inFauquier: The Pet Set

SPRING 2019

the

Pet Set No fuzzy logic here: It’s puppy love

INSIDE:

Meet author Michael Hingson

PLUS:

Yes? Or no?

The great mountain lion debate continues as local sightings increase

He survived the 9-11 World Trade Center disaster with – and because of – his seeing-eye dog Roselle Find out why buying that real, live Easter chick may not be such a great idea Happy ending: Frantic search and rescue mission to save a little kitten from certain death SPRING 2019

1

IN THE

Spring 2019 – PET PEEVES

26 PHOTO BY SAWYER GUINN

FACES & PLACES

40 PHOTO BY GWEN BORDEAUX

29 Think before you buy that cute Easter animal

23 Blue Ridge Wildlife Center helps care for region’s native fauna

31 Memorialize your pet

24 Local shelters protect, champion the county’s homeless animals 25 Seeing-eye dog makes the grade on 9-11

32 Raising the bar on the science of horse expressions 32 Play the animal name game 33 Dumpster is one lucky kitty 35 Popular cat TNR program, demystified and debated 36 Join the great (ongoing) mountain lion debate: Are you a believer or detractor?

26 Hit the trail with your pup

40 Animal communication, made easy with Holli Shan

EXTR AS

■ Tidbits .......................................... 8 ■ Then and now ............................. 11 ■ Side by side ................................ 12 ■ The Last Word ............................ 50

11 PHOTO BY MARTHA GIBSON CRUMMETT

PHOTO BY PAM BRUNGER

LIFE & STYLE

19 Flying high with these masters of the sky: Meet the local falconers

23 Meet two of Fauquier’s cutest pets: Ozzie the pink-spotted leopard gecko

48 FOOD & WINE 44 Discover plenty of places to party with your pet at dog-friendly wineries and coffee shops 45 Toast the season with these spring beers and wine events 46 The history of the hot dog has worldwide reach 47 Home & Garden extra: Oh, deer – Don’t let these hungry visitors dine on your garden this growing season 48 Home & Garden extra: Composting experiment yields a year’s supply of family food

ON THE COVER Cover model Duke is about 4 years old, a black Labrador mixed, in all likelihood, with a variety of other breeds. His actions and behaviors most often say hound and pointer.

He was found emaciated on the side of a North Carolina road, but his story becomes much happier from there. I adopted him through a local Lab rescue group (lab-rescue.org), and he’s now a properly spoiled, very well-fed princeling in Middleburg.

The other cover model, Lindsey Gade was a natural for this cover shoot, having grown up with a Newfoundland in her Long Island, New York home.

We first tried the “animal-human connection” shot with a horse, then a goat, then a cat, but they didn’t quite understand the photographer’s directive to “communicate” with Lindsey through their eye-to-eye contact.

Duke, on the other hand, understood immediately, albeit with a little help from a hidden treat behind Lindsey’s ear.

The composition was easy because both models grasped the assignment perfectly. I used a Nikon D850 body with a 50mm prime lens shot at F/4.5, ISO 400 at 1/80th of a second with the filtered, natural sunlight coming through the trees at 10 a.m.

– Chris Cerrone

SPRING 2019

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Pick a number, contributors: How many pets do you have?

(Or, in other words, ‘how many cats is too many?’)

Published quarterly by Piedmont Media

Address 41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, VA 20186 Phone: 540-347-4222 Fax: 540-349-8676 Publisher: Catherine M. Nelson cnelson@fauquier.com Editor: Betsy Burke Parker betsyburkeparker@gmail.com Managing editor: Robin Earl rearl@fauquier.com Advertising Ad director: Kathy Mills Godfrey 540-351-1162 kgodfrey@fauquier.com Consultants: Evelyn Cobert ecobert@fauquier.com Renee Ellis rellis@fauquier.com Patti Engle pengle@fauquier.com Tony Ford tford@fauquier.com Rebecca Rosa rrosa@fauquier.com Marie Rossi mrossi@fauquier.com Design Page designer: Taylor Dabney tdabney@fauquier.com Ad designers: Taylor Dabney tdabney@fauquier.com Cindy Goff cgoff@fauquier.com Sawyer Guinn sguinn@fauquier.com Annamaria Ward award@fauquier.com

3: Laurey Branner remembers as a child “carting home every injured bird, lost dog, found turtle, baby frog, cool bug or crawfish pulled from the nearby creek to share with her family before releasing.” Today finds Laurey chipping ice in her pond for the swans, feeding the foxes in her neighborhood, keeping her bird stations full and tending her dog, cat and horse. .5: Designer Taylor Dabney lives in a tiny DC apartment with no pets, so she claims her parents’ dog, Toby, as her own, even though he (and they) live in South Carolina. “Toby has one eye, no tail, very few remaining teeth and bears a striking resemblance to a gremlin,” Taylor says.

“We call him an ‘emotionally supported’ animal.” ~30: Betsy Burke Parker grew up on a farm surrounded by animals. With about three decades under her belt at Piedmont Media and its predecessors, she loses count of the years as well as the total of her current crop of critters, pets and livestock: horses, dogs, cats, chickens and pigs.

9: Master Gardener Pam Brunger, a retired federal executive, helps with miniature horse therapy. She and her husband are living their dream on a small farm in Marshall, where they have three horses, four goats and two cats. The cats have been promoted to “farm managers,” Pam says, in recognition of their role in caring for the “livestock, their term, not mine,” and helping in the garden.

0: They don’t have any now, but writer John Toler and wife Lynda “have always had dogs at our place in Broad Run,” he says. For many years they kept dachshunds, but since 1989 have had four West Highland White Terriers, all of whom have been rescues, plus a Siberian Husky added while their son was in college.

2: Marshall-based writer and former govern-

ment spokesperson Pat Reilly currently has a hound-beagle mix and a black cat. Neither could ever qualify as a service animal, but they try to contribute emotional support.

Mainly she serves them.

1: Photographer Chris Cerrone lives in the Middleburg area with Duke, his faithful black Labrador companion.

1: California native and freelance writer Alissa Jones had a cat, rabbit and fish growing up.

Living in Portugal from age 10 to 17, her experience broadened to include livestock, with cows in the field, neighborhood chickens and pigs and the horses she rode at school. Today, she’s happy to call Bradley, her son’s bulldog, her BFF. 1: A native-born Virginian, writer Pam Owen says she “loves all animals, wild and domestic,” and had both as companions in her childhood. Today, she likes having a dog to join her in exploring nature, “forming a close pack of two. At this time, it’s Mollie, a fearless collie mix with a mind of her own.”

1: Writer-editor Steve Price shares his New York City apartment with Emma, “a half-Siamese possessed of an amiable disposition. She’s the fourth cat I’ve had – or had me – in 40 years.” Steve calls a cat the perfect pet for an urban writer.

“They appear to like everything you read aloud while you are getting a sense of what you’ve written. In this way, they differ from editors.”

2+2: Teacher, writer and beer expert John Daum enjoys the company of two cats and “regular visits from a raccoon and possum who enjoy the leftover cat food as a midnight snack on the front porch.”

0: Photographer Randy Litzinger is highly allergic to cats. “I once walked into a house for

Leave it to Tammy to Manage the Details.

Call

540-270-9409 for an appointment.

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SPRING 2019

a newspaper assignment right after telling the accompanying reporter ‘lately every house I’ve gone to has had a cat.’ When the door opened, there were, literally, eight cats in the living room.”

1: George Mason senior and Liberty class of ‘15, MacKenzie Earl is studying justice, communications and environmental studies.

“I dream of the day when I can get a puppy of my own,” she says dreamily. “Until then, I will spoil my beta fish, Kelp, rotten.”

3: Connie Lyons has raised, shown and judged Irish Setters since 1958. Currently she owns “Lea, an elderly lady, Rhett, a dashing middle-aged gentleman and Khaleesie, a rising young superstar.”

1: Master Gardener and retired EPA engineer Sally Harmon Semple “is head over heels about standard poodles.” Sophie, her third black standard, samples everything in the yard and is the inspiration for this issue’s article on poisonous plants and pets.

2: Food writer, restaurant critic and cookbook author Sandy Greeley says for her “entire life I’ve had one or several pet dogs. Now, my senior Maltese rescue dogs take me out for several walks a day.”

2: Virginia native Sawyer Guinn spent his “early years chasing wild animals from tadpoles to white-tail deer.” These days, he’s greeted by two cheerful border collies upon arriving home from work.

2: Mara Seaforest is a lover of cats. She writes with them on her lap and shoulders at her home in the hills near Orlean. Currently, there are two of them: Smudge, a long-haired gray tabby, and Magia, a black beauty found wandering outside the Warrenton post office.

Tammy RoopDBA 540.270.9409 www.tammyroop.com 85 Garrett Street Warrenton, VA 20186

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SPRING 2019

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Human-animal bond

The tie that binds the species is universal

It seems almost like fake news, something a broadsheet should announce from above the fold in doomsday font: Distantly linked mammalian species are inexplicably hardwired to form an intimate bond, so well adapted to their weirdly co-dependent relationship, they’ve become primary social partners. Heck, they even look alike.

But it’s not news, or even new.

Welcome to the wild, wooly world of the pet set.

Understanding this human-animal bond has roots deep in biology, anthropology, pop psychology and social science. Domestic dogs and humans have been forming their partnership for at least 15,000 years, cats a bit less, horses and other domesticated livestock somewhat more.

An American Psychological Association study proved definitively that animals make people happier, wrote lead researcher Allen McConnell, PhD, of Miami University in Ohio. “Specifically, pet owners had greater self-esteem,” McConnell noted.

“They were more physically fit, tended to be less lonely, were more conscientious, were more extraverted, tended to be less fearful and less preoccupied than non-owners.”

Medicare patients with pets have fewer doctor visits than those in pet-free homes, research reveals, and it’s well-documented that animal owners have a greater sense of belonging and higher personal value. And there’s even a grad degree available from the University of Denver’s Institute for Human-Animal Connection. The program, say professors, elevates the value of interrelationship between people and pets through physiology, applied knowledge and research. Courses this semester include equine- and canineassisted therapy, animal-assisted social work and the innovative One Health sustainable development project (du.edu/humananimalconnection).

“

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.

– Winnie the Pooh

6

SPRING 2019

tegral

Science says it and we say it: we’ve come to need animals as much as they need us.

Around that indisputable thesis we’ve constructed spring inFauquier, with an overflowing package of stories about pets and their people, following animals domestic and wild through the life cycle. Join writer Connie Lyons for a look at the dog breeding and showing industries, meet a legendary working canine with Pat Reilly and take a loving look at end-of-life pet memorials with Alissa Jones. Laurey Branner traverses the county to find great places and spaces to roam with your dog, and MacKenzie Earl discovers where you can both go afterward for a cup of cheer (or a cup of coffee.)

Mara Seaforest tackles the problem of feral cats – turns out it’s a sticky subject, and animal control officer David Lee describes the frantic search and rescue mission behind saving a trapped kitten. Graphic designer Sawyer Guinn takes cats a step further, offering balanced research weighing the evidence about mountain lions in the Piedmont.

Even food writer Sandy Greeley ran with the theme, angling her seasonal food column towards dogs – in her case, hot dogs.

Pet psychic Holli Shan’s gives insider tips for interspecies communication, and Orlean’s Martha Crummett introduces Tortoise, a century-old box turtle she adopted 64 years ago when she was an 9-year-old animal-crazy girl.

Fauquier loves its pets, with supply shops, farm stores, breeders representing a kennel-full of species, training from puppy kindergarten to Westminster, five rescue organizations, multiple adoption programs, pet cemeteries and more. With some 100 veterinarians to care for everything from cats to camels, and hundreds of professionals making a living – and a life – based around animals large to little, it’s fair to say this county is crazy for creatures, from geckos to gargoyles and everything in between.

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brenda.rich@c21nm.com | 540-270-1659 85 Garrett Street, Warrenton, VA www.c21nm.com | 540-349-1221 (office) SPRING 2019

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COUNTY TIDBITS

Spring forward Time for Fauquier fun

Don’t quail from this expert Sign up this spring for wildlife programs for habitat support.

Wildlife habitats are the focus of Virginia’s Tech’s wildlife biologist program.

Fauquier representative David Bryan

covers all of Northern Virginia, helping area landowners and managers come up with plans to support native wildlife by planting cover crops, nutritious game patches and maintaining healthy creeks and rivers. quailforever.org

National Parks Week

No love like puppy love Celebrate National Puppy Day March 23. Founder Colleen Paige says she established the national day of “recognition for adopting puppies and dogs to provide a lifetime of love for your family.”

First celebrated in 2006, National Puppy Day supports animal businesses and shelters. nationalpuppyday.com

Like some 400 other national parks around the U.S., Shenandoah National Park will host special events to celebrate National Park Week from April 20 to April 28. Entrance fees will be waived at Shenandoah, and all National Park Service sites, on April 20.

Other freebie days this year are Aug. for the National Park Service birthday, Sept. 28 for National Public Lands Day and Nov. 11 for Veterans Day. There will be ranger programs, presentations, ranger-led hikes and more.

A related holiday, Earth Day is April 22. nps.gov

Animal blood bank Have a healthy pet? Consider giving back to those ill or injured.

The Northern Virginia Animal Blood Bank collects and distributes dog and cat blood from healthy donor pets for those in need.

Animal blood donors have specific

requirements that need to be met before they can be considered for donation. Dogs between 1 and 7 are able to give blood as long as they are non-aggressive and not on any medications for chronic illnesses. Only those 50 pounds and up with negative heartworm test – and on preventatives, with current inoculations are eligible.

Similarly, cats between 1 and 7 can donate as long as they are not aggressive nor on medications for chronic illness.

They need to be 9.5 pounds or bigger, and live indoors full-time. Only neutered cats are eligible to donate blood.

Locally, the Snickersville Hounds each donated blood on Valentine’s Day, to bolster the local charity’s inventory. nvabb.com

Spring: steeplechase • Saturday, March 23: Piedmont Foxhounds Point-to-Point. Salem Farm, Upperville.

• Sunday, March 31: Orange County Hounds Point-to-Point. Locust Hill Farm, Middleburg.

• Saturday, April 6: Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point. Ben Venue Farm, Ben Venue.

• Sunday, April 14: Loudoun Hunts Point-to-Point. Oatlands, Leesburg.

• Saturday, April 20: Middleburg Spring Races. Glenwood Park, Middleburg.

• Sunday, April 21: Blue Ridge Races.

Woodley Farm, Berryville.

• Saturday, April 27: Foxfield Races.

Charlottesville.

• Sunday, April 28: Middleburg Hunt Point-to-Point. Glenwood Park, Middleburg.

