Things To Do When Not Doing Agility #83

SUMMARY: Go to the garden center.

Having large, active dogs and a not very big yard don't mix well with having lush gardens like we used to like having before we had, like, large, active agility dogs and most of the yard cleared so we could have large, immovable objects like Aframes and dogwalks ensconced. So any pretty kinds of plants that we want (vs. large shrubs that can handle themselves in a scrap with an agility dog) go into pots, not beds.




Taj MuttHall especially likes hanging plants because they are mostly out of the way of the Squirrel Patrol. But inexpensive plastic planters, after they've been hit enough times by flying Jolly Balls or flailing agility handlers practicing their moves, plus being too busy to actually water the pots, makes them start to look less than optimal.


Plus the big houseplant that's eating the desk needs a bigger pot, since no one is eating his roots any more.
So off we go to the garden center. Now, the dogs don't go into the garden center, but they inspire me in terms of not buying delicate plants that won't last more than one direct hit of the Jolly Ball. What a surprise to be greeted at the garden center with a sign for dog food! Apparently gardens and dogs DO go together.


In fact, there is an actual genuine dog department here in the garden center with toys and leashes and beds and clothing for dogs who don't like to be completely in the buff when out in the garden, and like that.


If you're light on actual dogs, you can even buy your own, complete with breed-appropriate accoutrements, if you like them on the stony side.

Uzza wuzza wuzza, how could you almost not take those faces home with you?


If you want to know what your setter or maybe springer spaniel looks like surrounded by hummingbird feeders, this is pretty much it.


I note that there are no CAT sections in the garden store. Cats are not really friends to gardens. Obviously Mr. Garden Center knows that. Too bad for you, cats. But if your agility dog selection isn't sufficient to make your garden feel occupied, you can purchase a wide variety of additional occupants.


But, OK, on to the pots. Wow. I love looking at pots. Wonderful colors.


Today, though, we are looking for indoor pots. OK, not quite as bright, but still catches the eye.


We make our selection (a couple of the bluish ones) and start to head out towards the flowers. But look who has come in to the garden center to decide on her next stage of exterior decor: Daisy! Daisy is very busy examining everything in the store, too busy to have her picture taken by paparazzi who admire her little wire-haired dachshund eyebrows.


Fortunately, Daisy brought along Bob and Pam--apparently the chauffeur and the gardener--and they positioned her on a convenient table for some portraiture with a cheap snapshot camera that likes taking photos of pots, which hold still, but not of actual animated beings. (The SLR camera is too snobby to go to a mere garden center with me; it consents only to go along to actual, say, actual conservatories, where it can take artsy photos.)
Then daisy moves along--thanks, Daisy!--and we do, too, to the actual plantage area--and wow again, Taj MuttHall always has trouble deciding from among all those alluring colors. Easier pick: Which ones will die the slowest?

We had hoped that, since our lawn needs mowing again already, there might be some spring/summer plants. But no, it's still winter annuals. Which we decide is OK. But how come I'm all of a sudden craving coconut sorbet? Weird. Huh.

We pick from among the violas and the primrose and head home to throw the Jolly Ball for our own dogs into a pot or two of daffodils or maybe hyacinths.

And maybe someday soon I'll post something about agility again.

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Things To Do When Not Doing Agility #27

SUMMARY: Trimming Shrubbery

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The Domestic Agility Mom

SUMMARY: In which we learn why it's a bad idea for dogs to play tug of war on your bed on which your bed linens also reside. We then focus on our household trimming and ironing skills.

Tika loves to heave large fabricky things (OK, how do you turn "fabric" into an adjective anyway?) around. I gave up trying to get her to stop heaving my comforter around, and instead got her her very own huge dog-type throw that she does. Throw, that is. Every morning. Sometimes she and Boost play a little tug of war with it.

As dogs are not known for their fine grasp (so to speak) of fabric qualities, sometimes apparently they still accidentally confuse my flannel duvet cover with the big furry upholstered dog throw, as Taj MuttHall discovered the other morning after exiting the shower.

Taj MuttHall just bought these sheets a few months ago and is not going to throw them out. No. We are going to repair the rends. Which requires an emergency visit to the once-ubiquitous-but-now-nearly-extinct fabric store. We benefit from our vague cultural memory that, in this colossus of a warehouse store, we need to look for "Notions." Sometimes that's a great idea. (ha ha? That's your obscure Ken Kesey reference for the morning.)

Found Notions. Found iron-on fabric. Not nearly the selection TMH remembers from our youth, shopping in the cave'o'fabric near where the deer and the mastodons play. But bits of white in the multicolored package. No idea what TMH will ever do with navy blue, black, and deep burgundy iron on fabric, but that's what one gets.

Then one trims them to size, and rounds the corners per instructions. Kitchen shears won't do this. Fortunately I still have my old fabric shears from when--in our pre-TMH days--we occasionally wanted to shear fabric. Now they're in our desk drawer for emergency shearing of printer paper or the occasional carpet snag resulting from dog teeth operating in the incorrect place.


The other handy tool for using iron-on fabric is an actual iron. Remember irons? Mine is practically new because I've only used it twice since I got it when I first moved out on my own a couple of years ago. Or was it 1977? I lose track of these details¹.



The instructions also say WARNING! Wash fabric before applying patches! But if you wash it, you know that the frayed edges will fray beyond your wildest nightmares (if you have nightmares about fraying fabric). So what are a few dog hairs among iron-on friends? Now you have to line up the edges to prepare for ironage. This is not so easy as one might suppose, with the stretchable fabric having been stretched a bit during its ordeal. Dang stripes--how can all of them line up except one?


