Beware Thinking Like Lamarck
October 26, 2008
Lamarck and Darwin
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was an 18th century French naturlist who developed the first coherent theory of organic evolution. That is to say, he developed a testable scientific theory of how organisms evolve into other oganisms through time without divine intervention. Lamarck incorporated into his theory the common belief of the day that organisms can inherit the acuired characteristics of their parents. He belived in something he called l’influence des circonstances or the Adaptive Force which causes organisms to adapt to changes in their environment. Those acquired adaptations are then passed on to the offspring of the organism through sexual reproduction.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin
Under Lamarck’s theory, for example, a blacksmith could develop a right arm that was stronger and larger than his left arm. The son of the blacksmith would inherit this characteristic and develop it further and so on and so forth until you get a race of blacksmiths with one giant arm. This is nonsense. An organism cannot pass on acquired traits to its offspring.
In the 19th century, Charles Darwin, showed that evolution can happen without the deus ex machina of an invisible adaptive force. A population of organisms has random variation in traits. All of the organisms cannot survive and reproduce. Only some of the animals successfully reproduce themselves (for whatever reason) and, in the case of species that reproduce sexually, only some of the possible mating combinations occur. This Natural Selection operating on the population is the engine that drives evolution, rather than an Adaptive Force. The other feature of Darwinian evolution is “descent with modification” or the idea that sometimes the offspring in the new generation have a characteristic not found in the parents. We usually call descent with modification mutation. Mutation and differential reproductive success are the forces that drive evolution.
The thing is, though, that Lamarckian inheritance is very intuitive to people. I often observe people speaking about selection and evolution, especially with respect to purebred dogs, in Lamarckian terms without realizing that they are doing it. Whenever we think about how purebred dogs have changed through time, we need to stop and remind ourselves that animals cannot transmit acquired characteristics to their offspring. We change the characteristics of breeding populations only by selecting which specimens will breed forward to the next generation. Nothing else matters.
Evolution is driven by differential reproductive success. Traits acquired during the life of an animal cannot be passed on to their offspring.
Myth: Azawakh will not Fetch
October 22, 2008
If you spend much time researching Azawakh temperament and behavior you are likely to read that they will not retrieve or “play fetch”. It’s not true. An Azawakh can learn to play the fetch game.
It is true that fetching is not an obsession with Azawakh like it is with many other “sporting” breeds. Azawakh have to learn that “fetch” is a fulfilling form of play and the dog has to be in the mood to play the game.
“Retrieve” is a natural behavior and a standard canid motor pattern. Wild canids “retrieve” game and bring it back to pups in the den, for example. Azawakh have this motor pattern, but it isn’t hypertrophied in the way that it is in modern gun dogs. The behavior is there but it is far from a compulsion. Azawakh can and will retrieve to hand. If the game is fun, the dog will play. It requires the right relationship between dog and handler.
Azawakh retrieving a tennis ball.
Run Puppy, Run
October 19, 2008
Bounce
Ricochet
Leap
Turn
Spring
Bound
Exciting Whelp at Idiiyat-es-Sahel
October 17, 2008
Tirout has whelped 5 pups at Idiyyat-es-Sahel. The puppies are sired by Tigidit Fasiqqi. I’m tremendously excited about this litter first because Tirout and Fasiqqi are great dogs to be around and beautiful, but also because they represent an injection of new blood from the Sahel that is essential for the survival of healthy Azawakh.
Tirout was imported from the Sahel by the Association Bukinabe Idi du Sahel (ABIS) 2007 expedition. Fasiqqi is the son of a dog collected in a previous expedition. They are also unusual in Western breeding because they carry recessive color combination genes which have been eliminated in the West by a combination of selective breeding and the random chance that the original foundation dogs were a particular color combination. While color is superficial, it is visually striking. Two of the puppies are particolored. They are mostly white.
