Crazy Dog Lady Episode #182,497

The look of disbelief and horror on the Ethan Allen saleslady's face was priceless when I told her I was looking for a sofa that was good for repelling dog hair. Apparently people who shop at Ethan Allen don't let their dogs on the sofa. I suppose at those prices I can understand why. I had no business being in there in the first place because I certainly was not going to drop 3 grand on a sofa but I thought just maybe they would have some heavily discounted funky unwanted sofa sitting in a lonely corner somewhere. As it turns out they did but it was still twice the price that I was hoping to pay and it was a horrible drab green pattern that made it look like a cow had barfed on it. Sofa Mart is more our price range but the sofas were all too soft and ugly and the Christmas music they were playing was giving me a facial twitch. No sofa was going to look good with 'Little Drummer Boy' worming it's way through my brain. I hate Christmas music with the heat of a thousand hot white burning suns and Christmas music being blared in a public place a full 5 days after Christmas is completely intolerable and just plain wrong. So it was off to Scandanavian Design which was an adventure in itself since we had no cell phone or phone book and were trying to find the place based on Jonny's spotty memory of where it was 12 years ago. Of course it was no longer there and the closest one was the opposite direction and not too far off the highway on the way home. In fact I'd passed it a dozen times last winter taking Lola to her swimming therapy and it never registered. Doh. We did finally find a somewhat reasonably priced dog friendly sofa and Scandanavian Design was the only store where the salespeople didn't hover over us like creepy, desperate vampires. Of course the sofa I really liked was $1500 and purple and not at all dog friendly but cooler heads prevailed in the end. Now if I only had a few more weeks off so I could paint this place and get some new flooring installed the joint wouldn't look half bad.

Snow More

It can stop snowing any time now, really, I won't mind. My yard had finally melted down to a few bare patches and the weaves were almost useable when bam we got hit with 2 storms a few days apart and now my yard is buried again. There's at least a foot or so out there which means it'll be another 2 weeks or so before I have any chance at all of training out there or at Biscuit Eaters. I've got a trial in a week and Lola's had no training since Nationals in Nov., Cody's had one run at a course run through and of course the workshop last weekend. I tried bringing 6 weaves into the house the other night but I don't have enough room anywhere in my tiny house unless I start moving the sofa. I tried anyway in a cramped little space and it was pure chaos. I'm glad all the dogs are so enthusiastic about training but agility is simply not an indoor activity, esp. in a 1000 sf house. On top of it whoever of the boys wasn't getting a turn had to pitch a fit which Jonny didn't particularly appreciate and Lola barks her head off when she runs so when I tried working her all 3 dogs were going mad at once. I'll just have to wait for the thaw and hope for the best for next weekend.

I've been working Strummer on his plank of wood in preparation for teaching contacts and I've reached a stalling point. I want him to run to the end of the plank and lie down facing straight, back legs on, front legs off. He'll do this no problem as long as I'm ahead of him but if I try to send him he goes to the end then plops down on the board at an angle with his neck curved around to face me. I've tried standing at the end of the board but as soon as I get even with the board he comes down on an angle to face me. I've tried shaping him looking straight ahead but he gets frustrated way too easily. I can't seem to break it down any more, it's a matter of a tiny step between him lying straight or at an angle. He seems to think the correct behavior involves facing me and it's been hard trying to convince him otherwise. I suppose I have at least a month before he can get started on any equipment anyway.

His jumping's coming along o.k. though it seems I've got a bar knocker on my hands, something I've never had to deal with before. Hopefully it's just because he's learning but sheesh he's dropped more bars in the span of a couple weeks than Cody & Lola have dropped in their entire agiltiy careers, combined. Weaves are on hold of course. He was having trouble with the transition between 4" to 5" partly because I was using a mixture of striped and unstriped poles. He'll have to be proofed for that eventually but for right now I need to remember to use striped poles until he has the basics down.

