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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Caffeine, Chemicals, and Coneage

SUMMARY: Musings upon the effects of assorted chemicals on human and canine consumers; plus coneage.

Caffeine

OK, here's a life lesson (file under "Duh!"): If you find that drinking even a couple of cans of caffeinated Coke in one day (34 mg caffeine each) makes you twitchy, sleepless, and prone to heart palpitations, beware dark chocolate. Oh, yes, it might LOOK like "candy" (AKA "sugar"), but in fact it's 20 big fat mg of caffeine PER OUNCE, so if you were, say, to eat perhaps 10 ounces in one day, even if (let's say hypothetically) it's chocolate-covered cranberries, hence fruit, hence healthy and nutritious (am I right?), then that would be like drinking six cans of Coke, and perhaps might make you lie awake, wide-eyed, until 4 in the morning, heart bouncing around like a superball.

Note to self: Take nap this afternoon. Leave. The chocolate. Alone.

Chemicals

Note to self #2: Don't let the dogs at it, either. Theobromine kills. (Notes from my email in the Fall of 2000:
"I nearly killed Jake...is now in recovery [at the emergency clinic]--but I spent 24 hours not knowing what he had gotten into & thinking it was something in one of the piles of junk that the landlord still has here (having found a chewed-up pesticide box but that contained apparently sealed bottles, & pesticide symptoms didn't match but I was convinced it was something in the yard [ and called poison control 2 or 3 times before and after taking him to the emergency clinic]). What a nightmare...

"He got into a Costco-sized bag of semisweet chocolate morsels that I didn't even know I had, let alone was anywhere near where he could get at it. It was one of the scariest nights of my life. [I was at home, crying, while he was at the emergency vet's, and finally just decided to start unpacking the boxes in the kitchen, and finally found the bag, in a box that had been untaped but wasn't open; he must have been sticking his head in under the flap and munching. I was so relieved to finally know what the problem was.]

"Theobromine....is highly toxic to dogs and, [in Jake, ]caused a racing heartbeat [that was so fast that I couldn't count it--tell me that isn't terrifying--], vomiting, horrific diarrhea, and hallucinations. [The only dire symptoms that he escaped--and we were just damned lucky, I think--were] seizures and death."

Coneage

But that's not really why I called you all here.

Sitting awake at my kitchen table in the wee hours inspired me to talk about coneage. Yes, that's coneage, like as in signage:

Main Entry: sign·age
Pronunciation: \?s?-nij\
Function: noun
: signs (as of identification, warning, or direction) or a system of such signs

This word is not my coinage; I blame it on my Punmeister Instructor who sometimes deviates from puns into other wordplay.

Main Entry: cone·age
Pronunciation: \?k?n-nij\
Function: noun
: cones (as of numberage for a collection of agility equipage) or a system of such cones

So, I was inspired because I just bought at the flea market, ta-da, finally! my own coneage for my own numbered courses! Six orange cones (sadly, not purple) for only $3! Much better than I could get anywhere else! Now, it is true that I had to number them myself, but hey, I needed practice counting from 1 to 6! Plus now Boost and Tika can decide whether bowling is on their agenda:


And anyway I already warmed up by numbering my previous very own coneage, although it might not be very cone-shaped, had the big advantage of being FREE because I already had them:



However, their main disadvantages were (a) they moved around the course randomly in a stiff breeze (b) they moved around the course randomly when Boost discovered that they make really fun noises when chomped on and (c) they don't stack very easily.

Now, I have graduated to another, more conelike, better stacking, variety of coneage for the numbers beyond 6, also free (if you disregard the $2 each for the plants that came in them). I had to number these myself, too, which is rude considering that I paid $2 each for them:


And why would anyone need numbered cones in their very own back yard, when no one is laying out courses except your very self? Because I am very good at remembering courses that go in a straight line and go "jump jump tunnel jump jump tunnel" but very bad at remembering clever courses that actually teach me and my actual agility dogs some actual useful moves. Like all those nifty courses that use identical equipage but different numberage in Clean Run's "Backyard Dogs," which I can't even remember more than 3 or 4 numbers on the first course, let alone up to 10 on a dozen different yet same courses. Like this:



And now, before I leave you, I'll give you one additional nifty tip about coneage in addition to those various clever ways to have FREE although breezable coneages of your own:
You must always stack cones with the lowest number on TOP. This is so that the next person laying out the cones can easily see that the correct number is next and can easily lift the next cone from the top of the pile. Like this:

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Proofing Weaves

SUMMARY: In which our heroines try not to pop out of the weaves in the disastrous back yard.