Tirout's particolor puppies
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Azawakh gene pool in the West became increasingly restricted. In aggregate, the inbreeding coefficients were steadily increasing while the ancestral loss coefficients were declining. The inbreeding coefficient is a rough measure of the genetic sameness of a dogs ancestors. The ancestral loss coefficient is a measure of the number of distinct ancestors relative to the whole population. Rising inbreeding coefficient tends to indicate increasing sameness. Falling ancestral loss coefficient indicates that breeding lines are being eliminated from the gene pool.
Inbreeding coefficient (IK) vs. ancestral loss coefficient (AVK) in Azawakh bred in France.
This graph shows an alarming bottle-necking trend which can only end very badly for the dogs. Consider the Basenji, which is closely related to the Azawakh. Contemporary Western Basenji have a very high incidence of a number of serious genetic ailments including digestive disorders, hip displasia, progressive retinopathy (blindness) and Fanconi’s syndrome (kidney failure). They also no longer look very much like hounds in the Congo. Breeders must out-cross back to desert bred dogs or there is no doubt in my mind the Azawakh will suffer a similar fate.
These whelps are part of the key to maintaining Azawakh as a viable, healthy breed. I am very excited about these puppies.
Congratulations, Daoud.
Attempted Family Portrait
October 17, 2008
1/3 of a family portrait.
Just Theodora on a hammock.
Life With a Broken Puppy
October 16, 2008
Broken Metatarsals
Radiograph of broken metatarsals.
In one way Tawzalt’s foot wasn’t as bad as the image above. Only the inner two metatarsals were broken and displaced. The outer two were just cracked. In other ways, it was worse. Her fractures were caused by twisting her foot against the boards which acted like a vice. The fractures were very close to the distal (toward the toes and away from the hock) ends of the metatarsal bones. As a 13-week old puppy her bones were actively growing and bones grow from the “growth plates” on the ends. The fractures, particularly the displaced fractures on the inner two bones were very close to the growth plates.
First Aid
There was no question of mistaking that Tawzalt had a serious injury. Her screams were continuous and blood curdling. She was holding her rear leg higher than her head . At first, I was her hip was dislocated. It took me a while to locate her foot as the source of the problem. She helped me out by biting me repeatedly when I got close to where it hurt.
Unlike the image above, two of the bones remained somewhat structurally viable so the foot was not crumpled. Instead there was a large lump above the knuckles. My first thought was that the foot was badly bruised. Certainly Azelouan has screamed and wailed over whacking his toes when leaping over a log and been fine a few minutes later. My initial treatment was an ice pack.
I realized pretty quickly that the pain was not declining and the swelling was growing despite the ice pack. We had to take her to the vet.
Triage
Our veterinary hospital is open 24x7x365. The only time I can remember when it was closed was when a hurricane knocked out all power in that part of northwest DC for a week. Unfortunately, if you don’t have an appointment you have to wait. I was a Sunday night. The last time I brought a dog in on a weekend night without an appointment, I waited for four hours. This time, despite a waiting room full of sick animals, the wait was about 30 seconds. The triage nurse took one look at Tawzalt’s foot and whisked her into the back for X-Rays and a healthy slug of morphine.
They have an electronic radiographmachine, so the X-Ray pictures were up on a computer monitor just a few minutes later. I don’t have copies of those pictures, but scroll back up in this post and imagine it with a puppy foot. If the mental image is horrifying then you’re pretty close to the mark.
Call in the Specialist
The on-call doctor that night was not a stranger. She had seen Tawzaltbefore and was very taken with her. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the blanched look on her face and she kept wringing her hands. It’s not good when the doctor is freaked out.
With an adult coursing dog, this sort of injury usually requires a surgical repair. They open up the foot and set the bones and fix them in place with temporary bone plates. The bone plate are removed in a second surgery 4 to 5 weeks after the first one. The foot is immobilizedin a splint for a total of about 8 weeks. The problem with Tawzalt was twofold:
- Because she was 13-week puppy her bones were very small – think pencil thin. They weren’t thick enough to affix a bone screw.