• Saturday, May 4: Virginia Gold Cup Races. Great Meadow, The Plains. centralentryoffice.com

Spring: gardening More than 250 of Virginia’s most historic gardens, homes and landmarks will be open during Garden Week, April 27-May 4. The Warrenton Garden Club hosts a tour of homes May 2.

The Garden Club of Virginia formed in 1920; today there are 47 local chapters with more than 3,300 members. vagardenweek.org

Spring: calendar • Fauquier seed swap: March 23, John Barton Payne building, Warrenton.

Hosted by Outlaw Gardens.

• 5K fun run: March 24. Molly’s Irish Pub, Warrenton • August Rewind Show concert: April 6, Marshall Community Center.

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SPRING 2019

You’re such an animal!

(But how much of one is a matter of county government record.)

According to Fauquier County regulations, an “animal unit” is the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of live animal weight.

The following are equal to one animal unit at maturity: 1 cow 1 bull 1 horse 2 boars

3 llamas 3 ostrich 3.75 rams

2.5 sows

(female sheep)

(male pigs) (female pigs)

(male sheep)

5 ewes

6 goats

6 alpacas 7 emus 11 rheas 35 turkeys 75 chickens (hens or roosters)

Verdun Adventure Bound fundraiser. verdunadventurebound.org • Bird migration class: April 11, Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve, Broad Run. brmconservancy.org • 56th annual Upperville Garden Club daffodil show: Buchanan Hall. uppervillegardenclub.org • Beekeeper seminar: April 21. Sky Meadows State Park, Paris. Also May 19 and June 16. Find Beekeepers of Northern Shenandoah on Facebook.

• Strides for Lives: April 27. Airlie, Warrenton. Fauquier Family Shelter Services benefit walk-a-thon. fauquierfamilyshelter.org • 41st annual Warrenton Spring Festival: May 18 • Bealeton’s Flying Circus: airshows Sundays May through October. flyingcircusairshow.com • First Fridays: Old Town Warrenton. oldtownwarrenton.org • Piedmont Regional art show and sale: May 17-19, Grace Church, The Plains.

• 60th Hunt Country Stable Tour: May 25-26. trinityupperville.org • 26th Delaplane Strawberry Festival: May 25-26, Sky Meadows State Park, Paris. emmanuel-delaplane.org • Photo workshop: June 1, Zephyr Farm, Fredericksburg. Work with equine photographer Debby Thomas to learn how to shoot horse portraits and action. dtfieldworkshop.com

Spring: shopping Farmers’ markets in rural northern Virginia typically operate late April through November – the “growing season” in Zone 6. Vendors at local seasonal markets must undergo a stringent vetting process to sell at weekly events.

Buyers can expect greens, onions and a few hydroponic veggies in April, asparagus and strawberries in May, and a full range of veggies and fruits through summer. Autumn brings out apples, pumpkins, late corn and valueadded products like jams, chutney and

To the rescue The Virginia Bloodhound Search and Rescue Association hosts its annual training seminar May 19-24 in Middleburg. Simulated search and rescue missions will be staged day and night in and around town, at Glenwood Park and at the Institute in Aldie. vbsar.org

homegrown honey.

Handmade crafts are offered at some markets, and most have local beef, pork, eggs and sometimes lamb and buffalo.

Seasonal choices • The Southern Fauquier farmers market is open Saturdays at the Liberty Station Center in Bealeton.

• Archwood Barns farmers market opens in The Plains in April, running Sundays 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

• There are two different sales days – Wednesdays and Saturdays – when the Warrenton farmers market opens in April.

Several markets offer fresh produce and locally sourced meats year-round.

Learning to eat seasonally, say market owners, is key to reaping the bounty of the area while keeping legitimately local.

Mostly, remember that tomatoes don’t grow in this area in winter – any “fresh” tomatoes you purchase in early spring were trucked from Mexico or California or the southern hemisphere. Same with citrus fruits in summer – none grow here anyway, but even in Florida, citrus is considered a winter crop.

• Buckland Farm Market in New Baltimore bucklandfarmmarket.com • Lee Highway Nursery in Warrenton leehighwaynursery.com • Messick’s Market in Midland messicksfarmmarket.com • Green Maple Market in Vint Hill greenmaplemarket.com

COUNTY TIDBITS

Holy cow!

Thistle Hill cattle manager named ‘best’ Church Matthews, who runs the herd of Red Devon beef cattle at Thistle Hill Farm in Hume, will be recognized as one of the nation’s top 12 outstanding young cattlemen of the year by the leading grass-fed organization in the country.

The Grass Fed Exchange will salute the best of the best in beef cattle at their annual meeting in Santa Rosa, California in April.

The Grass Fed Exchange is an organization of regenerative farmers, processors and food experts dedicated to producing the highest quality meat and dairy products on grass.

A joint effort between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Clemson University researchers recently deter-

mined 10 key areas where grass-fed is “better” than grain-fed beef for human health.

In the side-by-side comparison, data determined that grass-fed beef was: • Lower in total fat • Higher in beta-carotene • Higher in vitamin E and vitamin B vitamins thiamin and riboflavin • Higher in calcium, magnesium and potassium • Higher in total omega-3s • A healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 versus 4.84) • Higher in CLA and vaccenic acid, potential cancer fighters

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SPRING 2019

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SPRING 2019

THEN & NOW

SPOT THE DIFFERENCES 1955-2019: Six decades of turtle love with centenarian ‘Tortoise’

1.

1.

3.

2.

3.

PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

Same girl, same smile, same turtle!

1. Martha Gibson, 9/Martha G. Crummett, 72 2. Tortoise, ~38/Tortoise, ~100 3. Tire swing - Conde/porch swing - Orlean 2.

Think outside the Box

She was 9, and like many country kids on summer break, she was playing outside one warm July afternoon when she found a box turtle.

At that moment, Martha Gibson Crummett had no idea the interspecies relationship would endure today, some 64 years and three generations later.

Though Tortoise had a setback coming out of hibernation last spring, she responded well to veterinary treatment and continues to thrive. The personable female is estimated to be around 100.

“It was 1955,” Martha recalls the very day she found Tortoise. “I was at my dear Grandma and Grandpa Ashby’s house in Conde for a visit, helping my mother pick blackberries on the hill in back of their house. I looked down and there was a box turtle, her little head up looking at me. I reached down and picked her up, and she closed her shell.”

Martha remembers doing what any sensible kid would do. “‘Can I please keep her, mama?’ I shouted.

“My mother agreed to let me bring her home with me. She told me that I must feed and water her every day.

“I decided to name her Tortoise.”

They brought the colorful turtle home to their Glendale Farm near Orlean, a property in the family since the 1870s. Great-grandfather Albin Rector had purchased the farmland along Thumb Run after the war from the Marshall family.

“My mother helped me plan out her diet,” Martha recalls the days before a Google search would have simplified researching turtle dietary needs.

“We decided she would eat blackberries, plus all the

earthworms, June bugs, Japanese beetles, grasshoppers she could eat. Every morning I would go out and find something for her to eat, and she always ate well. As my companion, we had a lot of adventures , and I took her for walks outside and played.”

Martha graduated Fauquier High, leaving Tortoise home while she attended Monroe Business College in Middletown and Mary Washington, where she earned a degree in historical preservation.

Tortoise was ever the clown in the care of her parents, Martha says, wandering the main level of the farmhouse, occasionally hiding under a piece of furniture waiting for something to eat. It was a trick she loved to play on visitors.

“When I was living in Washington, DC with some roommates in an apartment, they came home with me” one weekend. Martha recalls feeling suddenly shy about the unusual pet situation. “I did not want anyone know I had a turtle that wandered through the house. We were having dinner in the dining room, and I had forgotten about all about Tortoise.

“One of the girls (suddenly) screamed, ‘It’s a snake!’ and all the girls jumped up in fear. I glanced down and there was Tortoise with her little head poking out looking at us from under the dining room sideboard.”

Tortoise remained a constant in her life, through marriage to Bill Crummett and the birth of their two sons. Landon and David helped care for Tortoise when they were kids, Martha says, and today their two boys, Luke and Max, assist when they visit. They recently helped Bill fence a

turtle play area in the backyard.

Martha retired from the Department of Agriculture, Forest Service in 2008 after 37 years.

Today, Martha says Tortoise lives in a big turtle enclosure with a bathing bowl, a little log that is hollow to sleep under and a water bottle. “She has a nice view of the outside and enjoys it very much,” she says. “I take her outside (often) and let her set in a small area with a bush with plenty of shade and sunshine, depending on which part of the day.”

Last year, Tortoise had her first health setback, slow to “wake” from hibernation – which lasts November through March, typically. “I took her to Roseville Veterinary Clinic in Boyce,” Martha says. “They were wonderful with her. She was given antibiotics and a shot of Vitamin A. “They told me she was probably near 100, and they weren’t sure if she would make it,” Martha recalls the the tense conversation, but after a few weeks of encouragement and constant watch, Tortoise emerged from her shell, shaky as usual upon awaking, and thirsty.

“She will not eat for several weeks, but after that, she eats several times a day,” as normal, Martha explains. “She loves earthworms but will eat cooked sweet potatoes, strawberries and bananas.

She hates tomatoes, lettuce and all the things you would think a box turtle would love.

“I can see the change in her in the last several years, just getting older, but ... she still enjoys watching what’s happening in the yard, seeing ... what my two cats and dog are doing outside.”

Martha believes Tortoise expresses affection – even love. “She turns her head toward me when I talk to her and watches me most of the time,” she notes, saying turtle emotions are oddly humanlike, and not at all surprising. “She ... hisses if she is asleep and I bother her. She will come out if I talk to her and hold her in my hands.”

– By Betsy Burke Parker SPRING 2019

11

SIDE BY SIDE

Thousands of lives hang in the balance Photographers Joanne Maisano and Susan Carter are a big part of the huge success rate for Fauquier County animal adoptions. You might not realize how critical a flattering, fun photo is to the likelihood of an animal finding a new forever home, but statistics show a direct link: more than 20 percent more animals are adopted with quality photos, say rescue professionals.

Hear the stories of Joanne Maisano – who shoots for the Middleburg Humane Foundation and the Delaplane-based WAAAG groups, and Susan Carter – who shoots for the Fauquier SPCA, in their own words.

Photographer Joanne Maisano

JOA N N E M A I SA N O

While working for (the late) Janet Hitchen as both her bookkeeper and photo editor, I had the privilege to witness her good works when it came to animals. She not only rescued all sorts of animals but she would photograph them for the Middleburg Humane Foundation.

A lot of that service action rubbed off on me.

A few years ago, I reached out to Middleburg Humane, WAAAG and later PetConnect to offer my services of photographing current adoptable dogs or horses – or whatever animals they have, even pigs.

My favorite to shoot are dogs. Over the last couple of years I must have shot over 150 animals so that the rescue groups can use the photos on social media.

I grew up being a cat person, but since moving to Virginia in 1998, I’ve slowly turned into a dog person. I currently have a Cavalier King Charles spaniel that I

adopted from Middleburg Humane.

Before I offered to help, the shelters would just use cell phones to take a quick pic of the dogs or cats, but it just didn’t capture what they needed – the unique, winning personality of each individual animal.

Dogs, even foxhounds when I’m out shooting foxhunting in the area, seem to take to me. Because of that, I can almost always get that special facial expression, or bring out their playfulness to get a good action shot.

When I shoot these rescues, it is always outside in the animal’s natural setting. To make it work, I spend a few minutes with the animal to see what their personality is.

Then I start shooting.

I take a ton of shots. I set the camera on shutter priority (fast if it is a dog running around and playing.)

I often use a certain voice or a toy to get an animal’s attention.

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… of their lenses

SIDE BY SIDE

SU SA N C A R T E R

I grew up in New Jersey, the only child of inner city parents who couldn’t quite figure out how they had produced such an animal -crazy daughter.

After graduate school, I moved to Virginia for a career with the federal government that started with overseas assignments and ended as a senior software developer and architect.

I had become interested in photography in high school, so when I eventually began shooting pro, specializing in animals was the natural fit. I had a poodle growing up, and now have two Salukis that I show, as well as three retired racehorses.

In 2011, I offered my services to Fauquier SPCA to take the adoption photos for the shelter. Photos are used in flyers, social media, their annual brochure and in newspaper ads.

I’ve photographed well over a thousand SPCA pets. The vast majority are dogs, followed by cats, but I have also

photographed pocket pets and a pig.

The most exotic were peacocks.

The key to arranging a flattering photo shoot is to have help. It is impossible for you, with your camera, to play with a toy or engage with a pet to get them to move where you need them. To shoot a flattering photo, get low, even with the animal’s eyes, and have your helper engage the pet above you or beside you.

Photographer Susan Carter

Shoot like a pro with these tips from the experts An amateur photographer won’t be able to duplicate my setup because I use a mobile studio with seamless paper backdrop, strobes, umbrellas and Pocket Wizards.

However, there are things anyone can do to improve your animal portraits.

• The setting should be free from distraction, both distraction in the background of your photo and distraction for your pet.

• Get the shot quickly before your pet gets

bored or hopelessly stressed.

• I don’t use treats because they often get a dog more spun up. Instead, I use sound. A squeak from a toy or a duck call will get their attention for the moment of the shutter click. Don’t use the noise too often or too soon because the dog will tune it out very quickly. You might only get one good squeak.

• If the dog is not interested in sound, I have a handler toss small toys toward

me – that’s a good shot, because the dog in engaged, and heading towards the camera is a flattering angle.

• I like to use an aperture of f/11 or f/13 because I like the dog’s face to largely be in focus from nose to ears. Some prefer a shallower depth of field (a lower number/larger lens opening/less plane of sharpness) that puts the nose out of focus. Whichever style is used, it is critical that the eyes be sharp as a tack.

The eyes are where the soul resides.

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Throw the book at them: Pets in literature stretch through the ages

When it comes to creativity, authors have learned to ‘write what they know,’ and what they know is this: there’s nothing like the love of an animal

By Steve Price

Pets in literature are as familiar as Puss In Boots and the three little kittens that lost their mittens to Toto and White Fang. The long-running Broadway hit “Cats” was inspired by T.S. Eliot’s clowder of felines in his “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”

Like us, many writers love their pets to a fault, and these deep, rich connections have provided intimate glimpses into the lives of some of the world’s best-known authors.

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was deeply attached to her cocker spaniel, Flush, nearly to a fault. In 1826, Browning’s first collection of poems revealed another passion – ancient and modern Greece – but it was to Flush she remained true.

The poetry caught the attention of Hugh Stuart Boyd, a scholar of the Greek language, and the two became correspondents and lifelong friends.

Two decades later, Browning wrote to Boyd in language that anyone besotted by a pet can appreciate: “It was very kind in you to pat Flush’s head in defiance of danger and from pure regard for me.

I kissed his head where you had patted it; which ...

I consider an imitation of shaking hands with you and as the next best thing to it.

