Elihu Entertainment

In August of that year, Max had a very special weekend. The girls had enjoyed visits from their friends in July, but now it was time for me and Hugh to invite our own friends to the Coast. Dick and Edna were looking forward to trying out their new motorhome, so they came to stay for the long weekend, complete with Brandy and C.B., their lop-eared rabbit.

Max had a very atavistic nature, and the concept of the pack was firmly entrenched in his genes. He and Brandy were so bonded from their daily walks in town that Edna and I believed Max considered our two families to be one pack that, for some inexplicable reason, lived at two different locations. Therefore, when the other half of our ‘pack’ arrived to stay at the cottage, Max was thrilled to have everyone in one spot. At the end of the day, when we all sat visiting in the cottage living room, he was as blissfully contented as I ever remember seeing him. His people on chairs and Brandy sprawled out with him on the carpet; that was the way it was supposed to be.

It was a lovely weekend. Edna and I took the dogs for several walks each day. Hugh and I took our guests for a boat ride too, though Brandy was not too sure about the Optimist. However, sea dog Max leaped on board as if to show her how it was done, and once she ventured on board, they sat side by side, nose to the wind, as we chugged across the bay. We were actually glad to have our dogs on board, as there was a huge yacht moored in the harbour, anchored in such a way that it was rotating slowly, giving the occupants a changing view of the scenery. We took our guests closer to take a look, wondering which celebrity might be the owner, but as we neared, two hefty looking men in black lowered the Zodiac at the rear of the yacht, hopped in, and came gliding towards us. Max’s hackles went up when he saw them coming—his wolf genes recognized danger when it was approaching—but we decided discretion was the better part of valour and steered off in the other direction. So much for freedom of the waves.

There were some other issues regarding freedom that had come up during the summer, though these related to land. Our cottage was part of an estate, and although the residences were separate, the land and docks were communally held and there were a lot of rules and regulations. Along with these came a lot of gossip, not to mention interfering people. A couple of the homeowners were particularly negative about dogs, and as a result, we had become a little jaded about our holiday location. We had gone so far as to start looking for alternate properties, although nothing had really fit our needs or limited price range. However, the week before Dick and Edna came to visit, we had noticed a listing for a cottage on Pool Road. The price was fairly low, so we thought we’d check it out. We had no idea where Pool Road was, other than the fact that it was somewhere on the other side of the harbour. After much exploration and driving about, we ended up in Garden Bay, still with no idea of how to find the cottage we were seeking, so we gave up and stopped for lunch at Colonel Flounder’s, the fish and chip shop that we’d often visited when coming across by boat.

Our whole family had always loved this side of the harbour, with its two bays separated by a small peninsula that jutted out into the ocean. The Sundowner Inn stood looking out over Hospital Bay, so called because the heritage house, although now a bed-and-breakfast hotel, had originally been St. Mary’s Hospital, the first hospital on the Sunshine Coast. On the Garden Bay side was the local pub. Between the two bays was a pretty lagoon with a channel that drained into Hospital Bay. A footbridge spanned the channel so that walkers coming along the main road could cross to the general store and marina without walking right round the lagoon. Colonel Flounder’s was on the road that circled the lagoon, and between the fish-and-chip shop and the pub were two small cottages. There was also a short, but scenic pub path that followed the shoreline from the road around to the pub. It was truly the prettiest spot on the Sunshine Coast and I had fallen in love with it many years before when Hugh had first taken me across by boat to have a meal at the pub.

Therefore, although we had failed to find our mystery cottage, we were perfectly happy to find ourselves at Colonel Flounder’s. As we sat enjoying our fish and chips, giving way to the baleful glances at our elbow and sharing the odd French fry with Max, we continued to speculate as to how we could find the listed property. The Colonel, overhearing our conversation, looked at us as if we were simpletons. He gestured to the lagoon and the road at the edge of his property. That was Pool Road; couldn’t we see the pool right in front of us. His arm swept in the other direction and pointed to the other side of his shop. The cottage next door to him was the one for sale.

We couldn’t believe it. Yes, it was rather derelict, but there it sat, in our favourite location, facing the lagoon and between the two bays. There was a garden that we could fence and give Max a lovely area to run and play, and the docks were close for Hugh to moor his boat. The glorious Garden Bay Lake was only a ten-minute walk up the road for swimming. Whatever it took, we were determined to sell the other cottage and buy this little jewel.

