Rain. And Phone Books.

SUMMARY: Boost does some surprising fetching and is surprised by water from the sky.

It last rained in San Jose on March 15. Yesterday's forecast called for rain last night and this morning. An agility friend posted on her web site, "I wonder what rain feels like?" Anticipation lay low, humming, in the background of all conversations in the valley. Rain. At last.

Every morning, Boost fetches the newspaper for me from the driveway. Today, she woke me at 5:30 demanding to go out (drat, are we not over this yet? And it was going so well--). The ground was dry. Another wet forecast turning out to be all wet?

Since I was getting up at 6:00 anyway to go for an early hiking adventure, I opened the front door to see whether the paper yet sat in its plastic rain-bag at the end of my driveway. Nothing was there. But Boost burst past me, down the sidewalk, and skidded to a halt next to a dark, hulking, plastic-wrapped shape near the roses, and began to work at grabbing it. --What on earth--?

I walked out to the sidewalk, and discovered that the Phonebook Fairy had left the new phonebook for me, carelessly wrapped in plastic so that one end was protected from potential rain but the other end lay completely exposed. And dry. Boost was wrestling enthusiastically, trying to find some pages to grab, as the whole thing was, shall i say, a wee bit larger than even the usual Sunday-supplemented Saturday paper. I hurriedly aligned the phone book with the spine towards her, to prevent having the entire M section ripped out with a too-effusive effort to Get That Newspaper.

I didn't think she could actually manage it, but with several bits of assistance and several drops and re-pick-ups, she managed to get that whole huge thing into the house and deliver it to where she always delivers the paper. Quite an entertainment for her mom early in the morning.

As I gave her some thanks-for-fetching treats, the sky opened. How grateful was I now for being wakened early and also having the dog run out the front door without permission? Had she done neither of those things, I'd now have a sopping wet gigantic blob of former phonebook.

A few minutes later, Tika put up a big racket about Something Dangerous In The Front Yard. I peered out the door, and sure enough, the paper itself had arrived. So I fetched Boost, lined her up, said, "Ready....Get The Paper!" and released her. She blasted down the steps to the sidewalk--and skidded to a halt. She jerked her head and body left and right. She ran to one side. She stepped back. She looked at the roses like she might be about to spook. She started to wuff a "Danger! Unknown danger!" wuff, when I realized what was happening: She hadn't been rained on in 7 and a half months.

So I had to run out into the rain to reassure her, run with her down to the paper at the end of the driveway, and then follow her as quickly as I could as she dashed back inside, plastic-bagged paper grasped firmly in her jaws. OK, so now **I'M** wet, but at least the phone book is dry.


(I'll try to get my hike photos up soon. No dogs this time, though.)

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Hot

SUMMARY: I repeat. Hot.

This is what my kitchen and back porch, respectively, measure in at right now.



For you Farenheit-challenged rest of the world: 28.5C/40.9. The thermometer under the tree across the yard says merely 99. And Salinas (near Regionals trial site) is only 75.

Also note wallpaper that I STILL haven't finished removing. And plaque that was a gift and I hope it's reasonably accurate. But right now my brain is starting to fry.

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The Great Outdoors

SUMMARY: Ticks and Fires and Heat, Oh my!

After Sunday's hike, I was so worried about burrs and foxtails and poison oak that the dogs got combed fairly thoroughly (although Tika's coat is so dense it's hopeless) and bathed. And I still found a tick chomping on Boost's throat Monday evening. Had to flip her onto her back to be able to get hold of the thing and ease it out. She wasn't at all pleased about that activity. It wasn't at all engorged yet, so either it hadn't really settled in yet (I've been told it takes 24 hours--this was more like 30) or the Frontline Plus was doing its job and was in the process of wiping out the little parasite.

I have yet to pick up a tick of my own while hiking. Had one on my head a couple of years back, but I'm pretty sure that came from the dogs sleeping on my bed.

This week's hiking hazard is the smoke from all the wildfires. This weekend's lightning storm that I mentioned made an amazing 8,000 dry strikes around northern California, sparking 800 fires--700 of which were still burning on Wednesday. Plus fires that were already going. Several of them are major.

From the California Department of Forestry web site as of this morning:

Current Situation: State and Federal firefighters continue to battle hundreds of wildfires throughout Northern California and are preparing for light to moderate dry thunderstorm activity beginning tonight through the weekend. Fires are activity burning and continuing to spread. News fires are being identified on a regular basis. Priority of firefighting effort is for the protection of life, property and natural resources.

* Total Fires: 1,211
* Acres: 193,470
* Contained Fires: 266
* Personnel Committed: 11,322

It doesn't matter which way the wind blows--major fires hundreds of miles away produce enough smoke to make the valley as hazy as the worst smog days that we remember from our childhoods in the '60s and '70s. The air-quality monitors recommended that people with existing respiratory or heart problems stay indoors and keep the windows closed, but that healthy individuals should suffer "no lasting effects." For what that's worth.

