So now it's the 21st century and...

SUMMARY: It's going to be WHAT? 2024? No wayyy!

Inspired by my comment on FB: Dec 31, 2023

A friend on FB threw the question out to his world, having lost his partner of 20ish years: What is everyone doing for New Years Eve? Party? Family gathering? Champagne at midnight? Me? Probably in bed by 8, scrolling for a fun movie. No one to kiss at midnight.

Taj MuttHall responds -- I'll be doing something useful like washing dishes or OH NO donating to charities at the last minute, snuggle with Zorro a bit but no kissing because COAT BEING BLOWN WHY?! when winter is just starting?!, in bed I hope by 8 and hope the fireworks noise isn't enough to keep me or Zorro up. Last year he hid in my closet and seemed fine there. Thank goodness I don't have Chip's terror to deal with any more. [But I miss him none the less]

Wishing you and the world at large a happy 2024.

 (How can it possibly be that year?! I still keep referring to, for example,  six years ago as 2007. Or sometimes 1997. Too many years to keep track of )

Me and former husband at a friend's fancy New Year's Eve party.
Back in 2018.... 2008... oh good grief, 1988. I'm sure I still look the same

New Year's Eve at Taj MuttHall

SUMMARY: Poor scaredy Chip.

It's been quite cold at night, so I had high hopes for few or no fireworks so maybe I could go to bed early and comfy, but alas, no.

The day started as a cheerful winter's day. Gave the Rawhides Of Unusual Size from Christmas back to both dogs.  Chip settled in and resumed gnawing like a champ.  Zorro sniffed at it a bit but really had no interest still.  So, in the interest of evidence-based experimentation, I gave him a much smaller one to see what would happen.

He carried it around looking concerned for a while, from one lounging spot to another, never putting it down; never chewing on it, either. Finally he exited the house, and Experienced Human Mom recognized the I'm-Going-To-Bury-This-Amazing-Treasure behavior and grabbed the camera.

He roamed around the edges of the yard behind things for a couple of minutes, pausing briefly at many spots to examine them, so it was tough to get a shot--

And then suddenly he noticed me through the window and froze, stunned beyond belief that I would be so ghastly rude!! as to watch a dog bury a bone!

Stood there for a few moments in righteous indignation, then trotted purposefully out around the side of the house where I couldn't see him. Came back inside a while later with dirt on his nose and no rawhide.

I had many many Human Mom sorts of activities to do around the house, and so the day wound its way onward.

Was still daylight when the neighbors started partying not with fireworks but with music with a heavy drumbeat which apparently Chip interpreted as The Horror Of Devil-Spawned Fireworks.  Hence, large dog in lap in little chair. Not comfy for either of us.  Fortunately, lasted only 15-20 minutes when apparently his razor-sharp, fast-as-lightning mind ascertained that there was no immediate threat.

Zorro, meanwhile, stood watch, not wanting to leave this hotbed of exciting activity and yet making sure that no rawhide thief, such as any malevolent Squirrel!, snuck into the yard.

Then, for the moment, all was right with the world.

BUT WAIT! WHUT IZ? IN YARDZ OF WE?

As the day continued its New Years Eveish way, Zorro periodically appeared with His Precious.   (Note it is now no longer pristine.)

Then it would vanish again. Much amusement occurred in the brain of Human Mom.

Nearing normal bedtime, Human Mom settled with her New York Times crossword, ready for a pleasant and calming activity.  (Heh, advice column heading is "Ladies prefer cats to family members."  Turns out they are the villains in that story. Figures. Cats. Pfft.)

And then, sigh, fireworks began. Not an onslaught, but enough that You Know Who returned in search of a lap. This time Human Mom provided a cushion to make the visit more comfortable for all. Still... hard to complete the nearly completed NYTC.

Hmmm, Human Mom, you not iz get five ov letterz answering of "Chip away at" clue iz? Iz me knowingz! Is "dog go"!

Oh. Iz not. 

Fireworks. Bah.

When Chip would vacate Lapland, Mr. Z occasionally wanted a snuggle of confirmation that he was not being left out.

In due time, all became silent. (Won't mention the due time was 2:30 a.m.)

Happy New Year to all and to all a safe, quiet rest and answers to life's puzzles.

It was the third of July and we survived

SUMMARY: Long, long day at agility trial, and a noisy night.

Friday morning I had awoken feeling beaten down beyond any rationale, head swollen (like, eyes being forced from skull), and thoroughly enheadached. Eventually crawled into work anyway, and it wasn't until I was there that I put 2+2 together: That unreasonable exhaustion and the eyes being forced from their sockets feeling has been a precursor to a migraine. So I went home again and rested a lot. Apparently I was already *in* the migraine by then, because only some of the fatigue and headness lasted into Saturday.

