Exercise and preparation

SUMMARY: How the dogs and I are preparing for our long agility weekend.

Seems to me that Tika tires out faster than she used to. OK, sure, she's 8 and a half now, but it also occurs to me that, since I'm now combining 2 dogs into one class and mostly focusing on Boost, she hardly ever gets a lot of long agility sequences to do. In the yard, we tend to focus on maybe 3 or 4 or 5 obstacles for some particular thing we're focusing on.

I've been getting better again about getting out for a mile-or-more brisk walk with the dogs nearly every day, but that's not the same as running.

It was just wayyy too hot over the weekend to want to do anything--here's my indoor/outdoor temps midafternoon on Saturday; I missed the 105 and 106 showings Sat and Sun!-- but on Monday I set up a sort of course in my little crowded yard that allows us to do 16 or more obstacles over & over to get into shape. Discovered some interesting handling & performance issues with both dogs, so we got to do some actual practice on stuff as well as doing 16-obst courses several times each day.
[Insert course map when I get replacement activation code.]

I'll probably do once around today with each dog, plus bar-knocking drills, because we're coming up on a 3-day USDAA trial starting bright and early tomorrow morning. Fortunately the heat has dropped way back, and so last night I got my Wednesday hike in with the Sierra Club for my own physical conditioning (it's still not running, jogging, or wind sprints, but it gets my heart & lungs & legs working for sure).
Hike started at about 2300' above sea level (long drive up from the valley), dropped to below 2000', and peaked at 2572, so we got some good ups and downs.

As is typical on hot summer days, it's hazy looking out across the coastal range.

And as the sun sets, we had this intriguing view of the top of Mount Diablo, 100 miles away, floating disembodied above the (cough cough) haze that hides all the mountains between us and it, with just a bit of gleam of the san francisco bay upper center (you'll want to click to see the larger image on this one for sure).
Parts of the trail that were fire roads, and well-traveled by vehicles and bikes, were incredibly dusty, with that superfine dust with texture finer than talcum powder, so no matter how gently you set down your foot, a puff of dust rose. And we were hiking in a large group. Stayed well back from the people ahead!

OK, so this weekend: Team on Friday. Tika's first Performance team, and we're teaming with our ofttimes partner Brenn (from our one appearance in the finals at Scottsdale). How can these dogs be old enough to be in Performance? Gah. Brenn has arthritis in her feet, Tika in her neck. Me in my knees. Pfooey.

Saturday and Sunday is everything else plus Steeplechase and Grand Prix. You know that I'm getting my expectations set high for Tika in those in Performance--her first two times out, she won 1st round steeplechase (and 2nd round, too, the one time we stayed for it) and came in 2nd in grand prix. I'm going to try not to expect too much, but it's hard to avoid.

Mind you, there's a difference between expectations and goals. My goal is to win. But if I *expect* to do well and don't, I have trouble letting that go.

Tika still needs a Standard and 3 Jumpers at 26" for her ADCH-Silver. We've been practicing the last 2 weeks at 24" and 26", so hopefully she can keep her bars up, although mixed with the 22" classes all day friday and some the other days--dunno. We'll see.

Boost still needs one--just one, dangit!--Jumpers leg for her MAD... funny to see that she also just needs one pairs leg for her Relay Bronze! Of course, that's the only course where knocked bars and refusals don't wipe you out. I won't even go into looking for the ADCH--Snooker Super-Qs and Jumpers legs evade us at every turn.

But the weather should be nice, the friends should be nice, and we'll just see what happens.

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No Training. But Walking.

SUMMARY: Busy but active.

Have been too busy with work (and other important things, like photos) to have the energy to do some actual dog training. Need to get back to the bar-knocking work, as there's a 3-day USDAA trial coming up 4th of July weekend.

However, I've tried to be sure that I get out with the dogs for at least a mile-long stroll every day (except the day after last weekend's trial, when my knee was painful and slightly swollen. Lots of ice ensued).

Yesterday I walked with and without the dogs. Took MUTT MVR in for an oil change. While they're doing their dirty work, the dogs and I walk. We got in a mile and a half before it looked like they were almost done, then we sat in the waiting room and--well, what else do you do in the waiting room?

They have magazines for people who want to sit there for half an hour burning NO calories and getting NO exercise when it's a perfectly lovely day out and there are sidewalks in every direction. Danged lazy Americans!

Knee felt fine, so I left the dogs home (many trails in our area do not allow even leashed dogs) and hiked up Black Mountain with the Wednesday Sierra Club group. Five miles or so, several hundred feet up. Small group this time, not sure why.


But it was OK to have a small group and no dogs because we saw wildlife everywhere, enjoying the evening. Saw several deer, including mom and fawn. Little lizards skittering everywhere across our path. California quail. Quite a few jackrabbits (two in this photo--one taking off down the left branch of the road, one dark sitting near the junction).

It was perfect weather, and sunset time always produces such glorious light. Watched fingers of fog from the Pacific slowly grasp the coastal mountains.

Saw Lick Observatory shining brightly on Mount Hamilton across the very hazy Santa Clara valley. (Might have to click photo to see the larger version.)


Knee did just fine; still fine today. Class tonight. Back to work.

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CPE Trial Saturday Surprises

SUMMARY: Day 1 of Bay Team Palo Alto CPE trial.

Surprises:

• Boost earned more Qs than Tika! (Admittedly she's in a lower level where you can Q with minor faults--but still--that's never happened before.) (Tika Qed 3 of 4--there goes our Perfect Weekend award; Boost Qed 4 of 4.)
• I do CPE in part because I love getting lots and lots of blue ribbons because I almost never get them in USDAA. But we had some--er--Issues--and our crates were collecting a lot of these today:
• It was 90F on Thursday. Today we huddled in our coats and blankets at the score table and for the Bay Team meeting at the end of the day.
• The wind off the Bay was biting and surprisingly intense.
• This was apparently the Day of the Tunnels Under the Aframes: In Snooker the #7 combo, in Jackpot (Gamblers) in the opening (I love doing these! A quick 16 points A-tunnel-A-tunnel):
  and DOUBLES in Standard!
• The park in which the trial is taking place has a variety of intriguing sculptural thingies.
• Pink! (This is Terry.)
  Compare to Green! with Vicke at our March trial---oh, wow, I was going to link bakc to that photo, but I see that I have a whole directory of photos on my computer from that trial labeled "USE IN BLOG" but I never posted them! Doh! Another surprise! So here's the photo:)
  
• Both dogs got this gamble (coming towards us: Jump-jump-jump-right side of tunnel; the gamble line is out where the person is walking).
• Jersey got very excited every time I put the camera to my face. No idea why.
• Wonderful rich colors and textures. I love looking at these leashes.

OK. Am wiped. Out. Off to bed and do it all again tomorrow.

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Demo Today

SUMMARY: A survey of demo dogs. Plus napping.

Today a bunch of us are doing a demo for a retirement community where the mother of a friend lives. My parents are thinking about the same place. Maybe. Or not. I hate moving myself, and they've got 40 years in their current home (and the stuff to go with it), so this would be a big decision. Big.

But today is about little. Because the lawn where we do the demo (have done this every year or 2 for a while now) is very tiny, it's hard to demo with big dogs. I took Jake one year, and he was pretty small for a big dog, but even at 13 years old he kept having to screech to a halt to avoid running into a shrubbery. So this demo is best for smaller dogs who have good shrubbage avoidance technology.

Plus my friend has these cute custom-made agility equipments for households with little dogs to practice on--the tire is full-sized but it hangs in this teeny short light-weight frame. Very practical if your dogs never have to jump more than 12". Or 16". Not 26".

So today my dogs are not going; they will hang out here in the predicted 90-ish F (32 C) heat and snooze, like Boost is currently demonstrating.

I'm going to be the announcer because I love to blather on about agility, and I won't be distracted by having to, like, run. We like to share info about our dogs when we do agility. This is great stuff.

I will try to post photos later of the dogs I don't already have shots of. Here are their own descriptions; my comment in [square brackets].

Scully [maybe Havanese mix] - 13 years old and has been doing agility for 12 years. She finished her 5th agility championship earlier this year and is still competing. The weave poles are her least favorite obstacle and she likes everything else. Scully also has titles in obedience and rally. She has more titles than any dog in the history of Mixed Breed Dog Clubs of America.

Sparkle [chihuahua mix] - 5 years old [and about 3 pounds] and has been doing agility all her life. Two years ago she broke her leg while practicing agility but made a full recovery and last month she finished her second agility championship. She has a hard time doing the teeter because she has to go all the way to the end to make it tip. She also has titles in Rally.


Belle [MinPin] is 6 years old and she has AAD in USDAA and CL4 in CPE.
I have been with her since she was 8 weeks old.
She is my first ever dog and she is the reason we started agility because she loved to jump and run since she was a puppy.
I like to dress her up and she has more clothes than I do.

A little info on Bernie [a tiny beagle]-
He likes snacks!
He has his PD2 and C-ATCH titles.
Meatballs (turkey and beef) are one of his favorite snacks!
He has his P3 Standard, Jumpers and Snooker titles.
He likes salmon snacks - too!
He will be eleven years old in September.
He likes popcorn (so everyone should hang on to their popcorn!)
He had knee surgery two years ago - he did 'doggie' physical therapy - it took about 9 months to recover.
Bernie is my first agility dog - so I'm learning too!
Did I mention he likes snacks??
If you run out of something to say, I think you can mention just about anything related to snacks!

Porsche [little Pembroke Welsh Corgi], Porsche, also known as the "Porsche Pupster" for you car enthusiasts out there, is 4 years old, been competing for 2 years. Favorite activities are sprinting, eating, and chasing squirrels ... so apologies in advance if she takes a break in the middle of her run to do one of the later two.
[Porsche was the highest-scoring overall 12" dog at the USDAA Nationals last year and was in the Grand Prix and Team finals. Debbie is so modest, she'll say she just got lucky. Ha!]

Tahles (said like tay-less) [Pomeranian with no tail], named after the great Klingon warrior, Tayles is better known as Tater Tot. He was a rescue, scrapped off the street after a hit-in-run and brought to the hospital that I work at [hence no tail]. After 1 year of surgeries and rehab, he started working the equipment in our back yard all by himself. He decided that agility was too much fun to miss.
He has been to USDAA National Finals twice and finished 5th and 4th. He held the 60 weave pole title for Poms for about 1 and 1/2 yrs. He is a natural-born comedian and knows he is the center of the universe.

[Provided by Art's spouse:] Sooner [Papillon] is Art's second agility dog. They have been competing for 1-1/2 years. Sooner likes to ride in the truck and also enjoys many groceries. He weighs 11 pounds and likes the high obstacles most, like the A frame and teeter. Art lost 60 pounds when he got his first puppy so that he would be agile enough to move with the puppy. Sooner is 3 years old. Art can tell you how old he is.

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Knock Off That Bar Knocking and Check Out That View

SUMMARY: Working on Boost's main issue (of --um-- 2 or 3 main issues).

Spent an hour yesterday with WTC ("world team coach", yeah surely one of these days I'll make an extra page for all of my associate's aliases used here) with Boost analyzing some of her bar-knocking issues and coming up with ways to address them.

WTC watched her jump several times and she jumped nicely. Jumping when I'm moving out ahead of her, though? She's taking off early. I'd already identified that one of her bar-knocking issues (and refusals & runouts) is that she spends too much time looking at me rather than figuring out the course. Several things I've done on my own are devoted to getting her to look at obstacles instead of me. So this reinforces that issue.

We also identified that, when rewarded promptly and "punished" promptly--very promptly--after hitting the bar, she starts doing better, so she's at least somewhat aware of what she's doing with her back legs. The punishment is to immediately make her down (but in a gentle but firm voice, not scolding) and turn my back on her for at least a few seconds. That means that the instant she hits the bar--certainly by the time she's landing--I have to be telling her "lie down" or it's too long after hitting the bar for her to get it.

We also worked on ways to get her to think about the jump and looking forward instead of looking at me for a reward. We experimented with the treat-n-train for dispensing a reward after she's done a jump correctly. It's not bad, but there is a bit of a delay in dispensing the treat after the beep. I'll have to reaccustom her to that delay.


Mainly I'm going to be focusing on tossing high-value treats on the ground in front of her when she does jumps successfully. I could be standing, or sitting in a chair as motionless as possible so she's not looking at me so much for the reward. Which also means I have to be quick with the toss so she doesn't have time to look at me, but not so quick that I accidentally reward a ticked bar. Timing is everything!

So we're going to work on one jump for now with me sitting and tossing treats, or with treat-n-train at one end and a low table or phone book or something at the other end for me to toss the treat to, anything so she's looking ahead instead of at me. And no sit-stay or anything, just telling her "hup" from where she's picked up the last goodie. She was doing very very well at not touching the bar by the end of yesterday's session.

And we'll also work on 2-jump bounce jumps, full height (actually 26"; her competition height is 22"), 7' apart. And gradually adding me standing in different places, them me moving a little bit, then both of us running at them, and so on.

So for her--and the issue may be different for other dogs--the idea is to teach her that the JUMP is the important thing, not me, and that looking FORWARD is the important thing, not looking at me. And we'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile--Just going up to Power Paws is a pleasure. I mean, the company's good, but the view is ever-changing and always beautiful.

In this photo, I believe that PP is the level area just above the stoplight on the left side. (So hard to pick it out from down below.)

The downside to living up there is that you're always looking for smoke, always hypersensitive to the scent of burning. This is a bad thing to see in the foothills below you as the fire season begins.
But--back to the upside--look slightly more to your left at sunset, and this is what you might see:

And this is what class on Thursday evening is like--looking still further to your left-- (those are neighbors' houses you see):
Gazing out over San Jose:

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We Live In A Fascinating World

SUMMARY: Full of dogs and hills and grass and trees and light and colors and coyote poop.

Wednesday night, rather than join the Sierra Club group for our weekly brisk 5-mile strenuous hike, I struck out on my own closer to home. I wanted to take the dogs. I wanted to be able to stop and browse upon the scenery with my camera. I wanted to prove to myself that I can and will do a strenuous 5-mile hike all on my own. I wanted to sweat.

But not too much.

So, although the day wasn't particularly warm, I waited until 6:00 to head to Santa Teresa County park, a 1700-acre park just a 15-minute drive from home whose open hillside trails on steep terrain can be a bear in any kind of warmth. The bonus would be that I could catch the sunset from up in the hills.

We started at 200 feet above sea level at the foot of the hills, passing by the historic Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch, where Tika announced a fierce interest in the chickens in their coop. We decided not to linger. Later in the hike, when a startled California quail directly in our path flapped noisily into a nearby shrub, Tika suddenly became suddenly intrigued by their distinctive clicking call coming from the undergrowth we passed.

I carried only my little point-and-shoot; didn't want the weight of the borrowed SLR, hadn't actually familiarized myself with it yet anyway, and besides, hiking with the dogs and any kind of electronic equipment is always risky. So I have no bird photos to share, and few photos with the dogs (who move too much for the P&S's personal tastes).

Boost bravely streeeeetched wayyyy out to investigate some ancient farm equipment left on the hillside to moulder away. I have no idea why that was classified as one of the many Potentially Scary Evil Things in the world--looked pretty innocuous to me, but then I'm not a sensitive Border Collie.


Most of what I saw on my hike looked pretty much like this.


But I also enjoyed looking at the views of the valley and up to the observatory on Mount Hamilton, the lurking dark peak in the distance--near the right, to the left of the cloud.


Dogs also enjoyed checking out coyote poop.

As the sun sank, everything glowed amazing golden colors, and our shadows threw themselves longer and longer before us.


Plus there was coyote poop.


We passed the Norred Stables, where apparently during the day some REALLY BIG DOGS do some agility in the arena. (My sister has one of those really big kinds of dogs.)


The dogs particularly wanted to analyze Every. Single. Coyote. Poop. On. The Trail.


Human Mom wanted to take pictures of Every. Single. Scenic. View. On. The. Trail.


We accommodated each other. It worked. The highest point on the trail was about 930 feet, but we did quite a bit of upping and downing, so cumulative elevation gain might have approached 1000 feet. Distance covered: Somewhere between 4 and 5 miles. Walked it briskly, trying to emulate the Crazed Wednesday Night Hikers Pace, but stopped often for various reasons human or canine.

We lingered on the last high hillside trail until the sun had vanished from the sky, then dashed down the trail--literally--about 450 foot drop in half a mile. Felt good! Got photos! Sweated! And successfully kept all members of the expedition from rolling in coyote poop.