- The fractures were unusually close to the distal end of two of the bones where they had already likely disturbed the growth plate. Any surgery in the area would injure the growth plate further.
I was starting to think that Tawzalt would never walk on this foot again.
The doctor decided that she wasn’t comfortable treating this injury without consultation with a specialist. She called a guy named Tommy Walker. Dr. Walker taught neurology and surgery at the University of Tennessee for 12 years. He was a referral specialist for the U.C. Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and he co-developed a knee ligament repair surgery. He’s the go-to guy for the tough surgical cases.
Dr. Walker got a call about 9pm on a Sunday night. He said to do nothing except put a compression bandage on the foot to reduce swelling. Emphatically, do no surgery! He would make a special trip in on Monday to work on her foot.
There was nothing more to be done. I had to leave her there. She was whacked out on morphine and feeling pretty good. I found out later that the vet techs took it in turns to hold her in their laps all night. She never went into a cage.
Dr. Walker called me in the morning and said that he didn’t want to do surgery. He had looked at the radiographs and he wanted to set the bones under general anesthesia and then splint the foot for a month. It’s a remarkable thing when a surgeon recommends not to do surgery. His main concern was that we minimize additional trauma to the growth plates. The problem with this approach was that there would be no bone plates to stabilize the bones – which makes it critical to immobilize the dog. Dr. Walker was emphatic that she must not move for the first three days and then she needed to be on crate rest for a month.
Immobilize a puppy for a month.
“This is a coursing dogs, right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
If I did my part and kept her still while she healed, he said, then he was virtually certain that she would heal and eventually be able to run as though it never happened.
A month.
Tawzalt on "crate rest" in my office chair.
The Longest Month
If you have ever raised a puppy, then you know that at about two months of age they really start to explore the world. They do not sit still.
Oh, I almost forgot. The splint can never get wet. If it gets wet, I must take her to the hospital to have it changed immediately. I must cover the splint with a rig made from a used IV bag in order to keep it dry when she goes out to the bathroom. She must never be off-lead. She must never run. Bathroom business only and then back to crate rest. The splints have to be changed twice weekly in order to accomodate her growth and to keep the foot from festering.
For the next three days, I held Tawzalt in my lap. When it was time for her to go out and eliminate, I had to first put on the bag. It went pretty well because she enjoyed the attention and her foot hurt like hell.
We went back to the hospital on third day for a change of splint and X-Rays. The good news was that the foot had set with the bones in perfect alignment. She should heal as long as I kept her still. Only 26 days to go.
No Really, Keep the Splint Dry
The splint was a real set-back for potty training. Tawzalthated to squat with a giant club dangling from her leg. She had accidents. On about the 6th or 7th day, she climbed onto the dog bed and peed all over it and her bandage. Well, she had an appointment for the next day to have the bandage changed anyway. We didn’t take her in “immediately”. How critical could it be?
Critical.
By the next day when her bandage was changed they said it looked like the bandage had been soaked with urine and she had a sore starting. The team cleaned her up and put on a new bandage. It took an exorbitant amount of time and I am convinced that the whole team of techs would keep her back there so that they could all hold her. She was becoming the hospital mascot.
Three days later, her bandage was due for another change. It seemed like she had managed to get it wet again but I couldn’t figure out how. The bandage stank.
It turned out that she had not wetted herself again. The bandage was soaked through from the inside. The wetness and smell were coming from pus from a skin infection caused by the original soaking incident. Now she needed antibiotics and her bandage needed to be changed every other day. We still had three weeks to go.
After a near infinity of bandage changes, the foot infection healed and we were able to luxuriate in mere twice-weekly bandage changes.
Broken puppy digging a hole (note the dry-bag).
As time went by it became impossible to immobilize Tawzalt. If I crated her, she immediately urinated all over her bandage. If I turned my back on her she ran around. One time, about three weeks into the ordeal, I left her quietly asleep on the couch so that I could take Azelouan for a potty break around the house. When I came back 5 minutes later, she leaped over the couch to greet me. I then learned from my wife that she had just run up and down the stairs, circumnavigated the house in a blur and hurled herself back onto the couch just in time to leap over the back of the couch when I opened the door.
