Ghost Dogs

 I've given away too many dogs.

Giving away one dog is too many for some.  To give away more than one dog in one's lifetime indicates, to some people, a severe deficiency in character.  There will be people who will read this and think the worst of me, think that I am one of Those People who ought not be allowed to have a dog to begin with.  If you are one of those people, I assure you, you cannot possible think worse of me than I think of myself.

Every dog I have given away still lives with me in my head and in my heart.  They are my ghost dogs, the ones who will never die.  Today, on the verge of giving away yet another dog, they stand before me, all in a row, and I feel the need - again - to beg for their forgiveness.

Wilson.  Wilson the sweet, good natured Cattle Dog mix.  Wilson, the dog I'd fought with my husband to bring into our home.  Wilson was a pup fostered by one of the students in the middle school where I taught.  She'd brought him in after school to see if one of her teachers would adopt him, and I fell in love.  We already had a dog, a wonderful Corgi named Riley, but something about Wilson tugged at me.  At the time, I was teaching Where the Red Fern Grows, so I named him after the author - he was definitely a Cattle Dog mix, a Blue Heeler, but he looked like a Bluetick Coonhound to me.  Wilson was so unlike most Cattle Dogs - he was of moderate energy, a very laid back fellow, and he took life in stride.  When we moved houses, Wilson was there.  When we had my first child, Wilson was there.  Quiet, gentle, patient - Wilson was all those things.  

And then Post Partum Depression hit.  It can last years... did you know that?  I didn't.  And so, one day three or four years after the birth of my son, I found myself sobbing in my bedroom, overwhelmed by the number of small lives dependent on me... we had many pets at that time.  I called my sister and asked her to take Wilson from me, and she agreed.

I cried all the way home from my sister's house.  We left Wilson with her with toys and food and money for vet bills.  It didn't help.  I felt like I had violated a sacred trust. and in truth, I had.  I felt beyond awful, and deservedly so.  

There is a chance, a faint one, that I might have eventually gone to retrieve Wilson from her... but within two weeks, my sister had posted him on Craigslist for adoption, and given him away to another family.  She did tell me about it before she handed him over, but at the time, so steeped in depression, I didn't feel I had the right to question what she was doing.  For years afterwards, I searched the Internet for signs of Wilson, hoping that  his new family had made a website for him, posted pictures of the Australian Cattle Beagle.  But Wilson vanished from my life, and I never saw him again.

Pirate.  Pirate was most definitely my fault... my fault for doing the research, reading the books and articles, but not listening to my gut instincts.  After Riley died, we wanted another dog.  We looked through Petfinder, but did not find a dog that met our needs... we wanted a smaller dog, one that would be of moderate energy, be trainable and reliable off leash.  Another Corgi would have been perfect, but we couldn't bear to bring in another Corgi.  We settled on what was, at the time, the Miniature Australian Shepherd and found a breeder not too far away to visit.  She had puppies on the way, and invited us to meet the mother and learn more about the breed.

I should have been immediately suspicious when the expectant mother appeared, and would not stop barking at us.  She did not want to be petted.  She was NOT friendly.  Her mother, a beautiful merle, was much more accommodating.  But we stayed, and we asked our questions, and were given answers that we wanted to hear... yes, Mini Aussies were of moderate energy.  Yes, they were definitely trainable - they would need jobs to do, but it would be easy to train them to do tasks such as find their food dishes, carry in small bags of groceries, fetch items on command.  And yes, they were definitely reliable off lead.

We waited in growing anticipation for the puppies' arrival, and eventually Pirate came home - a puppy larger than most, because it turned out he was the only pup in the litter.  I did not know, at the time, the problems that singleton pups can have because they lack the socialization of a littermate.  All we knew was that he was Our Puppy, and we doted on him.  We blithely accepted the breeder's request not to neuter him, because she might want to show and breed him - that sounded wonderful to us.

Until adolecence hit.

We were not prepared for an intact male's adolecence.  We had never experienced it before.  Suddenly Pirate, who already had an obsession with fetching the ball at the dog park, stopped playing with other dogs entirely - and began growling and attacking any dog who approached his ball.  He became quite interested in females - both intact and spayed.  He stopped listening to commands.  Always a friendly puppy, he became reserved, even barky, around strangers.  His energy level - never "moderate" - skyrocketed.  We tried to teach him tasks - to give him a Dog's Job.  He wouldn't have any of it.  As going to the dog park was quickly becoming a misery where it had once been a joy, we had a family meeting.

