Ellensburg in January
Dad showed up at Mom-mom’s house in the morning wearing outdoor clothes. Mongo knows outdoor clothes versus go-to-work clothes. If Dad is wearing go-to-work clothes, Mongo won’t even get up from his rug to bed when Dad heads to the door. But if Dad is wearing outside clothes when he heads out, it is best not to stand between Mongo and the door.
This morning Dad headed out the door and Mongo almost toppled Dad as he sprinted out the open door through Dad’s legs. They raced up the stairs and over to the truck. Dad loaded Mongo up on the ramp into the back of the truck, and together they drove out of the neighborhood.
It was rainy in Seattle as they headed up to the pass. It was slushy as they cleared Snoqualmie, and the windshield was being pelted with a mixture of rain and snow.
As they crested the pass, the weather improved. Dad drove through Ellensburg and out to the ranch. He left Mr. M in the truck and went in to talk to the owners. Alice was a sweet as ever, and showed Dad which field they would be hunting. Dad came back out and they drove down the dirt roads to the fields. Mongo had to stay low in the bed of the truck to keep from being jostled. Finally the truck stopped. Dad let Mongo out. They waited for the guide to come out on her 4-wheeler. Dad put on his boots and vest, and readied his shotgun. Mongo raced around the parking area sniffing everything. He was electrified with anticipation. Hunting birds was what he was bred to do and it came to him instinctively.
The young lady showed up and gave them the “Ok” to head into the field. It was cold and the rain from the night before was frozen the ground. It made the ground a little uneven, but it was not hard to walk on.
Suddenly Mongo bolted up the hill. Dad knew this was a bad thing. He started yelling and running after Mongo, but his heavy boots, vest full of shells, and the shotgun cradled in his arms all conspired to slow him down. Mongo crested the hill before Dad had even reached the mid-point. Dad know it was hopelss now. He watched as Mongo flushed a bird well over a hundred yards from where Dad stood. Dad stopped running and just yelled. Dad had learned many choice words in his many years the stream of invective rivaled that from Ralphie’s father in A Christmas Story, and might even have made Grandpa, the old Navy Masterchief, blush. But Mongo still did not return. Dad gave up on yelling and finally raised the shotgun and fired into the air.
Mongo knew that sound and came running to see what Dad was shooting at. Dad grabbed his collar, and Mongo was subjected to a second stream of invective, until Dad was out of breath. Mongo looked up at Dad with sad eyes. He was no longer electric.
Dad ended the scolding with. “Now HEEL!” Mongo stayed right by Dad’s side till they got to the top of the hill. Dad looked Mongo in the eye again before telling him, “Now huntemup!” Dad still did not sound pleased.
This time Mongo did exactly what he was supposed to do and orbited in a circle about 20 yards away from Dad. Hey moved slowly through the field, working as a team as they looked for pheasants. Finally Mongo drew up in front of a sage brush on top of the mesa and held perfectly still. Dad maneuvered into position, taking into account the direction of the wind and of the sun. “MONGO!” shouted Dad, and Mongo plunged into the sagebrush to flush the pheasant. The bird erupted form the scrub and burst into the air. Dad drew a bead and fired. The bird did not drop. Dad continued to track the bird, and fired again. The bird fell into the sage, and Mongo was on him in a flash. Mongo quickly brought the bird back to Dad, and they were on the move again.
They bagged another bird as they walked along the top of the mesa. Sometimes Mongo followed Dad, sometimes Dad followed Mongo. They wove their way to the other side of field, where Dad could now see the truck. He and Mongo were walking on a path, side by side. Suddenly, they parted ways. Mongo followed his nose right, Dad saw something to his left. Dad saw a bird running into the brush. Mongo was following the same bird’s trail backwards to where it had been hiding.
Dad is an honest hunter, and shooting a bird on the ground is not very sportsman like. So he started running after it. Mongo was still making tracks heading the wrong way.
Dad still was wearing big boots, a vest filled with lead shot, and carrying a double barreled shotgun, but now the ice on the ground had melted. So to add to Dad’s misery, the mud covering he field was trying to suck his shoes off his feet with every step. Dad thundered on. The bird easily gained ground on him. Dad looked back to see Mongo heading the other way
“Mongo! You knucklehead! Come HERE!” But it was too late. The bird had put too much distance between he and Dad for Dad to get a good shot, and at that moment the bird decided to fly. Dad just stopped and watched it leave. Finally Mongo lost the scent and turned around. He quickly loped up to Dad.
Dad was just standing there watching the bird fly off in to the distance. He looked down and said, “C’mere, you knucklehead” as he affectionately, rubbed Mongo’s ears. “You don’t even know what you missed, do you?” Dad patted Mongo’s head and turned to continue the hunt.