I had visions of her snapping her foot right off and she still had 10 days to go.
Moment of Horror
The day finally came when Tawzalt was supposed to have her bandage removed, provided the X-Rays showed that her bones had healed. Dr. Walker’s assistant took Tawzalt in the back for her radiographs while I paced in the waiting room. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, Dr. Walker called me into an exam room. He wanted to talk to me without Tawzalt.
Why didn’t they just bring her out to me? My stomach sank with the certain dread that her foot had healed crooked and she would be crippled for life.
“Her bones are healed!” Dr. Walker said as he closed the door. “Now, she has to heal the soft tissues which is much slower. You’ll have to do physical therapy with her every day.”
They showed me the radiographs of her foot. It looked a little bit wadded up because they X-Rayed her with the splint on her foot, but I could see that all of the metatarsals had healed and were straight. The only clue they had ever been broken was the slightest hint of a shadow on the innermost one. They taught me about the physical therapy:
- Slow-walking her on lead to encourage her to use the foot
- Stretching the digits to loosen up the tendons
- Deep massage to loosen the adhesions
Dr. Walker said that it would take not less than two more months before her foot was any semblance of normal.
Then they brought me Tawzalt. She was very happy to see me and to have the weight off the end of her leg. I’m glad that they went through everything with me before they brought her out because at the end of her leg was a twisted flipper. The foot was turned in pidgeon-toed almost a full 90 degrees. There was no arch. The two inner toes whose growth plates had been disturbed were tiny – like they had not grown at all. The two outer toes were huge by comparison but twisted from being imobilized in the splint so that the pads pointed toward the other toes rather than the ground.
Horrifying.
It was nearly impossible to believe that she would ever be able to use that foot again.
She hopped on three legs with me to the car.
The Long Road to Recovery
It’s easy to think of the body as a superstructure of bones with flesh over them, like the Terminator. We think of the bones as holding everything up. It isn’t like that at all. The bones provide superstructure but the tension of the muscles and tendons holds everything up, like a suspension bridge. Imagine the Golden Gate Bridge. If you loosened all the wires holding it up, the thing would collapse in a heap. That’s the situtaion with Tawzalt’s foot. There was no muscle tone whatsoever in her whole leg, from the tip of her toes to her hip. Even her loin on the right side was atrophied.
Over the next week, the arch in her foot returned somewhat so that it didn’t hang so alarmingly at a right angle. I would dutifully shuffle along with her on-lead at a pace where she would use her injured foot a little bit. I do her physical therapy stretches and massage twice a day. Things improved day by day.
It’s been about 6 weeks since the splint was removed. We hit a big milestonthis week. First time, she has enough strength so that she is standing up on her toes rather than having them splay out and flop around while she walks. She’s stopped tripping over her toes and skipping.
She’s not fully recovered, yet. Her right leg has about half of the muscle mass of the left leg. When she runs down stairs, she tends to hold her right leg in the air and just use only the left one as she learned to do when in the splint. The inner two toes are growing but are about 3mm shorter than outer two, which gives the illusion that her foot is pidgeon-toed. I think those toes are slowly catching up or maybe it is just that as the whole foot grows the loss of a few millimeters of growth becomes less important.
The most important thing is that Tawzalt can run. She loves to run. I think in 6 or 8 weeks it may be impossible to tell that she was ever injured.
Yesterday she almost caught a squirrel.
It was a very good day.
Tawzalt hurtling through tall grass.
What’s in a Name Part 3: Azawakh
October 10, 2008
Azawakh is not Tamasheq
Azawakh or azaouak comes from the Djerma language. It means “Land of the North”. The Djerma are a considered to be a branch of the Songhai people, but they may were actually assimilated during the Songhai Empire in the 16th century. Many Djerma were displaced from what is now a Fula region, Lac Debo in Mali. They eventually settled well East of Lac Debo near Niamey in what is now Niger. The Azaouak Valley is almost directly to the North of Niamey.