I slipped on the ice (again!) a week and a half ago and caused a good bruise and goose egg on my knee and a gash on my hand. They're finally feeling better but I haven't been doing much training. Tried a long run on Sunday but there were so many patches of ice still left on the streets that I grew frustrated and gave up trying to run any more after that. We took the dogs on some long 1 hour, 45 minute long walks over the holidays and got 5 laps of skiing in at N. Boulder Park on x-mas day but no swimming or biking. I can't bear the thought of getting on the trainer and I've been using my gjmpy knee as an excuse. On top of it all my foot has started bothering me to the point that I'm considering surgery. I have a bunion that I've been living in peace with for years but it's finally starting to hurt to the point of being horribly painful. It bothers me most at night when I'm trying to sleep and last night woke me up 2-3 times or so throughout the night. Unfortunately I have no time or interest in surgery and if I did the ideal time would be a week from Monday but I haven't even called the doctor about it yet and it would probably be weeks before they could get me in. I hoping to gut it out until this time next year but we'll see. Of course I felt fine this morning and the thought of surgery seemed silly but I'm sure tonight I'll be singing a different tune when my foot starts throbbing again.

A Close Shave

Johnny & I went to see 'Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street' on Christmas Eve because nothing screams 'the holidaze' like throat slitting and cannibalism for profit. I didn't think Hollywood could top Jonny Depp as sarcastic pirate (though that was one of the most abysmal movies I've ever seen) but they've decided to give it a try with Johnny Depp as murderous barber. Add in Helena Bonham Carter as the industrious meat pie mogul Mrs. Lovett and Tim Burton as director and what could possible go wrong? Well, for one thing it's a musical and that is terribly terribly wrong. And by musical I don't mean 10-15 minutes of dialogue and then an annoyingly catchy song. About 70-80% of the movie's dialogue was delivered in song form which took a little getting used to and got a bit tedious at times but in the end wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be. Despite the musical format the movie was really good. Tim Burton delivered the goods and Johnny Depp is always fabulous but I think the real standout this time around was Helena Bonham Carter. Unfortunately I was noticing far too many similarities between her hair and mine when I'm having a bad hair day.





















Jonny brought up a good point as well. Anybody else out there think Johnny Depp is channeling the spirit of Dave Vanian from 'The Damned' circa 1984?

Old Dog, New Tricks

I went up to Stacy's place on Saturday for an all day workshop on Body Language. The workshop was supposed to be in two parts on different Friday nights but the first part got cancelled due to a snowstorm. Her place is up a steep, winding dirt road that's challenging enough when it's dry. So thankfully when the snow hit she postponed until this past weekend and decided to have it all on one day. This was good for me because it saved me 3 hours of driving and I would be way more relaxed and rested on a Sat. morning than I would after driving an hour and a half in rush hour traffic and climbing a snow covered hill in the dark. Though a lot of snow had melted by Sat. and there were bare patches of dirt on the road there was also plenty of snow & ice still left over and a few steep icy spots that were going to be difficult to get up. There was a bit of drama as I got stuck behind a minivan that couldn't get up the first steep bit and I had to back down a steep snowy single lane road for about a quarter of a mile. Then I had to wait 20 minutes for the minivan to back down and heard from the people in the van that the big SUV ahead of them had made it up but slid on the ice in the process. I was nervous about trying to make it up but someone convinced me to give it a try and can I just say how much I love my Honda Element? I made it all the way up and back down again with absolutely no problem. I'm not a car person, as far as I'm concerned they get me from here to there and that's where my interest in them starts and ends but my Element has allowed us to get to some pretty cool places in the mountains that we otherwise couldn't have gone and for that I'm very grateful. Never mind being able to haul a husband, 3 large dogs, a huge pile of crap and 2 mountain bikes from here to Scottsdale and getting 25 mpg.

Anyway, I learned a few cool handling moves that I'm not sure I can exactly explain. I'm glad I signed up for a working spot because I needed to practice one of the moves over and over (and over and over) before I finally got it right on about the eighth try. I didn't take many notes this time around because I wasn't sure how to verbalize what I was being shown. It's probably the same reason I have such a hard time learning this kind of thing from books & magazines. I need to have someone show me then I need to be able to try it and have someone tell me what I'm doing right/wrong.