Pirate did need a job... he needed more than one, to be honest.  And he needed more exercise, which we couldn't provide for him.  Walks would not even take the shadow of an edge off him.  We contacted his breeder, explained the situation, and asked about rehoming him.  The day we brought Pirate back to his birthplace, there was already another family waiting there to adopt him.  

And so to Milo.

Milo was found through Petfinder as I searched for a second dog.  Our older dog, Ariel, didn't really NEED a companion, but I wanted... I needed... a second dog.  At first, I started looking for a Corgi mix, preferably about a year or two old.  After months of being ignored by or rejected by rescues, I stumbled upon Milo.  He was younger than we had wanted, 5 months old, but something in his eyes called to me.  He was listed as an Australian Cattle Dog / Basset Hound mix.

At this time, we'd had two Cattle Dog mixes... Wilson, and later Nevin.  I treasured the breed in my heart for the wonderful temperments both dogs had brought to our family.  And Basset Hound!  What a treasure... in both of our previous mixes, the high energy Cattle Dog had been mellowed by mixing with a lower energy breed.  Surely a Basset would bring some slow, sweet energy to the mix.  We applied for Milo and were approved, and Milo came home.

When we had started a search for a second dog, we had very specific requirements... the new dog MUST be good with other dogs, cats, and children.  Milo was listed as all of those things.  And he was - for about a week.  Where he had initially greeted our cat with a wagging tail and a respectful sniff, before the month was out he was a barking, growling, hackles-raised cat pursuer.  We don't know what had triggered the switch - but after two incidents of narrow escapes, our cat moved into the basement and refused to come out except at night, when the dogs were "put to bed" behind our bedroom's closed door.

We contacted a trainer recommended by the rescue.  We enrolled Milo in her group classes, because she said that before we could do anything specific, he would need to learn basic obedience commands.  Milo soared through puppy class and basic obedience.  He loved lessons.  He was wonderful on leash, and wonderful at the dog park - though he did develop an obsession with fetching tennis balls, I didn't mind because it tired him out.  And I loved this dog... Milo was my playful, happy shadow at home, always by my side, my loyal little guy who loved me with all of his doggy heart.

I was determined to get the cat-chasing under control so we could have a truly happy family.

We arranged for a private session with our trainer at our home to start working on the cat problem.  She assured me, having met and fallen a bit in love with Milo herself, that he seemed to be VERY trainable and that we would definitely be able to work on the cat chasing.  It would take time, yes, but we all had high hopes of success.

The day of the private consultation arrived, and all was going well... until the trainer had a chance to observe Milo and our older dog, Ariel, together.  She watched.  She watched a bit more.  Then she said, "We've got a bigger problem than cat chasing here."

Milo, she explained, was bullying and dominating our other dog.  He was guarding me - and her - from Ariel, using his body and his eye to warn her off.  He was bumping and pushing her around, keeping her away from anything he saw of value - namely, the attention of people.  My heart sank.

I had known for some time that Milo was food-aggressive.  He'd lunge for Ariel, barking and snarling, if I tried to give her a cookie.  The dogs had to be fed in different rooms, and even then, Milo would rush Ariel's room to try to gobble up any food she had left behind.  Since Ariel didn't play with toys, Milo didn't need to guard those from her... but now that the trainer had pointed it out, I realized that Ariel had been staying mainly in the bedroom over the past few months, not coming to socialize with the family as she always had before.  This, I knew, was Bad.

We had a long talk, the trainer and I, about the resource-guarding behavior.  She showed me how to interrupt Milo's "stink eye" and protect Ariel from him.  We started him on a new training regime - teaching him station training ("Go to your place") and on something called "Nothing in life is free," where Milo would need to work for everything he wanted - attention, food, toys.  This, the trainer assured me, would help assure Milo that Humans Were In Charge and that he didn't have to be.

And then it happened.