Young pair of Azawakh.
Not Just a Name for Dogs
In addition to being the name of a breed of dog, Azawakh, is a strain of Zebu cattle characterized by long lyre-shaped horns and a hump. The cattle are thought to have arrived in the Sahel around the late 7th century BCE. Other names for these cattle are Bororo, Tuareg, Adar, Tagana and Azawaje.
I have the sense that both breed names were synthesized by Europeans in the post-colonial period of the last century. Neither Azaouak (meaning a breed of cattle) nor Azawakh (meaning a breed of hound) is used by any local people. Both words are really a shortening of a phrase:
- Cattle of Azawakh
- Hounds of Azawakh
If I Have More than One are they Azawakhs?
No. The Plural of Azawakh should still be Azawakh. Remember that Azawakh is the name of a place, the Azawakh Valley or the Land of the North. When we use the Azawakh as a breed name, it is really just a shortening of hound of Azawakh. Where the hound of part is understood. The plural is hounds of Azawakh. The hounds of part is still understood even if you don’t say it. It would never be hound of Azawakhs nor hounds of Azawakhs.
As another illustration, consider if we replace Azawakh with Canada. We now have an imaginary breed of animal called Canada. Can you imagine calling a pack of them Canadas?
The other option would be a construction like Azawakhians or Azawakhans, which just seems horrifying.
The plural of Azawakh should remain Azawakh.
Mandatory Vaccination Laws Need Updating
October 8, 2008
The Reminder
I received a postcard in the mail recently from our veterinary hospital. Azelouan is due for his vaccinations. I was under the impression that annual booster shots were no longer de rigeur so I called up the vet. It turns out that his initial vaccine doses were designed by the manufacturer for puppies and have a guaranteed efficacy period of one year. All the research I have seen suggests that a final booster should be given at one year, but that isn’t enough to be legal.
DC Law requires valid vaccinations for Distemper, Parvovirus and Rabies for all dogs.* In order to be valid the vaccinations have to carry a guarantee of efficacy from the manufacturer. The longest efficacy guarantee available is for three years. He has to get boosters every three years in perpetuity. Why not measure whether the vaccinations are actually necessary through antibody titers? While they are happy to do titer tests on Azelouan, the District of Columbia will not accept them as legal proof of vaccination. The law requires that vaccinations are valid only if there is a manufacturers warranty of efficacy behind them.
Well.
Azelouan's supplicant look.
Perverse Incentives
Vaccine manufacturers and Veterinarians have an incentive to sell vaccines to pet owners. This is the reason that for many years we all had annual vaccination visits. Recent public concerns about the potential connection between excessive vaccination and cancer and immune disorders has led to the development of 3-year vaccines. I have a strong suspicion that there is no difference between the 1-year labelled vaccine and the 2-year labelled ones.
The point is that both the providers of the vaccine and the veterinarians have no incentive to stop giving vaccines. Quite the contrary, they get paid every time someone brings in a dog to get vaccinated. Mandatory vaccines are a guarantee that clients will show up to the office and spend money.
There is strong evidence that after the core vaccinations series is complete at 1 year, most dogs have lifetime immunity.
First, Do No Harm
The first principal in human medicine is to do no harm. We don’t give children antibiotics for a sore throat unless a throat culture indicates the presence of a streptococcus infection. We shouldn’t be vaccinating just in case or as a way to incentivize clients to show up for well-puppy visits. Vaccines are not risk-free.
Instead of vaccinating in perpetuity, the law should be modified to allow an antibody titer instead.