These are about half the photos I took; you can see the rest of the bunch on my usual photo site (along with these) with captions. I think there are a few particularly nice ones in the bunch. Enjoy. Love your dogs. Love your dear ones. Love life.

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A Memorial Day to Remember

SUMMARY: Agility demo and complete exhaustion. A good time was had by all.

We did an agility demo today for our neighborhood association's Memorial Day parade and fair. (We didn't do the parade.) We used my agility equipment rather than trying to find a driver and bring up a trailer from wherever they're currently located--Salinas or some such place. And here is all my agility equipment (save the dogwalk): three tunnels, Aframe, teeter, 7 jumps, chute, table, weaves (partly borrowed), broad jump, tire, fence posts (some borrowed). [Remember that you can click photos here to see a much larger view for details.]


I have never done so much equipment hauling and cleaning and mending in my life. Hours yesterday, hours today. I'se all wored out. Fortunately, BAS, who also lives in the neighborhood, came early with her strong-backed spouse and helped me set up and then helped me haul everything home at the end of the day. Here she is talking to interested parties, while interested Jersey puzzles me out.

I vowed to take a photo of the whole group of us and our dogs together for posterity, but... it got busy, I got tired, I just forgot.

We started setting up at 8 because they wanted us done by 11 for the parade to arrive at 11:30, and there were only 2 of us, so it took a while. When the parade arrived, so did a bunch of interesting vehicles. Like the Sharks fire engine.
And these vehicles. Holy Achilles Tendon, look at how skinny those ankles are! How do they hold up those huge beasts? (I mean the horses of course.)

The fair included the main "stage" (canopies over part of the pavement), one burger stand with a huuuuuuge line, one drink stand, a few crafts stands, half a dozen games booths, and a central volunteers booth at which to buy tickets for food and games.

Looked like there might have been a thousand people there (I'm not convinced...maybe 500? A lot, anyway.

They had a long program of sequential entertainments. Frankly, everyone came, ate, checked out the games, and left. We were supposed to be after the high school jazz band and by the time the band played, the crowd was down to maybe 50 people scattered around. Then they stuck in the Tae Kwon Do exhibition. Quite a few people stopped by from time to time to ask when we were going to do our demo, and some said they couldn't wait and sorry.

So--the parade arrived at 11:30, the main Memorial Day ceremonies and parade awards took less than an hour, and within an hour after that, pretty much everyone was gone.

We were finally on around 2:30, and the 30 or 40 people who were left came over and were a very good audience. Nothing like the hundreds we'd been expecting.

If we do this event again, we won't do it under those circumstances. It had gotten quite warm by then, and three of our dogs didn't want to be out in the heat doing agility. And while I understand that they have a program and everyone wants their turn to do their stage bit, they'd be much better off running parallel programs, which would give everyone their turn but also allow the audience choices of things to do AND maybe therefore get them to stay around longer to WATCH the things. And I can assure you that, if I'd thought the audience would be only 30 people, I wouldn't have volunteered to show up.

But, even given all that, it's always a blast to get to run your dogs on a fun course, away from home, not in class, not in competition, and for free! (Except for the time involved.) Everyone did a bit of practicing here and there while waiting our turn. We also talked to a lot of people who had come over and were hanging around waiting for the official demo to start, and we talked to them about our dogs, demonstrated some tricks and some training methods, showed some individual obstacle performances, and like that. Then maybe 15-20 minutes of demo, including explaining the equipment and then running a course. Then, after the demo was over and everyone had run, the audience vanished from the site POOF! and we all ran it again and did little sequences and things with our dogs.

Boost is SO FAST! Man, she hauls! Got tremendous OOoohs from the audience when she slammed into the weave entry and continued correctly at her lightning speed... but then, dang, popped out at #8. More than once. And she was knocking bars. But her contacts were excellent, we didn't have any runouts or refusals, although we did have a little confusion and I just couldn't keep up with her! She loved it! Tika was her usual fast-enough consistent self and enjoyed schmoozing with the audience and getting treats for tricks (backing up to "beep beep beep" like trucks do was a crowd pleaser).


I met a couple of new agility people and got to see a couple of folks whose dogs have retired from agility so I don't see them at trials any more, but they were willing to come out and do this and jump at a nice easy low height. And for sure I burned a tremendous number of calories! I should sleep well tonight! Bring on the ibuprofen!

And I learned this valuable lesson: When you clear EVERYTHING out of the van to try to fit in all the agility equipment, don't remove the bag with the sun lotion!

Looking in the mirror after a long hard sunny day.

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No Dogs Tonight and Sore Legs

SUMMARY: In which we realize why we shouldn't slack off on the uphill/downhills.

I've been trying to be very good about getting out with the dogs for at least a mile or preferably two every day, like I used to BK (before knee [issues]). It's good exercise; I move at a brisk pace--to the dogs' dismay, because they NEED to minutely examine every shrub, tree, and large weed along the way--and I get my heart rate elevated. But the elevation changes around here are a bit slim: in the two-mile loop down past the high school, I'm thinkin' my elevation change is cumulatively about 5 feet. If I turn right instead of going straight, we can dive under the freeway and actually get in a--what?--30 foot each way? elevation change.

Last night was my first outing with the Sierra Club since it's been light enough to go into the parks with hills (mostly flattish walks during the winter in suburban areas and parks). A brisk 5 miles round trip, up at least 500 feet to the top of Black Mountain above Los Altos Hills. My legs were SO tired by the end of the trip... Lost all that conditioning from last year!

You'd think that, with legs this long, they wouldn't get tired.


We were quite a crew--in addition to my out-of-shapedness, our Fearless Leader damaged her ankle (or achilles tendon?) last year and is still recovering, so she wasn't as brisk as she was last year; the schoolteacher who hikes hundreds of miles in Europe every summer, 20 miles a day, is still recovering from a broken foot this winter and is still in pain although she's up to (she says) about 8 miles she can do in a day. Who knows what the other 16 people were up to, but I am certain it wasn't as brisk a hike all around as we were doing last fall.

View to the northwest from the summit near sunset.

A wonderful friend loaned me her digital Nikon D50 SLR to try out for a while, so I hauled that up to the top with me, took about 6 shots, and then got an "Err" display. We tried all kinds of things but I didn't find the answer in the instruction book until I got home. It's better now.

The air over the valley and bay was too hazy for worthwhile photos.

But it caught the amber light of the setting sun on the view to the southwest, where a deer made a brief appearance on the hill below us, spotted us, and dashed away.

On the drive back down the mountain, a coyote crossed our path and then a deer nearly ran into us. And 10 minutes later we were back at the Interstate with thousands of vehicles streaming by.

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Early Start on a Hot Day

SUMMARY: Another 4-mile walk at dawn with dogs and camera.

Today's forecast is for temperatures approaching 100F (38C). Hot. Missed out on most of our exercise yesterday because of the heat. So this morning, starting at 5:30 (temp 68F/20C), the dogs and I took a brisk 4-mile stroll through the neighborhood. With point-and-shoot camera. It was gorgeous--perfect hiking temperature, and although there were no cloudy bits to make for a truly spectacular sunrise, that wonderful morning golden glow suffused everything.



Our 3.5-mile (5.6 km) walk took just under an hour and a half, with frequent stops for photo snapping (mostly me), shrub sniffing (mostly not me), and reminders about not pulling on the leash (community effort). For some unfathomable reason I never thought to take photos of my merle girls this morning. But this well-behaved dog earned a photo.


And, so that you don't feel merle-girl deprived, here are some gratuitous, previously unpublished shots from a trip to the park back in March.



I brought up Boost to consider her leash to be a fun toy. This enables me to always have a toy with us to use as a reward. At this park, the dogs are usually off leash, but we were approaching some small dogs on leash, so I put Tika on leash as well. The only one more surprised than me was Tika, when Boost grabbed Tika's leash out of my hand and started hauling her around the field. Go ahead, Tika, pull on the dang leash NOW!


Now--if you want to see the full 19 shots from this morning's hike, in larger format (you can even display as a slide show), with descriptions, go here.

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TaJ MuttHall Yard and Local Deities

SUMMARY: In which we take a camera tour in our very yard to prove that lacking an SLR doesn't mean that we can't take quick unartistic snapshots anyway. Plus an inventory of yard deities of many persuasions.

Visit here for a lot of fun photos like these, but with captions, to see what kinds of activities and lives go on in the Taj MuttHall yard.

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Aftermath

SUMMARY: More on the break-in

So--here is why they never bothered to open the door, which is why they took only the things they could reach through the front passenger window:
("Protected by Chapman vehicle security system".)

It's funny to see that in the remnants of my side window, but not funny in that having the alarm in fact DID probably protect most of the other stuff in my car. I am grateful for that.

The glass company came out and replaced my window--he finished exactly 24 hours after the break-in occurred (within the same 20-minute period), which is a nice symmetry. Just under $200. Much less than my auto deductible, but still a good chunk of change--although I'm trying to keep that in perspective, too; it's not much more than one dog's full entry for an agility weekend, and I write those checks all the time!

Shattering that one window threw glass all the way through my van. Found bits in the far ends of the dogs' crates in the very back of the van. The repair guy vacuumed a lot, and then I spent another half hour vacuuming in even more detail. And every time I turned around, bits of broken glass had reappeared where I had just cleaned. Even big chunks of the safety glass. Which mostly breaks into chunks, but there are tiny shards and slivers among them.

I am truly grateful that the dogs weren't in their crates at the time; I vacuumed up some sharp bits. (Although--would the crated dogs have deterred them? Dunno. No way to know.)

My homeowner's deductible is much larger, but when I actually added up everything that was taken, it was way over the deductible, so I'll get some money back. Not enough to replace everything (because it's minus my deductible). But at least some small comfort. For the 12 or so hours that it took to research my losses, report them on the SJPD web site, report them to the insurance claim adjuster, go dumpster diving, make a flyer and post it in various locations, talk to Kaiser security, and so on and so on. Of course insurance doesn't cover THAT time, either.

Take a last look at my camera, telephoto lens, belt case holding another telephoto, and black and teal all-purpose jacket that I've had for 13 years and hardly shows the wear. It'll be tough to replace that. (Thanks, Steph, for the photo.)

But they didn't get my favorite Pluto Unleashed hat, thank goodness, which was behind the seat (covered with broken glass). Nor my hiking boots, nor my agility cleats, nor cell phone or digital camera, nor any other dog gear, nor the tools I carry for auto repair--All a great relief.

All things considered, I'm not feeling too bad. Concentrating on the "grateful for"s and just holding up a mental "STOP!" sign every time I catch myself thinking "If only..." and either dismissing it or turning it into "what did I learn that I can apply next time." It's tough to do but I think it's working pretty well. Like--oh, well, I do still have my point-and-click camera. And I still have a ton of unsorted, unlableled photos from the last couple of years that I can be working through instead of taking lots more photos with my "real" camera.

And I'll try to be satisfied with the point-and-click for a while. Its quality for tough lighting situations isn't great, but I can get SOME semblance of shots for things like these sunsets--April 20 and last night, after the break-in--which lightened my heart greatly, stopping to admire it--both seen from my car and dashing for the nearest place to pull over and get a photo. Not great, but OK after a little photoshopping.



Whatever gods or physics daemons are responsible for the universe--thanks for making it a beautiful place to live.

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Boost Plays to the Max and Tika Has a Lot to Say

SUMMARY: Small dogs come visiting.

On Friday, an irrigation specialist person came here for an hour to discuss my irrigation mess, and he brought his Italian Greyhound, Dante. Dante and Boost couldn't have been happier. Dante chased Boost, and Boost blasted through the various tunnels full speed, then would skid to a halt inside one end, Dante would run over and bark at her, and she'd u-turn and skeedaddle fast as lightning to the other end, Dante would run over and bark. Repeat. Until that tunnel got dull, then there'd be sprinting into other tunnels, behind shrubs, and so on.

Very happy dogs.

(Although Tika is a little suspicious about the whole thing:)


And Boost got well worn out.

Tika, who is funny funny funny, isn't much into playing with other dogs (although she and Boost played the same way when Boost was younger--Tika doing the chasing and barking for the most part--and they still wrestle with each other pretty much every day). But she gets off on the excitement exuding from the other dogs, and she barks BARKS BARKS!!!


For some inane reason or other it never occurred to me to get my camera out.

The next day, a friend and her two French Bulldogs came to visit. Now, the older Frenchie--Elliot--and Boost are about the same age, and they had several opportunities in hotel rooms and when visiting each other when they were between about 6 months and a year and a half to play play play, and they loved it! And they still remember each other. (Dang, thought I had photos posted from wayyy back, but not finding them.)

The problem is that Elliot is recovering from a damaged disc in his spine and wasn't supposed to be playing. Boost tried and tried and tried to get him to play, and he tried and tried to play with her, but his Human Mom kept putting the kibosh on it. So sad! The other, younger Frenchie was delighted to play with Boost, and they did a bit of running but mostly wrestling, although Boost kept going back to Elliot to try to engage him.

Ah, well.
Boost: Elliot, c'monnn, play with me!

Elliot: Boost, c'monnn, play with me!


Boost is so gentle with the tiny dogs. And she gets right down to their level to play, like she's doing here with Babette.


Babette always looks so cheerful AND has a pointed tongue. How cute is that?

OK, really, I'd never have a Frenchie myself, but just look at that face on Elliot!


Meanwhile, Tika had a lot to say about all that excitement, too. MAN, she has a loud bark!

I did finally remember to get my camera out, after they were all pretty tuckered out.

Babette's and Boost's tongues hung wayyyy out. It was a good workout for them both.


Boost got well worn out AGAIN.


Life is good.

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No Thanks, No Puppy for Me

SUMMARY: In which I continue to realize that I am content with my current dog population and that my current dog population has some agility issues.

There's a brand new border collie puppy at Power Paws, and it visited class last night. It was very cute. It was happy to see everyone. It had delightful puppy breath. It wiggled and ran and fell over and got up and wiggled some more. As astonishingly freshly cute as every puppy ever made. I snuggled it.

And I had absolutely zero, not one, not a whit of, desire for a puppy of my own. Puppies are hard work. Training is hard work. Taking care of dogs is hard work, and expensive, too. I like having two dogs. Me and my twos, we be a happy little family unit.

Someone in class suggested that, when I said, "I have no interest in a puppy," that I was trying to convince myself. Funny that that's the reaction--does everyone else want a new puppy so badly that they can't imagine someone NOT wanting one?

No thanks, no no no--I've got enough training and attention challenges with the dogs I've got!

But I do like having lots of friends in agility. I left my Wednesday night 8:15 class a while back, but I'm still an Honorary Member. So when certain members of the class promised human treats to celebrate his 3rd consecutive placement on the World Team, I invited myself along.



Then they invited my dogs to participate in class, so I got a bonus class this week (in exchange for giving up my Wednesday night sierra club hike).

As an additional bonus for going up to class on Wednesday, I had an opportunity at a stop light to capture the sunset.


Then, as yet another bonus, in Power Paws' driveway, Mr. Owl awaited me on the phone lines for a photo op in the twilight. No tripod, but not bad anyway. (Great Horned Owl.)


And so, with two nights in a row of class, I have established this: Tika runs well at 22", and Boost knocks a lot of bars.

So here we are again.

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Spring Color

SUMMARY: Iris and roses in Taj MuttHall's yard.

These and a few more roses are here. (As of the moment of this posting, they're still uploading.)

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Ambitions!

SUMMARY: OK! Time to get serious about agility training!

Bring it on, human trainer person!


After everyone seemed light on the concept of Correct Contact Performance this last weekend--how did I manage to ruin Boost's Perfect Contacts? Really, they were the best I've ever had on a dog!?--I have vowed that we're all going to do 50 contacts a day here in the yard all week so we'll be prepared for this coming weekend's USDAA trial.

Although I don't know what it's worth--does Boost EVER leave a contact early here in the yard before being released? Not in the memory of humankind.

But what the heck, maybe if I do it often enough then it will overwrite the neural pathways that she has developed that say it's ok to leave the contact as soon as you feel like it. Research has shown that you can do that. That's kind of how you develop habits in your brain--do it over and over and your brain rewires itself. That's what neuro-linguistic programming is all about. Can one do NLP if one is a canine and doesn't have so much of the same linguistic capabilities? Can dogs do daily affirmations? Look in the mirror and say "I will do contacts correctly this weekend"?

"Every day, in every way, I am doing contacts better and better."
"Touch! Touch! Touch! Yes I can!"

I think perhaps we can do the equivalent with lots of repetition and reward.

So I will be a dog-brain rewiring specialist this week.

