Crates, Ex-Pens (X-Pens), and Harnesses

SUMMARY: The topic goes on and on

From comments on my posts from the previous 2 days--

RATZ -- I'm sure that I have some relevant photos, but they're old enough that they'd be on film, so I'll have to look thru albums and boxes and scan them in. Which I'm not going to do tonight, sooooo no photos mostly for now.

I responded to a comment on my post "About Crates vs X-Pens For Dogs, My History Thereof"  about a friend's dog and crates and all that, and that her Katie was annoyed that she didn't get to sit loose in the front seat--

Mean humans! 

I didn't start using crates in the car until I adopted Tika. 

Four or five years previously I had finally become smart about restraining dogs in the car, given how many miles I traveled with them and at odd hours and in all weather and a long way from home. Remington and Jake started riding in very sturdy, well-tested seatbelt harnesses and by the time Tika came home, they had become used to that restraint. They were getting up in age and so I didn't want to start trying to get them used to traveling in crates, although by then they were plenty accustomed to staying in crates at trials. (And Remington loved standing up the entire time we were driving, particularly looking for cows-- couldn't take him away from that.) 

In fact, getting Tika and deciding that all future dogs would travel in crates was the impetus to get a minivan instead of a fun-to-drive car like my prior ones. Sigh. Soooo practical--because a crate wouldn't fit into my four-door sedan along with 2 other dogs on seatbelts and all that agility gear. 

About whether to leave a dog in the car while, say, walking courses, or working in a different ring or whatnot: Getting a dog accustomed to being crated for longer times I think requires that the dog receive plenty of practice while they are aware of where you are and then gradually increasing times when they can't see you. At least, that's how it has worked for my previous dogs. Zorro and my late Chip haven't had nearly enough of that kind of practice. They'll sleep in crates in my bedroom at night, but if I get up and go downstairs, say in the middle of the night, without them, I don't trust them to not claw holes in the mesh of the soft crates. 

Which Remington did the first time I left him alone (with Jake) in my tent to walk to the nearest water faucet in the campground. 

Dogs.

But, yep, like Katie, they'd all rather be in the seats, preferably the front, if they had a choice.

Still, for a long time, if I were simply tooling around the area on errands, the  dogs could usually be trusted to be loose in the car so they could look out the windows. Although--lesson learned--one errand I thought would take me 15 minutes and instead became more like 3 hours, and Tika, alone in the car, explained that she didn't care for that so much.

I lived with this reminder for the next 11 years.

Then I noted:  Hmmm, this feels like I just wrote another related blog post right here! ... and so here it is--rewritten and expanded a bit! 

Taking Tika From a Wild Young Thing to A Champion

SUMMARY: A bright memory, updated.

Posted on Facebook August 10, 2019.

As a younger dog, Tika was, at times, frustrating beyond belief. Independent and too dang smart, knowing what she could get away with when I didn't know how to fix it. For those who might be tempted to give up hope with their own crazy, challenging, overwhelming dog:

7 years after Tika retired from agility, in the 22" Performance category, she's still #13 over all in Gamblers, #11 in Jumpers, #11 in Snooker, and #13 in Standard. For "all-breed" (mixed breed), she's still #2 in Standard, #1 in Snooker, #1 in Jumpers, and #1 in Gamblers.

And I was able to hike off- and on-leash with her in so many places (well--not always perfect--but mostly).  (And so many other things, too: Tricks, visiting, being around any other dogs at any time...)

I'm proud of what we accomplished, and it paid off in spades in the immense joy I earned on and off the agility field with her.

Things That Super Frightened My Pups

SUMMARY: Brave dogs, scardey dogs

I'm talking about things that are way outside the norm, things that could flat-out terrify them.

Who	What	Notes
Amber	Nothing that I remember
Sheba	Loma Prieta Earthquake and aftershocks	She'd lie on my chest for hours (45-lb husky), panting and shaking, eyes looking like she was going into shock. (Amber would just look up and go back to sleep)
Remington	Smoke alarm testing	He'd go hide in the farthest point of our long half-acre yard and not come out for ages
Jake	Nothing that I remember
Tika	Vet's office	In her last few years, would give her a little sedative ahead of time to take the edge off
Boost	Pet stores. Unfamiliar uncarpeted floors.	Various other random things
Chip	Thunder, fireworks	O...M...G
Zorro	Nothing that I can think of

Tika Sleeping

SUMMARY: Inspired by a thread at work

Tika was sometimes quite creative.

