Chapter 9

Gayle as a Companion

It was wonderful knowing that I didn’t have to give up Gayle when they found slight hip dysplasia. The affliction never seemed to bother her. She made the best companion dog ever, as she would stay with me when I’d take walks, unlike the hunting dogs I‘ve had before and since.

Oh, she was normal and chased squirrels, and it gave her such great exercise that rather than discouraging them from the feeder at our house in Vestal, Tom made something that looked like a propeller. He sunk a screw at the end of each of each propeller on which he‘d attach a corn cob, and when the squirrels would go to get the corn, suddenly they’d be upside down. They got the hang of it… literally, and would hang on the end eating the corn off the cob. Once they’d had a good feed, we’d release Gayle to the back yard saying “Go get the squirrel.”

She never got the squirrel, but got a lot of exercise, but her main job now was taking me for a walk each day, and we would go down the African Road Park which still allowed dogs back then. I got to take her on a vacation up to R.I. to visit my mother… just she and I on our first trip alone. Before trying to drive her so far, I checked into the harnesses for dogs, and a vet told me to just get a regular harness and attach the seatbelt through the back, and that would prevent her from being thrown if there was a sudden stop. I don’t know why, but Gayle always felt special with that harness on. She looked good in it. Almost made me sad to think what a great Guiding Eyes Dog she would have been.


Back home I would use the collar some days, the harness others. One sunny bright day I wore my sun glasses out to the park. Our house was the next to the last on the street, and we just had to cross African Road at that intersection, and we were at the top of the path taking us down into the park. I’d let her off the leash once down into the Park, and once up the hill before going back on African Road on the way home, I’d grab the center of the back of her harness to put on the leash. When I got to the top of the hill that day, a car going the normal speed limit came to a screeching halt. I had to laugh. He had seen this Lab; the harness; a woman in sun glasses grabbing the back of the harness, and thought the dog was the Guiding Eyes dog she was meant to be. When I realized what he thought, I waved a thanks, and took off my glasses, showing him I wasn’t blind.

I’ve been checking back in my journals to the times when I had Gayle, and realize that she was around for a lot of things: When my adult children had problem relationships; through the good times and celebration of their getting married; through the trauma of my son Alb getting burned; through difficult times of grief when my son-in-law Ray got killed in a head on (fault of a careless teen-aged driver); when Mary Lounsbery died… a relative of my new family, my predecessor, Mary Jane’s aunt, who treated me like she was my own aunt. Through my own dear Aunt Daw’s death; through my mother’s downward spiral into dementia; through my brother Danny’s death after 20 years of having MS; and through my mother’s eventual death. Through all that and more, so I would often have much on my mind and really needed someone to talk to right at the moment, and I had Gayle. We’d take a walk, and if no one else was around, I’d talk to her, and it was as if she understood.

After the initial vacation with Gayle to my Mom’s in Rhode Island, and seeing that she was so taken with Gayle, I wrote her a picture book with all the pictures I’d taken while in Rhode Island, calling it Gayle’s Vacation. I kept getting duplicates of those pictures, made duplicate books for the new grandchildren …first one born in 1990. I began taking the other pictures of my very photogenic dog as well as other wildlife, and later the farm life in our house in Pennsylvania, and continued making picture story books for my grandchildren In most of the books, Gayle was the heroine and my inspiration--probably the only books that have or will have gained recognition, and probably, exclusively from my grandchildren and their parents. Christmas one year I gave grandsons, Russy and Ricky, a book each in which they had a starring role with Gayle rescuing them in one way or another in a story I made up with photos which illustrated the two stories which I’d made after taking the pictures. Their mother, Jo, was always complimenting my photo books, but the boys father wasn’t one to compliment, but when HE said “Those books were pretty good” I began to believe that maybe they were, thanks to my wonder dog, Gayle.

Chapter 8 (Freedom and Animals, cont.)
Pleasant Pheasant Venture:

We lived in Vestal, N.Y. when we bought the land in Silver Lake in 1986, and spent so much time up there, always announcing when leaving, “We’re going to the land,” that for years our place was referred to as The Land. Though we didn’t start to build until 1992, I had a rock garden, Tom raised vegetables and I somehow became the person in charge of the birds we raised, though Tom built the pens and coops.