Yesterday we first revisited nose touches to a target. Ah, indeed, it's ok to just brush your nose past the surface of the target? Or swipe it along the target? Really? Did I ever teach them that? So instead of 50 contacts, we did 50 attempts to get them to >>ponk!<< their nose straight down on the target, not swipe, not push, not lower to their elbows first, not put a paw on it also. Just >>ponk!<< straight down and up. It's really lovely as long as I hold it in my hand at ground level or lean it against the toe of my shoe. Do you suppose the judge would mind if I stood at the end of the contact with a clear plastic target leaning on my shoe?

But there is something evil about the target lying flat on the ground. Really, once upon a time I could swear that we all did this correctly.

Actually, here in the yard, even without the target, Boost will bob her head up and down as if she were thinking about maybe ponking the target if it were there. I tried that this weekend in the ring after many many, shall we say hundreds, of leaving the contact earlies. She just stared at me. Stared. Like, "'Touch?' What is this noise you make?"

OK, so we will also do 50 jumps a day to learn once and for all that knocking the bars isn't an OK thing. Yesterday we probably didn't do 50 each. Might have done 20 each. If I were a Four Star Trainer, I would be logging these things so I'd know exactly how many I actually do. We all seemed to be getting the idea. Until we'd throw in a sequence, then we'd go back to whack-a-bar.

I'm jumping them both at 28" or so this week because we have a USDAA trial this weekend. I think Tika can handle a week of that. And Boost usually jumps 22", so maybe if I get her used to thinking higher and working harder at it, she'll pay attention.

But I also know that I need to work on her just *doing the obstacles in front of her* for crying out loud instead of looking at me. Or, officially, doing obstacles between me and her. Like, say, on a straight line to a turn where I'm calling her and have done the front cross and she's still blasting straight ahead full speed, looking at me and not bothering looking to see whether there's an actual obstacle there to take.

Oh, yes, we have lots of info on how to fix these things.

I just have to do it.

Mwah ha ha haaa! TMH and the Merle Girls (Boost, Tika, and MooMoo) will take over the agility world!!

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Random Things in April

SUMMARY: The mind wanders. The life wanders.

• Last week it was so cold that I ran the space heater under my desk on several days. Yesterday we beat the all-time temp record for this date, which was set over100 years ago. Hey, people, this is supposed to be April! Dogs don't much care--still wnat me to Throw The Toy--except that when they fetch it, they run and drop it in the shade and wait for me to come get it. This weekend--when we're doing agility again finally, mind you--it's supposed to be cool and very rainy. Unsettled weather: Unsettling.
  
• Last summer I bought a brand new purple Jolly Ball for the back yard. (Well, really, for the dogs, but it lives in the back yard.) The dogs love that toy. Shortly thereafter, it vanished. I looked everwhere, even underneath the miles of shrubbery lining my fence. Nada. Finally gave up and bought a new one.
  
  
  Last week I got to work finishing that trimming job I started...uh...a while back. Guess who's been overwintering 6 feet up in the shelter of the shrubbery? Yes! Mr. Jolly Ball!
  
  Reminds me of the time that Mr. Red Jolly Ball vanished from the yard and I gave up and bought a new one. Came autumn, fruit trees dropped their leaves--and there was Mr.RJB nestling in the branches of the apple tree 15 feet up. (Thought I had a post on this but can't find it. Sorry; know you're disappointed.)
  
  Now--*I* would notice if I tossed a JB into a tree or a shrub. Renter claims that he'd notice, too. OK, you guys, fess up: Who's been sneaking into my yard and tossing JBs into mysterious places?
• Huh--this horrible nasty way overgrown privet, once stripped of its branches (my intention was to remove it entirely--maybe there's be more room for another tunnel?), has apparently self-grafted like crazy. He never listened to Mom Privet saying, "If you keep wrapping your branches around each other like that, they'll freeze that way!" Makes me want to stop sticking my elbow in my ear all the time. Fortunately it did not self-graft itself around Mr. JB. The real problem here is that now I think that this is so cool that I don't want to take it out after all. Sigh. The price one pays for one's art.
• Naming dogs: I take forever to come up with dog names. That's why Jake stayed Jake as he was before i got him, and Remington stayed Remington as he was in his pre-TMH life. Keep threatening to name my next dog Spot or Fido or King or Queenie. ...So...how come no one ever names their dog Kingie or Queen? Is this sexist?
• Just lounging around in the yard, watching the Graf Agility Zeppelin float by.
  
• Painted Ladies recently migrated northward through our area in massive quantities.
  


• We're starting agility class again this Thursday, after a 9-week absence for R&R Woo hoo! Dogs will be much happier. We're just starting some practice again in the yard. Boost is still knocking bars. I've been perhaps less than faithful in doing everything that was recommended during our hiatus. But we did have a good time. Mostly.
• Unemployment rate in Silicon Valley popped up to 11.2%. California overall 11%. Fourth highest in the country among all 50 states. Wasn't high tech supposed to be recession-proof? Agility trial entries are down. Is it the economy, stupid? Or the stupid economy?

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She Swoons Because It's All About the Clothing

SUMMARY: Agility is coming and we're not prepared. A Facebook experience, confirming that agility is all about the clothing.

I have been intrigued to see that this single Facebook status message and the single follow-up photo have elicited more comments from more people than any other facebook or blog post to date. You guys all have strange appetites. You Facebook fanatics have undoubtedly seen this as it unfolded. But--in the interest of preserving it for posterity (I have only the best interest of history books in mind)--

It all started with my status note on Thursday (compare and contrast to more typical status messages like "Joe Smith...is heading for bed after a wonderful evening with friends," "Jane Doe...loves her new iphone," "Bo Hunk...is leaving for [fill in name of agility trial]" -- all of which are interesting but, like, normal):

Ellen Levy Finch stops suddenly, looks at her calendar aghast, and realizes that she'll be competing in agility in 8 days and neither dog has practiced in a month! She swooons.

The response trail looked more or less like this:

MB: Nice dramatic flair! [polite clapping] I can *almost* imagine you swooning.
TMH: On the divan, of course. In the parlour.
MB: I'll send for the smelling salts!
TMH: LOL! Perfect. I mean--fiddle-dee-dee!
MJ: So, with the whole parlour, smelling salts, etc, scene, I guess this means you'll be wearing a bare shoulder afternoon gown, in Spring shades, with long gloves, and a wide brim sun hat with matching ribbon tie. Oh, and being sensible, Doc Martins during competition. I'd *love* to see pics!
TMH: Sure, I'll send photos of such as soon as I have them.
MJ: Send whatever you end up with, I'll have to see what I can do. *digs through pile of old install disks* Where's that Photoshop?

So I had to dig through all my old agility photos to find one of me (lots with just the dogs, but "me" usually shows up as just a fat knee or blurred pointing finger) that I could post in response. Here's what I "found": "Dressed for swooning on the agility field. Prepare the smelling salts!"


And here's the brouhaha (emphasis on haha) it engendered:

KM: Where's the parasol to shade your delicate lap dogs from the sun?
MB: ROFL! How long did that take you to do?
GD: wow...in the agility competitions I have attended, the people are dressed like regular schlubs - polar fleece and/or shorts depending on the time of year...are there different types of competitions with different dress codes?
KM: Victorian agility is big in the Bay Area. If you think Ellen's costume looks good, you should see the dogs!
MB: Those hoop skirts are a b*&^ to run in tho!
AS: Beats wearing an Elizabethan Collar wouldn't you say?
TMH: Yep, we always dress in period costume, a different period for each season. I understand that this summer will be Mongol Horde. We'll have to bring yurts instead of our regular canopies.
TMH: P.S. This is for you, Mike!
TMH: P.P.S. Taken at SP's Workin' Paws!
CS: makes me think of Phil in his pirate costume...or as the Power Flaws girl (?) Kinda miss that guy
TMH: I was trying to find a photo of him to prove the theory that agility is done in costume. Thought I had some, but noooo--
TMH: P.P.P.S. OK, in the REAL reality, it took about 20 minutes in photoshop, I think, including finding a dress photo that's compatible with a photo of me with dog.
GD: Now I'm disappointed. It certainly would add a little flair to the whole thing...imagine some long ribbons in the doggies fur, flapping as they run the course!
SP: Why yes...it is a requirement to dress in period costume if you run a dog at Workin' Paws. Otherwise you can't attend. Thank you Ellen for giving me heads up on the Mongol Horde. I will get that ready!
LR: Love how the dress is the proper TMH colour.
MB: Garth, you have that confused with our rhythmic gymnastics courses, where the dogs and handlers must twirl a ribbon while running. Totally different from our period-costume-of-the-season courses....Now where did I store that yurt and fur g-string from last season's Mongol festivities?
MJ: Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You know, TMH, maybe we'd attend more events if they WERE costumed! (The audience could vote on best costume, keep themselves amused while judges were doing judgy things.)
TMH: How about if the *audience* comes in costume? Hmm. OK, free admission to all spectators who come in costume from now on!
SY: Yes, very nice dress. I hope you can run in that.
AS: Occasionally, agility people have been known to show up in hippie attire.... and then there was that guy who used to run in a kilt... What ever happened to him?
TMH: He moved back east.
AS: Like Eastern Scotland?
TMH: LOL. Not that far.
TC: And, that wasn't dress-up...it was everyday attire.
Remember the trial (WVDS) when Bill N. and Terry S. dressed in top hat and tails and ran their dog in pairs?
TMH: Wasn't there! Sounds lovely.
TMH: Yeah, EB has several kilts.
EC: So how are the photoshop lessons going?
TMH: [some noncommittal reply]
MJ: Several kilts make sense if:
(1) you've got a pile of money - they're $500+;
(2) you need the "dress" tartan for evening, in-town occasions;
(3) you need a "hunting" version for country, day wear, or a trip to the pub;
(4) you need your old one as a loaner for all your friends who don't have one and might, I repeat *might,* be persuaded to try ... Read Moreone, if it were free, arm twisting were employed by their significant whatevers, and everyone in earshot promised to surrender their cameras. (Pics will be taken, of course, and posted immediately!)
Dave: Woah...I have the exact same agility outfit. Good thing we didn't wear them at the same time...THAT would have been embarrassing.
TMH: Dave, The *first* thing that popped into my head when I saw that dress was, "Whoa, that is like so TOTALLY Dave's style!" but I just crossed my fingers and hoped that you hadn't already found it.
TMH: Mike, Of course we're talking modern-man kilts: all-black, all-tan, nice washable materials for mucking around with dogs or attending dinner parties. I know I have a photo around here somewhere...grumble grumble... OK, I'll look for it more some other time.

So that's how it stands as of 11:00 this morning. I am now desperately in search of:
* Photo of EB in his agility or evening kilt (I do have the latter--must be in my archives somewhere).
* Photo of Phil in any of his--uh--unusual agility outfits (I've seen photos but don't remember whether they're mine--more searching necessary).
* Photo of Bill N & Terry S in tops & tails doing agility.
* Like that.

Remember: Agility is all about the clothing. Really.

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California Natives--Flowers, Rocks, Birds, Butterflies

SUMMARY: Photos galore, even if they are slightly out of focus.

I've FINALLY posted photos from my March 28 wildflower stroll, sans dogs.

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Hiking Photos

SUMMARY: Fun in the sun and in the cow plop.

Sunday was just about a perfect spring day. Clear skies, temperatures just on the edge of cool, excellent for hiking.

We started out at 9 in the morning, and the parking lot was nearly empty. The dogs were delighted with the concept of being off leash and exploring. I mean, like, totally and completely delighted. Sniffed at everything. Boost promptly found a dead toad to roll in, and the day continued along those veins.

Wildflowers bloomed in every direction. In particular, lupines were everywhere. Some entire fields filled with the blue of lupines.


The trail ran alongside and across a stream. Somewhere a sign said no swimming, but we couldn't keep the Golden Retrievers out of it. And Tika, oddly enough for a dog who might be, who knows, Australian Shepherd and Husky, loves the water, too.

Renegade amazed me by carrying a toy almost the entire trip. Retrievers! He also displayed his innate agility. He and Boost were in puppy agility class together, but Ren is now retired from agility and spends his days hiking, swimming, retrieving, and writing his memoirs.

Horses and cows had laid out many delectable patties along the trail and meadows. Tika and Boost loved it.

Would you put your hand in there to try to reattach a leash to the collar?

None of the beasts apparently suffers from any fear of heights or of falling down the cliffs. Nice to have four feet and a low center of gravity.

Wendy and Keith and the beasts forge ahead while I--as usual--snap photos and then rush to catch up.

And so another adventure comes to an end. By the time we were home, the dogs were rested up and ready to play again. Everyone got a good hosing down, to their dismay.

These are just a few of the photos; see the rest--lots of wildflowers and happy dogs--here.

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Dogs Take Over the Roofs

SUMMARY: Photos on a theme.

On Flikr: Dogs on Roofs. For those with an obsession about dogs on roofs.

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Hiking With or Without Dogs

SUMMARY: Brisk Sierra Club hike along lower Stevens Creek.

Last night I hiked a brisk 4 miles with the Sierra Club Wednesday night group. I'm always looking for broad expanses of grass that we could commandeer for agility trials, and our starting location--through Whisman Park--had lots of grass...but not exactly suitable for agility, unless you wanted to try some EXtreme Agility (think EXtreme Croquet).


Left my beasts at home because the latter part of the hike was into Shoreline, which doesn't allow them even on leashes. But another hiker showed up with his dog, a Border Collie Maybe named Kelly, so we ended up doing some creative detouring.


Which allowed us to go by this very active dog park nestled away in the corner near the Bay.

Saw lots of flowers; spring is here for sure!


More photos and narrative here.

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Still Life With Dogs. OK, Not So Still.

SUMMARY: It's not the camera that's the challenge.

We just want a slightly silly shot of the 3 of us for facebook. ("We" loosely interpeted to mean "human residents of Taj MuttHall".) Can't have the same profile photo for too long!

The cheap snapshot camera goes onto the laundry hamper and we do a test shot for angle and height. Tika starts rearranging the bedding for us.


Too low, so we shim up the camera a little bit. Set up the dogs, turn on the camera's timer (TMH doesn't have a remote control), and leap into position.


Oh, man, I almost had it perfect on the first shot! Except (1) just before the timer went off, Boost shifted to her left, so she's cut off, although she's looking at the camera, (2) I just look way too cheery compared to the dogs, (3) I kinda thought it would be fun to have the dragon/heart art hovering over our heads, and here it's kind of cut off, and (4) why is it so dark?. (OK, "almost perfect" by some people's definition maybe isn't so picky.)

Next try--

dagnabbit, kinda cute--both dogs are still looking at the camera--but how did the camera shim itself too high this time, cutting off my hands, I thought I put it back in the exact same way? And Boost refused to put her paws over the edge of the bed this time. Next try--


OK, Boost is getting bored or stressed and wants to leave, and I'm trying to talk her out of it. Great. But the framing's just about perfect if I can convince the beasts to just stay there while I'm leaping in and out of position to check and reset the camera. Next try--

OK, Boost's not totally looking at the camera, but I've got more important things to do and this'll have to suffice. Except that, being lazy, I left the pink curtains closed so everything has a pinkish tinge, and it's still a little on the dark side. So, into photoshop we go--

Took out the pink nicely. Better. But Tika's fur should be white and I could swear that it has a yellow cast. More photoshopping--


Indeed it sure did! To my eye, this looks closest to the "natural" colors of the room and its inhabitants. It might look blue to you compared to the previous one--that's because the previous one is so yellow! See, taking a quick snapshot just doesn't work for me any more. It's gotten so complicated.

How did I get the dogs to look at the camera? Foul trickery--I just pointed at the camera right before the timer went off, when it was making little beeping sounds, and said "what's that?" Bing!, instant attention. In other situations, I might have used food and done the same thing.

For another self-portrait-with-dogs adventure, read this old post.

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Boost Visits the Orthopedist and Tika Goes For a Hike

SUMMARY: Boost looks good but there's work to do.

We drove wayyyyy out of town this morning--about an hour and a half--to the current favorite dog sports orthopedist, up in Marin, north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. A long way from home.



And there in the lobby was an agility friend who lives a few blocks away from here, picking up her dog. Small world.

Dr. S did a quick physical exam and said that nothing seemed amiss, except that she didn't want to extend her rear legs but that could be pain or it could be that she just doesn't want to extend her rear legs. So he agreed that x-rays of her pelvis would be good to eliminate anything structural.

We left Boost to be sedated and x-rayed and went in search of the Oakwood Valley Trail in the Tennessee Valley. (I thought that was farther away than Marin, but what do I know?)