Naturally, we had told Dick and Edna of our hopes and plans, and on their last day with us, they took us to dinner at the Sundowner Inn. The girls opted to stay at Madeira Park and visit with their friends, so we left the dogs in their charge and took the boat over to the other side. Edna was as enchanted with Garden Bay as I had always been , and she understood why I was so keen to have our holiday home there. As we sat at the window of the Sundowner, looking out onto the lagoon and watching the sun sinking slowly towards the distant hills, we speculated happily about the prospect of future summers in this beautiful spot. After dinner, we strolled over the road to look at our prospective cottage. Then we headed back across the bay to have hot drinks with the girls and walk our dogs. Happy kids, happy dogs, happy grown-ups. It was a lovely ending to a perfect weekend.

After the run of Babes in the Woods, Marcella returned to town. Now it was Katie’s turn to have a friend stay at the cottage, and so her bubbly classmate, Jen Guggliemucci, came to join us for a couple of weeks. Jen wanted to help with the performance of Guard Dog on Duty at the Lion’s Club picnic, but there were two weeks before that gig, so the girls had lots of time for boating, swimming and holiday fun. However, Max was continuing to be restless. He was used to being set free on the trails in town, but it was difficult to find somewhere suitable on the Coast. One would think that the country would be better than the city for dog walking, but it was actually much more restrictive.

There were lots of trails if one headed up above the highway, but unlike the trails in town, these were not an option because they were full of deer, not to mention the occasional bear, elk or even cougar. There were also small farms, which meant livestock that sent tantalizing scents into the air. On Lasqueti Island, there were even signs indicating that dogs chasing sheep would be shot. Finally, Hugh and I decided that our best bet was to take Max to the two small islands in the mouth of the harbor and let him run there.

We packed a picnic and loaded everyone into the Optimist, though Hugh tied our smaller dinghy behind the bigger boat. Then we set off for the mouth of the harbor, anchored off the islands and went ashore using the dinghy with the outboard. The islands were intriguing for the girls, because there were derelict shacks and offshore shipwrecks. Once we unloaded our picnic, the girls went exploring and Hugh and I let Max trot after them. Since the islands were so small, we thought there was no chance of him getting into trouble. Famous last words. No sooner had Hugh opened the thermos and poured me a coffee than we heard a thundering noise, rather like the hooves of a charging horse. We looked up to see a large doe racing across the island, with Max, stubby legs flying, furiously trying to catch her.

The deer splashed into the ocean and began to swim out to sea and Max, undeterred, jumped into the water and began to swim after her. We thought he would give up and return after a few yards, but not Max. He kept going out into the bay, straight into the path of a large motor cruiser that was coming up the middle of the channel. Hugh leaped up, hopped into the outboard and set off after our delinquent dog, and finally, by looping around him and herding him like a steer in a cattle drive, managed to bring him back to shore. Sigh! So much for our peaceful picnic. Max was very happy with his exploit. However, his frazzled owners were not. From now on, the summer was going to be Guard Dog on Leash. No exceptions.

A week later, came the day of our gig at the Lion’s Club Park, and finally we managed to have a trouble-free day, other than a minor blip when a puppet hit the deck. However, once we’d reassured the girls that this was not an earth-shattering problem, all relaxed and had a good time. The festival was great fun, with a pancake breakfast and lots of activities for kids. We performed four shows, but between each performance, Hugh and I found a perfect trail to walk Max, albeit on his long line, while the girls played and socialized with the other young people. And as a bonanza, Max got to eat his fill of the leftover sausages from the pancake breakfast. Guard Dog off Duty was a little green in the gills from overindulgence, but he had done his tricks, reaped his rewards and was a very happy dog come end of the day.

The school year was drawing to a close and everyone was excited about our imminent trip. On the last day of term, Hugh and I picked up Caroline from school and went shopping at Costco. Since we were renting halls to perform our shows, we also had to provide the concessions. We bought flats of pop and potato chips, vainly trying to impress on Caroline that this bonanza of junk food was for the patrons, not the family. Then we came home to stash the goods and make dinner. Later, we stuck decals on our posters and organized for the upcoming trip.

