Chet Baker, Birdwatcher

Chet Baker. What are you doing standing up against the birch tree? Do you have a squirtle up there?
Mether, you know there are not nearly enough squirtles around here for me to be lucky enough to have one up this tree. There is something else up here that intrigues me.


Well, Chet, there is a goldfinch singing very loudly at the top of the birch. Is that what you're wondering about?

You say it is a goldfinch? It has a very loud song, and I am curious about it. I would like to get a closer look at it.

These are the times I wish a Boston terrier could climb. I can run and jump very well, but climbing is hard for me. I do not have the right kind of hands.


Oh, how I would like to see the bird that is making that song.


Finally! Now I see him. All that noise from such a small small bird. Hummm.


Chet Baker, now you can add American goldfinch to your life list. Just one more reason to call you Little Cat Dog.

Bill, Phoebe, Liam, Chet Baker and I got back from the New River Birding and Nature Festival in Fayetteville, WV, last evening. We had the most wonderful time. We're overflowing with love for our friends, many of whom we knew but had never hugged before! I promise to get to my photos today, to try to encapsulate the experience in something resembling a cogent blog post. For his part, Birdwatching Chet Baker stole about four dozen hearts and was treated like the rock star he is by almost everyone except Geoff Heeter, who has the audacity to talk to him as if he were an ordinary dog, or something less than a hairy demigod. More on that later.

Chet Baker, Birdwatcher, Deerchaser

Chet Baker has had some pretty extraordinary encounters with wildlife, and we owe species #183 for our property list to him--a Virginia rail that he found and flushed in our backyard last October 19, 2008.

He takes notice of birds, and when he was a pup he used to watch and try to chase turkey vultures that swooped low over the yard, even jumping up to see if he could touch one!

Now, I watch him on our hikes, and I enjoy trying to get photos of him birdwatching. On an early spring hike, we heard a male cardinal singing very loudly at the top of a bare tree. Chet headed right over.


He circled the base of the trunk, trying to get a better vantage point.


The cardinal was equally curious, watching this funny pied animal, watching him.


I like a dog who notices birds.

But then, I like this dog anyway.

A much more typical Baker encounter with wildlife is his morning deer chase. I know a lot of people hate to see dogs running deer, but Chet runs deer in a most civilized way. When he first wakes up, he goes to the patio window to see if he can spot any deer in the meadow. There usually are some, but he can't see them until they move or flick their white tails. Then he moans and cries until someone lets him out.

You again. You little black nuisance, you.

Chet streaks out the path like a black bullet, sometimes tumbling head over heels in his haste. That dog can MOVE.

The deer flip up their tails and lope toward the woods.


Baker slams on the brakes. He don't like prickers, so he gives up the moment the deer enter the brambles. He gives a ferocious rrrowwf! as he gives them the bum's rush.



But he always stops to show them who the Boss of #1 is.

Still Life with Terrier

From time to time, I run into people with opinions about Boston terriers. They don't necessarily realize that I really only want to hear positive, informed opinions about Boston terriers, preferably from someone who lives with one or is a huuuuge Chet Baker fan. Those I'll listen to all day.

I had a man once volunteer his chagrin that Chet Baker's face is so ugly, which is too bad because he'd be such a nice-looking dog otherwise.

Ohhhh-kay. Any more comments from you? Or are you content to wake up some night to the sound of my heavy breathing, my silhouette against the moonlight, arm raised?

Chet and I were sitting in the Exploder, waiting for the bus on our country road when an aquaintance who was also waiting got out of her car and asked, "Is that one of them Boston bulls?"

Yes, I replied, he's a Boston terrier.

"Them things is HYPER!"

Well, actually he's only...

"No, them things is HYPER! My cousin has two of 'em and them things is HYPER!"

I smiled, nodded, and raised the electric window, like that scene in the limousine in This is Spinal Tap when the cabdriver is blabbing to the band about how nobody understands Frank Sinatra.

Of course, she gave me a little gift that keeps on giving, because

"Them things is HYPER!"

has become a catch phrase in our house now, whenever we catch Chet Baker doing this:

Still life with titmouse.

Still life with European starling.

Still life with Carolina wren.

Still life with eastern bluebird.

Still life with downy woodpecker.

Down, you ugly, hyper dog! Down!