Line up the patches right next to each other so that there are no gaps at all. (You had to use several pieces because the fabric wasn't large enough to do in one full sheet. Don't you like it how I know what you are doing and why?) Now, with the iron plenty preheated to Cotton setting, even though you believe that the sheets aren't exactly completely cotton, you're just following directions, you press for 30 seconds, moving the iron back and forth per instructions.

Learning opportunity #1: when you move the iron back and forth, the tightly aligned patches don't apparently stay that way.
Learning opportunity #2: What's that brown, iron-shaped patch of color that just appeared on my sheet? It'll wash out, won't it?
Won't it?

---

¹(I also lose track of whether we're writing in the first person singular about me the person or third person singular, whether we at TMH are actually singular or plural, whether you're addressing your audience directly, or whether one is referring in general to some third-person entity not directly emotionally involved.)

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In Limbo

SUMMARY: Not much agility training.

It's weird, trying to give Boost a break from doing agility training (meaning seqences or obstacle performance in the yard). Makes me disinclined to practice with Tika, as well. And no classes for a while, since I'm taking a break while working on Boost's possible physical issues.

Just weird.

But my month off from competition ends soon. One more weekend off, then it's two weekends in March of CPE, from which I scratched Boost but left Tika in.

And the premiums are pouring in for USDAA trials coming up. Not sure whether to try to find pairs or team partners for Boost for any of them. If I wait too long, everyone's booked and I have to ask for a draw partner. Which I do sometimes anyway. But it's nice to team with people you know. And because I'm not filling out the entries for Boost, I feel disinclined to fill them out for Tika, either.

Meanwhile, last night we did a brisk 5-or-6-mile hike (2 hours anyway) with the Sierra Club group again, just through the sidewalks around Stanford. Wore shoes that I don't usually wear because I didn't put my light hiking boots back into the van after emptying it while it was at the body shop, and the bottoms of my heels have distinct sore spots this morning. Funny that I can walk a couple of miles in those shoes with no problem, but not 2 to 3 times as much.

Ah, me.

Life is soooooo hard.

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Dog Dreams, Boost Balance, and Just Tika

SUMMARY: Where my mind goes at night, and what we're doing during the day.

Last night was a night for dreaming about dogs. I dreamed that we were at a picnic at the beach, sitting at a weathered gray picnic table on a rocky crag (which is what surrounds a lot of beaches here on the west coast). It was very cold; we were wearing winter clothing. And Mom mentioned that she had seen Sam recently.

Well, Sam was our old family dog. She came home with us when I was in 5th grade. I hadn't seen her around in a long time. So I was a little excited. I got up from the picnic table and called "Sam!", and there she came, up from the beach onto the rocks to see what we were up to. And she was kind of old and needed her back rubbed, so I massaged her back and neck really good, and she stood there taking it all in on a gray and almost foggy coastal winter day. And I thought, wow, I regret not having done more of this her whole life.

But then Remington, lying on a blanket in a little cozy indentation where the sand met the craggy rocks, snarled at Sam, and Sam thought better of being there, and trotted away again. And I think I knew that Remington was ill or he wouldn't have been so ill-mannered, but he was happy when I came over to him.

Then, much much later in the night, I'm sure, we were going to set up a barbecue out on a grassy island in the stream. It was very cold; we were wearing our winter clothing. (I'm catching a theme here: winter and picnics and water. Perhaps I was cold and hungry and water? In the middle of the night under my dry and toasty warm down comforter?) This time it was my ex and my mother-in-law.

And I was trying to figure out which shoes to wear to get through the river without getting my feet wet. Decided that my agility shoes wouldn't work, and probably not my hiking boots. And I have these old giant rubber boots that my ex gave me years ago for wearing on wet agility mornings, and they've been sitting out on the porch and when I looked at them last month they're all cracked so probably not waterproof (this isn't in the dream; this is real). So in the dream, I pull them out of the truck and almost wore them, but then decided that since the water was going to be up to my waist that it was pointless, so just waded in.

But as I was wading in, an incompetent frisbee-thrower (and I don't know who that was) somehow ended up losing BOTH of my frisbees from the back of the van into the really rapidly flowing middle of the river, and right downstream there was a sharp drop where the water really rushed through, big whitewater thing, and I started to race down the bank to catch up with them, but then Boost leaped in and was caught in the flow and disappeared downstream much faster than I could get through the thick woods.

So we went downstream, wading the whole way, for miles, looking for Boost, even though my sister kept asking me to look for chrysanthemums for her wedding (apparently they spring up in the river if you look closely enough), and I said I wasn't looking for anything until I found Boost, and I was so scared because she hates being in the water and it was so cold. But finally I found the 2 frisbees sitting on the bank, neatly placed there, and I kept looking around, and sure enough, there was Boost, half curled up, exhausted, in the grass on the riverbank, so beaten that she couldn't even lift her head, but the tip of her tail wagged and I was so glad to find her alive.

I know you wanted to know all that.

So we move on.

The vet/masseuse I mentioned in A Break for Boost and More About Boost OKed listing her name: Cindy DiFranco. She's based in Arizona but gets around a lot in California.

Boost and Tika have been working on their balance and coordination exercises.

Backing up stairs: Boost always wants to start by first putting a front foot up one step and to the side, so that she's going up almost sideways. Although a dog who goes up the stairs sideways might be entertaining, I work each time on getting her to start straight back. This is a long-time thing, and I just haven't worked on it conscientiously until now. Tika does very well going backwards up the stairs and always has.

I pumped more air into my 25" exercise ball so it's much firmer, so the dogs are finding it easier to stand on. Tika seems so huge even on that big ball! At the moment, because she started doing it automatically, she's got her hind feet on the ground and walks forward, rolling the ball under her front feet. She's getting it pretty quickly, although she'll often just let it roll away from her so that she can lean her chest on it so it doesn't move. Pretty clever. But I also get her to stand on it in a stationary position.

