Transient failures

SUMMARY: Pondering the frustrations and annoyances.

You know about transient failures, right? A brief malfunction that happens at unpredictable intervals. Like when you can't post a comment on Facebook, and then, moments later, you can.

So.

Remember back on September 16/17, when, after showing no signs or issues, Tika became suddenly so much in pain that she could barely stand? And then, after 26 hours, abruptly with no apparent cause, she turned right back into her usual bouncy, running, cheerful self?

Yesterday morning, we were out in the yard. I threw the toy for the dogs a couple of times, then left them to their own devices while I wandered around picking up a day's worth of dog poo. Suddenly behind me, a sharp, high-pitched yelp! When I turned around, Tika was on three legs and beating it for the house (she always goes inside when she's in pain, and sometimes even up to my bed).

I looked at and felt her pads, her toes, her toenails, her whole front left leg, and got no reaction. But, every time she tried to stand, a little whimper and back on 3 legs.

Human Mom is cursing the luck--we have a USDAA trial this weekend that it's too late to ask for my money back from. And class Thursday night, to boot. But I'm not going to fall for the trick of taking her to the vet again, since the last time was an expensive way of learning nothing.

So. Fast forward a few hours, until about 2 hours before class, I walk into the front hall where the leashes live--and Tika appears with a huge bouncy sproing, then leaps several times straight up in the air with all four feet off the ground. (She LOVES going for walks.) And no hint of any kind of soreness.

I ran her tentatively in class, then full out, and she ran just fine, didn't look uncomfortable at all. She's still fine this morning.

Transient failures of Tika's body. Hope it doesn't happen again any time soon.

Last night, as on most nights recently, I herded Boost out the back yard before bedtime to try to get a little pee out of her so I wouldn't have to get up in the night. There are 5 steps down from my porch to the yard. I've gone down those steps a zillion times, day and night, light and dark. And the back light was on.

And yet, somehow, I hit the last step wrong just WALKING calmly down the steps. My ankle twisted under me and I hit the pavement hard. For about 30 seconds, I thought maybe I had broken my ankle, it hurt so bad. Thank goodness, the pain died away quickly and allowed me to concentrate on emitting profanity about my hand, knees, arm, and shoulder.

The short story is that I lived to tell the tale. I have skin scraped from one knee (apparently onto the inside of my jeans, which were unharmed in the making of this film). The other knee is bruised feels a bit twisted (dang, and it felt SO GOOD in class last night). The ankle is a bit sore, although only slightly puffy in one spot this morning. The wrist only hurts when I laugh--no, actually when I play tug with the dogs or try to open a prescription pill bottle or reach suddenly for the computer mouse or, like, bend it. My back and shoulders just feel out of sorts in one way or another.

What happened to my brain/feet/instincts last night? Dunno. Transient failure. Hope it doesn't transiently fail again.

... because we're off to try to pick up a few more of them thar Qs in Dixon. Glad that both Tika and I can still run.

The Right Attitude

SUMMARY: It's all about the dog.

Missed the official Bloggers Posting Day about attitude--that was Wednesday, and you can read some awesome posts from other agility bloggers starting here.

Earlier this week I was in no position to be blogging about attitude, so let it slide. But something happened today: I'll Have Another, who won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, was scratched from the Belmont Stakes due to a swelling in his left front tendon. The on-call vet for Belmont "compared the problem to an Achilles tendon injury, which usually keeps a person off his feet for six weeks. 'This one to the horse is nowhere near that severity,' he said, 'but it takes the same amount of time to rehab it.'"

Can you imagine the pressure to find some way to compete? Horse racing isn't known for thinking first of the horse--I hear periodically about doping scandals and such, and there's always a suspicion that more's going on than you know about. There hasn't been a triple-crown winner in 35 years, and if I'll Have Another were to win, he'd join a very, VERY short list of triple crown winners among all the hundreds of thousands of horses who have raced through the years.

This was probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance for any horse owner, and they voluntarily pulled the horse rather than trying to hide it and get by with the swelling.

I'm sure that his stud fees will be very high now, but they'd have been even higher if he were to have won.

Of course, there's the risk that you could kill him now by running him, and then you'd have nothing. They must be thinking of that, too.

But what it reminded me of was an agility handler who, several years back, had made it onto the World Team. This is no easy feat. You have to practice--a lot. You have to improve yourself over and over as the competition level rises. You have to travel to the appropriate competitions. You and your dog have to be in fabulous shape. And you have to win again and again for an entire year. But only eight dogs a year out of all the dogs in the US make it onto the team. Sure, there are some handlers or dogs who are good enough and determined enough to get more than one shot at one of those slots, but really, you have to think of every one of those opportunities as a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Because there might not be a next year to try again--dogs get older, or you get injured, or come what may.

Then, after being selected, there were more team practices and focusing on what needed to be honed for the trip overseas.

But, not long before leaving for Europe for the world competition, this handler's dog came up with a little, tiny, itty bitty soreness. Maybe nothing that most of us would notice. But she noticed, and that was that; after careful evaluation of the dog's injury and determining that it would probably heal with a few week's rest, she scratched from the world team and stayed home. It must've been a bitter pill to swallow, especially for someone as skilled and determined as she is. And I don't know what she said in the privacy of her home or to her closest friends, but I never, ever, heard a single public bitter or self-pitying word about it. She was always matter-of-fact that it was the right thing to do.

And of course, it was.

And all together, that's the attitude to have in dog agility.

Here Comes USDAA Again

SUMMARY: Injuries, class, weekends.

I've been trying to take it easy with Boost for the last week to let whatever's going on in her right rear leg heal up a bit. We've been going for long walks and playing gentle fetch (where she doesn't run full speed and doesn't crash & slue around like crazy getting the toy) and a lot of tug'o'war. No practicing agility--no tunnels (which she loves) or jumps or anything.

She never looks sore except sometimes when she gets up from lying there for a while. I haven't noticed it in the last few days, so maybe it just needed a little rest.

Tonight in class is the first agility I've done with either dog since class last week. Our first couple of runs were disasters with both dogs. I wasn't getting in my cues, or boost was knocking bars, or I just can't think fast enough to do what I'm supposed to do when something changes on course (e.g., boost knocks a bar and all I'm thinking about is rewarding her for making a tight wrap around a jump upright, so she wraps and knocks the bar and gets a reward). I frustrate myself so often with my own mental limitations.