This pheasant venture was started in the spring of 1987 (same year Wendy died, and before our dog Gayle became part of my life in 1988). It was the first time in my life that I’d raised birds for any reason, and I found it to be a wonderful experience. There is something about birds that quiet my mind, body and spirit. I don’t grieve over birds that die as much as mammals, but value them in a different way, because of the feeling I get just watching them. They are somewhat otherworldly. I guess it’s their feathers and their ability to fly plus their being so unlike mammals in almost every way. Everything is so awsome, whether just the complexities of a feather, or how a fertilized egg can change from a yolk and albumen, into a beautiful fragile chick in around 20-something days. Then when the pheasant becomes an adult bird, the cock pheasant is especially beautiful with feathers that take on rainbow sheens in the sun--a sight almost impossible to see but in person, as photography just don’t do it justice. I suppose the mammal is even more complex, but to me birds seem more ethereal.

We picked up our first pheasant chicks from a place near Whitney Point in N.Y. on May 26th, where they raised Korean and Golden Pheasants, getting 3 Golden and 4 Korean. ( The man who sold them couldn’t sell regular ring neck pheasants without a special license.)

We placed these 7 pheasant chicks in a 20 gallon aquarium with a regular 60 watt bulb instead of a regular brooder light. The chicks not only peeped all night disturbing our sleep, but they pecked at each other and as a result we lost a one Korean chicks. I took away the bulb and lay a heating pad across the top, which worked like a charm, which was good, as Tom was still working for IBM and needed his sleep.

We got anti-peck lotion from Agway, but a red warming brooder light was to prove to be the best thing to avoid their pecking in the first place. We learned much through trial and error about raising birds from chicks, even about hatching out our own pheasant’s eggs throughout the years, but at first I was like a new worried mom who knew little about the needs of the newborn. I had to know just the right temperature for the brooder, types of food, medications if needed, and electrolytes in the water if they were at all stressed. We put paper towels in the bottom covered with wood shavings so their feet wouldn’t splay out to the sides, and a 1 quart waterer with round stones in the water to keep the chicks from getting wet.

After a week or so we took chicks up to the Cabin on our land in PA. We had purchased ½” hardware mesh, 36” tall, and 6’ long. We attached it in a semi circle to a 4’ x 3’ piece of plywood. Under was the linoleum floor of the cabin. We cut brown paper bags to put a 4” cuff around the wire mesh at floor level to keep the wood shavings from getting all over. Chicks develop fast and molt, over and over until they develop their adult feathers, starting with the first where they drop their chick fuzz while their pin feathers come in. This fuzz-dust would still get in the air settling on every surface in the cabin. We put a section of wire dividing the semi circle in half. One half for any new birds… first on the other side were one replacement for the one that died and two more Korean chicks keeping our pheasant count at nine, and then six days later they successfully mixed in with the older group, when we got half dozen ringneck pheasant chicks from Agway which we had to keep separate, as they were so small… also, the older pheasants were glaring at them like they wanted them for dinner. Some of the first pheasants could already fly out of the mesh fencing of the brooding area in the cabin, so we had to add a piece of wire over the top of their side to keep them in.

On June 30th, we also got 10 quail chicks, which were about the size of bumble bees when Tom and Trese picked them up at Agway, as I was visiting my Mom in Rhode Island when they called us to let us know our quail chicks were in. Tom started them at the house again using the 20 gallon aquarium.

We released the older pheasants into the outdoor pen on July 3rd, and the next morning, when we went up to The Land to make sure all was okay, and they had survived the night, we found all were in good form. We revisited in the afternoon and saw a hawk winging its way low around the hedgerow when we arrived.
When we checked out the pheasants one of the golden had a bloody beak, and, true to form, the others were pecking on this poor bird. While I took it down to the cabin to swab its wounds, Tom found that one of the Korean pheasants was dead. Back at the pheasant pen what I saw that the poor thing, lying on the ground inside the pen with its neck in the fence… headless. We figured that something had scared the pheasants, and this pheasant had tried to get out through the fence, and got it’s head stuck and that hawk we saw when arriving at the land had taken advantage of the situation, while the golden just got its beak bloody in the panic from whatever the scare was. To lose a few pheasants to accident and birds of prey was to be expected.