It was a lovely day for a hike, we found the trail easily, and I thought we had a couple of hours, so we set out briskly. It was muddy in spots, but otherwise the trail was wide and comfortable with a slight uphill grade.


They had told me that this was a dog-friendly trail, and indeed the only people I saw on the trail were five other lone women with their dogs (three black labs, a husky, a golden retriever, and a black and tan coonhound I think). No men, no dogless people. Interesting. And for some odd reason I didn't take photos of any of the dogs.

Tika behaved VERY well, met each of them fairly comfortably. No shrieking and throwing herself at the end of the leash. Odd.

We were about a mile out when my cell phone rang to tell me that Boost would be available an hour earlier than estimated, so we turned and went back. (I'll load more photos of the hike later.)

Dr. S showed the x-rays, and said that she could be the poster child for excellent OFA hips. Nice deep sockets with the leg bones well-seated. However, when he pulled on her legs, he can none-the-less feel that they're loose--the hip moves slightly out of the socket and back in again.

This might not be a problem; there are apparently many many loose-hipped border collies that never have any issues. Or it might be a problem; some of those border collies develop arthritis. There's no sign of that in Boost at this time. So Dr. S. said that he sees no reason why she can't do everything normally.

Then we did the physical therapist. She ended up doing a thorough and deep massage to be sure there were no soft-tissue issues, and indeed she found that Boost reacted with discomfort to pressure on a couple of small, deep muscles under her rear legs, and a bit on the shoulders where she said that she'd expect a dog to be compensating with her shoulders for soreness in the rear.

Boost, after initial misgivings, really relaxed into the massage except for raising her head and glaring when the sore spots were hit. Didn't hurt that there was still a lingering bit of sedative.

Then we talked at great length about exercises to strengthen and tighten her hips, abdomen, and lower body in general. I have so much homework to do! I have a video now, too, that explains some of the exercises.

I didn't get home until after 6 this evening, so gone for 9 hours. A long day. I'm tired. Glad there's nothing serious with Boost, but the physical therapist suggested a couple of weeks of rest with no intense, driven running. Just lots and lots of hiking. Ack! More time that I don't have! And that's just NOT going to burn off the energy!

Well, we'll see what we come up with.

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Ribbons and Choices

SUMMARY: Tika does well but is sore; Boost runs a lot; TMH can't make up its mind.

These March winter mornings in Turlock started with frost on the grass but the sun rising bright and clear. By early afternoon, people had stripped off their coats and some had started hosing down their dogs to keep them cool. But when the sun set--Brr!

With Boost's agility career on hiatus while I figure out whether she has a physical problem, all my hopes for the weekend rested on Tika. If Tika can keep her bars up, she usually excels in CPE events. This is good, because I'd like to eventually earn enough Qs for her C-ATE (250 about), and she has a long way to go. We do few CPE trials any more, so every run counts because Tika is 8 and comes up sore more and more often.

We had 10 runs this weekend, and I promised myself that I would take Boost out after every one of Tika's runs and do something physically and mentally stimulating with her in lieu of a run.

First thing in the morning, we always play a bit of frisbee to loosen up the dogs and burn off the edge so that they'll relax in their crates. We did so Saturday. Then, on our way off the field, a friend with border collies that Boost loves to chase headed out to the playing field, so we went back out and ran a bunch more.

I try to keep the frisbee low so that the dogs aren't leaping and torquing their backs, but a couple of times I missed and I cringed seeing Tika's leaps.

Tika Sore? About 2 hours later, when I took Tika out of her crate for her first run, she emerged hunchy and stiff. Well, crap! I've driven all this way, paid my entry fees for the weekend (which are now nonrefundable), have only one dog to run, and this is one of the few CPEs for us this year. Plus when I've scratched Tika in the past, she often then goes blasting around the field full speed after squirrels, so how sore can she be? She is a known drama queen when it comes to injuries, too, so I have to take that into account.

I massage her, stretch her a bit, try to get her spine and shoulders mobile the way I was shown. (I'm not very good at this.) First run is Colors, only 11 obstacles, so what the heck. She runs fairly well, keeps all her bars up, but I can see that she's catching herself roughly when landing after each jump. But she's bright-eyed and eager and fast. Ends up 3rd fastest of all 58 dogs, all heights/levels, on the same course.

She's the ONLY dog in her level and height--24"--so she's guaranteed first place every time unless she eliminates, and there's not much chance of that. But I'll take the ribbons only if we've earned them.

She gets a doggie aspirin, more rubbing, and then I take Boost out for some running and training.

Boost Play and Training. I manage to keep my promise to Boost 8 out of the 10 runs for the weekend. I start and end every session just as if we were going into competition, using the right leash, the right toy, the right warm-up, then the right back-to-the-crate routine with treats and all. While she's out, we practice a variety of things:
* Sit-stay and down-stay, including with lots of excitement and toy throws. Even did a little out-of-sight stays, which we've never worked on before. Only 5 seconds, but she held it.
* Down from a distance while she's moving. Took her a couple of tries to realize what was going on, but then she got it and did very well. None of my other dogs have been able to do that without a lot of work, and even then reluctantly. But Boost has a super-fast down and seems comfortable doing it.
* Lateral lead-outs. Goal was to ensure that she was looking at the jump, not me, before I released her. We've done these before, but obviously not enough. It took her a very long time the first couple of times before she stopped staring at me and looked in the general direction of the jump inadvertently, at which point I released her and threw the toy. What a quick study she is!--By the end of the weekend, she was back to doing it pretty reliably.
* Sends to a jump from various directions (just a jump frame with a bar on the ground).
* Lateral "out" commands (around garbage cans) while we're moving together.
* Sitting up on her rear legs.
* Rolling over.
* "Close"--command for running next to me instead of ahead, until I say "go".
* Various running and moving ground exercises.

She seemed to enjoy it and didn't look disappointed or confused when I put her back in her crate, since I was following the same competition routine. (Unlike Jake who was quite disturbed and sulky about doing the agility that he expected.)

Plus she got to Run With The Border Collies for about half an hour at the end of the weekend while I packed my car.

Tika Still Sore--Or Not?
Tika came out of her crate with the same hunchy look for almost every run, although she always perked up completely when i presented treats. Did lots more massaging and stretching than I usually do with her. She loves the attention.

I couldn't decide whether to scratch her from the rest of the weekend. I really didn't want to, for my own sake, which is not how you're supposed to make decisions for your dog. On the other hand, she was always excited about running, enough so that we were having troubles with our start-line stays, and she always did the over-the-top grab-mom's-feet thing at the end of every run. And this is a known issue, not some mysterious malady.

Tika not looking at all wonky:


So I ran her all weekend, although she was landing heavily and grunting after her jumps and turning wide the whole time (except for one run), not her usual effortless flowing jumping and tight turns.

That Dang Snooker. The only run of the weekend where she didn't come out of the crate looking sore--and didn't keep her bars up--was the last run on Saturday, Snooker. The sun had already disappeared and it was much cooler. Maybe she liked the coolth.

Snooker in CPE is different from USDAA Snooker, in that you MUST successfully complete three reds to be able to earn a qualifying score (if you then go on and earn enough points in the closing). There is a fourth red on the course, but you can (must) take it ONLY if you knock one of the other reds. I explained this to a few people during the briefing.

Tika was the last dog to run of the class and of the day, so we ran a couple of hours after the briefing. I put her in a down stay and started my long lead-out to get into position. Next thing I know, there she is right next to me, bright eyed and bushy nubbered.

I set her up about 12 feet off the first jump to give her the right strides to get over the jump without knocking it. What she does when she decides she's going to self start is to stand up, slowly creep forward until she's right up before the jump, then takes off without enough space.

I looked back and, sure enough, the bar was down. I had hoped for a 51-point (perfect) run, but that was out of the question. And then my 12 years of USDAA experience kicked in: If I did just the two additional reds and the closing, I'd still have enough points to qualify. So that's what we did, and we did it quickly and smoothly. And we got to the end, and the judge comes over and says, "Did you realize that you could have taken the fourth red and still earned a qualifying score?" Oh--well--crud. I can't even remember my own advice for two hours! So we got no points for the closing at all and no Q.

You Know What Happens When You Assume. Our only other non-Q for the weekend was the preceding Standard run, which Tika did nicely all the way to the 2nd to last obstacle, which was a dogwalk-tunnel discrimination. I yelled "Climb!" and raced ahead, assuming that she'd do it because her arc from the previous obstacle led there--but Nooooo! Silly mom, tunnel much easier when mom's ahead. Body language takes precedence over voice commands.

Tika--Yes--Still Sore, But Happy.
In Snooker first thing Sunday morning, we had short weaves in the opening for for 7 points. Every time, Tika--my superb weaving dog--either went into the weaves on the wrong side because it was closer or went into the correct place and came right back out again. Wasted a tremendous amount of time in the opening, so we missed our perfect 51 points by less than one second! Argh! It was a qualifying score, but still, I didn't understand.

Until, before the next run, I had her do figure-8s around my legs, and the first time, she yelped and stopped! OK, sore side-to-side, too. So we added additional manipulations and stretchings and bendings, and she was decent after that, although still slower in the weaves than usual. And I didn't try pushing her speed during our runs, which I usually would do, to get her more excited and driving.

Qing and Firsts.
In all, Tika earned 8 of 10 Qs. It's always better for me (I feel better about my first places) if there are other 24"-jumping dogs in my height and level. But the two catahoulas weren't there, the BCs Annie and Django who sometimes jump 24" weren't there, and BC Brenn has moved down to 20".


As a result, to make me feel that we've earned our first places, I compare our scores and times to every other dog, all heights/all levels, who have done the same course. This time, Tika was never the top dog, but out of 50-60 dogs, she was still between the 3nd and 10th fastest or highest-scoring dog, so I felt that the 1st were earned.

Note that, in USDAA, if we weren't feeling well and were making mistakes on the course, we'd be wayyyy down in the rankings somewhere, but here in CPE, Tika is still near the top.

The only two dogs who beat us consistently all weekend were a fast little sheltie who has running A-frames and--in point accumulation classes--5 more seconds than we do, and a Border Collie in the 20" group.

The Horns of Height Dilemmas. Now, Tika is eligible to run 20" in CPE. I do 24" because she has to jump 26" in USDAA. So I could move her down to 20" for future trials to see whether that's better. Here's my personal dilemma: Because the 20" BC made no mistakes this weekend, and is also at Level C, if Tika had been running at 20", 7 or 8 of those 8 pretty blues would have been pretty reds. As much as I like competition, I must admit that a guarantee of not getting 1st is rough.

When Tika is 100%, we can almost never beat those other dogs on speed, so in timed courses, we usually win only if they make mistakes. In points courses, we can win when we create a cleverer, more efficient way of collecting points than the others, which is possible sometimes but not always.

Here's the second dilemma: in USDAA, I could move Tika to Performance and jump her at 22" instead of 26". But: I've already signed her up for the next two DAM Team events with 3-dog teams, with Tika at 26". And they'd be fun teams. We already have our team names (not always easy) and one even has a logo already. And I'd like to run with them. But if I go to performance, I'd have to find different teams. And closing is only a week away for one of them, which would leave that team stuck without a 3rd. But I want to do these teams!

So I'll probably stay at 26" at least for those. Maybe move her to Performance in some other things. And stay higher in Steeplechase and Grand Prix until she earns her 50th tournament leg.

I hate this. Dogs shouldn't get older and sorer.

But I Had Fun. In all, though, it was a good weekend. So I wasn't even particularly annoyed when I left the grounds around 7:30(!) Sunday evening. Especially because Boost got to romp with a ton of other Border Collies the whole time I packed.

Here's Bump, Dig, Boost's half-sister Quas ("Kass"), and Boost--who always just watches and outruns the other BCs:


Never thought I'd be able to tell one black & white BC from another, but over time, I've gotten to know some reasonably well. Here are housemates Bump, Dig, and Styx (with Cattle Dog Skeeter in the back), then blue merles Boost, sister Bette, and Quas.


It seemed like a lot of dogs milling and dashing around! (Easier to count when they're in a snapshot.) So sometimes we hardly noticed when other random dogs joined the crowd.


Skeeter is largely blind due to glaucoma; has only one eye left. But her Human Mom can get her to leap and play by shrieking and doing monstery things with her arms. It's very cute. While Boost sits, poised, waiting intently for a border collie to start running.


Tika kept rushing back to the van and looking hopeful. That's because they usually get dinner right before we go home. And we know who's the chow hound.




And I wasn't even annoyed when, while heading to the freeway, the car felt funny handling, and I wondered whether I had a tire problem, and then the tire-pressure light came on. I pulled into the Jack-in-the-Box, and sure enough, one tire's pressure was 5 lbs lower than the others, and it had this little ding.


Safe to drive? Dunno. Don't want to have blow-out on the way home; that WOULD annoy me. So I called AAA to have them look at the tire. Took less than half an hour to get there, but it gave me plenty of time to enjoy my healthy french fries...


to watch the moon come up over JITB...


to take endless sunset photos...


Here's a scenic one of the sunset reflected in my minivan's window. Glamorous, huh?



Then AAA arrived. He said: Dunno, but he'd replace the tire to be safe rather than sorry. He had the right tools to do it in about 3 minutes. Amazing.

Got home VERY late and slept VERY well for many, many hours.

Had These Photos And What To Do With Them? But lastly--just for you, gratuitous barking grassy Bump photos:

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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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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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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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Ribbon Wall

SUMMARY: We earned 'em; we'd like to enjoy 'em.

Photo by popular request. This is 2 years of ribbons at my current participation level and the dogs' current Q/placement level. In theory, at the end of every year, I take off the oldest year's worth.

Right now it's full and I'm starting to accrue ribbons in a pile at the bottom. Bad. Maybe in February, when I have no trials for a whole month.


P.S. Click photos for larger views to see how I overlap the rosettes and tuck the placement ribbons into the rosette to take up less space.

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Here and There in Portland

SUMMARY: From the river to the hills.

How can I possibly miss my dogs when they have cleverly attached large portions of themselves to my clean black pants?

Walked about six blocks down to the river, then along the river for a ways. Happened upon Mill Ends Park, billed as the world's smallest park.

I couldn't even get in, just sat around outside the park and admired the landscaping.


After returning to the Hilton for lunch and a rest, I walked about 2 miles (and 500 or more feet uphill?) in the opposite direction to the Rose Garden in Washington Park specifically to get nice views like this of Mount Hood. (BTW, yesterday's volcanoes were Mount Saint Helens all blown away on one side and Mount Adams).


I have many other photos, but this slow computer defeats me. Will try to get them up when I'm home again.

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From My Hotel Window

SUMMARY: So much to see, from just one rectangular glass-filled hole in the wall 20 stories up.

It's now 9:20 SUnday morning; it's 37.4 F out there (3.1 C). I'm bundled up and ready to go for a long brisk walk if these photos would ever finish uploading.

Shots from my window:
Saturday afternoon, a couple hundred loudly chanting marchers declare "Stop Funding Israel Apartheit."

Night falls:


The sun rises slowly:

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Long Portland Walk in the Poo Capital

SUMMARY: Hybrids everywhere. Of course that's what I meant.

Here's my friend and her dogs, Beppé the Maltipoo (Maltese/Poodle) and Rio the Standard Poo(dle).


They actually have a little off-leash grassy area, right near downtown! How non-Californian is that! Rio seemed pleased.


We walked for a lovely 3 miles--and then back again--along the Willamette.


We saw a lot of dogs on our walk. Didn't identify all of them--a Boxer, a probably Shepherd mix, maybe a MinPin. But there seemed to be an inordinate number of nonshedding type Poo dogs--besides Rio the PooDle and Beppe the Maltipoo, we met this GoldenDoodle:


And a Labradoodle (whom I did not photograph) and saw half a dozen other dogs of various sizes who might have been Poo(Dles) or FillInYourFavoriteBreedPoo mixes. I don't think I see this many Poodles or hybrids in our area. Portland seems to be a hotbed. At least along the riverfront on a crisp, cold, sunny winter day.

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Here I Am, Stylin' As Always

SUMMARY: Guess the year.

Can you believe out hiking in white pants? I don't even OWN anything white any more.

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Agility Dogs Run Errands

SUMMARY: Visiting the credit union and the grocery store.

Holy Dachsbracke, boys and girls, it's Jan 8 already! We have a USDAA trial in just 2 weeks! And what have we done for agility practice to shape up all those Issues from last year? Have we done our bar-knocking drills? Reinvigorated our 2o2o contacts? Tuned up our serpentines? Honed our gamblers distance work? No no no!