One handling move that worked nicely was to bring the arm down and in the bring the dog in. I've been using the off arm technique that I learned last spring at the Marco Mouwen seminar for this, when I remember anyway, and it works nicely with Cody but it still feels so awkward, esp. if I'm trying to move forward with any speed to get in position. Cody hates to come in to me, it's always been a problem but he responded to the arm coming in right away. The other move was sort of a like an RFP but not quite as extreme and didn't involve the opposite arm or an extreme turn into the dog but rather moving the inside arm low and behind your body a bit to get the dog to come in. This took Cody longer to understand and I kept rushing things and moving forward rather than stopping and holding my ground until he came in to me. I had to practice a few times by stopping completely and having him come in to target my hand. Luckily he knows how to do that, it's a strong default behavior when we're out on walks and he wants to lunge or react to something. In fact he bumps my hand with his nose constantly trying to work me for treats as we're walking along and it drives me crazy. So he was quite happy to run up to my hand for a treat once he figured out what I wanted. The move feels weird though and it's going to take some practice to get used to it.

Another interesting point was that we tend to watch our dogs at traps to make sure they don't go into the trap and if we happen to glance at the trap even briefly it's enough to send the dog right into it. There was a spot on the practice course with a tunnel trap and I didn't even notice it when I walked it. I ran the course first time through and neither Cody or I even glanced at the tunnel. But after watching other dogs go off course and much discussion about it sure enough the second time through I started worrying about it and watched Cody too much, glanced and turned ever so briefly to the tunnel and sent him right in. Doh. After that I gave him the cue to come into me, ran in the appropriate direction and trusted him to follow and he did, no problem. It's hard to trust Cody though because if he gets too far ahead of or behind me he's prone to making his own choices. Heck, sometimes he makes his own choices even if I'm right there. Frustrating but not much I can do about it other than to not reward him.

One surprise was that Cody had a hard time with an exercise that involved several rear crosses in a row. Rear crosses aren't typically a problem for him but thinking about it I only do them in places where I know he'll be successful with them and I seldom do several in a row. One of the crosses involved having him come in to me, run across my feet then turn away and do a wrap over a jump. He had a hard time understanding this but Stacy gave me a good exercise for practicing on the flat and I think it'll be a handy thing to teach all 3 dogs. Only problem is that it involves using the inside arm to turn the dog away which was something I'd decided I was going to avoid with Strummer. I guess I could use a verbal turn cue to accomplish the same thing. Something to practice.

In general I was happy with how well Cody held out for the day and how quickly he picked things up. The old guy is 9 1/2 after all. It took him a bit to get used to the carpet surface and I think it slowed him down a bit which made him easier to handle. I loved the surface for myself, the padding was wonderful on my knees. I wish trials could be on that stuff, nice & springy for the dogs and you're not choking on dust all day. Yeah, I know, dream on.

In all we had a great time, Stacy's place is out in the country up in the foothills a bit and it's so relaxing to be out of town. I wish I could live in the mountains but it's completely impractical for me because of my job. I couldn't stand driving to town every day esp. in winter, never mind the pollution/gas. Every once in a while I think about moving to some land out on the plains, I could do that and commute with no problem but part of me likes living in town. I hate driving and if I lived out in the sticks I imagine I'd be driving all the time to get to the pool, grocery store, trails, etc. Still, it's a nice treat to spend the day away from the city and if I get to learn some agility and play with my sweet old dog it's all the better.

I Can Has 4 Day Weekend?

Apparently so and 2 of them in a row no less. My boss announced today that we can have the next 2 Mondays off, something I suppose most people probably already have but traditionally we don't get any extra time off at the holidays unless we take vacation days and who wants to take vacation days in December? I really need this time off as well, I'm tired and burnt out and it will feel good to have this time off with no particular plans, esp. no agility trials. Well, I have an all day agility workshop tomorrow up at Stacy's if the weather holds out and the road to her place isn't too bad but those are my only set plans except for a holiday party on Sunday and Christmas dinner at our house with friends but that's pretty laid back. All that time off and nothing set to do feels positively decadent.

Duh, Really?

The amount of companies violating my email box with their screechy ads usually reaches fever pitch right about this time of year and I got the absolute best one this morning. The header read, 'Reminder: Christmas is next week!'