As they walked, the ground continued to melt. So Dad and Mongo sloshed their way across the field this time. Again, Mongo came to attention by a sage bush. Dad maneuvered for the shot. “Mongo”, he shouted, and Mongo plunged into the bush. The bird burst into the sky. Dad dropped it with one shell, and Mongo quickly brought it back.
Dad stood for a minute and then pulled his pedometer out of his pocket. He saw they had walked about seven miles. He looked back at the snowcapped hills to the north, and then turned south and started walking towards the truck. Mongo trotted at his side.
Dad finally got a good look at Mongo when they got to the truck. Dad bent down to pick him up. Mongo was mud brown from the middle of his chest down to his toes. Dad gingerly picked him up and put him in the bed of the truck. Then Dad looked at his own feet. They were two big balls of mud. Dad changed shoes in the cab and then tip-toed to the bed to drop off the muddy boots with Mongo, trying not to get his clean shoes full of mud. He stopped for a moment and looked at his muddy buddy in the back of the truck. He knew he could not bring Mongo back to Mom-mom’s like that. Dad started the truck and then waited a moment to make a phone call.
“Hello, is the dog groomers? Great, do you have space for a drop-in this afternoon? Excellent! Yep, he’s a lab, and he just needs a bath and toe-nail clipping. Oh, he weighs about 90 pounds. That’s great! Thanks! I’ll see you at 3:00!”
Dad dropped off Mongo with the two nice young ladies. From the looks on their faces, they clearly had not been expecting to see anywhere near that much dirt on one dog. “So, when will he be ready?” Dad asked.
“About two hours…” replied one of the slightly stunned women.
“OK, see you then”, and Dad headed into town for lunch. Afterwards, as he waited in line at the ice cream shop, Dad saw what happens to dogs that don’t get out much before they grow old. They get very cranky and bark incessantly inside the car.
Two hours later, Dad drove back out to the groomers. As he pulled up, he could see Mongo had worked his magic on the two young ladies. Through the window he could see Mongo sitting on a bench like Marc Anthony, with one groomer gently brushing his back and the other feeding him treats. Dad walked over to the door.
“He’s so adorable!” they chimed as Dad walked into the shop. “We would keep him forever!”
Dad laughed. He looked at Mongo and said, ”You are quite the charmer.” He paid the ladies and left them a nice tip and headed outside. As he bent down to left Mongo into the truck, he sniffed and said, “Wow, you even smell better.” Mongo wagged his tail as Dad lifted him into the truck, and then they headed back to Seattle.
Mongo and Kimi Go To The Park
Kimi took Mongo to the park over the weekend. She did not take him to the big park in the mountains or the big park by the water. She took him to the little park in the woods. Mongo loves going to the woods. There are lots of sticks in the woods.
Kimi and Mongo walked down the narrow path into the rainforest. On either side of them were fern beds and towering evergreens of the old growth forest. Sunlight barely filtered to the path.
The leaves of the ferns were wet. The evergreens dripped water in big fat drops all around them. Mongo found a stick. It was a wonderful stick. It was a very heavy, mostly because it was waterlogged. He ran up to Kimi to show her the magnificent stick.
As he raced past her, he whacked Kimi’s ankle with the heavy stick. Kimi hollered. Mongo turned to see what was the matter. As he turned, he tripped Kimi with the other end of the stick. Kimi howled as she hit the ground. Mongo was worried for his hiking buddy. He turned again to see what was wrong with Kimi.
As he turned he beaned her in the head with the big wet stick. This time Mongo got yelled at. He was very sorry, and he did not feel happy at all on the way back to the Jeep. When he got home. He was so sorry, he carried Kimi’s shoes around for her. (He left them outside which did not make Kimi any happier.) It was just not Mongo’s day to make Kimi happy.
Tucked in for the Night
There are studies that say that dogs can develop reasoning powers on a par with a human toddler. And retrievers, i.e. Mongo, are near the head of the class. Animal psychologists say dogs like Mongo can understand up to 250 words and gestures. Mongo knows quite a few words, and some of his favorites are: FOOD, NOM, EAT, PUPPY, PAPER, and PARK. He has learned fairly complex behaviors such as getting the paper, finding and retrieving birds, and bringing Kimi’s slippers outside.
Mongo & Kimi’s Shoe
However, animal psychologists warn about the dangers of anthropomorphizing animal behavior. The way humans interpret animal behavior may be completely different from the way the animal is using the behavior. For example, animal behaviorists say that a dog does not feel guilt like humans. They posit that when humans say, “What did you do?” in a threatening voice and the subject dog cowers and crawls on its belly, the dog’s display of submissive behavior is simply a learned response to “What did you do?”