I have been doing this Miserable Cold thing for a week and a half now, going up and down, now on the uphill I think--I hope--cough's still hanging in there, but mostly I can work around that. So we haven't had class since Dec 18; we'll have class tonight if it doesn't rain (iffy), and class next week, and then I'm out of town the entire 7 days before the trial, so there will be NO NO NO agility practice the entire week!

The trial is only 1 day, 5 Masters classes; should be interesting to see whether we can do ANYthing.

So, today, to get in the right mind-set for agility, we went to the shopping center. First, we dropped in on the credit union to deposit some money so that our entry fee check doesn't bounce. The shopping center's decor, intriguingly, includes a vinyard that wraps around the buildings, right next to the sidewalk on a busy street.

Actual California grapes grow there. I don't know what happens to them; apparently not all of them get picked even though they're right next to a busy thoroughfare. Here is what dried grapes look like on a winter grapevine. I know you wanted to know.

If I did not have easily bored dogs who need a change of scenery, I would never get a chance to walk around shopping centers and discover fascinating things like that! But fortunately my agility dogs take their inquisitive noses and me on brisk walks around the perimeters. Some of these centers are quite large. And there is SO much to analyze, out there in the natural wonderland that is shopping center landscaping.

Native grasses.

Groundcover all a-flower (love winter in California!)

Shrubberies surrounded by "winter color"--pansies, cyclamen, little--uh--purple flowers--

Pizza boxes (love winter in California!).

Ah, yes, it's the 8th of January, and this is what's springing to life at our very own shopping center:

Then the agility dogs give me a shopping list for the grocery store. Do I ever complain about having trouble maintaining my girlish figure? It is the shopping lists that the agility dogs write up for me. It is my theory that they are trying to ensure that I always have a desperate need to be physically active with them, and that's why these sorts of things end up in my kitchen.

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Cold and Wet and Buster Cubes

SUMMARY: When it's cold or wet (or both) outside, how to burn off some doggie ergs?

Sunday morning at 9:30, in the back yard, frost and ice still reigned supreme, on grass and ground and forlorn agility tunnels:

The dog's water bowl was not immune, startling thirsty dogs; I enjoyed the beautiful ice patterns:

Hedge trimmings from the previous day took on a delicate new aspect:

Today, it's just plain raining and muddy. Certain human household members don't want to be out in that weather, not to mention recoiling from cleaning dozens of mudded canine tootsies. So how to burn those ergs/joules/calories/enegies/demons? One strategy is Breakfast by Buster Cube.

Tika finds that the nose nudge works well.

The foot fling also comes in handy.

Boost goes for any method that strikes her at the time.

Sometimes it goes under furniture and you just have to make a detour to chase it out of there.

When all else fails--or you're concerned that Tika might encroach on your BusterCubing domain--just pick it up and carry it around. (They're not supposed to be able to do that--are they?) Oh, yeah--and that inside-out ear thang again--

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Dogz Yardz Dragonz Toyz

SUMMARY: A busy afternoon out in the back 4. (Not enough space to be 40.)

Note 1: OK, yes, I am really stupidly going to upload 32 photos to Blogger, 2 at a time. I hate this photo interface except that it conveniently resizes them and makes thumbnails.

The shrubbery has gotten out of hand. And out of feet. And probably arms and legs, too. All 90 feet of it. Here is quite a bit less than all 90 of its feet. There is a fence in there somewhere. I swear it.

This is what I am prepared to do.

This is what Tika really wants me to do.

Boost's darned ear doesn't understand the proper way for an ear to behave in public.

Mr. Rusty Yard Dragon is being overgrown by Mr. out-of-hand shrubbery. However, he remains silent on the matter.

Mr. Triceratops is not, technically, a dragon. He is a token dinosaur-that-might-be-dragon-like-kinda. He sleeps with the gravels that the dogs slide through, pushing them up gradually until they mostly cover Mr. T and then I unbury him. He continues to sleep. Extinction is like that.

I think Tika is gorgeous. Whether or not she's all Aussie. Someday--maybe--the DNA test.


Boost is pretty gorgeous herself.

What Boost likes to do while I am trimming shrubs. Waiiiiiiiting--



until I toss a branch, and then--leap and grab! Leap and grab! ...Leap! and Grab! ...






Then--waiiiiiitingggggg....


...and leap and grab!



Tika does not get this game.

This is what Tika really wants me to do.

This is what happens to the nifty yard-waste basket that you can collapse into a flat package and store neatly in the shed, when you leave it uncollapsed and sitting out conveniently in the yard 24/7 for several years where you can get at it at a moment's notice to toss yard clippings into.

Leap and grab!



The shrubbery is looking so much better. Only another--uh--70 feet to go.

Mr. Rusty Yard Dragon is no longer being devoured by overgrown shrubberies. However, he remains silent on the matter.

I like Mr. Rusty Yard Dragon (for short, I fondly call him: Mr. Rusty Yard Dragon) because he looks cool and he's supposed to be rusty so he takes no maintenance. Just hangs around.

Really, Tika wants me to do this.

Boost wouldn't mind some of that, plus agility tunnels would be cool, plus her ear is inside out. Again.

Leap and grab!

This is what I should really be doing, according to Tika.

This is a history of what happens to purple Jolly Balls in our particular back yard.

#1 slowly developed little cracks from all the sharp doggie teeth digging into it to play fetch and/or tug-of-war day after day, week after week, month after month... but it is still throwable, fetchable, and tug-of-warable, and is really floppy so is fun to shake if you're a dog who likes to shake things, so we can't get rid of it yet. #2 unfortunately developed a problem with the handle, as in it is no longer there. Plus it got left on the patio in 100+-degree heat, and that concavity thing is what results. #3 is slowly developing cracks, too. Plus it got left on the patio on another 100+-degree day. It does not roll so well any more. #4 is our current experimental subject. #5 is also apparently experimental, because it vanished about 7 days after it had been put, brand new, into this very back yard. We have had 2 dogs and 2 people looking for it off and on for months. It has experimentally vanished into some odd backyard thin air.

Could the shrubbery have eaten it? The shrubberies are very overgrown-- I CAN take a photo at 1/10 of a second without a tripod, I can I can I can! ...Or maybe only if you squint and look at it in really small resolution so you can't see how fuzzy it is...Does this look like a JollyBall-eating shrub to you?

I am not complaining about tonight's sunset. Over the neatly trimmed 20 feet of shrubbery.

Now I can see the neighbor's tree house against the sky in the leafless winter tree.
Note 2: OK, yes, this photo upload process was astonishingly tedious and time-consuming. Plus reviewing images, moving them to match text--Bleah--Blogger is NOT designed for posting photos. In future, must revert to diverting you-all to my Smugmug for bigger photo collections.

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Sunrise

SUMMARY: This morning, out my back window.

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Just Stuff To Start the New Year

SUMMARY: Happy 2009

We went for a brisk 1.5-mile walk this evening, the first time since last Saturday that I've been healthy enough to want to do that. The dog excitement level exceeded all expectations.

For Tika, who goes banana-brains whenever we see another dog while out walking, I've discovered an interesting way to get her to cut it out: I just pat her firmly on the top of her head. Not quite a "whap," not a gentle pat but not enough to hurt, just from an inch or so above her head, just pat-pat-pat, just enough to distract her, apparently. It has been working very well for the last few weeks. Not something that anyone has ever suggested to me. Have to apply it several times, but wow after all these years something that works! That I don't feel bad about applying! That doesn't take any special effort or equipment! Yowza.

For Boost, who knocks bars like crazy, I've been threatening to get wooden jump bars for a while because various people from not-US-agility have said "we don't have problems with bar-knocking in [england/australia/fill in favorite country] because we use wooden bars." Lucked out and got a couple of wooden closet rods (on freecycle.org), which I need to paint to look like PVC bars. So what the heck, I'll up the ante for Boost to want to keep her feet up.

Progress occurs on many fronts. Happy 2009!

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Good Thing There's Work So I Can Recover From the Holidays

SUMMARY: Busy busy busy.

December 21, I went with a few of my sisters and bros-in-law out to dinner and then to the refurbished California Theater to get into the holiday spirit with a screening of White Christmas.

Sing along now with sisters #2 and 3, "Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters...!" (Watch/listen as performed by "Haynes sisters"...or, bonus, as performed by Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye)

Christmas Eve was fairly relaxing. Wrap a few gifts. Listen to Christmas music. Actually quite a bit to do; dogs neglected except for a short walk. At least they got those big juicy bones to work over.

Christmas Day I dropped in on a long-time friend, we went for a walk and chatted. Then Family most of the rest of the day, then a brief evening with some other friends. Home around 10 p.m. and crash into bed. Dogs were totally neglected.

The day after Christmas found me driving to Monterey with other selected sisters and related children. Took dogs for a really quick half-mile walk before I left, which really barely gets us started.

Beaches at Monterey have a lot of "no dogs" signs. Maybe these weren't really dogs. Or maybe this wasn't one of those beaches. Viszla discovers kelp.


I took no dogs of my own to bound gleefully along the beach, but fortunately I thought to bring along young offspring of random sisters to fill the void.


Sister #4 successfully conquers kelp.

Dragons are my other thing. Besides dogs. And photography. And writing. And some other stuff I like to do but don't have the time for. This one isn't really missing his tail; I'm missing some determination to finish merging multiple photos...

Sister #2 and bro-in-law who instigate many of these trips gaze longingly out to sea. No one knows why.


Nieces and nephews--can hardly tell who, because mostly all I ever see are the backs of their heads dashing away from me so fast that their color shifts towards red--stop for a moment to gaze longingly out to sea. No one knows why.


At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, danger lurks in every corner; assorted nieces and nephews are nearly devoured by a giant clam.

A special exhibit of otters from around the world nearly devours my inadequate frolicing-creatures-in-the-dark-interior-through-thick-spattered-glass-surrounded-by-crowds-of-people camera skills. One of them, sensing my fear, pauses for a millisecond in triumph and I finally get it on film.


I hate younger generations whose camera phones take photos that are as good as or better than my digital SLR. But ha! take THAT you young whippersnappers, I get two photos of jellies for the price of one!


In the evening, we rush home and then out for a Boxing Day banquet at another assorted sister's house. Home by 10, crash in bed exhausted. Dogs are completely neglected.

Two days after Christmas, leap out of bed early and head for the hills for a strenuous 8-mile, 2500-foot-cumulative elevation gain (and drop back down) hike. It's a perfect day for it, but my up-hilling equipments have gotten out of shape over the last couple of months of not doing any hill hiking. I can barely drag myself across the parking lot for a late afternoon movie viewing with a friend.

I crawl into bed at 8:30--dogs completely neglected again and started to really show it--and sleep for 12 hours. Except for the nightmare where Tika runs across the freeway out on the coast and is hit by a car. I cry for a bit and then fall again into an exhausted sleep. I am SOOOO not going to see Marley and Me.

Next day, my body is wiped out and rebels in many ways, but I make it out to the theater for yet another movie (all those studios releasing all those good movies the same week. Dash it all! How to keep up?!). I, the popcorn maniac, cannot at this point in my rebellious bodydom, stomach popcorn. I crawl home afterwards (hard to do in a minivan, I'll tell ya), collapse into bed for a long long nap. Dogs are going nuts. I can't believe I don't even turn on my computer for 24 hours.

Then spend 6 hours sorting and editing hundreds of photos. I'm STILL not quite done with the last week's worth, and I didn't even take any photos on the hike or the Boxing Day banquet or many other activities. Someday I'll get back to my October Monterey trip, my September Montreal trip, and my November Scottsdale trip photos. In the meantime, dogs are very very neglected and are not letting me forget it.

Meanwhile, I've finally met someone special!


OK, I think I can almost walk again today and have no movies, parties, trips, or photography sessions scheduled. Must work. Must take dogs for walk. Might even think about practicing some--uh--what's that sport called that I used to do with my dogs before THE HOLIDAYS kicked in?

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The Whole Family

SUMMARY: Except 4-year-old Kate, who wanted to wander around looking at stuff instead.

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Well, It's Christmas All Over Again

SUMMARY: Santa Claus is coming to town. Tonight. I hope I've been good.

I haven't done much decorating this year, just no time. But my tree's lights are twinkling quietly in the background, and oddly I don't miss the Darth Vader ornament--which I hang every year but this time didn't get around to--saying "[inhale]You are not a Jedi yet, young Skywalker[inhale]" every time I turn on the lights. I realize that its absence detracts from the whole Christmas spirit thing that I try to evoke, and yet--huh--nope, don't miss it.

Never did perch the annual dragon atop the tree's highest branch.

But it sure smells wonderful in here every time I step through the door from outside and smell that conifer! And I love the twinkling lights; have always been my favorite part of the tree, along with a wide variety of unusual ornaments. This year, none of my old faves made it--no time--no grinch, no cookie monster, no Thing One and Thing Two flying their kite, no pink panther climbing down the chimney, no Batman descending the rope hanging from his batarang entangled in a tree branch. None of the whole entire box of mostly purple (with some blue) ornaments of all shapes and sizes and themes. Nor the other 3--or is it 4?--boxes of ornaments. So much for spending all that time thinning out the tree so I could hang the collection!

This year, the only ornaments are just half a dozen new ones I bought during the year that I hadn't packed away yet: A sparkly purple spiny thing, a sparkly blue not spiny thing, a blown-glass Leica camera, three silver ornaments with my initials (E L F -- seemed apt), a blue and purple velvety beribboned thing. A bunch of candy canes, which aren't lasting very long I must say.


Didn't get around to setting up the creche--mostly hand-painted by yours truly years ago although goodness knows why, I'm pretty agnostic and think that the God's Only Son story is a nice myth--OK, yeah, I think it's an interesting myth with a nice message (peace on earth, good will towards men, can't ask for much better than that)--which means that the dragon bearing the gift of a sparkling orb never made its appearance behind the manger. But that's OK, I eventually got tired of the detail work and so Mr. and Mrs. Christ and their little Christ child and half of the wise men are gorgeous, but the shepherds and camels are a little spotty, and the sheep and cattle--ha! Let's just say that I'm sure there were plenty of albino livestock in bethlehem that year.

Christmas is a little different around here.

Have done the little bit of shopping I was planning on doing, and everything is wrapped. Am not planning on baking.

After the diverse family entities trickle gradually to my parents' house tomorrow afternoon, my whole extended family looks like will be together for the first time in maybe years. I hope I can get a few photos before they all start trickling away again to their various corners of the valley or the country.

I'm thinking that I'll give the dogs their really big juicy bones for gnawing as soon as I'm done here, try to keep them on the sheets I'll spread out and off the carpet. Ha! As if!

Christmas music is playing quietly in the background. Life is good.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

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Keeping Warm Last Weekend

SUMMARY: Photos from a friend from the Dec 13-14 USDAA trial.

When Mom's cold, the kids have to wear sweaters. Boost has become accustomed to the concept.

I worked score table most of the weekend. Can you tell it was cold just by looking at us?

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Autumn, Winter, Spring, and a Nice Brisk Walk

SUMMARY: California's an odd place, season-wise, but we still love hiking the Guadalupe River Trail.

In how many place in the world can you have: A tree brilliant with autumn color, a snow-covered mountain in near-freezing temps, and daffodil stalks rising from the chilly soil? Fall, winter, spring, all together.

Dogs and I want for a 4-mile stroll along the Guadalupe River Trail this morning. Temps not over 50F, and a chilly nip in the air, but the sun and the birds were out.

For all of today's photos, go here; below, just a few choice doggy ones.

Along the trail, the dogs are eager to check out all the smells and yet want to keep moving; all these stops to snap photos are quite an infringement on their activity.


I'm including this one because I hardly ever get a shot of just how curly Boost's tail really is. Dang Border Collie tail is usually in its droopy working position.


Tika just loves being in the water. I hadn't realized it until we were at the beach this summer. Doesn't matter that it's below 50 and cold; she became mondo frisky after sneaking into the lake.


But her thick absorbent husky-like fur will take hours to dry. Does she care?


Amazing that one can point and say, "What's that over there?" and the dogs will look.


This tree's red berries stood out brilliantly among the more muted surroundings. No idea what the tree is. Even the dogs stop to admire it.


Meanwhile, this is about as decorated as the front of my house will get this year; Happy Holidays. Peace on earth.

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More Bored Dog

SUMMARY: It's eleven at night, we should either be playing or going to bed.

I hear a ferocious growling...silence...growling...silence...from the corner by the dog beds, which is out of sight behind my desk. I go to investigate.

Boost sure knows how to get me out of my chair.