So there was some debate about whether to do our usual 5-mile brisk hike Wednesday evening. It was at a higher elevation, so we thought we might be above most of it, but we weren't.
View from same hike in April:


Same view Wednesday night:


Still, we went ahead and did it, and although several people said that they could feel the effects, my legs were more tired than my lungs. Everything had a reddish glow to it, and all the views were somewhat obscured by the reddish haze. The sun glowed a muddy orange the entire time, but that didn't show up well in most of the photos; we just got lucky on a few that captured the sky's inflamed colors: Here's the group atop Black Mountain, sharing a snack.



My dogs don't seem to be bothered by the smoke, but I don't know how I'd tell. I wonder about those flat-nosed breeds, though, and the really small breeds. I can smell the smoke the minute I step outside. The Basin Complex and Indians Fire down in the Big Sur area have been burning for a long time, for a combined 87,000 acres. Closest big fires north of us are the Walker Fire and the MEU Lightning Complex, north of Napa County, for a total of 42,000 acres.

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No Fruit Dogs To Help In This Heat

SUMMARY: Plums are ripe; where's Jake when you need him? Mighty hot for these here parts.

Yesterday the official South San Jose reading was 106 F (41 C). The forecast for today was cooler--105. Here's my indoor-outdoor thermometer as of noon today (plus you can enjoy the last bit of 1970-era wallpaper that I STILL haven't taken out of the kitchen):


Although the thermometer in the shade of my dying apple tree begs to differ (but it's still darned hot):


Tika followed me outside on the off chance that I might do something interesting, but then quickly schlumped into the little bit of shade against the house. Panting. But then, Tika always pants.



Boost, as always, grabbed the favorite yard toy on the off chance that someone might throw it for her, but then dodged into the little bit of shade against the Giant Shrubbery. Panting. And she does NOT always pant.



I also noted that my plum tree is shedding ripe fruit at a prodigious pace; some PLUMmetted to the ground as a I watched. But it was wayyy to hot to do anything about it. If Jake had been here, he'd have helped out by scarfing down every fallen plum no matter where it landed or how hard it was to get at. He was the consummate Fruit Dog.



But my current collection of four-footed vacuum cleaners are not so keen on fruit. In some ways, that's OK--plums have lots of sugar and so always made Jake fat, plus ingesting a million plums has an interesting--er--loosening effect, shall we say. But, still, all these plums giving their lives for nothing, and there their little PITiful corpses lie.


As of half an hour ago, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in 15 minutes and a cloud cover rolled in. Said I to Renter Guy, If this weren't California, I'd say that it looks like thunderstorm weather.

Renter Guy dragged me away from the computer to go pick plums. At least there's someone in this house who's pretty avid about getting fruit off the trees. He does lemons and oranges, too; I'm just too lazy. But I really like plums, and they're available in my own yard for only about two weeks, so I went along with it.

Then, suddenly, big spattery raindrops and a big boom in the sky. Great, and there I am with my proverbial 10-foot pole, picking fruit out of a tree. Let's home that Mr. Lightning is more attracted to the chimney or antenna. Which incidentally will be totally worthless with the changeover to HDTV. So that now I will have TWO gigantic useless metal things on my room, as it joins the SETDA*-sized satellite dish that was obsolete long before I bought this house. Add those to my to-do list.

*Search for ExtraTerrestrial Dog Agility.

Meanwhile, this evening, I'll be dog-sitting a friend's friend's Siberian Husky. In this weather! Then I can do a side-by-side comparison of Tika's possible Husky ancestry.

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Truckee Weekend

SUMMARY: Had a wonderful time. Feel great. Dogs exhausted.

I stayed with agility friends at their cabin in Truckee. It's a beautiful cabin, they're fun people, and I had a wonderful time. We hiked miles and miles cross country through snow and ice and a little bit of snow-melty muck here and there. I feel surprisingly good; maybe my hiking and upstairs/downstairsing are paying off (although that short but steep uphill is a wakeup call that I still need work on that type of conditioning). Knee is good and I haven't had ibuprofen in 24 hours. No blisters. No muscle aches. This is very cool, as my friends are fit and quick and do a lot of hiking.

The dogs undoubtedly covered four times the distance that we did. They really enjoyed themselves. Tika led the way the whole trip, scouting out to either side of the path for a hundred yards in each direction to be sure no ambushes awaited. Boost chased the other Border Collies all over tarnation. Both my dogs ran and ran and ran. And not an agility obstacle in sight!

They are zoned-out puppies today. After our very long morning hike yesterday, they were all a bit snoozy. Although Boost (of course) still wanted to play, she did actually lie down and nap while we were still awake. Then we took a nap, watched a movie (more dog napping), went out for one final frisbee game at a nearby soccer field in what had to be 10 degrees F with wind chill added. When I loaded them into the car to come home, they both keeled right over onto on their sides and barely lifted their heads again, even when we stopped at the AM PM Minimart halfway home.

This morning, when I first rolled over, neither of them even twitched! Usually they're all over me as soon as they hear an eyelid blink. They've been thoroughly sacked out all morning. Got excited about breakfast, but went right back to snoozeland. They didn't even bother raising their heads when I crinkled a bag of dried fruit, and usually Tika comes running and Boost sits up and takes notice. They are SO tired! This is wonderful. :-) I wonder how long it will last?