The next few days were a flurry of last-minute rehearsals and packing. Then, on the morning of July 9, we loaded the motorhome and set off for the Horseshoe Bay ferry. Max was excited about the trip, as were Caroline and Katie, since Marcella was along to help with the shows. The weather was glorious for the ferry crossing, though the girls were more interested in the gift shop and concessions than in the scenery. We disembarked at Langdale and set off for the drive up the Coast. Once we arrived at our Pender Harbour summer home, we parked the motorhome in front of the cottage, right below the front-room window. The girls and Max marked out their sleeping quarters: girls in the lower suite and Max on a cushy rug by the front-room window. By nightfall, we were all settled in comfortably.

We had five days before our first  show, so the girls took advantage of the time to make friends with local youngsters and enjoy the fun of the seaside. Unlike the girls, Max could not be turned loose. He was on red alert, with his wolf genes picking up every exciting new scent. It was like being towed by a tractor every time we set off for a walk. We did some more leash training with lots of reverses to remind him of his lessons.  After this review, he walked more sedately, but I could tell from what I called his ‘double ear pleats’ that he was on the lookout for action every step of the way. I became very used to watching my dog and being prepared to brace myself when the double ear pleats turned triple.

A couple of days into our stay, we had an extremely upsetting incident. We woke up in the morning to discover that our motorhome had been broken into during the night and all our concession fare had been stolen. Down went the profits yet again. The most galling thing was the fact that our feisty dog had proved useless as a watchdog. Max had been sleeping right by the window and had not even woken up, yet alone alerted us to the intruders. The constable who responded to the call thought it was hilarious when we told him about the show we were performing for the Lions’ Club. Everyone agreed that the title should be changed to Guard Dog Off Duty.

So off we went to restock the concessions, this time loading them into the cottage until show day. All too soon, the marathon weekend arrived. We set up at St. Bart’s church in Gibsons on the Friday evening; then performed Babes in the Wood at 11:00am, 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm, after which we struck our theatre, drove to Pender Harbour and set up at the Music School. On Sunday, we performed the show four times at the music school: three times during the day and once at seven in the evening. Max slept in the motorhome while we performed the shows, and then enjoyed walks with various family members taking shifts between shows. After the final show, the exhausted kids headed back to the cottage and Hugh and I remained to take everything apart. Looking back, I’m amazed that we coped. From this point in time, I feel tired just reading the notes in my diary!

Once we got through the weekend, it was time to relax and enjoy the Coast again, though Hugh and I found ourselves dealing with AWOL teens as well as a dog with the same urge. Come the following weekend, we ended up one performer short for our shows in Sechelt which rather took the gloss off the event, although those of us who were there managed well through our gritted teeth. Once back at the cottage, having rounded up and suitably chastised the miscreant, Max, seeing us distracted, took the opportunity to slip out unobserved. So a second AWOL panic set in. Where was the dog?

We all raced outside to look for him, fanning out in different directions. I climbed the steep bank behind our cottage which led to an adjacent waterfront estate. As I clambered out onto a long drive that went all the way from the road down to the docks, I glanced toward the ocean and spied Max at the water’s edge. Given the day we had experienced, I was probably fuelled as explosively as a nuclear reactor. I filled my lungs and bellowed: “Max! Come!!!!” His head shot up and, like a rocket, he zoomed up from the water, raced along the drive, and skidded to a halt to a sit at my feet. As I clipped on his leash, a thought flashed into my head: So that’s what Gary Gibson meant when he said that a command had to sound like a command! As for Max, he padded demurely beside me all the way home and settled down for a nap on his rug by the window. Guard Dog Off Duty without a care in the world.

Our exciting summer venture in 1995 was to take our puppet company to the Sunshine Coast and spend July and August at the Pender Harbour cottage where Hugh’s parents had lived during their retirement. After their death, the property had been left to Hugh, but as it was too expensive for us to maintain two homes, we had rented the cottage to a local resident. However, our tenant had given notice, so we decided to combine a cottage holiday with a tour of our Babes production in the three main towns on the Coast.

The preparations for this had kept me busy all spring: choosing dates and investigating facilities, not to mention creating posters and promotional material. We needed publicity pictures, so I did several photo shoots. For this, the puppets were far more co-operative than Max, who tended to fidget and get bored after a couple of takes. He was very good at the commands, sit and stay, but would plop into position with such a petulant look on his face that the results were hopeless for a brochure.