“You understand — don’t you? — that Flush is my constant companion, my friend, my amusement, lying with his head on one page of my folios while I read the other. Flush understands Greek excellently well.”

Samuel Clemens – pen-name Mark Twain – grew deeply fond of the cat he gave his daughter Clara during her extended illness. In her memoir “My Father Mark Twain,” Clara recalled that one autumn, “Father rented a house (in Manhattan) on Fifth Avenue, corner of Ninth Street, number 21, where he settled down for the winter. I was taken to a (nearby) sanatorium for a year.

“During the first months of my cure I was completely cut off from friends and family, with no one to speak to but the doctor and nurse.

“I must modify this statement, however, for I had smuggled a black kitten into my bedroom, although it was against the rules. I called the cat Bambino.

Until the unfortunate day when it entered one of the patient’s rooms who hated cats. Bambino came near giving the good lady a cataleptic fit, so I was invited to dispose of my pet after that.

“I made a present of it to Father, knowing he would love it, and he did. A little later I was allowed to receive a limited number of letters, and Father wrote that Bambino was homesick for me and refused all meat and milk, but contradicted his statement a couple of days later saying: ‘It has been discovered that the reason your cat declines milk and meat and lets on to live … is that he catches mice privately’.”

Bambino disappeared one night. Clemens took out a newspaper ad that offered $5 – a princely sum in the late 1800s – for Bambino’s return. The 14

SPRING 2019

E.B. White – Wordsmith, dog owner, scofflaw In spring, 1951, “Charlotte’s Web” author and newspaper columnist E. B. White was accused by the New York SPCA of failing to pay the required dog license fee for his beloved dachshund, Minnie. White responded with a witty, charming letter. It is unclear if it swayed the commission.

Dea r Sirs: I have you r letter, undated, say ing that I am harboring an unl icensed dog in violation of the law. If by “ha rboring” you mean getting up two or three times every night to pul l Min nie’s bla nket up over her , I am harboring a dog all right. The bla nket keeps slipping off.

I suppose you are wondering by now why I don’t get her a sweate r instead.

That’s a joke on you. She has a knitted sweater, but she doesn’t like to wea r it for sleeping; her legs are so short they work out of a swe ate r and her toenai ls get caught in the mesh, and this disturbs her res t. If Min nie doesn’t get her rest, she feels it right away.

I (feel it) myself, and of cou rse with this night duty of mine, the way the bla nket slips and all, I haven’t had any rea l rest in yea rs. Min nie is 12.

In spite of what you r inspector reported, she has a license. She is licensed in the State of Ma ine as an uns payed bitch, or what is more com mo nly cal led an “unspaded” bitch. She wea rs her metal license tag but I mu st say I don’t par ticu larly care for it, as it is in the shape of a hyd rant, wh ich seems to me a feeble gag, besides bei ng poi ntless in the case of a female.

It is hard to bel ieve that any sta te in the Union wou ld circulate a gag like that and ma ke people pay money for it, but Ma ine is always thi nki ng of someth ing.

You asked about Min nie’s nam e, sex, breed and phone number . She doesn’t answer the phone. She is a dachshund and can’t reach it, but she wou ldn’t answer it even if she cou ld, as she has no interest in outside cal ls.

Sincerely you rs, E. B. Wh ite

ad read “Large and intensely black; thick, velvety fur; has a faint fringe of white hair across his chest; not easy to find in ordinary light.”

Katy Leary, the Clemens’ family servant, recalled the incident in Clara’s memoirs: “One night Bambino got frisky when he heard some cats calling from the back fence. He found a window open and stole out. We looked high and low but couldn’t find him. Mr. Clemens felt so bad that he advertised in all the papers for him. He offered a reward for anybody that would bring the cat back.

“My goodness! The people that came bringing cats to that house! A perfect stream! They wanted to see Mr. Clemens, of course.” Each carried a black cat, varying sizes and dispositions.

Two or three nights later, Leary heard a cat meowing across the street. It was Bambino.

The hit Broadway musical, ‘Cats,’ was inspired by the T.S. Eliot classic ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.’

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Faces & Places WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE GO

Meet the master Taking wing with one of civilization’s most ancient of sports – falconry Story and photos by Betsy Burke Parker

Inside this section:

n Who’s walking who? Providing your pups with miles of exercise is extra easy n World-class Blue Ridge Wildlife Center provides care for 130 species SPRING 2019

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On the flight deck with Valkyrie How to train your raptor, and soar to new heights, according to master falconer Gary Kershner

Gary Kershner looks over his shoulder, up and to the left. Perched in a near-bare persimmon tree in a wind-whipped meadow, a russet-winged Harris’s hawk clings to a craggy branch overlooking the grassy clearing. Feathers ruffling, her head swivels as piercing black eyes scan the ground.

Kershner gives a whistle. Silent and sudden, the raptor dives in a graceful arc, her broad, dark wings buffet against the cool air as she pulls up to land deftly on the master falconer’s gloved hand.

“They’re a mixture of grace and ferocity,” says Kershner approvingly, raising his arm to provide his hunting companion, Valkyrie, a steady perch as they continue their informal stalk this gray afternoon.

Falconry is a hunt with no weapons, Kershner says reverently, a game with no players. It is a pursuit equal parts patience, precision and raw power.

“It’s more of a lifestyle than a sport,” says the Warrenton resident, at 53 working to combine falconry with family and his work as a commercial printer. “Falconers come from all walks of life, (but) we share a love of and deep respect for the environment. We (use) the same techniques and the same equipment that has been used for centuries.”

Falconry can start with a basic investment of a few hundred dollars but can run to much more than that – the most coveted of raptors, gyrfalcons, sell for $30,000 and up. While most raptors only live a few years in the wild, in captivity under optimal conditions with regular diet and veterinary care, they can easily live to 20.

“The personal investment is profound,” Kershner says. “It’s not easy to get into.

“It used to be a sort of closed-door society,” he maintains, but since he’s served as regional director of the Virginia Falconers’ Association, Kershner believes the clan has become more open, reaching out to clubs and boy scouts, hosting meet-and-greet rallies and working to educate the public.

“The main problem we have here in northern Virginia is like a lot of places. Through development and loss of habitat, we’re losing places to fly.”

As he strolls, Kershner talks to 3-year-old Valkyrie, doting like a parent as he coaxes the young bird to make longer soars as they hopscotch in this bi-species manner along a wooded trail near the Rappahannock River. They’re working partners, cohorts in a symbiotic pursuit conjoining unlikely teammates bonded by a similar goal.

Food.

Training a wild raptor to accept human contact is key, Kershner explains, but once the association of “you equal food” is made, confirming the behavior is classic habitual conditioning. The birds learn 20

SPRING 2019

Master falconer Gary Kershner of Warrenton prepares Harris’s hawk Valkyrie for a training flight.

Ancient sport • Falconry is claimed by both the middle east – Mesopotamia, and the far east – Mongolia, historic evidence dating both to about 2000 BCE. The sport, originally a way of putting food on the table, later spread to Europe, becoming associated with nobility.

• The first falconry club in the U.S., the Peregrine Club of Philadelphia, was formed in the 1930s.

• There are some 4,000 licensed falconers nationwide.

• The Virginia Falconers’ Association was established in 1983.

• Second-year general falconer Janet Zwirner serves on the VFA board. “Since there are only about 100 licensed falconers in Virginia, we can be hard to find,” she says. “The best way to learn about the sport – I consider it sport and art – is to come to our summer picnic,” Aug. 10 in Luray. vafalconers.com

a routine – rewards come first from simply lighting on a gloved hand in an enclosure, then they learn to fly outside on a tether, returning to their handler for a morsel of food, usually a mouse part.

When the connection is strong, they head outside. That the raptor could just as easily fly away

– but doesn’t – is the falconer’s reward, equally valued as the mouse treats are to Valkyrie. “They aren’t pets,” Kershner cautions. “We work together, but on the hawk’s terms.”

Valkyrie is learning to cast herself in search of wild prey – typically rabbits and squirrels, but she checks in regularly with Kershner, her touchstone on the ground acting as pointer and “beater” to help Valkyrie find and flush prey on their walks.

Hunting is her nature, Kershner, her assistant.

The bronze-colored Valkyrie wears bells on her ankles so Kershner can track her progress if she dips out of sight, and he’s taught her to return to his whistle. He often speaks to her like a puppy, lovingly teasing her for flying just a few feet at a time in the chilly afternoon air before returning to his arm, later encouraging her to “take a look” when she suddenly stills, studying a tuft of grass under a maple tree that probably houses a living, breathing mouse.

Falconry isn’t for the squeamish, Kershner cautions. It takes time – years to progress from apprentice to master, as well as daily care preparing commercially purchased, frozen mice and cleaning cages. Weekly needs call for lots of contained ex-

ercise in an enclosed 10 by 30 foot mews, with the goal to regularly find places to fly free. “We lose a lot of novice falconers to their first ‘kill,’ because some people can’t deal with that National Geographic stuff close-up like that,” Kershner says.

How it happened

FACES & PLACES Let us prey Birds of prey are sexually dimorphic, meaning that the females are noticeably bigger and heavier than males.

• Falcons – Long-winged and high-speed, falcons prey almost exclusively on other birds. They have long thin toes with needle-like talons, and a notched beak.

• American kestrel – Typically weighs 3-5 ounces with wingspan of 20-24 inches, size of a blue jay.

• Peregrine falcon – The size of a crow, these are the ones that perch on New York City skyscrapers. A Peregrine can dive from thousands of feet in the air, reaching more than 240 miles per hour and hitting their prey with the force of a rifle shot.

• Gyrfalcon – Largest of the falcons, gyrfalcons are highly coveted by falconers the world over, some selling for more than $30,000. While primary prey in its native arctic habitat consists mostly of ptarmigan and other waterfowl, gyrfalcons tackle small mammals and fish as well. They’re about the size of a red-tail.

• Hawks – Broadwinged, heavybodied, hawks like Kestrel PHOTO BY BRYON POPE to hunt from a perch

Kershner grew up in Chesapeake Beach. He’d wanted to be a pilot, but deafness in his right ear redirected him into the commercial printing world. His wife of 35 years works for the city of Alexandria, but the couple moved to Warrenton Lakes two years ago for more space for Kershner’s growing passion for falconry.

He recalls his first brush with big birds.

“I was driving on Route 234 near Manassas,” Kershner says of the 2003 day. A red-shouldered hawk was flopping around on the median strip, probably hit by a car. It was hurt.

“I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed to do something.”

Kershner carefully wrapped the injured bird in a blanket and called animal control. They directed him to the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia in Falls Church.

There he met conservancy founder Kent Knowles, who took charge but encouraged Kershner to stay involved with the bird’s care and rehab.

“Luckily, it was only stunned and bruised,” Kershner says. “The vet took some X-rays, (and) she was at RCV for a few weeks of recovery before being in fairs and other events. He apprenticed two years under a master falconer – a requirement – with his a flight pen to get her strength back.”

Kershner release the bigThey’re femalewhere rightyou first r home and car arehelped more than just things. makeraptor, your a wild-caught red-tailed hawk. After five years as a general falconer, in 2017 Kershner back where she was initially found. mories – and they deserve the right protection. We get it. It’s why we’re here.

He loved the process and soon found himself became a master falconer. ’S TALK TODAY. down the rabbit hole into the raptor world. He Since, he’s had six red-tails and a couple of kesfirst volunteered at RCV, helping at renaissance trels; Valkyrie is his first Harris’s hawk.

It’s why we’re here.

in an “ambush” style.

• Red-tail hawk – Weighs 1½-3½ pounds with wingspan 3 ½-4 ½ feet. They have three forward toes and one rearward toe that can generate over 200 pounds per square inch of grasp. That’s enough power to dig to bone on a man’s hand.

• Harris’s hawk – Native to the American southwest, Harris’s hunt in a pack, unusual for birds.

Average 1½-2½ pounds, with 41-47 inch wingspan.

Also known as the dusky hawk or baywing hawk, the Harris’s Hawk was named by 19th century naturalist John James Audubon in honor of his friend and supporter Edward Harris. Harris was a wealthy philanthropist who accompanied Audubon on ornithological expeditions and encouraged his publication of his seminal “Birds of America.”

• Accipiters – Medium-sized hawks that hunt other birds and small mammals.

• Northern goshawk – Goshawks weigh 2-5 pounds, with wingspan 35 to 50 inches and long, square tails for aerial maneuvering.

• Owls – Not often used for falconry due to their nocturnal nature, owls are “silent assassins” with specially-adapted feathers that deaden the sound of air passing over them to make flight noiseless.

• Eagle – Large and powerful, these masters of the sky prey on animals several times their own weight.

Goldens are sometimes used for falconry; bald eagle falconry is not permitted.

Balancing home life, work life and falconry is not for the flighty, he maintains. But it’s worth it.

“There’s something truly special about getting a close-up glimpse into the eons-old world of predator and prey,” Kershner says, scanning the horizon as he seeks words to describe the indescribable.

“It’s an ancient thing. It’s very rewarding.”

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FACES & PLACES

Wild about wildlife Blue Ridge Center cares for all creatures, great and small

A hidden jewel in Clarke County is caring for wildlife from orphaned infant possums to an injured bald eagle, and everything in between.

What started 19 years ago as a hotline that tapped into expert veterinary care when callers contacted them with hurt animals has grown into a nationally renowned brick-and-mortar clinic staffed 24-7 by critical care vets and techs.

The original Blue Ridge Wildlife Center in Boyce opened in 2004. Three years ago, they moved to a new, custom-built, 8,000-square-foot facility with a full treatment suite, and radiology and surgery rooms with species-specific rehabilitation rooms to prevent prey and predator patients from having to be housed in the same area.

In addition to handling injuries and illnesses, center professionals work diligently to educate the public on interacting with wildlife, through programs, outreach and newsletters. The Ronald M. Bradley Learning Center has lecture facilities for the center’s ongoing seminar series.

Director Hillary Davidson says the center does it all without state or federal financial support.

“All our work is privately funded from donors within the communities we serve,” Davidson says.

Blue Ridge Wildlife handles some 2,000 cases a year. Most, Davidson explains, have been subjected to some kind of trauma, usually vehicle col-

The Blue Ridge Wildlife Center saw nearly 2,200 injured ‘patients’ last year, representing 130 species. lisions or attacks from other animals.

A five-lined skunk from Warrenton and a bobcat from Delaplane were among more than 230 patients from Fauquier referred to Blue Ridge last year.

Two dozen former rehab patients are kept at the center year-round. They call them “wildlife ambassadors,” Davidson says, explaining these animals were brought to the center for care, but

they were unable to be released back to the wild for a variety of reasons.

“We have around 100 private and public programs,” that these animals attend annually, she says.

