On Expectations

SUMMARY: Getting a dog who wasn't as successful as a previous dog

Originally posted in a Facebook comment on June 19, 2019

A friend asked (and I shortened this):

I was just wondering if people had a similar experience. I had/have an amazing agility dog who was/is getting older so I got a new puppy. [...] Unfortunately, my dreams that the pup [now 4 years old] and I would supersede the success of my first dog were unrealized and I let my disappointment rob dog and handler of the joy that should have been ours.

Has anyone else had an experience that the subsequent dog never met the greatness of the first dog? How did you handle the emotions?

Here's my first perspective:

As someone who lost an amazing companion (Boost) to cancer when she was barely 10 and *forever* one superQ away from her ADCH--something that we all *try* to do and some are more successful than others: Just have fun with him! Live every day for joy, whether your agility goals are being met yet or not! How you'd hate yourself if your last agility training or trialing experience with the dog was being upset about not doing well on course, whether at yourself or at the dog. I can think of many runs and many days that I wish I could have a do-over for, not to fix the run, but to fix my attitude. Seriously. Lots of people appear to be successful at it, but Sarah George Johnson in particular leaps out at me at this moment--she whoops and hollers and rewards every run as if they'd just won the world championship.

Here's my second perspective:

Remington, my first dog, was good... started out very good, deteriorated rapidly, and didn't get better again until I was able to truly own that preceding perspective for him (I just kept running full out whether he was off course or not and whether or not the error was fixable, and just whooped it up at the end). So, he ended up a pretty good but not great dog. 

My 2nd dog, Jake, was very good to excellent. My third dog, Tika, was super duper awesome. 

So it wasn't first-dog-itis when I got my 4th agility dog and we couldn't be consistently successful for the world. I tried to embrace the first perspective above, but she was SO fast and SO smart, and I really did expect that she would be even better than my 3rd dog. Damn expectations. I could've practiced more on our weaknesses, for sure, but I didn't always understand why things that worked fine in drills and practices fell apart on the course. 

I understood in many cases that it became my own level of stress--we started failing super-Qs that were gimmees for the skill set that we did have (e.g., "all I need to guarantee a super-Q today is for her to get to the #6 aframe--and she ALWAYS sends ahead to aframes and ALWAYS gets the contact" I mean, literally always... and then a refusal at the aframe. I KNEW how stressed I was by then and wasn't good at choking it down.). 

But I wish every day that I had her back in my life (fuck cancer) and wouldn't care about agility, I swear it. The irony for me was that, the more I cared about agility instead of simply loving running with my dog (which is why I started agility originally), the worse we did (both my 1st and 4th dogs). Jake and Tika dealt with it, but I was so seldom unhappy with them... I dunno which came first, success or happiness. 

So, your question, how did I handle these emotions? Answer: Badly. I try to atone for the times she knew I was unhappy (or people watching me on course knew I was on happy) by saying, See my first perspective above, please please please. Find a way to embrace it. I can't promise that it will improve your agility. But you'll be much happier and so will your dog.

Boost -- a little in memorium

SUMMARY: Photos

Boost's death was so sudden, and Tika's death was so recent before that, and my dad's illness was so bad-- I never did a photo retrospective of their lives. This isn't one, either, but I wanted to gather some photos for a smaller project. Here they be.

Boost had no fear of racing to almost the end and riding it to a slam-down.

Championship in CPE!

I had to hustle to be anywhere near her at the end of a dogwalk.

Boost loved to help me in the yard while I trimmed. I'd toss the trimmings into the air; she'd leap, catch, shake them firmly, and toss them to the ground with great finality, then wait for the next.

Waiting to run, tugging on her Riot Tug.

We did a little nosework. She was catching on.

My Merle Girl.

Resting between rocket-powered frisbee catchings.

Boost loved the snow. Anything in the snow.

Heterochromic eyes, like her mom's and many other relatives.

Get In The Box trick.

She learned this from watching Tika. Amazing.

Running at the beach. She just liked running.

