Dogs Remain, Sleeping, Comfortable

SUMMARY: My memorial to my deceased beasts.

Source: Aug 5, 2025, email in response to an email from a friend about dog getting older and what to do when the time comes.

Here are all of my seven prior dogs or their mementos or both. 

Top shelf left to right: Sam my family's childhood dog the collie mix,Amber the shepherd/retriever mix, Shiba the husky, Remington the German Shepherd mix, Jake the sheltie mix;

Second shelf left to right: Tika the Australian Shepherd mix, Boost the border collie, and Chip yet another German Shepherd mix, and also a little about a friend's dog whom I had been fond of.

I also put little tiny picture frames – – 2 x 3" or thereabouts-- with face photos for each. Michaels sells some nice small ones but I wait until they do their two for one frame sale otherwise they're a bit expensive. But others I picked up at garage sales or flea markets or secondhand stores.

Then I also have maybe little trophies that they won or statues of dogs like them or other things with their names on them. The boxes have always come with a ceramic imprint of their paw and their name. So those are there also.

I also have picture frames to hang on the wall for each of them with a selection of photos. I haven't gotten around to that yet. I have just now (after three years) started to hang my art and photos on the walls.

I loved all my beasts and I somehow feel comfort that they are there still, still with me. Just sleeping. I don't really believe in an afterlife or ghosts, but still.

That's all for tonight.

those special older dogs

SUMMARY: in particular, Tika and Boost, but all my agility dogs

Source: 7/19/25 Facebook response to someone talking about their two wonderful dogs getting older and how they took her all over the country in the world and met so many people and did so many things

That's a great photo. And look at those dogs looking at the photographer! i'm guessing that Eukanuba was the sponsor😆. 

 my agility dogs gave me a similar sort of feeling. I didn't like to travel far with them, although I would go to the USDAA nationals if I could drive there in a day. I had so many opportunities within just a couple of hours of home that I could fill up every weekend with agility if I wanted.

Every dog every year qualified for nationals in whatever I was competing in – – NADAC, CPE, USDAA-- won some national events in CPE, made it to the finals once in USDAA. (never attended NADAC Finals which were always out of state) I would say that I was a good handler but never a great one. But we were pretty successful. 

 but what I really was going to say was that my first two dogs in agility were wonderful beasts. But my next two, my Merle girls, Tika and boost: the former was amazing; the latter turned out to be very near sighted but also effing fast! But the other thing was, we went hiking and we went traveling and we went visiting and we went to classes of various kinds. They were solid reliable dogs outside agility or in. So smart, always eager to learn and do things and go places and meet people and other dogs. And when they sadly expired within a month of each other, well, let's just say that I still miss them and it's been 10 years. 

hiking with friends in the eastern Sierras near Truckee

 SOOOO YES, APPRECIATE YOUR BOYS AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. WHEN MINE STARTED GETTING OLDER, I STARTED PAYING MORE ATTENTION TO WHAT THINGS I HAD PHOTOS OF AND WHAT I DIDN'T AND WHAT NOTES I HAD ABOUT THEIR LIVES AND TRYING TO CAPTURE IT ALL. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Oops sorry the all capitals was a mistake. Wasn't really yelling!

Super nose!

SUMMARY: Zorro is getting good at nosework

source: my post on Facebook this morning 7/19/25

[Needs: photos!]

Yesterday was nosework class. The instructor mixes it up for us each session to give the dogs  a wide variety of scent hides. this group of students started in early February. It is nearly heart stopping, sometimes, how quickly and thoroughly they tackle the job of finding the hidden scent.

Most weeks, there are a variety of containers scattered around the room randomly (or sometimes hanging from the wall) so they don't provide an obvious path for the dogs to search in. This week, the first two hides consisted of 12 containers (closed cardboard boxes and closed plastic tool boxes) lined up in three rows. NOTE:  two of the containers held a scent.

When we first entered the room, Zorro blazed along the lines about as fast as I've seen him move in this class, and found both hides the first time around. So fast!

The second time, with the containers still in lines, he took a bit more time to find them but not a lot more. 

The third time, they were arranged in a large circle. He dashed all the way around it sniffing quickly at several of the containers. I wish I had videotaped it. I think on his second loop around he found both fairly quickly. 

It is pretty exciting. 

It's not agility, but I'm learning to love seeing him making use of his mind and body and sniffing orifice. 

i'll try to remember to take photos next time.

 Meanwhile, here he is this morning having sniffed along the banks of a canal ("irrigation ditch") and found apparently occupied burrows. there was much head tilting. Also, yes, his head is as far into the hole as he could get it.

meanwhile, the photos will have to wait a bit. I can't believe that blogger still doesn't accept photos directly off the iPhone. For crying out loud.

Curse You, Scammers, and also my brain

SUMMARY: I have so many questions

Original source: My post on Facebook July 14, 2025 --oh, never posted, just added it here.

Weeeeirrrrd--

I fell for it--somehow--?

Or... what happened?

Friday evening, I drove to Safeway gas to ensure a full tank for Saturday's long drive. Got some food and snacks. Went home, made sure that everything I'd need would be ready to go, and went to bed. [I might have spent some time online because that's what I do]

Saturday 5AM: Alarm went off

5:35-7:50 AM, drove a bit over 200 miles to agility event.