The arrangements could not be finalized without a day trip to the Coast, which we made in early June. Caroline and her friend, Marcella, came along, offering to walk Max while Hugh and I negotiated terms with the venues at Gibsons, Sechelt and Madeira Park. It turned out to be a good day, with all appointments going well. Max enjoyed his walks with the girls, though they reported that he was hopeless when they tried jogging as he kept stopping to christen the bushes. We had a nice lunch at a sidewalk café in Sechelt, with Max sitting decorously beside our table and enjoying tidbits from the various plates. While we ate, we saw a film crew working on the street. We had no idea what was being filmed, but years later, when we watched a Knowledge Network program about the Sunshine Coast, we suddenly gaped at the screen and cried, “There’s Max!” Sure enough, there he was at the Sechelt sidewalk café, immortalized on screen.

The visit to the Coast was lovely, and when we returned to town, we were restless for the month to pass so we could head away again. However, we were anxious about our tour because the expenses were adding up; Max mugs and T-shirts, posters and theatre rentals did not come cheap. Then, to our delight, a wonderful surprise came in the mail with a letter from Hugh’s aunt in England. Aunt Gladys had corresponded with me over the years and she wrote to say that she would like to sponsor our Pender Tour to the tune of one thousand pounds. This was more than two thousand dollars at that time. We were overwhelmed: such an incredibly generous gesture; Auntie was an angel in every sense of the word.

Aunt Gladys wasn’t the only person to encourage our new venture. At the year-end Vancouver Guild of Puppetry party, the other puppeteers were delighted that we were stepping up our performance activities. It was especially delightful to meet veteran puppeteer, Fran Dowie, and his charming wife, Louise, both of whom were full of valuable tips, which we appreciated knowing their impressive history of performance. Fran was a well-know name in the entertainment industry and Louise had danced in the original Broadway production of The King and I with Yul Brynner.

We were further encouraged the following week when we were offered a paid gig to perform Guard Dog on Duty for the Pender Harbour Lion’s Club. Now we had two productions going to the Coast. It seemed an opportune time to fulfill an outstanding obligation. We had offered Guard Dog on Duty as a BVA auction donation when I had been running for Council, and the family that had purchased it was finally trying to set a date so the show could be performed for their son’s birthday party. Although it meant we would have to perform the show for free, it still gave us the chance to have a pre-tour rehearsal complete with audience.

All through June, we  rehearsed both shows, and Max became very excited by this activity. He recognized the music that signalled the end of each show, and even if he had not been in the room during the rehearsal, he would race downstairs to join us, and start bowing and doing tricks as the curtain fell. On the day of the donated performance of Guard Dog on Duty, the show went very well, but the highlight was Max himself. He performed wonderfully at the end of the show. He recognized his theme song and couldn’t wait to do his trick and take his bow. We decided that we would have to rename him, “Max, the Ho Ham Husky.” Afterwards the birthday boy came forward and presented him with a Meaty-Bone Cookie. Max was the star of the show, and there was no doubt he was ready to be Dog on Tour.

That year was the beginning of difficult times for me and Hugh. I was missing Luigi and worried about my father, and on top of that, we were dealing with the start of teenage rebellion and often joked that Max wasn’t the only one who needed a long line. I have always dealt with stress by keeping myself busy, so poor Max must have thought his mistress had turned into a workaholic during the months ahead. Suddenly, I was multi-tasking multiple projects, and Max soon adjusted to the fact that  morning-coffee time after our walk was now in the study rather than the living room. Philosophically, like the ho hum husky he was, he became used to curling up under my computer desk and napping on my feet.

One project that was proving challenging as well as diverting was the completion of my play, Casting for Murder, which at that time was still under its working title, To Catch an Actress. The work I had previously done was fine for the first two acts, but the third act wasn’t working. Writing a mystery play was a lot harder than I had anticipated. With my mind so focused on untangling my plot, we found ourselves attending a lot of mystery plays to analyze what worked and what didn’t. One evening, Hugh and I took the girls to the Richmond Gateway Theatre to see Agatha Christie’s Black Coffee. The actors playing Poirot and Hastings were delightful, but some of the other characters were less appealing and there were sections where the dialogue went on rather long. Five minutes into Act One while one of the actors was delivering what seemed an interminable monologue, Katie leaned over and whispered: “You know, Mummy, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were the one who gets murdered.” Wisdom out of the mouth of babes—I made a mental note to check my script for overly long speeches.

