The Curious Case of the Lost Keys

Although it may have been the first official day of fall, sunny and 23oC certainly didn't feel fall-like. With the knowledge that cooler weather is imminent, I decided to take the dogs to the beach for a walk/swim and try to get the most out of this beautiful day. It was just after high tide, which in my opinion is the best time to go to the beach so that the water is deep enough for the dogs to swim.

 



When we arrived at the beach, it occurred to me that I was not wearing clothing with pockets so I had no where to put my car keys. I decided to clip my car keys onto one of the dogs leashes which were hanging across my shoulders. As per usual, Riker found a stick and insisted that I throw it for him to retrieve. The surf today was higher than usual, probably 2-2.5 ft swells in some places, but that didn't stop Riker from getting in the water.

We had walked about a quarter of the way down the beach when I suddenly experienced time in slow motion. I was throwing the stick with my right hand and just happened to clip the leashes which were hanging from my right shoulder. Somehow, in this split-second collision, the car keys were dislodged from the leash and were sent on an arcing trajectory towards the ocean surf. Two words passed through my mind: "OH FUCK!" as I watched gravity take over, drawing my keys down towards the surface of the water. With a tiny splash, they were gone. Riker simply continued into the water to retrieve the stick, if only he could retrieve my keys!

When something like this happens, your mind is spinning trying to come up with solutions and my mind was no exception. My first thought was: "Well, at least I have a spare set at home" until I realized that ALL my keys to AquaBounty were also on the key chain. So what was my second thought you ask? Well, I decided to go in after those keys.

I started to walk towards the water and paused, was this really worth it? What were the chances of me actually rescuing my keys? With every moment I debated, with every wave cycle, I knew that those keys were being sucked out farther and farther from where they first entered the water. I made a decision, I took a quick look around and found that there was only one other person out on the beach and they were walking away from my location nearing the far end of the beach. So, I removed my hiking boots and socks, took off my ball cap and sunglasses, stripped down to my underwear and in the water I went. By the way, the air temperature may have been 23oC, but the water temperature was certainly more frigid!

The frigid water alone was enough to make me consider giving up, but the rough surf made it near impossible to see anything. After a few minutes of searching, I thought that my keys were gone. But out of the corner of my eye, I caught the glimpse of something brilliantly white on the ocean floor just before the next wave came crashing down. I waded over and thrust my hands downwards to the sand and came up with my keys! Thanks to my father for that one! My father bought me a roadside assistance plan for my birthday and gave me a white key tag two days ago with the emergency phone number on it. If it were not for that white key tag, I likely would have never seen my keys again.

I triumphantly got out of the water with my keys in hand. I was extremely happy that not only did I not lose the keys to the office, but I now was also holding the keys to my car. It is not a long walk back to the apartment, maybe 4 km from the beach (8 km round trip), but I was happy that I would not have to make the trek to get my spare key. That is until, I realized that I have a new car. And new cars do not have locking mechanisms on the exterior of the car doors. Nope, after being submerged in salt water for about 3 or 4 minutes, I had to hope that the electronic door lock was still functional if I had any hope of getting into my car.

Frustrated, I looked around the beach again and contemplated my options. If my electronic key fob didn't work, I could either start walking back to the apartment or call someone for help. Damn it! I left the cell phone in the car too! As the realization that I may have a long walk ahead of me began to sink in, I noticed that the only other person on the beach was walking with two dogs, beagles to be specific. This could only mean one thing, that I knew this person and therefore help was only a short walk away!

After trying to dry off enough with my socks to put my clothes back on, the dogs and I walked down the beach to catch up. I explained my predicament and after a laugh about my luck, we headed back to my car to test the electronics. Thankfully, I now had someone who could offer me a ride to the apartment if the electronic door lock was busted. When I got back to my car, I tried the fob three times before it finally worked and unlocked the doors, but I wasn't going to complain. My doors were unlocked and I had the keys to AquaBounty, all was good. I drove home and my key fob is presently sitting in a bag of rice. If it cannot be salvaged, at least I have a back up!            

"Haters gonna Hate!"

If there is one thing that seems to be a constant, it's that there will always be people who do not like dogs - and I always seem to find them. I have two Labrador retrievers who need a great deal of exercise. Additionally, Labs have been bred to love the water and to have a strong retrieving instinct.