7:50-5:00 mostly sitting at the ringside table, timing or scribing or both. Did go online briefly to check messages and not much else.

6:00?-7:45 PM driving towards home. Stop at gas station quickmart to get a cold drink and quick snack.....  Visa was declined after 2 tries. Worked fine last night!! Fortunately I had cash.

7 :50-8:00ish PM, back in my car, I discovered a text from my credit card company (for short: CCC) saying there's a probably fraudulent charge, please confirm or not. I didn't remember the charge but, you know, sometimes companies work under various aliases. So I called. And I'd never heard of the company AND it was charged earlier that day. Which def wouldn't have been me.

AND because fraud happened, they cancelled my card. :-(  Feels a little frightening, not having a good way to pay anything if something else came up   OH AND ALSO it would take 7-10 days for the new card?! Turns out they do have "expedited shipping", which they didn't offer until I moaned about needing it sooner than that. It should arrive Tues or Wed? Why don't they just expedite it automatically?

8:30ish PM: Home. Do some stuff, then to bed.

NOT A CLUE how someone got my card info. I don't recall doing business with any borderline businesses recently. THAT I RECALL, card has been out of me possession recently only long enough to hand to Taco Bell drive-up window. 

YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!  (do I sound buzz-feed enough?) 

Late this morning I finally checked my email [long backstory about wonky crappy online email system]. Several emails from my CCC from yesterday. A couple like:

Subject: Action required: Verify suspicious credit card activity
Content: "Verify suspicious credit card activity" and similar content plus info about the suspect charge.

Also another email from after our conversation notifying me that my card has been cancelled and a new one was being sent.  And another indicating that my new card would end with [these 4 digits]. OK so far.

Also an email from *today*, 

subject: Alert* Suspicious card activity
content: "Card Alert- Unusual Spending Activities Detected" and "You have a secure message from CCC Fraud Monitor Department" and blah blah let's review it and then we can unblock your card blah blah, with a  handy button to click to review the message. I'm feeling mentally fried about all of this...

The email had some slight annoying formatting issues, but seriously my crappy online email system often does weird stuff to emails. I thought it was odd that they'd be sending me another alert today after we "resolved" yesterday's issue, but, [shrug] I already had I think 4 emails from them yesterday, so what's another? So I clicked the button. Logged in pretty much as usual

A new page came up asking for all my current card info and login again, which was interesting because they'd said that card was cancelled yesterday, but how else would I log in to see my existing card history, and so I filled it in even though the formatting was a little wonky, but each response started a spinner that would last about a minute. THEN it came up with "enter the card # for your new card ending in [those same 4 digits]".

I stared at it for a while, thinking, but I don't KNOW the new card # or expiration date or security code, and that is a really weird question to ask at this point. So I typed "help" into the space for the card number, and the spinner spun, and then instead of complaining, it asked for the new card's expiration date.

THEN AND ONLY THEN did I look at the URL of the page I was on, and bipped back to the email and looked at the From address, and realized...  OH SHIT.

Started looking for info on the real CCC site on how to report fishing/fraud and that I might have messed up?

And the phone rang. It was the real CCC saying there's been something weird on your account today--from a windows machine. That would not be me, but it was trying to log in apparently as I was typing just a few minutes earlier. They went through some other transactions from the last 2 days and they were all valid ones. At some point she said, well, that site that you got the email from is known to so fishing, so, no harm done because they had caught it [somehow] and frozen my account so now here's your new username and temporary password.

So I logged in directly from the usual CCC site, NO wonky formatting anywhere, all the disclaimers and notices I'd expect, URL was perfect, I changed my password and everything is hunky dory.

And THEN she said, "in the future,when you get an email with--" And I interrupted to spew my self frustration, "I know I know I know! I lecture people about this all the time! I have written up my own commentary about suspect emails and sites and shared it and also shared similar info from many places for many people. I know!"

So fingers crossed that the new card, whenever it arrives, won't be compromised. But I'm concerned. Not just because I fell for a scam email and part of its website (what might I have given away that would help them?), but also: How did they get my card # anyway?. So many possibilities lately of leaks--

SO THEN [CHANGE OF SCENE] I called the ceiling lamp company from which I'd been trying to get the correct replacement fan-light cover (already received the wrong one) and they emailed a photo--which bounced!

Looked again at my crappy email system and it was 100% full. So I apologized and spent 20 minutes trying to decide which huge attachments and their emails didn't need to be there. Tried calling them back, and after all the recorded starting info, it disconnected just as a person was answering. Three times. 10 minutes after I started, a successful connection, a successful receipt of the photo showing the correct product, and THENOhhhhshiiit I don't have a way to pay for it. :-(

They were very understanding and I'll just call them back when the new card arrives. 
Also, after Friday afternoon's nosework class I had decided to order more nosework scent articles. Hadn't done so yet, so then today I sat down to see what was available,  which maybe I found some things BUT OH NO no way to pay for them.

THEN I will have to find all the places that have my credit card # for automatic payments and update those. I have a list somewhere, I think. I use my card via Paypal as much as possible, so it could be worse, but still what a $%^ &*()*&^ ^%.

Now I've spent an hour writing this up (including referring back to various records), and it's already nearly 3:00.

Don't let your guard down. :-(

Wonky email formatting an doh iffy date/time

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Modern mating rituals

SUMMARY: Well – – really locations rather rather than than rituals

Backfill: May 17, 2025: my comment in response to a poll on Tumblr

The original poll and results from Tumblr.