The center accepts donations and welcomes volunteers to help in, and out of, the clinic. blueridgewildlifectr.org – By Alissa Jones

Leapin’ lizards, she’s cute McKayla Thomason’s leopard geckos are among Fauquier’s most unique pets

In a county with some 10,000 dogs, 15,000 horses, surely twice that many cats, and, literally, thousands of other critters people call pets, McKayla Thomason thinks she may have some of Fauquier’s most exotic animal pals. Meet her handsome leopard gecko pair, Samandriel and Ozzie.

Fauquier High senior McKayla Thomason says her 10th grade biology teacher, George Murphy, fueled her current obsession with leopard geckos.

“Mr. Murphy had two geckos,” the Warrenton resident recalls. “I was immediately drawn to their chubby tails and iconic reptile smiles.

“After doing some research, I finally adopted a female gecko I named Samandriel – after one of my favorite characters from the show Supernatural. A year later, I brought home another female named Ozzie.”

Gorgeous in a rainbow of skin colors flecked

with dozens of the signature spots, leopard geckos make great pets for beginner reptile owners, Thomason reports, because they don’t require too much care or space. Like humans, geckos have individual personalities, she adds, which “makes them some pretty interesting companions.”

Caretaking is minimal, and mealtime is easy.

Leopard geckos are insectivores, and their favorite foods include easily obtained mealworms and crickets. They can also sup on small roaches, waxworms and hornworms, so owners can actually forage for their pet’s meals.

Leopard geckos evolved in the rocky and dry grasslands in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran. They’re most at home in a warm environment with plenty of nooks and crannies to hide Leopard geckos can live 15 to 20 years, even 30, in captivity, so the 17-year-old Thomason says she looks forward to a lengthy relationship with her “two girls.”

– By Betsy Burke Parker

Leopard gecko – Ozzie SPRING 2019

23

FACES & PLACES

Sheltering in place, Fauquier style Middleburg Humane Foundation opens new facility

WAAAG cares for wide variety of animals

Created in 2012, the Washington Area Animal Adoption Group in Delaplane is a veteran-founded, all-volunteer animal rescue sheltering dogs, cats and other animals. Founder Angie Webber says some 25 volunteer helpers assist at the customdesigned facility next to Barrel Oak Winery.

Last year, Webber says, WAAAG adopted out 35 cats, 17 dogs, four horses and eight sheep. “We’re here for all animals,” she says.

With only one in 10 dogs having a place to call “home” – and just one in 12 cats – Middleburg Humane Foundation founder Hilleary Bogley aims to make a change. MHF opens a big new facility later this year at the west end of Marshall.

There will be room for more dogs and cats in the 8,000-square foot main building with a clinic open to the public and retail space, plus a six-stall barn and 15 acres for horses and livestock.

MHF started in 1987 in Middleburg.

Trails and Tails benefit

Lisa Cofield, WAAAG

Support WAAAG at a June 2 Trails and Tails 5k and fun walk at the Delaplane shelter. The courses – open to adults, kids and leashed dogs – wind around the WAAAG facility and the adjacent Barrel Oak Winery. waaag.org

Blue Jean Ball

Candy Fazakerley, MHF

A “jeans and gems” gala to benefit MHF is planned April 27 at Fox Chase Farm in Middleburg. middleburghumane.org

Local SPCA: 60 years as county go-to emergency shelter For more than 60 years, the Fauquier chapter of the SPCA has served as the county’s creature lost and found.

The oldest and largest animal shelter in the region, the Casanova facility has changed with the times, says director Devon Settle. She explains the FSPCA was formed in 1957 at Warrenton’s historic Dog Patch Farm, before moving to 11 acres of donated land in 1989. “We’ve continued to grow,” Settle says, “adding more indoor kennels and outside runs for dogs, more cat condos and a barn and paddock for livestock.”

The shelter has three departments: animal control for found or seized animals, the adoption unit and an in-house vet clinic. The clinic expanded recently, serving shelter animals as well as outside appointments. The animal control unit is where lost pets are taken. Every attempt, Settle notes, is made to find their owners.

This spring, Settle says they’re opening a petting zoo with shelter “resident” farm animals, including goats and sheep, so young children can have a safe, hands-on farm experience.

More than 30 employees and some 100 volunteers help run the shelter, Settle says. “We welcome anyone interested in taking care of animals to join our team.

It’s very rewarding.” fauquierspca.com

Paws For Seniors

Tending the special, senior pet sector Bealeton’s Paws for Seniors focuses on finding homes for senior dogs and cats, age 7 and up.

PFS offers adoptions, fostering and sponsorship packages. Volunteers are always needed. Donations are tax deductible.

Orders from Chewy and Amazon off the PFS website give the shelter a kickback. pawsforseniors.com

Their Voice Rescue Middleburg’s Paige Johnson created Their Voice rescue in 2017, focused on rehoming high-risk dogs from kill shelters. The shelter has 50 acres, with kennels, runs and trails for leashed walks and play-time.

“They all deserve a chance,” Johnson says of mistreated, misunderstood pets. theirvoicerescue.com 24

SPRING 2019

How to help: Rummage sale March 30

Shelly Reeves, Fauquier SPCA

PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

The Fauquier SPCA has its annual Digging for Gold upscale rummage sale March 30 at Highland School in Warrenton. Household items and jewelry will be available 8 a.m.-2 p.m.

All donations are tax-deductible, and all purchases benefit the animal shelter. fauquierspca.com

FACES & PLACES

Roselle: 9-11 hero Guide dog leads her blind owner safely from the burning World Trade Center Michael Hingson presents his story, and that of his beloved Labrador companion, at library ‘community read’

By Pat Reilly

Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center, Tower One the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, ruffling papers and preparing for a presentation when terrorists rammed a commercial jetliner into the side of the building.

That Hingson was able to get out alive to tell his story is amazing enough.

But add the fact he’s been blind since birth, and that he was relying on the instinct and training of a service dog to lead him to safety, and Hingson’s tale becomes an inspiration.

“Thunder Dog: The true story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust at Ground Zero” by Michael Hingson with Susy Flory, was perfect, said Bealeton library manager Natalie Damewood, as a community read book choice for patrons in dog-loving Fauquier County.

“An Evening with Michael Hingson” was hosted by the Mountain Fund of the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation, Friends of the Fauquier Library and other community donors. Hingson attended with his current guide dog, Alamo.

Sales manager for a data protection and storage company, Hingson was preparing for an early morning meeting with clients that morning, his guide dog Roselle dozing under the table.

Hingson recalls hearing a tremendous explosion, and the 110-story skyscraper began to tilt.

Today we know the North Tower was hit at 8:46 a.m. by a plane hijacked by terrorists, but for Hingson and others inside, it was a just a big bang that shook the building.

He and his clients had no idea what to do.

Hingson couldn’t see anything – not the smoke beginning to build outside the windows, not the frozen looks on the faces of those at the table, but his instinct was to grab the yellow lab’s harness and hurry his guests out of the building The dog, he recalls, was the type to panic during noisy thunderstorms, but she remained calm and focused, waiting for Hingson’s command.

Roselle clearly sensed no immediate danger or she would have acted differently, he maintains.

A colleague, David Frank, and Hingson ushered the visitors to the stairs, knowing full well that elevators are unsafe in a fire. They began to close down the office, but decided to bolt when they smelled smoke and heard debris clattering

COURTESY PHOTO

Seeing-eye guide dog Roselle helped steer her owner safely from the burning World Trade Center, Tower One in 2001.

against the building’s sides.

Hingson gave Roselle a single, concise command: “Forward.”

The book describes in excruciating detail the events of the next few minutes. Man and dog walked calmly, though quickly, down the 1,463 stairs, overwhelmed by smells of jet fuel and smoke. Hingson stepped aside several times, for the severely injured coming down from floors above, minutes later yielding to the doomed firefighters headed up.

The stream of people built with each floor.

Hingson, clearly a blind man with a guide dog refused several offers of special assistance. They hurried out onto the street minutes later.

Fourteen minutes after they exited Tower One, Tower Two collapsed.

Hingson stresses that Roselle did not heroically deliver him from certain death, Lassie style, instead simply showing him where to safely walk – as she’d been trained to do. She stopped at the top of each new flight of stairs, but he urgently told her with hand signals and voice commands to keep going.

“Guide dogs don’t do everything” he says, but that fateful day she did her job and did it well.

Roselle died in 2011 at the age of 13. Her final illness might have been related to toxins she ingested on 9-11.

How it happened

Hingson lost his eyesight shortly after his premature birth in 1950 by the misuse of oxygen in an incubator amid an epidemic of blindness in pre-term babies with what was called retinopathy of prematurity.

Growing up with a disability in the 1950s and ’60s, Hingson recalls running head-on into barriers both physical and attitudinal. “Mostly people didn’t know how to deal with children, or adults, with disability. They just ignored them,” he notes.

“There have been a lot of advances in the law and technology since then, but I don’t think our status has changed much.”

At 9, Hingson met his first service dog with a blind teacher his family befriended in Palmdale, California, where his father worked at Edwards Air Force Base. That example would help him become one of the youngest trainees, 14, at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael.

He was banned from the high school bus with his first service dog by an overzealous school superintendent, until Hingson’s father persuaded the governor to intervene.

Hingson would go on to earn a degree in physics from the University of California, where he fell in love with radio and developed the resonant speaking voice that has helped him tell not only his story, but that of others with vision impairment. He is vice-president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users, a subsidiary of the National Federation of the Blind.

Becky Davidson, Guiding Eyes for the Blind manager of consumer outreach and graduate support, points out that “service dog” is a big umbrella that covers dogs who help with disabilities from seizures, diabetes, hearing loss and psychiatric problems.

Guiding Eyes, headquartered in New York, raises and trains guide dogs, trains students to work with a service dog and provides lifelong follow-up support completely free to the disabled. More than 90 percent of their dogs are Labrador Retrievers, though they also use German Shepherds.

It costs some $50,000 to breed, train and support a service dog. About half those they breed meet the standard, Davidson says; others go on to work in detection and other jobs.

Hingson has had eight guide dogs. On average they work six to eight years.

Hingson lives in California, and recently signed on as CEO of non-profit Do More foundation working to develop high-tech glasses that interface with a phone application so that blind users can connect with sighted advisers who can tell them what they are looking at. As exciting as the new technology is, Hingson stresses that “it can never replace a service dog.”

SPRING 2019

25

FACES & PLACES

Get your pups pumped

Dog park rules encompass general good manners (human and canine)

Taking a walk, cross-county style

By Laurey Branner

Fauquier is front-loaded with dog exercise opportunities, from quiet back roads and neighborhood lanes to several towns and villages with enough “city blocks” to entertain even the fittest pair.

There are tons of dedicated trails, and thousands of acres to explore.

The county also has two fully fenced dog parks with shade, water stations, double fencing, small dog areas and picnic tables for free-range play.

Even the county’s commercial district gets the canine compulsion, with almost every bank stocking dog treats to hand out as well as the traditional lollipops for kids, and farm supply stores are definitely dog-friendly, with dishes of biscuits at check-out.

Walking opportunities

• Vint Hill Village Green was an army base that closed in 1997.

Since, the area has been thoughtfully developed with miles of quiet neighborhood roads and business blocks joined by greenspace and safe walking trails between Vint Hill and adjacent Brookside.

• In Old Town Warrenton, Acad-

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

The Vint Hill Dog Park is just one of Fauquier’s expansive canine exercise areas. emy Hill, Rady and Eva Walker Parks provide trails and greens, and all link up to the Greenway to extend another two miles. Most of the downtown businesses place dog water bowls outside, and all the area ice cream shops offer pup cups along with human treats.

• Another network of trails laces the WARF at the west end of town, with trails at Rady accessible by walking through the quiet Gold Cup neighborhoods.

• Extend your reach outside town to take advantage of almost endless miles of trails at Whitney State Forest, Phelps, the community parks in Marshall and the Thompson Wildlife Management Area south of Paris.

Ditch the leash

When they say “it’s a dog’s life” around here, that’s a good thing.

There are so few places these days your dog can safely be off-leash and really get a good run, owners have

learned to love a pair of free-range dog parks. It makes a huge difference to canine mental and physical health, owners say.

Near New Baltimore, the Vint Hill Dog Park provides a safe, enclosed pooch playground that human and canine users alike deem “heaven.”

“I love it,” says Keith Mathis, a little out of breath from running with his 18-month-old Boxer, Penny. “She gets to run, and play, and interact with other dogs. I think it’s great for a dog to be free.”

Enclosed by a tall fence with double-gated entry, the leafy space has lots going for it, location near the busy former Army base and GainesvilleWarrenton population corridor chief among selling points for the privately operated – and free – park. A dozen mature hardwoods dot the level area.

A new pavilion fills one corner, a separate enclosure for small dogs another.

There’s an agility ramp built as an

Spring is here, and no one’s more excited than your dog.

A dog park is the perfect place to let your four-legged friend run wild.

But not too wild.

1. It’s playtime, not a fight club. Barking is a normal canine social interaction, but it’s your responsibility to monitor so playful moments don’t escalate into an actual dog fight.

2. No food allowed, and no glass containers. Dog training treats are ok, but don’t bring rawhide bones or items that other dogs may use as an excuse for food-aggression.

3. Dogs need to be licensed and vaccinated. Make sure tags are visible.

4. No dogs under 3 months, no unneutered dogs over six months, no females in season.

5. Kids under 16 must be accompanied by a parent; handlers must be 16 or over.

Eagle Scout project, dog jumps, a weaving course and a collapsible play tunnel. Bags and receptacles are provided, and there’s a spigot for water and drinking bowls. vinthilldogpark.com The Warrenton Dog Park provides play opportunities on the Warrenton Greenway at the end of South Fifth Street. At a third of an acre, there’s plenty of room to run in the fenced enclosure that opened in 2017.

In addition to almost 20,000 square feet of play area, there’s a dog drinking fountain, benches and five waste removal stations.

The downtown dog park lies along a two-mile footpath leading from Old Town. There are plans to extend the Greenway in the future.

540-349-2520

Meet dog show pro Pamela Schaar

From the competition world, local expert has learned patience, professionalism

Pamela Schaar is a long-time breeder, exhibitor and judge of Irish Setters as well as a professional handler She lives in Orlean with her two dogs, Maia and Lucy. inFauquier: Why did you get involved in breeding and showing?

Pamela Schaar: I was walking our Doberman (at age 9) and a gentleman stopped his car and asked if we showed her. It (planted) a seed of interest.

When I was looking for an Irish Setter in the late 1960s, the only one I could find through the 26

SPRING 2019

Michigan Breeders’ Registry was from a show home. They were divorcing, (but they) hoped I’d show her.

inF: Why Irish Setters?

PS: I was about 11. A neighbor had bought an Irish Setter. Her name was Beauty, and she would greet me every day at the fence as I walked by to school.

I thought she was gorgeous and so sweet. She never missed a day for several years. I adored her.