We had a raised shelter inside the pen so the birds would have someplace to get out of the elements and for to keep their feed from getting wet, but they never used it except to perch on top, so we had to put their food and water underneath. We then put a screen in the front of it and used the shelter to acclimate the other birds to the area before we released them into the flock, though when we did that, they looked like prisoners at some local jail.

The found that pheasants felt secure hiding and blending in with ground cover, so we dragged in oak branches thick with green leaves. In the winter we were to stop and pick up Christmas trees people had left for collection to take them up to the land so we could add to these hiding places the pheasants liked. Later on I put a multi branched dead tree in the middle of the pen for a place to perch. They weren’t much for perching, but after awhile they infrequently used it.

On July 7th during a hot spell in that summer of ‘87 we put the ringnecks in with the rest of the pheasants, by first putting them in the shelter, entering them into the flock in the next few days. When they joined the flock, the Koreans tried pecking at them, singling out no particular one, but the ringnecks managed to dodge their ways. I grabbed some small pebbles and tossing them at the Koreans which distracted them, thinking the moving objects were insects. The pheasants intermingled well and all seemed to be one big happy family.

They did eat insects, and this was Japanese beetle season, so we would collect them in canning jars, opening them, but on their side so they wouldn’t all fly out before the pheasants realized what they were, and the pheasants caught on to how to catch them sometimes in mid-air as the beetles tried flying out of the jar. I also got autumn olive berries which aren't ripe until autumn. They loved those berries more than any other fruit or vegetable we'd offer them. They would do better in the wild knowing some of the local vegetation that was available.

We had the pecking problem with the quail also, and had to separate one that got pecked, bringing it up to the cabin, putting it in the now empty half of the brooder. The recovering golden was in the other half with another golden we brought down for company. We did the same thing with the quail, bring another one up with the wounded one for company. On July 8th we brought the rest of the quail up to the cabin on the 8th, and after putting them together we couldn’t even tell which one had been wounded.

Eventually all birds were orientated into the outdoor pen, including the quail on August 7, ’87. The yard which Tom constructed was 20’ by 30’ and was 6’ high, with a square 4’by4’ door set about 2’ off the ground so we had to step over and into the yard. One evening when I was late checking on the birds, I went to step in and there was a strange round pattern just inside the door that looked much like some kind of an Aztec calendar. As soon as I went to step in, it popped out in every direction like it sprang from the middle. I found out later that this phenomena was the way quail stay safe in the wild at night. They gather in a circle with their tails in the center. They did this a lot in the winter, even when out in the sun, to conserve their body heat on really cold days, and if anything disturbs them when they settle in this way at night, they scatter in every direction, thus keeping predators from catching them …at least all of them.

By January ‘88, we had our pup Gayle, and she was from then on very much a part of The Land, and we carved our paths through the woods to creek side of our property and up back to Cranberry Lake.

We had plastic netting over the top of the outdoor pen so the pheasants wouldn’t hurt themselves if they flew up against it. This proved to be a disadvantage, as owls got in and then couldn’t get back out. This was such a thrill seeing a great horned owl up close, that I was more excited about that than upset about the one pheasant it had killed. How it had gotten in, we figured was after a few trampoline tries, its talons had cut through the netting, but it was impossible for the owl to fly back out through the slit, so it was trapped. This happened the first time in December of ‘87, and before the winter was over it happened four more times. But the first time was so exciting, I only thought of it as a single photo op’ and was disappointed when I found that in my excitement, I had taken the pictures on the wrong setting and none came out. I didn’t have long to wait until I got some great pictures, when it happened again… and again. First time we used a fish net to get the bird out, but in trying to get him into an empty trashcan to transport him away from the area, in just turning our heads, managed to get himself free and escaped so silently it was like a disappearing act. We realized then that owls make absolutely no noise in flight. Usually one can hear a bird on the wing, especially one desperate to get away.