This is an interesting question because of the poll’s possible answers. First of all, there was no Internet, so no online or websites or anything like that. I met my ex… At a Christmas caroling party, thrown annually by a friend I knew from school, who invited her coworkers from work. We were not a barhopping/clubbing kind of group, so it feels weird to include “party“ in that same category. I mean, I already knew probably 30 of the 35 people who attended, And there might have been beer available and probably some alcoholic Christmas wassail. No one was There to get drunk.

My friend said to this guy, “hi, thanks for coming, introduce yourself around“ and then dashed off to do something else. He went to the refreshments table and stood there nibbling and I thought, he doesn’t know anybody else! And I was right (no one else from their work showed up). I introduced myself just to be polite. And somehow we kept chatting and then I introduced him to my closer friends in the room. And then – –

22 years later, when we divorced,  I couldn’t help rethinking that decision, or really all relationship decisions made During those years. As one does. We had a lot of good times though. 

Blue bedrooms... and purple sometimes...

SUMMARY: History of my bedroom colors

Source: Comment on a friend's FB page about repainting their deep red bedroom (a color someone else picked) to light blue.

I said: 

My bedroom in my parents' house I painted a fairly saturated somewhat lighter blue. I loved it. In the intervening decades, I painted one bedroom white, a later one I actually wallpapered (loved it!), a later one I left the wallpaper that was already there and it wouldn't have been my choice but mostly peaceful and matched my other things. This is the first time i've painted my bedroom blue again--this time just the wall behind the headboard is a rich almost navy blue and I feel peaceful just walking in and seeing it! I think your light blue sounds like it will be perfect.

But: I know you want details and photos! (Photos might take longer)

My bedrooms:

• Basement room in my parents' house. Until then, I had almost always shared one of the upstairs bedrooms with one or more of my sisters. My recollection is that we painted it pale blue. Mom made me a bedspread of some sort of blue and purple fabric. This lasted only a few months--I was in 6th grade--and then we moved away.  No pictures exist that I can recall.

• Bedroom in my parents' new house. Five bedrooms, seven people. The three oldest of us kids got our own rooms and dad had the builders paint each room in our favorite colors. Mine was a somewhat sickly pale greenish blue. When I could, I and my friends painted it that fairly saturated somewhat lighter blue, and I painted my furniture blue and purple! [photos exist]

  

  Oh, I forgot about the very inexpensive blue shag carpet! (Not wall to wall, just a large rug.)
  The color of the drawers behind me was the color of the walls.  PS I made the big cushion.

  
  

• Dorms at college. Some students did paint their rooms; I wasn't so ambitious, although I did paint a mural on the wall outside the room! [pictures exist]
  
  

  

  I copied this from about a 2-square-inch image cut from a magazine ad somewhere.
  
  

  
  

  

  First dorm. My side has the blue (?) cover--I don't even remember it!
  But I still have most of the wall art

  
  

  

  Second dorm, my side.

  
  

  

  Third dorm. Same blue cover, same blue cushion,
   lots of the same wall art mostly not visible in this crappy scanned photo.

• Bedrooms in two successive rented apartments covering about a year and a half. I didn't even put up pictures nor  nuthin'. [might be a photo of 2nd one but not sure]

• My own private townhouse! Didn't paint the room (it was white) but I bought a gorgeous matching set of bedspread and drapes: Fuzzy and huge stripes of various shades  of blue. Something I had been coveting from the Sears catalogs, which were things that I pored over for years for home supplies and decor. [not sure whether photos exist]

• First shared  house with husband: I wallpapered it! All by myself! I did a great job and I loved it, although I don't exactly recall the pattern. Probably small delicate blue & white? [not sure whether photos exist]

• Second shared house: It was white. It stayed that way. It was airy and open and had trees outside the second story windows and it just seemed right. [photos exist]

• My own private next house: Came with wallpaper. Not what I would have chosen, but three of the walls matched my general decor (flowers of various colors) and so I left it. [photos exist]

  

  Notice 2 types of wallpaper. The one on the left covered 3 walls; the one on the right was only that wall. I had a lot of flower decor and sheets and so it worked--kinda--

  
  

• My now current house: The aforementioned navy blue! [photos exist]

And there you have it!

What's wrong with my dog's face?Or body? Bones and wasps, too

SUMMARY: Ancient history: Amber frothing at the mouth

Source: Friend Cathy's FB post about her dog rubbing and pawing at her face, and she found a stick that required a vet visit.

This medical emergency with my first dog, Amber, sticks in my mind and makes my heart jump even half a century later. 

She was about 2, and we went camping with friends. She was off-leash in the group campground and suddenly I noticed that she was frothing at the mouth, pawing at her face, rubbing her face on the ground--the frothing terrified me: What kind of poisonous thing had she  ingested?! Because what else could it be? As an inexperienced dog owner, I initially didn't know what to do, but eventually put my fingers into her mouth and found some small piece of bone that she had found and it had become wedged in her upper jaw, between the left and right side. 

Fortunately I was able to gradually work it out and there was no permanent damage. But I still remember that moment of horror and terror when I first saw her. Yes, as a relatively new dog owner, every little thing  that went wrong became traumatic for my poor heart.