In one run, both dogs knocked the same bar when I put in a front cross (and Tika doesn't knock that many bars any more), and in another run, both dogs popped out of the weaves that were heading generally towards a large hedge (but really, 10 feet away!).

Ah, well. By the end of the evening I think all three of us were doing better.

Which is good, because we have a USDAA trial this weekend and another next weekend.

Both at Manzanita Park at Prunedale, both by clubs of which I'm a member. I'll be at the score table again.

I moaned and groaned and waffled mightily over what to enter either dog in after our last couple of trials, putting off the decision until the last possible moment, then just went ahead and entered both dogs in everything as usual and got the entries in the mail just barely in time to meet the closing dates.

Tika has seemed so healthy and happy and eager lately. Just that deafness thing.

I have no reason to believe that either dog will do any better in the coming competitions than we've done in previous ones. I'm trying to adjust my expectations and attitude accordingly.

I'm both looking forward to the weekends of agility and regretting the lost weekends that could've been full of things *other* than agility. As usual.

Guess if we all stay healthy and happy, it should be good.

USDAA Weekend Coming

SUMMARY: Big trial this time.

Bright and early (well--dark and early) Saturday morning I'm off to the wilds of Turlock for a huge USDAA trial. I heard maybe 450 Masters runs on Saturday, in one ring. Yes, it's been done before, but it makes for a really long day. (350 runs is a generally accepted number for a reasonable maximum per judge per day.)

Show secretary says: " This trial is very full and we will probably be turning on the light and running into the evening.  Please park as close as you can and the same thing with crating.  I know it will be tight but the weather should be good, at least no rain.   We will need volunteers to keep this trial running.  The white boards will be at both rings so volunteer often.   Fault limits may have to be set."

Gosh, we hardly ever set fault limits. We'll see how this goes. Usually when we do have to set them, you're whistled off at your second off-course in the same run. 

I can tell that it's big because Tika usually in a field of  5 to 9 22" Performance dogs.  This weekend, looks like 9 to 12 dogs.  Boost, in 22" Championship--chyah, 34 to 67 (Grand Prix)! Wonder if the uptick in entries is because Nationals is "nearby" this year? Well, Denver is closer than Kentucky, anyway.

I think I can run with my injured hamstring. Otherwise it's going to be a sucky weekend, because my dogs won't run for anyone else. I keep vowing to do something to rectify that, but never somehow get around to it. We'll see how things go Saturday. My hotel room is at a super-low, nonrefundable rate, I believe, so I pay for it whether I use it or not.

Dogs are ready to go. Both were very happy in class last night and running well. (Well, there's Tika's ongoing inexplicable missed cues and things that seem so un-Tika like. Still monitoring the situation.)

At least, as noted, the weather should be lovely. Yesterday was like the best spring day you could imagine, and it's still the middle of winter!

Some People Just Don't Ever Get The Memo

SUMMARY: I blew it in the clothing arena again!

I've had trouble in class for the last two weeks getting even slightly challenging front crosses. The challenging ones--what a mess. I feel like I'm back in remedial front cross land. I probably actually am.

And you can see why from this photo:

Certain persons whom I shall not name just clearly don't know how to dress properly for agility class! Who knew it was all about the clothing? ...Oh, wait, *I* knew that.

It was a good, challenging class tonight. It was a beautiful night, too--not quite warm enough for t-shirt weather, but downright balmy. Orion looked down on our little party, thumbs in his belt, tug-toy hanging from his side--one can't see anything except his belt because he's wearing black pants and a black top. And the moon, gorgeous as always, rose from behind the hills to cheer us on (see her in the photo among the clouds above our heads).

Roo, who finished her MACH last weekend, brought flourless vegan chocolate cake for us to share (pretty clever for a dog). Which is like having a giant, cake-shaped chocolate truffle that you cut slices out of. Wow! Mmmmm! All to spur us on to greater heights of achievement, of course.

In our very last, just-for-fun weave-pole challenge, I just couldn't get there the first time, but because I was inspired to greater heights of achievement, I tried again, and dagnabbit pulled something. I think it's the biceps femoris part of my hamstring, for those who know or care about those details (I had to come home and look up some pictures). So I'm looking at agility this weekend, a 10-mile, 2400-foot elevation gain hike next weekend, and 4 more weekends of agility after that, and I'm sitting here on an ice pack.

That can't be good.

I'm hoping it'll all be better in the morning. Next time, I'll know better than to show up for class in bluejeans and a red fleece. I'll be, all, like, black pants and black or gray top, and then I'm sure nothing bad will happen to me and all my front crosses will work perfectly.

Because it really is all about the clothing.

What's a Joint Like You Doing in a Nice Girl Like This?

SUMMARY: Wednesday Night at Rancho San Antonio.

I have a sad litany of joints that are displeased with me. There's my crappy knee (the one that got operated on a few years back). It has been less happy with me in recent weeks--although I think gradually worse over months.

My right hip has been unhappy for well over a year (the one where the doctor thought it was the muscle and it needed rest but just kept getting worse? that one. There's a post about that somewhere... ok, here and here). That's the hip that's sometimes so painful that it wakes me up at night turning over, for example.

Then there's the OTHER hip, upon which I unceremoniously fell back in April at Haute TRACS during the last Steeplechase run. I think it's getting worse. It has now made my right hip's pains seem trivial. Sure, I've done two more agility trials since then, and a couple of nice brisk hikes with the sierra club also.

But, last Thursday in agility class, I discovered that the first couple of runs I just couldn't run, the stiffness and pain was too much. Walked and jogged a little around the field for several minutes to loosen up more, and then barely managed the rest of the class. Haven't done much since then. But have been feeling the lack of exercise, so I tried the Rancho San Antonio Hike with the Sierra Club Wednesday evening. I was chugging along with a bit of hitch in my giddyup, chatting, thinking a bit about the pains, and determined to just man up and get through it--only 2 hours, 5-6 miles and 800 feet elevation, really, a babe could do it!

