Samhain

Samhain is about here, upon us again. It is that time of year, nearly Halloween. The Celts and neopagans celebrate it as a sort of mystical pagan festival of the dead at the start of winter. It also ties in with the Catholic All Souls Day. But all of that is horseshit. Samhain has been around since the last of the great werewars. It celebrated the end of that war and the pledge of all weres to never let things go to that edge ever again, to where all were, dogs and wolves, nearly wiped each other out.

Samhain was celebrated in the 8th century as an end of harvest, but became popular in the modern era in the 19th century in Britain, and then spread to other parts of Northern Europe and America. But it had been observed by weres for many thousands of years before the Irish, Scots, Celts and neopagans got on board. No one can say for certain, but most certainly it had to have been some weredogs that let it slip and led all those late-comers to it.

Samhain is the one night of the year that weredogs and werewolves have traditionally come together to celebrate. All weres in any area come together for a massive wereparty. Some I have been to over the centuries have been very out of control, very memorable. Ironic that some I do not much remember.

What are they like? Think of raves with meat. Sure, there's booze. Beer goes with BBQ even for weres. But alcoholism is rare amongst weres. But there weredog counselors everywhere for meataholism.

There are several Samhain celebrations that I will be attending in the next week, all with weredogs and werewolves, most of whom will be falling off the wagon and gorging themselves on every conceivable type of meat. The Bourbon, scotch and ale will also flow, you can be certain. Fluufy, you owe me a bottle of Lagavulin.

I need a break, a week of night play and abandon. I have been out every night for weeks, patrolling and planning, checking up on and keeping tabs on Sven and Rick, Jack and Sherry too, and my large crew of dog friends, who are telling me amazing things, good and bad, about their families and neighborhoods. You humans would be screwed without all your dogs to watch you backs.

Details to follow. Been napping most days, after being out most and all nights. So blogging and investments have gone to the back burner. Nothing better than a fall dog nap, especially after being out all night stalking bad dogs.

Yes, in ensuing centuries after the armistice that created Samnhain weredogs nearly hunted and pursued werewolves into extinction. Some habits are just hard to give up.

Killer Apes and .....

Had a pack meeting last night. One dog, a newby, has been referring to humans as "the killer apes." He got it from a werewolf. He and I have argued about it several times, last night and at other meetings.

There is a theory called "The Killer Ape Theory" that claims that homo sapiens clawed their way to the top of the human pile by means of the superior ability to kill, both prey and competitors.

This theory claims that fighting and hunting, to survive, of course, is what caused the enormous intelligence leap in the human brain, that led to homo sapiens learning the make tools and weapons and to figure out how to control and make fire, amongst other things.

There are other theories, of course.

But it is true that all predator species have to learn how to kill to survive, to eat, to defend themselves and their territory, to contest competition. Mankind is not any different.

It is also true that humans learned to fear the world, and still carry that with them. Humans learned over many millennia to fear the dark, to fear the forrest, to fear the water, to fear the night. The world was, and still is, a very scary and dangerous place. People have that fear hard-coded into them.

We weres see the world as a scarier place now than 50,000, or even 100,000 years ago, given all the institutionalized barbarity and corruption, the rhetoric that we have a hard time following and understanding. The scarcity facing the world, in terms of food, water an energy, could very soon make for very interesting, even scarier times.

This hard-coded fear is at the heart of all human commerce, all government, all religion. Fear of lacking, of not having enough, or running out, is what drives human greed and, hence, most human behavior.

That is not to say that all human behavior is barbaric. No. Examples of human love and compassion and creativity are everywhere. These sorts of things are the counter-balance to the barbarity. Both exist in the hearts of all humans - compassion and barbarity.

I told this dog that calling humans apes is like calling a weredog a werewolf. He didn't laugh. That worried me.

Calls to make. Clothes to wash. Guns to clean. I miss Sven and Rick, and Sherry and Jack. I'm a sucker for punishment.