Below is the minimal vaccination schedule developed by Jean Dodd, DVM.
| Recommended Vaccination Schedule | ||||
| Vaccine | Initial | 1st Annual Booster | Re-Administration Interval | Comments |
| Distemper (MLV) (e.g. Intervet Progard Puppy) |
9 weeks 12 weeks 16 – 20 weeks |
At 1 year MLV Distemper/ Parvovirus only |
None needed. Duration of immunity 7.5 / 15 years by studies. Probably lifetime. Longer studies pending. |
Can have numerous side effects if given too young (< 8 weeks). |
| Parvovirus (MLV) (e.g. Intervet Progard Puppy) |
9 weeks 12 weeks 16 – 20 weeks |
At 1 year MLV Distemper/ Parvovirus only | None needed. Duration of immunity 7.5 years by studies. Probably lifetime. Longer studies pending. |
At 6 weeks of age, only 30% of puppies are protected but 100% are exposed to the virus at the vet clinic. |
| Rabies (killed) |
24 weeks or older | At 1 year (give 3-4 weeks apart from Dist/Parvo booster) Killed 3 year rabies vaccine | 3 yr. vaccine given as required by law in California (follow your state/provincial requirements) | rabid animals may infect dogs. |
Perform vaccine antibody titers for distemper and parvovirus annually thereafter. Vaccinate for rabies virus according to the law, except where circumstances indicate that a written waiver needs to be obtained from the primary care veterinarian. In that case, a rabies antibody titer can also be performed to accompany the waiver request.
*I was told yesterday by the veterinary technician that DC law required Parvo, Distemper and Rabies vaccinations. Today, I got clarification from the actual veterinarian that DC only requires Rabies. The hospital is willing to perform titers in lieu of vaccination upon request but does not accept responsibility for any legal rammifications with a failure to comply with city orndinances. It’s obvious that nobody knows what the real rules are. I looked it up in the DC code 8-1804: “the owner of the dog shall have the dog vaccinated against rabies and distemper”.
Balinitis
October 7, 2008
Frustrating Drips
For the past few months, my juvenile male Azawakh, Azelouan, has been dripping “semen” all over the house. At one point, I mentioned the dripping “semen” problem to a few people who I thought would be knowledgeable and they chalked it up to “testosterone poisoning.” I didn’t think too much of it. We figured the poor guy was loaded up with testosterone and just way oversexed. It was starting to drive my wife crazy, though, because cleaning up the waxy drips is a monster chore that requires a kind of degreaser to remove them from hardwood floors. When he shakes himself the drips are often flung onto the walls for an extra disgust-factor. Suffice it to say that if a way could be found to turn off the dripping faucet of dog “semen”, it would make me a hero.
To cut quickly to the chase, the stuff dripping from my dog’s penis was not actually semen, it was pus. The poor guy was suffering from a condition in dogs called Balinitis: an infected penis sheath. Fortunately, there is an easy home remedy that almost always cures the infection.
Balinitis in a male Greyhound from "Care of the Racing Greyhound."
Stumbling upon a Solution
A few months ago, I purchased an out of print book, used, on the Amazon.com marketplace. It is called Care of the Racing Greyhound. My dogs are not Greyhounds, but this book is very interesting because it is dense with information about canine sports injuries, particularly coursing injuries. It also has medical information not normally found in books for the general population. This book is extremely dense and I had set it aside, having read about half of the thing. I was bogged down in sprains, strains and massage therapy. After running the 10-miler, I happened to pick it up and the book fell open to page 314 which, unbelievably, had a picture of Azelouan’s problem (shown above).
Balinitis can apparently have a number of root causes from masturbation to anabolic steroid use to excessive vitamin E in the diet. The end result is an infection in the penis sheath that can also lead to cystitis and even kidney infection. Most dogs that have balinitis with a discharge also develop tonsillitis. Fortunately, the cure is pretty simple and usually does not require antibiotics or a trip to see the veterinarian. In the vast majority of cases, just rinsing the sheath out with an antiseptic disinfectant cures the problem.
Treatment
Flush the penis sheath out with a dilution of 1 part Betadine in 9 parts water, 1 teaspoon of Hibitane in 1 pint of water or quaternary ammonium disinfectants. Use a syringe without a needle or a pediatric enema bottle to flush the area for at least a minute. The program calls for cleaning the penis sheath once daily for three days followed by every other day for two to three weeks. According to the book, the vast majority of dogs resolve with simple rinsing. If the infection is resistant, it recommends trying a switch to a different antiseptic. If the infection is stubborn, it may require an antibiotic like amoxicillin with clavulanic acid (Clavamox).