Demonstrating her lightning-fast weaving technique.

Floating through the air down a line of jumps. Like magic when it worked.

Tika also taught Boost how to use tunnels, although Boost's puppyhood playground included tunnels.

Hiking, climbing, exploring.

Loved running through the powder; preferred that to running along the trail!

Atop Coyote Peak, one of our frequent hikes.

Boost's absolutely favorite toy of all time.

Great Old One: Boosthulhu

SUMMARY: Some toys just name themselves, especially when Elder Gods are involved.

Most of my dogs' toys have names. Most of them are pretty obvious. But some are obvious only to former residents of Arkham, MA.

Boost knew many of the names, as in fetching the toy by name. This includes the toy fondly known as "Cthulhu-Face".

(These were originally posted on Facebook in October '15.)

Shock to the System

SUMMARY: Boost's Special Toy and cancer and life changes and all that.

In yard news, I took a photo a little while ago of the stack of PVC pipes and (hidden underneath) firewood, none of which I've touched in years. My intention was to post all of it on Freecycle to get it out of the yard.  (Not the extra teeter totter board or agility chute, of course.)

Just discovered that "a little while ago" was June 19 -- of 2015.  So I finally listed them on Freecycle two days ago. Whew!  Yup, I have just enough stuff in my yard that things like that can be out of sight and out of mind for "a little while" indeed.

Like, way back in November of 2013, when Boost's Special Toy vanished.

A side story: I've sometimes wondered whether Boost didn't die of a slowly broken heart. It's this weird idea that infiltrated my brain a couple of years back, and it started with that vanishment.

See, when Boost came on board here, this little blue plush bone with a squeaker in the middle was already here, something that Jake had liked that had been left behind when a much earlier renter and her dog left town.  For some reason that I don't know, that only Boost could ever know, this was her play-by-herself toy. From when she was a pup, she'd hold that bone in her mouth, right in the middle, and squeak squeak squeak while running full speed through tunnel after tunnel, around and around the yard with the joy of speed and freedom and the wind in her hair. Even then, it was her favorite toy.

I knew that the toy would give out eventually, so I started keeping an eye out for replacements of the same size, shape, and material.  I sometimes got close, but it was never the same as the Special Toy, and for some reason she needed that toy in her mouth, mouthing and squeaking, to fly, fly, fly.

I replaced its squeaker two or three times and sewed it back up where the seams were coming loose, but the seam on that one side eventually became raggety enough that sewing it back up wasn't practical.  The squeaker stopped squeaking, and the end of the squeaker stuck out through the fabric, but it still made a soft plastic clicking sound as she mouthed it, and so that's what she did, running full tilt around the tunnels on her own out in the yard with joyful abandon.

That darn toy periodically vanished. I'd sometimes look for it and not find it. But then, a few days later, or a week or two later, there she'd be, racing around the yard with it in her mouth, the thrrrrump thrrrrump of her full-speed dash through the tunnels easily heard from inside, where ever I was.

Sometimes I'd happen to see when she found it again, wherever it had gone; with the delight of a long-lost friend, she'd perk up and pounce on it and, again, tail flying behind, run, run, run.

One day, in November of 2013, as I walked back from dumping kitchen scraps into my compost bin, I noticed it sitting on the walkway in the yard. I walked past it because I had stuff in my hands.  Usually if I notice a plush toy in the yard, I immediately take it inside to prevent it from becoming wet or muddy. But, this time, I walked by it, and I remember it because it felt odd to just leave it out there.

Something like this. (A recreation; back then, before the big drought, there were plants and pots and groundcover and ponds and lawns and jumps and tunnels everywhere).

The next day, I went looking for it and didn't find it. As days and then weeks went by and Boost didn't reappear with it, I started hunting for it more and more, crawling under shrubs, lifting and moving things everywhere. Never found it.  It struck me that some squirrel, finding such a lovely soft plush thing, might have carried it off to its tangle of a nest in some tree somewhere and I'd never see it again.