Dognappers in Nam

This caught my eye in the paper this morning. Read the article here: Dognappers in Nam

Dogs have a different existence in the Asian and Arab cultures. Life in those cultures is generally much harder and dangerous. It can be bad enough in the U.S. and Europe, with dog fighting and puppy mills and those humans who like to take out their angst and anger on their dogs (and often their kids too). But dogs are not considered a delicacy or vermin in western cultures.

I have been to Vietnam, and other Asian countries. I have been in the Middle East. But I have always returned to and lived most of my life in North American, with some forays to Europe. But I was born an American dog and always have been an American dog.

Asian weredogs do not have the same lifestyles with their humans. They must remain always vigilant, for dog-nappers and other atrocities. Asian weredogs have a long history of rescuing the dogs they grow to care for from the butcher's knife. There is a much richers weredog and werewolf mythology in Asian folklore, much of which derives from the activities of weredogs.

Asian culture, to a great extent, sees pets in general, and pet dogs in particular, as frivolous and far too western. Arabs culture is the same, but more so. Iran has been confiscating pet dogs in recent years, claiming that pet dogs are much too western and a bad influence on the pure Muslim mind. For this reason, there has been an increase in dog rescues and exfiltrations of dogs and weredogs out of Iran, and other Arab countries, in recent years. These operations stay small, to avoid attention.

There are many weredogs who do not care for Asians and Arabs because of these issues. There are also some weredogs, more and more, who claim that it is all human, not just Arabs and Asians, that it is more about culture and economy and need that determines the human capacity for barbarity and BBQed dogs. Werelore, and even human history, makes it very clear that all humans will eat whatever they have to stay alive, including other humans. This is true for all species.

But that does not lessen the horror of seeing a dead dog hanging from a meat hook, which I have seen.

Recent Patrols and Updates

I love my new .40. It is a Sig Sauer and weights well in my hand, and rides well in its new holster while on patrol.

Warin and Caitlyn and I have been patrolling a lot inside and outside our AO. Lots of leads and rumors and strange scents to follow up on.

A scared werewolf came to our pack seeking refuge. He claimed he possesses much intel that we would like to hear. We put him up in a pack safe house and if half of what he is telling is true we are going to be doing double-duty following up on everything. And we are going to need more dogs, and wolves, to trace it all down.

One thing this wolf claims is that he knows who killed Rex, that it involved werewolves who were working with neos. I let it be known that I want to be involved in the hit when we take them down. I want to hear scream those who killed Rex. I won't need the .40 for that. It will be claw and blade only.

Dionna has disappeared. No one in Grand Lake knows where she is. I have to find her.

I have been sneaking in to see and smell everyone at home, but just during the day. I have been over twice in human form to say "Hi." But it is not the same. As a person I cannot just lay down on the floor and watch everyone. As a person there is a clock running and after a time they are waiting or you to leave.

Jack is depressed. Sherry is angry. Sven and Rick seem to be doing OK, all things considered, playing football and burying their heads in their phones and iPods most of the time. Jack won't say how or what he is doing. But I know.

I cannot find work. Even during the Great Depression I found work. Granted, it was on farms and ranches and small towns, but the country was much more rural then than now. I should leave, move again to some other part of the country, or even back to Canada. But I feel tied to Jack and Sherry and the boys. And to Braden and Tyler, who are having their own struggles lately.

I have been asked to be part of some more operations. But I cannot leave the country again so soon. I have even declined some puppy mill ops in Missouri. Caitlyn is giving me strange looks. Warin says I need to move again, to the mountains. I have always been a mountain dog at heart.

Hailey Died Yesterday

I spent most of the day yesterday back at the house, Jack and Sherry's. The other pets got word to me that Hailey was dying.