I'm skipping over the part where, when she was about 3-4 months old, I looked out into the back yard and she was standing listlessly, head and tail drooping, taking slow, unsteady steps, and drooling. Human Mom rushed out to her and she did respond a bit. I managed to get her into the house and, in the process of setting her down, noticed that little bumps covered her stomach. Exploring: Her whole body. Hives?! I figured it was an allergic reaction to something. Fortunately was able to get her to the vet right away, and she was already feeling a little better by the time we got there. I don't recall their treatment, maybe a shot of prednisone or something? They thought maybe a bee or wasp sting. 

Fortunately I never saw that reaction again. And, for the 7 years I lived in a house whose yard border was covered with shrubs with those red hairy flowers that attract bees, she would stand out there for hours, trying to catch the bees (and sometimes succeeding).

Apparently I'm not skipping that part.

That's all  there is for now...

Amber,  at about the age of the allergic reaction.

Enjoying the World...and Movies...and Horny Toads?...and Tiny Computers

SUMMARY: A brief interlude on movie credits and making people look

Source: My comment on a friend's blog post April 8, 2025.

Me in theater with End Game 
ticket stub. Marvel sure
figured out how to keep 
people there thru the credits!
(April 2019)

I don't remember when I started staying in the theater through the credits. Maybe when there were a couple of films where I heard that someone I knew was listed. (And someone was!)

But vaguely remember always wanting to know the source of the music, and the locations where it was filmed, and, yes, all the fascinating jobs that people had, so many of which I had to go home and look up afterwards (back before we were all carrying little portable computers with us). I don't remember the definitions of most of them, but I still think I see something new every time. 

When I had some regular movie-going buddies, we'd all sit and watch and comment on the job titles or the people or the little entertaining things that they sometimes decorated the credits with. A team activity.

But even outside the rare occupation of waiting to the end of movie credits (PS pisses me off when I see one streamed and they cut it off before the credits are done!), I love taking the time to look around  wherever I am and to enjoy where I am. I forget to do so too often these days, but having my camera along helps.

I love taking photos, and so often when I stop to take a photo of something that catches my eye, other people slow down or stop to see what I'm so carefully focusing my mighty camera and lens on. "Oh I've never noticed that before, and I come here often" is not uncommon. Not sure that's the exact equivalent of running around the prairie behind my parents' new home as a kid, turning over rocks looking for horny toads or shooting cap pistols as we played cowboys and rustlers, or whatever. But it's the adult equivalent? Maybe?

These days, I find myself often tired and sore and I rely far too much on my tiny machine to provide entertainment. This is a good reminder to cut it wayyyy back.

where are all my spoons?

SUMMARY: summarytext

source : Title is  from a friend's March 28,2025 Facebook post, which also blamed teenagers for it.

for about a year and a half, I had 3 renters living in my house who were post college and working for Americorps to try to make the world a better place, I suppose. it was a great thing for them to do.

in the manner of my personal property, they were more like neglectful teenagers. (Although I don't remember that I or any of my sisters ever did things like make off with spoons.)

Every time I emptied the dishwasher of clean dishes, I counted my silverware. Because I found that I had to ask multiple times over their residency why I was missing two spoons. Or a knife. 

Or the time that drove me nuts related to my nice set of measuring spoons– – sturdy, metal, they just looked and felt nice and of course I thought they were pretty accurate.--and one day I needed the tablespoon measure for something. And I could not find it. I could not imagine where they had put it away. I looked in all the drawers and cabinets and took a glance into their rooms because they weren't home at the time. 

One of them was on a long trip to somewhere like Africa. The other two said that they had no idea what I was talking about. But when the guy came back from Africa, I asked, and he dashed to a cabinet and revealed that he kept it in a bag of some sort of food supplement because he used it frequently and always needed the tablespoon. Left it in his bag. My tablespoon. With three other people living in the same household who might want it at some point.

then there was the woman and her teenage son. He was a very responsible young man, going to college and working full-time at the same time, was promoted to manager of the store where he worked, etc. etc. She also worked, with children. But during their maybe two year residency, I lost something like four forks and two spoons and a knife and the butter knife – – This was from a set of silverware that I had finally bought because it was beautiful after I moved out on my own and I had always wanted a beautiful, complete set of silverware. 

also, my favorite Tupperware containers vanished. Even though I told them, repeatedly, in fact I think it was in the rental agreement, that nothing of mine should be taken from the house ever. Yes, I took it out of the damage deposit when they moved out (fortunately the manufacturer was still making The silverware  and I was able to replace the individual pieces) (Along with... dang, now I don't remember. They had lost or damaged more things than the  damage deposit would cover.) They were very nice people and we were, you know, rental friends. Sigh.

I could think of worse things that a couple of other renters did, But nothing to really write home about. Like any relationship, one takes the good and the iffy Together.



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recognizing faces and Overreacting about your own

SUMMARY: summarytext

Source:  My response to a friend's blog post. Not sure whether you need a Sub space subscription to read it, but here's the link anyway:

https://myphoneboothphase.substack.com/p/small-things-like-big-noses/comments?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=post_viewer

I sometimes panic about not recognizing even people I know well. There was that one trip when my husband was out of town for two weeks and I was sitting in the airport waiting for his flight to come in (back in the days when you could do that), and the stress level went up, what if I didn't recognize him when he got off the plane? This was a man whom I had seen and spent considerable time with for several years.

