The Weekend

Note about photos: All scanned in, and I apparently did a crappy job of it. Will have to redo eventually. Not tonight. Sorry. They're blurry & not all that great-looking.

One: It was danged hot.

Tika ran very fast despite the heat, but it slowed her a bit eventually. She never did stop panting.

Probably in the high 90s each day, and progressively more humid each of the three days. Ah, agility in the Central Valley in July! I suspect the humidity might have had a lot to do with the neighbors flood-irrigating their huge, huge fields. The owner of the agility site says that that also has a lot to do with the clouds of mosquitos that we encountered at certain times of the day or night.

So we're busily emptying our flowerpot drip pans, and meanwhile there are gigantic fields of stagnant water all over the central valley--

But I digress from the heat. Even I, who usually perspires not a drop, had thouroughly soaked through my jeans and polo shirt by midday Monday.

Two: Toenails Too Long

Tika allows me to do her nails, but she always looks away or hides her head. I don't know why--noise? Smell? Can't bear to see whether Mom'll hit the quick?

Everyone got his or her toenails dremeled this weekend. Jake's toenails are mostly black, so I can't tell where the quick is, really. Boost's are white/clear and I've been trimming them fairly often and she's still fairly young so they haven't become overly long. Yet. Tika's are also clear and I can see the quick and it's much further down the toenails than one would ideally like. If only I had the get-up-and-go to just touch them with the Dremel every couple of days, I might chase the nails back to a reasonable length.

Three: The old guy

Jake, who's cool no matter the circumstances.

Jake ran in only 5 classes this weekend—three Jumpers, one Snooker, and one Jackpot (Gamblers). He was very smooth in all of them, but did not get the Gamble. Qed in four of five, what a good guy. Placed from first to third out of about 4 dogs, all considerably younger than himself. And he seemed pretty happy, although I've seen him run faster...for example, last night in class! Maybe it was the heat.

Four: The baby dog

Boost at five months.

Everyone tells me how cute Boost is. Of course I think so, and maybe they're just under the spell of puppydom, but it's nice to hear. She got to play with one of her sisters for a while, although Beck (your basic black & white BC) wanted to lie in the shade more than she wanted to run around like a crazy dog. It barely got Booster panting, although she did do quite a bit of running. I tried to remember to put her into a crate rather than the x-pen whenever I took one of the dogs out for an event or took both for a walk, but I forgot a couple of times, and one of those times she apparently climbed out of the pen, was caught by a neighbor, and plunked back into the pen. She didn't try again in the few opportunities she received.

Five: Tika's Championship Chase

Tika weaving, with both eyes open in the photo for once.

Tika Qed only 8 out of 15 this weekend, but there were some that were plenty my fault and not at all hers--

• I ran the wrong course in Snooker
• I forgot where I was going in one Jumpers and one Standard
• She had *two* chances at two different gambles in one Jackpot and missed both--thereby proving that I'm not training & practicing gamble-type operations nearly enough with her, as they were both fairly straight-forward (although only 3 dogs out of about 50 got either gamble--and those got BOTH gambles. So either you can gamble or you can't.)

However, she was running really nicely. Stayed at the start line, lying down only once. Left a couple of contacts early at the first opportunity on Saturday and I made her lie down after each (earning an elimination for training in the ring--there went another Q), and then she was good for the rest of the weekend. Hardly grabbed at my feet at all at the end of the run, although once she leaped in the air and grabbed my shirt, which could be a bad thing. Did her dangedest to do everything I asked her to, and very quickly. What a lovely girl!

Still, back to knocking bars again. Knocked a bar in probably half of the 15 runs. Better than sometimes, but not as good as the previous CPE weekend, with NONE down. So--back to practicing jumping drills regularly. Sighhhh--

We DID get another Jackpot that only a few dogs got. AND we got two Jumpers and two Colors legs (out of 3 and 2, respectively), towards our C-ATCH. So we could still finish at the Bay Team trial on the 23/24 if we get both Jumpers and both Colors. A long shot, but it could happen...

Get Them Toenails

Dogs' toenails grow. (Duh.) If they get too long, they can become painful to the dog when running or--for agility dogs--for things like descending a steep A-frame, jumping, and so on. Too-long nails are more likely to catch on things and possibly bruise the toe or even tear.

Remington and Jake never needed their toenails clipped at the Hacienda House. I thank our super-long asphalt driveway for that; we played fetch and did agility stuff like going through tunnels on the driveway, a lot, all the time, and that, I believe, kept the toenails down.

After we left there, however, the toenails started becoming obviously long. I hate using the various nail-clipping tools. No matter what kind of adjustment they provide, I often end up clipping down to the quick in the toenail (think of cutting or ripping your fingernail into the area where it's attached to the skin). It hurts them. It bleeds, although styptic (?) power seems to stop the bleeding quickly.