Here's the thing. I've got this project at work That Would Not Die. Any day now I'll be done with it. I've been thinking that for three months now. So I'm busy. I'm stressed. I'm not in the mood to go work on piddly agility details like actual skills that would help us earn Qs and not throw our money away on entry fees where we'll NQ for the same problems we made at the last trial. I'd rather not think about it and then go NQ at the next trial and then complain about how I can't believe we did the same stupid thing again to everyone who'll listen (which is pretty much no one, because everyone in agility knows about us whiners who will shut up eventually if you don't encourage them and then we can get back to gossiping about dogs).

So I have two USDAA weekends coming up. Boost STILL needs one Standard and one Jumpers for her MAD (Master Agility Dog) title, which is what *I* need to feel like I have an actual masters-level dog and not a puppy who somehow stumbled into masters by some freak accident. And why did we not have those Qs last weekend, for example? Knocked bars. Plus, in other runs, total havoc. AND neither dog has a Steeplechase Q this year, not one, and Tika needs a mere one for her Gold Tournament Master and both need TWO to qualify for Nationals. And Tika, who has a lifetime accumulation of 21 Grand Prix legs, hasn't managed *one* this year, not a single one, and she needs TWO GPs to qualify in that for Nationals.

So I guess I should probably practice SOMETHING. For some reason I don't mind practicing weaves as much as other stuff. For one thing, there are no bars to set every time you mess up. And you don't have to give rewards right at the base of the contact--you throw the reward from wherever you're standing. So, being basically lazy, weave poles are good for me--not as good as tunnels, but actually my dogs are pretty good at tunnels (run through it fast. Hard concept.) so I don't have to practice much, although I do, ALL the TIME when playing fetch (you have to run really fast through a tunnel to get your toy. So someday I will probably pay for this on course when they decide to run really fast through a tunnel instead of doing a contact or a jump).

As usual, I digress. I was going to digress more about how I need to practice running Boost to and from weaves with 40 feet and a jump between her and the next obstacle and how my yard allows about 5 feet--otherwise I'll run them into a diseased apply tree or over a smooth, slippery concrete patio--so it's not the best practice, but instead I will go right into how I also need to practice sticky weaves--dogs who will stick in the weaves no matter what I do. Since BOTH dogs, yes even TIKA THE WEAVING MARVEL, have popped out of weaves more than once in recent trials.

And here's some of what I do, using my creative genius (also called "borrowing everyone else's ideas") to come up with every distraction I can think of. Cross behind when sending to the weaves. Cross behind and stop suddenly. Cross behind and change my mind. Cross behind just before they get to the last pole. Send at a 90-degree angle from 10 feet away and then rear cross perpendicular to 10 feet on the other side. Run alongside and stop suddenly early. Or middle. Or right before the end. Run ahead and front cross suddenly. Front cross early. Front cross late. Start to front cross and stop. Run alongside and turn and run back where I came from. Run alongside and slooooowwww dowwwwn and SPEED UP and stop suddenly. Run alongside and spin in circles. Run alongside. Stop. Start. Stop. Run alongside and veer suddenly away. Run alongside and suddenly yell something stupid--"begonia!" is my favorite. Or sing. Stop and wave my arms. Run and wave my arms. Drop a toy subtly at my feet while I'm running. Throw the toy while they're still in the weaves. Toss a toy in the air while I'm running. Kick the toy on the ground while they're in the weaves. Stop and play with the toy on the ground. Throw the toy off to the side. Throw the toy right exactly next to them in the weaves (this is an advanced distraction that you really need to work up to; give the poor pups a break!). Run alongside, veering in and out and waving my arms. Send the dog straight into the weaves ahead of me and stand there while they do all 12. Do five back-to-back weaves as fast as I can get them to turn and redo them and try to get them to pop out right at the end of each set (this is especially good practice if you ever have a chance to do a 60-weave-pole challenge). Do all the same things at 20 feet away if I can figure out how in my yard so that it'll apply equally well in a gamble.