The Heart Is Filled with Joy and Pain

SUMMARY: An unexpected painful result from a photo search.

I searched for "tika"/"box" in my photo catalog to find a favorite of her doing the Get In The Box trick; I adore this shot. Always makes me smile--she was so good at this and of course loved the rewards. Standing there while I took the shot was another thing entirely, but she did it. ("Give me treat, stop photo doing thing.")

And it popped up with this immediately next to it. Tika in a box forever. No treats can be given.

It has been over 4 years now; seems like just last month, I can remember it all, and this slammed it all into my mind and gut.

To mitigate the sad with the happy, I re-edited the Amazon box photo to be brighter and sharper and clearer than my original edit nine years back, and to bring all the glorious golden life-light back into her eyes.

O Christmas Tree

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

>>  Visit the Wordless Wednesday site; lots of blogs. <<

Wordpress Photo Challenge: Frame

SUMMARY: A fun bending-reality diversion with Tika and a jump

Blogging friend Change Is Hard likes to do the weekly Friday photo challenges provided by WordPress; She posted  this "frame" photo. I don't use WordPress (I'm in Blogger and like it), but I do enjoy seeing how different people interpret different challenges. Lots of beautiful photos. And sometimes I participate.

Here's mine, from an old photo; Tika always stretched the Possible.

I haven't looked at all of the Frame postings, but browsed some. I particularly like:

• Getting The Most Out of What is Around You In Your Photos  (nice photos and photo tip)
• Forest Garden: "Sunday Dinner" (nature close-up at its finest, but arachnophobes need not go here)
• Herman van Bon Photography:  "In the Eye of the Beholder" (a surprising and lovely image from South Africa)

>>  See what others have contributed for "Frame" <<

Googled My Dog's Name and This is What I Got

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

FYI, just a couple of words:

• Googled "Tika Clicker" (oops, messed it up; now these are the first images!)
• I paged down and took screen captures until my photos (that is, my photos or from my blog or photos of me & my dogs) no longer made up at least 50% of the images on the screen
• Purple blobs are items that are not mine

>>  Visit the Wordless Wednesday site; lots of blogs. <<

Looking Back -- Moving Tika to Performance

SUMMARY: The emotions are still so fresh.

I just read Nancy Gyse's latest blog post,  Endings and Beginnings.  It took me back to the summer of 2009.  Just wanted to capture my response here.

I went through the Performance-or-Championship decision with Tika when she was only 8–still running fast, still making jumps, no Early Take-Off (ETO), but was coming up sore more and more often during or right after a trial (not always–but enough to finally decide that it wasn’t just a random tweak, so went to the vet). Xrays confirmed that she had arthritis in her neck and lower back.

 I do watch my title counts, and I know that it would be better to not do so, but she seemed to love being out there with me and running and jumping like crazy and I LOVED watching her do the courses. I cried because, you know, “all my friends have their platinum ADCHs” and moving to Perf meant that I’d never ever get that on any other dog, because she was so good.

That was a personal thing, so true…but it also hurt because I was sure that this would just be temporary–if she had arthritis, she’d soon be done with agility completely, and I SO wasn’t ready for that.

She was only a few Qs away from silver, or had finished, in all the classes, so I moved her to Perf in each as she finished them.

The surprise benefit to me, then, was that, at that time, I stopped thinking so much about titles because I thought that she’d be completely done in only a few months. The surprise benefit to her was that she started running like a young dog again, didn’t get sore, and started pulling in Qs and ribbons against some pretty tough competition!

In fact, my other surprise benefit was that we blasted through all of the performance titles and were less than 20 Qs away from that coveted platinum when heart disease sidelined her suddenly at 11. I’d never dreamed she’d like that difference in height so much or that she’d be able to compete that long comfortably, as big as she was.

(So, even when I started caring about titles again, it was almost all pure fun because her Q rate became so high.)

I don’t really have much of a point, except that, yes indeed, I understand the feeling about it being a physical milestone that one doesn’t want to see because it means essentially that the dog is moving on towards being an old dog.

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!