I made it up the steep water tower hill, about 30-40 minutes in, but, when we continued down the other side, and I had a chance to think about how much it hurt to keep up, I realized, wow, I really shouldn't be out hiking.

The taste of failure.

I still had, of course, 40 minutes of hiking by myself back to MUTT MVR. I wasn't incapacitated, but my hip was not not not happy. My condolence was that I got to snap a few photos on my way back (the troupe goes way too fast to snap photos while we're moving).

I therefore also skipped class with the dogs last night. I still haven't called the doctor to have things checked. Blah.

But, here ya go, Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve in the hour before sunset--on my photo site.

Ready for the Weekend

SUMMARY: Tidbits.

Thanks to folks who comment on my cry of horror about the slice halfway off Tika's dorsal pad. Tuesday I got up the gumption to see whether I could clip it off without hurting her and it wasn't too hard to do. (Used toenail clippers!) It looked fine then and it hasn't bothered her at all. Yay!

I've set up a few things in the yard this week to work on a very little bit. Did some very tough weave cross-behinds; Tika got them all but Boost took a little work. (Knew that because she spun out of them in Pairs last weekend when I tried one.)

Did just some running full out in circles using jumps and tunnels. A little tiny bit of dogwalk contact work. Some sending out to jumps. Some simple gambles. Now, we'll see.

Left MUTT MVR's side door open, and the zipper bag containing the trial dogfood unzipped. This afternoon when I went out there, discovered the gallon ziplock bag from the dogfood bag empty with a large hole torn in it. Someone got a way large food supplement today. Boost didn't want to take the Guard the House Goodie when I left, but that could've been stuffed belly or just that she didn't want me to go. Found a pile of tossed-up not-digested dogfood in the back yard when I went out. Seems to me that Boost was much slower than normal eating her dinner this evening. But don't know, probably never will know, and everyone should be fine by Saturday morning.

Then it's up at 5:00 a.m., drive through the beautiful sunrise countryside with the shreds of tule fog over the fields and off to Prunedale once again with friends and beasts.

*#&@%! and Other Choice Words

SUMMARY: Not now, Tika, no injuries!

This morning, warming the dogs up out in the extra soccer field, I thought I saw Tika limping after chasing Boost down the field. She stopped to sniff at a gopher, and I watched her carefully, and saw nothing else. Wouldn't that just suck, with 3 weekends in row of agility and nothing for 2 more months, and her doing so well, for her to come up injured halfway through the 2nd weekend?

I looked at her feet just in case she'd picked up a burr or a foxtail or something, but nothing.

Before coming home from the trial, running the dogs on the lawn with a friend, I commented that Tika didn't seem to be as fast today in competition as last weekend and maybe the novelty had worn off (no competition for over 2 months, almost no agility classes, then 4 whole days of agility! Wahoo! But now, been there, done that).

This evening, i realized she was lying on her bed, licking at her ankle area. Upon closer examination, I see that she has sliced off a penny-sized flap of the carpal pad on her right front foot. But not cleanly off; it's like a flap.

It's not bleeding, doesn't seem particularly sensitive to the touch, doesn't look dirty or jagged.

I've slathered it with neosporin and put vet wrap around it--which I suspect she's now off in a corner carefully removing--and now I have to decide whether I want to spend a chunk of $ and a couple of hours to have the vet look at it in the next day or two. I don't think I want to try to snip off that flap of skin on my own; I'm afraid it's still "live."

And I don't know whether that means she shouldn't be running next weekend.

This sucks.

Day 5 After Haute TRACS

SUMMARY: Monday looking back.

Runs run: 23.
Miles walked (per pedometer): 33.5.
Courses built as co-chief course builder: I dunno, somewhere less than 20.
Pounds lost: 3.

Video cameras dead in the water: 1. (Can you believe it, I finally remembered to ask people to videotape us, and it worked for one--ONE--run in a 4-day weekend, and then crapped out completely. Auuuuuughhhh! Now I can't even play the tapes I already have, or even the one run from this last weekend. To decide: Repair this and make an effort to translate all the tapes into another medium? Pay costco to translate all the tapes to another medium and buy one of those cute little pocket-sized video cameras? I'm thinkin' the latter will be about the same price as the former and take me a whole lot less time.)

Knees bothering me: 0. Iced the problematic one once when it was a little achey, but otherwise wonderful!

Hips bothering me: 0. Not a peep out of that supposed pulled muscle all weekend!

[But from the perspective of Thursday--after sitting at my computer for 3 days and getting virtually no physical activity except mowing the lawn, NOW my hip and knee are quite painful. They were fine Monday and Tuesday. I'm thinkin' it's not activity that's hurting them, no matter what the doctor says.]

Blisters: 3. THAT made it hard to get around. Why don't I notice that my feet hurt until too late?

Awards

Tika: 15 Qs out of 21 Q-able runs. Tika's weekend awards:

Boost: 5 Qs out of 21 Q-able runs.

Boost's weekend awards--well, YES it IS better than nothing, thanks for asking!:

Titles earned

Well, we knew about:
- Tika PD3
- Boost MAD

But I hadn't checked out the numbers before the weekend on how close we were to other stuff. So Monday I learned that Tika:

• finished her ARD (accomplished relay dog--10 pairs relay Qs)
• finished her AKD (accomplished snooker dog--10 Snooker Qs with at least 3 Super-Qs (she has 8 SQs))
• finished her PJ3 (performance 3 jumpers -- 5 jumpers Qs)
• finished her performance tournament master bronze (15 Qs, at least 3 in each tournament)
• is now one Gamblers Q short of her PGD (gamblers 10 Qs).
• is now one Standard Q short of her APD (performance ADCH)! I'm a little bummed that we didn't get it, but onthe other hand it would've been really dumb to have gotten it and not realized until I got home and missed out on the awards!
• is now two Qs of ANY kind short of her LAA Silver! (Lifetime Achievement Award, 250 masters/p3 Qs)! There were times I thought I'd never get here, but, look, here we are! Now on to Gold with 350...

We have two weekends of agility coming up now, with 4 shots at getting that last Standard Q, and I think 20 shots at getting those last 2 Lifetime Qs. I think we can do it!