Boost once again showed how she watches and learns; when I first had Tika on the ball after our session with Cindy, giving her rewards for it, then bought Boost over, Boost immediately leaped up onto the ball. I have had them on the ball from time to time in the past, but not very much; not enough that I'd expect that from Boost if she hadn't seen Tika getting amply rewarded for it. She wants to sit right away on the ball (I'm supporting it so it doesn't move), which is pretty funny. Since she wanted to go up on top right away, I let her get her balance, reward, and let her off a few times in a row. Then I move the ball backwards just a little (so she has to move her feet forward to keep her balance).

I think she'll get this pretty quickly, although a solid ball or keg or such would be easier than the flexi ball--but the latter is better for balance and using the related muscles.

Different from agility.

I haven't gotten the boxes out in a couple of weeks (progressively smaller boxes for them to stand in). Boost is better at smaller boxes. It is funny because I don't think their body lengths are much different; just Tika is 3" taller. Hmm, will have to measure shoulder to hip to know for sure.

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Plastic Surgery and a Trim, with Flowers

SUMMARY: My van is back, sans big dents, and I just mowed the lawn for the first time in 2009.

Yay van! It was supposed to be another week, but somehow they got it done yesterday. So both the year-old dent in the driver door (not my fault) and the big boo-boo in the rear (officially not my fault) are fixed! And along with the latter, some little issues from leaving the rear door (ooh--sorry--I called it "rear door" at the repair shop and they said, "the hatch?" Gotta get my automotive technicalese down) accidentally open while opening the garage door. Not a good fit.

I promise NEVER to do that again!

Meanwhile, the back grassage had started to look just a wee bit raggedy, meaning that it has started growing again!
Yes, spring has sprung!
The grass has ris!
And where the heck the flowers is?
They say the bird is on the wing.
Now, isn't that a funny thing?
I always thought the wing was on the bird!
      -anonymous (really; i'm not just saying that to protect myself)

BEFORE mowing:

It takes so long to mow this scraggly patch! Mow 10 feet, stop, throw toy. Mow 10 feet, stop, throw toy. AFTER mowing (big difference, hanh?)

And meanwhile, back in the rest of the yard--

Mr. Dinosaur (who doesn't quite qualify as a dragon but he's so cute who cares) meets Mr. Daffodil:

Close up and daffodilly personal:
Orange primrose:
Blue primrose:
Daffodils standing so straight in a row:




Not daffodils:

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Best News On Food Labeling

SUMMARY: Completely unrelated to dogs, but I think that the "Nuval" (Overall Nutritional Value Index) is the best nutritional aid to come along in a long time.

Nuval rates every food on a scale from 1 to 100 for its nutritional value. Developed at Yale, it's based on a variety of nutrients, grains, vitamins, sugar, salt, impact on blood pressure, and a bunch of other things. I first read about it in a brief article in the Sept 2008 National Geographic.

Think how handy it would be to compare an orange at 100 or a tangerines at 93 with canned sweetened mandarin oranges (haven't found a score for them yet, but I'm betting it's quite a bit lower). Or to compare your Wheatena at 91 with Wheaties at 28. Or Captain Crunch at 10. (Not that I'm admitting to eating it regularly.)

Sure, some of this you could kind of guess on your own. But this really makes it easy to compare. They're trying to get grocery stores everywhere to use it. I would love to see this implemented.

You can read scores for quite a few things already at nuval.com.

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Favorite Dog Lyrics Part 6

SUMMARY: From KTMH (K-TajMuttHall), only the finest in foolish repurposed dog lyrics.

Who's featured today. [yeah yeah repeat after me: Guess Who's featured next time.]

Lyrics spring up spontaneously whilst laving post-muddy-yard-play dog feets.

Well, who's muddy? (Who's muddy? Who, who, who, who?)
I gotta take a seat (Who's filthy? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who's muddy? (Who's dirty? Who, who, who, who?)
'Cause I gotta wipe your feet (You're muddy! You, you, you, you!)

Original lyrics here.

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More About Boost

SUMMARY: Orthopedist appointment in 3 weeks; pelvis comments.

I've set up an appointment for x-rays and exam with an orthopedist for Boost in 3 weeks--first appointment that's available. It's about a 90 minute drive one way. I am so not looking forward to 3 hours of the dogs in the car, resting and storing up energy, while I'm tiring myself out, driving. But I sure think it'll be worth it.

Meanwhile, I forgot to mention that the vet/masseuse also commented that Boost's pelvis is a little flat and a little short. She said that what this means is that she might be less "scopey"--the scope of what she can quickly and easily adjust to might be less than dogs with a differently shaped pelvis. It's not an insurmountable issue. Just might take more or different training. Which was an interesting observation.

Who ever thought, back in 1995 when I started going to class for something to do with my dog one night a week, that I'd ever think about anything like this?

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A Break for Boost

SUMMARY: Taking Boost out of agility for a while.

I've commented here about Boost's bar knocking, about my lack of success with bar-knocking drills (which actually work well with Tika), and about some of the spectacular all bars down, all the time runs in class lately.

The next step is to evaluate Boost's physical status. Yesterday, I took her up to Power Paws for a massage and evaluation with a well-regarded DVM/masseuse who specializes in performance dogs (got tired of dealing with "overweight, out of shape pet dogs and their owners") and who participates in agility herself. Boost took a while to relax (one reason I don't do a lot of stretching and rubbing with her--she's not much into being touched, although she puts up with it, and never relaxes much), but by the end of the session her body just flowed out onto the table, eyes half closed. She still resisted some things just from being that kind of dog, but mostly she got into it--as most dogs do. Jake and Tika always liked getting worked on.