Saturday I went to see The BFG with a friend, did a few things quietly around the house, and packed up for an agility trial! It has been a while since I've taken dogs to anything like this, although I have worked at a few competitions over the last several months. Of course we weren't competing since these Boys know nuthin' about no agility, but I signed up to work full time. Decided to take them with me to give them a chance to be around the hubbub and dogs and people of such events, and also to keep Chip with me for the evening when I expected there to be noise but I'd still be down in Prunedale.  Which meant ensuring that I packed everything I'd need for me and them, and I haven't done that in so long!

Then I tried to sleep with all the fireworks and poppers and bangs going off until the wee-est of wee hours of the morning (has been bad for a least a couple of weeks, worse that night after we got home).  I tried mitigating the shocks and jabs of noise by keeping windows closed (even on a hot night) and running a loud fan in one window.  It helped, but poor Chip-- and poor me, some of them thar things loud enough to wake the dead. And I don't mean Jerry Garcia.  ...Oh, wait, I guess I do mean him.

As a result, when my radio alarm went off, it barely registered as being not a dream, and when I finally opened my eyes, discovered it had been playing for half an hour! So much for a head start.

BUT I got stretched out and dressed and dogs pottied and still arrived at Prunedale in time to walk the dogs for additional potty-work before going to work.

I scribed all day, which gave me a chance to see familiar people and their new dogs, and unfamiliar people and their unfamiliar dogs. And in between, I got the dogs out for exercise and experience and practice paying attention to me and doing tricks (including sits and downs); Zorro was surprisingly excellent and Chip surprisingly not. The rest of the time, they rested in MUTT MVR off to one side of the field.

(You like how I've left on some of Tika's and Boost's last ribbons to make us look like official agility beasts? But, oops, I still haven't replaced their emergency info with the new dogs'.)

And I wandered around snapping candids or semicandids or not candids at all. For some reason, people knew when I was "sneaking" around taking photos (click-click-click).

The sky remained overcast all day, although bright at times. And refreshingly cool after the heat of San Jose recently.  OK, cold.

And in the evening, we had our Bay Team club meeting, complete with occasional puppies and, yay, pizza. It was still cold and getting colder. (You can tell because Dustin, although still in short sleeves, conceded to the chill and donned long pants.)

(Below, Lonny fetching himself more pizza and all of us keeping warm and pondering equipment purchases.)

Headed for home around 8:30 (and it was still light then! Love summer!), home maybe 9:30, went to bed.

So, last night, it was again hot here in San Jose, and "we" again ran a noisy fan, but I slept well despite the trouble staying in sleep because of the firestorm in my neighborhood (It's only the 3rd, people, AND it's illegal in this county! (Chip ran away on the 3rd 2 years ago)), but catnapped until Luke--excuse me, Zorro-- woke me with desperation to go out at 1:30. I let him out briefly (Chip would have nothing to do with going out there with the noise), and then I went right back to sleep until...yep, Zorro...woke me around 7:30 desperate to go out, so I staggered downstairs, put the doggie door in, and went back to bed and right to sleep.  The miracle is that (a) the dogs then let me sleep until 10...—unheard of! likely due to their level of stress (good or bad) over 14 hours of travel and being at the agility thing— …when my sister called.

(She said, oh, so you're the second sister I've woken up this morning?  Then I officially named her Linda Sisterwaker.)

Then I catnapped for another 2 hours. And  (b) the dogs left me alone and dozed with me. Amazing. 

If you've followed all that, you're doing better than I am.  

Not looking forward to tonight's insane night of noise and flash-bangs and all that. Sigh. But we'll survive again, with noisy fan and probably leaving the radio on until the wee-wee-hours again, and then glorious sleep. 

Happy New Year

SUMMARY: Sleepy.  Busy.

Well--stayed up past midnight on New Year's Eve for the first time in years. Because local [illegal] fireworks started going off around 10:30 and didn't quit until 1:00. And they terrified Chip.

I closed all the windows and curtains and doors in the house (normally I have the bedroom windows open a bit) and turned on the radio in my bedroom and did my best to comfort him. The radio helped until the noises became too loud and too frequent.

Best results seemed to be with him right up against me, ears/top of head at the very least covered with the comforter and my hands covering his ears as well.  Poor guy.

It was around freezing here, which is pretty cold for us, so that's probably why it was less than 2 hours, thank goodness. And the day before was cold and windy, so there was pretty much nothing then. I hate to think what it would've been like if it had been nice! Maybe more like 4th of July, which went on from mid-June until mid-July.

Then got up early to try to catch an early movie with an agility friend (Sparkle and Ben's Human Mom). Ended up getting a later-morning one instead, then a quick shopping trip, then a quick visit to a casual post-race "breakfast" party at another agility friend's house, then home to play with the dogs in the yard.