I took 544 photos. I've winnowed out the worst 100 so far. Lots more blurry ones; I foolishly took just my cheapo snapshot on the first hike and tried taking action shots of the dogs in the snow. No workee goodee. Lots of challenges taking photos of all the dogs against the snow even with the SLR, but especially their black border collies.

Here are some photo highlights to give a flavor of the weekend. I'll post the rest of the best eventually.

View from cabin. This is the view looking out their living area's profuse sliding doors and picture windows. You could just sit in here and feel a million miles away from civilization. Except for the natives wearing shorts in freezing weather and walking their dogs along the road. I think they require you to own a dog in Truckee.

Bump's boot. Bump has been suffering from a stubbed toe lately. He had to wear a bootie to try to protect it during his romps. It actually worked perfectly once we got it on the correct foot.

On the trail. Friends and at least part of all four dogs. Can you find the well-camouflaged Tika? (Now we know why blue merle coloring is a useful adaptation. Plus mud.)

Dashing through the snow. The dogs loved it. They ran, they chased each other, they dashed back and forth. The snow had a crust that, for the most part, held our weight, yet wasn't icy slick. Made the whole forest into a huge, soft, smooth field in which to frolic.

Boost in the field. Snowmelt was everywhere. The dogs were hot enough from all their running that they didn't care; they'd wade right in and drink. They splashed a bit, too; all got hosed down every time we went back to the cabin. Not their favorite part of the trip.

Scenic views. Mostly we were among the trees, but occasionally we got peeks at peaks.

Foot grabbing. That foot-grabbing behavior that Tika only ever exhibited in competition, and that I managed to manage into where she does it only at the end of a run, came out in full force this weekend. She hauled me around by my boots on several occasions. I think a combination of excitement, annoyance that I was always at the back of the group (taking pictures) and she was always at the front (showing us the way), and maybe a lack of direct interaction--we almost never Just Walk; we're always doing something, playing something, throwing toys. She was so happy to be communing with my boots, I hated to make her stop. But it was very hard to walk with a 45-pound dog attached.

Karma! Wow--Guess who, instead of me, won that Dogopoly that I put a ticket in for in last weekend's raffle! We never did actually play it, but we opened it and entertained ourselves by looking at the pieces and the board. (It's easy to be entertained when your brain is operating on 5 hours of sleep and 6,000-feet-altitude oxygen deprivation.)

Lunchtime. Tika's favorite time as our hostess makes lunch. My favorite time, too--all that hiking made me a mite peckish. Or, in other words, stark ravenous. Yet I managed to avoid having more than one chocolate chip cookie, although I did give in to mint It's Its--the world's most exquisite ice cream sandwiches--at the truck stop both coming and going. (But those have Oatmeal cookies, plus dairy products, plus dark chocolate which is healthy for you, so they're healthy! Yes! Am I right?)

First snowfall. Saturday evening, a wee bit of snow fell and stuck to the deck briefly. Both dogs' first reaction was to bark at all the things they saw moving out in the darkness. Then they checked out all the weird white stuff very carefully. Then they decided that it was warmer inside the cabin and what was I doing taking them out into that cold falling stuff anyway? (They weren't at all fazed earlier in the day at their first introduction to huge fields of existing, icy-crusted snow.)

Wildflowers. Well--wildFLOWER. Saw one buttercup Saturday, saw another Sunday. This one had captured one of the few flakes from Saturday evening and still held it in its petals when we started out Sunday morning.

Camouflage. Where in the world is Tika Miranda?

The whole crew. We tried several shots with a timer, but for some reason the four dogs weren't as interested in smiling for the camera as the rest of us were. Only Boost got into the flow (in this shot, anyway).

Partners. This natural (I think) minibridge makes a lovely spot for portraits.

Styx relaxing. Our hostess brought tons and tons of chews for the dogs, and shared them liberally to settle the dogs after we got back from hikes. (Who'd think they'd want to be playing after all that walking? But yes!)

Everyone relaxing. Three dogs and our host.

Lazy Sunday afternoon. All that exercise is beginning to show on the dogs. Tika found a lovely leather couch and could barely keep her eyes open.

Sunday sunset. The Sierras provided one last photo op for my well-used camera.

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Foggy Agility Practice

SUMMARY: Foggy air, foggy brain

In lieu of Tika's class, I went up to Power Paws' field this morning with a friend an her dogs to practice. There was already a challenging-looking jumpers (with weaves) course set up, so we walked it and ran it. She did very well with her two little dogs, with only a couple of challenges, but Tika and I had to work on a couple of sections to get them right, and Boost and I never did make it all the way through the course successfully.

We didn't get as much time practicing as we would have liked. Lessons learned (duh):

• If you're paying field rental per hour, it doesn't make much sense to go up with a friend whose dogs are very different heights, especially if there's a jumpers course already set, because you'll spend half your time setting bars.
• Arrive at least 20 minutes early to evaluate the lay of the land and get ready to go. (I don't know why I thought that arriving AT the start time would work for me--I always arrive 15-20 minutes before class!)
• Get a dog who doesn't roll in poo so that, just when you're about to walk out the door, you have to spend 5 minutes cleaning her off. (Boost! Again! That's 4 times in about a week and a half, after maybe a couple of months with nuthin'.)