A few weeks into the new training cycle, I went out to dinner with a friend, leaving Milo and Ariel with my husband and son.  Sometime that evening, Milo attacked Ariel, biting her hard on the cheek and leaving her face and fur a bloody mess.  We took her to the vet the next morning.  The puncture wounds were not as deep as they could have been... but we were shaken.  We could not, we WOULD not, have an aggressive dog in our house.  Bad enough that Milo was a danger to our cat... but to be a danger to our long-suffering, patient dog?  No.

After consulting our trainer, we made the hard decision that Milo would need to go back to his rescue.  He needed to be an only pet, our trainer said, as sad as we were at this realization.  We had done all we could do, and we had a responsibility to our existing pets to keep them safe.  For as trainable as Milo was, we could never ben 100% sure that he would be a safe dog.

And so Milo will join the ranks of my ghost dogs... he's still with us at the moment, prancing and wagging and unaware of what is about to change his life forever.  And my heart is breaking.

My ghost dogs haunt me.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of them, wonder "what if..."  What if I had been a stronger person?  What if I had been a better owner?  What if, what if, what if...

But my ghost dogs, it seems, don't hold my sins and shortcomings against me.  In my mind, they gaze at me, kind-eyed and loving.  They wag their tails.  They seem to understand.  They are, as dogs have always been, spirits of forgiveness.  Dogs don't hold grudges.

I only wish I could forgive myself.

The Naming of Cats... and Dogs... and Lizards... And...

 I'm currently reading Our Dogs, Ourselves by Alexandra Horowitz, and just finished up the chapter devoted to the naming of dogs.  I really enjoyed reading it; I love naming pets... children... cars... houses... if it can have a moniker, I want to give it one.  (At this writing, my car's name is Flora.)  

Disney

And that got me thinking about all the names of all the pets who have shared my life so far, in my 50+ years on this spinning planet.  Each one has a story.  Each one has an image implanted in my memory, even if, in some cases, it's a bit faded with age.

Mopey and Dopey were my first pets - a pair of goldfish, fantails, who lived in a glass bowl.  It was not suitable habitat for these fish, I now know... but I remember them fondly,
orange and black, wiggling about in the water.  I have no memory at all of their demise.  They were named not by me or my then-toddling sister, I think, but by my mother.

After that point, all the other living creatures who passed through our home have, in some small cooperative part at least, been named by me.  Those animals who lived with me as an adult, of course, were mine to name from the first.  

Riley and my son Daniel on Halloween

I'm ashamed to say that I don't remember all the names of all my pets.  The gerbils, who I bred and raised for show as well as for pets, were rather too numerous to remember - at my peak, I had about 30 - though do I have the pedigrees somewhere, and my first show gerbil, Mask (or more formally, Autumnglory Storybook Masquerade) is lovingly remembered as my favorite.  The fish were arguably more decoration than companions, and I had a long string of Bettas as an adult (all cared for with properly filtered and heated tanks, thank you) whose names are lost to me... at the moment, we have one goldfish, Wiscash, who stubbornly refuses to die, and a pleco named Feebas.  And some pets, sadly, have become just nameless snapshots of memory... I distinctly recall having more than two parakeets, but I cannot recall more than two names.

Some pets stayed for a relatively short time (I'm thinking of Pirate, the Miniature American Shepherd who was just too much dog for our moderately-active family to manage and returned to his breeder to be instantly rehomed, and the Rankin's bearded dragons Steve and Irwin, who started out as classroom pets, had all the personality of a pair of sticks, and were passed along to a more appreciative reptile collector).  Others stayed for many, many years (my first cat, Lollypop, lived to be a grand, if frail, old lady, as did our first family dog, Kris).  But each of them had a distinct name, however long they were with me, and they remain with me in memory.

Here is a list of my pets' names, insofar as I remember them.

Unknown goldfish and my son Daniel

FISH: Mopey, Dopey, Spike, Spike II, Spike III, Wiscash, Feebas

BIRDS: Parakeets Blue Sky and Pegasus

CATS: Lollypop, Tiggy, Ian, Fox, Alex, Loki, Opie, Disney, Willow, Autumn, Skimble

DOGS: Kris, Sebastian, Cricket, Quentin, Riley, Wilson, Nevin, Pirate, Ariel

RABBITS: Kilroy

GERBILS: Too many to name.  Mask was the first, and the favorite.