And after that, I also don't remember ever seeing Boost running through the tunnels on her own again. I felt terrible. It was as if I were personally responsible for the loss of her faithful tunnel-running friend.

That was the beginning.

Three months later, that February, I kicked out the renter who had been living here since before Boost was born.  Not that they were super close, but almost every day he went out in the yard with her when he got home from work and kicked her Jolly Ball until she was ready for a rest. So, for 9 years. And suddenly he was gone.

That was also when my spine started decaying in a major way and I had trouble doing training and walking and hiking and agilitying, and all of those activities became fewer and fewer and fewer, until that summer I was on full disability because I could barely move from room to room without excruciating pain.  And, of course, she being a working border collie, I could see how much she missed it.

All of Boost's life, she and Tika had played together on my bed at least once a day while I dressed in the morning or showered, until maybe about this same timeframe, as Tika's heart became worse and worse and she didn't have the energy for it.

In place of the previous renter, a new woman and her two small dogs moved in.  Boost seemed to really enjoy those little dogs and played with them whenever she had a chance (not often, maybe once a week or so).  Then, after only a short time, the woman and her dogs moved on, as well.

Chip moved in, but he was a wild and crazy thing, and although Boost liked to play with him, it wasn't NEARLy as much as he wanted her to play, so he pestered her and pestered her.  Of course, at the time I didn't know that there was likely already cancer growing within her.

The day that Chip escaped, July 3 of that year, was the first time in several years that I started having Yard Guys come in to do the mow-and-blow treatment every week.  So much debris had accrued while my back had been failing that I was afraid that maybe her little blue bone toy had become tangled in a pile of detritus somewhere, and I specifically showed the guy a picture and begged him to keep a look out for the toy as they commenced a huge cleanup.  (Not only did that not show up, but my FitBit vanished in the yard that day, too, never to be seen again.)

And then Tika died.

So, as Boost's energy level had flagged more and more, I blamed it part on aging and part on mourning all of these important parts of her life that had vanished and that she, as a dog, couldn't fully understand.

And then we discovered her cancer. And then, a year ago this past April, six weeks after Tika, Boost died.

The other day, there was a discussion on Nextdoor about rats in the neighborhood.  They've always been here, they'll always be here.  But that's what reminded me to go look for that photo of the PVC pipes and firewood in the side yard and to take action; would be nice to have one fewer places for rodents to hang out, even though Zorro loves to hunt them.

Tuesday evening, a woman responded to my Freecycle ad saying that she's a teacher and she has some great ideas for projects for all those PVC pipes from my yard and they also go camping in the summer and would love to have the firewood, too.

So, first thing yesterday morning, I hauled all the pipes, a few at a time, out through the side gate to the front lawn. And then I loaded the firewood, a few pieces at a time, into a cart, dumped that out onto the lawn on top of the pipes, over and over again until there were only a couple of small pieces of wood that had fallen between the slats of my firewood support frame.

I knelt, disentangled the wood from the piles of leaves and twigs and soil, pulled them out.

And then I sat there and cried.
Yes, some small critter had pulled this into a hole under the fence.

Dogs Meet Art

SUMMARY: A surprise at yesterday's USDAA trial

Yesterday I went down to Morgan Hill (only half an hour from here) to work full time as a scribe (NOT as a score table person, how weird is that?!).

One of my [many] agility friends is an artist who creates pet portraits in pencil, pastels, and colored pencil and sells them at local trials.  A couple of people suggested that I go check out her Christmas ornaments and drawings.

I did. I looked at the drawings.

I cried.

It was perfect.

I didn't know that she was working on that. She did it from one of my favorite photos of Boost and Tika from the first month that Boost came to live here. And she was clever enough to fill in Tika's back where the actual photo cuts it off!

And guess whom I also found in the ornaments? Apparently Tracey does some paints, as well.

(Luke REALLY wanted to know what I had in my hand, so he had to be in the photo, too.)

Thanks, Tracey.

Contact Tracey at wildkelpies (@) gmail.com.