And then--tired and recovering by lounging on the couch and reviewing email and all--and then this.

Happy 2015, and dog bless us, every one!

Aftermath and analysis

SUMMARY: In which Human Mom dons her sleuthing hat and tries hard not to feel horribly guilty.

The master bedroom has a walk-in closet with sliding doors. There's a bed in the corner there--put it there for Tika one night a long time ago and she used it for a while but then stopped. Chip often snoozes there, at least for a while, at bedtime or after.

This is where I found him, way back at the end of May, on a hot evening after I had been out, nearing heatstroke after hiding here from the Dang Fireworks. The windows were closed because it was hot out. The room was hot. No air movement. And no water within reach.  But apparently it was the best place to get away from the noise.

Since then, I've had a water bowl in the master bath (not the closet), just in case.

On the 3rd, all the windows were open to let the evening air in because it wasn't quite that hot. Evidence said that he had in fact sought shelter here for a while: The bed had a large wet spot on one side. Either he peed there or he lay there, panting and drooling, which stressed dogs do.

At some point, probably because the windows/drapes were open, he realized that this was not a safe place. I'm guessing that he first went to the other end of the hallway to the renter's room, as it was the only other door open on that floor. That's where he tore apart the miniblinds and left smears of blood everywhere on the blinds, windowsill, windowframe, and window.

I was sure that he must have sliced open his pads on the narrow metal slats of the blinds.

Apparently when he got the window fully open and pushed out the screen, he thought better of it, thank goodness, and headed back into the hallway.

Bloody footprints led down the main stairs and after that it's hard to tell where first, but I'd guess across the carpet into the living room and to the front window to try to get out there. Bloody footprints then went into the dining room, through the kitchen, back out to the front hall, and down the minor steps to the lowest floor. There were bloody footprints on the carpet into my office, and into the downstairs bath and laundry room, and then the damage to the doorframe to the garage door.

Basically he went into every available room in the house looking for solace and didn't find it.

Finally went out the doggie door, which says that he truly felt the world was ending, because when I'm here and there are a lot of fireworks, he will not go out into the yard. It must have taken a tremendous act of bravery.

I don't know whether he tried any other ways of getting out... the east gate, which he's periodically been digging under and I've been refilling, was untouched. There aren't a lot of ways for him to try jumping the fences. which are 7 feet (2.13 meters) and are reasonably new and pretty solid, although I did check all along it for holes underneath or loose/damaged boards or signs of toenails on the wood. Found a few here and there, but could've been from dogs chasing squirrels.

It's possible that he tried climbing onto this pile of pipes, which used to be raised on supports at either end, where the remaining board and pipes are.

However, this is the smoking gun: The attention that he paid to the west gate. He clearly worked at it for a while. All along the bottom, there's this (that's about a one inch gap at the bottom above the concrete):

Then this, along and just above the horizontal board at the upper area of the gate:

If he had hit just to the right, he could've opened the gate and gone out, but I doubt that happened. I think that he gained purchase on that top board, dug rear claws into the cross-board, and went up and over the top.

He's just a little dog (not quite 20" (50cm) at the shoulder) and the gate is 7' at the peak (over 6' at the low points). But he is agile.

And then he vanished.

Skip forward to the early evening of July 4th. Chip has been home with me since just before 1:00. He's lying there sleeping.  I receive two phone calls about 20 minutes apart from people who have seen my dog running down Blossom Hill (a major 40 MPH thoroughfare) and saw my posters. I explained that I had my dog, and they both said that's odd, it looks just like him, down to the red collar and all.

So I am revising what I think happened on the night of the 3rd: The "white dog" that people reported being near the VTA station over a mile southwest of me around one a.m. was not Chip--it was the same dog who was running down Blossom Hill the next evening.  Because that's exactly where I was afraid that Chip had been headed (when I thought it was him) if he had continued in the same direction. Which means that Chip didn't travel *quite* as far and had probably headed northeast from the very beginning--the direction in which we picked him up.

As it turns out, his only injuries were a deep but open, not-too-wide scrape on one knee (he's showing you where it is here) and one damaged toenail--I could see the blood in it still when he got home. No damage to his pads at all, thank goodness.

On the 4th, he was clearly one exhausted doggie. Lay around all day, never going out into the yard unless I went. In fact, stuck within a few feet of me wherever I went all day. In the yard, he showed some interest in the toy that I threw for Boost, but trotted a couple of steps and then stopped. Probably very sore from all that running and traveling.

Starting in the late afternoon, I played a long fireworks video on my computer. Didn't seem to bother him at all, so I just gradually upped the volume, what the heck.  (This is not the first time 've done this, but mostly it was after his initial scare a month back.)