I did recognize him immediately, but the fear was real.

Or when a good friend moved out of state and we decided to get together for a girl's weekend at Yosemite. She also flew in and I had the same panic--it had been probably 2 years since I had seen her.

I did recognize her immediately, but the fear was real.

Hair color & style is the main thing I notice. Like the first week at a new contract, when I accosted a young woman with shoulder-length straight blonde hair and started dumping info and questions. She finally said, bewildered, why are you asking me--I know nothing about these things--and directed me to the proper woman elsewhere in the building, who also had shoulder-length straight blonde hair.

I have read that most people have some degree of Prosopagnosia. Some research indicates that a majority of people can't recognize many famous faces with the hair removed from their photos.

Another good friend stopped smiling a few years back. Last time I visited, she complimented me on my ability to summon up a happy smile for photos at any time. I said surely she could work on that, too, since she has a lovely smile. But that's when she told me that she had a missing tooth (I think one 3rd from the front) and knew that people would judge her on that so she would never smile with open lips. I said, this is the first I knew that you were missing a tooth. 

people – – including me – – worry about what other people think about how they look. Truth is, they're just trying to figure out whether you are the woman with the shoulder length straight blonde hair that you met yesterday or someone else entirely Who has exactly the same sole feature that you noticed.

Training the dog

SUMMARY: TWO new classes!

source: 3/8/25 started with a response to a friend's blog post.

Zorro and his Human Mom (me) have been working on a bunch of things suddenly this month. In addition to the nosework that we started...4 weeks ago already?... last week we started Advanced pet dog training as a refresher at the local PetCo (we did all that 9 years ago or so, but don't practice enough). Including things like reactivity and paying impromptu attention to the human even when not in a specific training situation. 

Zorro can be quite reactive on leash. Or not. HM was a bit worried beforehand, especially seeing the small training area and learning that the other 2 dogs in the class are large males, which Zorro is more likely to take exception to than much smaller or female dogs. Lo and behold, everyone has behaved exceptionally! And we are mostly working outside the little fenced area, throughout the pet store, so there's space aplenty. (9 years ago, for beginning and advanced classes, Zorro was so wild a couple of times that I had to put him back into the car eventually and go inside by myself. Thank goodness he has mellowed out to the world so much!) 

 I also realized that, although we practice sits, downs, waits lots at home, we don't much practice elsewhere, or that loose leash walking let alone like a heel, or waiting before going through a gate or door (can you say "gradual relaxation of criteria"?). Our goal is to get Zorro's CDC, since almost all my other dogs have earned it.

Yesterday was our second session, and he is a champ at some things (sit and down on command, although staying there is iffy; I always intended these commands to have an implied "stay" but clearly we need to work on that--but I knew that just from working at home) (and come when called (now that he knows I have a handful of treats)) (and spontaneously looking at me) (and paying attention to me instead of to the other dogs when they walk by, which is a specific class exercise). 

Realized on my way to Nosework this week, which was outside for the first time (still just 3 rows of boxes with treats in a few of them), how bad we have become at "heel" work and at sit/wait to go through the gate. This is all probably good for both of us. We did work on these things quite a lot when he was probably 1-3 yrs old.

 Do I have photos? STILL NO!!! Doh.

nosework: it seemed inevitable

SUMMARY: everyone is doing it, either post agility or alongside agility

origin: my post and comments on Facebook, February 14, 2025 --and then I didn't actually post this here until Mar 8, but I backdated it to Feb 17 anyway.

Today, Zorro attended his first nosework class. He joined a class that had been already ongoing. He knows how to find treats for sure. He kind of whipped in, found the treats, and was ready for more. But a terrible thing happened:

I DIDN'T TAKE ANY PHOTOS !! 

But I Facebooked it anyway and here's some of the ensuing discussion. It's long and basically unedited, and it's mostly encouragement from friends and their own experiences and me filling in details about our smelling background:

michelle: How fun. I hope you end up loving nosework as much as I do.  I know Zorro will.

me:  I hide his food at mealtime quite often. I like it because it keeps him occupied longer than the three minutes it takes to eat it out of even a puzzle bowl. He likes it because it's food and it's interesting. His tail is usually wagging the whole time. So, so far it's no different than what we do here at home. Sometime soon I hope that we add the scents and fade the food for nosework purposes. 

Michelle:  So fun.  I do a cookie scatter for my dogs every night but it is not a huge challenge as it is a small area.  there is alot you can teach a dog long before you get to odor. Odor is the easy part.  Kind of like agility, we all want to teach the contacts and weaves but so much of the foundation is just ground work.

me:  last night I was trying to remember how I got to where I have a dog that I can just put in a down-stay somewhere while I wander around randomly distributing food substance. I think it started with a suggestion in an early class of some kind? I don't remember whether I ever did it with my first dog, Amber. I might have. 

And the initial suggestion was to cut a paper towel tube into 1 inch circles, lay them out in a row, put a treat in one of them, and then see if the dog can go more or less directly to that one . it turned into me hiding one treat somewhere out of the dogs' sight end releasing one of the dogs to go find it. Then they would get another treat as a reward when they did. And then I would hide another one and let another dog go find it and so on. At some point, I started hiding more than one treat at a time.

