Friday Morning Thoughts

SUMMARY: Top Ten, bored dogs, nifty dog stuff in nondog catalog, agility class and schedule and training and weaves, dog noses.

Top Tens

• Why does USDAA have Top Ten Tournament for Championship dogs but not for Performance? I notice this because maybe Tika would have had a chance to be there this year. Maybe.)

Bored dogs

• I've been finding out what my dogs are like when we're not doing agility. Why? No class Oct 22 (Power Paws Camp preempted it). Class Oct 27. No class Nov 5 (Disneyland). No class Nov 12 (USDAA Nationals.) Class this week. No class next week (Thanksgiving). 
• We did have agility competition Oct 31-Nov 1. And will have one day Nov 27, then two days Dec 12-13.  Feels like long times between when we're short on classes.
  
• Doesn't help that  I've been trying to do an early 6:00 Thursday class; leaving home at 5:00 is still in my normal work day, plus traffic means it's a 45-50 minutes drive instead of 20-30, all of which means I have been getting in 15-30 minutes late, therefore missing class time. Am going to have to switch back to Wednesday 8:15 which means no more Sierra Club hikes until some other later class opens on another day.
  
• Meanwhile pesky bored dogs. Walking a couple of miles a day isn't a good substitute for classes & competition, apparently.

Improvements Catalog supplies the well-heeled dog (so to speak)

• Beautiful folding wooden gates if you don't want to use cheap-looking standard gates to keep your dogs out of certain rooms.
• Back when I had a Siberian Husky--for 16 years--every year I meant to get around to making a light-up Santa and sleigh display pulled by huskies. Good intentions, not enough time to figure it out. Now I could just buy one! And it's gorgeous, too.
• Or how about just a light-up doggie holding a gift?
• Check out their pet listings; a "Paw Plunger" for cleaning dirty paws; an embossed "Potty Rock", beautiful wooden crates, plus several actual useful items.
• Wish I had implemented click-through payments for this site so that if you went to these locations I'd get 10 cents for it! Ah, well, another opportunity missed. Get in line behind making a husky santa sleigh.

Don't you wish you had a nose like a dog?

• Boost always knows when one of Tika's  treats has rolled under the closet door at some time earlier in the day.
• When I sent Boost out to get the paper yesterday morning, she stepped outside and then went into ferocious danger action--hackles up, bouncing on stiff legs while making some serious barking, looking at my porch, my tree, my eaves, my fence--and Tika followed suit, barking up an angry storm.  I saw nothing. It was an hour before I could get Boost out the door without the same reaction. What did I miss?

Agility training

• My yard is just not big enough for all types of agility practice, for dogs who can cover 18 feet in a single full-speed bounce jump, 60 feet is nothing--not enough space to GET to that kind of striding.
• Both dogs have been making some nice, tough weave entries in the yard. And in class last night. And then--missing some in the yard. Gah. It never ends.
  

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Do Those Dewclaws That You Do So Well

SUMMARY: Poor Booster's little toeie has an owie.

Dinnertime last night, and Boost is lying in the corner lick lick licking her paw. I check it out: Dew claw toenail is broken in half at the quick and it's bleed bleed bleeding. Gotta hurt, too.

I don't trim them often enough, and it was pretty long, so I blame myself for this one. Thing is, Tika's dew claws (and back in the day, Amber's and Sheba's) kept themselves trimmed down--proof positive that some dogs indeed get traction from their dewclaws when running. Jake's *never* wore down at all; Boost's wear down a bit but not enough. So with one dog who doesn't need it at all and one dog who needs it seldom, I just forget.

I was able to trim off most of the broken part with no sign of pain on her part. A little styptic power to stop the bleeding, a nice flesh-colored bandaid (couldn't find any merle-colored bandaids) to cover it for a little while (chyeah, that stayed on for hours--not!), and some constant reminding to leave it alone.

By bedtime the bandaid was lonnnng gone and she was leaving it alone. Just trying to decide whether I want to wrap it in a bit of that mesh tape when she's outside running the next couple of days. In class tonight. And how about at the trial this weekend? Since I know that she uses them a bit, since they wear down a bit--

argh, decisions! [Gnaws at own nails--]

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Once More With Feeling

(Read more about heterochromia and see a more detailed view of her right eye: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia.)

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