Simple Thoughts About Hard Things

SUMMARY: Simply written.

This is the year when everything changed.

Maybe not everything.

But it feels as if it were everything important.

My old dog who knew how to do the dog jumping and climbing game very well is gone. Because she was old and sick.

My younger dog who also knew how to do it very well suddenly became very, very sick with bad things growing inside her that killed her very, very quickly.

And both of these girls could walk and run without a six-foot holding thing between me and them and still be good girls.  And would come when called (mostly anyway). And knew how things worked in the world and loved to be out in the world and checking everything out. Now I have dogs who know or do none of these. And I miss my girls so much.

My father, whom I have known for more than half a hundred years--that is, my entire life--had bad things growing inside him, also, which also killed him quickly and also made him angry because, being human and not dog, he knew what was happening and didn't like it much.  And he knew so very very much that I can't even begin to say what.

The set of bones running down my back have decided to go in different directions than they should go and do other things that make the sensing-feeling things in my legs and back hurt so much that some days I can barely walk. Or sit. Or stand.  Lying down is usually pretty good and I like that part. But it's hard to do that and do any of the other things that I want to do--hard to do almost anything, in fact, when lying down.

So my dream of ending working for money and traveling the world and walking through and up and down many forests and hills and mountains and very dry places seems to be fading. And of taking photos of many creatures and places and things from many points of view such as lying down or on my knees or back seems to be fading. And of playing that dog jumping and climbing game until I turn eight times ten years old is fading. And also of staying in this house in this area for several more years until I have carefully thought things through seems like it cannot happen. Which means that I must be faster at getting rid of many of the many things in this house, and that is something that I find hard to do.

So. I am getting up every morning and doing the things that I must do and finding ways to still enjoy life and trying to slowly come to know the truth of my life and what I need to be doing within me, not just in my head.

These are all hard ideas to grab. And yet, in many ways, it is quite simple.  To help me think simply about it all, I have written this story-thing using this thing that helps people to write using only words from a simple word set*. It is hard to be simple.  Maybe that is why I feel so tired so often.  Trying hard to be keep things simple. Being simple is hard. And so many simple things are hard.

------

*I thank xkcd for creating this Simple Writer thing.   Here is a good one of his funny drawings that I think uses the simple words.

("The thrower started hitting the bats too much,  so the king of the game told him to leave and brought out another thrower from thrower jail.")

Updating History

SUMMARY: Recreating photos of yesteryear.

Do you love the photos that people take while trying to recreate photos from their youth? Like this site(43 people who flawlessly recreated their childhood photos)--which has ads galore and you have to click to see each next one rather than them being on the same page, but wonderful photos!

Seems to me that I've attempted these things at random times in the past, but remember only a couple of recent ones, and they're not complete attempts to match clothing and location, just positions.

Fair warning, there is melancholy in these posts, as well as fun.

(1) Even 2 years ago we knew that we wouldn't be able to get my mom up to the top of this dome. Even less likely now.  Dad really wanted it to happen (he took the photo), but now he'll never see it even if we do successfully recreate the whole thing.  Above Olmsted Point in Yosemite.

1962-----

2013--

We had to convince dad 2 years ago that it was not the stroll in the park that he remembered from when he was in his 30s, and that he'd have a rough time of it and mom just wouldn't be able to do it unless someone carried her.  You ever think, in retrospect, that Dad wanted this photo so much that we should've found a way to get them  up there?  Well, I had a wonderful time the day that we found this spot and took this photo and I'll at least cherish that.  I wonder--any chance that we could get all 3 of the oldest of us up there AND find someone(s) to carry mom up?


-----------------------------------
(2)  When I learned that Boost would not be around much longer, I wanted to redo some of the old photos. This one, not in the same location, not with the same clothing, but the main characters are here.

2005

2015

And, of course, these (which I already posted back in January):

2002: Tika, Jake, Remington

2015: Tika, Boost, Chip, taken as I knew that Tika couldn't be around much longer. Already having trouble sitting comfortably--but she managed it for me, briefly. All three of them were such good dogs on this day.