I got some great pictures of Great Horned Owls, although we lost 3 of our pheasants, at least the last owl being a female who was too upset at her predicament to kill anything. To remove the rest of the owls from the pen, we took an empty trash can which we kept for the pheasants feed and placed it over the owl which would be hissing, clapping its beak in worried warning, and flapping its wings while climbing up the side of the pheasant pen. Then we’d push the cover against the fencing, sliding it over the top of the can, pushing it at his feet until he unclenched the talons and dropped back into the can, almost as easy as removing a hornet from a window with a Dixie cup and a piece of cardboard. We would then remove the owl in the closed trashcan to a distance where we were fairly sure he wouldn’t wing his way back. We finally replaced the netting with chicken wire.



By Autumn of ’87 all the birds had their adult feathers. Korean pheasants look much like the ringneck pheasants… same head, but no white ring around their necks. The wings and tail are similar, but the Korean’s body is a deep green unlike the brown body feathers of the ringneck.



The Goldens were more expensive, the cock bird being a exotically colored bird, though we were never to see that, as the only golden to survive was a very plain female. I thought this female wonderful when she was the only captive pheasant that in the summer of ’88 brooded two fertile eggs. Then when the eggs were ready to hatch, we weren’t present for the first chick, and I assume she killed it, as we found the shells from two hatched chicks, but only one chick. I just happened to arrive probably in the nick of time to save the poor tiny chick which was running and hiding in great fear. (It turned out to be a Korean/ringneck mix.) It must have been running for its life, but I picked it up and brought it back to its “Mama“ and the golden just wanted to peck and kill it. It reminded me of a pheasant version of some fable about a wicked stepmother.


Sometimes the quail would escape in some way, and one day we saw one outside the pen. It was breeding season, and the others in the pen called it back… or so we thought. Once we got it back into the pen, we counted up the quail and found one more than we were supposed to have. Someone else must have raised quail, released them, and this one got lonely, coming to us with our own quails calls. Later the cock quail were to give the female pheasants a terrible time, as they seemed to prefer the “big-Mama’s” to their female quails, and would try to mount them. You would think a pheasant three times their size could hold their own, but they were persistent as an attacking bee, and just as annoying to the hen pheasant. We decided to let them go, so on July 12, 1988, we let the quail go in the evening, as we were letting some of the 6 hatches of new pheasant chicks into the pen, and the quail were after them. We would sometimes hear them or glimpse one in the woods, but that was just after releasing them, and then they were gone. Like with real estate, but instead of "location, location, location" with any kind of wildlife, it's habitat, habitat, habitat. "Build it and they will come" ...or at least be able to survive the area.

That was the second summer we had pheasants, and I was busy incubating young… but the older ones had to be released, a few at a time, we released most of them down at my brother in law’s farm in Tunkhannock. On July 27 ‘88, we just opened the door and released a ringneck and Goldie, the plain golden who hatched but didn’t mother the one chick she brooded naturally.

The next day, walking up the edge of the woods the next day I saw out of the corner of my eye something that looked like a heap of snow…but it was a warm autumn day. When I turned to look, I laughed, though it should have been sad. The resident fox which never touched the birds I had in captivity, took advantage of my freeing them, and caught this one and had neatly plucked all its feathers leaving them in this obvious heap. It just looked like someone had emptied a feather pillow. And hadn’t liked that pheasant ever since she had killed one hatchling, and would have killed the other had I not been in the right place at the right time.

October ‘88 we released 2 Korean pheasants down at John Jurista’s farm. We had gathered their fertile eggs, incubated them, hatching our own chicks, that summer, and raised our own pheasant chicks and finally released them all.

Gayle accompanied me one time when I released a few up in back of our land, to a swampy and bushy spot which I thought good "habitat." Once Gayle was a year old she was pretty lain back, and somehow I was very surprised when I let the birds that she had seen through the fencing of the pen for months free. Her "retriever" instincts clicked in, and she ran after them like a normal dog... not like a Guiding Eyes Dog. I finally had to go into the area, snap on her leash and drag her back. Fortunately the pheasant's instincts clicked in as well, and they seemed to have been able to hide quite well. I never saw them again, but we're still hoping that sometime they'll do as well as the wild turkey does in this area.

Since moving up here, we’ve raised several more pheasants, but I hate having to cage them up even if we are to release them later, as they should be always be wild and free… that’s my motto: Wild and Free.