The next three months were a struggle to reshape the piece, and by the beginning of May, Act III had been changed beyond recognition. However, there were so many other family commitments and puppet activities happening that it was hard to find time to complete the task. My opportunity came on the May long weekend, when Hugh took Katie on a fishing trip. Caroline was busy with her own friends, so having seen Hugh and Katie off in the motorhome, Max and I had three days to do our own thing uninterrupted. Walkies and writing galore! Each day, we went for long rambles through the woods, then came home to spend companionable hours while Max played with his toys and I hacked away at my computer. Max also seemed to enjoy having me read him sections of the script. He would sit up attentively and hang on every word, his wolf smile showing approval at hearing his mistress’s voice changing to accommodate the various parts. By the Monday when Hugh and Katie rolled home, I had polished up the manuscript and was finally satisfied that I had done all I could. Max was thrilled to see his people back, and raced around, tail wagging a mile a minute. Happy dog and happy Mum. He had his family back and I was ready to begin the process of sending out scripts in the hope that someone would produce my play. It was actually five years before the play was staged, but since that first production, it has bobbed up in some part of Canada every other year, so the struggle was definitely worthwhile. As one of my writer friends commented: “That one has legs.”

Although Max had enjoyed his quiet weekend with me, he had been very indignant when Hugh and Katie had taken off and left him at home. In Max’s eyes, the motorhome was not supposed to move without him. Max not only believed he owned our motorhome; he seemed to think all such vehicles were his domain. Around that time, Edna and Dick acquired a new motorhome. Max was thrilled to see Brandy’s new ‘house on wheels’, which was very large and luxurious compared to ours. He leaped in, sat on guard in the doorway and tried to claim it as his own, even refusing to let Brandy on board. What he didn’t realize was that he was soon to have his own weekend away in our motorhome while we made some exciting arrangements for the summer. If all went well, Max was about to become Dog on Tour.

Max’s behaviour continued to be erratic, but as the weather became warmer, the increase in outdoor activities provided him with more outlets for his energy. He loved it when everyone was out in the garden, especially when the girls put him through his tricks. They had trained him to jump for Frisbees and other such items, the command being ‘Hup’, at which point he’d leap into the air and catch whatever they tossed. One day, when he was down on the lawn, Caroline called from the deck and offered him a cookie. She waved it in the air and said, “Hup!” Max looked perplexed, did a couple of leaps, then raced for the stairs and pounded up to her as if to say, “There, I did it!”

Unfortunately, the hot weather brought the usual mass of fair-weather walkers into the park, and the next thing we knew, there were anti-dog items in the local paper and complaints about the off-leash areas that we had worked so hard to attain. This type of press invariably triggered articles from pious dog-hating columnists who wrote diatribes questioning the validity of having dogs in the city at all. Predictably, the councillors took the side of the anti-dog brigade and started grandstanding on the subject at council meetings, a practice made even more annoying by the fact that I knew several of them never bothered to prevent their own pets from running free. On top of that, they had landed Burnaby residents with a 17% tax increase that year, and to add insult to injury, when I went to city hall to pay our bill, I met Councillor Doug Evans in the hall with his unleashed poodle trotting about enjoying the freedom of the building. Needless to say, when I returned home, I took time out to compose a broadside to the councillors who were stirring up the trouble, and also called Carson at the SPCA to ask him to rein in the pound patrols.

Still, out of aggravation came inspiration. I made a few notes about the things I remembered from the big pro-anti-dog battle of the eighties and filed them away for future reference. Later, this became the outline for my story, “A Political Tail”, in which a dog-hating bureaucrat was killed in the park and, in spite of the anti-dog brigade’s determination to blame a marauding canine, the killer proved to be unquestionably human. What fun that was to write. The story involved a group of dog walkers cutting secret trails where they could elude the pound men, pound trucks getting stuck in ditches, a search for a mysterious “Hound of the Baskervilles”, and a protest at a council meeting, complete with dog-biscuit shaped placards. Naturally, I will never own up to which bits are fact and which are fiction, but there are a few people living here in Burnaby who know the truth.

Of course, all the fair-weather walkers weren’t anti-dog, but some of them were problematic in other ways. Warm weather encouraged campers in the woods, not all of whom were as careful as they should be. One Saturday morning, Hugh and I came across a flaming campfire in a clearing. What was even more alarming, the fire had been set up against a log that stretched into the bush. We used the empty pop tins that had been littered about to get water from the creek and we doused it as best we could. Then we rushed home to call the fire department. Since the trail was one of the less frequented ones, we had to go back to show the firemen the way in and poor Max, though pleased to have a second walk, was very suspicious of the big men with axes and shovels.

