A Digest, for the Week In Which Nothing Happened
Not much metagame this week, dear reader; I’m blown away and simultaneously humbled, to be alive for such a distinct example of trust breaking in realtime. I refer, of course, to the hospital which experienced something in Gaza, while the world argued to blame one party or another. Dog stories will be shared toward the end.
Imagine, for a moment, attempting to build up the pattern of writing every week to your dear mailing list with a digest of the week’s news, doing the research as events are being revealed by biased sources, and then coming to the same conclusion as the rest of the world right around the same time: everyone was lying. I was somewhat relieved to not be one of these day-to-day streamers; there’s a lot of room for “hot takes” and little else in that space, whereas I was lucky enough to have the time to wait for more information to come in. I just wish there were other things to talk about in the world.
At this time, new information continues to come out which contradicts previous information. Instead of focusing on the events in Gaza, I’d rather talk about what some might call fifth-generational warfare.
Better archivists than myself have captured the realtime transformation of headlines as produced by the New York Times; while we were all keen aware that they regularly updated articles, the defense seems to be against a question not asked — the question, rather, is whether or not it is moral for these powerful mass-media corporations to profit off misinformation and then conceal the mistakes, when the reader’s expectation is that a news report is static within its place in time?
Upon the latest visit to the story, the title has again changed to further obfuscate their original statements. The story, then, as we pulled into the so-called Take-Out-The-Trash day for press secretaries, media organizations, and public relations agents, became lost to people’s perceptions; now, no matter how many edits or corrections are produced, no one will agree what happened over Gaza that night. People will fight, and people will die, because other people jumped to conclusions in sheer vitriolic hate of some more powerful other. I hope you’re watching S2 Underground, as an aside.
Back home, we continue to go without a Speaker of the House, without life at the local scale breaking down; fears of the President being killed on an announced trip to Tel Aviv were soothed, dark as it might sound, by whatever happened at that hospital — his trip was cancelled and questions about the capability of the oldest President in the nation’s history were put aside, for the time. More than that, fears of a President Harris were put aside as well.
Without a Speaker, though, there cannot be another continuing resolution: and personally, I think that is why Jim Jordan continues to be the on-again off-again presumptive as negotiations between representatives continues in secret.
But there is, of course, some good news to share on the home front — specifically, with regards to my dogs. I know that’s what you’re really here for.
I had my first two sessions of handler training with the handlers I’m working with for Bear, and I am tremendously impressed with the results they are able to get out of him (though, technically I’m not supposed to have seen that yet, I think). These first two sessions were described to me as “rote, foundational and boring,” but I’d like to share with you what I observed because it was good to see the task of dog handling through their eyes, given they see eight new dogs for training each week, and board at least 30 dogs at a time — an impressive task, given the detail that all dogs are on the open floor of the facility under the expectation of calm discipline, laying on their cots instead of kept away in crates. But more about that in a bit.
They taught the owners all five techniques, in my group — three steps of footwork and a couple body language cues. Unlike the marker- or rapport-based training which made up the majority of how I learned to train dogs, where one command has one action, and body language reinforces the word, instead there was complex expectations for commands I have been using differently my entire life. “Heel,” (in quotes, because my dogs aren’t trained in English) comes with a much stricter form and formation; I will be pulling the leash very lightly just to get the collar to move while saying the command, with the expectation that the dog places their shoulders parallel to mine and rotates their hips all the way around so the dog’s spine is straight as it stands. If the dog struggles with the latter part, rotating your shoulders to look at the dog’s tail while repeating the command and the stimulus can urge the dog to fix their posture.
They also made me learn to walk — again. I think I’ve learned to walk on more occasions for more contexts than I can even remember, at this point, but another has been added to the list full of commands that contradict existing muscle memories. Or, they used to, before all the practice I’ve been doing. There was a man in the first group session whose brain was doing the same thing as mine when he heard the words, “left face,” “right face”, and “about-face”, but the footwork was nothing like what bootcamp prepared in him. Instead, we walk by subtly using the leg alongside which the dog walks to guide, and then pivot into position. The dog sees that leg cross over and away from you, or back and behind you, and will follow instinctively given no other training — then it’s just up to you to use your encouragement and body language to help them stand straight. About-face makes the most sense; you step across with your off-leg, laying your foot in front of your dog and perpendicular to its path, then pivot the guiding leg back and behind you, turning your body 180 degrees and bringing that off-leg into position, expecting the dog to remain in that formation.
Is it hard to follow being described in words alone? Well, thank the heavens this is the internet. This is French Ring Sport, a form of bite/protection sport for dogs, which has results that match the kinds of techniques I’m being taught by these handlers. Watch, particularly, how the dog heels.
There are many types of protection sports, from Schutzhund which is preferred by police, to French ring and Monsio ring which focus more on form in realistic cases, which take on a martial art form of their own in handling an off-leash, bite- and protection-trained animal with the trust and support of someone wearing bite suits, or bite equipment. Watch the rest of that video above, if you haven’t; from what I’ve been able to dissect, from all they’ve taught me compared to all they’ve taught Bear so far… I am left wonder if this isn’t the kind of work Bear was destined to perform.
Because I would be proud to perform it with him.
That’s all for this week as conflicts across the world with United States support increase the disinformation and malinformation flooding the already dense fog-of-war. It’s somewhat nice, all things considered, to have nothing of confirmation or substance to report — it’s almost like there are no governments, just really boring people.