Goals met

1. Boost Jumper Q for MAD: Done!
2. Tika win all three Gamblers and all three Snooker (with the entry size, that would've totalled 15 Top Ten points for each of the two). Achieved: Gamblers, 3rd for 1, 1st for 5, 2nd for 3.  Snooker: 1st for 5, 3rd for 1, 1st for 5. PLUS earned 10 in Jumpers and 11 in Standard. Pretty good, really.
3. Tika's 3rd Standard for performance MAD: Done!
4. Tika and Brenn win Team: Done!
5. Boost earn Super-Qs in Snooker. Yeah, well, can't have everything.
6. Boost have some nice smooth runs without knocking bars or runouts or refusals: Well, sort of. I don't know that there's really been an improvement. It still feels like that Jumpers Q was a fluke.
7. Tika win Steeplechase. Done!
8. BONUS 1: Boost is looking like a real gamblin' dog, at least in the opening! She had:- 3rd place of 42 dogs in Team gamble
   - 2nd highest opening pts of 46 dogs in Thursday's gamble
   - 5th highest opening pts of 51 dogs in Saturday's gamble
   - very good opening points in Sunday's gamble AND got the gamble for a change, placing 6th.
   
9. BONUS 2: Boot's team Qed in DAM Team!
 
10. BONUS 3: Tika's amazing saturday/sunday performance: 10 Qs out of 10, 7 1sts, two 2nds, and two 3rds (one class wasn't Qing) out of usually 8-9 dogs.

Result details

(In case you want to peruse them--top 10 points are in parens next to our placements.)

			qual	place (top 10)	our time /pts	1st plc time /pts	SCT/ min pts	our faults
Boost	Fri	Grand Prix	n	27th of 56	43.45	32.87	52sec	10
Boost	Sat	Steeplechase	n	36th of 61	34.83	28.28	35sec	5
Boost	Thu	Mas Gamblers	n	14th of 46	28+0	30+20	op+cl pts
Boost	Sat	Mas Gamblers	n	16th of 51	41+	42+25	op+cl pts	.53
Boost	Sun	Mas Gamblers	Q	6th of 48 (3)	32+30	38+30	op+cl pts
Boost	Fri	Mas Jumpers	Q	10th of 49	26.54	23.11	39sec
Boost	Sat	Mas Jumpers	n	48th of 48			sec	E
Boost	Sun	Mas Jumpers	n	44th of 44			sec	E
Boost	Thu	Mas Relay	n	42nd of 42			sec	E
Boost	Sun	Mas Relay	Q	17th of 27	39.10	37.84	50sec	10
Boost	Fri	Mas Snooker	n	31st of 45	24+9	32+27	37pts	6.74
Boost	Sat	Mas Snooker	n	42nd of 47	19+	24+27	37pts	9.43
Boost	Sun	Mas Snooker	n	27th of 40	22+	23+27	37pts
Boost	Thu	Mas Standard	n	40th of 40			sec	E
Boost	Fri	Mas Standard	n	20th of 42	56.70	46.49	62sec	15
Boost	Sat	Mas Standard	n	45th of 45			sec	E
Boost	Sun	Mas Standard	n	19th of 42	54.42	38.26	56sec	10
Boost	Fri	DAM Gamblers	Q	3rd of 42	31+20	34+20	op+cl pts
Boost	Thu	DAM Jumpers	n	16th of 46	31.33	23.82	28sec	3.33
Boost	Fri	DAM Relay	Q	11th of 29	56.01	55.07	sec	20
Boost	Thu	DAM Snooker	n	31st of 46	27+9	30+27	37pts
Boost	Thu	DAM Standard	n	46th of 46			sec	E
Tika	Fri	PfD Gamblers	Q	2nd of 5	33+16	35+20	op+cl pts
Tika	Fri	Per Grand Prix	n	7th of 7			sec	E
Tika	Thu	PfD Jumpers	n	5th of 5	34.46	26.11	29.49sec	16.97
Tika	Fri	PfD Relay	Q	8th of 13	41.65	40.28	sec	5
Tika	Thu	PfD Snooker	Q	1st of 5	27+27	27+27	37pts
Tika	Thu	PfD Standard	n	3rd of 5	48.28	40.3	46sec	9.28
Tika	Sat	Per Steeplechase	Q	1st of 10	32.75	32.75	42sec
Tika	Sun	Per Steeplechase	-	1st of 4 (3)	32.58	32.58	sec	5
Tika	Thu	P3 Gamblers	n	3rd of 6 (1)	22+0	23+20	op+cl pts
Tika	Sat	P3 Gamblers	Q	1st of 8 (5)	39+25	39+25	op+cl pts
Tika	Sun	P3 Gamblers	Q	2nd of 8 (3)	32+30	32+30	op+cl pts
Tika	Fri	P3 Jumpers	n	9th of 9			sec	E
Tika	Sat	P3 Jumpers	Q	1st of 9 (5)	25.68	25.68	36sec
Tika	Sun	P3 Jumpers	Q	1st of 8 (5)	25.68	25.68	40sec
Tika	Thu	P3 Relay	Q	5th of 13	45.16	40.15	65sec	10
Tika	Sun	P3 Relay	Q	3rd of 11	35.75	33.65	53sec
Tika	Fri	P3 Snooker	S	1st of 7 (5)	29+27	29+27	37pts	5.22
Tika	Sat	P3 Snooker	Q	3rd of 9 (1)	20+27	23+27	37pts
Tika	Sun	P3 Snooker	S	1st of 8 (5)	21+27	21+27	37pts	1.2
Tika	Thu	P3 Standard	n	4th of 7	50.99	46.98	61sec	5
Tika	Fri	P3 Standard	n	2nd of 9 (3)	46.89	50.96	64sec	5
Tika	Sat	P3 Standard	Q	1st of 9 (5)	45.60	45.6	59sec
Tika	Sun	P3 Standard	Q	2nd of 7 (3)	49.94	46.53	59sec

Miscellany All Over Again

SUMMARY: various subjects--

Sylvia Trkman has a new web site, with discussion pages.

Weather--Monday: Snow on Mount Hamilton and frost warnings. (It was beautiful! And I didn't have my camera with me!) Today: I want to have my screen door open but it's off the track and won't budge! Maybe later this week I'll dink around with it.