Lurking in the dark (revealed by the camera's flash)...waiting to pounce, I guess...

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ME WANT MORE PLAY

SUMMARY: How I can tell that I haven't given the dogs what they need yet for the day.

Because this is what I see when I look over from my desk through the sliding door into the back yard.

And this is what I see when I look up from my desk through the railing into the kitchen.

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Dogs Take Over the World

SUMMARY: Do I know this driver?

Coming back from the lakebed yesterday morning, this is whom I followed down the freeway. For a while, I was taking photos of all the dog-related license plates in the agility-trial parking lots (here are 7 pages of them). I could've sworn I'd taken a photo of K9 CR8, but if so, it hasn't made it onto the web site yet. And of course i have no idea to whom most of them belong. So who IS this dog person who followed me (by pretending to be ahead of me) yesterday?

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Thankful

SUMMARY: I'm just glad.

Backfill: (Posted Sunday morning.)
My family's all alive and we're all getting along and we love each other. My dogs are healthy and alive. I can afford a house and food. I have a job. I try to remember it's just the basics, just the basics.

Family at the dinner table. Twenty of us--only the niece & nephew in Baton Rouge weren't here.

(Clockwise from bottom left featuring assorted related hair: Brother-in-law Martin's hair, Bro-in-law Doug, Dad's cousin Carol, Dad, Mom, sister Sharon's main squeeze Mark, sister Sharon's hair, sister Linda's hair, Bro-in-law Paul, my cousin's spouse Simon, sister Ann's hair, niece Katie's hair, niece Elizabeth, my ex Jim, his mom, my chair, nephew Alex's hair, sister Susan's hair. Not in photo, me, cousin Dawn, niece Kate, or any of our hair.)

Jamela (cousin's dog) gets some Thanksgiving loving:

Annie (cousin's mom's dog) gets some Thanksgiving loving, but really she was more interested in the food.

The food guest of honor: Mr. Turkey.

Uncle Marty teaches his nieces the finer arts of computer gaming. (Oh, really, they can probably out-geek him any day of the week.)


Mom. Can you believe she turns 80 on Sunday? Her mom didn't look nearly so good on her 80th. No, she doesn't color her hair. I hope I'm so lucky!
But noooo, the hair in front of my ears is already fading...fading... But I'm thankful anyway!

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Missed the Rainbow

SUMMARY: Just a touch of color in the sky

Coming back from our walk, I saw that a third of a rainbow shot up from the ground behind my house into the sky to meet the sunsetty clouds. Despite jogging the last 2 blocks, this was all that remained by the time I got my camera into the yard.

Still pretty cool.

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Hiking Today

SUMMARY: Took photos among the redwoods.

Left the dogs home today and hiked at Big Basin Redwoods State Park among the majestic redwoods. Photos and commentary here. Here I am, admiring a biggish one.

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Did Tika Think This Was CPE?

SUMMARY: Tika had a good weekend. Boost is a work in progress. Still.

Wow--Tika Qed in 8 of 9 classes at the USDAA trial this weekend, only one bar in Jumpers on Saturday standing between us and a "perfect weekend". This is her highest USDAA Qing percentage for a weekend ever, in all 68 USDAAs in which she's fully competed. Can't explain it; a couple of excellent dog/handler teams commented that this was one of their worst USDAA weekends ever.

She did go 7 of 9 once in 2004, when she was still mostly in Starters. And she's gone 6 of 8 three times, in August 2004 (still in Advanced), August 2006, and April 2007.

Tika brought home ribbons as follows (Saturday against 15 other dogs, Sunday against 9 others):

• Sat Standard: Q/3rd (only 3 Qed)
• Sat Grand Prix: Q/4th (only 4 Qed)
• Sat Pairs: Q/1st (of 20 Open pairs)
• Sat Steeplechase: Q/5th (only 5 Qed--actually no one ever gives ribbons for Steeplechase, just checks. Am I supposed to go out and buy my own ribbon? Sheesh.)
• Sat Gamblers: Q/2nd (of 2 dogs w/highest points)
• Sat Jumpers: --
• Sun Jumpers: Q/4th (only 4 Qed)
• Sun Snooker: Q (6th of 6 dogs who got 51 pts)
• Sun Standard: Q/2nd (only 2 Qed)
• AND I put her name into the raffle and she won a free day's entry at a future trial! This was just her weekend.

Boost had 3 runs that were almost beautiful--Saturday's Standard, Saturday's Jumpers, and today's Standard--a generally successful Gamblers (Q/4th of 30 dogs) although still greatly flawed, and a whole lot of demonstrations of how much work we still need to do.

Oh, yeah, they did retape the tire that started Boost on her running-under-the-tire jag, but none-the-less she ran under it again in Gamblers, turning a 1st-place run into a 4th place. (Shown here at much lower than her jump height, in case you wondered how she could run under it...)

The trip home provided some interesting photo ops. When I talk about Boost crashing and burning on course, it's never as bad as this poor guy:

Out in the middle of miles of fields in the Central Valley, this guy was just cruising along parallel to the freeway.

This is what we look like while sitting at a complete standstill in traffic on the way home after a long weekend because of a big accident. Even Tika wants to know what's going on. (I've got my cell-phone ear phone on in case someone were to call me about my Mom. They didn't, but I had called them before leaving Turlock and she was home and doing OK.)


And here's my view from the stoplight on the exit ramp--almost home!

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Uninspired and Still Reliving Scottsdale

SUMMARY: Postnationals Tropical Depression

I am SO uninterested in practicing anything related to agility. Maybe it's because I worked on it so much more than usual before Scottsdale. Maybe it's because it's finally raining in San Jose worth mentioning and the lawn looks gorgeous (how can that possibly happen overnight?) and I know that dogs rampaging around on it will tear it even more to shreds by spring way beyond what the grubs did to it this fall and the barometic pressure is hosed.

Maybe I'm still still still getting over that nasty cold from Arizona.

Maybe it's that everything in my life is full of challenging transitions at the moment: So much to learn, so much to process, only so many hours in the day. Pursuing photography more. Want to get back to writing more--November is NaNoWriMo again and again I have friends pounding away at their keyboards and again I'm missing it; agility season never ends in California (but girl don't they warn ya...) and we've got a trial this weekend and I'm looking for teams for both dogs for our December trial because my Scottsdale teammates aren't available; trying to get rid of Stuff From My House; eager to help my parents with some things; Boost wants me to throw the tennis ball throw the tennis ball just throw it; Tika is bored and chasing around after the crows in the sky; not enough chocolate; not enough hiking.

I need some ommmmmmmmm time I think. Or more sunrises like this one Sunday morning over the kenneling area in Scottsdale.


I thought I'd type up more notes from our competition at Scottsdale but am feeling uninspired there, too. Have sort of sorted through the photos at a quick first pass. More work to do. I like this one of Robert and Cap in the Grand Prix finals, making sure they get that danged dogwalk contact after 10 of the 24 22" finalists got called on it. And the judge is looking to make sure he does, too!



Here's my World's Most Expensive Polo Shirt! (I'm wearing it over my other shirt, which is why I look a little bulky in the upper vicinities.)


Here's my traveling companion, Dogg, with her Grand Prix finalist shirt, wearing her finalist Team shirt as well. Looks pretty danged happy to me! I'm delighted that she's done so well, as this is the first time at the nationals with her new corgi after 3 years of absence after her last one died so suddenly (see here and here).


Her license plate is apparently pretty accurate; in addition to being in two of the three finals, Porsche was the overall highest-scoring 12" dog in the team event over four individual classes. Not bad for a wee shy doggie.


And here's d star corgi her very self.

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Off to Nationals to Create More Unsorted Photos!

SUMMARY: Have skimmed through some photos from the weekend, but mostly it's been getting ready to go to Scottsdale.

Well, I have not by any means finished going through all my Monterey photos. You can pretend that the birds in these photos are dogs if you need a dog-photo fix.


Because the area was socked in with fog, we spent our "sunset shoot" looking for cool images like these, which were just lying around on the beach waiting for our cameras to suck them up.



In case you were wondering, this is sort of what you see a lot of when you go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a group of 50 photographers:


And here I am in another experiment with self-portraiture.


Meanwhile, traveling companions Debbie and Porsche (the dog, not the vehicle) dropped by most of their stuff today, and it's now all neatly stowed in my van waiting for the very last last-minute additions bright and early. We expect to be on the road by 8:00 and in Scottsdale by 10 p.m.

I seriously doubt I'll get a post in tomorrow, but hopefully Wednesday, unless my computer fails to recognize its power cord again--

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Fun with Photos

SUMMARY: Some photography at the end of the day in Monterey.

We had a ton of great lectures today and saw many, many inspirational photos. So, after the day was done, I raced down to Fisherman's Wharf and Cannery Row areas to snap some sunset/twilight/night shots. THis laptop takes far too long to load and process images, so I ican't really do much with them tonight, but here are some highlights, after lectures on looking for lighting, looking for shapes and patterns, looking for opportunities, composition, shooting at sunset and twilight, and so much more




What about the obligatory canine photos that makes this appropriate fare for Taj MuttHall? I saw quite a few dogs out for their evening constitutionals, but it was too dark to catch them on film. Except for these terriers, who hung around while their human mom examined a candy store. They were every which way, everywhere, and wouldn't hold still for the fraction of a second it took to click the shutter. But I kinda like the way this one turned out.


Tomorrow I'm going to be shooting a tanker-load of photos on top of the 100 I snuck in in an hour this evening. Maybe someday I'll finish processing my Montreal photos so I can then go through my Monterey photos and then perhaps move on to some other Mont--Montserrat, perhaps?

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Yum, Buried Muddy Treats

SUMMARY: Tika finds a rawhide that Boost buried. Buries it somewhere else, then licks the dirt off her nose. Tasteee!

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Dog Photos

SUMMARY: Updated blog photos

I changed the dogs' portraits on the right--all except Remington's. They just didn't look like my dogs! I was trying for more formal pictures but those were the wrong ones to choose. I so much regret not having some really great photos of Jake--so many photos, and so many were SO CLOSE-- guess it's time to go out and make a real effort at getting some really good photos of my dogs' faces, because these are all 2 years old or more.

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It's San Andreas' Fault

SUMMARY: Today's hike: An educational experience along the famous fault line at Los Trancos Open Space Preserve. Photos here.

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Teague Hill Hike Photos

SUMMARY: 29 photos from the hike here.

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Tiring Out the Dogs--Ha!

SUMMARY: OK, an 8-mile hike is good for half a day.

For those familiar with Palo Alto and Stanford, here's the route we took Wednesday evening (thanks, Karin, for mapping it and for these photos):

Here we are before the hike.

Agility friend Karey joined us with her three Border Collies.

We of course enjoyed the questions about our dogs, and were entertained both by those who thought that Karey's three dogs must be related because they look so much alike (for Border Collieists--not!) and by those, conversely, who looked at the three of them and Boost and said that the four of them looked so different that it was hard to believe that they were all the same breed.

As for wearing out the dogs--by 2:00 yesterday, my beasts were inquiring why we weren't out doing something active and exciting, and they had no problem at all running full tilt at toys or Evil Squirrels. (Tika caught one earlier this week. Sigh.)

Class started out on a high note, as our instructor (World Team Coach) was just back from Helsinki with multiple golds and some other excellent performances for the USA team. Woo Team USA!

In class, Tika seemed on the slow side, but Boost exulted in being on an agility course for the first time in two weeks, and had some lovely runs. We had lots of rear-cross opportunities last night, though, and we found some of our weak areas. In particular, if I have to bring Boost towards me before making a rear cross, I push her off the jump just about every time.



We worked on that quite a bit, with assistance, and succeeded easily the last time I tried it at the very end of the evening. I just need to set up similar things, as she just might have been patterned on that one set-up by then.

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Random Things

SUMMARY: Assorted photos and images with no cohesive reason for being in the same post.

Look what I found for lunch at the Denver airport! In the same booth, no less, so there was no way that I could buy one and not buy the other. At least I avoided the fresh-baked waffle cone with ice cream.

Me and my mom and dad. I love them very much. Even if I don't do a good job of showing it all the time. They have always been good parents. Except for some time during the years when I was, oh, 13 to 18, when they were always unreasonable about everything. You know.

It was my niece's fourth birthday party yesterday. Just think, only 9 more years and she'll be 13, too. Ha.


OMG, just what I don't need, another fun tool that allows you to spend endless time tweaking things to make it just the way you want it: Wordle.net. It takes a web site (with some limitations) or any large chunk of text and creates a word cloud image out of it. (More-common words are larger.) Here's the representation of all my August posts (what a strange coincidence that the most common words were things like Tika, Boost, dogs, Steeplechase, agility, and weekend):


And here it is for my last 10 days of posts:


(And you all know that, if you hover your mouse pointer over a picture and get the little pointy finger, you can click to see a bigger version, right?) (Oh, yeah, and this seems to be a good tool for finding some weird spelling and punctuation errors, too. :-) )

Furthermore, since I know that you all want more dog-related photos from Montréal, here's another one. Next to the fireplace is a dog wheel-cage for a spit over a fire; like a hamster in a hamster-wheel, the dog runs, and a series of chains and pulleys turns the spit with the meat as it cooks. Every home should have one.

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Home Again, Home Again, Diggity DOG!

SUMMARY: Back in Californ-I-A.

Looks like I left Montreal just in time. Rained last night. Looking gloomy for the day.


Ah, the U.S. is lovely from the air!


Cleared up a little bit, about 2 miles from the Denver Airport. How'd they do that?


Home in San Jose, not every day that I can see the Mt. Hamilton Observatory from above instead of wayyyy below.


But on the ground-- it's bloody 97 degrees F out there! Hot! Dang! But dogs are happy to see me. There was much rejoicing. Boost's eyes got really big.


Tika kept appearing from under the tablecloth.


Looks like things didn't go all that well with the dogsitter.


Ha ha! Just kidding! He says everything went fine and he just left the doggie door in place the whole week all night long so who knows whether Boost was going out in the middle of the night. Ha ha! Guess I'll find out tonight when I drag my exhausted bodily parts up to bed and try collapsing!

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A Day in Old Montreal

SUMMARY: Another 8 miles, another 10 hours, and what a cool city!

I slept late this morning (9ish) then, by the time I was done futzing with photos and determining that I was just not going to be able to get ont he Internet, I headed in the general direction of Old Montreal.

I took hundreds of photos today. My little old laptop is too pathetically slow to be able to sort through them tonight--plus I have to pack for my early-morning flight tomorrow. But I did get a dog photo today! Here is Pilot, who warned Old Montrealians of a sneak attack by the Amerindians (what they're referred to here in Montreal). Her statue is here in Place D'Armes with a lot of other notable people.

I hadn't originally thought that I'd stay in Old Montreal the entire day, but there was so much to look at! I took a lovely guided tour that totook about 2 hours, then I had lunch around 4:00, strolled out by the St. Lawrence River, and by then I decided to stick around and see how it all looked lit up for th eevening. Pretty cool--but I'm afraid that a lot of my photos will be too blurry. But here's Rue St. Paul as the sun is going down.

That'll have to be all for tonight! Maybe more tomorrow night if I have energy after the trip back to California, with a stop in Denver, which used to have a waffle-cone baker right there inthe airport--

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Thursday in Montreal: The Search For Dogs

SUMMARY: More work, more walking, a few dogs.

Backfill: Friday night; couldn't get on computer last night
Meetings all day again today. As usual, I took a long walk at lunch, out to Parc Fontaine, where I was sure I'd find some nice things--maybe even dogs--to take photos of.

I did find a whole plaza full of quite unusual chairs. Look, there's one now!


As usual, I saw a quite a few dogs on the city streets, but they usually were on their way somewhere and I didn't have a good way of getting their portraits. These dogs held still for me, though, and looked quite happy about it.


At the park, I saw quite a few dogs, but the lighting was bad, or I couldn't get to them quickly enough, or the photos that I did take were just really blah. This one was kind of cute, though.

Hey, look, there's a golden retriever over there, but dagnabbit once again there are annoying trees and boring people in the way!


Sure, it was business all day, but we left early as a local company sponsored a cocktail party. I realized after I'd been there for about half an hour that my energy was not at all up to making conversation with people I barely knew, let alone meeting scads of entirely new people, so I waved goodbye and headed for the hotel. But I chose to walk back along Rue Prince Arthur, where I passed all the sidewalk cafes last Sunday, and couldn't resist stopping for a light dinner right there.


It was a lovely night once again, and I was far from the only one strolling the Rue or partaking of dinner in the open air.