I'd give you a course layout, but not sure that I could capture it correctly enough to reflect the challenges.

It was a foggy, foggy morning. When we first get there, Friend walks out into the field to see whether there is, in fact, a dogwalk anywhere out there:



Boost and Tika liked watching the other dogs run:



There are more photos with narration here, not really agility, just the fog and the site and the critters (sheep, llamas, dogs). It's just easier to upload photos there than here.

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Weekend Photos

SUMMARY: So many nice things to look at.

I hardly had my camera out at all this weekend (too busy, too much rain), but driving home Saturday early evening was too lovely to pass up.

	Driving due west on 132 into the sunset. In the middle of nowhere. "Vernalis"?? Really nowhere--it doesn't even currently have a Wikipedia article! Now that's a real nowhere, man! Rain puddles line the pavement, reflecting the sky's fading blue.
	It wasn't a drop-dead gorgeous sunset, rather, low-key dramatic. And very welcome, after two weeks of rain, to notice that the sky above these clouds was clear.
	Along the California Coastal Ranges, those hovering clouds are really the omnipresent coastal fog bank trying to pour over the crest into the Central Valley. ... And, of course, there's...
	...Mr Chia head, Day 14! Which does have a Wikipedia article.

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Another Rainy Day

SUMMARY: Mr. C Head sprouts! On gray and windy Day 3, as promised!

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Tika's Doing Fine

SUMMARY: Nothing wrong that I can see.

Of course Tika has been fine since I took her in to the vet. However, she's also been on Rimadyl and I've also been taking it way easy on her, in particular no tug-of-war, since the vet thought that it was her neck that was sore.

But we've all been lolling around the house--it's been cold and blustery and rainy (major power outages in the area the last few days--as much rain in several days as all of the rest of the rain year so far, probably even more; snow on the nearby mountaintops). And the yard is a bit on the muddy side. And I don't want Tika slipping on mud or wet pavement on the patio and reinjuring something. And it's so hard to play with just Boost anyway.

I hate having a dog on restricted activity. Probably not as much as Tika hates it. But I'm still not keeping her in a crate, and trying to get out walking a little bit daily (on suggestion of vet).

Not nearly enough exercise for them or for me. Bleah.

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Autumn--Oh, Wait, Winter

SUMMARY: California weather cools down finally.

(And at last my domain hosting service has fixed my FTP access, so Taj MuttHall is back!)

I finally turned on the furnace just a day before Thanksgiving, which is late late late; usually it seems I need it on by Halloween.

Just a week or so ago, I noticed that the trees in my yard still had most of their leaves, and that most of them were still green. Then, Thursday morning, I looked out my kitchen window, and this apple tree had metamorphosed seemingly overnight into a glowing, golden, magically brilliant canopy. "Wow," I thought to myself (it being hard to think to other people), "I need to take a picture of that!" But life intruded, and that night we had a huge windstorm, and the next morning, the gold lay spread across my lawn. Boom, just like that, we went from summer, through autumn and into winter.

Still, with the yellow contact zones, yellow tunnel, and yellow Mutt Xing sign hanging on the tree, it made a lovely photo anyway.

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Clothing and Weather

SUMMARY: #5 of several posts about this weekend. It was cold but sunny. And agility is ALWAYS about the clothing.

Barb, Jessica, and someone else huddling around one of the large propane heaters. They kick out a lot of BTUs!

Judge Lesa McCann wore appropriate gloves.

Judge Art Malott dressed to wake us up in the morning.

Dave, co-owner of the WAG facility, pretty much always wears tiedye. Plus he's wide awake from looking at Art's shirt.

Susan (right), co-owner (and Dave's spouse), was so busy all the time that I could capture her only in blurred motion.

It was cold overnight. Cold. On Saturday morning, the dog-water bowl that I left outside the car had a solid frozen lid. Not thick, but all the way across the bowl. And not the bowls in the wire crates, which were uncovered outside. Odd.

Sleeping in the van, with down over and under me--two down layers over me, because I used my long down coat--plus a wool blanket--I was mostly warm. As the night wore on, if I changed positions drastically, I'd be quite cold until my body warmed up the part of the fabric that hadn't yet been warmed.

I made the dogs wear coats overnight. Tika gave me dirty looks but dealt with it. Boost threw herself all over the car in a bit of a tantrum and hauled various items around in a fit of excessive angst, but the coats stayed on. You know how it goes--if mom is cold, the kids have to put on a sweater.

During the day, WAG provided several large propane heaters, and individuals provided plenty of smaller-scale propane heaters. Really needed them only in the morning until maybe tennish, and then later maybe after 4ish. But they sure were nice to have. I wore my full-length down coat a lot in the morning and evening--boy, I am SO glad to have that. Except for my freezing fingers, it kept me toasty. I got a lot of "wish I had one like that" comments.

I didn't actually wear ANY tie-dye this weekend. However, there was plenty of it around. Maybe it's California. Maybe it's the influence of Wendy and her Wendy Wear on Bay Area agility. Seems to me we've always had a lot of tie dye, though. I think that agility and tiedye have a lot in common. I'm not sure what--it's just a gut feeling.