June 22 is Take Your Dog To Work Day. Mark your calendars and check with the boss! (My boss says OK! As long as you remember to stay at your desk and work!)

I didn't take a single photo of Tika last week and thus missed 52 Weeks For Dogs *again*. This is the 3rd or 4th time. I just can't keep up. I did so want to push myself to get a great album of Tika shots, but I think this was just one more commitment too many. Will probably have to resign.

My hip is really bothering me. If my MD is right and it's a muscle thing, why does it get worse after 3 days of doing nothing and better after a day of hiking? She said it might *seem* that was but that's not really what's going on. Argh. OK, now back to relying on the miracles of modern chemistry.

8 days of agility in a 16-day period?! Am I nuts? Or what?

San Francisco might be using dog waste to produce energy! Or--has this experiment fizzled? I can't find anything on this later than 2007 on my couple of quick searches.

Earthquakes: 7.2 in Mexico Easter Sunday just south of the California border. Fortunately not much there, not much damage. You can see a cool map of the 30,000+ people who reported online about how strong it felt. On that same site, if you search their archives for your state in the U.S., you might be surprised about how many quakes are recorded for your area, too, and you can see similar maps of responses. Right, Johann The Dog who just moved to Tennessee?

The U.S. Team for the European Open championships have been announced, and four Bay Teamers are in the large dog group (Nancy, Channan, Silvina, Robert (Rob)). Is it no wonder we always have trouble getting blue ribbons around here? :-)

Another local who also trains at Power Paws (as I do) is in the medium dogs: Marcy Mantell, who is a talented photographer in her own right and who is now the first and only U.S. dog (ever, I believe) to  World Agility Champion/ AKC National Agility Champion simultaneously. She has posted some videos from the AKC trial on You Tube:
Finals,  ISC,  Round 1 - Standard  , Round 2 - JWW,   Round 3 - Hybrid




Meanwhile, Ashley and Luka are back in training now that her injury, whatever it was, seems to have healed.

Am I proud of my friends and teammates? You betcha!

Are my dogs eager to be doing something? You betcha!

Slow But Busy

SUMMARY: Not much to say about agility, but maybe about other assorted things.

Good-bye to two more old familar dogs who ran with Jake and Remington in their youth, when USDAA jump heights were *really* high! So long, Spike (the last of the Border Newfs) and Mysti (Border Collie). Tika and Remginton each earned a Masters Pairs Q and a DAM Team Q with Spike; Jake earned a DAM Team Q with Mysti at the 2001 USDAA Nationals. Ah, memories.

Last Wednesday, hiked in the rain (without the Merle Girls) with the Sierra Club group. Usually there are about 20 on Wednesday evening hikes. Last week: 4. Wimps!

I have now found 6 geocaches. Really, I'm not getting hooked. Too busy for another hobby. But it is kind of fun if I'm going to be in the area anyway. See http://www.geocaching.com/, click on "Hide & Seek a cache", and search for caches found by username ELF1.

Dogs are so bored; I'm so busy; I'm finding that I am still not really looking forward to 3 weekends in a row of agility trials, while at the same time I am looking forward to doing some agility with the dogs. Busy busy busy.

I'm a little concerned about the muscle in my hip that the doctor thinks I injured and needed to ice/ice/ice and rest/rest/rest. Well, did not much of anything for a couple of months--ok, hikes here and there, but not many really, and pretty much stopped the daily walks. Result: Hip still sore, plus added 5 pounds.

My nephew is getting married in Arizona Memorial Day weekend, and it looks like I'll stay down thataway for the following week to do more sight-seeing, so I'll be skipping a trial then that I'd normally attend. Slow, slow agility trial attrition. Slow, slow increase in dog boredom and agitation. Boost, who has never done fence-fighting with the dog next door in all her 5 years, has just started into that the last week or so. Dagnabbit.

Mice and Men Got Nothing On Us

SUMMARY: Sometimes things (let us say, just off the top of my head, CPE trials the day after Thanksgiving) don't go the way you planned, hoped, expected, or even imagined.

Here are some photos with circles and arrows on the backs of each one explaining what each one is to be used as evidence against us.

Had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

And didn't get up until the next morning, when we had to go to agility. In the rain.

I love--just ADORE--trials where I can crate out of MUTT MVR and the only set-up or gear hauling is hanging some sun shade.

Agility as a weight loss device

I swear that I took barely more than a forkful or two of anything on Thursday. ...Well, of *everything* on Thursday. Friday morning, 4 a.m., scale shows three (!) pounds heavier. Good thing I'm going to agility, where I'm physically active, have two dogs to run, and tend to eat lightly.

First thing in the morning, near the check-in window, there are huge stacks of really tasty-looking chocolate chip cookies. Well, what the heck, if I have just ONE that's not so bad, because I'm at agility and tend to eat lightly.

A while later alongside the course maps that I was picking up sat a really tasty-looking cake--not sure what for, but I don't often have a chance for cake (and frosting, which is what I *really* like), and what the heck, I'm at agility where I'm really active and so what if I have just one piece?

Then, middle of the day, WAG had a big birthday bash for one of their key helpers--he'd be like their estate manager--with an amazing-looking carrot cake with the thickest cream cheese frosting you've just about ever seen. Well, I'm fond of carrot cake and I really like cream cheese frosting, and really, OK, I know what's going on here, but I don't get carrot cake or c.c. frosting often, so I'll just have one piece of that.

In the worker raffle, I usually put most of my tickets into the bags for the free trial entries because I already have more beds, toys, books, bags, and so on than I know what to do with. But I usually look for something that I might kind of like to have that doesn't have too many tickets in it as a possible consolation prize for when I don't win the free entries and I'll put one of my tickets into that bag. So there was this huuuuuge tin of Almond Roca--

Need I say more?

On the other hand, my pedometer did indicate that, in one day of an agility trial. I covered enough steps to equate to 12 miles! I'll tell ya, after several years of doing mostly score table at trials, where what's involved is mostly sitting, at this trial I did leash running, scribe running, pole setting--all kinds of things where what's involved is mostly NOT sitting.

Maybe the day was a wash in terms of actual calories inhaled/exhaled.