So Many Things To Compare

SUMMARY: Comparing and contrasting. In a general sort of way.

I seem to spent a lot of mental energy--not at the forefront of my mind, but right behind it--comparing my various dogs and their behaviors before or after this that or the other thing.

Greeting me at the door:

• Tika, excited shrieking at the garage door
• Boost, barking and wagging like crazy at the garage door
• Chip, happy and wagging but no noise at the garage door as far as I can tell
• Chip after the other two are gone, wagging gently  at the garage door
• Chip after Luke arrived and is kept in his crate, standing at the top of the stairs near Luke's crate and watching me come in from the garage.

Stuff like that.

I sat on the glider in my yard briefly today. Poor thing, the wood is wearing out and probably should be replaced, but I'm not likely to do it. I used to sit on it all the time back at the previous house with a nice view of my garden and things going by in the street.  

Way back then, the late great Remington liked it, too, for sitting next to me or hunting—feet on the seat, paws on the back, scouting for squirrels (or barking at them if they were in the tree overhead). He remained oblivious to the rocking and shaking of the glider—scared the heck out of me, though, every time he'd see a squirrel in the distance and explode off of the glider, sending it reeling and crashing from side to side.

Chip--doesn't like things moving under him. Took weeks for him to finally get all 4 feet onto a wobble board (wouldn't stay there long or move much), and months for him to walk across a very low teeter.

But today, while I sat on the glider, he came on up next to me, one careful foot and one careful rebalance at a time. Stood there, legs shaking to try to stay balanced, then leaped off again. For a moment I had a flashback!

Oh my little Booster

SUMMARY: Cancer

Boost is dying. You wouldn't know it from this video today.

This was all so fast. And I haven't been posting here.

Timeline--

Last July, when Boost started scratching uncontrollably again, I put her on prednisone again for a short while.  Which meant that she wanted to go out once or twice a night. At that point, my back was seriously awful, and the pain associated with getting out of bed, downstairs, opening the door, and all that, was too much to bear. So I left my bedroom door open and left her with access to the yard. Tika was delighted with this arrangement; she almost always had wanted to sleep out on the deck or downstairs on the cooler floor.

Fast forward to Tika's death on March 9th.  I returned to the old standard of having the dogs closed in my room and everything closed up.  But Boost--who hasn't been on pred since that time last year--still wanted to go out anywhere from once to three times a night.

I wasn't sure whether it was just because she was used to doing that, after all these months, or whether maybe she had a bladder infection again (she's had a few in the past).  I was too tired to get up with her and see what she was doing, so I went back to the open door policy.

I did watch her a few times. She'd sniff slowly all across the yard, pee, and sniff slowly all the way back across the yard. I felt sad for her--I'd always wondered how she'd figure out where to pee after Tika was gone, because Boost ALWAYS peed where Tika had peed.

Too tired all the time to want to see whether it was a get-used-to-having-the-door-shut issue or a real issue, so I let it slide--and, of course, once I had given her free access, I had no idea at all whether she was going out at night, except once or twice where she whine/moaned insistently until I woke up and went downstairs with her.   So I really let it slide.

A few odd things happened from time to time over the last month:

  Once she went upstairs one...step...at...a...time. We had played a lot, but I didn't think more than usual, but assumed maybe she's got a little arthritis.  But shortly after that, she might be racing down the stairs full speed. Then some other time she'd go up or down slowly again.

   She'd act often as if she had little energy---she'd play intensely, but then want to lie down after each ball retrieval.  Well, she's out of shape, and so am I, because of my pain levels and not getting out and about.  So, whatever.

   Her main job has always been to bring in the paper in the morning.  A few times,  she'd walk out instead of dashing out, but the next day she'd dash. One day last week she walked out...like...a...funeral...procession...  brought it back slowly to the front door and dropped it there instead of taking it into the kitchen. The next couple of days she was OK at it, but wandered around on her way to the paper as if she didn't really want to do it, or even had forgotten.