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Weather

SUMMARY: Global warming! Fer shure!

My lawn has mostly died this year. I don't know why. I think I've watered it the same as I always do. The parts that have survived, even thrived, are the parts that I majorly resodded in the summer of 2005. The rest has simply been working at withering away with the faintest of grassy sighs.

It's November 18, and I still haven't turned on the furnace. I can't remember any year where I wasn't feeling chilled through to the bone in the mornings by the end of October and so turned on the switch that began funnelling my funds directly to Pacific Gas & Electric. Very odd.

Of course, I haven't had any other year where hot flashes have run rampant through my body. Thought they were gone, for a couple of months there, but now it's Return of the Hot Flash, or perhaps Son of Hot Flashes, or, at times, Hot Flash Meets Godzilla. Lately, I spend half the night...in bits and pieces...curled in a fetal position under a doubled-up down comforter (excuse me--duvet--), praying that my feet will warm up so I can get to sleep, and the remaining bits and pieces with only a token corner of the duvet pulled over my nether region (to maintain a semblance of decency in case the dogs look my way) while my sweaty arms and legs dangle outwards in random directions, hoping for a cool breeze.

It sounds awful, don'it? but in fact I don't for the most part find it as infuriating as other people seem to. I may talk to my MD about it the next time I go in, as it can be a might disruptive at times, but mostly it's just something that goes on in the background of the rest of my life and I deal with it sans conscious effort. In some ways, it's like having a standard transmission: At first, every start and shift is a challenge to manage, but gradually you get to where you just do it without even thinking about it.

And, if that's what allows me to keep the furnace turned off and more cash in my pockets, well, heck, yeah!

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Another Three Days of USDAA

SUMMARY: Tika 5 Qs including Team; Boost only one, but finally nailed weaves. Plus rain. Plus the usual post-trial whining.

For the third year in a row, I'm so glad that I didn't sign up for all four days of Haute TRACS. Three days is just too much, plus when I miss the Steeplechase cut so narrowly by stupid handler mistakes, I don't think I could sit and watch it and really enjoy it. In addition, I've taken the opportunity today to dry everything out--but I get ahead of myself.

Wednesday night

Wednesday night I fell asleep at home pretty quickly, with the alarm set for 4 a.m. But I woke suddenly about 1 a.m. with the horrid realization that I hadn't sent in my entry for the SMART trial in 2 weeks, with Grand Prix and Steeplechase qualifiers, and closing was the next day. I had to get up, fill out the forms, send email to the secretary, make copies to take with me in case the sec was there this weekend, and stamp and address an envelope.

Then I couldn't get back to sleep. Finally gave up about quarter to four, assembled myself, and headed on out to Dixon May Fairgrounds, so I looked and felt my best that morning-- I wanted to run like the all-American competitor-- man, I wanted, I wanted to feel like-- I wanted to BE the all American agility competitor.

Thursday

I had entered Boost and Tika in everything, which gave me 14 runs on Thursday (5 for DAM Team plus Standard and Jumpers). AND I was signed up to be co-chief ring steward in one ring with Boost's sister Bette's mom, Mary. The site was laid out in four rings end-to-end with a large swath between them with a roadway, grass, and vendor booths. It was a long walk. The DAM and Masters runs were in three of the rings and Advanced (in which Boost and Bette were entered) were in the fourth, far ring.

I did a lot of walking. Pedometer said 14 miles on Thursday. I hardly ever sat down. Apparently we were supposed to be avoiding using the loudspeaker very much to avoid annoying the neighbors, so there were only occasional announcements. Thank goodness that three of the rings were synchronized, but trying to keep an eye on Starters vs. Advanced in the far ring and set up ring crew for 12 rotations in our ring was overwhelming. Fortunately Mary didn't have a dog in Masters, so she ended up doing most of the work.

Tika teamed with Brenn (from our National finalist team last year) and a Papillon, Roxee, run by Rob, a very experienced handler--has been doing agility since the very early '90s, so almost from the beginning of the sport in the U.S. But Roxee's still a bit of a wildcard--still young, and trained by his owner who can't physically run her. Still, we asked them to join us for fun. 53 teams entered, which meant that at least 27 teams would qualify for nationals. Since Team consists of five full classes, you really don't want to have to keep paying for and trying to Q over and over.

Team Standard course was murder: fully half of all dogs eliminated, and since Team is all about not eliminating (if you want to qualify), the fact that Brenn and Tika both had lovely runs (Tika with a bar down)--although Roxee Eed--meant that we were above average to start with. Our team rated 18th of 53 in this class.

Team Jumpers also killed a lot of dogs. I think that, as the day went on and people watched earlier handlers making fatal mistakes, the non-E rate improved, so that there were fewer than 50% Eing. Although Roxee again Eed and Brenn had a couple of bars down, Tika's clean, fairly fast run and Brenn's fairly fast time placed us 10th in the Jumpers class, which surprised me immensely.