One day of agility as a way to burn off bored dogs' energy

I get up at 4 in the morning, am out of the house by 4:30, drive 2 hours through occasional drizzles, arrive at the agility place, take the dogs over to the field for a little frisbee warm-up and pottying, and Tika turns sharply on the wet ground, yelps, and comes back to me on three legs.

I have several single-word comments on how I felt about that, most of which aren't printable here. Entry fees for 5 runs, down the tubes. Opportunity to burn off some mental and physical energy, down the tubes. Opportunity to win the Turkey Trot again--well, there's still Boost, but Tika's been my winning dog before and I had high hopes for her. Five chances to earn those precious CPE Qs since we don't do much CPE and Tika has a long way to go to her C-ATE, down the tubes. Damage to dog--don't know, but guessing that'll be more money down the tubes.

I couldn't find anything. Didn't do the hunchy-over thing like she does when it's her shoulders or neck, seemed clearly to be in her foot. Gave her a rimadyl and an hour's rest. Let her out of her crate. She hopped down from the van with no sign of problem. Stretched fine, did figure 8s around my legs fine, played tug-of-war vehemently. Trotted alongside me out to the field with the practice jump. Sent her out around a couple of posts. Everything fine. Sent her over the jump, and she flew over with enthusiasm, turned tightly towards me with bright eyes, yelped, and came up on three feet.

Scratched her from her first run and found the vet who is also an enthusiatic CPEer and is pretty much always there at WAG competing with her dogs. Waited for her to do her run with her dog, and then she looked Tika over. She saw pretty quickly what my inexperienced eyes didn't detect--the knuckle of Tika's left front little toe is swollen. She doesn't think it's broken, unless it's a hairline fracture. No way to tell without an x-ray.

I thank her for looking (hopefully profusely enough) and ponder what to do. Tika is on leash, has been over the practice jump, and despite now walking again with a limp, she is acting eager and excited to be near the agility ring at an agility trial and clearly WANTs to run. I ponder what to do.

The next class is Full House, which is like a Gambler's opening with no gamble, so we can do almost anything we want to. There are some tunnels and 6-pole weaves on the course, so I decide I'll try to have her just do a couple of those *gently and easily and slowly* to see what happens. So I line her up next to me in front of a straight tunnel, don't put her into a stay or anything, just release her gently and say, quietly and calmly, "Through!" (we don't say "tunnel", we say "through". There's a lady in our class with grayhounds who says "Be small!" it's very cute. They really do have to hunker down to get through the tunnels).

OK, anyway, those of you with driven, enthusiastic dogs just KNOW what happens--Tika blasts full throttle through the tunnel, and because I'm trying to be calm and sedate, I'm way behind her. So when she blasts out of the tunnel, she careens into a sharp U-turn to see what I'm up to (eyes wide open and bright and ears up and looking SO happy to be out there)--and suddenly halts and comes out of the turn limping.

I try once more a couple of hours later, in Snooker, with the judge's dispensation-- just one straight tunnel, which she does fine, and one gently curved tunnel--which she comes out of limping. And still bouncing back and forth (mostly on 3 feet) trying to get me to tell her which obstacle to take next.

So that's enough stupid attempts to satisfy both of our desires for her to do some agility. She's scratched for the rest of the day, including (sob!) the Turkey Trot.

The up side to this was that it completely vindicated my decision not to go to Nationals two weeks ago because Tika keeps coming up sore at random times. I was deadly disappointed today, but imagine how awful it would've been for this to happen in Arizona.

Tika as the Mondo Q-Earner in CPE and Boost as the also-ran

I hate going to trials and coming home with few or no Qs or placements. ESPECIALLY CPE, where Tika has quite the record of not only massive Qs and first places, but often THE highest score/fastest time of all dogs at the trial. It's an ego boost for me, who is obviously pathetic in her need for ego boosts like this, but there ya go. After Tika's injury, I was fully prepared to come home with next to nothing.

First run of the day was Wildcard (I am not explaining games today), in which a dropped bar is fatal. I pick a pretty darned simple course--it's essentially an M-shaped path, how hard can it be? We will have to successfully negotiate one rear cross, which isn't Boost's strong point.

Boost runs past one jump on the second leg of the M and I barely call her off the tunnel after it (but in fact she does call off and I get her brought around without backjumping), and she turns entirely the wrong way on the rear cross ( but I get her turned around and on course again with no faults), and, wow, we're CPE-clean and have a Q! But lots of wasted time.

The thing you have to know about "clean" in CPE is that there are never faults for refusals or runouts. AND, although not clean, at level 4 and 5 in CPE (which is where Boost competes now), on many courses you can still Q even if you have certain kinds of faults.

But now Boost has one CPE-clean run and a Q for the day. Not to my surprise, we don't win--but, jeez, with all that wasted time, we're still 2nd place.

Next up is Full House. I love full house with my dogs. Just get as many obstacles as possible (with a very minimal number of rules) for points. And this one was particularly juicy--I could do a course with basically two very smooth loops and one rear cross and pick up almost every possible point on the field--
6 out of 6 5-pointers
7 out of 8 3-pointers
5 out of 14 1-pointers (maybe more depending on how smoothly things went).

So--she breaks her start-line stay, so I immediately put her into a down-stay and walk calmly around her and then release her when I'm ready. Probably means we'll loose the final 5-pointer because of the wasted time. On the first loop, she ran PAST the tire (drop 3 points). Then she missed the weave entry (drop maybe 5 seconds to get her lined up and back in, so probably that means drop the other 5-pointer off the end. After that, she flew, but sure enough the whistle blew as she flew towards our last 2 obstacles, both of them 5-pointers. Ah, well, crappy run but a Q.

And, to my surprise, a win in our group (Level 5, which is almost the top leve). Not the highest points of the day by far if you compare to all other dogs, but I'll take a Q and a 1st anyway.

And, guess what! That's the last Level 5 Q she needs in that class, so now she's eligible for her first Level C ("championship") entry (just in that class) at our next trial. Yowza!

Next is Snooker. It's a very tight little course (really--laid out on a 70x70 field which is literally half the area of a typical USDAA course) and really fast long-jumping dogs--and especially the ones who aren't always the best performers--could have a tough time. I decided, what the heck, we IN THEORY have the skills required to do a three-7 opening and get through to the end. It requires that she hold her sit while I lead out, then pull her between a jump and a tunnel to the first 7-pointer--and of course that she keep all her bars up.