RATS: Mithril the Silver, Trickster, Pippin, Aspen, Merlin Peeps, Scout and her 9 babies, Eeka Rat, BooBoo Rattie

REPTILES:  Steve & Irwin (Rankins Bearded Dragons), Higgins (Russian Tortoise), Jarvis (Leopard Gecko), Figment (Bearded Dragon)

Rescue. Me.

Riley, our late Corgi

 I never thought I'd be rejected by an animal rescue group.

Okay, I need to really step back and reframe that.  I am not being rejected.  My application has (in all likelihood) been rejected.  That's important to remember, and it's hard to do... because when your application to rescue a dog gets rejected, it sure as heck feels like you, personally, have been rejected, too.

It all started out when the bug to add a dog to our family bit.  After some talking about traits and preferences, my husband and I decided that we either wanted another Corgi like our late, beloved Riley, or a Corgi mix.  Since in our area, Corgi pups from decent breeders go for $2K and up, we decided we should look into rescue first... it isn't that we can't afford a decent breeder (though doing so would be a stretch), it's more that the idea of dropping that much money on a puppy when good dogs are languishing in shelters every day made us rather uncomfortable.

So I hit Petfinder, and was surprised to see that 20 possible Corgi mixes were up for adoption within a 100 mile radius of us.  Some I ruled our immediately (didn't look a thing like a Corgi mix, were female, were older than our preference, weren't good with other dogs).  Some I thought about hard.  And then I saw Michael and Moe.

Michael

Michael and Moe are the wards of A New Chance Animal Rescue (ANCAR) in Bedford Hills, NY.  Both were listed as Corgi-Lab mixes (well, Moe was listed as a Corgi-Golden mix, but looks more Lab than Golden to me).  Both had write-ups that made them sound like plausible candidates for adoption - young, trainable, friendly.  My heart skipped a beat... either of these cuties would b
e welcomed in our home, if we could only ascertain that they might be good with cats.  Of the two, I was drawn more to Michael (older and with a clearer idea of his personality); my husband favored Moe (younger, more trainable, looked more like a Corgi to him).  I applied for both, telling the rescue that I'd love to hear their opinion on which would be the better match for our family.

I'm not going to complain in the least about the length of the application... when you're out to adopt a dog, you expect that it's not going to be an in-and-out job, like walking into WalMart for a bottle of shampoo.  You know that you're going to be examined minutely by people who don't know you from Adam, whose primary goal is to put dogs into homes where they will live out the rest of their lives.  Anyone who complains about lengthy or detailed applications is missing the point, to my way of thinking.  

Moe

I put my all into that application.  They wanted to know what my current dog was like.  I was brutally honest - Ariel isn't much of a doggy-dog.  She doesn't play with other dogs at the dog park, but will cheerfully allow them to follow her around as she sniffs and pees on everything that doesn't move.  If other dogs get in her face, trying too aggressively to play, she bark-growls to tell them to back off - but she has never, ever attacked another dog or bitten one.  And she did have a canine companion when we adopted her - our beloved Nevin, who didn't mind Ariel's personality quirks in the least.  

Other questions asked if Ariel was, for example, up to date on her vaccines (yes) and heartworm preventative (no, but we would remedy that), and if we had ever rehomed or lost a dog (yes, we had rehomed a dog once.  It was for the best of all parties involved, ourselves and the dog in question, who went back to his breeder and was immediately turned over to one of the families waiting in line for a puppy).

In retrospect, I have to wonder if I was too honest.

ANCAR tells prospective families that their volunteers take between 7 and 10 days to process an application.  Not a problem.  I lined up my references, called the vet to arrange for Ariel to have her yearly physical (including heartworm test and refill on meds), and let the vet know that they would likely be hearing from ANCAR.  Then I sat back and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I started getting a bit nervous when, as day 10 approached, one of my references asked me when she would be hearing from the rescue.  It turned out that none of my references had been called at all.  A call to my vet proved that they, too, had not been called.  Something seemed amiss.