Since our dogs have joined me on Prince Edward Island, they have loved spending time at the local beach. Just on the other side of the river from where I live, there is a fantastic, private beach about 1 km from end to end. There are two access points to this beach, one at the Eastern end of the beach where it meets the harbor and the other is located a mere 200 m west of the harbor.

Since it has been tourist season, I have worked hard to be a responsible pet owner and have limited my time at the beach to between 6-8 am and 7-9 pm. Now that the tourists have left and the cottagers have closed up for the season, I have been enjoying the beach with the dogs after work. Normally, the dogs and I are the only ones on the beach during this time. On a few occasions however, there has been a couple who appear to be in their late 60s who have also been enjoying the beach during my evening walks. When I have seen this couple before, I have made sure to give them plenty of space and stayed at least 200m or more away from them.

This trip to the beach was different. This time when I arrived at the beach, I found that the couple was walking East on the beach towards the harbor where I was playing with the dogs. I gave them a quick look and assumed (correctly) that they would be departing using the other access point. As such, I decided to remain where I was so as not to disturb their walk with two boisterous dogs.

As I stood in the tidal zone throwing sticks for our to Labs to retrieve from the waves, I noticed that the couple walked past the additional beach access and continued walking towards me. Based on this behavior, I assumed (incorrectly) that they were not bothered by dogs, because hey, why else would they knowingly put themselves in a position that would make them uncomfortable?

I directly my attention towards Riker and Bones once again as a threw two more sticks. Just as the boys were swimming out to retrieve these sticks, I was startled by a noise directly behind me. It was screaming, loud, high-pitched screaming. I turn around immediately to find a woman screaming, squealing, jumping and waving her arms. She was saying, "I'm deathly terrified of dogs, oh my god, oh my god, TERRIFIED!"

Now I am no expert in canine behavior, but I am pretty sure that rapid movements coupled with loud noises draw the attention of the average canine. At least, that is exactly what happened with Riker and Bones. One minute they are super focused on retrieving the stick I threw in the water and the next, they are bounding quickly back to shore to meet this new arrival.

Although energetic, our dogs are not horrible when it comes to listening to commands. So I yelled to get their attention, told them to sit and they did just that. Meanwhile, I am getting an earful from this woman who is still jumping and screaming that she is "terrified of dogs".

I tried to be as polite as possible when I told her that I understand and respect her fear of dogs but I wanted to let her know that our dogs have no malicious intent. This statement was criticized to the point of lunacy (in my opinion). The woman responded with "What do you mean no malicious intent? They were coming right for me, they were going to attack!"

Again, I tried to reassure her that Riker and Bones are not aggressive dogs and that they simply cannot understand that  some people do not want to meet them. I was just about to leave it at that and walk away when the woman replied "You and your filthy dogs should be on a leash! You shouldn't be allowed out in public with monsters!" And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the point where you could say that I lost my shit!

Still keeping my voice calm and even, I said to the woman, "Just a word of advice for the future whether you meet my dogs again or any other - If you feel uncomfortable in the presence of dogs, then the best thing to do would be avoidance and to be discrete. When you squeal and wave your hands in the presence dogs, this tells them that you want to play. So in the future, you may want to just quietly keep walking. If you had done that today, my dogs would have ignored you and kept chasing their stick."

My suggestions did not seem to sit well with her. I was then scolded for suggesting that she should change her behavior to accommodate my "filthy monsters" and that the beach was no place for dogs. That she was entitled to walk the full length of the beach when she wanted to and that she should not have to alter her walk just because I was there with my dogs. Apparently, I should have left my dogs at home for her safety. She even threatened to call the police to deal with me.

I finally looked at her and said, "Ma'am, you made the decision to walk to this end of the beach and you made the decision to draw attention to yourself with your behavior. My dogs have done nothing but sit here by my side and look at you. So I am sorry that you are uncomfortable around dogs but this could have been avoided if you had made different choices. I live here and I am just as entitled to use this beach as you are." With that, I turned and began walking away with Riker and Bones only to hear her reply, "Well, you are just a saucy little bitch, aren't you?!".

Yes, saucy little bitch indeed. How dare I walk on the beach. Thankfully, this has been the only negative experience I have encountered since moving to PEI. Prior to this event, I have only met friendly, dog loving people or those who simply do not show interest and are therefore not interesting to my Labs! So I am pretty confident that this couple was not local, I believe that they are - as the locals say - "on Island from away"!  

