right now!" Not a gentle way to ease into the day.

Will Bisou ever get over this obsession? By the time the frogs go into hibernation, will I have any voice left? Will she ever figure out that if she gets too close to the edge and cranes her neck too far, she falls in?

Here she is. Guess what she's thinking about? (Photo by Alix Leopold, Bisou's breeder.)