Going back to the confirmation email I'd received when filing my application, I noted that the group would not be replying to me at all, if my application had been declined.  They only contact approved adopters.  That, I felt, was rather stinky.  I mean, how much time can it really take to shoot off a blanket "We're sorry, but we have decided that your application doesn't meet our criteria" e-mail, with a list of possible reasons for the decline?  Too much for this group, apparently.

I emailed the group, letting them know that Ariel was all lined up to go back on her heartworm meds and asking about the status of my application.  No reply.  I sent another e-mail, saying that we were still very interested in Moe or Michael, and emphasizing that we were a very flexible family... if something was not "up to snuff" in our application, we could change the situation, if we could only know what we needed to do.  Again, no reply.

At this point, it was hard to feel anything but snubbed.  Snubbed, and a bit irritated... after all, we are an experienced dog owning family with our own home and a fenced yard.  We know Corgis and are committed to proper training and care.  What on earth could be wrong with our application?

I texted my family, and my mother promptly texted back - "That's mean," she said, and I agreed.

My youngest sister, however, upon hearing me bemoan my state, matter-of-factly pointed out that the rescue could well be busy from an influx of applicants.  I was putting words and feelings into the hearts and mouths of strangers, assuming the worst, she wrote.  

True, I agreed.  But when they say that they don't reply to declined applicants, what's a person supposed to think?  After all, I had waited the ten days they said they take.  And I could think of a million reasons why my application might have been declined... most of which came back to me being too honest in my application, and paying for that honesty in the loss of our potential dog.

My mother, fine non-directive counselor that she is, simply texted, "Let it go."

Gee, thanks, Mom.

But that's hard to do.

Ariel, our current dog

All of the questions swirled around in my head, and are swirling still... was it that they didn't think Ariel was friendly enough?  Was it that we had let her heartworm meds lapse?  Was it that we had once rehomed a dog?  Was it that we don't crate our dogs?  

Or...maybe it WASN'T about us.  Maybe it was, possibly, about them.  Some rescues are notoriously hard to adopt from... they set the bar for acceptance higher than most normal families can leap.  According to an article I once read, even the head of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had his application for a dog denied at a rescue.  Was this one of those rescues?  Did they, for example, refuse to adopt to families where both parents work?  I wouldn't know; their website doesn't say.  And as of this writing, I've learned volumes of nothing about what I did wrong, or what ANCAR expects from an adoptive family.

I'm mourning the loss of our potential dog.  In my mind, while I know that no dog is perfect, the image of our family welcoming Michael or Moe into our home is a hazy, sunset-tinged one.  I'm sure that one of them could have been a great dog for us, and we could have been a great family for him.  But we'll never know for sure.

And it's the not knowing that's the hardest part.

Florida's Reptile Ban - Just My 2cents' Worth

 

I've been following the posts on social media regarding Florida's ban on sixteen species of reptiles, from tegus to anacondas, for some time now.  To be honest, my feelings are very mixed.

I feel deep sympathy for the pet owners who take proper care of their pets, enclosing them in safe, escape-proof pens and terrariums, keeping them for life - or surrendering them to a capable rescue if they can't keep them.  Some pet owners have large reptiles because they're allergic to cats and dogs... tegus are a viable alternative pet for them.  Some have a deep and abiding love for a particular species.  Many have sunk a great deal of money into their hobby of reptile keeping, and actively try to help others to do it right.  These people are being unfairly punished.

I feel a burning irritation towards those "bad apples" whose irresponsible reptile keeping has led to tegus, pythons, iguanas, and more becoming established invasive species in Florida.  Whether the release into the wild came because of an act of God (Hurricane Andrew resulted in the destruction of a breeding facility and subsequent escape of python breeding stock into the nearby wetlands) or because of the countless idiots who buy a foot-long hatchling, thinking it would make a cute pet, and then set it loose when it's too big to keep feeding, Florida an epicenter of invasive species.  And because of these flawed human creatures, the ban has come down on all reptile keepers.