Baptism by Fire

I should have know by the way my day began that the best course of action would have been to roll over and go back to sleep. Every Saturday I wake up early to drive into Charlottetown to go to the gym and then hit up the farmers market. Considering the fact that I must drive 45 minutes just  to get to Charlottetown, I am ridiculously meticulous about my weekend planning. Each Friday night, I pack multiple bags for my various activities, usually a bag for CrossFit, a bag for wrestling practice and a bag of shower supplies and clean clothes (because when you live 45 minutes away, you MUST be prepared for everything!).

This weekend was no different except for the fact that my alarm did not go off. Today, I woke to the sounds of whining dogs at my bedroom door. In my semi-conscious state, I wondered why the dogs were up so early considering my 6:45 am alarm had not yet gone off. As I lay in bed for a few minutes trying to will the dogs back to sleep, I realized that it was brighter in my bedroom than it should be for 6 something in the morning. I opened my eyes and grabbed my cell phone (which I also use as an alarm clock) only to find that the battery is dead! I then stumble out of bed into then kitchen and check the time on the microwave only to find that it is 7:22 am. If I want to make it on time for my 8:30 am CrossFit class, I had to be out the door in 10 minutes! I will not lie, it did cross my mind to say "Aww, screw it! Go back to bed!" but I just couldn't do it. So I raced around the house, grabbing my things as I fed the dogs and prepped my post-workout protein shake.

I headed out the door at 7:34, jumped in my car and drove down to the gate, only to find that the last people who had been in the building the night before had locked the gate! This is a highly unusual circumstance as most of my colleagues leave the gate unlocked if they see my car in the parking lot. Instead of throwing open the gate, I had to race back to my car to grab my keys. When I arrived at the gate for the second time, I realized not only was the gate locked, but that I was locked IN!! The lock had been applied from the outside, so here I am trying to force my hand through the bars to reach the lock from the other side! And wouldn't you know it, I ended up dropping my keys so I had to get down on the ground and try to reach under the gate to reach the bastards! Right there, I should have said, "Nope, this just isn't going to happen today" and head back to bed. But no, I am too stubborn for that. I finally managed to reach my keys and get the gate open. Feeling relieved and only 6 minutes behind schedule, I got in my car and began my drive to Charlottetown.

Half way between St. Peter's Bay and Morell, I heard a loud "DING" noise come from my car. When I looked down at the dash I realized that was the sound of my gas light coming on. I slept in, I was behind schedule and now I have to stop for gas! I decided to stop for gas in Morell simply because this gas station looked relatively new so I assumed that I could pay at the pump to save time. FAIL! When I pulled up to the pumps, there was a sign to greet me which read: "Pay at the pump out of order. Please see attendant inside". Great ...... I filled my car and went inside to pay. Luckily, there was only one person in line ahead of me. However, that one person decided to check all of his lottery tickets from what appeared to be the last 6 months just as I was hoping to pay and be on my way. When I finally retunred to my car, I found that I was now 12 minutes behind schedule.  Although it seemed as though the universe was against me this morning, I made it into Charlottetown, late for my CrossFit class. But I managed to get through a pretty grueling workout regardless.    

Although I have been living at the AquaBounty apartment for a few months, because the husbandry staff has been ridiculously busy. I still have not completed all of the "on-call" training. In particular, one of the things which I have not yet been trained to do is how to deal with low oxygen alarms. Now in theory, is should not be hard. The alarm goes off, you figure out what tank it is and go downstairs to turn the oxygen up. First I hear the low oxygen alarm goes off on the panel in the lab and then I hear the phone ring. Between the high pitched squeal of the alarm and the ringing of the phone, I do not notice that the motion sensor has detected my movement and has triggered the count down on the security alarm. So I inadvertently set off the intrusion alarm (off to a good start!).

One of my colleagues who had just left the building then called to see if I could go downstairs to check on the tank in question. He gave me all the details regarding how to adjust the incoming oxygen but sadly, at this point I didn't even know the code to get me in the door to the grow out area where the broodstock are kept! After failing multiple times at trying to unlock the door, what do I do? I decide that it is a good idea to scale the wall, which apparently now is my MO.

I successfully made it into the grow out area without falling and cracking my skull on the cement floor. However, a low oxygen alarm which should have been an easy fix, turned into a 4 hour adventure with a couple of colleagues through the plumbing of AquaBounty's fish tanks! If nothing else, I have learned a great deal about the operation of the tank system from this experience. But I really need to stop getting locked out of places at work because I cannot afford to have another fence-related injury!