You know, these dogs should have no excuse at all for ever popping out of the weaves. Ever. But you also know, I have to keep redoing these sorts of things, because if I stop practicing, then they start popping. Why can't things just stay fixed?

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The Yard Has Gone To The Dogs

SUMMARY: Dogs. Everything dogs. Can't I just have a little garden to myself?

Now you can view photos and read many educational and informative details all about how The Yard Has Gone To The Dogs (adventures in flowers and sods). To put you in the mood: Dogs And Sod Still Life:

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Haute TRACS Is Almost Here

SUMMARY: Scribe sheets are done. Running orders are posted. Leaving early Thursday morning.

The scribe-sheet "party" went well Sunday evening. Three of us worked for about 3 hours, with a short break for dinner, and stuck all those stickers. Although--wait--but no! The relays were not done! So secretary has to do those herself! She said, it's a pointless exercise to do them any earlier than mere hours before leaving for the show site, because people drop out and weird stuff happens and everything has to be rearranged. I think she's had to deal with dozens of team changes before and after closing. I'm so glad she's good at this and likes doing it.

Meanwhile, have I been working on Tika's up contact drills? No! Her running Aframe contact drills? No! Bar-knocking drills for both dogs? No! Distance work for both dogs and especially Boost for that desperately needed gamble for her MAD? No way! Rear crosses for Boost to avoid refusals? Nuh-uh! Tika's "come" directly through a field of obstacles for Snooker? Nopey dopey! Proofing Boost's weaves which have gone south? Non non non!

Have I been trying to plant flowers and resod my lawn instead? Oui oui oui! Do I have photos and no time in which to post them? You betcha! Maybe tonight! Maybe tomorrow! Maybe never! It's good to have a plan! And here is a tasty preview photo morsel of my ugly ugly lawnage and the first bit of soddage laid in to fill the bare spottages.


Meanwhile, I still have to empty & vacuum the van (will be sleeping in it this weekend, so ew ew ew don't want to sleep among transported sod debris) and pack everything up for 3 or maybe 4 days. If neither dog makes Round 2 in Steeplechase, I'll be coming home Saturday evening (right after the Bay Team meeting). If either of them makes it--jeez, it would be so tempting to stay through an ENTIRE day just for one round 2 run--I qualify in Steeplechase so seldom! We shall see--have I ever qualified in Steeplechase with any dog at Haute TRACS? No no no! Damned bars!

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Spring and Easter

SUMMARY: Yard's in bloom; bunny, dogs, and camera are active

Spring is more here daily. The plum tree is in full bloom; seems like any day now when plums will, true to their names, again be plummeting to the ground for the dogs to consume.

Meanwhile, they're consumed with interest about what the Easter Bun will bring them, and they're excited to be part of this unusually early Easter in their short little lives. I'm sure you all know that Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. That means that the earliest it could ever be would be March 22, and the latest, April 25. There's an email making the rounds about this; I provide an updated facts list here.

This year is the earliest Easter that any of us will ever see--pending time travel or an immortality treatment. Only the most elderly have ever seen it this early (at least 95 years old). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier:

1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be in 2160. The last time it was this early was 1913.

2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in 2285. The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.

3) But you may have seen, or might still see, the latest possible easter (April 25); last occurred in 1943 and will next occur in 2048.

My dogs are fascinated by facts such as these, as long as they are accompanied by peanutbutter-filled easter eggs.

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Google Maps

SUMMARY: Can you tell which is my house just by looking at the back yards? Would you bet on it?

P.S. Ignore the arrow. I don't know what it's pointing at, although it seems to imply that I reside in a recycling bin.

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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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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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Wishing for More Space

SUMMARY: Back yard dreamin'.