The evaluation--and this is in my words: Boost reacted in pain to some work on her right rear leg. Hard to tell exactly where, but DVM thinks lower back or pelvis. Says that Boost's legs are all spectacularly muscled, which would most likely eliminate dysplasia. But her lower back and abdomen need work to develop the muscles there. (Just like us humans with back issues! She and I now both need to start doing crunches!)

The suggestion was to not do any agility with Boost for a while, to continue evaluation of what the problem might be, to give her body time to heal, and to work on developing those other muscles. Got the thumbs up to keep doing what I've been doing, and even more of it--the exercise ball, backing up the stairs, long hikes and running, just not jumping and like that.

So I'm going to get her x-rayed at a well-regarded dog sports vet if I can get an appointment any time soon. Then we'll see from there what more to do. Like: To work on: Teach her to sit up (some people have taken to calling it "sit pretty"--what was traditionally called "beg") and even to do squats. I've seen videos of dogs doing it; if they can stand on their hind legs, and if they can "sit pretty," then it just takes some additional work to get them to go from one to the other. Maybe it'll motivate me to do more like that, too.

So I've scratched Boost from the next 2 CPE trials in March, although I've left Tika in (since I've promised to be the chief score table czar). Next USDAA is the big four-day Haute Tracs extravaganza in 2 months. Would be too bad to miss that with Boost. But--well--we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm also going to take at least one six-week session off from class; Boost can't participate, Tika and I can always use practice but it won't hurt us badly to miss it; and I'll be needing the time and money for Boost's work.

The interesting thing was my first reaction to the suggestion to stop agility with Boost for a while: A sense of relief. Like, maybe this is a fixable issue and if some time off is mostly what it takes, hallelujah! Like, someone is giving me permission to not do agility. Isn't that funny, what goes through one's mind?

It'll be tough, being at a trial and not being able to run Boost. I'll try to still take her out and play with her just the same. Have to remember to do that and not start putting it off because it's "not important" (like doing a run you've paid for).

After the massage, we went for a drizzly walk around parts of Power Paws' open fields.

Just about the only shot of Tika, because she always wants to be out at the farthest distance, exploring:

Both dogs seemed intent on grazing, since the sheep were in a different field and not doing the job. With San Jose spread out below and vanishing into the glaring mists of that steady, steady drizzle.

We walked up over the rise where the big agility field is and down the other side. There's Tika, as far away as she can get (to the right of the tree near center--really, she's there!).

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Tika/Boost 2016!

SUMMARY: Election propaganda.

Courtest of obamicon.me.

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Walkin' In the Rain, We're Happy Again

SUMMARY: Entertainments after 6 consecutive rainy days.

We are agility dogs not doing agility because it is raining. We've walked backwards up the stairs. We've circled left and right til our eyes pop out. We've practiced balancing on, and rolling, the giant exercise ball. We've chased Mr. Monkey tossed into the dining room twenty thousand times. What we really want is to go OUT OUT OUT! We don't care if it's raining! We're big active dogs with thick, thick fur, fur cryin' out loud!

Human dog-mom is doubtful, as the incoming skywater remains constantly downward-coming. But, Holy Sennenhund, is that a patch of blue sky gathering on the horizon?


We are so excited! Mom has leashed us up and we are bouncing off the walls in the front hallway! We are throwing ourselves down the front steps! We are going for a WAAAALLLLK!


Mom is not taking a toy with her, the fool, so when we get to the big soggy green park thing, she has to throw the leash for Boost to chase so that Tika will chase Boost. We are sooooo happy. Even human dog-mom is smiling a bit--even though it's STILL raining--because now maybe we won't crawl all over her while she's sitting at her desk. For a little while.

It may be true that some of us are a little damp.

And we might need to be hosed down and dried with dozens of towels because some of us have coats that are like 26"-jumping sponges. But our human dog-mom thinks that cleanliness is next to dogliness, so yes, we will do the hose.

And what does the well-dressed agilitiphile wear for a stroll with cabin-fever-crazed dogs in the rain? The waterproof Bay Team logo jacket--which goes well with ANY jeans--and the favorite agility Pluto Unleashed hat, of course! Because the rain must be kept off of the glasses so that one can detect whether an Aframe has sprung up suddenly in the field. Tika, however, demonstrates why dogs don't need no stinkin' jackets.

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Dogs' Birthday Photos

SUMMARY: Boost turned 4 on January 31; Tika turned 8 on Feb 14.

Lots of people with rescue dogs celebrate their dogs' "gotcha day"--the day the dog came to live with them. I've always been more traditional and picked an approximate birthday. Boost's birthday I do know for sure; Tika's I picked because it was easy to remember (Valentine's Day) and also my sister's birthday. This, of course, was 4 years before I knew that my next dog's (Boost's) birthday would be my birthday. Keep it all in the family.

I meant to post some early photos of both of them, but didn't; was just reminded by Lola's gotcha day photos. So here are my girls as seen when they first came home.

Tika was a big girl when she came home, but in some photos she looks so scrawny at a year old! Plus that was when, sometimes, both of her ears would tip over nicely. Now that one ear never does, even when I press it into place. (The photos were scanned by the photo processor from my 34 mm film and I think they had it set to some weird setting because all the rolls from that set came back oddly done--but the actual prints look OK. Someday I might try rescanning from the negatives.)






Boost was three months old when she came home with me. She was still darned cute, although already past the roly-poly puppy stage.

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101 Ellenphant Jokes

SUMMARY: Trimming the lemon tree. In the rain. Cold rain.

Last year the lemon tree produced almost no lemons, and they were tiny and dry and malformed and probably Republican, too. And Taj MuttHall did not go out and trim off all those two-story branches shooting straight up into the air. So this year, perhaps flush from Obama's victory, the tree is replete with pleasingly plump fruitage. And the branches start to sag toward the yard, which is bad for the agility because while the dogs can run under the branches, the handler runs face-first into them. Plus then the ground becomes saturated from the rain, and the whole derned tree begins to become overly acquainted with the A-frame.