I asked my parents about having one and the resounding answer was, no – too much hair. So, I vowed when I grew up I’d get one.

It wasn’t until I was 27 years old that I was able to purchase (my first). I never forgot her nor my love of the breed.

inF: Memorable moments?

PS: I showed two number one Gordon Setters – both winning specialties as well. The most exciting one was Best of Opposite Sex at the Gordon Setter Club’s first National, losing to his dam for the breed. He also went Best of Breed at the large specialty prior to Westminster judged by a woman from Great Britain. inF: Advice for beginners?

PS: Seek out the nearest successful breeder willing to take (you) on.

Attend as many dog shows as possible, ask questions, observe and have patience. It takes time.

Winning entails years of dedication and very hard work and study.

– By Connie Lyons

COURTESY PHOTO

Pamela Schaar and Quinniver’s Songbird.

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Life & Style THE WAY WE LIVE IN FAUQUIER

Spring beauties

Baby ducks (and chicks, and bunnies) are an irresistible part of the Easter season. Find out why local experts urge you to resist.

Story by Betsy Burke Parker Photos by Rachel Summers

Inside this section:

n She talks to the animals, and you can too.

Pet psychic Holli Shan gives her insight. n A horse is a horse (of course), but do you know how to measure their moods?

SPRING 2019

29

LIFE & STYLE

How to pick up chicks

Visit one of a clutch of sellers to get your fill of spring peeps, just please don’t take one home if you’re not a poultry farmer

Hint: These traditional Easter mascots are best left to the pros

Easter and peeps go together like peas and carrots, but at the county’s farm stores, they definitely won’t be your traditional marshmallow confections.

Chick days and layer sales are slated through March and April at Fauquier’s three Farm and Home Center outlets, two Tractor Supply Company stores and other locations. Hundreds of fluffy purebred chicks and ducklings – some sexed to select for females only, others sold in “straight run” lots – entrance shoppers every spring, chirping and cheeping and moving like schools of fish around their temporary galvanized water trough homes.

“People come in just to watch them,” says longtime Marshall co-op manager Glenn Covington.

He says this year the Marshall store will offer 13 pure breeds, from Ameraucana “Easter eggers” to handsome Wyandottes. They’ll also sell guinea hen peeps, but no ducklings or turkeys this year.

“Kids beg to come in to see the peeps,” adds Cheryl James, who keeps a small flock of hens at in her Front Royal backyard. “I love fresh eggs, and I love eating what I ‘grow.’ They’re livestock, sure, but I treat them like pets.

“They all have names and they all have different personalities.” James will conduct poultry seminars this spring at the Marshall store along with other co-op experts.

One lesson James aims to teach is that baby chicks are not Easter novelties. Better for your basket are origami chicks, chocolate bunnies and rubber duckies, she stresses.

For a living version, visit photographer Rob-

Irresistibly cute Easter chick or bunny? It’s a lifetime commitment.

Baby chicks are best left to farmers and commercial egg producers instead of becoming Easter novelties. ert Everton’s “adorable bunnies” Easter set. The Plains-based pro builds a seasonal backdrop and uses friendly, tame rabbits for photo shoots. It’s a way for kids to interact with cuddly rabbits, yet not sign on for a lifetime commitment to pet care.

Many other area farms welcome children, especially given the opportunity to teach about livestock and animal husbandry, Covington stresses.

Farm animals are put in proper context rather than treating them as disposable holiday trinkets.

Still, to build, or rebuild, a backyard poultry flock, chick days are perfect for spring. “I expect these chicks will fly out of here” within a day or two of arriving, Covington deadpans.

– By Betsy Burke Parker

• Remember ... they’re so darned cute, but they won’t stay small forever.

• And ... when they’re little, they’re terribly fragile. A fall, even a short distance, can injure or kill a baby chick or duck, and when they’re small, temperature regulation is critical. Any amount of rough handling is enough to fatally maim a tiny hatchling.

• Also ... you can’t get “just one” chick or duckling.

They don’t do well living alone, especially as babies, so no farm stores or responsible sellers would sell you a single, anyway. Take note – you’ll be coming home with a small flock, not a single animal.

• So ... therefore, you’ll need more than just a little cardboard box to keep these animals comfortable. At minimum, you’ll need an enclosed space with heating and cooling ability, appropriate bedding, a self-feeder, a self-waterer and professionally milled animal chow.

And that’s just for the first few weeks. Build from there to include a safe, fenced run, a fortified coop and protection from predators and the elements.

• Plus ... get ready for cleaning, and lots of it.

Remember, everything you put into an Easter pet’s mouth will eventually come out. Compost most of your litter, but remember the commitment.

• Too ... most veterinarians aren’t set up for routine care of livestock and poultry. You may have to travel further afield to find a vet.

• And ... make sure your homeowners’ association or condo covenants don’t preclude you from having a livestock “pet” in the first place.

• Warning ... that little fluffy chick may mature into an aggressive fighting rooster with 2 inch spurs and an attitude.

• Never, ever ... just “let your pet go” if you decide it’s too much work. Turning domesticated livestock free in the wild is a certain death sentence. And remember, local rescues are overflowing with impulse purchases, so get one there if you can’t resist.

PHOTOS BY RANDY LITZINGER, SAWYER GUINN

Photographer Robert Everton stages Easter photos with real, live bunnies, something he says helps prevent impulse purchases of rabbits by those unprepared for lifetime care.

30

SPRING 2019

LIFE & STYLE

ASHES TO ASHES

Celebrate their lives, ease your pain Memorializing pets easy with multiple, dignified choices

Remember your animal friends

• Write an obituary for your own scrapbook • Plant a garden, a tree, bush or flowers • Create a photo or video journal • Hire an artist to paint a commission • Create a stone or glass memorial • Get a tattoo of their name, face or paw print • Include family members – especially children – in a solemn burial ceremony followed by a celebration of life

By Alissa Jones

Memorializing the life of a beloved pet in an honorable way begins with how its remains are treated after death. If you choose cremation, there are plenty of dignified options.

Elizabeth Berry, manager at Animal Care Center in Warrenton, says they have maintained a strong 30year relationship with Valley Pet Crematory in Hagerstown, Maryland.

“Once we send them a pet, we receive the remains the following week.”

Local SPCA director Devon Settle says losing a pet can be difficult, so it is the shelter’s primary goal to provide safe, dignified and affordable ways of caring for remains. Fauquier SPCA is the only local facility that offers on-site cremations; most local veterinarians contract with offsite crematories.

At the FSCPA it is your choice how the remains of your pet are stored

Rocco

PHOTO BY JODI VARNESE

and returned to you after cremation.

Settle says whether you choose a decorated tin or a classic wooden box, the FSPCA will engrave your pet’s name on a brass plate and mount it on the container.

“The remains can be picked up or mailed to you for a small additional cost,” she says.

After cremation, there are creative ways to celebrate your pet’s life, which just may help to ease the pain of your loss. Settle recalls how much it meant to her to have been given a necklace with photos after she lost a beloved dog.

Some places will make you a necklace with a locket containing their ashes.

Jodi Varnese says she has given serious thought to how she wants to remember her long-time canine companion, Rocco, when he dies.

On a spring day in 2006, Varnese brought home an 11-month-old boxer mix rescue pup, fresh off hip surgery. The years of medical issues that plagued Rocco after that, says Varnese, seemed to coincide with her own

Escape Madness.

life struggles. “My truest companion has traveled the entire East Coast, from the Canadian border to Florida with me, was the ring-bearer in my wedding, and the shoulder to cry on during my divorce.” It was facing the challenges together that’s made for an unbreakable bond, Varnese says.

She knows one day he’ll be gone, but what brings her comfort is knowing Rocco has lived a full and happy life, outliving every vet’s prediction of life expectancy. In facing his death, Varnese says she appreciates that, unlike 20 years ago, options now exist to help her memorialize her beloved dog. “Rocco may have come to me with a past, but he added to my life in so many ways, memorializing him only seems right.”

Varnese says she has given much thought on other ways to give weight to Rocco’s life.

“I am writing Rocco’s story now and plan on publishing it once he’s gone.

I also plan to get a tattoo of his paw print. I feel both speak of his legacy in the world and will help ease the pain of the loss I know I will experience.”

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31

LIFE & STYLE

The name game When it comes to beasts – and bees – the moniker can amuse, or alarm

By Pam Owen

So much of what we find wonderful, horrible or just plain odd in other species is often a projection of our own behavior and motives, as often reflected in our naming of beasts.

Common names of animals are sometimes pedestrian, albeit descriptive, such as “green stinkbug” and “red-headed woodpecker,” both of which are native to our area.

Another trend is to name the creature for the person who discovered it.

Bachman’s Warbler, for example, a bird once native to Virginia but now thought to be extinct, was named for Reverend John Bachman. He discovered the species in 1832 and presented skins and descriptions of them to his friend and collaborator, John James Audubon, according to “A Field Guide to Warblers of North America.” Sometimes, an animal is so lovely that the name reflects it – for instance the “spring beauty butterfly” and “magnificent frigatebird.”

The scientific classification system, taxonomy, strives to be somewhat more precise – albeit a little boring – and reflect the animal’s evolution. Thanks to advances in DNA research, the scientific Latin names of many species have changed as knowledge about their lineage at

Virginia invertebrates – funny, fanciful

• ambiguous moth • dagger moth • antlion • arabesque orbweaver spider • bold medicine moth • bowl and doily weaver spider

• broken-backed bug • cow killer ant • cuckoo wasp • fishing spider • perplexing bumblebee • rabid wolf spider • whirlygig

the genetic level has evolved.

The more bizarre or nasty an animal looks or behaves, the more provocative its name is likely to be. Invertebrates are the most common victims of scary names. Assassin bugs, for example, are named for their stealthy, deadly attacks on insect prey, not on humans. The scientific name for this insect family, Reduviidae, is Latin for “hangnail.” This is from the curved proboscis they use to pierce their prey’s body, injecting a lethal toxin that dissolves the tissue, and to suck out the resulting bug smoothie.

Zelus luridus, comes from Zelos, a Greek mythological figure who was a winged enforcer of Zeus and the spirit of dedication, emulation, envy, jealousy and “eager rivalry.” The English words zealous and zealot also derive from Zelos. Luridus is Latin for shocking, horrid or gruesome. Based on its scientific name, the bug could also be called “gruesome zealot,” a far more provocative name.

Virginia has among its native

A horse walks into a bar ...

This is no joke, say scientists: Horses have personalities that speak volumes

By Norman Fine

Scientists at the University of Sussex must have heard the old joke and taken it seriously. They’ve learned that horses are able to employ some 17 distinct facial expressions — three more than chimpanzees, one more than dogs and just 10 less than humans.

Jennifer Watham, a lead author of the paper, and her colleagues dissected a horse’s head and studied all the muscles, especially around the eye, that allow the horse to communicate emotions.

“What surprised us was the rich repertoire of complex facial movements in horses, and how many of them are similar to humans,” Watham writes. “Horses and hu32

SPRING 2019

mans can both raise the skin above their eyes, which seems to happen in negative emotional states. Another example is the retraction of lip corners, which seems to be part of a submissive gesture in horses.”

Researchers recorded hours of behavior in 86 horses — all ages, both sexes and a variety of breeds — to correlate muscle movement across the sample.

“Horses are social animals,” Watham maintains. “Most of their behavior evolved to help keep family groups together during seasonal migration in search of changing food sources and to warn of possible predator attack.”

Watham and her team worked with collaborators from the University of

PHOTOS BY PAM OWEN, LARRY SHERERTZ

The assasin bug, top, has a name as unusual as the mourning dove, at the feeder below.

birds a chuck-will’s-widow and laughing gull, and among its mammals, the woodchuck, aka groundhog or whistlepig. And one amphibian’s common name also stands out: the hellbender salamander, which inhabits southwestern Virginia.

The origin of the hellbender’s common name is lost to history, but one often-cited explanation is that its What’s that you say? A recent study determined there are more than a dozen equine expressions.

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Portsmouth and Duquesne University in Pennsylvania. The Sussex study, which has so far only cataloged eye, lip, nostril, chin and other movements, is viewed as a jumping-off point for further study of how expressions relate to equine emotional states.

Man and horse have a relationship stretching over thousands of years.

Though horse facial expressions may be subtle, researchers believe they convey more meaning than previously thought possible.

fearsome appearance evokes a creature from hell where it’s bent on returning.

In reality, the hellbender is in fact shy and harmless to humans. Other names given to the hellbender in the past include snot otter, devil dog, mud dog, ground puppy, mud-devil, grampus, Allegheny alligator, old lasagna sides and leverian water newt.

‘Blind Bombing’ tells tale of radar and turning the tide in WWII Norm Fine has a new book coming out in the fall, a radical departure from his usual sporting fare. Published by Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, his book is titled “Blind Bombing: How Microwave Radar Brought the Allies to D-Day and Victory in Europe.”

Despite the many books written about World War II, one story has yet to be told: how a secret gadget invented just as the war broke out gave the Allies a vital tactical advantage over the enemy—microwave radar. It proved to be the single new invention most influential in getting the Allies to D-Day, and it immediately rendered all other radars primitive. The German military was puzzled by their reverses at sea and in the air, and their scientists assured them that radar could not be the cause.

“Blind Bombing” will be available for pre-purchase this summer; books are expected to ship in October. foxhuntinglife.com

LIFE & STYLE

LUCKY KITTY

Fauquier deputy conducts successful search and rescue op for stray kitten Sgt. David Lee was startled. “The dumpster was meowing,” says the longtime Fauquier County Sheriff ’s deputy on answering the call for backup from a fellow deputy one cold day in Delaplane. “It was hard to figure out what it was, but when we got a good, close look, I realized it was a kitten that’d got its head stuck in a drain hole at the bottom of the metal dumpster” behind a business just off U.S. 17.

Lee, the county’s animal control sergeant, and Deputy Marisa Efaw crawled into the bin knee-deep in rotting garbage, pulling trash aside to reveal a very small, very frightened black and white kitten, howling piteously and struggling to pull its head back out of a small hole in one bottom corner.

“I have no idea how he got his head through in the first place, but,

boy, it wasn’t coming back out without some help,” Lee explains.

He applied a lifetime of training and critical thinking to the operation: Efaw applied gentle traction to back the kitten’s head out of the hole while Lee continuously slathered water on its neck and head for lubrication.

After two hours of delicate, diligent work by the insistent deputies, at last the exhausted kitten was freed.

“He was really wet, and really weak, and really scared,” Lee says of the four-month-old they began calling Dumpster. He took the kitten to the Fauquier SPCA where the shelter crew cleaned him up, warmed him and gave him food and water. The kitten, probably a stray – since no owner has come forward to claim him, responded well to the pampering, and

Take your pick of animals – so many to choose from at the local shelters Total number of FSPCA adoptions, 2018 Birds - 5 Cats - 494 Chickens - 26 Dogs - 426 Ducks - 5 Goats - 12 Pigs - 3 Hedgehogs - 3 Horses - 3 Rabbits - 13 Rodents - 1 Turtles - 1

he’s become a shelter favorite.