I'd love to know what planet these people think I live on that I need that kind of a reminder even with my crappy memory. Oh and can I please go live on that planet, at least during November and December?

Out Out Damn Bugs

Jonny's sick which means of course that I will not be far behind. Monday was a scratchy throat that gave way to sneezing on Tuesday and today my nose is leaking worse than Scooter Libby at a Vegas press corp junket. I skipped swimming yesterday and tomorrow practice is cancelled for a high school swim meet. Damn kids, get out of my pool! Hopefully if I take it easy I can fight off the bugs and be ready for skiing in the mountains by the weekend. They've been getting slammed with snow so conditions should be mahvelous.

Monday night I took Cody to course run throughs at Boulder County Fairgrounds and he was pretty darned excited about it. That place drives him batshit for some reason but in a good way. He was flying around the jumpers course, happy, focused and full of himself. I botched a wrap causing a back jump and forgot to call him when he was in a tunnel so he came flying out, 'where are you, where are you?!!' and I was behind him. Other than that a lovely run, some good distance handling where it made sense and fantabulous weaves. Made me feel better about our lack of practice. I put in a couple of blind crosses at tunnels, something I don't normally like to do esp. w/ Cody but he was in the curve of the tunnel & couldn't see me when I did the cross so I figured I'd save some time and some wear and tear on my knees. If you do a blind cross in the middle of the woods while your dog is in a tunnel and noone can see you is it still a blind cross?

DOCNA

I finally got off my butt and registered all the dogs with DOCNA. In a fit of optimism I even registered Strummer. May as well get started with getting his measurements. I've been putting this off forever because there are so many grandfathering forms to fill out and so many levels to compete in and the whole thing was hurting my head (there are 14 pages of title descriptions). But one of the local clubs is having a DOCNA trial in Feb. just 20 minutes from my house and they're using slatted equipment so how could I pass that up? Some cool things about DOCNA-no table, you can grandfather your points from other organizations so you don't have to start over on your Championship title (great for older dogs), and yes Virginia they have a Vet class (this is a huge peeve of mine with USDAA) and you can even opt to take 2 height drops. Cody could jump 12" if I wanted him to. I don't want that right now but it's nice to know he has a place he can play well into his old age as long as he's sound. Also the jump heights are way more reasonable than USDAA, Cody actually measures into the regular 20" class. There are strategic games aplenty though I'm a bit disappointed that there's no Snooker type class. There's regular traditional Gamblers as well as a Strategic Time Gamble class which sounds fun. I love plotting my own course, so much more fun than a judge telling you where to go. Snakes & Ladders is tunnels, contacts and multiple sets of weaves poles. You choose your own course but you have to do all the contacts and weaves once, fastest clean run wins. This sounds like fun but I'll skip it this time around, all those contacts and weaves probably aren't the best for either dog on top of all the other classes. There are 6 runs on Sat. and 5 on Sun. which is too much for my crew so I need to skip some classes anyway. There's also a 3 dog relay with 3 separate courses-gamblers, standard and jumpers. I'll skip that for sure, I hate team events. It's bad enough if I screw up and let one person down, I don't need to be letting 2 people down. Anyway I'm looking forward to the trial, otherwise there's nothing between Jan. and April.

Woke up this morning to another 5-6" of snow and 2-3" more predicted by days end which will mean about 14-15" stacked up in my yard by tonight. No agility for a while I'm afraid. I slogged through the 5" of fresh snow on the Wonderland Trail this morning with Cody & Strummer. A normally easy 2 mile run took for freakin' ever but the snow was falling while we ran and it was a beautiful morning. Strummy took me down on some ice just a few blocks from home but I seem to be o.k. I came down on my left thigh & knee and it doesn't hurt now but I'm sure I'll have some lovely bruises to show off at the pool. One of my lane mates is concerned I'm the victim of domestic violence and I have to convince him it's my dogs and my own clumsiness. Most of the time I don't even know where the bruises came from. I'm still sore from skiing on Sun. but I was thinking about going after work instead of going to the pool. Did I metion about how I was biting my lip this morning to keep from screaming while I lifted my leg to put on my pants? Nope, it appears I never will learn.