Anyway, once again she turned the wrong way on a rear cross, and it was almost a disaster, but we held it together and completed the course in well under the allowed time.

Turns out--ta-da!--she was the ONLY dog out of all dogs entered at the trial who earned the full 51 points! What a good girl. Pleased with that, indeed.

Next up was Jumpers. Man, some weird sequences in that one AND it would require a ton of running on my part to be in the right place at the right time. And then there's the bar-knocking issue. OK, so she ran past one jump--I pulled hard to keep her off a tunnel trap and she responded too readily--so wasting time turning her around and getting her back over it, and then there was the tough push/turn out of the tunnel that I just handled wrong, so we wasted SO much time on course, but in fact never went off course and no bars came down. So: Another CPE-clean run, another Q, and this time merely 4th place. (Slower dogs definitely had advantages on this course.)

And, finally, Standard, our only regular class of the day with contacts. Thank goodness, all of her contacts were spot-on perfect, and she handled a tough tunnel-dogwalk discrimination with aplomb, AND kept her bars up. So, OK, she ran past yet ANOTHER jump and it took a lot of effort to get her back to it, because I had been trying to send so was a long way away, and she turned the wrong way on a rear cross (sensing a trend here?), and fer cryin' out loud was headed straight at the weave pole entry but turned back to me to see what I was doing, wasting yet MORE time, but it was CPE-clean, so a Q. And apparently it was a tough-enough course that she managed her third 1st-place of the day.

So, for the day, five out of five Qs, three 1sts, a 2nd, and a 4th. Way better than I had expected.

Boost knocking bars everywhere

In CPE, she's jumping 20" instead of 22", and that seems to make a big difference. She didn't drop a SINGLE bar all day, out of 6 runs!

Turkey Trot

I so wanted to win! It's just a fun game, it has no meaning whatsoever, but since my dogs have won 4 times so far, I just really wanted to keep on winning. Plus you get these really cool embroidered Top Turkey awards and a goodie bag.

 

The usual wonderful Turkey Trot silliness ensued.

The game this year was 21. Your team had two minutes, and dogs took turns trying to earn 21 points EXACTLY. There was this simple little 4-obstacle gamble that of course our experience masters-level USDAA dogs should have no troulbe getting, which gave us 21 points automatically, rather than trying to accrue 21 points on the rest of the course.

The Turkey Trot gamble (jump teeter weaves right side of tunnel). Notice that simple but problematic blue jump located right where you want to push the dog out to the far side of the tunnel.

There was an alternative good route of 7 obstacles (including 2 aframes) that was pretty fast for 21 points if you thought you could do that exact course without popping the aframe or knocking a bar. (And of course many other choices on the course.) But we figured we could just do that 4-obstacle gamble over and over one after the other and rack up multiple 21-pointers. Piece of cake, right?

We were all so fast that we each got 2 shots at it and not one of us did it correctly even once (4 times into wrong side of tunnel, one teeter flyoff, and boost who couldn't even do the dang weave pole entry one of her times), which meant that we then had to take an additional 3 obstacles each time to make our 21 points. And then of course two of those runs the dog didn't quite do what we wanted, so it was more than 21 points.

Anyway, we ended up with four 21 pointers. Several teams had 4 or 5 and one had 6.

Then your team drew numbers out of a pot, one for each 21 you earned, and the sum of those numbers you drew determined the winner. (That's the element of luck. The skill is in getting enough 21s to earn the right to draw more numbers.)

Boost's team ended up in 2nd place out of 8 big dog teams, dang. So close. But oh well. Disappointing but not nearly as disappointing as not being able to run Tika in it. (And I don't want to act too disappointed because I LOVE the fun of the turkey trot and the different games each year and don't ever want Susan to stop doing it.)

However, the only other person I know who had 4 Turkey Trot wins going into Friday, a Bay Team friend (and was Jake's teammate on at least one of his wins, as was one of his teammates) DID win in the small dog division, so now he has 5 wins. Pretty cool indeed.

So--awake at 4:00 a.m., crawl into my own warm bed about 10:45 p.m., lights out!

And our agility heroes ride off into the sunset. Much later, after the Turkey Trot is done.

Stretching...or Not

SUMMARY: Cramps, stretching, fruit in my very own yard.

Last night as I dozed off in bed and changed position, the muscle inside my right thigh and halfway down the side of my calf started to spasm/cramp like crazy. Man, those things really hurt. Tried to massage it and keep the leg stretched to make it go away. Sometimes my lower spine compresses the nerves and I get some of that, but usually in the sciatic nerve, and usually if I can get to a position where I can do some relaxing stretches, it eases off. This time, every time I moved, it went again.

I finally got onto the floor to try to do some stretching, and it went again. Repeatedly. Then, as that eased, it shifted to the top of my thigh. I'm sure the dogs thought I must be rabid, rolling on the floor and moaning and cursing and begging for it to stop. I think they were looking for the shotgun already. Then, after it taunted me with several repeats and then eased off and I moved slightly, it started on the inner thigh in my other leg. When that finally eased, it moved on down to the shin and foot of my first leg. Every time it would start to ease, I'd move, and it would start up again. Over and over.

That was 20 minutes of abject pain. I was ready to tell anyone where the treasure was and betray all my fellow double agents to make it stop.

When it all finally decided to quit, and I was able to do some stretching of the spine (hard to tell which came first), I hobbled downstairs to research about leg cramps. Yeah, I worked very hard the last 2 days, hauled a lot of agility equipment that I don't usually haul, sweated a lot when I don't usually sweat. Could've been the weight on my spine. Could be mild heat stroke--I did feel unnaturally cool in the evening before bed. Could be dehydration--I drank 4 sodas, a glass of milk, a bottle of water, and had a bowl of ice cream and some fruit between getting home and going to bed 5 hours later. Could have been I lost salt and potassium. Could've just been the unusual type of exercise. OK, so much for research. But everything said, drink more. And some said, bananas and orange juice are good sources of potassium. And some said add a tsp of salt per quart of water and drink that.