As the weather improved, Edna and I also noticed an increase in the number of dubious-looking individuals on the trails. It seemed that crooks were fair-weather walkers too. Given some of the odd characters we came across, we were very glad to have our dogs at our sides. Once day, we met a woman and her dog coming along a well-hidden path that we considered our own private trail. Soon after the woman passed by, our dogs stiffened, barked and lunged ahead. Suddenly Edna caught a glimpse of a denim jacket in the bushes, which equally suddenly vanished from sight. We called the dogs, and they finally ran back to us. We saw no one as we moved ahead, but we couldn’t help wondering if the dogs had chased away someone who had followed the solitary woman into the bushes. It was no wonder that dog walkers loved rainy days; those were the only times we could be guaranteed a walk in peace. We, who were devoted to our four-legged friends, were no fair-weather walkers. We were all-weather walkers without a doubt.

With all the trials, tribulations and losses keeping our spirits low, we certainly didn’t need any more problems with Max. Therefore, when the community school announced an evening course on first aid for pets, I decided that this would be time well spent, given my dog’s propensity for injuring himself on a regular basis. Edna also attended, and we were both amazed to discover how much we already knew, due to having weathered so many ailments with Mr. Max. Edna cracked up the entire class by telling Max stories. It seemed Max was the class clown even without being present.

Performing of another kind was also keeping us busy. We tried out our new production of Babes in the Wood at St. Andrews United Church, courtesy of our good friends, Al and Sue Dahlo, who had arranged the booking there. The show went well, except for a complete halt in the middle when the resident sound techie who had insisted he could run the tape for us stopped it mid show because his wife came to speak to him and he thought the performance was over. After this annoying hiatus, we carried on to enthusiastic applause, although afterwards I was told off by a very austere lady who informed me that Dame Vera’s comic opera ‘Suicido’ scene was inappropriate for children. The church children, however, seemed resilient and did not appear traumatized, particularly the little boy who marched backstage, pointed at Robin Hood’s arrows that lined the castle battlements, and demanded to see the ‘missiles’.

We also had a new ‘Max’ show. This was Guard Dog on Duty, a cute romp that started with a village pageant and ended with a scene on the farm where Max and Brandy cornered a couple of crooks who had strayed from the pageant. Our first gig for this show was at the Teachers’ Credit Union in White Rock, and when we arrived, we found we were to set up our theatre by the front window, so as a result, although the families in the bank enjoyed watching the puppet show, all the passers-by on the street were treated to a view of our rear ends bobbing around as we worked the marionettes. Not our most glorious moment.

As the weather improved, there were more outdoor activities for the family, which Max thoroughly enjoyed. He was particularly happy when I took him along for Caroline’s track meet in Langley. To his delight there were lots of dogs watching the events. He especially liked a large, yellowish female Lab with pretty eyes and a friendly disposition. Max never passed an opportunity to flirt in Brandy’s absence. He also recognized the jangly music as the ice-cream van came by and towed me across the field, panting happily in anticipation of getting an ice cream. He also liked the concession stand. I lined up to get a hot dog for lunch, and when I reached the front of the line, the vendor said, “Who’s next?” and Max promptly stood up and put his paws on the counter. Her expression was something to behold.

By now, Max had mastered a whole raft of tricks, and he was quite the ham in front of a crowd. He loved to perform, and always ended up with his bow. He had even been featured on a local cable program along with his marionette. As a result, he was becoming quite the little celebrity with the people that saw him go out for his daily walk. One day, Katie’s class was going on a field trip to the Children’s Festival so she had gone to school early. The buses and children were already lined up along the road as Max and I set off on our morning walk, and Max received cheers from the students as we went by.

However, all this adulation seemed to go to his head and he started his bad-boy-rock-star behaviour again, one day scaring the life out of me by taking off after the coyote in the woods. I heard the most awful yelping sounds in the bush and thought Max had been hurt, but he finally came thundering back, glittering-eyed and unharmed, with the yelping continuing in the distance, so I realized that the noise was the coyote defending its territory. Then, on Mother’s Day, Max picked a fight with a dog in Lighthouse Park when we stopped for a walk on the way to visit my parents. Max seemed very pleased with himself after this encounter and was in high spirits all the way to Nana and Gamma’s house. Wearily, I called Gary Gibson for yet another chat and was told that this was fairly typical of dogs like Max. They would be good for a while, and then regress and begin to challenge their owner’s leadership. Max had to be put in his place again. Back to basic training for the Ho Hum Ham with an attitude.