It has made a difference with only one dog in the household, also, because I no longer have to block off areas to allow each dog to do a big search for their own whole bunch of kibble or treats. I can just hide it all over the place and leave Zorro to it.

Michelle:  super fun!!  You are going to love nosework. You’ll get the competitive side of this game. Ribbons!!

Gwen: Yay!! I know it’s not as much of an adrenaline rush as agility, but from a dog-behavior-geeky standpoint, nosework is pretty fun indeed. And always a learning experience.

me: through the years I have loved watching my dogs find edibles. It never takes any of them long to get the idea. Their noses just tell them to get to work! I love seeing a dog walk briskly around a room, maybe trot a little bit, and suddenly their head jerks back to one side and they turn around and go looking for the scent that their nose caught as they went by.

I hide kibble in things, under things, behind things, on things, out of sight, in sight but in a weird place… boxes, bags, large canisters, bookshelves, under carpets or towels or toys or cushions on the floor, wrap a bunch up in their fleece or other large piece of material randomly so they have to dig around to find each. 

Inside the house, I have avoided putting things at higher elevations because I don't want the dogs to ever think about it's OK to take something off the coffee table or the side table or whatever it might be. I know I need to work on elevated things. We took three turns in class yesterday after the instructor hid treats, and in the last one, he finally came to me and stood staring at me wagging his tail ears up, wanting to know what the heck was going on because he  thought he was done. I just told him he was doing good and go find it, he was all Business, turned around and went looking and found both of the elevated hides very quickly then.

Gwen:  you two are well on your way! 

Lloyda: I agree with Gwen.  It’s fun to be doing something my dog clearly loves.

me: yes, his tail is often wagging as he goes looking. I mean, I would work to find candy or cake or cookies hidden all over the house!😄

Sara: Nosework is wonderful! Dogs love it, it’s really interesting— much more so than I expected when I got into it about 10 years ago, with Miko (who thought agility was dumb). Astra is now loving her class at San Lorenzo DTC—the same class Joyo used to be in, with some of the same people and dogs. She’s by far the least experienced dog in the class, but she does really well. She passed her ORT last month, has a Sniff’n’Go at Marin Humane on Friday, and her first trial in March.  We probably won’t do a whole lot of trials, and I don’t care if it’s NACSW or AKC. In it for the fun, and teamwork with my dog.

me: Sara McAulay I will probably look into competitions when we are ready. I don't know if they are more frequent than they were few years ago, were everyone was desperate trying to earn scores because there were so few events and filled up instantaneously. And now I'm in an area where there aren't nearly as many people or dog activities. We shall see.

Sara: Ellen Levy Finch zorro and you will both enjoy yourselves either way.

And if you buy an inexpensive little kit of scent oils, you can play in your house and yard, hardware stores (often), playgrounds, parking lots…

Julie: Congratulations for giving Zorro (and yourself) the gift of Nosework.

me:  all of my dogs have loved hunting for treats that I have hidden. So I have watched them do it for at least 30 years now. I just always preferred agility in part because it kept me very active physically and mentally and kept my dog very active physically and mentally and we were always working as a team! The communication between me and my dog in agility training and agility competition was one of the most exhilarating aspects of it.

Yes, I love watching my dogs hunt for food, but I still miss the things that agility gave me. I don't see the teamwork involved in nosework. You and others who have been doing it or teaching it for so long maybe can respond to that.

I am thinking of a one weekend nosework type seminar that I went to with Tika and boost quite a few years ago. The instructor had his dogs with him. He had someone hide a scent somewhere on the very large property (not his property), and then he sent his… I think it was a Malinois that time... to go do the search. The dog ran full speed around the whole field area and then full speed, with very brief hesitations (slowed down a bit and turned head) about halfway around again and then zoomed across to where it was hidden in a tree, one of the places he had hesitated slightly before, and put his paws up and just stared up into the tree. I do not believe that a dog doing, for example, a methodical trot around the perimeter would have found it faster...

I decided that's what I would want my dog to do if I decided to do nosework. We are nowhere near that. Zorro hurries around the room, but isn't running at all. I think I need to start hiding stuff outside even though the weather is crappy. I also need to start pairing scents, but I'm trying to be patient.

Julie: I got started in Nosework with the people who invented this activity/sport. They were all professional detection dog handlers who noticed just how much their dogs enjoyed the training and decided to see if their friends dogs would like it just as much. The rest is history. I went to my first seminar in 2011, quickly decided I wanted to learn as much as possible about it when I saw how much my dogs loved it and started the process of becoming a certified instructor. Since then I have spent probably tens of thousands of hours observing dogs searching and almost as many hours teaching classes to other people who wanted to find an activity that would be not only enriching but also fun for both them and their dogs. They also wanted something that would be very accessible and affordable. K9 Nosework is exactly that and so much more. It opens the dog's world to us and allows us to see the invisible world of scent through their behavior. It is endlessly complex, never the same for any 2 dogs and provides physical and mental enrichment to the team. It truly is a team sport and can be very physically demanding but also kind to a dog's body, especially those who might be getting older or have some injury that prevents them from doing agility or other very physical response. A 6 week Introduction to K9 Nosework© class taught by a CNWI (Certified K9 Nosework Instructor) will give you the best introduction to this extremely popular sport. Here's a link to search by geographical area for an instructor: https://education.k9nosework.com/findinstructor

Sharon: Good for you and Zorro! How on earth are there no photos; my sister with the always present cameras?

me:  I know. What a dork!

this is all there I have: the door to the training facility.