Isn't mapquest fun, now that you can see actual photos of the world? You can use it for scouting out potential agility sites (yeah--big field, but no parking lots anywhere near!). Or for capturing maps of your neighborhood:

• My yard is outlined in red. Barely enough space for 3 jumps in a row if I keep them to 15 feet apart, when I'd really like 20 feet for more realistic maneuvers.
• The yard I'd really like is at the green arrow. It was, oh joy!, up for sale last year, and it's exactly the same houseplan as my house, and I would've loved to trade and move across the street. Except. Asking price was half again as much as I paid 2001, and it didn't have a lot of the basic upgrades that mine has, not to mention the logistics of getting my house up for sale and coordinating the two sales and the moving--even if it was just across the street-- sigh--
• Lookit all the swimming pools! I had no idea!
• At the top, you can see some of the new 80-house development that went in about 3 years ago. Try doing agility in those yards, let alone adding a swimming pool! This (plus high-rise units) is the wave of the future in San Jose--efficient use of space for All Those People Needing Housing.
• The big empty area to the right will someday be a 290-acre park; huge, for an area of dense suburbia. Probably won't be doing any agility in there, either. But it'll be nice not to have dense housing (see above) directly behind me.
• The big red star floating above the intersection is a real public nuisance. In foggy weather, it drips red droplets onto cars driving by underneath. On sunny days, it casts big star-shaped shadows into the nearby yards. Birds are constantly running into it and falling to the ground, stunned, but the crows like to hang out on it and drop walnuts onto the pavement below to break them open.

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Agility-Related Goals for This Week

SUMMARY: Some realism, some extreme optimism.

• Today: Walk around the (long) block--about 2/3 miles. Exercycle briskly 10 minutes. 5 minutes quad work. Jump-knocking drills with Tika and Boost. Finish removing plants around lilac in hopes it will be taken away later today--then another 15 feet of usable length in my yard! Woohoo! Go to class with Tika, my cold be danged.
• Thurs: Walk around the long block. Exercycle 10 minutes. 5 minutes quad work. Go to class with Boost. Go-on drills with Boost. Bar-knocking and snooker practice with Tika.
• Fri: Walk around the long block. 10 minutes exercycle. 5 minutes quads. Pack & load car for the weekend (usually takes 1-2 hours). Snooker and bar-knocking drills with Tika. Go-on drills with Boost. Get to bed early.
• Rise at the crack of 4am, drive 2 hours to Santa Rosa, ice my knee after every run (5 with Tika), earn Tika's ADCH with a Super-Q, don't freeze my buns off. Night at Motel 6.
• Sun: Ice my knee after every run (5 with Boost), earn Boost's AD with a Standard leg. Don't freeze my buns off. Remember to do stuff with Jake. Drive home, stopping for nap if need be.
• Mon: Walk around the long block. 10 minutes exercycle. 5 minutes quads. I dunno, that's 5 days from now!

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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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Brrr! But Keep On Practicing

SUMMARY: Near-record lows for California, but that deters our agility not a whit. So much to work on. And my back yard is less limiting than I thought.

Saturday morning, 10 a.m.

Tika's favorite pond still has a layer of ice.

My back yard as no one has ever seen it before--from my plum tree! Jake ponders the incomprehensible activities of mom.

The low parts of the Bay Area have been colder before, but not by much, and not on these dates. It's cold. There oughta be a law. We live in California for a reason, and this sort of thing just shouldn't be allowed. All our artichoke and citrus crops are freezing to death, literally. What will we do, what will we do?

But at least the sun is shining. So, in the sun, it's fine to be out in the yard running around with the dogs, as long as I'm dressed snugly and don't mind numb fingers.

I could probably get by without weekly classes, after 12 years of them, if I were any better at--on my own-- (a) figuring out what I'm doing wrong, (b) keeping up with the latest knowledge and skills about training and handling, and (c) figuring out how to create simple yet versatile course layouts in my yard to assist in developing my handling skills.