However, I also feel a distinct sense of annoyance towards the reptile owners who are flooding social media with indignation and blindered tunnel vision rantings... "They can pry my tegu out of my cold, dead hands!"  "If they can ban these reptiles in Florida, they can ban all reptiles anywhere!"  "Look out - your pet reptile will be next!"  "This will just mean everyone will be buying from unregulated, illegal breeders!"  "Why don't they ban cats?  Cats are more destructive than invasive reptiles."  Um, no.  Sorry.  NOT HELPING, PEOPLE!  Some of these knee-jerk reactions may have a grain of truth in them, but they don't do anything for the cause of keeping pet reptiles.  Such arguments entirely ignore the very real danger invasives pose to the environment.  What's more, they paint all of us in the reptile hobby as whining, entitled children who think it's their right to own whatever species they want, wherever they want.  That sort of attitude, that sort of thinking, isn't going to do a whit of good when it comes to preventing the wholesale (wholeSCALE?) banning of reptiles in other places.

The fact of the matter is that if reptile owners... or the owners of any exotic, potentially invasive species... want to prevent future bans, they need to band together and take steps that might be troublesome to some, downright disasterous to others.

1) We need to push for permits and licensing of potentially invasive exotics BEFORE the government decides to ban them.  This includes licensing or other forms of registration, and mandatory escape-proof housing.  This will be a hassle to responsible pet owners, yes.  But it will also show the world that owners of exotic pets don't want the natural world ruined just because they like to keep certain species as pets.

2) We need to make it harder for the average owner to own potentially invasive species.  One of the problems with species becoming invasive is the careless, clueless, irresponsible owners who let their pets loose intentionally when they can't care for them any longer or by accident, keeping their pets in habitats that are not escape-proof.  In fragile ecological environments, invasive species are like a loaded gun.  You can't just wander down to your local WalMart and pick up a semiautomatic rifle.  Why should any idiot with a credit card be able to buy an anaconda at a reptile expo?  This means limiting the species that can be purchased in "big box" pet stores or specialty reptile stores, yes... possibly even stopping the sales of reptiles in those places entirely.

3) We need to be active in our local politics.  The needs of a reptile keeper in South Florida are markedly different than the needs of a reptile keeper in South Bend, Indiana... and we need to work to be sure that blanket legislation doesn't apply to all geographic areas.  After all, there's little chance of invasive reptiles getting a toehold in a state where brutal winters keep even native species from thriving.  On the other hand, in a tropical or semi-tropical state, stricter regulations may, in fact, be warranted.  

I don't either suggest or suggest against joining political organizations like USARK - on the one hand, I feel USARK is a good, solid, reputable organization that could do a considerable amount of good for the reptile cause.  On the other, they support across-the-board private ownership, sales, and trade of venomous species and the species most likely to pose a problem to the environment, should they be loosed intentionally or accidentally, which I think is a bad idea.  I'm a reptile fan, but I don't think that just because someone likes reptiles that they should be allowed to own any reptile they choose.

I do wonder, though, what the future of the reptile hobby will look like.  Reptile enthusiasts are not like other pet owners... many are "collectors" rather than traditional "pet owners" for one, and collectors who house dozens of reptiles, breeding and trading them, tend to view their animals very differently than someone who has just one beloved reptile as a personal pet.  I wonder how much of the hobby is driven by these collectors, rather than pet owners... and what that will mean, someday.  

A quick Google search pulled up half a dozen green anacondas, generally considered the world's heaviest snakes, for sale on the popular Morph Market website.  Anyone with $2000 or so to spare can buy one and have it shipped to their doorstep - and some, like the male advertised as "NOT a pet - for breeding only" - are definitely marketed to collectors rather than pet owners.  Should there be blanket legislation to stop this?  I don't think so.  But should just anyone be able to buy a snake that can weigh several hundred pounds and needs to eat whole piglets?  I don't think so, either.

It's a puzzling situation, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to side with one faction or the other, wholeheartedly.

Teaching Reading and Writing

I'm going to ramble here.  This is not intended to be a thoughtful, well-educated and well-organized discussion of my issues with Columbia Teacher's Workshop.  I'm feeling frustrated right now, because I'm trying to put together my lesson plans for next week, and that always puts me out of temper.  I am just venting.  

I'm not fond of the way my district teaches reading and writing.  If you asked me why, and nobody really does, I'd say it's because I don't really understand the basic concept.  And if I, the teacher, don't understand the concepts behind what I'm trying to teach... is there any chance that my students will?

