Dog-Food Eating Zombies!

SUMMARY: In the dark, they come and steal our food.

We know that we have night-walking, flesh-eating zombies in our yard in the dark of night from time to time, because I often find plums from my tree that's on the west side of my house in the pond over on the east side of my house with some of their flesh eaten away.

We keep our dogfood in a giant garbage-can-like bin on the back porch next to the kitchen door because there's no room in the kitchen and, even though it's a nice bright kitcheny white color, really garbage can decor is out. Haven't had any troubles with that, except for one year when the really desperate rats chewed through the lid. (Had to have been desperate; who would eat dogfood when there were plums available? And oranges? And apples? And lobelia flowers? OK, I don't know who's eating all my lobelia flowers.)


Thanks to the miracle of white plastic tape--all the versatility of duct tape, except bright kitcheny white--I repaired the lid, so then they chewed under it, so then I had to repair that and also scare them away by putting rat traps in and on the bin for several nights running. Didn't catch anything, just scared them off. Clever rats.


But, to no one's surprise, I digress.

Yesterday morning, I came downstairs to discover the dogfood bin tipped over on its side with food cascaded out across the deck. I don't know whether Tika was more excited about smelling the zombies who were responsible, or about scarfing down the food. Wait--I do know. It was the food. But then, after we had collectively cleaned up the food, tremendous quantities of zombie-odor sniffing occurred.

Last night, after agility class and before bed, I latched down the lid on the bin. It latches pretty good; it is such a secure latching that I have to call a knowledgeable expert, like maybe a desperate 5-year-old, to unlatch it; I personally have to struggle with it for most of the morning to get it open after latching it.

Plus it is a heavy bin with all that dogfood (40 pound bags of food, you know; it takes almost 2 bags. Although admittedly it is now down to maybe 20 pounds) so I know that, with the lid latched, it is one secure mother-feeder.

So, at around 1:00 this morning, Tika informed me in no uncertain terms that zombies were afoot and she needed to go do something about them. Human Mom, however, was very tired and didn't want to get out of the toasty bed and argued with Tika about it for about 5 minutes and finally had to shut all the upstairs windows before Tika gave up and settled back to bed with an indignant Huff.

This morning, the bin was on the opposite side of the deck, beyond the cute little wrought iron table and chair, tipped over, lid off, with food cascading across the deck and over the side into the garden. Tika spent a good 10 minutes checking for food and zombie clues.

Maybe tonight, if Tika tells me about zombies, we'll come downstairs and give them some really good Woofs to scare them off. Might not let Tika loose in the yard; Remington tangled with a zombie one night and we both regretted it for weeks caring for his wounds. We just want to scare them a bit. Of course, these could just be giant mutant angry rats about TMH having wiped out their cousins in the attic. I wonder whether rat traps would scare them off? Or the zombies, either?

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Of course, if I were a *useful* blogger who didn't want to take up all of your time, and mine, too, snapping photos and digressing along, I COULD have had a post that read simply, "Coons getting into dogfood on deck. Must do something." Better luck next time.

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Closer Foxie

SUMMARY: Field Foxie came closer today.

Still really too far away even for my long lens (this is seriously cropped from a larger photo again).



Meanwhile, I was being stalked by Mr. Egret. Never could get a good photo--he kept trees and shrubs between us at all times, and froze or pulled back every time I tried to get to a better position. (This photo is NOT cropped--he really was close.)

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Chains

SUMMARY: Tire chain, key chain, food chain, DNA chain, chain of thought, hair chainge

Tire Chain

At Sunday's practice, they set up last weekend's Grand Prix run. There's a sequence where the dog blasts through a chute, has to go out to take the tire at an oblique angle, and then pull in to hit the weaves, probably while the handler is behind them and/or working at a distance to set up for the next sequence. In competition, Boost handled this well. Sunday, she did the chute and the tire and then missed the weave entry completely. So I sent her back to the tire--and she ran under it. I sent her again, again she went under it, and I said "No!" I mean, she hasn't missed a tire entry in I don't know how long, certainly never in competition.

I started making the entry easier and easier for her (but the side of the tire was always what I saw), and every time she flew under it, I said "no!" and brought her back. It was on the 5th try where I put her in a sit directly facing the tire that I realized that the heavy (heavy!) tire chain was dangling down completely through the center of the tire. Curses on whoever set the tire! And curses on me for not noticing that my dog was trying not to kill herself. I felt terrible! After a break and some other activities, I put her back through the tire in both directions and she did fine, so I didn't break her permanently. Dogs are so resilient; handlers can be so stupid.