In other aspects of behavior, Mongo certainly mimics human behavior. In particular, he mimics toddler behavior pretty well. He routinely digs in his toy box to find a particular favorite, while flinging everything else on the floor. And he never picks them back up. That certainly sounds like toddler behavior.
There was also the time Mom-mom made a barbequed chicken to take on a picnic. Drewbie and Dad were loading up the car when Mom-mom stuck her head out to ask, “Did you two load up the chicken already?” Drewbie and Dad turned to each other with puzzled looks, and then turned back to here and answered in unison, “No.”
“Well, it was right here on the table, and now I can find it, and somebody must have moved it because it didn’t just get up and fly away.” Dad and Drewbie shrugged their shoulders, turned back to the car and continued loading.
A few minutes later, Mom-mom appeared at the back door laughing so hard she could hardly speak. “I found it!”, she exclaimed between peals of laughter. “He took it off the table and hid it in his toy box!” This is the one example of him ever putting something in the toy box. It can only be surmised that this most valuable of prizes was worthy of being placed in his safest place.
Another example of intelligent behavior is at the end of the day. Since Drewbie moved out, Mongo has a queen sized bed all to himself. But dogs are social animals and sometimes having a bed to yourself is not a desired situation. Mongo knows he’s not allowed in Dad’s bed and never jumps up on it, at least not while Dad is watching. And at the end of the day, Dad closes the door to his bedroom to keep Mongo out, so that Mongo can’t wake Dad up at 3:30 a.m. for early breakfast. This is an example of learned behavior on Dad’s part.
Typically, Mongo is already on his bed by the time Dad closes the bedroom door. However, on certain rare evenings, the routine changes. Mongo flops down on the floor in Dad’s room and refuses to leave. This typically occurs on unique evenings, like the first night after Drewbie goes back on the road, or if there is particularly loud storm outside.
Last week, there was a very loud storm outside with winds up to 50 mph. Mongo planted himself on the floor in Dad’s room. Dad came out of the bathroom and saw him flat on the floor. “What is it Buddy?” Dad asked. Mongo did not move. “Do you want me to follow you?” Mongo looked at the doorway. “OK, I’ll come with you then.” Dad moved to the doorway and Mongo sprung up from the floor. It is on these rare nights that Mongo does not turn left and race down the stairs to the “cookie box” (actually his pet box, where he often receives treats) for one more EAT. Instead, he darted towards Drewbie’s room, stopped at the door, and looked back at Dad. Dad followed him. Then Mongo jumped on the bed, turned and looked back at Dad again.
“I’m right behind you Buddy.” Dad sat on the bed, and asked Mongo, “Is the storm making you nervous? Do you need someone to lay down with you for a minute?” Mongo flopped on the bed. Dad laid down next to him and scratched Mongo’s ears for a little while until Mongo rolled on his back and began to snore. Then Dad went back to his own room.
Sleeping Doggy
Whatever the canine reasoning behind this particular behavior, it certainly calls to mind having to tuck in a nervous toddler on a loud stormy night.
It really was the flying monkeys! Honest!
Mongo was caught with the remains of a scarecrow in his mouth. If he could have talked, I am certain that he would have explained that he was just rescuing the poor scarecrow. It was really the flying monkeys that had torn Scarecrow apart.
Flying Monkeys…Really!
Cohibas
While animal psychologists say that dog’s do not feel guilt the way humans do, Mongo still displays some very complex behavior in this realm.
Last night, Dad came home from work to be greeted by a very submissive Mongo crawling on his belly. Dad knew that something was up. On most nights, Mongo is simply the happiest guy in the world when Dad shows up at the end of the day. But every once in a not so great while, Mongo greets him with his “I been very very bad” behavior.
This behavior starts a bit of a mystery hunt for Dad. Almost always, clues around the house lead Dad to the site of Mongo’s misdeeds. Often a quick survey of the back yard will uncover the remains of cracker boxes or produce bags which clearly indicate what has been snatched from the table.
However, sometimes he eats all the evidence of his transgressions, and the source of his rueful behavior remains a mystery forever. Or at least it remains unknown until the next morning when Dad has to scoop up Mongo’s poop and the evidence of his iniquities is plainly laid out in the park.
This time, Dad did not have to look far for the evidence of Mongo’s naughtiness. In the middle of the living room floor was a box Dad was packing. In it were a pair of Cohiba’s in aluminum tubes that Dad was saving for gift. Both tubes were out of the banker’s box and on the floor, with bite marks in them.
“Did you do this?” Mongo slunk away to his cookie box. The mystery was solved.
Mongo’s Happy New Year
Mongo is a very happy guy for 2015. He is now Mongo No. 5!
Jump up and down
And wiggle all around.
Put your tail in the air.
Put your nose to the ground.
One foot black and one foot white,
If your covered in mud then you’re doin’ it right.
Mongo’s gallery
Mongolope 
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