  She's been really avoiding playing with Chip. She has usually played enthusiastically with him at least once a day, but now didn't want to.  I thought, maybe all of this is arthritis, don't know.

 A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that she was eating her food at about Chip's speed. When Chip first came home, here's how the eating speed went:  Tika sucked down her food before Boost was half done. Then Boost finished. Then I'd watch...Chip...eat... and wonder how a healthy dog could possibly be so slow at it. I mean, really, it took him a full minute to eat 2/3 cup of food.

   And then Boost ate slower than he did. And slower. And slower.

Wednesday and Thursday last week.

She had uncomfortably soft poops.  Eating even slower.

Friday.

In the  morning after we got up she threw up (nothing much in her tummy) out on the lawn.  And then it took her FOUR minutes to eat her food.

So it was just too much. I called to see whether we could see the vet. My regular guy was out until Monday, and the receptionist asked whether it could wait until then.  Wellllllll  all those little things, but particularly the eating slowly..... no, I didn't want to wait. Suddenly it felt very important to get her in for a checkup.  They were able to squeeze us in around 4:00 that afternoon with the other vet in the office.

I hustled the dogs into the car without giving them the usual opportunity to pee in the yard, hoping that Boost had enough in her for a urine test. The vet checked everything about Boost. No signs of pain or swelling or bad temperature or bad heart or bad eyes or arthritis or anything in her mouth that might be slowing her eating. Was able to get urine and blood samples, but said that the poop currently cued up inside Boost (she stuck a finger in to see) looked perfectly normal, so she didn't think that a stool sample would be warranted.   So everything looked completely healthy.

I hope that meant maybe a urine infection, even though I wasn't sure how that would explain everything else.

Told me that my regular vet, Dr. K, would call me with the results Monday afternoon.

Took the dogs for a short walk at one nearby park, and sure enough, Boost had a completely normal poop.  Everything else, completely normal walk.

Weekend.

One day, when she went out to get the paper, she was so randomly distracted by things that it looked like she had forgotten all about her favorite morning thing.  I finally called her back, then sent her out again, and she rambled around.  Finally with coaxing she brought in the paper.  Like she had completely forgotten how to do it.

One of the mornings, I put down their food bowls with their 2/3 cups of kibble, left them eating, and went upstairs.  I took off and put away my nightclothes. Washed my face.  Took out all my pill bottles and counted/sorted an entire week of morning & afternoon pills into my pillbox. Finished my morning ablutions. Poked around in my t-shirt drawers trying to decide which to wear that day.  Chip had appeared somewhere in there. Picked out socks and underwear to match, got dressed head to toe, found my watch and put it on, and went downstairs. Boost was STILL eating.  Yikes.

Monday.

Dr. K left a message while I was at work. I had raced home in hopes of catching his call ("race"--hah--took me an hour in nasty traffic because some guy was standing on a key overpass and two freeways were blocked so everything in the valley was at a near standstill).  They close at 5:00, and I was able to call just after 4:30.

He squeezed in a quick talk with me, where he said that her liver and pancreas numbers were very ugly, also white blood cell count high (infection or inflammation of some sort) and her red blood cells low (anemia) and some other bad numbers that I tried to scribble down while he talked.

He said, if you rate the level of complications that this could add to my and your life, this is about 10 out of 10. He said, I need about an hour to talk with you, as soon as possible.  Can you come in tomorrow morning at 8:00? Bring her and we'll do some screening x-rays.

Not much sleep that night, you betcha.

Tuesday.

Sent her out for the newspaper. She was somewhat excited about it and did it fairly well.

8:00 -- She definitely has liver disease and pancreatitis, but these things can easily be symptoms of something else. (Yes yes ys, I did spend time last night reading and reading and reading and the list of things that these could be symptoms of was very long and mostly bad.)  He said, oh, don't read all that, it'll make you crazy. Let's get the x-rays done.  (This is a summary of a Reader's Digest version of the hour-long conversation.)  To save me a hundred bucks or so, I said, just do the chest x-ray and let's do ultrasound on her abdomen instead of x-ray.  He said that he thought that he could get the ultrasound guy in on Wednesday.  He kept Boost and said, come back at 2:30.