Got back to the hotel--walked up the stairs--and suddenly realized that I was more than a little tired: I was nearing exhaustion. So I crawled into bed and slept very well. Dagnabbit, now I'm finally on Montreal time, and I'm heading back to San Jose tomorrow!

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Wednesday In Montréal

SUMMARY: More work and a little more wandering around.

My goals for this week were--in equal priority:
* Do good work for the client
* Have fun
* Don't put on weight.

Secondary goals were:
* Enjoy the food.
* Lose weight.
* Take lots of cool photos.
* Explore as much as possible.
* Meet new people.

I'm not an easily social person, so the latter is hard in some ways, but the group I'm with is so friendly (and we know each other from phone conversations). Plus there are group events where you can socialize.

It's hard to be as active as usual, when I'm in a conference room almost completely from 8 a.m. until after 6 p.m. Fortunately, we have a long enough lunch break that I can eat AND get out and walk a mile or so with my camera. Plus I walk up and down the stairs to my hotel room. On the 10th floor. A couple of years ago that would've seemed ridiculous, but especially now that I'm doing the Wednesday night summer hikes with 500-1000 foot climbs in 2 hours, a mere--what--100 feet? up or down seems trivial.

I do have to take a brief breather on the 5th floor (really the 7th because there's also a lobby level and a mezzanine level) and maybe again on the 8th.

Tonight the whole organization sponsored dinner in Old Montreal, about 1.25 miles from the hotel, and I walked there (alone) and back (with several colleagues).

No photos today of dogs--still seeing them, but hard to get photos without looking like I'm stalking the owners!

The tiny gardens in front of all the row houses are lush with foliage and flowers, even though it's now officially autumn.

Most of the houses in this area have their main entrance one floor up, with a variety of interesting stairways.



I love hostas! Had some in the garden at my previous house and I miss them.


Every once in a while this week there's a tree who has burst its way into autumn ahead of its compatriots.


Bon soir, mes amis!

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Another Busy Day

SUMMARY: Mostly business today.

Spent the day in a meeting again, but this is a good kind of meeting (yes, there really is such a thing). Still, it was a long day with lots of ideas jammed between my ears.


Right after we adjourned, we went out for dinner at the jazz bar named Upstairs--written upsidedown--which means that it was downstairs (really). And just like that, my day was done and already it's past my bed time.


I did get out for a quick walk at lunch, just me and Mr. Camera. Saw more dogs but got no portraits. The old buildings around here are so different from the so-called old buildings in California, but equally as interesting as any of the row houses in San Francisco.


There is art everywhere. This statue crouches below a skyscraper not far from my hotel. It makes me look up nervously every time I walk by.


Here's one of those "are we in the U.S. or are we in Canada?" scenes. The Frenchman in our group says that, in France, the stop signs stay "Stop", not "Arrete." And France is supposed to be fanatic about the purity of its language!



TTFN

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Montreal Photos

SUMMARY: Photos from my Sunday 7-mile hike are available, including more dogs.

http://elf1.smugmug.com/gallery/6029662_EeXjo

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Famous Last Words

SUMMARY: Stop me if you've heard this one before:

"I don't need to charge my camera's battery before heading out for a day in Montréal; I'm pretty sure I charged it recently."

Welllll OK, I got in a nice 6.5-mile (10.5 km) walk and took 170 photos--but the battery gave up when I was about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the hotel with Important Landmarks still unviewed. Oh, well, I'd gone walkabout for about 5 hours by then, so I took it as a hint to rehotelify* myself and get to work sorting and labeling the day's photos.

*I'm a professional writer. Don't try words like this unsupervised at home.

Made it to the top of Mont Royal--trivial compared to the usual Wednesday Night hikes, but oh! what a view! And what a perfect day.

Montréal est une ville des chiens!

Montréal is a city of dogs! They were everywhere, strolling with their people. Today's weather couldn't have been more perfect for perambulation, and perambulate they all did. I saw canines from Great Danes to Yorkshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers to Afghan Hounds, and everything in between, plus mixed breeds galore. Small dogs far outnumbered larger dogs--it is, after all, a city. I saw no herding breeds (so different from our agility weekends where they're 90% herding breeds!) except one overweight Australian Shepherd near the end of my trek.

I can't decide whether this beautiful nine-month-old Lab/Shepherd mix ("Liha"?) looks more like Johann the Dog or like Pacco de Mongrel.


I tried taking photos of most of them, but they were a hard lot to get right.


I particularly enjoyed this one:

I tried to take a photo of this little gal (Lilu? Apparently I wasn't pronouncing it well) at her level, but she wasn't into paparazzi. So her person scooped her up for a family shot, and then we got to talking. He's Claude G., a reviewer of classical music for the French-language paper here, and he had apparently just been perusing his latest column--reviewing three Chopin recordings--for typos or egregious copyediting sins.

Dogs everywhere on the café/bistro mecca, Rue Prince Arthur.

He invited me to sit for a bit, which I did, and we chatted. Well--he chatted more than I did. He knew almost everyone walking by and introduced them. He talked about the musical arts in Montréal--I've seldom felt less adequate about my opera and classical music knowledge, especially for someone who once had aspirations to be a music major! He had to inform me about a recently performed opera that took place during the California Gold Rush at the "base of the Cloudy Mountains," written in Italian by an American. 'O sole Sutter's Fort--dude? Sounds interesting, though.

I had to work hard to convince him that San José is not part of San Francisco, nor its suburb, nor is it a smaller town nearby. I began to sense the frustration of the city's chamber of commerce--we're 20% larger by population and--despite wikipedia's numbers--with our suburb communities making up Silicon Valley, larger in land area, as well. (I'm curious what's included in those numbers. No time to research, though.) Climate's very different. Business focus is very different. Lifestyle's fairly different. I guess we'd better get MORE SPORTS TEAMS, huh city council?? (No no I'm kidding...)

In case you want to know how to say "keep your dog on a leash and pick up his sh**" en francais.


I have beaucoup plus de photos, which I'm trying to upload to my photo site. Will post a link when (between my slow laptop, the shared network at the hotel, and who knows what) they're posted and labeled. Thought it would be this evening, but--quel désastre! (En englias: What a disaster! Catching on yet?) Maybe it's just as well that the battery died when it did.

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In Montréal

SUMMARY: Je suis arrivé! (Arrivée? Arriver? Crud... I am here!)

The dogs were sure that we were going to do agility, else why would I wake to an alarm at a ludicrously dark hour of the morning? Even though I gave them their Guard The House Goodies(tm) and told them to "Guard the house, be good!", they really thought they were going out the door with me. Poor babies.

The whole trip was generally uneventful. Renter dropped me off at San Jose airport; I flew to Chicago O'Hare, caught my connecting flight to Montréal, got to the hotel... And here I am. With my brand new garishly purple luggage.


Flew to Chicago next to a cute, sweet little white dog in a sherpa bag named Mary Lou. (OK, all you other grammarians out there, go to town.) But no photos because I saw her head only once, briefly. She was a very good, quiet, settled girl for her first airline flight ever.

Ack! My desk light just went out! Now I'm typing in the dark! (I always think I'm a touch typist until this happens...)

Here's my crowded airplane from San Jose to Chicago.

I actually had space between my knees and the seat in front of me, and if I arranged my computer carefully, I could stretch my legs out under that self-same seat. Catnapped briefly.

All the luxuries of home! On your very own tray table! Plus the latest on Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton!

On the first flight, I didn't have a window seat. On the second flight, it was a teeny jet and my camera was negligently in the overhead compartment while we were flying over the Chicago skyline, so all I could get was this sort of Great Lake shoreline on the opposite site. Just picture standing there looking out to the west towards Chicago--which you can't see because that's one bloody huge lake.

I am surrounded by French French French. Dredging up 4 years of classes from 3 decades ago--I avidly read every sign between the airport and hotel, trying to get my brain around the vocabulary again. Lots of basic stuff I can still read--"toujours frais" (always fresh) on a restaurant; but then "hamburgers hot dogs poitrines" or maybe I misremember the word--soemthing that sounded familiar but I couldn't place at all. Like that.

Our French heritage (remember 1066 and the Normans and all that?) has ensured that there's a tremendous amount of vocabulary that's essentially the same-- "banque nationale", for example, or that well-known old Norman "hamburger"--so I'm not as far out of my depth as I would be with Spanish or German, say.

But an octagonal red sign, outlined in white, that says ARRETE, just LOOKS wrong!

Fortunately everyone speaks English, and far far better than I speak French.

But here's the other tricky part: They've turned the compass sideways here! Everything labeled nord/sud (north south) is really west/east, and est/ouest is really north/south. That's because the St. Lawrence, which mostly flows east to west, right next to Montréal makes a little jog and flows north. Even the maps are printed with North to the right side because it makes everything in the city start to make sense. Just don't think too hard about where the sun is rising and setting, because it will only confuse you.

I'm not completely unfamiliar with this--in Silicon Valley, 101 North goes due west, as does I-280 North. So people are always telling other people to take Lawrence Expressway east or west--because it's perpendicular to those freeways--but it in fact runs due north/south. *I* know which ways things flow, but then I tend to orient myself around maps, not around freeway signs.

Anyway--having lots of fun for having been here only a little while and being tired tired tired.

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Weight Just A Minute

SUMMARY: Everyone's now on a diet.

Went to look up how much my dogs weighed most recently. Huh. Haven't weighed them in almost a year, since before last Scottsdale. Weird. Used to weigh them at least once a month. Wonder how I've not managed to remember to do it for 10 months? I often stick my fingers into the fur to feel the ribs and backbone, and I always THINK it feels OK.

But, look! Tika is 4 pounds heavier than her normal weight for years! That would be like me putting on 15 pounds! (Speaking of which--I'm *almost* back down to where I was last November after a couple of bad months in December and February.) No wonder she's slowing down. Poor girlie. OK, no extra quarter-cup of food in the morning for HER.

And Boost is up about 2 pounds. That would be akin to 7 pounds on my petite girlish figure.

My petite girlish figure. Wait! What's that on my neck?! Where's that smooth girlish neck I had yesterday?

Tika's petite girlish figure. Does this dog look rotund to you?

Of course you can't tell by looking! Because her fur is really dense and about 3 feet deep!


Boost's petite girlish figure. At least one of her sisters is about 10 pounds lighter, but I think this dog would dry up and blow away at that weight!

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The World's Most Expensive Polo Shirt

SUMMARY: I'm out of excuses. Guess I'm going to Nationals. Besides, I want that shirt.

In her life, Tika has had 9 opportunities to earn a bye into the Grand Prix semifinals at the Nationals (and get a nifty "free" polo shirt to commemorate the occasion), which you can do either by placing in the top 50% in Round 2 of the regionals or the top 50% in the quarterfinals at the nationals:

• Regional 2003: Made it to Round 2 at her first-ever regionals. Still a green dog. The run was flawless--well, except the little detail of running between the tire and the upright instead of going through the tire
• Regional 2004: Made it to Round 2. Don't know what happened--we had 15 faults there.
• Nationals 2004 quarterfinals: 5 faults. Placed 36th, and 34 dogs went to the semis.
• Regionals 2005: Eed in round 1.
• Nationals 2005 quarters: 5 faults. Placed 50th, and 41 dogs went.
• Regional 2006: Made it to Round 2. Got called on the dogwalk up for 5 faults Placed 16th and 13 dogs got byes.
• Nationals 2006 quarterfinals: Clean up to the next to the last jump, where I got overexcited and caused a backjump.
• Regional 2007: Made it to Round 2. Fell off the dogwalk and Eed when I spent time making sure she was OK.
• Nationals 2007 quarterfinals: I just messed up and pulled her out of the weaves early trying to run aggressively. Clean otherwise.
• Regional 2008: Clean run and pretty fast for the Tika dog, and for her mom, too! (Although a full 6 seconds off the fastest dogs.) We did it! We did it! Taj MuttHall is just about overwhelmed with joy!

Who cares if no Taj MuttHall dogs Qed in dumb old Gamblers, Standard, or Steeplechase! Those Qs were probably all sour anyway.

The cost just to pick up the polo shirt that I've been wanting so badly for so long: A week off work, a drive to Arizona, a week in a hotel, massive entry fees for the Nationals, team shirts for the DAM teams... and all the incidental expenses, too. We're not adding up the cost to *earn* that polo shirt.

Another competitor was speculating that, if she earned that bye, maybe she could just send in her entry form and pay the entry fees, not bother making the trip, and just have someone pick up the shirt for her. Pricey for a polo shirt, but not as pricey as actually making the trip.

Boost and Tika celebrating their nationals qualifications with a little frisbee:




Scully, the Princess dog who never plays at trials, thinks that might actually look like fun:


Sparkle believes that there is evidence to be found, even if it's not yet clear about what:

There might be gophers here:


Ewww, what's this? Smells gross! Ewww! Guess I'd better roll in it!


Most of the judges getting their instructions from Leslie, who organizes workers:

Judge Scott 'splains what it's all about:


Taj MuttHall and Tie-Dye Superwoman pay no attention to the camera while working at the score table all weekend:


Our rideshare, Scully & Sparkle's mom, walks a course in her cool tie-dye.

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Number 9... Number 9...

SUMMARY: In which our agility sequence is rudely interrupted.

Apparently we're no longer doing number 9 in agility sequences in our back yard. Too much Beatles? Too much love potion? Who's to say what occurs in Border Collie minds?

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Sunday Results

SUMMARY: Generally had a good time. But pretty awful in the Q department.

My first run of the day was with Tika in Grand Prix, and like yesterday's first run, it was lovely and gave me hopes for a successful day--cool weather, Tika was jazzed, we connected well, and although she slammed a bar that I thought had cost us 5 faults, in fact it never fell, so she Qed and was one of only 5 of twenty-one 26" dogs who ran clean, for a lovely 5th place grand prix ribbon. We run clean so seldom in GP--and place almost never--that it delighted me.

A friend also delivered our custom-ordered fancy ribbon from the earlier trial where Tika finished her ADCH-Bronze, so I got to hang that on her crate and enjoy it all day.


However--that was it. Snooker--I made a bad mistake and knocked us out on the 2nd obstacle. Jumpers: One bar down. Standard: Missed getting a toenail into the A-frame contact zone by a hair's breadth, according to the judge. (She could've gotten a toenail in and it would've looked the same to me: Dog flying off the Aframe. So I'm glad that the judge is looking! Or maybe not!)

So much for Tika's 50% Q rate in USDAA. Last time she had a USDAA weekend that bad was 3 whole years ago--34 USDAA trials ago--where she managed 0 for 10--and before that, a whole 'nother year back, where she had 3 trials in 3 months with 0 or 1 Qs.

So that made me sad. On the other hand, I made a special effort to get her revved up for every run this weekend, no slacking off (could the bars and contacts be a byproduct? Perhaps, perhaps--) and she ran very well indeed and it was a pleasure to be in the ring with her every round.

Boost continued today with refusal, runouts, and bar crashing, although she did weave poles just beautifully in all 3 classes that had them. In fact, she completed a beautiful and difficult opening in Snooker, requiring her to take a jump after I led out 2/3 of the way across the field, wrap around the Aframe into the weaves, and then complete the weaves as I did a rear cross. It was lovely. And then we went back into refusals/runouts/bar crashing.

I managed to laugh after our last run of the day, Jumpers, which was so full of errors that it was hard to do anything but laugh, but really can't I figure out how to run with this dog? All those entry fees for nuthin' are an expensive way to not have as much fun as I'd like.

Walking the Jumpers course (including Team Small Dog Leader) to show what nice, pleasant weather we had and of course since it was Team Small Dog, I had to get a different angle on the whole thing. Hmm. This could work. Must practice technique more.


I'm threatening to go up to Power Paws every day this week just to run jumpers courses for an hour (with breaks). Maybe I need another private lesson for more suggestions, because some of the ones I've worked on don't seem to have the desired effect. That's a lot of time, though, and I'm busy busy busy...

Here's most of the 16" USA World Team dissecting a course run. I'll bet they practice at Power Paws a lot more than I do. Or somewhere.


My shoulders have nearly bought the farm--I'm doing physical therapy now, and the right biceps hurts SO badly most of the time. Not sure what aggravated them more now, as they've been off & on bad for a few years now. But they're baaaaaaad in the very bad sense. Had to borrow shade space from a couple of friends because there was no way I could manage a canopy. It worked out very nicely. (Boost's crate covered or she throws herself wildly against the sides when she sees dogs doing anything interesting, knocking over the water and putting holes in the crate and like that.)