[ insert photo from 2 weeks earlier]

Susan: Good for you!!!

dishwasher points

SUMMARY:  Rules for Dishwashers

Source: My comment on someone else's post about how super efficient they are at packing the dishwasher and how many points they gain or lose by certain rules of their own, such as what if something doesn't get clean. Their point system has established that they can fit 24 items in the top rack and 24 items in the lower rack and they lose points if they don't fit that many in… Well, it's complicated. Anyway, here's my response.

I agree to a certain degree. 

my current just-washed load; because the top rack was fully loaded and I needed forks or something, I sadly could not completely fill the lower level.

I consider the dishwasher a labor saving device. Therefore, I lose points for every item that could be washed in the dishwasher that isn't, because then I would have to wash it by hand, necessitating a dish pan with dish soap and a dish cloth and rinsing and a dish drying rack and all that. 

My strategy is to keep adding things to the dishwasher until everything that could go in at that moment is in AND the dishwasher is as full as I can get it given certain restrictions – – I do not stockpile dishes on my counter for that purpose. Nor do I hand wash things that the dishwasher could handle. (Exceptions: Sharp knives, pots and pans, and certain delicate items. But I avoid using all of those as much as possible!) also, running out of some particular important clean item (say, forks) takes precedence over trying to fill every square inch of the dishwasher. 

And I have rules: for example, lightweight plastics go only on the top rack, glass drinkware goes only on the top rack. even if I am out of something important, both top and bottom rack should be as full as makes sense to my own rules of logic. 

For one person, with occasional guests, I think I run the dishwasher about once every five days. Here is a full clean load. Too bad I had to leave a little unused space in the bottom rack. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

>>  Visit the Wordless Wednesday site; lots of blogs. << >>  Visit Cee's Photo Challenge blog; lots of blogs. <<

agility learning never stops

SUMMARY: compare 1995 to 2025

Source:  My comment on a friend's Facebook post about how agility training never ends, January 2, 2025. 

TO DO: Add photos?

Susan P said: Lots to do- always lots to do. Agility- the sport for people who never reach a finished product! lol

Never finished, right! I remember a point in my agility career, probably around the end of my first year, when I'd been competing for perhaps six months after six months of class training, and I thought, we already know how to do all the obstacles and we know the rules and we can run a course, what more do we need to learn? 

Of course Nancy and Jim (Of Power Paws agility) kept figuring out more things for us to learn. Dang it! And I continued with all that sort of thing for almost 2 decades. And by the end of that time, agility was changing faster then I could keep up with. It is very different sport.

Equipment

Some changes are to the equipment. Back then, I thought we needed an even larger variety of equipment that was already available. But since then, most if not all American utility organizations (Based on what I know about AKC, UKI, USDAA, CPE, and NADAC – – the last one has gone even farther away with obstacles) have eliminated The following (in part, for safety, and part for their difficulty as an obstacle to set up and move around):

• the crossover, 
• the chute (collapsed tunnel)
• The table except in certain circumstances
•  I think the tire is on the way out? 
• and I'm not sure about triple jumps… I think they are gone?

other changes: 

• The A-frame is now rubberized (And so are the dog walk and the teeter) instead of plain plywood or metal, And is not as high
•  I don't think anyone allows an odd number of weave poles anymore But I remember encountering 11 at least once in a competition. And the spacing between weave poles is much more generous by several inches

Handling And training

i'm not sure that I can do a summary or even a list of everything that has changed here.Back when I started, it was not completely uncommon to see people trying to always run the course with their dog on their left side, as in heel position. In my training, it was all about doing the right body language and the right obstacle name to get the dogs to go around a course. Now, everyone is learning Commands to verbally direct their dog to the backside of a  Obstacle or to skip an obstacle or to prepare to turn instantly after An obstacle. Handler's work at a much greater distance from their dogs, and that is particularly important because dogs have gotten so much faster.

Back then, pretty much everyone trained their dogs to at least stop briefly in the yellow zone at the bottom of the contacts. A few years into my experience, people were starting to work on figuring out how to train dogs to do running contacts, that is keep their complete speed but ensure that they got their feet in the yellow. More theories were evolving over that time. More people were successful with the training.Now, watching some of the national international championship runs, I think almost everyone is trying for running contacts and usually making them.

Dogs

back then, everyone began with whatever pet dog they had. Now, border collies Dominate the top two or three heights. When I first saw a fast Papillon on do a course, around 2000, I and everyone else were stunned to see the speed and that the dog's speed on the course beat even the top border collies. Papillion's became more common, now Some people are Breeding Border Paps To get the size and speed advantage of the smaller dogs and the working ethic of the border collies. As I understand it, that is still an experimental thing and the results are uneven, as to be expected when trying something new with crossing breeds.

And one no longer commonly gets a dog from Just someone that they know or at a shelter if they really want to compete at the top levels--people know so much more about which breeders are breeding for show versus breeders who are breeding for dog sports or herding...herding border collies are still a popular source. 

people have always worked on finding ways to get their dogs to do courses faster, to react to you faster, to move their legs faster, to make turns faster,but now there are so many activities and exercises to ensure their physical health and their attitude. That felt like they were just beginning when I started, if they were there at all.