Chain of thought

Cirque du Soleil's Kooza had a fabulous juggler. For me, breathtakingly talented. However, the first thing that caught my eye when he walked out on stage was his breathtakingly glittery silver lame suit. When he took off the silver lame jacket to reveal a silver lame shirt, I was hooked. But he distracted me with 20 minutes of some of the finest juggling I've ever seen, and some of it was the sheer duration without ever missing. Ever. At the end of the act, my first reaction was, "Wow! What a spectacular juggler!" and my second reaction was--and I'm sure, as agility addicts, yours would be the same--"Where can I get an outfit like that to do agility in"? You can watch the first half minute of this video to see the suit, and if you're inclined, watch the rest for the first half of his act.

Key Chain

Agility friend #2 commented this weekend, wow! That's quite a key chain! I realized then that my keychain has gone beyond being a mere utilitarian ring--after all, I have only 3 keys--and has become sort of the Swiss Army/Smithsonian/Andy Warhol of keychains.

Besides the keys (my house key is tie-dyed blue/purple, although it's worn away mostly), I have a sturdy blue metal Maglite flashlight, handy for finding stray doggie deposits after dark, a green LED extremely bright spotlight, handy for blinding yourself if you're holding the wrong end, my Weight Watchers Lifetime Member keychain, a circlet that used to have an "E" attached", the lock/beeper for my car, an I Heart My Dog tag in case anyone doubted it and needed proof, and a dragon caribiner, reflecting my dragon collection, of which I have many more than I have dogs, by a factor of probably 200.

So now you know.

DNA Chain

Quick: Which is Boost? Which is her mom, Tala? Is there a slight resemblance?




And here's a token Tika photo with her favorite Tika Toy, so she won't feel left out:

Food Chain

I keep trying to get photos of the foxes that live in the field behind me. They come up close to the fence to taunt me into frenziedly finding my telephoto lens, only to fade into the distance. They are so CUTE when they leap into the air and plunge nose-first into a gopher hole. Here is the best I've done so far:


Think it's a little blurry? That's because it's enlarged from this original, which is the nearest I've gotten with my 300mm lens for crying out loud!

Hair Chain[ge]

Well, had to make this fit into the "chain" theme SOMEhow. The instructions warn that, if you let the chia grow for too long, they become embedded and you'll have to remove their roots with a WIRE BRUSH. Heaven forfend. So it is time for Mr. Chia Head to say a fond farewell to his copious tresses. Today, we have reduced him to a mohawk. It's pretty pathetic; he needs a better stylist.

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Foxes and Sheepies

SUMMARY: A long drive, Boost is a herding dog, Tika isn't, and there's a fox out there in the field!

I drove to Vacaville this morning with a lonnnnng-time friend; we've been vowing to do more things together and, after our trip to Golden Gate Park (sans dogs) a month or so ago, this was our next adventure, since I knew about one microbraincell more about herding than she did--maybe. At least I got to sleep in until almost 6! Not like 4 a.m. for agility!

Turned out to be a lovely day for a drive--beautiful sunrise with just the remnants of what had been rain clouds overnight.

The lecturer/tester, Deborah Pollard, was the one recommended to me by the testers in Arizona. I liked her style of working with the dogs much more, and she was much better about explaining to all of us naive onlookers about what she was doing, what she was observing, what the dog was doing, what might be some training things to note, and so on. All intriguing and educational. Now I know *two* microbraincells about herding.

Tika was the first dog up and really wanted to have nothing to do with it. She wanted to come back to Mom. She'd periodically dive in at the sheep, barking,and then lunge away to try to come back to Mom. Eventually Deborah had me come out in the pen with her, so then Tika reverted to moving away with her back to us and sniffing. D. asked me whether I intended to do herding with Tika, and I said not (especially now that I've seen 2 tests with her where she's not evidenced the moves), and she said that's probably good--Tika could probably learn to do herding, but "her heart's not in it," which I'd now agree with. Written evaluation includes "Nice dog but not for herding. Too much fear/prey drive." Here's a short clip of the first 2 minutes of Tika's session.


Boost, once again, did well. Her strong propensity to stay on her right lead (circle clockwise) really shows why she had no trouble making weave entries when bending to the right but always ran past them when bearing left: She really doesn't like being on her left lead! This gives me something to really be on the lookout for in agility--are there other patterns or situations where that weakness becomes apparent and manifests itself? And I could do some exercises with her just circling jumps on her left lead. Intriguing!

Here's about 5 minutes of Boost's session.


After I got home, I was standing in the kitchen telling my renter about the experience, half gazing out the window at the huge expanse of field (surrounded by suburban housing tracts) that will one day be a park, and noticed an odd-looking cat way out in the golden grass. "Is that a big cat," I asked, "or is it a fox?" "It's a fox!" he said, and we both ran for our binoculars.

Sure enough, there seems to be a fox living in those 300 acres. Wonder what'll happen to him (and, presumably, his friends and relatives) when they finally start building the park?

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