Friends introduced me to using a Dremel tool to sand away the toenails, and I like that, because I can go in increments and it's much harder to damage the quick. It didn't take long for Jake and Remington to accept the Dremel--I just gave them goodies as I brought it closer and closer to them and briefly touched their toenails and so on. Tika took slightly longer, being a little less accepting of touching her assorted personal parts (that would be any part of her, really...)

Boost has not been agreeable about getting gradually used to it. It worked fine up to where I actually touched it to her toenails, at which point she'd go nuts. After several days of trying to get past this point, and getting periodically scratched by her needle-pointed nails, last time I just settled her in my lap, held her firmly, and just did it. She struggled mightily and I just kept working at it. Every time I managed to get a bit of grinding done on a toenail (and we're talking maybe half a second to a second--it doesn't take much for toenails that tiny), I'd give her a goodie or two and praise and pet and snuggle. She held quite still for that part.

It was a mighty struggle, although eventually she relaxed and let me do the last several toenails without a struggle at all.

So I figured we had it figured out, right? Ha ha ha. It is to laugh. This morning I did Jake's and Tika's nails right in front of her crate, giving them and her goodies after each nail. Then I settled her into my lap, gripped her firmly, touched the Dremel to her toenail--and she went ballistic. It probably took 10 minutes of trying to hold her still long enough in a way that wouldn't hurt her but that still allowed me to make progress on her nails. And every nail she fought fought fought.

To her credit, she never bit at me. I'm quite pleased about that. However, because I was wearing my bathrobe, I ended up with dozens of scratches from sharp toenails all over the inside of my leg. Yowtch. Time to plan on not sweating for a while... And then, finally, for the last four or five nails, she waited quietly while I did them, and then was reasonably quiet while I went back and touched up some that I had done a bad job on while attempting to hold a wildly wiggling 20-pound pup firmly.

So has she accepted it yet? Next time shall tell...

I'm definitely thankful, however, that all of Boost's toenails are clear (white), so that I can see where the quick is inside! 16 of Jake's 18 are black; what a challenge.

Crate Training and Sharp Dewclaws

The crate-training games proceed apace. Not only will Boost sit if she's standing when I put my hand on the crate, but she's getting to where she'll actually sit up if she's lying down (a tougher concept) --and it works for the plastic/wire crate, the zippered fabric crate, and the wire x-pen! So she has generalized well. I'm proofing long & longer times with her sitting there, and me being in different positions. I'm afraid maybe I'm moving too quickly, as she's starting to stand up and head for the door before the release. So I'll have to take it easy.

I started to introduce her to the Dremel tool for doing her nails. It went reasonably well the first night but somehow we jumped from one instance where she was quietly accepting of the vibrating tool touching her toenail (not the tool part yet, just the handle) to her yelping and grabbing violently at it. So the next night I worked very very very slowly and was at the point where I could hold her toenail and touch it with the vibrating handle and immediately give her a goodie without her struggling, but it took dozens and dozens of doggie junk food to get there. And in the early struggle, she slashed my wrist with one of the very dewclaws I need to trim down--they are *very* sharp puppy dewclaws, like miniature scythes.

Then yesterday there was a work crew here all day working on my yard and I never had a chance to move to the next step. Dangerous little doggie feet!

Toenails that Make You Weep

I don't remember ever having to trim Amber's or Sheba's toenails. Remington's I trimmed occasionally as he got older--also after we moved away from The Old Big Yard, where we had a 150-foot asphalt driveway on which we played every day, his nails all grew faster than he could wear them away. Jake's never seemed to need trimming, even after we left the driveway trimmer behind.

I hated using nail clippers, even the guillotine type that had a guard that prevented them from going very far at one chop. Sooner or later I always ended up cutting into the quick, which I just absolutely hated. The books suggested always having Styptic (?) powder on hand so you could quickly stop the bleeding when you cut the quick, which tells me that everyone has this problem, but I still don't like it. I bought some of that stuff a few years back and it seemed to do the job but it didn't solve the problem of torturing my poor dogs.

About 3 years ago, some friends at a show were trimming their dogs' nails by filing down with a Dremel tool. It seemed very cool. I tried it on Remington and he didn't object nearly as much as he did with the cutters, and I could stop anywhere I wanted much more easily.

So I went out and bought a Dremel tool specifically for trimming my dogs' nails; how extravagant is *that*?

Jake's nails still virtually never need trimming, *except* that the dew claw on his right front foot gets longer and sharper and longer and sharper--go figure. What's his left foot doing that his right foot isn't?

Most of Tika's nails keep themselves well filed down, including her dew claws--but the two middle toes on both front feet keep getting longer and sharper and sharper and longer... How can that be? I wonder if any of this tells me anything about their gait and stride--?

I can tell I've waited too long between Dremellings when Tika's claws leave little indents or fine-lined scratches on my skin. And Jake has ripped off that dew nail once before when I didn't keep an eye on it. Talk about ouches.