I was still thirsty, so grabbed another soda. (These are all diets, BTW, no calories.) Having had my fill of bananas for the day (2 already), I stood there in the kitchen at midnight peeling oranges (fortunately I had a huge bowl sittign on my table from the tree in my yard). Couldn't deal with drinking salty water, so I had a couple handfuls of salty pretzels instead. I'm sure that's VERY healthy.

And then I slept just fine, thenk yew. But the muscles that cramped *hurt* today--not ache from the work they did, but like they were yanked in the wrong directions. Bleah.

Meanwhile, back at the dog training arena: I've been working for many months to try to get the dogs to stretch on command. Susan Garrett says it's easy, just have a clicker and treats with you when you get up in the morning and are doing your morning rituals. So mostly the dogs have learned to stretch in my upstairs bathroom. Every time I go in there, night or day, for any reason, the dogs show up to stretch. But only their front ends; I can't catch them stretching their back legs out often enough for it to have registered, although I'm thinking that Boost is starting to do it more often.

Boost has also converted her front end stretch into more like a play bow, although her elbows are straight and it's better than nothing. Tika does actually get the shoulder and neck muscles stretched when she does it. Obviously I didn't hold my criteria well enough with Boost.

I've been putting a command to it, and they've responded really well...in my upstairs bathroom. Have recently been experimenting with it in other locales. Was just out in my side yard, thinking about how much the muscle in my inner thigh hurts, when the dogs wandered over. I had no treats or clickers, but I did have my camera, so thought I'd give it a try. Tika did a perfect front-end stretch, but danged pocket camera wouldn't focus fast enough to take the shot. And she wouldn't do it again when she realized there were no treats.

Boost, however, did it after my 3rd or 4th request... VERY quickly.... and then had to be coaxed to try again, and DID! Long enough for a photo.

And the reason I was in the side yard was to scout out my absolutely favorite yard-grown fruit:

Blackberries! This is apparently the season, RIGHT NOW! Got to get out and start pickin'. I'm SURE they're jam-packed (ha ha?) with potassium and salt and electrolytes and muscle relaxants and all like that. I can just tell!

Working On Keeping Spirits Up

SUMMARY: Because those spirits sometimes sink more than one would like.

Mom

Spent the day Thursday with mom in the hospital. She looks and sounds fine, but there are critical medical issues occurring. We were hoping that she might be home today, but I've not heard anything today at all. Thank goodness for another sister who spent Wednesday and probably most of today there.

Boost and bars and serpentines

Last night in class, we had a bunch of serpentine exercises. Boost got through most of the ones that I did with her, but that last one, grr. During the evening, I'm guessing that she knocked 2 or 3 bars per run, and these are sequences of no more than 14 obstacles. Not promising for getting that jumpers qualifier this weekend.

And the last serpentine was one at a very shallow angle, so the dog is taking the jumps almost parallel to her body. These are of the type that Boost always wants to run by. Well, for fun, we were timing this particular sequence because there were two ways to handle the ending--not even involving these two jumps.

Well, Boost first went past the 2nd jump a couple of times. Then she went into her alternative mode for Me No Jump, Me Run kinds of jumps: Run almost past it, then swoop in with a couple of little steps and hop over it facing almost in the opposite direction. Was driving me nuts. I tried being further behind her, further ahead of her, yelling my lungs off, telling her to Hup Hup Hup!, with assorted advice from instructor and classmates. Every. Bloody. Time. You'd think that after all those repetitions she'd figure out where we were going and adjust her path. But no.

I took a break, let some other dogs run, tried again. Same thing. Finally I said screw it, she's just going to do it the way she wants to do it and I'm going to try to finish the run to get the time on the last part. Well, I tried so hard to get to where I wanted to be and get her over the jump also, that I crashed backwards through the side of a heavy wood-winged jump with the built-in metal ground bar, and somehow my hand ended up beneath me.

Nothing broken, near as I could tell (jump or bodily parts), but the thumb hurt enough that all I wanted to do was to get home and ice it. Put the dogs in the car, downed some NSAIDs, and headed home. Turns out that ice on my thumb was more painful than the injury. Don't know why it helps so much on a sore knee but not the thumb--not enough flesh to absorb the cold?

Waking up today, I'm also thoroughly bruised on my opposite arm, although I don't even exactly remember hitting anything with that arm.

I hope things go better tomorrow in Santa Rosa...

Weather

...Oh, the snow level's now supposed to be down around 1,000 feet "in snow country"; Santa Rosa isn't, really, but it's at about 350 feet. Could we have a White Agilitymas? That would be cool. I mean...really really really cool... like, guess I should pack my long down coat.

Computers

Spent two hours today trying to solve the issue of why I could send email up until 9:25 this morning but not after that. An hour and a quarter with AT&T (service provider), 5 different people, and they said it's not their problem and I finally believed them and hung up. Except that they basically run their service through yahoo (I'm not entirely clear on the concept), and it's apparently yahoo's AT&T servers that are giving me the problem, and their online help covers a lot of ground but not the ground in which my problem is growing roots. (OK, give me a break, I'm coming up with metaphors in a rush here.) Problem is not solved. Have to copy and paste everything I want to send into a rudimentary web email facility to get it to go out. Well, at least I can *get* email. Or... I was, before I started fixing things. Hmm, nothing has arrived in several hours. AM I getting email still?

I hate computers.

Christmas

I'm a Christmaholic. Usually can't get enough of it. I have tens of thousands of lights in boxes in my garage that are not going up this year. I have a couple dozen boxes of Christmas ornaments and gewgaws and decor in my attic, only some of which will make an appearance this year. I have an entire 60-disk CD case that is filled to overflowing (as in, maybe should get another one) with Christmas music. Love it love it love it. Have more Christmas CDs than all other kinds of music put together. I will listen to all of them, sometimes multiple times. Deck us all with dogs and dog hair, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-laaaaa-laaaaaaaah!

I turned it on about half an hour into my journey through AT&T's support system to try to remind me to keep the holiday spirit. Not sure it helped. Made it harder to understand what they were saying, sometimes, which was maybe not a bad thing.

Dogs pretty much ignore the music, unless I sing along, which disturbs them greatly. At least, having all girl dogs these days, I don't have to worry about what alternative uses they might conceive of for my lovely Christmas tree, whose twinkling lights I can see above my computer monitor. Yay Christmas!