We also didn't manage to win any free entries in the workers raffler, but we did land this catch instead (I think I dropped one ticket in because, what the heck, who doesn't need dogfood?). Tika thinks this was the best raffle prize ever and wants to know when's dinner?


Lastly, I remembered to take a picture of agility feet so that we can compare and contrast to hiking feet. What to do with the comparison is left as an exercise for the student.

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We Interrupt Dog Agility and Hiking for a Sleepover Party

SUMMARY: An annual birthday party in Visalia.

(With some but not very sincere apologies to Team Small Dog for shamelessly stealing her theme AND dialog for today's post.)
So I went to a sleepover party this weekend.


Every year (for roughly 25 years) we've gone to Visalia--in California's central valley where it's HOT in August--for my brother-in-law's birthday sleepover party. It was cute when they were in college. Now, outsiders find it odd that we're still taking our sleeping bags and sleeping out for two nights on the lawn in his parents' back yard next to the pool. (Caption: Bunches of group photos. This year was one of the smallest Vicons ever, only 17 people.)


But, ha!, we enjoy ourselves! Take that! (Plus, now, it's tradition!) Even if it is 102 F when we arrive at 6 Friday evening.

And I am always the photographer. (Caption: Me checking some photos. This was one of five Mac Powerbooks in this very back yard. Not a Windows in sight. Ha! Again!)

(Caption: I had some help, though. (Damn iPhones with their built-in cameras!))

(Caption: Much fun at "Vicon.")

(Caption: We mostly hang out in the shade by the pool. VERY traditional.)

(Caption: Reading is an important tradition so that your brain doesn't rot in the sun while doing nothing for 3 days. Especially if you know the author. )


(Caption: Nice guests.)


(Caption: I make some new friends. And I don't even drink beer.)


(Caption: Cute nieces and nephews are de rigueur.)



(Caption: Wild Hawaiian shirts are de rigueur AND traditional. Plus breakfast in the shade, with a very traditional scrambled eggs, toast, and sausagey-type meat products.)

(Caption: One of my favorite traditions: Birthday cake Saturday night!)


(Caption: An innovation this year: Movies alfresco.)


(Caption: Did you know how easy it is to make a Richard M. Nixon shadow image?)


Caption: A big toast. (It's hot. Everyone's always drinking something.)


Every year, I take my "The Party's here" sign out of my attic, put it into the car, drive 3 hours, set it up on the front lawn of the party house, leave it there for 3 days, take a photo of it (not sure why--another tradition), put it back into my car, drive it home, and put it back into my attic.
(Caption: Here's what it looked like this year.)

(Caption: Here's the very funny thing: We look it up on Google maps Street View. What perfect timing their cameras had last year!)


Tomorrow (or whenever): Back to the dogs.

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The Dog In The Night

SUMMARY: Boost and her potty habits. Or what.

I am exhausted. Boost has gotten worse about not sleeping through the night. Last time I bemoaned this, someone suggested maybe she had a bladder or other urinary-tract infection, but no, I was sure it was just some sort of training that she had figured out was being trained when in fact it wasn't being trained, it was all a misunderstanding.

So I determinedly walked her out back before bedtime and insisted on a good pee and then we'd go to bed. And it got a little better sometimes, and then finally we had a good solid run of a whole week, 7 days, with no asking to go out after bedtime. Then we backslid for a few days, then we had maybe 5 days with no going out, and then the last couple of weeks it's back to almost every night.

What still doesn't have me convinced that it's a UTI is that she sometimes goes ALL DANG DAY at an agility trial without wanting to pee, so if it were a real problem, wouldn't it affect her all the time? And then the usual pattern is: pee and go to bed, then maybe within an hour, ask to go out again (what, is she holding it back?) then maybe or maybe not in another 1-2 hours ask to go out again but almost never after 1 or 2 in the morning. Then she's fine until whenever I wake up for real, which sometimes these days isn't until 9 because I'm so wiped out from being woken up.

Anyway, OK, now i'm going out of town for 2 nights without the dogs and realizing that I have to explain this to my renter, who's watching the dogs for me. I did not have to explain this back in May when I went to Arizona for a week. So clearly it has gotten worse, not better.

So this morning I went out with her, wearing rubber gloves (me, not Boost), and shoved a little baby-food jar into the appropriate location to gather a sample. Now we have a vet's appointment for tomorrow morning. The receptionist said, oh, no, they'll want to get their own sample. I seem to remember from a past dog, ages ago, where the vet said it's sometimes hard to get their own sample so if I could get one, that would be helpful. But that was then and this is now. And maybe I don't remember that well. So should I dump the sample? Nah, guess I'll hold on to it for a day and let it brew. Or maybe try again tomorrow morning just in case.

Meanwhile, Boost enjoys a little boxing. I spend money on dog toys why?

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Birthday Party With Relatives

SUMMARY: Boost's breeder's 40th birthday.

I didn't take my dogs because this wasn't a dog event, but people who were already there had their dogs, and so did the (very surprised) guestess of honor. Many of them were related to Boost.

Bette, Boost's littermate:
Qas ("kass"), Boost's half sister (same mother):
Rowdy, littermate to Qas. He's got the same half-blue, half-brown eye that Boost does (his right eye) but I wasn't able to get a good photo of it:
Quirk, father to Qas and Rowdy:
Quirk in a less dignified party moment:
Tango, "uncle" to all those Border Collie puppies, and a pretty decent agility dog himself (really, those two dogs were the only ones to suffer the indignity of hats, and each wore won for maybe 30 seconds for a photo op. They were very good sports about it.):
Tango's photo was printed in sugar on the birthday cake:
Boost's mom, Tala, is pregnant again with pups from Boost's father, so another litter of half a dozen full siblings is on its way:
Also there were Coty (Boost's dad), Qwik (littermate to Qas and Rowdy), Derby (Boost littermate), but I got out only the crappy snapshot camera and it wasn't cooperating much with me and they were running around enjoying themselves, so no photos. But here's the birthday card that Boost and I made for Tammy:

View all my party photos (none of me, of course).

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Getting In Shape For Fast Dog Agility

SUMMARY: If hiking gives me energy and stamina, and if that makes me faster, will it make my dogs faster and more accurate?

Wednesday evening I went hiking as usual with the Semi-insane Sierra Hikers Group. (The Fully Insane group is the one that hikes 12 miles with 3000-foot elevation changes every Saturday. Fortunately on Saturdays I'm slacking off and doing lazy easy-peasy dog agility then with no elevation changes.) We hiked almost the same hike at Rancho San Antonio that we did a few weeks ago, except--get this--BACKWARDS! Well, OK, the path we took was opposite normal, but in reality we walked forwards, 6 miles and 1000 feet elevation change (500 up and 500 down--the hike description says at least 1000 feet gain, but I don't see that on the topo map--and we didn't go down and back up again, either. Hm).

Anyway, I whipped out my camera to take a couple of photos and it didn't want to. Of course when I got back to the car, it worked fine, but not on the trail. So I have to resort to borrowing Karin's photos.

First there's everyone hanging out in the parking lot, waiting to get started while everyone signs the waiver form, sort of like everyone hanging around ringside at an agility trial waiting for the judge to tweak the course. Where "sort of" in this case means "all we have in common is hanging around waiting." (Me on the right in brown.)

Then there's me at the head of the pack (if you can believe it). I am wearing my Dogs Love Camp shirt from Power Paws camp to remind me that I'm doing this to get in shape to win the Regionals and my Grand Canyon fleece sweater to remind me what a hiking stud I am to hike Havasu Canyon with a 20-pound pack (8 miles and 2000 feet elevation change, all up on the way out).

And finally there was a really lovely pink-glowing sunset.


But the point of all this is, I'm thinking, that it will increase my energy and my stamina and improve the muscles in my legs, and therefore I'll be faster on the agility field, and if I could run faster and be where my dogs needed to be, would that fix all my problems on the course? Boost wouldn't have to stop and look back to see where I was. Tika would maybe be motivated enough to get a couple of extra zoom points on her runs. I just have to have the energy to do it.

Then in class last night we did one pretty tricky Jumpers course on which we all had considerable challenges, then we got to run it again for time. The first time I ran it with Boost. I am so tired of her crashing bars! Crash crash crash! It is so frustrating. We had a few other problems, too, and when I'd go back to try a sequence again, crash! would go the bars, sometimes several times in a row, and then I'd have to give up on that sequence. My tension level went way up. I try to stay positive with my dogs. I don't want them stressing out like Remington used to do. But I was having trouble there.

The second time, I watched the handlers with the fastest dogs (these are, like, people who win regionals and are in the USDAA Nationals finals and world team but maybe for other countries, like that). And their dogs had some little bobbles maybe, but here we got do-overs (of course you know that they do that at nationals and world team finals all the time, do-overs. Right? Sure?) so they could restart the course to get a valid time. Their times were in the low 27 seconds. Hold that thought.

But what I want so much is their loping ability. They have these nitro-powered dogs and they get the fastest time on the course, but the handlers just kind of take a couple of loping steps like they're just hanging out, waiting, and they're in exactly the right spot at the right time. Someone else said, well, it's those 88-inch-inseam legs that those two handlers have, and I'm sure that helps, but in fact if I had legs that long, I'd still be running like a crazed gazelle, a gazelle who is 50-something with hobbles and bad knees and no running skills, trying to keep up.

It's timing, is what it is. They know when they can move to get to the next obstacle and aren't standing there flat-footed thinking "wow, my dog actually did that obstacle! Oh, wait, now the next obstacle!"

Am I loping or am I screaming "go go go!" and pointing because I'm behind? Will Boost's back legs clear that bar? Tune in next week.

But I'm still thinking that if I have stamina and energy from all that hiking I'm doing, not to mention maybe I can pick up my feet and really move them, that that will allow me to use some calories on course for actual thinking instead of some actual trying to keep from dropping from exhaustion before the end of the run. So, anyway, I'm feeling pretty good. I am hardly panting from my many retries with Boost. Plus I have my emergency backup dog for when I'm frustrated by Boost's bar-knocking.

Therefore, on my timed run, I run it with my pretty reliable yet fast Tika dog. And I practice loping, because I'm pretty confident about her ability to understand what she needs to do on course. And Tika's pretty excited because she's jealous because I ran Boost once already. And, in fact, I find that I'm actually doing it! I'm not rush-rush-rushing, I'm calmly striding those long, comfortable strides to get where I need to be next, and even though we didn't run this complicated course together the first time like everyone else did, we nail it together. Still, I'm thinking, wow, she just doesn't have that speed (in particular through the weaves), and I think maybe 30 seconds?

Tika's weaves are fast but not that fast.

Nope, 31.7 seconds. Four and a half seconds slower. 16%. It is an infinity of time. I am so bummed. Tika's such a good girl, and she seems so fast, but we just can't even come close to those guys. We will never ever ever win a regional, and probably not even a local, Grand Prix or Steeplechase in this area. Never. Plus Tika is 7 and a half now and she's not going to be getting faster, even if I hike 20 miles and 4000 feet elevation change every weekend.

And my other dog crashes bars.

On the up side, however, is this: Boost did awesome awesome AWESOME weave poles, tough entries that others had trouble with and everything last night. AWESOME! I want her to remember that when we next have a competition! And then we did fast-contact drills, and Tika was SO wired and she jetted across those contacts into stunningly gorgeous 2on-2offs! AWESOME! I want HER to remember THAT when we next have a competition!

Tika flying down the dogwalk. Will she fly past the yellow zone or nail that 2on-2-off? Tune in next week.

So--a mere two weeks from now, one solid USDAA weekend, then after that, the Regionals. And I'd like to have something more to show for it than "Boost finally did weaves in competition again".

Time to get hiking.

Tika does A-frames, too.

(Photos by Erika Maurer, August 2007 and March 2008.)

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My Photos In Ebook

SUMMARY: Dog-breed book available online

Once upon a time, I wanted to create my own book, or maybe web site, about dog breeds. I had actually started it, but then I discovered Wikipedia and devoted 2 years to that project, expanding what was at that time an extremely sparse collection of articles about dog breeds. I also photographed various breeds (and mixes) at agility trials and uploaded the photos to Wikipedia.

You can view my photos on Wikipedia here.

Read Wikipedia's article on dog agility, which I originally largely wrote (but which has been expanded & edited over time). I think it's a pretty darned good article. Lots of things are missing from the separate history article and separate "agility worldwide" article, though. Help if you can! Anyone can edit.

Check out WP's list of dog breeds; you can go to each article from there. I can't claim to be the primary author on any of them any more, as they've changed so much. Sometimes individual pet owners add text that doesn't apply to the breed as a whole (my favorite: "Shelties generally do not like to fetch"). I used to spend a lot of time cleaning that up, but now I blog instead. (grin) Help if you can! Anyone can edit.

The big problem is that the info is across so many different pages. If you want to search for some breed or feature within only the dog articles, you can't. Wouldn't it be nice to have an electronic book that you could search?

Alex Harris (not someone I know--found me on Wikipedia) has created an ebook of dog breeds, Dogs of the World, for $9.95. He created his own text from several sources. His primary source for photos was Wikipedia, and he used several of mine (with permission). Here's a partial sample page with one of my photos; this is Honey, who just died suddenly last month of hemangiosarcoma, the same thing that killed my Remington.



It's a work of love, privately published, so it won't have the polish of breed books found at the book store. But it is electronic, so you can have it on your computer. And it has my photos in it (and you can search my name once you've got it open). I receive no payment for purchases of this book. I'm just happy to pass the info along. And, since this is an agility blog, here's the first of two pages about the Border Collie, as a sample (not my photo).

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In Which Perfection Is Reversed

SUMMARY: Tika does contacts; Boost does weaves.

Tika, the consummate leaper-offer-of-contacts dog, ran her contact drills in class Thursday night as if the thought had never occurred to her. Every contact was very fast and ended in a crisp, eagerly poised 2-on-2-off position. Contacts of beauty! Grace! Poetry! The kind of contacts everyone wants to have (except those who want running contacts) but not everyone gets! The kind that *I* want to have but don't always get!

Boost, whose contacts are breathtakingly lovely, was the one whom I was able to easily entice to leave the contact early (not waiting for the release command). I have seen indications of this in competition lately, so we need to proof them more at home. So I've been doing them in the yard, just making her stick the end and going back to waiting for a nose touch. She's getting faster at offering that again; I'd let it slide because "she didn't seem to need it." Well! That'll learn me.

We do need work on left turns into the weaves again, though--confirmed in class and at home.

But Tika, the perfect weaving dog, was easy to make pop out of the weaves or go into the wrong entrance. And at home, where I've been doing distraction drills, she seems to be popping out MORE rather than less! Argh! But at the same time, she's getting faster on distractions when she DOESn'T pop out--like she's learning to not slow down to think about them.

This dog did not do 12 weaves in competition.

On the other hand, Boost--the dog who can't do more than 10 in competition--went all the way to the end in every danged set of weaves in class, and we were doing weave drills with 2 sets of poles and front and rear crosses and lag-behinds and run-aheads and all that. A joy to watch! World Team Coach had suggested that I always toss a toy for her right at the end, before her head turns to me. That was what Mo Strenfel also suggested in our weave pole seminar a year ago, and I've been doing it religiously ever since. Well, not every time. Sometimes we go on to the next obstacle.

The difference is that I used to throw the toy in a straight line forward of the weaves so that it rolled or bounced ahead, and Mo said that, to fix my popping out problem (yes! it has reappeared often!), that I should make the toy land right on the ground at the end of the last pole to keep her from thinking of running ahead. Now WTC suggests that I use something that rolls or bounces instead of just lying there to get her to learn to complete the weaves while thinking about running ahead.

WTC also said to never let the dog know that they popped out early in competition because then they'll start to think about it more and start looking at you when they get to that point and pop out more. My experience says that, with Boost, if I ignore it, it keeps happening, but if I make her lie down and then put her back in where she popped out, she stops popping out. So am I setting up for long-term failure? Or fixing my problem?

That's what I love about agility, the clear, consistent guidelines for improving obstacle skills given a specific problem.

Anyway, we're mostly working on contacts and weaves at home this week, plus rear crosses on straight tunnels, and I'm trying to pay more attention to my own body language differences for rear crosses versus pulls or straight-aheads. My timing is still so bad. Ah, well, give me another 13 years of practice and I might nail it.

This dog did not pick up its feet when going over the first jump.

Both dogs really need to do bar-knocking drills, too, but not now. Maybe next week.

(Photos borrowed from Pets and Their People Photography; there are a bunch of photos of both my dogs, some of which I'm buying, but these probably I won't and will just borrow low-rez bad copies of for this page.)

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