In the evening, when we started hearing the first few booms, I went out onto the porch with all 3 dogs and a ton of chopped-up hot dogs and we did tricks and Chip got a treat every time he alerted to a boom. Eventually it was too much for him and we went inside and that tiny effort was over for the evening.

He paced a bit--from one room to another, then stood there waiting for the next sound, then moved again. Often to stand next to me, then to leave again. I'd pet him when he was near and talk to him quietly about the loud booms. Around 8:30, he finally wanted to climb into my lap.

So we sat there like that for a while; I draped the corner of a lightweight afghan over his ears and eyes and he seemed to relax more.

When we went up to bed shortly thereafter, I firmly shut the windows and drapes, set up a laptop playing the fireworks video. It didn't sound a lot like real fireworks, but it masked all but the loudest sounds, and actually worked like white noise for me.

I lay down on my side, invited chip up next to me, and we nestled like two spoons. I draped the corner of my comforter over his ears and eyes, my arm over his side and back leg, and we both settled quickly and slept.

Now everything's pretty much back to normal except that I'm concerned about leaving him home alone.  The evening of the 5th stayed quiet until about 9:30, and I dared to hope that that meant that everyone had used up their fireworks, but nooooo--started in again, and went until 1-frigging-thirty in the morning, off and on.   We made do once again, but it wasn't as intense and Chip didn't really want to spoon again and i didn't play the fireworks again and all was, well, as well as could be for the booms outside.

I hope that he never again has to have an adventure like this. Nor I.

Speaking of dogs being scared of fireworks

SUMMARY: Can laugh at it now--

Added a 3rd & 4th, July 5.

Comics of dogs and fireworks and being scared. What can I say?

http://theoatmeal.com/

Chip is home!

SUMMARY: He was missing only 14 hours or so, but it seemed like weeks.

[Oh, sorry everyone--I wrote this all up and then went off to eat and sleep without actually posting!]

I got home last night about 10, after a pleasant evening with friends. My renter, who had also just gotten home, said, "What happened to Chip?"

Me: "?"

She said that he had crashed through/knocked down the gate into her area, and there was blood on the windowsills.

Me: "?!?!?!*%*#" and a bit of calling Chip, which she had already done.

Her 2nd-floor windows--with the brand-new miniblinds that I installed with much cursing and fuming just 3 months ago--now look like this.  (This photo is today; she cleaned up all the blood smeared all over them and the windowsill. You're welcome.) The screen on the less-damaged window was pushed out of the window. Feared that he might have jumped.

Bloody footprints went down the main stairs and across my ivory carpet (not my choice of colors) in the living room...

...and all the way across the windowsill on the living room's picture window...

I felt like I was in a bad murder mystery scene.
All the way through the front hallway into the kitchen, then back down the lower stairs...

to the garage door, which he also customized some...

Now THAT is a dog in a blind panic from fireworks, because the dog door was available. I really assume that he finally went through there and over the very tall gate.

And then--no sign of him. I checked the entire house and yard to be sure.

Then the exact order of things is a little foggy, but this is the general idea.

I walked and drove around the neighborhood calling his name for maybe an hour. Came back home and dealt with things like finding good photos of  him for lost dog posting, posted on Craigslist, updated his contact info for his microchip (still had his previous owner's disconnected phone number), emailed his previous owner, posted a notice on NextDoor for all my surrounding neighborhoods, posted on FaceBook for all my friends in and out of the dog world.

Went back out for a while and checked Martial Cottle Park a bit and went farther afield, maybe half a mile or so.

Came home again about midnight, checked email (a few "hope you find him"). And a phone call from a dog agility friend offering to come help search tonight! I said that since fireworks were still going off, he was probably still running and it made more sense to wait until morning.

Then went to work creating a flyer that I could email around, post on facebook, and print up a zillion in the morning to go around the area. Checked email about 1:30 and OMG there was a note from someone on NextDoor who had nearly run into a big white scared/lost looking dog about a mile and a half southwest of me. Sure sounded like him.  I raced out there and walked and called and looked for about half an hour.

I haven't posted much about my back/nerve/muscle problems, but it hurt like heck to walk and those parts of me were pretty miserable.

Got back home and discovered emails from two NextDoor neighbors (whom I've never met) who were back out in the area searching for him, too!  If I ever doubt human nature, I just have to remember all of this.

One said that they thought he'd gone up the bike path, so I drove out to various ends of the bike path to call his name. (Boost accompanied me on a couple of outings, hoping Chip might smell her and come out.)

Poor Boost and Tika, with me racing in and out and giving them "guard the house goodies" over and over, were a little confused & worried, I think.