“He’s up for adoption,” Lee says, with Dumpster still available at press time. “He’s cute. He’s a survivor.”

A 2005 Fauquier High grad and son of longtime school principal, busi-

Total number of stray animals FSPCA returned to owners, 2018 Cats - 21 Dogs - 283 Goats - 2

Pigs - 2

Fauquier County dog tag licenses TAGS

REVENUE

2018 ... 4,379 ... $45,927 2017 ... 4,431 ... $46,895 2016 ... 3,645 ... $39,394 All dogs 4 months and older must be licensed, though service dogs are exempt from the $10 annual fee. Around 22 percent of owners fail to purchase dog tags.

ness teacher and coach Roger Lee, David Lee studied at Virginia Tech before a combat deployment to Afghanistan with the Marine Corps. He joined the sheriff ’s department in 2011.

– By Betsy Burke Parker

Frogwatch: Monitoring amphibian friends at home Keeping the croakers from croaking is up to us – join the team to help

By Pam Owen

Guinea Pigs - 28

YEAR

COURTESY PHOTO

Sgt. David Lee helped rescue ‘Dumpster’ in a delicate mission that took hours.

Amphibians are in trouble worldwide, partly from climate change.

And they need our help.

A 2004 global assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature found that nearly one-third of the world’s amphibians, representing 1,856 species, are threatened. To monitor their populations, scientists need the help from volunteers to collect data, through groups like Frogwatch, which collects data on frogs and toads, known collectively as anurans.

In recent years, the breeding schedule of some anuran species has become more erratic. According to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, climate change may be the cause: and this disruption in breeding schedules can be dangerous for anurans.

If frogs emerge too early because of warmer winters, they and their eggs may be vulnerable to a late season freeze. For others, a shift in weather patterns may not provide enough water suitable for reproduction.

Frogwatch is managed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a volunteer-driven program. All you need to volunteer, according to AZA, is “an interest in frogs and toads, a willingness to become a trained volunteer and a commitment to follow protocol monitoring a wetland site over multiple evenings throughout the breeding season, February to August.”

Collecting data is easy – volunteers spend a few minutes in the evening at the breeding

spot during breeding season. They note the weather and mark down which anurans are calling for mates. Although Virginia has 28 anuran species, only 10 are known to inhabit Fauquier County. Knowing the phenology of those species helps in sorting out who is calling at any time during the season.

AZA prefers that volunteers monitor sites on their own property, or on a property to which they will have access for more than just one year so they can compare data from year to year.

Frogwatch volunteers choose how often to monitor, although they’re encouraged to monitor at least twice a week to give a full measure of populations.

The Piedmont season can run from late January, when wood frogs often start calling, through October, when the last bullfrog and treefrog go silent. Frogwatch is also a great way to involve kids with nature studies, with a chance to learn about related ecosystems. virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com

SPRING 2019

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LIFE & STYLE

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LIFE & STYLE

Singing the stray cat blues

They may have cat class and cat style, but they’re carefree, wild ... and a menace to songbirds, many maintain

By Mara Seaforest

There is no such thing as a naturally wild cat. Feral felines are a man-made phenomenon.

These cats fall into one of three categories: abandoned pets, strays or the progeny of either. Those abandoned may or may not have been spayed or neutered.

Strays can be pampered pets that somehow got loose and lost their way home. These cats have usually been fixed, and probably were inoculated.

Experts can observe a feral community and tell who’s who at a glance.

True ferals have been at their enforced wildness for some time - and they act wild. Eventually, stray pets, too, will adapt themselves to this same skittish, self-preservation behavior. In this manner, formerly domesticated cats act, and appear, totally wild after years, even months, in a feral colony.

The discussion about how to manage feral cat communities varies. People living in proximity to ferals, perhaps even providing them with food and the modest shelter of a barn or shed, often say they don’t mind them at all, even feel they provide rodent control service.

Others see them as a menace to their own pets and small farm animals, such as young chickens, and wild songbirds.

“Births of feral cats is a year-round activity in the many colonies living here in Fauquier,” though spring is definitely considered “kitten season,” says Caroline Folker, community relations manager for the local SPCA. The Casanova shelter took stock of its Trap-Neuter-Return project at its 10-year mark in 2018. “We sterilized over 3,000 cats,” Folker says of the free program. “We tipped their ears to give notice that they were neutered if they ever showed up at the shelter again.

We also gave rabies shots.”

Citizens who trap feral cats and bring them to the shelter take legal responsibility for the neutered cats, promising to return them to where they

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Feral cats can be tamed and turned into house-pets, or become part of the trap-neuter-return program that curbs the cycle. were found, usually their own property.

TNR is a popular program, but when a homeowner sells, new property owners may not want to manage a feral colony.

Sometimes, the ferals become homeless if rounded up and dumped in some distant place, where they will likely suffer and inflict ecological damage, including killing songbirds.

Bottom line for feral cat colonies is simple, Folker says. “Stop your problem before it becomes worse.” The best defense, she maintains, is TNR. David Roos, a former executive at a wild bird conservation group who lives in The Plains, is vehemently anti-TNR. He says ferals are a huge

problem. “Feral cats cause the killing of more than a billion wild birds each year,” he says.

Roos has a take-no-prisoners approach to feral cats, especially those who tolerate them as an unavoidable fact of country life.

“Maintaining non-native cats outof-doors is a misguided effort that squanders millions of dollars of animal welfare funds, exposes cats to shortened, brutish lives, decimates wild birds and mammals, and spreads toxoplasmosis onto other people’s property. It must end immediately,” Roos says.

His advice to cat owners? “If you love your cat, never show it the door.”

Taking care “Country people are used to having cats in their barns and sheds. I have one, myself,” says veterinarian Dr. Thomas Roehr of the Animal Care Center in Warrenton. These so-called “barn cats” are often ferals, though they become somewhat domesticated by providing humans the service of killing mice and insects in exchange for shelter.

Roehr’s says fewer than half of owners in Fauquier have their cats regularly vaccinated. “These domestic cats pose nearly as serious a health problem as ferals if their owners allow them to roam.

The lesson ... is if you care about your cat, have them spayed or neutered and keep vaccinations up to date in case they come in contact with unprotected cats.”

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LIFE & STYLE

Shadow cats of

They’re here, I’ve seen one...

Anecdotal evidence: yes

Rash of eyewitness reports refutes game claim that cougars are ‘extinct’ in Virginia’s Piedmont They didn’t so much take it back as reword it, but the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has relented on the mountain lion issue.

They agree at last that, yes, cougars are probably in Virginia.

Just a year ago, VDGIF came out with a strongly worded decree that Virginia’s only big cat, Puma concolor cougar, was extinct, long gone, history, and never coming back.

Now, they’ve relented, allowing there have been verifiable – and recent – cougar sightings, including in Fauquier. Official word is that, indeed, shadow cats live in the Piedmont.

‘I wish I had a photo’

Splitting her time between her home in Washington, D.C. and her vacation home in Washington, Virginia, interior designer Eileen Ritter was gazing out the picture window of her modern home on a Rappahannock hilltop a month ago, casually chatting with a neighbor on the phone when a tawny adult cougar strolled from the woods behind her house. She remembers she gawked as it crossed the gravel driveway, paused, then re-entered the woods a dozen yards down her yard.

It was the middle of a weekday.

“Gosh, don’t I wish I had a photo,” Ritter recalls stammering into her handset. The neighbor was unsurprised: She’d seen the big cat before. “It came into the clearing elegantly,” Ritter says of the made-for-TV moment burned in her memory. When the cougar turned toward the house, Ritter saw the white markings on the pumpkin-colored fur.

She estimates it was as tall as the dining table she was leaning against.

“It had to be six feet in length from tip of the nose to tip of the tail,” Ritter adds. She got a “good look” as the cat lingered “a good seven or eight seconds, only three or four car lengths away from me.

“I’m as sure as I can be. That was a mountain lion.”

‘The sudden feeling of going from hunter to hunted’

Warrenton’s George Kershner is sure what he saw, because he remembers the near-paralyzing fear that accompanied his sighting.

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“Yes, I did see a mountain lion,” the long-time hunter and outdoorsman says with a certainty that defies argument. “It was 25 or so years ago, but I won’t ever forget the sudden feeling of going from hunter to hunted.”

His encounter involved a great deal more than a quick glimpse. He was headed back to his truck after a long day of hunting in the George Washington National Forest.

“It tracked me for about a mile one evening after dark as I was coming out of the woods,” Kershner recalls. “I kept hearing something behind me in the ice-crusted snow. I finally pulled out my flashlight, turned quickly and saw it duck down behind a log.

“As I knelt down, it popped its head up to see where I went.

“I was less than 20 feet from it, about a (quarter mile) from my vehicle. I kept my light on and walked backward the rest of the way out.”

Cougars are almost exclusively “ambush predators,” so once Kershner laid eyes on the animal he was somewhat removed from danger.

Still, it was pretty scary. Walking a few hundred yards backward, in retrospect, doesn’t seem so inconvenient considering the alternative.

“It didn’t seem to like the light and didn’t continue to follow very long after that,” Kershner says. “I’ve been in that area several times since, but never saw a sign of a large cat after that.”

‘Completely sober, completely alert, completely sure’

“It looked like a black panther moving smoothly across the road,” recalls Elizabeth Loeffler about an encounter one summer night five years ago. She’d been driving on Crest Hill Road south of Marshall, nearly to her destination near Hume, when something startling crossed in front of her. “I totally stopped my car,” she says. “I totally was freaked out and didn’t know what to do.”

Loeffler, visiting friends in Virginia from her home in New Jersey, was “completely sober, completely alert, completely sure” of what she’d seen, she maintains. “I know it couldn’t have been a black panther, but it looked dark in the night. That was

PHOTO BY TOM BROWN

Tom Brown gives scale to a set of cougar tracks he found in Oregon. Though not verified by cadaver, many believe mountain lions prowl the Piedmont. probably my headlights on its fur.

“It had a long, smooth, slinky tail, as long as its body. It pounced down on the road from a wooded bank (on the east side of 647 near Wilson Road.) It stopped and looked at me ... long enough I thought it might attack.

“I finally continued to my friends’ house, still shaking. They told me there were lots of stories about mountain lions in the area.

“I’m telling you. That’s what I saw.”

‘There it was, sitting on the trail’

All in the world he wanted was to get the day’s mail. Paul Lumsden got more than he expected.

Walking out his driveway south of Marshall after dark one evening two years ago, Lumsden’s flashlight

Fake news? The jury is out Most people who think they see mountain lions in the area describe nothing more than a long tail disappearing into the brush several hundred yards away. Rare is a report of an extended sighting, and rarer still is photographic proof.

Virginia’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries receives dozens of reports of big cat sightings each year, and game department officials take them all very seriously. Computer-generated programs help discern cases of mistaken identity from from credible cougar reports.

Professional tracker and outdoor educator Tom Brown III has tracked escaped domestic cougars and wild ones in Oregon where he currently lives. Brown

landed on a bright set of what he calls “clearly predator eyes.” He sees black bear regularly, and coyote roam the rural farm area around his property.

Thinking it was a coyote, Lumsden moved towards the glowing eyes, not away, intending to scare it off because he “doesn’t want coyotes prowling around the house.” He had no weapon, not even a pile of junk mail.

“And there it was, sitting on the trail. Not a coyote. A cougar.”

The animal was unconcerned at his approach. The young cat, around 40 pounds, turned and took a couple bounds into the underbrush, stopping once to look back as it departed.

“It was ony 30 yards away.

“I never imagined I’d see something like that,” Lumsden says. spent a year at an educational non-profit in Marshall, and though he never saw any definitive evidence during his time here, he believes that big cats are around.

“I think pumas are there,” he says, noting that cat sightings are extremely rare, even for outdoorsmen and hunters. “I mean, in Oregon, I’ve yet to see more than tracks in the snow, and I’ve talked to a bunch of guys that have hunted their whole lives and they’ve never seen one either.”

He cites Virginia’s booming whitetail deer population as an easy way for cougars to survive – and thrive – yet stay hidden in the hills. “They don’t have a need to hunt livestock,” he maintains. “Any selfrespecting wild cat would choose a deer over a horse or cow every time.”

LIFE & STYLE

the Shenandoah

Prove it...

The official word: no Last time a mountain lion corpse was found in Virginia was during Reconstruction

In late 19th century Virginia, the Civil War was still a fresh wound.

That’s the last time a confirmed cougar – a dead one – was found in Virginia.

There’s plenty of secluded habitat for mountain lions to call home – both in Fauquier and elsewhere around the Piedmont. And there’s tons to eat – they especially like venison, but the longtime game department stance is that “no big cats live here.”

Nongame Mammal Biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Rick Reynolds has a few possible explanations for many of the cougar “sightings,” both PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER recent and past. He suspects that the Paul Lumsden points to the spot in his backyard near Orlean where he’s certain illegal exotic pet trade is the reason.

This black market was exposed he spied a mountain lion one evening when he went out to fetch his mail. about 20 years ago when neighbors near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania had a Reclusive by nature neighborly dispute that led to a pair of Cougars are reclusive, Fauquier and the county’s inspiring prized cougars being released into the percentage of protected open space with immense territories wild. Harrisburg to Marshall is less along with other, even more rural counmeasuring in hundreds than 150 miles, not far for a roaming ties to the west combine to make up cougar considering a cat radio-tagged what many call big cat heaven. of square miles. in Black Hills, South Dakota, was This is not surprising considering the area’s large population of whitetail later found in Vermont. deer, a favorite and consistent source A cougar by any other name Reynolds scours social media and of food for cougars. conducts his own type of tracking to More than 40 different names worldwide Glacier National Park in Montana • Cougar follow every incident of big cat sightboasts one of the densest cougar popu• Puma ing in the commonwealth, saying lations in the world, and wildlife experts • Catamount that the game department “always attribute the big cats’ success to the • Shadow cat looks into every report we receive.” big deer population there.

• Panther Cat of the mountain Research always begins with an Like Virginia, though, it is hard to • Ghost cat image search to find any other incatch a glimpse: the odds of a visitor see• Painter stances of the photo on the web. ing a big cat in Glacier are 1 in 42,000.

• Mountain Lion Many photos showing a real cougar, Reynolds adds, were not taken locally.

Sometimes photos provably taken in Virginia are too blurred or obscured, with little to no scale. Reynolds says this makes proper identification nearly impossible.

He adds that VDGIF of course has their own extensive network of hidden camera traps and feeding stations to collect animal census data.