In the afternoon, we moved on to Team Gamblers, in which I once again found a course that I really liked for Tika both in the opening and closing, we executed it perfectly with no bobbles or complaints from the girl that I wasn't being clear, and we placed individually 2nd of 39 dogs; Brenn's score was good and Roxee's low but not terrible, and our team placed 18th.

In Tika's Team Snooker, I chose a not-too-aggressive course that I thought Tika and I could handle easily, with only one oddball turn and angle off to one of the Reds, but while Tika was in the weaves, I apparently started looking for that red because she popped out of the weaves, and we fumbled around a bit to get back in--and then, disoriented, I put her back over the red we had just come over. So we had only 8 points on a course where pretty much everyone was going for four reds and doing well, so we essentially Eed on that course. Brenn did well but Roxee backjumped after getting 24 points and our team was only 42nd of 53 in this class.

Typically, you can still Q if your team collectively has only one E, and sometimes with 2, but almost never with 3 Es, and we already had 3 Es with the Team Relay still to go, which is very heavily weighted. None-the-less, because so many dogs had Eed in Standard and Jumpers, we were in 17th place before the Relay, which meant that probably if we managed to avoid any one of us Eing, we'd be among the 27 Qing teams.

I don't remember exactly who did what in the relay--Brenn might have had a bar down--Roxee popped out of the weaves and almost went off course before Rob could get her back and fix the problem and then had a refusal somewhere, too-- But overall it was a pretty easy course so almost no one Eed on it, which meant then that your team's time was the critical factor in placing within the Relay, and with the bobbles and our generally conservative approach, we were a mere 35th in the Relay--

BUT combining the five events with their weighted values, we ended up 20th, safely in the Q zone. Woo hoo.

Boost's Team Snooker was more of a disaster. I had been feeling pretty confident with Boost when we set up the team--after all, she had done well enough for a baby dog at the Nationals in November and had finished her novice title in just a couple of trials. But we've not been doing so well in Advanced.

In Team Standard, none of the three of us went off-course, which was astounding on that course with three young dogs. However, Boost had 3 bars down and 5 (!) refusals, and 3 refusals automatically becomes an E. And Bette kept popping out of the weaves, so their run was almost 70 seconds, which cost us a lot of points. But Maiya's run was lovely and we were 30th of 53 in that class. And Boost in fact had no problems whatsoever with the weaves, which I'd been worried about since that's been our bugaboo this year. It was everything else that messed us up!

Team Jumpers proved problematic for both Boost and Bette, both of us Eing, but Maiya was beautiful again. Team Snooker was going OK for us until Boost knocked a red in the opening, I had to scramble to rearrange my course plan on the fly, and I couldn't call her off an off course. So we had only 17 points on a course where the best dogs were getting 59--OK, better than Tika, but not much. Bette had problems even earlier, but Maiya hung on for 43 points. That was our lowest point, placing overall 47th of 53. But at least we weren't last!

In Team Gamblers, I don't know what we did at the end of our opening but I know that we got more points than what showed on the scribe sheet and possibly a lot more. BUT in the closing we bobbled the weaves badly and got no gamble points. Bette did the weaves successfully so had a bunch more points, and Maiya did well, but overall none of us were stellar, so we ranked 41st in this class.

For Team Relay, Boost and Bette redeemed themselves partially in this high-value class by running fast and clean, Boost even doing weaves again, but Maiya went off course, for a change of pace. We placed 43rd in the Relay and 43rd overall, a long way from the 27th cutoff to qualify.

In Normal Land, Tika's Master Standard was beautiful and fast but she knocked the next-to-last bar. Masters Jumpers got us an E in an odd way. I had walked it at the same time as the Team Jumpers, and when I raced up to ringside with Tika after various conflicts, I had one dog to look at the course, and I couldn't remember it! So as I walked Tika out, put her in a sit-stay behind the starting jump, and walked out to my lead-out position past the 2nd jump, I was still looking around the course, trying to remember my path. When I turned around, Tika was waiting to go--in a crouch BETWEEN the first and second jumps.

Well, I had no idea whether she had gone over the first jump, but it didn't really matter, as this meant that she had left the start line without any ready signal from me of the least kind. So I walked her back to her crate and that was that.

Boost's Advanced Jumpers and Advanced Standard runs were generally chaotic, with no course faults on the Standard but so many corrections of runouts and such that we were over time. Oddly enough, only 3 of 11 dogs ran clean on that course, so we actually placed fourth.

I fell asleep instantly and slept soundly Thursday night in the back of my van. I've always slept with my head behind the driver's seat, and every time it feels as if the van slopes slightly downward, so my feet are higher than my head, and every time I'm too exhausted to want to get up and move my pillow to the rear. This time I remembered while setting up. It was much more comfortable in that direction for many reasons.