Finally I'd done everything I could think to do (looked for other online sites to post lost dog info, read some info on best ways to find lost dogs [which I was already largely familiar with from our escapades with our husky years ago]), scrolled through ALL the found dog photos at the closest shelter--they post them every hour 24/7! More good humans doing that work.

So got into bed around 3:30, managed to drop off around 4.

Tip: The only reason I managed to do it is because I have a tendency to catastrophize (what if he was hit by a car? what if someone steals him? etc.) so I have been practicing for many months to recognize that that's what it is: A form of predicting the future and of course you can't predict the future. So I concentrate on the here and now--I've done what i can for tonight. I need some sleep to be able to function. Chip has my phone numbers and a microchip, so it will be easy for someone to contact me.-- and this allowed me to drift off.

But woke up again at 6, only 2 hours later. Intended to just check email and go back to bed, but there were already emails from friends saying, "I'm here in the area and looking" and "what can we do, we're on our way over?" and my sister apparently saw my post when she woke up early and showed up at my door at 7 (lives half an hour away). So I found myself coordinating emails and cell phone calls and groups of people who were communicating with each other and me, largely with group texts which I had no idea how to do on the cell phones, but we made it work.

I searched for nearby vets and other dog-related businesses (pet stores, boarding, etc) and printed a zillion flyers and lists of addresses for people to post things at.

That sounds quite compact, but really was constant activity for me and them, no down moments to even think about food (although I did eventually actually get dressed).

It all culminated at about noon like the classic peak of a movie storyline when 5 people--two searchers in cars,  two searchers who'd hauled their segways over here and had been searching, and another person just arriving--all appeared at my front door at the same time and we stood there with my sleepless-fried brain trying to make decisions with arms and fingers all pointing in various directions and flyers flying left and right and then--

My home phone rang.  I had not been using my home phone in all of this. But it is the *first* number on the tag on Chip's collar.

I ran and grabbed it. Not a very good connection with a man who didn't speak English all that well. He asked whether I was missing a dog and I said yes! And we had some other conversation that was muddled--he couldn't stay, he had to go to work, etc with me saying, no! I'm coming over NOW, where ARE you?

When we straightened that out, he was at the social services building about 4.5 miles northeast--which would put him about 6 miles from where folks thought he was sighted last night where we were concentrating our search.  When he said, "there's something wrong with his foot," I was positive it was really him.

My sister stayed here to man the phones and whatnot, one friend tossed me into her car to drive over there, another friend tossed a bucket and bottle of water and bag of goodies into my lap from her car, and off we went.

Seemed like a 50-mile drive, and then there he was with 2 guys by the side of the road! She screeched to a halt, I ran crying down the sidewalk (oh, did my back and leg hurt? I don't remember that at all, just crying and running). They were smiling as I came. I handed them all the cash I had with me (they hadn't asked for a reward, but seemed like the right thing to do. Wish I'd had more.) and thanked them over and over, took off their leash and put on my friend's leash.

Chip? Oh, hi, Mom. Good to see you, I'm kinda tired. Can we go now? Very calm, very stoic as we examined the huge bloody spot on one rear knee. I think he'll live. Very low-key when we got home and didn't lie down for a while; thinking that he must've had a good night's sleep curled up somewhere.

So--thanks ever so much to all the people who gave up parts of their night's sleep to help search or to talk to me (some of whom I never knew before), who showed up unasked in the wee hours ofa holiday morning to spend it searching for my dog and posting flyers, who let me know that they'd be on their way as soon as their schedule allowed it, who blew off part or all of their Friday agility competition to help, who gave me emotional support, who organized the help while I was brain-fried, who gave my dogs their own treats when he got home, and I can't even think of  everything. My heart is filled with your generosity and kindness.

I'm going to list names later if people don't mind being mentioned publicly, but I want to be sure that it's complete, so that'll be after I get some food and sleep.

You are all wonderful. I'm grateful and honored and so much in everyone's debt.

Chip is out and lost and scared

SUMMARY: Effing illegal fireworks.

He was OK when I was out Tuesday evening. I didn't think I needed to worry about the evening of the 3rd, and I was planning on being here on the 4th.

He's gone. Tore up his feet and/or mouth trying to get out, and my doorframe and metal miniblinds (most likely the source of all of his bloody footprints).

I got home at 10 and then went out looking for him. Also posted on the Next Door neighborhood list and craigslist. At about 1:30, after making a flyer, I saw an email that said that someone had seen a scared, lost-looking big white dog down by the VTA/chynoweth station. That's well over a mile from here.

I went back out and can you believe it two of my neighbors have been out looking, too--the ones who saw him in their car and another who saw our messages online.

No sign of him. My back is in agony and starting to spasm--more meds are in order.