2:30 -- She was a good girl about lying mostly still and they were able to get chest x-rays without any sedative.  But they were a bit ambiguous.  Vet thought that there was either a swollen lymph node or maybe it was just a muscle overlapping a bone.  And a gray spot that shouldn't be there, but to me it looked just like the gray spots that he said were blood vessels or other things.  he said it could all be nothing; he'd want the radiologist's opinion (the guy who comes in to do ultrasounds.)

He took a blood sample to test its clotting ability in case there was something that they'd need to do a biopsy for.

So bring her back first thing in the morning.

Not much sleep that night, you betcha.

Wednesday (today).

Sent her out for the newspaper. Or--rather--tried to. She just stood in the doorway. I walked out to the driveway and she walked next to me. This is not normal. I picked up the newspaper and offered it to her.  She took it as if it belonged to her and trotted--not ran, just trotted--back into the house just ahead of me. Sigh. Poor goorlie.

8:00 a.m. Dropped Boost off for her ultrasound.  Doc wasn't sure when they'd be finish, but he'd keep me updated.

Cried a bit as I drove Chip to another nearby park. There, we practiced some things -- with a pocket full of Zuke's mini treats-- such as walking on a loose leash, looking at me regularly, coming to me when I said Come (that was mostly a failure, dangit).

Got home, and just after I walked in the door, the vet's receptionist called and said that Dr. K would like me to come in at noon so he could talk to me.

Noon.

Doc came into the room and said, it's bad. It's the worst it could be.

She has lesions in her kidney, liver, lungs, and lymph nodes. In other words, whatever cancer she has, has already metastasized--spread throughout her body.  It could be in other places, too--like, maybe, the brain.

Her blood clotting test went poorly--apparently the liver makes the blood-clotting factor, and it's malfunctioning, as we already knew, so they decided not to take a biopsy at that time.

We talked a bit but there wasn't much to talk about.  Keep her happy and comfortable. Make sure she's eating and drinking and eliminating properly.  He'd be glad to refer me to an oncologist but thought that any treatment could make Boost sick and probably wouldn't gain much time anyway.

I had already made that decision, not going that way for Stage 4 (incurable) cancer that's all through her body.

The warning is--she could go at any time, depending on what tumor did what and when. Could be a stroke, even.  Or I said some major seizures like Jake had that fried his brain (or vice-versa).  Could be tomorrow.  Could be a month or more. Maybe.

l am sick and numb and stunned and angry and miserable and heartbroken.

At home, we went into the yard and I took that video. She still looks alert and attentive. She still goes after the ball like a rocket, still plays tug.

That is most likely her last visit to the vet. I've got tramadol now in case she looks like she's in discomfort. famotadine to ease her stomach and help her eat, and an antinausea drug as well.

I'll be doing one day of score table for SMART this week, and I'll take Boost, and people can say goodbye.

And I'll try not to neglect Chip, who has looked very worried and followed me closely everywhere the two times I left Boost at the vet yesterday and today. Damn.

Scared Border Collie Bingo

SUMMARY: A treat from Team Small Dog

I laughed out loud at this Border Collie Bingo, now that Team Small Dog includes an actual border collie. I've had so many discussions with people about their over-sensitive BCs! I guess this is the dark side to their amazing ability to notice and respond to the slightest change in a sheep's path or an agility human's body language. So they respond to the slightest change in anything, or the slightest unfamiliar thing.

And oh Boost had SO many things that she had to bark at in a scared way when she was younger. The rock in the yard that I moved earlier, that I moved earlier and she watched me move it. The chair in the yard that I moved earlier while she was there. The table in the yard that I moved earlier while she was there. The big black garbage bag of leaves whose edges were blowing in the wind. A branch blowing in the wind. Plastic bag in a shrub. Plastic owl on the shed! Yes! Anything driving by and hitting a pothole. Pet stores. Dead things in vendor stalls (e.g., "rawhide" is a thinly disguised dead thing). Remote control car in the street. Footballs not being caught and hitting the ground. The cartoon drawing of a dog above a door!