Friday

Started out cool like Thursday, but not quite as cool, and got fairly warm as the day wore on. Only five runs per dog, but one was the Grand Prix qualifier. Tika knocked a bar on a tough opening where a large percentage of dogs went off course. Then somehow we ended up with a refusal at a jump, which right there put us out of Qualifying, and then when I got her turned around again and made a U-turn to the dogwalk, she slipped on the up ramp and took quite a nasty-looking, twisting spill, hitting the dogwalk on her way off the side. It knocked the breath out of ME, seeing that happen, but she bounced up, twice as excited as before, so with the judge's encouragement, I put her back on the dogwalk and we finished nicely. Boost was a handful. Seems that we were running past or fixing or refusing or redoing every third or fourth obstacle all the way around, and we managed an E one way or another. The judge bipped over to us as Boost was holding on the Aframe (after our E) and asked in a friendly voice whether this was a baby-dog. Really? Was it obvious? Sigh. This puppy just might not compete in Nationals this year.

In other news, Tika's Master Gamblers I bobbled a rear cross, pulling Tika off a teeter, resulting in us missing finishing the weaves for points by 2 poles, and then the gamble was virtually identical to the one at our CPE trial, where I managed to send her from #1 directly to #4, and despite thinking I was handling it differently, I managed to do the same thing again. There went our first chance at dreams of glory of staying in the USDAA Top 25 for a while longer. If we had finished the weaves and made the gamble, we might have been placed high enough for a couple of TT points, but not way up there anyway. We Qed in Relay with Brenn with a couple of my bobbles that wasted time (9th of 43 teams, not bad but it's always better to get a ribbon).

Tika Qed in Standard with a nice, flowing, but not super-driven run. Still, it was 5th of 23 dogs, so I think that's enough for 1 more TT point there--AND that finished her Standard Championship (10 masters standard Qs). In Jumpers, she once again kept her bars up, but I've been trying to run more aggressively, so I left her to her own devices to take a slight push-out to a jump and raced ahead, but she came past the jump for a runout, so no Q there.

Meanwhile, Boost wowed the Known World with a completely gorgeous Advanced Gamblers run and win. I even started her on the weaves to see whether she could do them, and she did. We got compliments from a few talented people with wonderful dogs. Truth is that's just a course that was built for us to do; no major handling things, which is where we fall down, but lots of contacts and tunnels in an arrangement where we could do them all over & over. But in her other three Advanced classes, we Eed--although I felt we were getting smoother, we had no offcourses, but I had already decided that it's more important for my dog to keep driving at a competition, so when she ran out past jumps, I just kept her moving rather than going back and fixing it. I like that super drive and I don't want her to start worrying that I'm going to stop her and bring her back, like I did with my first dog before I got smart.

There was a fund-raising dinner that evening that was announced only once and did no publicity that I saw. It was a phenomenal spread of food hosted by one competitor, and by the low turnout I'm afraid that they spent more on the food than they brought in. But we had a good time chatting and eating.

There was supposed to be a chance of showers on Saturday, so I wrapped everything outside the van in plastic, set up my canopy over the dog's crating area with side rain panels, and slept. It showered somewhat off and on during the night; heard it on the roof.

Saturday

In the morning it seemed to have stopped but remained completely overcast. The pacesetters for the Steeplechase Q times ran fairly early in the day--we didn't know that they were pacesetters until it started raining again partway through the morning and then never let up. This meant that the dogs and handlers never ran as fast the rest of the day, although some came close.

Tika's Steeplechase run nearly broke my heart. If she can keep her bars up, we can Q. She did her job and kept her bars up. And I love Steeplechases with 2 weaves, because she can make pretty tough entries and is pretty darned good about staying in, both of which give us an advantage that we don't always have in speed in other areas. BUT the first approach was a very hard turn, and I called her but trusted her too much and she barely skidded in--to the 2nd pole, not the first. Aughhh! In steeplechase, that's not a fault, but it wastes time, and I'm sure that it takes 2 seconds to pull the dog out, bring her back to the beginning, and restart. So I really really pushed the rest of the course, and she was so good! And the second approach required a front cross for a really tight, fast entry, and I over-crossed, so I pulled her AWAY from the weaves and she spun towards me. Probably another 2 seconds to turn her and get her back in. We missed the cutoff by less than a second. I just about collapsed in a heap of seeting frustration.

In fact, my whole day was like that. Gamblers was another one where I found a course that I thought was perfect for us and that I didn't see anyone else doing, and the gamble was a give-away with weaves. BUT. Again the handling thing. I've been releasing Tika instantly on her contacts all weekend, trying to go for the higher placements, and at one key point, I needed her to flip left from the Aframe into a tunnel, which she's usually a star at. But I didn't think about all those early releases all weekend, and she went straight out from teh Aframe over a jump before coming back, which I'm guessing was a 3-second detour. Now I really raced, because I knew I'd have to adjust the end of my course, which was supposed to end on the teeter before the gamble, but I hadn't walked the ending that I was creating on the fly. The whistle blew just as I was getting to the new turn that I had to make, too far from the gamble, and I muffed it so that Tika turned back to me and barked, and then she headed out correctly, did the gamble perfectly--and was over time by 3/10 of one second. My seething frustration was boiling over. What's worse, I was right about our course--our opening points were good enough for 2nd of about 30 dogs if we had done the gamble on time.

(In case you hadn't noticed, this is where the whining comes in.)