Then a tremendous wind arises, and the hanging, heavily laden branches start flinging themselves wildly, trying to convince the tree to go over all the way. Fortunately TMH had propped the tree up after the first saggage a couple of weeks back. But today, we must do something about the overladen branches flinging their turgid lemons about.

It is cold. It is wet.

Q: Why did the Ellenphant wear a bright yellow mackintosh?
A: To hide in the lemon tree.
Q: Why did the Ellenphant wear a bright yellow mackintosh and a Cynosport agility hat?
A: To disguise herself as an A-frame.
Q: Why did the Border Collie stare at the Ellenphant in the bright yellow vinyl jacket?
A: She was wondering why the funny-looking tunnel was trying to hide in the lemon tree.

OK, enough flashback to 1960s elephant jokes.
Q: How does the well-prepared agility addict prepare for debranching lemon trees in a storm?
A: Cynosports World Championships hat and Power Paws Agility sweatshirt, of course!

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Four on the Floor

SUMMARY: On hands and knees on the kitchen floor, making the world a better place to live.

The mud comes
on little dog feet.

It spreads slowly
over carpet and flooring
in silent bunches
and then stays there.

      - Carl Mudburg

The agility equipment stands poised in a sea of mud-like substance. The dogs blow in and out through the dog door all day long. It's rained steadily for two days with no sign of letting up for another three. Hey--let's clean the kitchen floor!

Taj MuttHall installed this wonderful flooring that you can hardly tell is dirty. Well---sort of. If you're just passing through and mostly paying attention to the stack of papers on the table or the dogs trying to get between your feet and trip you.


But then--ack--you clean part of it, and then you realize how dog-awful it really is. So you can't just clean up a couple of spots; it's the whole kit and caboodle or nuthin'.

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Busy Weekend Again Even Without Agility

SUMMARY: Friday and Saturday, dog playtime, then photo expedition.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last night I took the dogs up to Palo Alto and we had dinner with friends to celebrate their Bump's 10th birthday, right after he finished his LAA-platinum. What a guy. Boost and the 9-month-old Border Collie, Dig, played as if they had never been allowed to play before in their entire pathetic lives. They wrestled all over each other, the floor, our legs, the chairs... Tika mostly hung out and looked for food scraps.

Dig, being an actual puppy still, eventually tired Boost out enough that my girl WANTED to sit on my lap for about 10 minutes! Usually I have to insist that she come up and then kind of hold her there while I stroke her a bit before letting her go. This time, she was plenty happy to sit there and lean her chin on my shoulder. Very sweet. They did go back at it eventually. Not that it apparently REALLY tired either of them out completely.

Today, I picked up a friend at the airport and dropped her off at her mom's. Then I went driving and photographing nature with another friend. We thought we were going on a wildflower hike but it turned out slightly differently. See photos with notes here. (Addition Sunday Feb 15: View the friend's take on the trip.)

Then I shuttled a friend around whose car is in the shop (see post from last weekend--), then finally got to work sorting through and editing today's photos. I'm wiped out, and I hardly took a step all day. And dogs were completely neglected.

Tomorrow it's a movie with another friend and then holiday/birthday celebrations with my secondary family. No wonder I never get anything done even when I'm not doing agility!

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Ellen Likes

SUMMARY: Who knew?

• Ellen likes the ocean
• Ellen likes to keep kissing in closet
• Ellen Like's To Eat Things Beginning With "P"
• Ellen Likes The Xbox
• Ellen likes Sudoku
• Ellen likes Music
• Ellen likes to sing
• Ellen likes dogs
• Ellen Likes Skits
• Ellen likes Epcot, but digs Universal even more

The real question is: Who knew how many ways there are for people to come up with clever little exercises for you to spend time doing instead of actually posting something useful. (Like. Ahem. Senses of foreboding. Yes. Useful.) THIS little doozy is another pass-around exercise. Rule is, type "(your name) likes to"--e.g., "Ellen likes to"--into google and then post the first 10 things that come up. In case you were thinking I had been replaced by a simulacrum or triffid or like that. Although oddly enough several of these things were not false.

The other real question is: How many of those were references specifically to Ellen Degeneres? Man, it's rough having a famous shared first name. Therefore, I'll try my infamous alias, "ELF likes to":

• Elf likes to skateboard
• Elf Likes My Paladin advice
• elf likes The Unfinished Swan
• Elf likes to eat
• elf likes to tell the cows a fairy tale
• Elf likes to get up at the crack of dawn
• Elf likes to bake
• Elf likes to wait for Santa next to Santa's Milk and Cookies
• Elf likes to smile, smiling's my favorite
• Elf Just Likes to Stir Things Up

And, just to round things out, let's try "Taj MuttHall likes to" (or "Taj likes to", since we're on first-name bases here):

• Taj likes to work with a lot of people and incorporates as much as possible into the experience
• Taj likes Computers he loves is Mac , Taj like chatting with 3t fans , & Taj likes directing things
• taj likes to ride the bikes
• Taj likes Madonna and Pink, and plays guitar
• Taj likes to workout, running, swimming and doing yoga and kickboxing
• Taj likes to keep her distance
• Taj likes surfing the Mentawais islands and his Western Australia surf spots.
• Taj likes when Tim Floyd has ulcers
• Taj likes shopping, Maximo Park, spending time with her. friends and chatting on Facebook
• Taj likes cats

And, since Tika and Boost are hanging on my every typed word here, gaping over my shoulder and wanting to be part of the fun: "Tika likes [to]":

• Tika likes music, but so far she has never liked the music lessons she's had
• Tika likes to do anything Sam does and follows him around and does everything he does
• Tika likes to chase bunnies and birds and investigate all moving things
• Tika likes to make this expression at me
• tika likes to get under the futon and growl
• tika likes nuts
• Tika likes those things, too
• Tika likes to do agility training in Southlands with Fast-Track Agility
• Tika likes snowboards
• Tika likes furbys

• Boost likes to do while I am trimming shrubs [from TMH]
• Boost likes to take a close look and scope out the difficulty rating of an obstacle [from TMH]
• Boost likes to use lots of ram when compling
• Boost likes to leave the GUI functionality job to someone else
• Boost likes to spike to around 18 psi and goes back down fairly quickly
• Boost likes to do things like this way - but never the less its very inconvenient for those of us who just want to use a small portion of Boost
• Boost likes to go off the chart
• Boost likes to stay up
• Boost likes to creep up in fourth gear
• Boost likes to bag up the tyres

OK, I think we've completely ground that into the dust now...