Will try to get some sleep and decide what to do next in the morning. Hoping that someone just calls me; he does have my phone numbers on his collar. He's also microchipped but silly me I'd been meaning to getting around to finalizing that I'm Chip's new owner with his previous owner, but didn't. His previous owner's phone # on the microchip registration is no longer in service, and there are no alternatives given. I did call the registry and send in a transfer per their instructions tonight, but who knows whether it'll get updated or not.

Chip Training Update

SUMMARY: Wobble board, nose touch, fireworks and heat, fence barking.

We started a Foundations class last week and it's good practice for him to wait quietly in his crate (except when he periodically barked challenges at the silhouette of a dachshund lawn ornament on a nearby wall--he did something similar at a dog park with painted pictures of dogs outside the fence). Also good for me to be more focused on training.

This last week not so much for focusing; up to Portland for 2 days then another day full of graduations then a long work day and an evening out, so we practiced mostly just Saturday and Sunday.

WOBBLE BOARD/TEETER

Last week's issue: The wobble board.  Fairly early on with him, I shortened one leg of the Table (by about maybe 2 inches), played tug with Tika on it and with Boost on it for him to watch, then got him playing tug on the ground and convinced him to jump up and continue there. Other than a short period of concern, he then relaxed and paid the movement no more mind. So I figured I was OK.

Introduce the class teeter with about a 6" drop at one end to play the Bang Game (reward the dog when he makes the teeter end bang down), and he stepped on it, it moved, and he was done with that. So then: Introduce the class Wobble Board with a 10" drop and supported only in the middle rather than along one axis (like my table or the teeter) , and after putting his feet on and it moved like crazy, he'd have nothing to do with it.

The instructor loaned me a wobble board to bring home. Trying to get him to decide to get on the board and shape that behavior (reward for looking at it, then for moving towards it, then for a foot touch, etc, but in very small increments). After 3 days, all we had achieved was two feet on the side that's in touch with the ground. Slightest movement, and he was outa there. I propped it up some so that the drop wasn't nearly the full 10", but no go.

Boost and Tika, that's a different matter. Could hardly keep them off it, even though Tika's back legs are pretty week these days and she kept losing her footing, falling, getting back up, trying again, very excited. Boost also excited about it: Jeez, really good chicken treats just for standing on a wobbly board!  (Neither Jake nor Remington had issues about things moving under them, either--Rem used to leap onto the patio glider to get a better view of the squirrels, and that thing leaped all over the place.)

Anyway, Chip would even jump back if the board moved because the other dogs or I moved it, and Doh! it took me until today to remember how long it took to desensitize him to the motion & noise of the dog door flap:

• Chip Day 5 (including dog door training)
• Chip Day 6 (including doggie door training)
• http://dogblog.finchester.org/2014/04/dog-door-success.html

So this morning I did a ton of Human-Mom-Bangs-Wobble-Board with him standing near it and getting a treat every time I banged it.  Did that for a total of maybe 5 minutes until he wasn't jerking every time it hit.  THEN within a few minutes more, he was getting his front feet on and leaving them on when it moved slightly (with me supporting it so it wasn't so sudden). Still cautious, but now not jumping back as soon as there was motion.

So he's just going to take longer on this before we get to the Teeter, but the teeter should be a piece of cake afterwards. Says here.

NOSE TOUCH TO TARGET

I'm still working on that haphazardly, but he's moving to touch it in various offered places now. Not all the way to ground level yet, but the touch is getting more forceful and he's doing it to various flat objects, not just the clear plastic target. When I taught this to Remington--my first-ever clicker training assignment--he was doing a forceful nose touch & moving to the target within our first 5 minutes! Chip is not that dog.

FENCE BARKING

The dang dog next door likes to throw himself at the fence and make a ruckus. I've debated asking the neighbor whether we could just put in a gate and let the dogs play together, because it sure looks to me like your basic fence-fighting game: "Hold me back, hold me back!" but when you remove the fence, the dogs are best buds.

Anyway.

Tika occasionally gave in to temptation and returned the fence throwing/ferocious barking, but could be easily deterred.  Not Chip. I've tried chasing him away and saying No! and Cut it out! in various firm but not agitated ways. What I seemed to get was him checking to see whether I was around whenever he made a ruckus. If I just opened the back door, he'd come running, but if I didn't, or if we were already out in the yard, fageddaboudit.

I moved towards prevention rather than deterrence: If I were in the house (e.g., trying to work) and he started in at that, I just brought him inside and closed off the doggie door. Which is inconvenient for me and for the other dogs. And didn't solve the problem, just postponed it.

SOOO I reversed strategy, using his "checking in to see whether I was around" existing behavior with the Premack Principle.