Our district esposes the Columbia Teacher's Workshop school of teaching reading and writing... known to some as Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop, known to others as the Lucy Calkins method of teaching (Calkins herself apparently bristles as being given full blame, or credit, for this).  I have never been fully and properly taught how to teach this way.  I was, many years ago, presented with a hefty multivolume reading and writing program and told that I would be given instruction... but aside from time spent with my curriculum coach because I am so piss-poor at delivering this content, and aside from some incomprehensible sessions during professional development days, I swear I haven't.

Columbia Teacher's Workshop gained noteriety by tossing its highly-trained teaching students into underperforming urban schools and revamping the way reading and writing was taught.  I can pretty much assure you that these young, idealistic and motivated teachers had something more than a set of wordy, overwritten teacher's manuals and a handful of professional development sessions to their credit before they worked their wornders.

All I have really been able to understand, over the years that I've been trying and failing to teach Reader's and Writer's Workshop, is that A) direct instruction of skills is Frowned Upon.  B) You should be able to somehow convey a lesson's worth of meaning and comprehension to your students in under 10 minutes.  C) You should be conferencing with your students daily.  Okay.  I can get behind this, except for the No Explicit Teaching of Skills part.  I think there's definitely a place for direct instruction, modeling, and practice in the classroom.

Only that's not the way it goes.  I've tried to read these scripted, overly-long teacher's guides before... they are deadly dull, and the modeling that goes on in the lessons described is nowhere remotely like I would ever teach my own students (because it's not ME teaching, it's someone else!)  Only rarely am I able to parsel out what the teaching focus is... and when I am, it's not due to anything helpful written in the books.  It's usually Dumb Luck.  So first lesson learned:  The people who put together this model of teaching have NO CLUE how to write for teachers.  Teachers want things quick and simple.  Give us the heart of what needs to be taught, and let us teach it.  Don't spend pages and pages showing us how someone else would teach it.

And now, as I'm trying to write about my frustrations, I come upon my second problem:  I get confused.  Not only do I get confused about how to teach this male-bovine-produced-fertilizer, I get confused about why I'm confused.  I don't like Reader's and Writer's Workshop, but I know for a fact that my reasoning is muddied and unclear - because my understanding of the program is muddied and unclear.  There seems to be nothing about CTW that is simple and to the point.  

My younger sister, who is a much better teacher than I am (she actually reads about how to be a better teacher, belongs to Facebook groups that help her improve her teaching, and seems intrinsically motivated to continually improve herself) suggests that I join a fan group on Facebook and admit that I am confused about how to teach Reader's and Writer's Workshop.  I guess that's her way of telling me I need Professional Help.

I want to know why, when even looking at the CTW books pumps up my blood pressure, I would voluntarily submit myself to the scrutiny and censure of people who LOVE this method of teaching?  I don't want to be taught how to love Lucy Calkins.  (I'm sure she's a perfectly pleasant person on an individual level, truly I do.)  I just want to know how to do what she promotes without losing my mind.  I don't want to, or need to drink the Kool-Aid.

All I really want is the watered-down version of what it is I'm supposed to teach... the barest of eductational goals.  I don't want to be teaching Unit 2: Reading the Weather, Reading the World.  Please... if I wanted to teach my students about extreme weather, I'd have become a meteorologist.  I want to know how to help my students understand informational texts without jumping through the hoops of "researching" extreme weather - which is what I'm supposed to do according to CTW, without being supplied with the appropriate texts for said research.   

And don't even get me started on the next unit, which expects me to teach about the roots of the Revolutionary War (regardless of the fact that this is not in my curriculum, or in anyone's curriculum, at the fourth grade level).  Since when do I need to teach my students about the French and Indian War to teach them what a primary source is - and since when, I want to know, does a FOURTH GRADER need to learn what primary and secondary sources ARE?????  I'd be happy if I could teach my young readers how to find the main idea of a passage, and my young writers how to avoid writing run-on sentences!

I just want to know what to teach my students that is developmentally and age-appropriate.  If the powers that be don't want me to do that by teaching a whole-class book in reading anymore, fine.  Just tell me how to do this in a way that doesn't make my students gawp at me with the same mixture of despair and confusion that I feel trying to teach them.