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Sense of Forboding -- Can We Hurry On Into March Please?

SUMMARY: This certain month has some bad juju.

I am not a superstitious person. Really. But still I'm looking at the dates and feeling uncomfortable.

* Feb 8, 2009: Van run into.
* Feb 26, 2007: Jake put to sleep after violent seizures in the night.
* Feb 28, 2008: Van run into.
* Mar 8, 2003: Remington put to sleep after violent seizures in the night.

I'm sure there must have been other bad things in my life at other times, but these are particularly standing out at the moment.

I'm sure I'll be better after I get a little sugar into my system.

Glad I could add a little cheer to your day.

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A Little Good News on the Van

SUMMARY: no side/frame damage

Just got a call from the shop. The damage was confined to the rear of the van. The grating/grinding of the side door was not anything bent; it was just dirt. My guess is that the collision must have knocked some stuff loose and into the door's track. So they cleaned it out and said it sounds fine now. Hallelujah!

They think they'll have it done next Wed or Thurs.

Asked the shop to give me a side estimate for the year-old driver-side door damage; as long as it's in there, might as well have that taken care of, too.

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Teeny Rental Thing

SUMMARY: Cute but not practical.

Spent an hour yesterday unloading things from my minivan. Just taking the dog crates out is a chore: Unstrap 'em, manhandle Boost's crate in a struggle to fold it up in place, because it won't slide out. Get that out. Get Tika's huge heavy crate out. Oh, except remove the water bowls first. Afterwards, take out the blocks that the crates sit on so the doors will open over the lip on the back door. Take out the bag of dog gear. The carton of "car stuff" (flares, tie-downs, tools...). The agility shoes. The tripod. The stuff stashed under and between the seats. What else might I want that's not obvious? Oh, yeah, sunglasses. Maybe maps. Maybe cell phone. (All tucked in their special spots.)

Move things a bit in the garage so there's somewhere to put them all.

Today I dropped off MUTT MVR at the fix-up place and got a RAV4 rental in exchange. They call it "equivalent" to my current car. I can tell you that it is not. (A) It is nicer to drive than a minivan. (B) After I got the 2 crates in, there is no room left for luxuries like dog gear bags, cartons of "car stuff", and certainly not, say, anything at all for a weekend of dog agility. In my minivan, I can have the crates AND two additional seats. In the RAV4, I can have the crates and no extra seats. Or two seats and probably no crates. Well, maybe one.

The crates had to go in sideways. I had to manhandle Boost's crate to set it up in place because it won't go in through the side door. I struggled for 20 minutes trying to strap them in. There are convenient tie-down rings... in the far back only. So I'd hook one end and the other end would come out. And I'd hook that end and the first end would come out. And I'd hook them both and the strap would slide off the top. I'd slide it back up and the hook would come out and the tie-down ring would fold up out of sight. And I wanted to use TWO tie-downs! Argh!

But I finally got it. And had to strap Boost's crate to Tika's crate because there was nothing else to strap it to.

And, dagnabbit, I didn't think to take my garage-door remote control out of the other car!

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Health Myths Debunked Here

SUMMARY: A public service announcement with an agility slant.

While we bate our breaths in anticipation of tomorrow morning's appointment at the car repair facility--whereat I will also receive probably a RAV4 as a rental car for hauling dogs around in--I bring to you some useful agility news from Consumer Reports on Health.

This month's (March 2009) issue's cover story is "Accepted medical advice that misses the mark." Try these on for size, you dog-agility readerships out there.

1)You need to drink the eight 8-ounce cups of water a day. Fah! False! CROH says "that erroneous advice seems to have originated some 70 years ago from a misreading of government recommendations for total fluid intake from beverages and food, not just water." (The emphasis is the mine.) (Several people seem to be using the the recently, so I'm going with it.) Even the Weight Watchers (with whom I am intimately familiar, thank you very much) have embraced the revised information and clarified that that liquid comes from ANY source--e.g., that orange you had from the free breakfast at the agility trial, that latte that you drank to wake you up for that 7:30 start-line lead-out (but tsk tsk no more than 1 caffeinated drink can count, because as we all know, caffeine is also a diuretic--just it's not as bad as the Conventional Wisdom has led us to believe).


2) Everyone gets enough Vitamin D. Way false! While all you clever agility people are wearing big floppy hats and long pants and long sleeves and slathering on the sun lotion so that you can avoid the skin cancer so that you can keep doing the dog agility, you may also be cleverly depriving your bodies of Vitamin D. CROH says "Even in the sunniest climes, there's now evidence of widespread vitamin D deficiency [as a result of avoiding sun on the skin]." They (the infamous "they") have linked "a host of illnesses and conditions" to lack of de D. Including depression, cancer, osteoporosis. So, many people will need supplements. To avoid the depression that makes you think you'll never be a good agility handler and you might as well give your dogs away to any random person because they're likely to be better than your pathetic self is. Which none of us ever think, really. Am I right?