The latter is quite hard for me. Probably I just never work at it very much. Course design just doesn't excite me. Plus, as you can see from the photo, although my yard is about 95 feet long and varies from about 25 to 40 feet wide, there's a lot of unusable space (patio and trees and such) plus that danged lilac shrub and planter right in the middle of my practice area. I'd have torn it out along with all the other shrubs, trees, and planters 5 years ago, except that the landscape designer I talked to convinced me to leave it. It really is gorgeous and smells delicious. For about 6 days, once a year. Is it worth it? I've been threatening to take it out for the last 5 years, but of course I also planted a whole lot of smaller plants and bulbs around it, so I want to take those out, too--and so it stalls.

But I digress.

I got a complementary copy of Dog Sports magazine at the USDAA nationals this year, and it has a lovely little backyard grid of 7 obstacles that allow you to practice a phenomenal array of techniques and paths in a small area. They've got it laid out on a 40 by 50 grid, but with only a little tweaking here and there, I've got it fit into about 30 by 40. I've used it for three days now and I'm not yet running out of handling challenges that we need work on.

The obstacles are:

• the tunnel (theirs looks like maybe a 15-footer spread over 10 feet; mine is just 10 feet)
• table
• teeter (mine, which you can barely see in front of the Aframe, is at an angle to avoid the aframe and the corner flower garden, but theirs was aimed straight at the table)
• 6-pole weaves (mine isn't quite where theirs is in relation to the tunnel, but close)
• Three jumps arranged in a pinwheel--one next to the teeter, one opposite it (next to dogwalk in my yard), and one perpendicular to them that you can barely see out by the winter-naked lilac shrub. (OK, you can barely see it and only if you peer really closely)

They've got a dozen or so courses of 6 to 9 obstacles laid out starting at the table, and another dozen ending at the table, so you can combine them for longer courses if you're inclined. You can get to either end of the weaves from either end of the tunnel. You can go past the weaves on either end to get to the pinwheel. On those three jumps, you can practice pinwheels, wraps, 180s (bypassing the back jump). You can practice a push out and turn over the left jump to the teeter. You can practice either end of the weaves from any of the three jumps from any direction--coming towards you or going away and wrapping. And from the teeter. And from the table. And from the table you can do jumps, either end of the weaves (far end is tricky), eitehr end of the tunnel. And so on.

I of course have an added level of complexity because I have a dogwalk set up to the right, and beyond the far jump of the pinwheel I can send the dog straight to another tunnel or turn left over an additional jump which can get me to *another* tunnel and so on and so on.

The only major flaw here is that the approach from the table to the tunnel is on the concrete patio, but I do few enough of them that they probably won't hurt--and Tika, for one, is always up on the hot tub and flying off onto the patio all on her own, so if that doesn't bother her, a few table exits won't, either.

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Another Good Day

SUMMARY: Knee good, dogs good, yard good, good good good.

Part of my yard with leaves begging to be gathered.

Hard to believe that, by the time I went to bed last night, I could barely walk without pain again. Had to ice my knee a couple of times when it woke me up around 11 and 1 or so. And then--today--I feel great! Except for a few twinges on the sides, and having to be careful about twisting kinds of movements, I'm walking normally, going up and down stairs, having just a fine old time with no aching or difficulty. I'm really not sure what the difference is. Today I went to Longs, the Post Office, OSH for lamp-repair parts, the gas station, and home again. Played with dogs in yard and sent them to some agility obstacles. Got out the leaf blower and cleared my lawn (it's SO hard to find dog messes to avoid stepping in when there are little round yellow and brown leaves all over the grass). And I still feel fine.

Living with dogs does force one to do certain things. I wouldn't have felt obligated to clean up the lawn leaves if it weren't for the dog-mess thing. (And there are a ton more leaves on the mulched parts of the yards that I still need to get to.) And, funny thing, in the doctor's office yesterday, when I went to change back into my pants to go home, I grabbed them wrong and spilled dog treats from my pocket all over the floor. Normal people don't have that kind of issue...

Boost's weave entries are looking better and better. But her nose touches as she blasts down the teeter are veering way off to the side when I'm behind her. I spent several minutes working on convincing her to use the target on the ground in front of the teeter rather than inventing her own spot on which to touch. I hate clever dogs.

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