Meanwhile, the rain just never let up. It was pouring so that we could justify shutting the rings down, it was simply maddeningly drearily raining. Early in the day, everyone had rain gear and hats, but by the end of the day I could see that everyone, like me, had given up--no hats, dripping hair and clothes, soaked through to the skin everywhere except possibly my tummy. My course maps turned to mush in my pockets. I had several species of fungi growing between my toes and evolving into advanced lifeforms. Wet wet wet.

Tika had a awesome standard run--I'm enjoying really driving her through courses--but found out afterwards that she had 5 faults. Since she did hit and stick all her contacts and we had no bobbles or bars, it must have been that danged up on the dogwalk again.

And in Snooker I forgot where I was going during the closing at #5. With the bobble and taking an extra obstacle and then getting her away from barking at my feet and running off, we STILL had 6 seconds left, which would've been more than plenty of time to finish a 2nd-place Super-Q. Crap crap crap was my summary for my handling of Tika for the day.

On the other hand, she was such a joy to run at all times, fast even on the contacts at all times, even in this big crowd of high-ranking competitors. She has matured so nicely and I come off the course with quite a high, working this dog.

I think Boost will be even faster. It seems to me from watching that she is faster than any of her 3 siblings competing up here--Derby, Beck, and even Bette, although I think that Bette is pretty darned close. None of them are slouches by any means, and Derby's pretty close and handled by a good trainer and competitor. But I keep thinking--if they were blasting around courses at Boost's speed, Derby & Beck wouldn't be in Masters already. Maybe I'm just making excuses for being a poorer handler than the others. But I sure give Mary credit with Bette--for all of the unfamiliar challenge of a very fast, driven dog, Bette managed to qualify in all four Advanced runs on Saturday, and Boost in none. But I felt smoother than the previous days, AND she did several sets of weaves beautifully, including two in the Steeplechase--although she ran past them the first time, when I got her lined up, she did them all the way through perfectly, and the second time through nailed them on the first try, but then later ran past a serpentiney jump and by then I knew we weren't making time anyway so didn't go back for it, Eing out.

But she also is such a high to run with on course. I love seeing her working, and the last class where I just aimed her at the weaves at an angle and she blasted ahead of me and made the entry perfectly and zoomed through and then when I caught up to her and turned her back for more points, she did them again perfectly, and I felt like flying.

Yeah, the usual ups and downs, I suppose.

The rain let up long enough to load all my sopping-wet gear into my car, and then it broke into a downpour, so it was tough even to stay dry going into the restroom with dry clothes to change into for the ride home, but I managed it, so I took Tika's five Qs and one placement and Boost's one Q and 2 placements--out of 34 runs-- and we were home about 9:30 p.m.

Had no trouble falling asleep and sleeping through again.

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Notes

SUMMARY: Just thinking.

• It's been SO dry here this winter. Not just in terms of rain (which we're quite low on), but the air. My fingers have been cracking since December. I use moisturizing hand lotion all the time. But I wash my hands so often, too, with being out with the dogs and (the last week or so) a cold and doing stuff in the yard, it's hard to keep up. Now my lips are chapping, my whole face is flaking. I think I'm starting to go hoarse--cold/cough or dry air? Ack.
• The lilac bush is going going...hopefully soon gone! Blog commenters are good at making me put my money where my mouth is. I offered it on Freecycle.org, thinking that no one could really possibly want an 8' tall/wide shrub, but I was swamped with replies. This is apparently the ideal time to remove it. So after 5 years in this house, it's finally going^*. But this means I'm having to dig up all the plants around it that I want to keep and move elsehwere. This is why I found/bought/stole/created dozens of pots and potting soil all summer, to do this, and then it just seemed like SO much work. But with shovels impending, I've made good progress today (yessss---less billable work again) and hopefully can finish tomorrow.
• Tip for the brain dead: When you're lifting something really heavy and you're out of condition and you want to set it on a platform (read "agility table") that's next to you, turn, don't twist at the waist. Owwwies. I knew that. OK, now I have a sore back muscle on one side. Hope it doesn't stiffen up before the weekend.
• For 2 days straight, Jake wouldn't play fetch no matter what I tried. Would finally go and get the toy and then skirt around me at the edges of the yard to dart back into the house. Yesterday he was coaxable, but I had to coax a lot. Then he fetched forever. Today I wasn't in the mood for coaxing, and he lay on the deck watching me toss a toy for the others for about 20 minutes between uprooting irises and narcissi, then he came down and asked me to to play fetch! I was thrilled. Did it a long time, too, like yesterday. Sucks getting old.
• My mom's closest cousin--my clever, funny, "aunt"--has been writing incoherent letters from her home in New York. Senility/alzheimers/whatever is setting in big time. I think that's the curse & the fear of the woodward family women: Live a long life with your body and a shorter one with your mind. It's scary. My mom's doing good so far but we all know from her stories of her grandmother and from the way her mom deteriorated that we all could be next in line...and now the cousin... Argh even more. I'll just assume that doing agility will preserve my mind forever. Or, the way I sometimes run courses, no one will know the difference anyway. That's probably a better strategy--just be incomprehensible all the time so you and everyone else just get used to it.

^*Oops, that would be an unclear pronoun reference. The lilac shrub has not, in fact, EVER been in this house to my knowledge, but *I* have been.

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