3) Stretching prevents injured or sore muscles. False also! It is now an old wives' tale, assuming that the wives are teaching aerobics and basketball and such, that has been debunked. It prevents neither. But stretching IS good for you for the limberness, the coordination, the range of motion, balance, and posture, all of which we know are critical for being the best agility handlers that we can be, although I'm not sure about posture (except how about you hunched-over little dog handlers, though?). So DO stretch, but do it AFTER exercising when your muscles are warmed up. 'Struth!

4) Arthroscopic surgery eases knee pain. False oh falso! You may all have read, as I did, about the recent study where they TOLD people that they were doing the arthroscopic knee surgery and put a little incision in the knee but didn't ACTUALLY do it, and the people got exactly the same relief as when they did the real "clean out the joint and repair the torn cartilage" thang. Now how stupid do I feel about having had arthroscopic surgery and then my knee got (mostly) better? Was I one of the test cases and they didn't tell me? And how about all those dozens of other agility people who've done the same thing? You know who you are--I talked to you all after I had my surgery and we had a whole big reunion thing there next to the agility ring. So I'm thinking, gee, maybe what fixed my knee wasn't the surgery--it was the enforced rest, the super antiinflamatories, the ice machine icing my knee constantly day and night (yes really!) for a week or more that really did the trick. So you might want to consider that instead of surgery if that's what you think you're facing to be able to keep doing the agility.


OK, the article also talks about angioplasty, flu treatment, cough syrump, dental x-rays, blood pressure, and antioxidant pills. But the agility link is not so clear there. So you'll have to go read the article yourself. Be informed!

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Accident Schmaccident

SUMMARY: A busy, painful, and possibly expensive day.

OK, I'm glad the dogs weren't with me. I got rear-ended today, making me (I believe) at least the 4th person in my agility club to be in an accident in the last 2 weeks. What's worse (or maybe it's better) is that it was a friend and we were moving furniture at the time. At least we won't be worried about some complete stranger deciding that they want to sue us. (No, no, and we won't be suing each other, either.)

The back door of my van will no longer open. Which is where the dogs' crates open. And, since i tried to open it and got it open about a quarter inch, it will now no longer close, which means that the alarm won't set.


Not sure how I'm going to be transporting dogs for the next couple of weeks. Thank goodness I don't have a trial coming up any time soon.

What's worrisome is that both side doors now make a grinding noise when they open, which they didn't before. If my frame is bent, I am so so so screwed. I will never get a vehicle in as good a condition as this one (because I've owned it most of its life, have taken care of it, have kept it in the garage almost all the time, and have driven it almost exclusively freeway to & from agility trials). I've just been thinking lately about how lucky I am about what great condition it's in for 126,000 miles and how it might actually last me until 200,000 with no great effort. The bluebook value would not come close to buying something in good condition like this.

The friend had bookcases in the back of his truck; just the impact slid them forward enough that they apparently torqued his rear window and blew it right out. And, oh yeah, the huge chunk of his front fender he had to pick up and toss in the back with the bookcases.


And this was on a residential street just after a stop sign, probably not more than 15 miles an hour.

Crap.

On the other hand, we did get all the furniture moved before it started raining, and I had a lovely birthday dinner with my family.

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Exercise Them Mini Dawgs

SUMMARY: An interesting invention for smaller dogs.

If your dog is no taller than 14" at the shoulder (Chihuahuas, Pekingese, like that--even most Shelties and Beagles are taller than that), if you can't keep that dog exercised by tossing a tennis ball across the living room, and if you always admired that hamster lifestyle, this is for you.

Now they need one for them big dawgs who can cover the whole living room in a single bound.

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I'm So Busy Memeing I Can Hardly Think Straight or Ten Or More Things I Learned From My Dog

SUMMARY: Another Facebook tagging fantasy: "Ten things I learned from my dog(s)."

1. To get everyone's immediate attention, roll in something disgusting.
2. Squirrels are the devil.
3. If your ancestry is questionable, claim to be purebred and let them prove otherwise via expensive DNA testing or asking your mom--who'll never give away your secrets and doesn't speak English anyway.
4. Life is like hunting gophers: Dig and dig and dig and dig until you realize you're not going to reach that goal, then go do something else and let other people clean up the mess.
5. Roofrats are the devil.
6. The boss doesn't like to lie in a bed covered with dog hair. Shed everywhere, and the whole thing is yours.
7. If it fits in your mouth, it's edible.
8. The mailman is the devil.
9. Bathing is overrated. (See also #1.)
10. Photographers love it when you show them your butt.
11. "No!" means "yes!"
12. Even though your keen sense of smell reveals what bully sticks are made from, it doesn't really matter because they still taste darned good.
13. Don't mess with Jim Basic's lawn.
14. The devil hates it when you bark like a rabid wombat and throw yourself against the plate-glass picture window, so do it as often as possible to drive him away. Everyone will thank you for it in a loud and excited voice.

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Favorite Dog Lyrics Part 5

SUMMARY: From K-TMH (K-TajMuttHall), only the finest in dog-related music and hijacked lyrics!

Wow, just found this one in K-TMH's email archives, a big hit from November, 1994 when Sheba and Remington were the resident canines! Enjoy as you sing along to this oldie but goldie (and I mean retriever).

49th St. Walk Song

by Sheban and Remfinkle

Hurry up, you move too slow.
We've still got a ways to go
Just walking 'round the neighborhood
Lookin' for shrubs and feelin' hyper.

(Woof-woff-ooff-urf, feelin' hyper.)

Hello, hydrant, what'cha knowin?
Let me sniff, then I'll be goin'.
Ain't ya got no smells for me?
Woof-woff-ooff-urf, feelin' hyper.

I've got twelve bones to put in holes so deep,
I'm rowdy and active, not ready for sleep.
Let the squirrels get down here and play some with me;
Walks, I love you, feelin' hyper.

