The Random Thoughts Continue

• Boost managed to go two days in a row without peeing in the house! Hooray! I hope it continues. I've been trying to make sure that she's outside at frequent intervals but without making it obvious that I'm ushering her out, and trying to wait for her to pee without giving her the cue words ("hurry up" is what I've used for my dogs), and then praising mightily when she does it on her own. Likewise, when she goes outside without me, I try to watch from inside and then praise, so that she doesn't always connect my presence to the peeing operation (what an honor--to have my presence associated with pottying. Sigh.).


• I've been second guessing my "retirement" of Jake in November of last year ever since. He was so annoyed with me at the first 3 completely retired trials that I went back to entering him in a run a day. But since that time, he often refuses to play in the back yard, one of the things that I think always kept him fast and limber. He is sometimes really fast in class and at other times, like last night, he just sort of bounces through the course (rather than running flat out) and heads for the gate or the far corners of the yard every time I try to set him up for a run. I dunno. If I had kept him in full agility mode all along, would he be doing better physically and mentally? Or worse? I'll never know--


• Started hacking at my blackberry bramble the last couple of days. Blackberries grow on year-old canes. These start growing at about the time that the current crop is starting to fruit. So, by the time the fruit is done, sometime in July, there are already longish vines to contend with when trimming out the finished canes. However, this year, there was a wedding in my yard at the end of July and trimming out the blackberries was really low priority. But now I've let it go an extra two months--and the new vines are huge and all intertwined with the old ones. And the jillions of tiny thorns on the vines grab and hold each other and the leaves and my sleeves... This will take pretty much forever to get through. Meanwhile, the dogs, who have learned that there are usually tasty treats to find after mom has been rummaging in the area, keep checking the ground carefully to see whether there are any overlooked blackberries. They occasionally pick something up and munch on it. Not sure what they're finding. Not sure I want to know.