• Wikipedia Pemack's Principle (more-probable behaviors reinforce less-probable behaviors)
• Video showing it used for--yes--fence fighting (more-probable is fence fighting; less-probable is coming away from the fence and paying more attention to me)

Results were very good after the first couple of sessions (while I was out doing yardwork or training or whatever in the yard). By the end of it, he'd hit the fence, bark a couple of times, and look at me, instead of staying there engaging in frantic almost-uninterruptable throwing/barking. OR, even better, look back at me as he approached the fence, hence was rewarded, so never even got there. Yeah! Don't know whether this will take care of what he might do while I'm not here.

But progress feels good.

SIT/DOWN STAY: Getting longer. Trying to work it with the hose spraying (just one squirt--he's staying in position more of the time now with that one squirt).

FIREWORKS

Why on earth the Idiots are setting them off when (a) it's illegal and (b) we're in the worst drought in recorded history and fire danger is extreme and it has been very hot lately. But, whatever. Ten days ago, found out that they Freak. Chip. Out.  Neighbors, many of whom are also upset (many with freaked-out dogs of whom one actually has seizures from the experience), think that it might be graduation parties. Yeah, best way to graduate: Break the law, terrify kids and dogs for miles around, and start a raging wildfire. Good.

Chip just stands rigidly, trying to figure out where the noise is coming from, jerking his head left and right. Tries hiding in one closet, tries hiding in the other closet, tries crawling under the bed, tries to crawl into the sink (?!!!!) and around and around. He'll settle a little bit if I let him hide under my bedcovers with me (I have never ever let dogs do that before), but even that lasts only a little while. Plus it's hot!  So some nights it has been tough for me to get to sleep.

He's the first of my 7 dogs to be this way.

Yesterday, my yard hit 104 F (40 C), and it was still over 90 when I left the house around 5:30 for the evening, so I did not open the upstairs bedroom windows at that time. When I got home at 11:30, all three dogs greeted me, but then Chip disappeared. I went upstairs to open the windows and turn on the fans, and he was hiding in the big closet, curled up in the bed that I put in there. Still pretty hot up there, but if he felt safe, OK...

I left him there for a bit until I heard him sort of coughing--like he had something in his throat. Went back upstairs, and he vomited a tiny bit (on the carpet, of course). I noticed then that there were several little vomit spots like that near and in the closet. The water bowl in the upstairs bedroom was empty, so I filled that and he immediately drank a ton of water but kept that little cough and a few more little vomits as I frantically tried to clean them up. Then one big gush and all the water he had drunk came out.

That's when it occurred to me that he was in the early stages of heat stroke. (You know, sometimes I'm not too quick on these things.) Went through various stages of me figuring out what to do. Immediately wet his stomach/groin area and ears (bare skin to be cooled by the fans) and paws. He started to settle. Let him drink more water--that was a mistake, as it again came back out a few minutes later. Then I moved him and the other dogs outside (where he didnt want to go), where it was noticeably cooler than upstairs. Kept the skin parts moist and waited to see whether the coughing stopped, which it did. Left the dogs outside for a bit while I did a cursory clean-up on the various vomit sites.

Came back downstairs to find him standing on the full-height counter outside the kitchen window. I have no idea how he got up there, except that he sure can jump.  Maybe there was a firework that I didn't hear and he wanted to get back in.

I then provided a bowl of water with ice cubes and let him drink a little at a time over about 10 minutes while I held a blue-ice pack on various parts of  his body; although he already felt much cooler than he had when I first held onto him, I wanted to be sure. Fortunately he likes to be held and touched.

When he got to where he didn't want to suck down tons of water, and there had been no more coughing or vomiting, we went back upstairs to bed and everything and everyone was fine.

At 2 in the morning.

More Fireworks and Bored Dogs

SUMMARY: All the shots are edited, and the dogs are tired of it.

The rest of my fireworks shots are here--I recommend playing in slideshow mode.

This dog is somewhat bored.

This Collie is boreder.

I'm not entirely sure why they both have bright blue patches. I swear I haven't been painting them.

Photographing Fireworks

SUMMARY: Some people have asked how I got such great shots.

These are most likely the best photos I've gotten of fireworks, and as I told one person today, I got them by following directions.