Overlaid images aid verification

Scrolling through dozens of reports of cougar sightings in Virginia each year, you can see how easily most reports are written off. Most describe just catching a glimpse of a long tail disappearing into the brush several hundred yards away.

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries officials take all the re-

ports seriously, however, but with modern technology in place to help discern fable from fact.

Image overlays generate computer graphics to establish scale. The photos above show an overlay with a deer in a similar position for scale, which proves the “big cat” photo was, in fact, a feral cat.

“We have yet to capture an image of a cougar,” he stresses.

These high-tech motion cameras however have been able to capture some other rare species also no longer believed to be living in Virginia such as fisher cats and porcupines, but so far, no cougars.

Bounty program effective,

For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a bounty program in Virginia to control cougar population. Damage to livestock, and fear of human attack, fueled understandable fear which induced slaughter of the big cats.

Despite cessation of bounty programs here, cougar hunting remains popular out west in regions that have healthy predator populations as well as pressure to control their numbers from livestock farmers.

The most effective way to track a big cat, says one Idaho farmer who actively tracks and kills cougars, is with what he calls “lion dogs.” He explains he takes his hounds out in the morning. They pick up the lion’s scent – a pungent odor a bit like a cat litterbox, and track it to where they can hold the cat at bay.

Back east, it’s not quite so easy.

In 2018, more than 70,000 Virginia hunters reported using hounds to find game – from ‘coon dogs to turkey dogs, from beagles running rabbits to foxhounds coursing foxes. Yet no licensed dog hunter in Virginia has reported an encounter with a cougar.

Big cats, confirmed or not, are currently protected by “non-game status” in Virginia and will remain so until their population density would dictate otherwise.

Reynolds points out that though reclusive, there are many bobcats in the region, and that some “cougar sightings” may just be misidentified bobcats.

Extra, extra: Breaking big cat news On Facebook on March 2, a central Virginia landowner posted a 30-second video of what she believes was a cougar crossing her horse pasture. “Call it what you wish, but this ain’t no house cat,” she captioned the clip on her Facebook.

To see the video, visit the Fauquier Times Facebook page.

And just last month in Colorado, a trail runner was attacked by a young cougar in the back country. He was forced to suffocate the cat to free himself from its deadly grip, something he hated doing, but had to, he told his local press.

SPRING 2019

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LIFE & STYLE

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BEYOND WORDS

LIFE & STYLE

Animals do speak, but only those who listen can hear Holli Shan says it’s all about energy

Saying goodbye to Muffy – a hard choice made easier through personal message

Emily McGee of Woodbridge had a tough choice to make with her Yorkie, Apple Muffin. Muffy was old and failing, and one March day McGee decided euthanasia may be the loving choice.

“I called Holli to communicate with Muffy to be sure I was about to make the right decision, that nobody ever wants to make when it comes to our pets who always and forever are our best friends and family,” McGee said. “Holli was able to communicate (only) briefly with Muffy, because (she) was so weak it was hard for my dear girl to communicate much.

“As Holli was relaying the information she was acquiring from Muffy, I knew it was time to say goodbye because it was no longer fair to keep her here in body as she had struggled through right-sided heart failure for (a few) years. Without Holli’s compassion, I would still be wondering to this day if I had made the appropriate decision.”

By Betsy Burke Parker

Holli Shan did not set out to become a pet psychic. It just sort of happened.

A Philadelphia native based in Virginia’s Piedmont for some 22 years, Shan had grown up with pets and horses. She’d earned her masters’ in speech communications from Penn State, though she never considered cross-species communication until she moved to Loudoun County and earned animal massage certification from Equissage in Round Hill.

She opened Pony and Pooch Therapeutic Animal Massage in 2006, but Shan recognized there was more, so much more, she could do for animals. When she was giving an animal a massage, “they would look at me, and I realized there was a way I could communicate more deeply.”

Shan studied animal communication with pet psychic professional Janet Dobbs in Reston the next year, then trained with the grande dame of the genre, Penelope Smith. Smith’s three books, “Animal Talk,” “When Animals Speak” and “Animals in Spirit” are classic tomes, Shan says.

“When taking these courses, you’re working on your own telepathic and intuitive nature, something we all have,” Shan explains.

“You know how parents automatically know when their kids are ‘up to something,’ even if you’re not in the same room, even not in the same place? And as children, we truly believe we can communicate across spaces, across species. But we lose that ability as ‘reason’ takes over.

“As an animal communicator, you’re just taking that back. You take back that natural intuition and give the animals a voice.”

Shan opened Compassionate Animal Communication in 2010, creating a business model ranging from single “check-in” sessions, on site or online, to multi-month, ongoing sessions for chronic issues.

One of her earliest conversations stands out. She was giving a horse massage at a local barn, and the owner was saying she was worried. She loved her new horse, Shan recalls, but she was frustrated and scared because the mare “wasn’t the same as when she bought her. The owner wasn’t experienced, and she was, of course, accidentally, giving 40

SPRING 2019

Shan’s top tips

Animal communicator Holli Shan ‘loves to give pets a voice.’ this (formerly quiet and calm) horse conflicting signals.

“I asked permission to ‘talk to’ the mare. The horse was so relieved to tell her side of the story. She felt like she was being asked to do things she didn’t understand, then reprimanded when she gave the ‘wrong’ answer.”

It was a classic case of novice horse owner not knowing what she didn’t know, Shan maintains, but all that mattered now was that the horse was opening up to her. “I was giving this mare a voice. She begged that the owner would take time for two inhales to relax when she gave cues.

It was that simple.

“I got a report from the trainer a few months later that everything was going great.

“That’s why I want to do this.”

How it happens

Shan applies the laws of quantum physics for generating communication on a non-verbal level, something she says anyone can learn to harness. The intentional connection results in information transmitted as words, ideas, images, sensations, sounds, emotions and more.

Quantum physics attributes it to the energy making up all matter, animate and inanimate. Thoughts and

emotions have very real electromagnetic energy that we can pick up on, if we’re open to it.

To prepare for a communication session, Shan does a brief meditation, then she focuses on the animal, or on the photo for an off-site reading. “I close my eyes to get in tune energetically.”

She speaks to the owner about the issue, then, “in my mind, I ask the animal ‘what’s going on?’ Sometimes I get emotions, sometimes I get words. Sometimes I get a mental picture of what the pet is seeing or perceiving.”

If she’s with the animal, she makes eye-to-eye contact, not a hard stare but a soft gaze. If she has a photo, she looks at the animal’s eyes.

“I ask, ‘what’s up, sweetie? Can I help you?’

“Sometimes the animal will have little to say. Maybe they just want to be with you, to just bask in each other’s love and contentment. That’s communication, just the same. We have to be willing to hear.”

There may be an element of placebo effect to the practice, but that’s okay with Shan. Veterinary science teaches that animals are extremely empathetic and pick up on their

• Sensitive sentient beings are always sensing.

• Be open, with zero expectation what your pet may be thinking.

• Start by being very quiet – turn off the TV and your phone and take some deep breaths. Ask your animal a question and see what comes back. It’s so subtle, almost like you’re imagining it.

• Don’t get too hung up on reason.

Trust your imagination. You’re creating an invisible, wireless connection.

• No filters, no expectations.

• Be a receiver, not a sender. Let the link happen.

• Let go of the thought that “this is nonsense.” Believe in what you’re hearing.

Even “wishful thinking” at first is the start of real communication.

• Just like when you’re scratching your dog’s ear and you hit the exact right spot, when you begin to receive the correct message, the animal will lean into you. Be receptive to the physical cues as much as the psychic.

• Animals are always talking. Can you be quiet enough to listen?

owners’ feelings. If consulting a pet psychic helps calm an owner down, the animal is certain to become more relaxed and receptive to treatment.

Shan closes a session with part of the prayer of St. Francis about “not so much seeking to be understood as to understand, for it is in giving that we receive.

“But this isn’t about Christian or Zen. It is about the energy that moves through all of us. Close your eyes, feel grounded to the earth. Do the highest good for all of creation.

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Food & Wine WAY BEYOND EATING AND DRINKING

Sup with your pup?

Cafes, wineries, breweries say ‘Come. Sit. Stay.’

Story by MacKenzie Earl Photo by Robin Earl

Inside this section:

n History of the hot dog: Following the wiener’s twisted, global tale n Spring is the season for light ales, fine wines

SPRING 2019

43

FOOD & WINE

A dog walked into a bar...

Finding the places that welcome patrons entering on all-fours

By MacKenzie Earl Fauquier County’s rural character is beautiful to its residents – and heaven for dogs. From going for a run on Warrenton’s Greenway to sitting by Turner Pond near Paris, dogs can enjoy all sorts of al fresco activities with their owners.

But parks aren’t the only places leashed dogs are welcome – many area restaurants and breweries welcome the pet set, pet included.

Where you’re welcome

Old Town has gone to the dogs, wholescale. Great Harvest welcomes pets both inside and streetside.

Other restaurants with outdoor seating – including Denim and Pearls and Black Bear Bistro and Brick Oven, allow leashed pets on their patios. The Black Bear patio out back is “very dog friendly,” say staff, shaded and cozy.

44

SPRING 2019

At Deja Brew, pets can come inside and wait with their owners for to-go coffee orders.

Red Zone Bar and Grill, TAJ Palace Indian Cuisine, and Fat Tuesdays on the bypass welcome dogs for outside seating, and Panera Bread also has a patio area that allows dogs.

Bring your dog along for ice cream at Carousel Frozen Treats – free pup cups are offered with (human) purchase.

Power’s Farm Brewery welcomes dogs with guests. Owners Melody and Kevin Powers say “people appreciate having (their dogs) because we have a lot of space.” Their own farm dogs, Cascade and Zeus, make up part of the official welcoming committee.

Last year, brewery guests held a birthday party for their dog on the farm.

Molon Lave Vineyards welcomes leashed dogs, as does Barrel Oak

Winery in Marshall along with many others. See individual winery, brewery and distillery websites at visitfauquier.com to find out more.

Culpeper’s Beer Hound Brewery is perfectly named. Their “puppy flight” features five 5-ounce samples of home brews. Most beers are named for famous dogs from film and history – “Olde Yella” is an award-winning American pale wheat ale.

Dogs are welcome in the taproom, with regular, Friday Yappy Hour offering free spent-grain dog treats.

Copper Fish in downtown Culpeper has ample outdoor seating that welcomes pets.

Grass Rootes – a new restaurant and live music venue on Davis Street, provides quaint outdoor seating with a view of the downtown historic district. Dogs are welcome.

Downtown Uncle Elders, Grill 309 and Baby Jim’s offer outdoor

seating and welcome pets.

In Marshall, invite your dog to dinner – or lunch – at Johnny Monarch’s, a double decker bus turned restaurant. Nearby Cordial Coffee offers porch seating that allows leashed pets.

Bealeton’s Moo-Thru offers picnic tables outside with dogs welcome.

Pup cups – a small serving of vanilla ice cream topped with a dog treat – are a popular menu item.

Vint Hill’s Old Bust Head Brewery allows dogs on their expansive patio seating area. A family-friendly destination, Old Bust Head also serves root beer.

Blue Valley Winery benefit

Dog-friendly Blue Valley Winery in Delaplane hosts a Middleburg Humane Foundation benefit, an afternoon of art and jazz, April 14. bluevalleyvineyardandwinery.com

FOOD & WINE

Spring brings slew of new brews to light

By John Daum

Spring beers are some of the most adventurous libations of the year since there is very little agreement over what this highly anticipated season really means to the world of hops and barley.

Typically, winter brews are represented by dark and barrel-aged beers.

Summer veers toward pils and wheat varieties, and fall libations seem overloaded with pumpkin and nutmeg.

Spring beers, like the season itself, are ripe with opportunity.

There are so many possibilities of what to brew and how to add a twist of something unique. This is typically the time of year that brewers experi-

ment with new hop combinations, often looking to nearby farms for locally-sourced ingredients to enhance the flavor profile of Gueze, Saison and hugely popular “juicy” IPAs. While you used to have to visit a regional beer festival to experience the rich variety of spring beers, it is now possible to drive 15 minutes in pretty much any direction anywhere in Fauquier County and find a local brewery with new, interesting spring beers ready to delight your palate.

A good place to start is Powers Farm Brewery whose The Beta Cantaloupe Wit is made with Golden Jenny cantaloupes picked right on the farm. Another local Wit beer to sam-

ple is Old Bust Head’s Table Talk, brewed with guava and passion fruit, which puts a nice twist on the style.

The Farm Brewery at Broad Run Writer and beer expert John Daum offers a unique opportunity to taste a raises an IPA toast to spring.

Japanese style lager this spring with its Turning Japanese, made with im- Lucky Flannagain Irish Red Ale or ported rice from Japan.

Strawbeery Blonde.

Also at Broad Run, pucker up and A new entry in the jovially crowdcheck out Bluebarrel Sour. A sudden- ed local brewery roster is Old Ox ly popular style from San Francisco is Brut IPA, a dry and mildly hoppy Brewery tasting room and beer garden in Middleburg. This Ashburn variant of classic west coast IPA. Et Tu, Brute at Warrenton’s Wort brewery has a full line-up of popular Hog Brewery is an easy introduction flagship beers including Hoppy Place IPA and Golden Ox. They’ll feature to the distinctive style.

Down the road at Tin Cannon small-batch experimental beers to Brewing, toast spring’s arrival with accompany the regular lineup.

Go ahead and wine: The ever-growing – and tasteful – local viticulture industry Wine events span the entire season: Take a tour of Fauquier’s expanding wine country, but you better have a lot of time on your hands, and a ton of energy, because it’s a moving target.

This spring, the county’s 20 vineyards and wineries are open for business, with a wide range of festivals and fun on tap.

• Morais Vineyards, Bealeton. moraisvineyards.com Kids shouldn’t be the only ones who have fun on Easter: Morais is offering an adult twist on spring’s most recognizable – and most movable – holiday.

The Bealeton winery hosts their fifth annual Glow-in the-Dark, adults only Easter Egg Hunt on April 12.

Eggs will be hidden around the winery and vineyard grounds, containing sweet treats, vouchers, gift certificates, free wine gear and more.

Tickets are required and space is limited.

Celebrating with friends is a perfect way to welcome the season.

Here, a group of friends raise their glasses at Three Fox Vineyards overlooking Delaplane.

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

• Barrel Oak Winery, Marshall. barreloak.com If Barrel Oak’s wines, ciders and beers aren’t enough, try their regular game nights through the season, with giant Jenga and others set up in the spacious tasting room and outside. Game nights are scheduled March 22 and 29, with live music every weekend.

• Delaplane Cellars, Delaplane. delaplanecellars.com Nestled on the west-facing front of Lost Mountain, Delaplane Cellars overlooks the historic Crooked Run Valley. Inside and outdoors seating is available with mountain views from every spot on the property.