In summary

everyone competing learns and relearns and relearns and relearns how to work with their dog on and off course as the standards for skill and time and performance and equipment change – – 

I would still love it if I were younger (because my joints did not age well). Sometimes I loved learning new things. Mostly I did. But towards the end, particularly as my knees and back got bad, I would look at the new "master handling" courses in USDAA and think, no way. Just no way.

But if I were younger and starting out…

Updated T-shirt count by year FYI

T-shirt tales—Because every t-shirt tells a story, don't it.
And I have so very many of them. Shirts. And stories. ---- Tell me more. or Read all t-shirt tales

SUMMARY: A quick update…

I updated the T-shirt count by year post just now.

National parks Passport stamps

SUMMARY:  I've been traveling a bit

Note: I do have T-shirts for several of the stamps that are currently in my passport book. I might or might not have created a page for them yet here. I will try to remember to put links to them later. Probably very much later. Later later later.

meanwhile: I finally bought a passport book for the national parks in mid-2021. I have added most of the stamps here in long driving trips that we took in September 2023 and in April 2024. Details And photos, again, might come sooner or later or not. 

"I and my dog could never do agility"

SUMMARY: ...or could we?!

Backfill: From a Facebook discussion May 18, 2024, on video of Nimble, fabulously fast, happy, and accurate purpose-bred mixed-breed border collie/papillon winning westminster agility--astonishing run.

https:// You .be/_-OhgzpSyWE?si=mGZgSZQDs3A5QGMY

(If this video doesn't work, you can simply search for "Nimble, mixed breed dog wins Westminster dog agility)"

MA

Admit it. Everyone of us dog owners out there, wish our dogs could do that.

EB

MA They can. It’s just a huge investment of time, training and money.

HS

MA Yeah, but you have to live with the dog, which means giving him or her regular training, a job to do, or else you end up with a bored destructive dog that ends up in a shelter. 😉

Ellen Levy Finch

MA That's what I thought the very first time I saw a dog doing agility--wished my dog could do that. Teeter! WEAVE POLES! ALL the things! I just *Knew* that I and my dog could never do those things, but I was willing to try and signed up for classes. HS. At the time, I had the budget for it. I had a dog who was active and eager to learn and I spent time teaching tricks and obedience every day, as well as long walks. It was ssoooooo good for me, too, but agility ended up making me and my dogs healthier and happier. 20 years later, I could look back at my four agility dogs (3 were mixes), each of whom earned at least one championship and two who earned multiple championships in different organization. PS And two of them came from shelters or rescues because they had *too much energy* for multiple failed adoptions. Perfect for me at that time.

SO --YEAH-- I wished my dogs could do that and it turns out that they could. 🙂e

What is a Rescue Dog anyway?

SUMMARY: It's a very debatable question

Taken from a facebook thread about a mixed breed (purpose-bred border collie/papillon) winning agility at Westminster

DS

I would love to see some sort of championship for rescue dogs

• 
  

CB

DS -  Mixed breeds and purebred can be rescues. Mixed breed dogs can compete in every venue for championships.

• 
  

Active

Ellen Levy Finch

DS  Some clubs sometimes offer special prizes at their competitions for specific categories of dogs-- e.g.,highest-scoring mixed breed (not as much any more), highest-scoring shelter dog...

The challenge is in defining "rescue dogs". We've had a lot of discussions about this. Is a rehome a rescue? What if it's from a really bad home? What if it's from a loving home? What if it's facilitated by a rescue group even if they don't handle the dog directly? Is a dog adopted directly from the shelter a rescue dog? What if a rescue group saves the dog from one shelter and places them into a more friendly shelter? What if the dog spends a lot of time in a shelter and then a rescue group pulls them out and finds a new home? Is a dog found in the street (or abandoned in the hills, etc.) and the owner can't be found and is then adopted by the finder who basically served as their own Rescue, is that a rescue dog? Do we have to be sure that the dog was abused, neglected, or abandoned by a previous owner to qualify? Does giving to a shelter count as abandoned? Etc.

rescue dog

in British English

NOUN

1. a dog trained to assist rescue workers See also search dog

2. a dog that has been placed in a new home after being abused, neglected, or abandoned by its previous owner

Collins English Dictionary. 

Where do rescue dogs come from?

we like to refer to rescue dogs and cats as Mutt-i-grees: any dog, cat, puppy, or kitten who has been adopted into a responsible loving home, or is still waiting for that perfect family. 

 

Rescue dogs are homeless due to a variety of reasons.

They may have been surrendered by owners who could not care for them anymore, found on the street, or perhaps they were part of a litter born in a shelter. Animal League America also rescues dogs from puppy mills; these are often animals who would have been euthanized because they were determined no longer viable for breeding. Sometimes dogs are found after a natural disaster, when pets get separated from their owners, who then can’t be found.

What they all have in common is the need for a family of their own.

North Shore Animal League

Sheba -- the only one of my dogs who came directly from a shelter. Remington, Jake, Tika, and Zorro all spent some time in custody of rescue groups, although  Jake was first adopted by my agility instructor and then came to me. I believe that Tika, Zorro, and Remington spent some time in shelters before that.  Chip was a rehome directly from the previous owner. And Boost and Amber came from friends who were their breeders--intentionally in the first case, accidentally in  the 2nd.