And as you likely know, she saved up until she was 3 or 4 to become scared of Evil Floors.

Team Small Dog sez -- "Play along with me. Border collie bingo! Click-n-print version over here!"

And on the morning after April Fools Day--

SUMMARY: We discover this--

 --and this--

Agility weekend come and gone

SUMMARY: It was the best of times, it was the not best of times.

I did it again. Agreed a couple of months back to drive down to Turlock for 2 and a half days of agility to work the score table, because I love going down there, despite my better judgement telling me that it was a bad idea.   Waffled all the way up to closing on whether to try entering Boost in a couple of things again as long as I was going anyway, but since I'm still not running, decided not to.

I thought it would be a good weekend, anyway, seeing good friends and doing a necessary job, plus they have that big fenced back field in which Chip could run around and meet lots of dogs and I could play lots of frisbee with Boost and Boost could get to run after other Border Collies playing frisbee, her favorite game, and Tika could wander around sniffing at things to her heart's content.

Here's what really happened:

I thought Tika was going to die right on the spot, all weekend.

Boost got only about 3 minutes of BC chasing, although we did get a lot of frisbee together.

Chip did not run at all. And got to meet only a couple of dogs only briefly. And mostly ignored me when I did let him off leash. And hated being in the crate for such a long time.

I sat, and leaned, and adjusted, and stretched, and supported, and made all kinds of awkward positions of my body, and got more and more and more and more sore. And so tired and sore that the preceding post of Chip was the only photo I took at the trial all weekend.

Today, home again, I am very very very sore.

And that is because (a) Sitting is a very very bad thing for me to do, and I know it. I can't even work full time as a result. But surely it would be different at the score table, since I hardly have to do any writing at all, just a quick few marks on each scribe sheet, and I can stand up any time I want. Ha!

(b) I just forget how many things have to be lifted and carried to & from the car, and set up, for an agility weekend. And I forgot how much more lifting and carrying Tika's condition entails--getting her in and out of the car by lifting her or by lifting & setting in place her ramp, then taking it down, then putting it back, then taking it down, then putting it back... etc.

(c) And how much bending is involved in having dogs in crates & like that.

(d) Not realizing that having Tika restricted to a crate in the car all the way down and then all day would really tighten up her entire body so that she had a terrible time trying to stand up and then half the time couldn't stay standing up after she got up. Walking--"just a little walking" around this site was way way way way too much for her. She slumped. She sagged. And I had to work to get her up and keep her moving. She refused to eat much of anything for two and a half days.

Oh, right, she ate people food mostly ok.

The hotel room looked cheap--broken safety latch on door, plaster coming off wall, laminate coming off the table. I paid extra for microwave and fridge and didn't realize until I arrived back at the room at 10pm with my leftover dinner that there was no fridge. And, oh, when I made the res online, they forgot to mention that there's a pet charge. $10 per night per dog. For 3 dogs, 2 nights. Are you effing kidding me? They did agree to charge me only one night's fees, but I'm done with that place. ("We've always charged a pet fee." "Oh, no, you haven't, because I've been staying here more than a dozen years, and I didn't used to pay a pet fee.") Compare and contrast to the Disneyland Hotel two weekends previously. (Oh, did I not get around to posting about that yet? Heh.)

But:

Weather was gorgeous. Mid-70s F (23ish C) in mid-February, can you believe it? Near-record temps for the dates.

Friends were wonderful to be around.

And I had a great show on my way home.

Evil Floors Part 27 Or Thereabouts

SUMMARY: Finally got a little video of Boost freaking out about a surface.

This is a new bridge over a culvert at Martial Cottle Park. Ten minutes later, she walked back over it like it was nothing.

Silly but cute girly.

Here's the bridge in question: