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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