I am one of those rare weredogs who has a natural and strange affection for cats. Domestic house cats. I have no desire to get cozy with a tiger or lion, or even to mess with a cougar. But I always get tight with the cats with whom I share abodes. And Hailey was one special cat.

I let myself in and spent most of the day with Hailey. I knew the moment I smelled her that she was nearly done. She was down to 3 pounds, form her healthy weight of 10 pounds. She could barely move, had found a spot to die in the boys bathroom, on the floor, curled up on the damp towel dropped there that morning after a shower.

I sat by her most of the day, petting and touching her lightly. The other pets were nearby. Canines do this because for millions of years pack members kept guard for older or sick dying pack members, to keep predators at bay, so that they could die at their leisure, with some comfort and dignity.

 I put my nose to her and sniffed her a lot, knowing that after that I would never smell her again. I have a vast memory of smells from other my years, of those loved and less loved. Their faces always fade from my memory long before their scents.

I slipped out the back just as the boys were getting home from football practice. It would have been awkward for them to find me there. But part of me wanted that to happen.

I am thinking of going back, to live with Jack and Sherry and the boys. Stranger things have happened. They would just pass it off as another of those amazing dogs who travel amazing distances, or disappear and reappear, to regain their families.

Most of those dogs, by the way, are weredogs. Go figure.

Dogs and Bones

I got into the old argument the other night about whether dogs have suffered from civilizations, some say, "domestication." I got into it with a werewolf at a military reunion last week. Yes, werewolves do get into the military from time to time. Werewolves love the military in a combat AO. But they hate the military when in garrison. They are the worst peace-time and garrison troopers ever, always getting into trouble.

I told this guy that dogs are not wolves, that for one thing the diversity of dogs far out-spans that of wolves, in terms of size and color and numerous differences. Shepherds and huskies ad closer to the wolf archetype than the dachshund or chihuahua. But the difference between a chihuahua and a wolf is about the same as between Richard Simmons and a Special Forces operator.

This guy claimed that dogs cannot chew bones like a wolf. I told him that I have seen weredogs, in dog, were and human form, strip a bone and then make it disappear as if on-stage.

Vets say not to give dogs linear bones, like rib bones. One has to know the dog on that count, whether the dog is a fast eater, tends to eat too fast, and then is more likely to choke on bone fragments or to perforate some intestine. Flecka tended to eat too fast. Bella ate slow and methodical.

It's the same with people. Seems to me there are more poodle-people, chihuahua-people, and cocker-people these days. What would a cocker-spaniel do if you gave him or her an elk thigh bone? What would it do if let loose in the wild?

Dont get me wrong. I aint got a bone to chew here. But after spending last week with a bunch of old and young Special Forces guys, my perceptions of people is a little askew.

I told this werewolf that the real question is not who is softer from civilization, but "Who can fight?" He said, "How about arm wrestle?" I said OK.

In no time there was a crowd around our table. I'd drank about five beers. I hoped he'd had at least as many. He was about my size.

I beat him 2 out of 3. The wolves all howled in lament. Wolves howl over everything. They would have never stopped had there not been only 5 of them in there.

Later, as we all were leaving, that same werewolf leaned into me and said, with a grin, "I'll be wanting a rematch." I said, "You need to trim your claws. I know a good vet for that."

Stonehenge and Missing Links

During my recent travels I went through Britain, stayed with some weredogs I know there, have not seen in some time. Had some great beer and learned some things.

Weredogs and werewolves made Stonehenge and all the other megaliths. It's true. They all were constructed during a time when all weres were trying to come together. According to recent findings by werescientists this was at a time so long ago that the missing link weres were involved in the building.

We still do not know when dogs and weredogs split, or if it was earlier canines and weres that split, some earlier species of canine that split into weres and non-weres. That is why werescientists have been searching, for many years, for the missing link, that common ancestor that would tell us when dogs and weredogs, wolves and werewolves, first diverged, and if it was canines or werecanines who came first.

Gotta go. Patrol tonight.