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Random Things in February

SUMMARY: new glasses, daylight, weave poles, deck training, rain vs. mud...

Glasses:
My last 2 pairs of glasses have become so badly scratched that I could barely see through them. I don't know how this happens. I'm very careful to follow the instructions--don't rub them when they're dry (always wet them first), try to blow any loose dust away first, dry them only with cotton or microfiber fabric. I wear them all day so they're not being set down anywhere, and I always set them down lenses up at night. How do they get scratched?

I got my brand-new pair last week and I've been bound and determined that this pair will NOT be scratched. I have been super-careful not to touch the lenses at all. I've cleaned them once with glasses-cleaning fluid and the supplied microfiber fabric, and once with water and hand soap and a cotton hand towel. And both lenses have 3 scratched on them. This is so frustrating. At this rate, they're not going to last 6 months even.

Daylight: Badda-bing, just like that, today it's light enough when the renter comes home for him to go out back and throw the ball for the dogs and tire them out some more. Hallelujah! Wasn't it just last week that it was too dark at 5:30? Love it when we've passed the winter solstice, that slow climb back to daylight.

Boost's weave poles: Today I've tried everything I can think of to get boost to pop out of the weaves early or to skip a pole on the entry, both of which she did repeatedly this weekend. Succeeded in the latter with only one ploy, and then she got it. Couldn't repeat the former at all. I hate smart-ass dogs.

Deck training: The back of my house has a raised deck with a staircase and a railing. Very early on, I taught Boost to "go up on the deck" and wait there while the other dogs and I worked on doing agility. It wasn't too hard--she was small enough to squeeze through the railing, and when she'd do so, I'd pick her up and make her squeeze back through it, which she really hated. Now she'll dash back and forth watching us, but she doesn't come down.

Tika's a different matter. Have always clipped her to a leash on a hook, where she proceeds to bark her head off. Sometimes I can tell her to just go away or go lie down, which apparently means go patrol the yard for squirrels and other terrorists, but often that ends with her appearing suddenly as Boost is blasting out of a tunnel and meeting Boost head-on (deliberately).

So I've been working on "go up on the deck" with her; figure that if she's 8 and can earn 25 masters gamblers Qs, she can learn to do that on command, too. She can't fit through the railing so I can't make the punishment for leaving seem quite as severe or appropriate. If I close the door to the stairs, she barks. We seem to be making some progress with treats for good behavior (the food-motivated dog). I feel like it's still a broken behavior, but last week the renter saw it in action and said, "Wow, I'm really impressed with Tika's 'go up on the deck'. I've never seen that before and she was so well behaved!" So apparently I'm making more progress than I had realized.

A good reminder to pay attention to one's successes and to not focus on the failures. I'm tryin'!

Rain vs. mud: We really desperately need rain. We're looking almost for sure at rationing this year if we don't get a lot more in the next couple of months (it doesn't usually rain much, if any, between March/April and late September/October). But my yard is just now dry enough from the last rain a week and a half ago that my dogs no longer automatically come in from the yard with muddy feet that I have to clean. I like them having clean(ish) feet. I don't want my yard to be muddy again.

Rain is supposed to reappear Wednesday or Thursday. Agh. Mud. Bleah.

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Thanks For the Cake -- Maybe Next Time Some Qs?

SUMMARY: USDAA weekend summary.

We're back from our USDAA weekend at VAST in Turlock, where I had to scrape ice off the score tables Saturday morning before we could use them. The VAST location is always nice to play agility at despite the chill (warmed up later), but let's say that this was not one of our high-Qing weekends.

Out of 10 classes, Boost Qed in exactly zero. Sadly, this is not the first time that she's had a no-Qer, but really they're not THAT frequent (2 last year out of 18, for example). Still, I'm glad I have Tika to encourage my continued participation: She at least managed 3 of 10.

She did not get either the Grand Prix or the Steeplechase--the first was just a hard course that wiped out many dogs (we had a runout and a bar but no off course); the latter she knocked the bar on the triple just two jumps from the end, arghhh! So now we have to wait until April for another chance for that one last leg for the Tournament Platinum.

However, in a surprise push to finish her Silver Gamblers Championship--that's 25 masters gamblers Qs--she got the one last weekend, repeated it this weekend in what turned out to be almost exactly the same gamble, plus one more to boot, for 3 out of 3 and that's 25. Woo hoo! I hadn't expected that so quickly--

And she had a very respectable Snooker on Saturday, although missing a super-Q--again, that amazingly top-flight 26" class! For those 26ers, consider for example today's gamble: only 5 of 18 of the 26" dogs got the gamble, for 28%--but only 7 of **38** 22" dogs got it, for a mere 18%.

Tika did place 4th with all 3 of those Qs, versus 19, 14, and 18 dogs, earning...wow...1 Top Ten point for each. But at least I can say that we earned *some*, so that I can feel validated as a human being (now you know what it takes).

Boost had some credible runs--for example, her Gamblers opening on Saturday was truly lovely, earning more than the dog who eventually won the class, but we didn't quite connect on the gamble: She did half of the hard part, which stymied quite a few dogs, but we didn't get the 2nd hard part.

In the really bad news category, Boost's weaves seem to be broken again at both ends and Tika has gone back to knocking bars as much or more than Boost. Always something to work on, as They say, but I wish that sometimes They would say once you've fixed something, it stays fixed.

In the really good fun news category, the VASTards showed up with a birthday cake for me so that everyone could share it, and when I went out for dinner with some friends (to escape the cold for a little while), they bought me dinner (agility people are the best! I wish I could remember to be as nice to other people as they are to me!), AND to top it off, Boost's littermate Bette finished her ADCH on our shared birthday. And how cool is *that*?

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