I opted for Betadine dilution because we have that in the house. The day after the first treatment, the discharge was nearly gone. After the second treatment, the drip was gone and the tip of his sheath has become much less red.
Azelouan doesn’t really enjoy having his penis washed out and I can’t say that I’m that excited about it either. On the other hand, he is clearly less agitated and is spending a lot less of his time peeing and licking himself. He seems quite relieved. Actually, he’s overjoyed. Christie, too, is overjoyed that Azelouan is no longer splattering disgusting waxy drips all over our house.
Score one for biblioholism!
Azawakh Training
October 6, 2008
I’m not talking about training your Azawakh. I’m talking about your Azawakh training you. Specifically, as an exercise partner. After my second daughter was born, I put on a few pounds and had some unfortunate waiste expansion. Over the last several months, my young Azawakh has been running with me. It’s like motorpacing – Azawakh pacing. He always wants to run faster, farther, more. I’ve been able to tighten my belt two notches. Yesterday, I ran the Army 10-miler and set a personal best time. Unfortunately, the Azawakh is not able to train me to be smarter.
Running shoes and finisher's medallion
Since Christie and I were both running the race, we needed a babysitter to watch the kids (and hounds). Fortunately, Cherish was game to babysit and she was willing to be picked up at 6:30 AM. Unfortunately, I hit the snooze bar a few times and that led to a cascade of unfortunate events. I picked up Cherish about 6:45. We were running late but it was manageable.
We planned to take the metro (subway) to the start at the Pentagon. I grabbed a fistful of change from the penny jar and we hustled off to our local metro station. I pumped all my quarters into the machine and it spit out a $4 paper fare card – which was more than enough to get to the Pentagon and back. Then we got on the wrong train.
I’ve lived in Washington, DC for over 10 years, now. You would think I would have a clue which metro trains go to the Pentagon. But no. We hopped on the first train which was green and we should have been on Yellow. I told Christie that they both go the same place. Well, that’s sort of true as long as you don’t want to actually leave DC. The last stop where the Yellow and Green lines are the same is L’Enfent Plaza. When we pulled up to the Washington Yard station stop, we realized we were in the very wrong place. (The Washington Navy Yard is in Southeast DC and is about as far from the Pentagon as our house was to begin with; just in a different direction. ) By this point it was 7:55 AM and the race begins at 8 AM.
We got out and switched trains to get ourselves back to L’Enfent Plaza so that we could switch again to the Yellow line. We arrived at the Pentagon about 8:30. We sprinted across the parking lot just in time to join the very back of the pack as they crossed the starting line over 33 minutes after the leaders.
I had a great 10-mile run. I’m not really a fast runner but each of my mile splits were between 8 and 9 minutes. I even had some energy left for the last two miles from the Holocaust Museam across the bridge of death. The last two miles of the race are actually on I395. The bridge is heavily canted and rolls up and down. It is a horrible and depressing thing to run across, but I made it to the finish and felt pretty good. I could almost feel Azelouan pulling me along and looking up at me with disgust at how slowly I was moving.
I felt pretty good about my personal best time and everything. I was pretty much euphoric until I tried to fish out my metro card. After being up next to my sweating body for an hour and twenty-five minutes, the paper card really resembled nothing more than a couple of spit wads. There was no possible way that I could use that thing. Of course, if I had been smarter, it might hae occured to me that quarters are waterproof.
If I had saved half my quarters for the return journey, I would not have found myself walking 5 miles home from the Pentagon after running 10. To recap, I was 30 mintes late for the race and had to walk home. In both cases my misfortune was caused by my utter failure to engage the grey matter. My Azawakh was good for training my body but he hasn’t made me smarter.
Aidi wan n'Eezel: the loyal azawakh 