There’s live music every Saturday and Sunday starting mid-March.

• Desert Rose Winery, Hume. desertrosewinery.com The Hume winery hosts its eighth birthday with live music and more March 30. Nearby Marriott Ranch is having a special wine dinner April 6, featuring Desert Rose wines.

• Fox Meadow Winery, Linden. foxmeadowwinery.com Head high into the hills near Linden for an educational series at Fox Meadow winery. Class dates are April 6, 13 and 27. The winery marks its 13th year of operation in 2019, with cupcake tastings accompanying wine tastings through the season. They’ll have special “sunset in the vineyard” tastings May 4, June 1 and July 6, with live music and special deals.

• Linden Vineyards, Linden. lindenvineyards.com A free, educational tour of the Linden vineyard and cellar begins at 11:30 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday, with an educational “evolution” seminar series planned spring through harvest.

• Naked Mountain Winery, Markham. nakedmountainwinery.com Since 1982, this Markham business has encouraged its patrons to drink Naked. The popular lasagna lunch special runs weekends through the end of March, with winemaker’s dinners scheduled later in spring.

• Philip Carter Winery, Hume. pcwinery.com Through the end of March, warm up with chili, soup and stew lunches at this winery nestled into the cattle and cropland just north of Hume.

• Slater Run, Upperville. slaterrun.com With soup night, take two, Slater Run offers seasonal soups and homebaked bread in the tasting room each Thursday. The family-run winery features estate wines including pinot gris, chardonnay, rose and cabernet franc, as well as two Bordeaux blends.

• Three Fox, Delaplane. threefoxvineyards.com There’s live music every weekend at this Italianthemed hillside winery overlooking downtown Delaplane and Goose Creek. A kite festival is planned March 30, an Easter egg roll on April 20 and National Superhero Weekend April 26-28.

Patrons will be sad to know the estate’s signature winery cat Jasmine (featured on their merlot label) died at age 22 earlier this year.

• If you don’t see your favorite winery’s special spring events listed, it’s only because dates were not released before inFauquier’s press deadline. Check vawineinmypocket.com or individual winery websites for updated calendar information. The website also includes local breweries, cideries and distilleries.

SPRING 2019

45

FOOD & WINE

Frankly speaking ...

Hot diggity dog – it’s hot dog season (and we’ve got your guide)

By Sandy Greeley

Franks. Frankfurters. Hot dogs.

Dawgs. Sausages. Weenies. Wieners. Brats. Whatever you want to call them, or wherever they developed, they’ve become a tasteful, allAmerican tradition.

No matter the name, the monikers refer to wrapped and rolled seasoned ground meat. Meat rolls have been on the menu, worldwide, for thousands of years. Sausages, fireroasted and dripping with fat, were mentioned in literature as early as 800 BCE in Homer’s Odyssey.

Frankfurt-au-Main, Germany has long been credited with creating the frankfurter, though other historians testify that a butcher in the German town of Coburg actually came up with the long meat treat – once called “dachshund – in the late 1600s.

The Viennese also lay claim, having dubbed the culinary creation a “wiener” from the word “Wien,” which is how Germans referred to Vienna.

Food historians may quibble about the origins of the hot dog, but they agree this simple staple was quickly adopted as a beloved American food in 1867 when a German baker opened a hot dog stand on New York’s Coney Island. This eventually became Nathan’s, when a Jewish immigrant from Poland started slicing rolls, filling them with the packed, rolled meat and delivering them to local laborers.

As the disputes go on about who, when and where the dog entered the American vernacular, foodies today can find them everywhere — from baseball games to food trucks to casual restaurants to the home table.

Consumption has even become a spectator sport: hot dog-eating contests draw eager viewers as a campfire game or a county fair tournament.

On July 4, Nathan’s holds a contest on Coney Island, and thousands gather to watch in person while millions tune their televisions to the spectacle.

Last summer, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut won his 11th championship, consum-

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But Chestnut’s mark pales in comparison to the 2012 mark set by Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi, who devoured 110 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Later that year at the Texas State Fair, he ate 60 dogs in 2 minutes, 35 seconds.

Browse your supermarket meat case to witness the dog’s popularity. There

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SPRING 2019

Oh, deer

HOME & GARDEN

Do your due diligence to keep the browsers from supping on your squash

Deflecting deer from the garden often seems like futility. They swiftly learn that “deer off” spray is more a suggestion than a decree.

The best defense against deer stealing flowers and vegetables out of your garden bed is to do your due diligence. To turn the browse-lines back into blossoms, paying attention is far more worthwhile than paying for overhyped products.

• Sprays and other pungent deterrents can be very effective, at first. Effectiveness quickly wanes as deer become accustomed to the new odor and learn there is no imminent danger associated with the smell.

Commercial sprays are expensive, especially considering a main ingredient in most is rotten eggs. Make your own mixture incorporating some actual rotten eggs – if you can stomach it – with essential oil. Choose your favorite scent because what humans like and what deer like are vastly different.

Make a few different batches, with different essential oils, to keep the deer from becoming used to a particular scent.

Add a dash of cayenne pepper to the mix and spray affected plants directly. Don’t be surprised to hear snorting deer when they get a whiff of cayenne before they clear out of your garden bed.

• The best deer preventative is a dog, preferably one able to back up a big bark with a big chase.

PHOTO BY SAWYER GUINN

Deer in the garden can be a delight – if, like in this photo, they keep to cropping the grass, or a nightmare -- if they get a taste for vegetables or delicate ornamentals. Discouraging them can be tricky.

Not everyone with a garden can let a hound loose in their yard, but even taking your dog for “walks” around your garden and yard perimeter can be effective. Dog smells, including males marking their property boundaries and waste, deter deer from even entering.

Make time for sunrise and sunset strolls through the garden – the times of heightened deer activity, especially when seedlings are first planted, and when vegetables are flowering. This will disrupt the deer patterns.

Don’t have your own dog? Invite a neighbor to patrol your garden border with their dog.

• Dangle aluminum cans, paper plates, tin foil or pie pans around the garden plot, the shinier and noisier the better.

• String a perimeter of fishing line around special or prized plants, because running into something they can’t see really agitates and befuddles even the hungriest of deer. Make sure to warn family members of the hidden danger, and make sure it is strung higher than pet level.

• If all else fails, bow season in Fauquier opens in early October, and regular firearm season opens statewide the second Saturday of November.

– By Sawyer Guinn

Safely pairing pets and plants in the garden Make the correct choices for all involved

Tips for a petsafe garden

By Sally Harmon Semple

Deadly nightshade, dogbane and devil’s snare: They even sound poisonous. The names alone are menacing enough to deter a gardener from planting these within pets’ reach.

But what of foxglove, mayapple and poet’s daffodil? They may sound sweet, but they’re just as deadly to dogs and cats, something gardeners, home owners and pet owners need to know.

Plant toxicity can vary depending on plant part, plant location, time of year and the type of animal, as well as the individual pet. Just because your neighbor’s dog or cat had no problem nibbling a particular plant does not mean that yours will fare the same.

True lilies and daylilies in the genera Lilium and Hemerocallis contain a compound that causes kidney failure in cats. Tiger, Day, Stella D’Oro, Asiatic, Easter, Japanese Show and Oriental lilies are among the most dangerous. No part of these lilies, not the pollen nor even the vase water, is considered safe for cats.

Another lily with nasty toxins is autumn crocus, Colchicum autumnale. Aptly named for its fall blooming habit, it is distinguished from the pop-

PHOTO BY CAROLE FERRELL

“Daisy” rests among Solomon’s seal, azaleas and hellebore in her owner’s garden. ular spring crocus, Crocus vernus, by bloom time and the size of its leaves. All parts of autumn crocus are poisonous, with the greatest concentration of toxins in flowers and seeds.

Even garden favorite lily-of-the-valley is a pet threat, with cardiac glycosides that cause a scary range of symptoms from weakness, vomiting, abnormal heartbeat to seizures.

Rhododendrons and azaleas are bad news for pets as well as horses. All parts of the plant are

• No lilies for cats • No grapes for dogs • Keep unplanted bulbs out of reach • Learn which weeds and garden plants are toxic • Locate highly toxic plants in a pet-free zone • Keep pets away from all mushrooms • Keep fertilizers and pesticides out of reach poisonousplants. ansci.cornell.edu

toxic, but leaves contain the most toxin.

Spring blooming daffodils, tulips and hyacinths contain toxins that trigger digestive problems. Eating large quantities of these plants, particularly the bulbs where toxins are concentrated, can affect heart rate and breathing.

Pets typically won’t eat poisonous plants because of their bitter taste, but make sure to call your vet if you see your pet nibble on one of these known toxins.

SPRING 2019

47

HOME & GARDEN

From the lowliest of sources, gardens flourish

Compost experiment yields impressive results

Plan your own pile

This is the perfect time to start prepping for spring and summer planting.

1. Procure your manure: a big pile, a little pile, a trough, a large bucket, whatever. Make sure the compost is at least six months old by harvest. This means you can actually plant in compost after it has aged for three months: After another three more months of growing time, the compost is “done,” and produce will be safe to eat. Personally, I like to let it age for a year, since I have the benefit of time.

2. Plant seeds or seedlings directly in the manure 3. Water as necessary 4. Harvest regularly to encourage higher production

Now is the perfect time to prep and plan for the 2019 gardening season. Follow this step-by-step design for the easiest – and most productive – vegetable patch ever.

By Pam Brunger

Resourceful gardeners are accustomed to making use of available resources.

And compost is at the top of the heap.

Many espouse the magical properties of llama manure, alpaca manure and chicken litter. I don’t happen to have any of that, but what I do have is horse manure, and a lot of it.

Composted horse manure is a major component of the soil in my small, raised-bed vegetable garden. I have 12 four-foot by eight-foot raised beds, five of which are devoted to asparagus and berries.

I have seven left for annual vegetables.

Like many gardeners with an abundance of a particular resource, I decided to experiment, last season planting directly into a composted manure heap provided by the relentless production of my three horses.

The results were stunning.

PHOTO BY PAM BRUNGER

A flourishing squash patch was nourished with nothing but rich, composted manure, one of a gardener’s best ways to up-cycle for a huge vegetable crop.

I planted one zucchini, one yellow squash, one cucumber, one cantaloupe, one watermelon, three tomatoes and two butternut squash seeds directly into the rounded pile, with no other additives. I ran a hose from the barn and added a soaker hose, which I placed between the seedlings.

The squash seedlings did a happy dance immediately, producing early and prolifically. The cucumber, muskmelon and watermelon seedlings were a bit more measured in their initial reaction, but the vines eventually took off with abandon.

The tomatoes were not happy at first – I didn’t think they would survive, but after a few weeks,

Do you know what the most frighteningthing intheworldis?

they started growing like crazy and produced so many flowers they looked like flowering annuals.

The butternut squash vines explored every nook and cranny and managed to entangle themselves around all the other plants.

The squash bugs moved into the neighborhood in late summer, and while the zucchini and yellow squash plants displayed great resolve in standing up to the little bullies, they succumbed by the end of August. They have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of though, having already produced far more than I could have anticipated in the early harvest. The butternut, on the other hand, lost the war with the squash bugs.

The cucumber vine was very productive, as were the watermelon and cantaloupe.

By the end of August, I harvested 156 pounds of produce, and I declared the simplistic, compost experiment a success.

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Your pet rocks!

When a pet isn’t a pet, there’s no fear of breaking your rental rules Pets provide mental and physical health benefits to owners – science has recently even proven that stroking an animal lowers blood pressure, steadies the heart rate, calms the nerves and adds a sense of nurture.

But not everybody wants the responsibility of having a living, breathing animal with its own set of needs. And many apartments and condos won’t let you have an animal, even if you want one.

Enter the non-pet pets.

They look like pets, act like pets and might even be “alive” in some sense of the word.

But they’re decidedly not pets.

Over the last 40 years, dozens of non-pet pets have been invented to foster companionship and caregivng with not a bit of pooping or scooping.

• The Tamagotchi is a hand-held digital pet with scheduled feed and play times.

• Mechanical baby chicks – Hatchlings – have egg shells that break open to “hatch” your clutch of baby birds.

• The Chia Pet is alive but has simple tastes. Start with your choice of animal-shaped terracotta figurine, smear the porous critter with an included packet of chia seeds, water, then stand back and watch your pet come to life. With a coat of green fur in the form of chia sprouts, Chia Pets are typically given names and can be combed and groomed, but other than water and sunlight, they’re famously low maintenance.

• The latest generation of non-pet pets includes a startling array of artificially intelligent critters. In the shape of traditional domestic pet animals – dogs, cats, birds – these life-like mini-robots are programmed with behaviors and movements to emulate the animal they represent. Dogs bark and wag their tails, cats come with attitude.

Garden critters

Bonnie Ferris’ late husband, Dan, created a fanciful series of non-pet pets in the couple’s wooded yard south of Marshall. It was mostly done to amuse her, Bonnie recalls, faces carved in the bark of mature trees at eye-level. “They’re still here,” Bonnie says, recalling the living legacy Dan left behind.

On the patio and porch, she’s since added an assortment of garden gnomes and gargoyles she knows he would have liked. She dresses them with funny hats for each changing season.

“It’s fun,” she adds, noting while she usually has an actual pet – a cat or two, and sometimes a dog, she appreciates the low-maintenance care schedule of her quiet stone creatures.

The stone gargoyles hearken to a 1970s fad 50

SPRING 2019

The Last Word

BY ALISSA JONES

– the Pet Rock, something that makes regular comebacks into pop culture. Sold in a cardboard “carrier” with breathing holes and nestled in a straw nest, a Pet Rock can be painted with a simple or detailed design but come with, literally, no care requirements. As Bonnie calls her personal rock pets: “They’re pretty perfect.

“Individually they kind of take on a life of their own. Some bring a spark of whimsical life into the garden. Others remind me of garden protectors, silent but watchful.

“It’s fun to observe how excited children get when they see the statuary, sometimes they even give them names. I guess this kind of fanciful imagination brings out the inner child in us.”

PHOTOS BY BONNIE FERRIS

A stone gargoyle or a tree creature could easily stand in as a pet for those without time or energy – or the rental flexibility – for a living animal.

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SPRING 2019

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Garages

All Made in the USA by skilled Amish craftsmen

Sheds & Studios

2122 N. Frederick Pike Winchester, VA

5451 Old Alexandria Tnpke Warrenton, VA

Furniture

1348 E. Market Street Leesburg, VA

Route 28 & Meetze Rd Midland, VA

540-667-5689 540-341-7883 703-687-4303 540-341-7883

thisnthatamishoutlet.com

Financing and rent to own is available on most building structures. Gift Certificates & Layaway Available.

15 year warranty on most structures. Restrictions apply.

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SPRING 2019