You can search the web for "photographing fireworks" and come up with tons of pages. Here's the link I looked at this year:
http://www.carynesplin.com/how-to-photograph-fireworks/

In a nutshell:

• For all cameras:
  
  • Use tripod!
  • Use remote shutter release or 2-second timer to reduce camera shake 
  • Zoom in as needed
  • (Of course you know that you don't use flash to shoot fireworks, right? Just in case the thought crossed your mind--)
• If you have an SLR (I have a Canon DSLR):
  • Use lowest ISO (my lowest is 100). (This helps to keep the sky black and not grainy.)
  • Use shutter speed 5 to 8 seconds
  • Use f4 to f8
  • Set lens to manual focus and set focus to infinity
  • Adjust everything as needed based on your situation (see the article).
• If you have a point and shoot, check whether there's a fireworks setting--most do nowadays, the article said. I checked, and surprise!, my Canon S100 indeed has a fireworks setting. Just FYI, when I used the setting, the camera shot at:
  
  • ISO 80
  • Shutter speed 2 seconds
  • f8
  • Guessing it must've set itself to manual focus/infinity, because I didn't notice it trying to achieve autofocus
  • No flash

I shot some of the show with each camera. Some of my notes from the evening:

• The most important thing for me is always using a tripod or some way of keeping the camera completely still.
• The biggest ah-ah! for me this year on the DSLR was using manual focus set to infinity. Neither you nor the camera have to try to figure out how to focus on a nebulous object in the dark. Maybe if you were trying to get a shot with some in-focus, well-lit foreground object--say, the disneyland castle--you  could use auto focus, but even then I think probably manually set it once and leave it there.
• A longer shutter speed gets you longer trails on the fireworks and more fireworks per shot. I ended up at about 4-second shots with my DSLR, after the 5 and 8 seconds just seemed to have too MUCH in them.  The 2-second setting with the pocket camera was too short; next time I would just set the camera to manual mode (I can do that with mine) and give it a longer time.  Of course, this will change depending on how quickly they're releasing fireworks into the sky. You don't really need to adjust the aperture (f stop) much once  you figure it out for your situation, because the fireworks burn and spread so rapidly and are then gone, so it's not like a single light shining in a single spot.  You could probably set the shutter speed to 10 seconds and still get good lighting but a mass of overlapping fireworks--I think it would look quite cluttered unless the fireworks were really spread out across the sky. (And 10 seconds might start making the sky too light.)
• For the grand finale--maybe it's because they were shooting things so close together--the image burned out in the middle. Would've been better to have a smaller aperture or faster shutter speed during that time. Not sure whether that's true for all shows.
• Set up the camera and keep shooting. Each firework took less than 4 seconds and they were usually shooting one up at least every few seconds. I tried to time pressing the shutter either as soon as I saw a rocket head upwards from the ground, or at the instant that it exploded. I could do either of those with the SLR at 4+ seconds, but with only 2 seconds, the timing was more crucial; I think that hitting the shutter at the instant it starts to explode works better for that.
  But, essentially, I essentially just pressed the shutter again each time the previous shot completed.
• Tripod: For my DSLR, I own a lightweight tripod that can have quite a bit of shake just from the shutter releasing. We sat on the ground this time, so the tripod was fairly short. I held it down firmly with one hand below the camera, pressing it towards the ground, to help reduce shake.  For the small camera, I used a gorillapod. We had these nifty chairs that are just a back and a seat so you're sitting comfortably on the ground. The gorillapod on my bent knee proved to be rock solid.
• About using a remote shutter release or the timer--meant to bring my remote release for the DSLR but forgot. Or use a 2-second timer--yeah, decided really quickly that, especially with the 2-second shutter speed, I wanted to press the shutter exactly at a certain moment. So I placed my hand firmly on the camera, also pressing it down onto the tripod, pressed the shutter, and just held my finger there until the shot completed (didn't release my finger from the shutter).
• Some of the fireworks were burned out in the middle of each tentacle. Maybe something smaller than f4 would've been slightly better, although the darker colored ones weren't showing up nearly as well as the really bright, light ones. 
• I would've liked to have more photos with more fireworks in each; guess I'll experiment with longer shutter speeds again next time. 
• Really, though, it's a crapshoot what you're going to get. because by the time you see what a firework looks like, it's too late to get its photo.  You don't know whether they're sending up one or a bunch, or whether they'll all be in the same spot one after the other (burns out the middle) or nicely spaced across the sky, etc. Just start shooting and keep shooting (and as I noted above, try to time it as rocket is going up or just as it explodes).
• If you want photos of what the fireworks really looked like--such as the ones that explode as a smiley face or heart or whatever--you'll need a much faster shutter speed. I didn't even bother trying those.
• We didn't know until the show started how low in the sky the fireworks were going to be and how the distant row of trees would block our view. It was a bit of a disappointment, although I don't think it's a bad thing to have something in the foreground. It was too dark and too crowded to try to move at that point.
• In post-processing, I ended up reducing highlights on almost all the photos, so a smaller fstop even than f8 might have worked better. I also ended up cropping almost all the photos, but I think that's unavoidable if you just want to set up your camera and not move it around.

Good luck trying your own! Let me know if you do shoot some and how it worked for you.

Happy Birthday, USA!

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday.