Weekend Results

Tika had one of her best USDAA weekends this weekend. In fact, she ran beautifully and we seemed to be very much in sync, so that we got through several very difficult courses without an off course or even a misstep on any of the difficult parts that were knocking a lot of excellent dogs out of the competition. We do have some things to work on, however—I'll post a separate laundry list.

First, the statistics: Tika Qualified in 3 of 9 runs, for a 33% Q rate—all on Saturday, dang; thought it was going to be a GREAT weekend, but Sunday wasn't quite as successful. Still, it's definitely one of our best USDAA Masters-level weekends. For comparison, here's a list of USDAA trials since Tika made it to Masters in all classes:

Labor Day '04	4 of 11	36% (like Jake, her first all-Masters weekend is her best, and then we go downhill for a lonnng time--)
Sept '04 Woodland	1 of 7	14%
Oct Madera	1 of 8	13%
Jan '05 Santa Rosa	0 of 6	0%
Feb Turlock	2 of 10	20%
Feb Prunedale	1 of 7	14%
Apr Dixon	3 of 12	25%
Apr Sunnyvale	3 of 9	33%
Aug Prunedale	2 of 10	20%
Labor Day	1 of 10	10%

The best part was that Tika finally earned a Masters Jumpers leg! And it was on one of those very difficult courses that knocked out a lot of dogs, AND she placed 4th! This completes our Master Agility Dog title (MAD), which is a very big thing. A friend took a couple of us out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate, which doesn't happen for just any title. Actually, it was a surprise treat: We were really just going out to dinner to be sociable, and then she announced that she was treating us in celebration. It's nice to have friends.

In addition, she Qed in the Grand Prix, but we missed the up on the dogwalk again, dropping us to 8th place and they gave fancy ribbons down only to 6th place, so once again we didn't get a pretty placement ribbon for GP. But it was a beautiful, smooth run that I was proud of.

She ran completely clean in the Pairs Relay; once again, our partner had a bobble for a 5-point fault, but this time we were both plenty fast enough to earn a Q, but not a placement.

So in the next 3 weekends of USDAA competition:

• A Standard Q earns our Standard Master title
• A Relay Q earns our Relay Master title
• We still need 2 Snooker SuperQs, 4 Jumpers, and 4 gamblers (in addition to preceding) for our ADCH. At this rate—one each per year!?—it'll be a very long time!
• Two grand Prix Qs earns us the right to compete in the GP at the 2006 Nationals
• One Steeplechase Q earns us the right to compete in the Steeplechase at the 2006 Nationals

The competition never ends!

Oh—runs we DIDN'T qualify?

• Saturday Standard: Table refusal (see Laundry List) but otherwise beautifully done.
• Saturday Snooker: Very stupid mom. (Set her up for the wrong first obstacle.)
• Sunday Standard: Up contact on dogwalk and table refusal. Only 6 of 64 dogs Qed, and we were one of the few who managed to get through it without an offcourse. And then lost it on these stupid things!
• Sunday Snooker: My wrong position after contact (see laundry list) for an offcourse.
• Sunday Jumpers: 2 bars followed by an offcourse.
• Sunday Gamblers: An extraordinarily difficult gamble. Only 6 of 67 dogs got it—and among them, only 4 handlers. Also Tika scootched over the start line, wasting time, and popped out of the weaves in the opening, losing 7 points.

Off To Another Agility Trial

We're off to Turlock for the weekend. Carpooling with a friend and our five dogs. Makes the minivan mighty cozy, but oh! so much better than driving by myself at 4:30 in the morning, in the dark and the tule fog, barely awake. Now we can both be barely awake together. Fortunately her two dogs put together aren't even as big as Jake's head. Or, OK, maybe a little bigger than his head.

Here's what we're doing this weekend:

Jake:

• Two jumpers runs, one each day--last thing of the day, of course, so he gets to sit and wait all day. Poor little guy.

Tika:

• Two Standards: If we get even one of them, that will give us our Standard Master title, which would be very cool.


• Two Snookers: If we could Super-Q in both, that would give us our Snooker Master title, which would be VERY cool. But there will be only 3 Super-Qs out of 18 dogs competing, and we've had a history of either knocking a key bar on the last obstacle that we need for the super-Q or mom does something totally stupid like I did the other weekend at SMART that I'm still kicking myself for.


• Two Jumpers: If we could get even one of them, that would be our MAD (Master Agility Dog) title, which would be extremely cool. It would be our first master Jumpers leg after 2 (?) years of trying. Argh. Maybe only 1 year. A long time anyway.


• One pairs relay: No title possible here, as we need 2 more legs. We've had a history of either us or our partner going offcourse. Hate when that happens. But the nice thing is that other faults don't matter much because it's time plus faults scoring, so if you're fast, you can make up for a knocked bar. (Unlike in Standard and Jumpers.)


• One gamblers: Always nice to get these. I'm a lonnng way from earning a title here.


• One Grand Prix qualifier for THIS year's nationals at some ridiculous entry fee. We're already qualified. I just thought that (a) maybe we could finally repeat our success of her first USDAA trial ever, where she actually earned a GP ribbon, and (b) we need the practice on GP courses before the nationals.

Another random factoid:

Vet says that a dog's 4-month weight is almost always half of what they'll weigh full grown. Boost was about 22 pounds. That would make her as big as Tika when she's done growing, which I was hoping wouldn't happen. We'll see--

The Random Thoughts Continue

• Boost managed to go two days in a row without peeing in the house! Hooray! I hope it continues. I've been trying to make sure that she's outside at frequent intervals but without making it obvious that I'm ushering her out, and trying to wait for her to pee without giving her the cue words ("hurry up" is what I've used for my dogs), and then praising mightily when she does it on her own. Likewise, when she goes outside without me, I try to watch from inside and then praise, so that she doesn't always connect my presence to the peeing operation (what an honor--to have my presence associated with pottying. Sigh.).


• I've been second guessing my "retirement" of Jake in November of last year ever since. He was so annoyed with me at the first 3 completely retired trials that I went back to entering him in a run a day. But since that time, he often refuses to play in the back yard, one of the things that I think always kept him fast and limber. He is sometimes really fast in class and at other times, like last night, he just sort of bounces through the course (rather than running flat out) and heads for the gate or the far corners of the yard every time I try to set him up for a run. I dunno. If I had kept him in full agility mode all along, would he be doing better physically and mentally? Or worse? I'll never know--


• Started hacking at my blackberry bramble the last couple of days. Blackberries grow on year-old canes. These start growing at about the time that the current crop is starting to fruit. So, by the time the fruit is done, sometime in July, there are already longish vines to contend with when trimming out the finished canes. However, this year, there was a wedding in my yard at the end of July and trimming out the blackberries was really low priority. But now I've let it go an extra two months--and the new vines are huge and all intertwined with the old ones. And the jillions of tiny thorns on the vines grab and hold each other and the leaves and my sleeves... This will take pretty much forever to get through. Meanwhile, the dogs, who have learned that there are usually tasty treats to find after mom has been rummaging in the area, keep checking the ground carefully to see whether there are any overlooked blackberries. They occasionally pick something up and munch on it. Not sure what they're finding. Not sure I want to know.

Random Things Again

• We're smack dab in the middle of a hotbed of West Nile Virus. One of only two zip codes in the county that they've felt needed spraying for mosquitos. Twice. I've not really noticed mosquitos in my yard, even though I have a Problem Breeding Pit that I've not found a good way to keep drained. Haven't been bitten by anything. Fortunately, dogs apparently don't get (or even carry?) WNV.


• Look, boom, now it's autumn. All of a sudden, a string of a couple of weeks where temps never got above the mid-70s, and dropped to the low 50s overnight. It feels cold. It feels like winter. I've gone back to putting my slippers on in the morning to keep my toes warm, and closing all but one window, cracked open just a little, overnight in my bedroom. (With three dog bodies and mine in the room, all windows closed is too much.) It's dark now when I drive up the hill for my 8:15 Wednesday night class. That's where I see the change in daylight the most—for a couple of months during the summer, we get a bit of classtime out in the unlit field before the sun goes down, then move into the lighted areas. Then, suddenly, over maybe a 3-week period, the darkness slams in on us and now there's no time in the unlit field at all.


• Took Boost to the vet yesterday morning for a little swelling around her stitches. Not squishy; firm. Vet said it's the muscles underneath where they're stitched together, rubbing every time the puppy takes a step, a bit inflamed, but only 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 in seriousness. That's why the dog is supposed to be getting rest. She got an antiinflammatory shot and some antii pills to take for 5 days. Will take her in to get the stitches out early next week.


• Peeing in the house. Not a day has gone by since she came home last Wednesday that she hasn't peed in the house at least once. (Not sure whether there's been a more-than-once day, though.) I've caught her a couple of times, made distressed noises and hustled her out to the back yard, where she finishes peeing and then gets praised. Has peed for the housemate coming home a couple of times. I don't know what he does when she does that; I think I asked once but I've forgotten (the mind is the second thing to go). Is it a result of the operation? A problem with her body in general? Screwed up potty training? (But what?) And the antii-s, the vet said, will make her drink even more. Oh joy.


• A couple of days ago, Jake was lying in my office, licking his paws obsessively with boredom. When I finally got up to make him stop, I saw that his paws were covered with blood, as was about an 8-inch circle of carpet. At first I thought it must have been a problem with Boost's stiched area, but when I opened Jake's mouth, it was quite bloody. I couldn't tell what it was. So instead I cleaned up his paws and the carpet, and then looked again. No sign of bleeding anywhere that I could find. Thought maybe he'd bitten his tongue really hard. Then I left for the day. When I came home that evening, again about an 8" circle of blood on the carpet. But nohing since then. I hate mysteries like that.

She's Back

Boost is doing fine after her surgery. On Wednesday, she was a bit subdued; even when off leash in the yard, she mostly stood or lay in one place, although she watched everything intently. She started to break into runs a couple of times and immediately stopped again, so I'm thinking there was a little bit of pain, but she never showed it otherwise.

She's obviously feeling better today because she's rarin' to go. We shall see what transpires--

I kept her on leash or confined most of the day. However, today will be different, and tomorrow, because I once again have to make the trek to Foster City for a good solid couple of days of work; that's too long a time to leave her crated at the moment, considering that yesterday she drank gallons and gallons of water, and peed about the same quantities every half hour or so. As a result, I need to leave her unconfined, and I can only hope that she won't be too rambunctious while I'm gone.

The housemate comes home around 3, and I'll probably leave here around 10:30, so it won't be a tremendously long time that she'll be unsupervised, but I am ever so slightly concerned about it. Oh, well, what can ya do?

They broke her crate behavior, though! I spent all day yesterday retraining her to sit and wait when I put my hand on the crate latch. Geez, we've been doing that since the day I brought her home, 4 months ago--never, EVER let her out of the crate if she wasn't sitting and waiting for the release. All it took was one day at the vet's and she wouldn't (a) sit (which admittedly was a little uncomfortable for her yesterday, but not undoable) or (b) wait! Amazing how quickly behaviors can be changed. She's almost back to normal behavior this morning, though, so it wasn't too awful.

So far so good

Backfill for Tuesday at 4:30:The vet told me this morning that, if I didn't hear from him, everything was fine, but that I could call around 4:30 for a status. So I called at 4:30. He says everything went fine. They trimmed her toenails a little, checked her kidney function (perfect), she was awake and sort of up and moving around and they had moved her into one of the larger outdoor pens for a little while.

I miss my puppy babydog.

Musings

And so, while trying not to think about anesthesia, my mind wanders:

Why do manufacturers insist on putting little tiny satin bows on women's underwear? [1] As one who is about as likely to own, let alone wear, anything with bows or satin as the Pope is likely to poop in the woods, this raises my blood pressure more than you can imagine each time I bring home a new supply of undergarments. Do they think that perhaps it distinguishes men's underwear from women's? As in some Joe, Dick, or Harry picking up a bra and thinking, "Huh, this bra doesn't have a little satin bow on it—perhaps it's my bra rather than Veronica's? Gee, I'll have to see whether it's my size..."

Or do they think that women aren't smart enough to determine whether clothing is underwear rather than outerwear without the little satin bow? Who knows, perhaps if that bow were suddenly made illegal, there would be a pathetic profusion of women wearing their bikinis and undershirts to the office, baffled as to why their fashion is berated?

What's even worse is how thoroughly attached those little bows are. Underwear can be a shoddy thing, even when one pays a nonshoddy price: The elastic breaks, or comes loose; the seams pop open; the fabric tears in just the wrong spot; but, when the garment is so old and frayed and threadbare that it's barely useful as a rag, by Gods, that little satin bow is still attached. I've spent countless hours cursing and fuming, trying to remove those tiny irritants from new purchases. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does; I can feel that little satin bow's presence through three layers of clothes like a malevolent spirit, trying to seduce me to the dark side of satin-fabricked, ribbon-bedecked feminine frippery.

But that's not exactly why I called you all here. I really wanted to talk about dog collars. Time was, when you wanted a collar for your dog, you went down to the five and dime (remember five and dimes?), bought a strip of brown leather with a buckle and a loop, put it around your dog's neck, and forgot about it until it eventually got so encrusted with mud and last year's fur that it couldn't be saved with even the most enthused scrubbing, and then you kept using it anyway because, after all, it's just a dog collar.

NOW you can go down to the dog store and there are dozens of styles and hundreds of colors. I've always tried to get nylon collars in gorgeous colors that (a) I like and (b) complement my dog's colors. Or, if there's enough (a), who cares about (b), really, it's just a dog collar and they're not looking in a mirror any time soon. Besides, the fur of half my dogs has been long enough that it completely hides the collar anyway and the only time I see it is when I take it off.

However, when you can see it, the color fades so rapidly that you might as well have just gotten a plain leather collar; it would look better even in its coat of felted dog fur after a couple of years. Besides, I'm not really a solid-color kind of person; you could tell that if you examined the sheets in my linen closet. I like patterns, the more intricate, the better. But, and here's where I prove that I really don't ramble quite as far afield as you might think, why do manufacturers think that dog collars can only have stereotypical dog designs? If I see another collar with bones or little puppies on it, I think I'll bark.

Do they think that dogs won't wear a collar if it doesn't have little bones on it? Omigod, they'll think, that collar has mice on it—obviously it's a cat collar and my mom has gone crazy and I refuse to wear that thing! For that matter, why don't they have pictures of cats on dog collars? If they're trying to appeal to the dogs' hobbies and extracirricular activities, I can't think of anything that Tika, for example, is more thrilled about than seeing a cat or two outside the window.

How about fresh fruit? Jake used to walk an extra mile for a banana. He once broke into Jim's gym bag to get at one. But do you ever see dog collars with bananas? No, it's little white bones. And think about it, it's not the little white bones that dogs really like anyway; it's the big malshaped juicy brownish ones with tendrils of flesh still attached. You don't see that on dog collars.

Oh, sometimes you can find collars with pictures of a specific dog breed instead of little wussy bones.[2] But you know that there are probably 700 or more breeds of dogs that at least SOMEONE can identify as a breed out there in the world—so, really do you think you can find a collar with, say, Mudhol Hound pictures? And what if you have a Remington or Amber or Jake or Tika, who really don't look like any of those 700 dang breeds, much to one's dismay?

There are also really gorgeous sparkly dog collars, covered with rhinestones—as long as your dog doesn't weigh more than 10 and a half pounds. You don't think Tika would love to wear one of those as she throws herself at the window trying to get the cat's attention?

I say, let's see more little satin bows on those dog collars! And marching rows of tiny white bones on women's underwear! The world would be a better place.

It's Done a Million Times a Day

It's done a million times a day, but it's different when it's your puppy. This morning I dropped Boost off at the vet's to be spayed. The operation will be done around noon and I'm supposed to call around 4:30, when she should be reasonably woken up, to check how things went.

One of the benefits of being so immersed in the World Of Dogs is that I get tremendous amounts of information about dog training, behavior, feeding, health, activities, genetics...you name it. One of the disadvantages is that I get enough information sometimes to be frightening. I've heard so many stories in recent years about dogs who do badly under anesthesia, and particularly about performance dogs. So the stories say that it has to do with the type of anesthesia, or the overuse of anesthesia, or the "pre-anesthesia" that the dogs get before they go into the operating room, or the quantity (or lack) of body fat, or the breed of the dog, or who knows what.

We had a big email discussion two weeks ago on this topic among my dog-agility club members—about 170 well-educated, dog-experienced, worldly, knowledgeable people. And what it came down to was that everyone had a horror story about themselves or about someone they could specifically identify by name (including someone who uses my same vet), and could identify trends that many people seem to be aware of, but no one could cite published articles or specific recommendations by vets (although some apparently avoid certain anasthesias but not for any well-researched reasons).

One lady runs a blood bank for dogs—the only one in CA, one of the few in the country (and one that contributed to Remington's well-being during his last months whenever he needed transfusions); they won't use Border Collies at all as donors because of problems they've had with the breed. I meant to grill her this weekend for details, as she was my partner for Team Relay, but I just didn't even think of it at the right time all weekend.

I asked so many more questions of my vet this time around than I ever did with my first puppy, back in 1978. We had quite a long discussion about "old wives' anesthesia tales" and about modern techniques for administering anesthesia and so on. And yet, when I walked out of the vet's office this morning after leaving Boost there, I was shaking and on the verge of tears.

I don't know how much of my concern is the "little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing" syndrome, and how much is the German Shepherd who lived across the street from us when I was in about 3rd grade who died while being spayed. Of course that was (gasp) almost 40 years ago, which probably put it in the stone age of dog medical care, but that has remained such a sharp and frightening memory all these years. Still, I don't remember feeling this way when Amber was spayed (ack—yes—over 25 years ago?!).

One of my club members commented to me this weekend that she's a vet tech and has helped put hundreds or thousands of dogs under anesthesia and never thinks twice about it and things work out fine—but, when it's her dog, it scares the heck out of her. So I'm not alone...

Crate Training

In its most succinct definition, crate training is simply getting a dog used to a crate and, preferably, so that the dog enjoys being in the crate.

Susan Garrett is one of the preeminent agility trainers and lecturers in North America. She's extremely popular in California, although she's from Ontario (the one in Canada, not the one in southern CA).

She does crate training using Crate Games, her name for her specific, step-by-step method. Here is my interpretation of Crate Games.

NOTE: Once you start this process, dog must not leave crate for any reason until you get to the end.

GOAL: Dog must sit near the back of the crate whenever you start to open the door.

1. Crack the door and feed at the top back of the crate. Repeat 5x (some dogs need more).
   
   Details:
   1. Dog in (preferably) wire crate.
   2. Kneel in front of crate with goodie in hand opposite the door's hinges.
   3. Using arm closest to hinges, open door just wide enough to shove your goodie hand in to the upper back of the crate. Allow the dog to take goodie. Remove arm and close door. (No verbal cues or praise at any time.)
   4. Take hand off door. Wait about 5 seconds.
   
   
   NOTE: Dog must not be able to leave crate or even get a nose outside door at any time; if dog attempts to do so, immediately and calmly close door (don't slam it on his nose).
   
   NOTE: Dog might already be thinking about sitting in the back when you put hand on door.
2. Open door halfway; hesitate for *half a second*. If dog doesn't try to get out, reach in, feed; close door. Repeat about 5x.
   
   Details:
   1. Repeat until dog is waiting inside rather than lunging towards door.
3. Open door all the way, wait a second or two, feed in back, close door. Repeat about 5x.
   
   Details:
   1. Keep hand on door when it's open. Now you can start feeding thru the top instead of putting your arm in).
   
   
   NOTE: By now, dog might be sitting as soon as you touch door. If not, try waiting, wiggling handle a bit, waiting. Feeding in back towards top should be forcing the dog into a sit.
   
4. Start adding distractions. Feed quickly after each success.
   
   Details:
   1. Stand up. If dog doesn't move, feed, close door. Open door. Wait. feed. Pick up leash. Feed. Close door. (In other words, start stringing a couple of distractions together, but reward after each one.) Drop a goodie outside the crate. If dog stays put, pick it up and feed it to him in the back.
5. When you get to where you can put the dog's leash on and stand up and dog doesn't move, open door, stand on leash, give release word to let dog out of crate, wait for him to go back into crate, praise profusely.
   
   Details:
   1. Stand on side of open door facing the door (so that you and the open door form a channel back into the crate). Stand on the leash so there's just enough slack for the dog to get out of the crate.
   2. Give your chosen release work (e.g., "Break"). If dog doesn't come out of crate, encourage (pat legs, verbal encouragement--no more commands).
   3. When dog comes out of crate, ignore him. When he turns and goes back into crate, lavish him with goodies and praise.
   4. If dog doesn't go back in within 2 minutes, limit his choices--e.g., hold his collar so that he's facing the crate and can't move anywhere except into the crate; as soon as he steps in that direction, release him so he can go in. Praise enthusiastically & give goodies.
6. Repeat until dog is coming out on release word and immediately going back in.
7. When dog gets to where he won't come out, add something to make him come out, e.g., a low-value goodie, then wait for him to go back in, etc.

At this point, when dog is bouncing in and out of crate after a few times, NOW you're done with the starting crate game!

Boost's training

I used basically this method when I first got Boost; worked great. The first time I released her from the crate, it must've taken 5 minutes before she went back in. I had to have her in one position, keeping her from sitting, for about 5 minutes before she went back in, but then after that it was a cake-walk.

However, over time I let up on the getting-excited-about-going-back-in bit, so although she'll go in on her own often, and she (usually) goes in on command, the "usually" is not ideal, and she doesn't drive into it like it's the best place in the world, which is what you want.

So I did Boost at a Susan Garrett seminar yesterday from scratch. First, she's so good about sitting when I open the door and waiting for the release that she wouldn't stretch enough to take the goodie out of my hand, even though it was hot dogs, which she hardly ever gets. Eventually she did, but that got us off to a slow start.

The middle part of the process went pretty quickly, because she already knows the routine. But when we got to where she came out of the crate, she didn't go back in! She looked around at the whole world at the end of her short leash, never even looked at the crate entrance. When I finally took her collar and held her in place, she immediately plonked into a sit and just sat there for almost another 2 minutes; just when I was ready to start forcing her into a stand, she finally got up and went in.

After that, she was fine, bouncing in and out for me.

Tika's training

Soooo--since I didn't do this with Tika when I first got her (basically used goodies tossed into the back of the crate), and since she's so wired that she has a horrible time staying in the crate when the door is opened, I decided to start from scratch with her today. Wow, what an adventure.

Understand that she has a horrible time with self-control. Can't stay lying down or sitting down for more than a couple of seconds if there's food involved. All my other dogs (Boost included) learned very quickly that, if the crate door is open and I have food of any kind, they get some if they're lying down. (Same thing with popcorn while watching TV.) Tika slams into a down, but leaps to her feet if nothing is forthcoming within a second or two, then she watches me toss food to the other dogs, salivating--then eventually slams herself into a down, then leaps to her feet to lunge forward and grab the food when I toss it her way, then stands there, quivering, moving front feet in and out of the crate, watching as I give the other dogs food... you maybe get the picture. A litttttle overstimulated.

So, today, here's how we went:

1. Crack door, 5 treats in the back. Dog might already start getting idea that goodies will be coming into the back.
   Details:
   1. Getting the first five treats into the back of the crate were easy, because she simply followed my hand to the back of the crate and took the goodie, being forced into a sit, although she tried extremely hard not to have to actually put her butt down.
   2. Still, each time, she frantically followed my hand as I removed it from the crate.
   3. Then she started nosing at the door, not picking up the clue about the back of the crate.
   
   
   From there to where I was opening the door all the way?-- I must've gone through more than a hundred repetitions with her before I could start leaving the door open, and she's still not sitting reliably when I put my hand on the door--she tends to lie down instead, and it's funny how we got there.
   
2. Open door partway, hesitate half a second, feed if dog doesn't try to go through door. Repeat 5x.
   Details:
   1. She's in some ways a fairly "operant" dog--in Susan's terms, that means that when I get the clicker and goodies out, she starts offering behaviors. So that's what she started doing, spinning and backing up and lying down and bowing and doing nose touches to various parts of the door (not the floor--hmmmm), anything at all, desperate to get a goodie.
   2. As soon as her nose was away from the door, I'd try to open it partially for half a second; most of the time, she'd lunge forward to shove her nose out the door.
   3. But when she'd actually hesitate before doing that, I'd feed her immediately in the back of the crate and close the door. Then she'd start nosing and pushing at the door...
   4. and on and on, maybe 40 or 50 times.
   
   
3. Open the door for half a second before feeding, if dog doesn't move towards door.
   
   Details:
   1. took forever--as soon as I put my hand on the door, she'd start nosing at it.
   2. Or, when she finally stopped nosing at it, the second the door opened, she'd start to shove her nose out the door and I'd close it again.
   3. It took a dozen or more tries each time before I'd be able to get the door open.
      
      I tried to be excruciatingly consistent--if her nose came thru the door even half an inch, I closed it again, because I *know* she'll be one, if given a millimeter, to take a mile.
      
   4. But the most likely time for her to be not pushing at the door was when she was lying down, so after a few times of me opening the door right after she slammed into a down, she decided that's the position I wanted. It didn't matter that she had to sit up and swing around to the back of the crate to get her goodie every time--she'd immediately swing her nose right back to the front of the crate after I gave her the goodie.
   5. I gave her dozens in the back of the crate--swing to the front, swing back to get the goodie, swing to the front, swing back to get the goodie, swing front, swing to the back for the goodie, lie down, get up and swing to the back, lie down, get up and swing to the back...
      
      And I've always said she was a quick learner! I didn't time it, but I think it was half an hour from when we started (I was getting a little tired!) before we finally got to the part where she'd be sitting far enough back from the door that I could open the door and wait, then feed.
   
   
4. Add distractions.
   Details: But from there it seemed to go pretty quickly to where I could drop a goodie, put on her leash, all that stuff, and she stayed away from the door (that's a miracle with her!).
   
   
5. Stand on leash, release dog, wait for her to go back in.
   
   Details:
   1. Here's another funny part--remember how long it took Boost to go back into the crate? With Tika, I opened the door and released her--she came out, barely slowed down--then spun and dashed right back in!
      
      Susan had made the point that giving hundreds of goodies for desired behavior before ever allowing a dog the choice of an unwanted behavior almost guaranteed that they'd try to do the right thing or return to that environment--and, sure enough, Tika sure associated the crate with hot dogs! So the next couple of times I had to actually encourage her to come out before she then spun and went back in.

She was just so funny, swinging all the way to the back of the crate, then all the way to the front, every five seconds as I reopened the door, never deciding to stay towards the back! This is a dog who doesn't really care about the reward cost (is that the term susan used? I keep thinking "return on investment"!), she has so much energy to burn! (The theory is that the dog will quickly figure out that, to get the goodie, they have to be sitting in the back of the crate, and the "reward cost" of standing up, swinging to the back, swinging to the front, etc. each time is too high and will do the smart thing and just wait there for it. Ha!)

So Much Going On!

Where do I even begin to try catching up? I'm not sure it's possible--

Tika's MAD chase: (That's Master Agility Dog title; compare to Tika's C-ATCH chase...) In USDAA, the MAD title is the first major title on your way to earning your ADCH. Well--usually. ADCH requires 7 Standard legs, 5 Gamblers, 5 Pair Relays, 5 Jumpers, and 5 Snooker, of which at least 3 must be super-qualifying Snooker legs. MAD requires 3 Standards and one of each of the others.

Before this last weekend in Prunedale, Tika had 3 Standards, 3 Pairs, 3 regular Snooker and one Super-Q. The super-Q requires thatyou be in the top 15% of those competing, and it's a point-accumulation thing, so it requires strategy, speed, and handling skill. We haven't been able to get a single dang Jumpers leg (bars knocked) or gamblers leg (various reasons) at the Masters level.

So for this last weekend, what I really wanted to achieve with Tika was:

Jumpers leg (out of 1 offered)

Gamblers leg (out of 2 offered)

Super-Q (out of 2 offered)

Steeplechase qualifier (making it to Round 2), just because I wanted to

Here's what we earned:

Regular Snooker

Standard leg

Tika in fact ran very well, but her mama blew it multiple times. Here's how the weekend went, in gory detail:

Sat. Standard: Our first run of the weekend, and we had 2 bars down, couldn't make a transition from a dogwalk turning into a tunnel, and something else--4 faults in a single run, which is unusual for us.

Sat. Snooker: Challenging course that we'd really have to be on our toes to get enough for a Super-Q. I wasn't on my toes--didn't give her enough heads up before the third obstacle that i wanted a sharp turn afterwards, and when I called her back, she back-jumped it, so Boom, we were done.

Sat. Steeplechase: Tika ran beautifully on a very fast course against a lot of very talented dogs. She was 10th fastest of just under 50 dogs; only 14 dogs Qed/moved to the second round--but Tika had a bar down, dropping her to 16th place. (Note that many of the other dogs faster than her also had bars or other faults, so several slower dogs who ran cleaner made the cut--but so did a couple of dogs who were faster than her but with faults.)

Sat. Pairs Relay: I mishandled a turn into the weave poles, earning a fault--which would've been OK, because pairs is judged on time plus faults (same as Steeplechase)--but our partner, an excellent dog & handler, went offcourse. So no Q.

Sat.Gamblers: A very very doable gamble. We missed some points in the opening, apparently due to a missed up contact, but were in perfect position for the closing--and then she got ahead of me and veered to the right to take a jump instead of continuing straight into the tunnel (with me yelling "Through! Through!" behind her). Argh.

Sun. Standard: Not a beautiful run, but clean and worth a Q.

Sun. Snooker: Getting the highest-possible score would be nearly impossible (three seven-pointers in the opening AND completing the closing sequence). I figured that we could easily do two 6s and one 7, but walked 2 7s and one 6 just in case we needed to try for it. We were in a good running position, so I could see what scores other dogs had earned before we had to run. I could see that I needed only the 2 6s plus the 7, and that was a VERY SMOOTH AND EASY COURSE for us. I told a couple of friends that. I told the lady filming our run that. So we went out there, did the 6, did a 7--and then for some stupid mentally hiccuppy thing, I pushed her back into the 7 again, and we then ran out of time before finishing the closing sequence, which I was pretty sure would happen if we tried to 7s. Where was my brain? The instant I pointed at the obstacle, I knew that I was doing the wrong thing, but it was too late to change it, she was moving so fast. Arghhhhh--

Sun. Gamblers: Another beautifully run course, right in the perfect position for the gamble, and she DID it with no hesitation. However, there was a teeter in the gamble, and apparently she didn't hit the up contact, so no gamble Q. ARggggghhhh--

Sun. Jumpers: What a long exhausting day. We finally ran about 7:30 in the evening, in the near-dark with the fog coming in--to my brain as well as the field. She was completely wired and my timing was way off. We got 3/4 of the way through before I again failed to signal early enough and when I tried to call her back on course, she took the wrong obstacle. Arghhhh.

How To Pick A Fight With A Bigger Dog

(Photos from June or July sometime)

1. Walk by with a tempting rawhide.	2. If that fails to elicit an attack, pretend to accidentally drop the rawhide.
3. If dog tries to ignore you, whisper some insults about her agility prowess.	4. If she turns towards you, brace yourself invitingly.
5. If she still manages to ignore you, abandon the subtle approach and go straight for the jugular.	6. Half Nelson might work, too.
7. Fling her bodily to the ground.	8. Step on her head.
9. Sitting on her face might be effect--wait! Something's happening!	10. Could this be a fight?
11. I think so!	12. Mission accomplished.

I'm done with these dogs; you can have them back now

Why I hate puppies #1 (yesterday morning)

Why I hate puppies #2 (yesterday evening)

Why did I think I ever liked having dogs? Or that I had a clue about training them?

Why I hate puppies #3:
Sunday afternoon, I arrived home after running errands just after the housemate arrived home, to discover that the housemate had spread paper towels over a wide swath of the kitchen floor and was in search of Nature's Miracle. Turns out that not only did Boost pee after she'd been told not to jump up two or three times (an occasional repeat problem), but then she threw herself to the ground upsidedown and wallowed in it to get her stomach rubbed. So I hauled the stinky puppy out to the back yard and mowed the lawn (it was getting long and I didn't want it too wet when I tried running the manual mower around) and hosed down and toweled off the puppy.

Monday morning, puppy WOULDn't pee in the yard before going upstairs to help me get dressed. She wrestled with Tika on the bed a bit, during which I discovered a large wet puddle in themiddle of my bedroom carpet. I don't know when it was done--I could've sworn she leaped into the room right behind Tika and went right at it.

Monday evening, while I was sitting at my desk working, I never even noticed her near me until she started making cautious sniffing gestures at the dog mat I keep beside me for Jake to lie on: Sure enough, saturated with dog pee.

Tuesday morning, puppy WOULDn't pee in the yard before going upstairs to help me get dressed. I kicked her off the bed several times. I headed around the corner into the bathroom and noticed her popping up onto the bed behind me. I turned around as she started sniffing--and, sure enough, she squatted and started to pee. (Another occasional recurring problem.) I yelled NO! and BAD DOG! and grabbed her and hauled her all the way downstairs and out to the backyard, where she DID pee when I asked her to. Then I had to undo the comforter cover and spray it with Nature's Miracle and, that evening, dragging in from work late and exhausted, wash it (fortunately I caught her before it was saturated enough to get down to the allergy cover and the down comforter itself) and remake my bed, which I had just made a couple of days earlier.

Tuesday evening, puppy WOULDn't pee in the yard before going up to bed. I insisted, I walked out with her, I waited for her to have a huge drink of water and then walked her out--but no, she wanted to go into the house and go to bed. So she went into her crate, I zipped her up, I got cleaned up & undressed and into bed--and MOM I REALLY REALLY HAVE TO GO POTTY ***NOW****!!! came from the crate. So I got dressed, took her downstairs, unlocked the doors, walked her out to the yard--where she peed enthusiastically--and then reversed it all. This has been happening more and more often at bed time, and it's extremely frustrating.

This morning, puppy WOULDn't pee in the yard before going upstairs to help me get changed (we must've been out there for 5 minutes with her looking at me like I was crazy). Once again, I kicked her off the bed several times, then Tika tempted her up there and they started wrassling noisily and enthusiasically. So, while I was trying to break a decongestant pill in half in the bathroom, I suddenly realized that it was suddenly quiet-- I turned around to see Boost heading cheerfully out the bedroom door and a huge wide and long juicy puddle of pee all over my bed. Went through the cover AND the "fragile don't wash if you can avoid it" allergy cover and down to the down comforter itself, although just barely.

She's almost 7 months. Isn't she supposed to be housebroken by now? What have I missed? What have I done wrong? Why all of a sudden won't she pee on demand in the back yard? ARgggggghhhhh-- I was bawling so loud this morning with this yet another demand on my time and interruption of my schedule and absolute frustration that I managed to throw up a bit. Yes, I'm upset.

OK, That's Boost. Tika has gotten into this thing where, when I'm trying to play with or train her in the yard, every time I let go of the toy, she turns and runs off to go looking for squirrels. Or every time she's in a stay and I release her. Or every time I toss the toy to reward her. I can't begin to tell you how extraordinarily frustrating it is. I mean, there aren't even squirrels THERE 95% of the time, she just goes to LOOK. And I've called her and been ignored, chased her down and given her what for, chained her up and played with another dog for a while (and immediately upon releasing--she chases off to the trees again), screamed NOOOOOOO at the top of my angry lungs, to which she mostly responds, but I think I'm spending my valuable "This is very important" gold very quickly. I've tried making coming back to me more exciting and rewarding; I've played my heart out; I've praised and praised when she sticks with me or looks at me; I've put her in down stays when I have to do something without her for a moment (and we know what happens when I then release her.) I'm not sure whether it's getting better or worse. And furthermore she's doing it in class a lot now, too. What worries me is that that's going to start translating into doing it at agility trials.

I don't know why she's doing this. It didn't start immediately when I got Boost. I dont' know whether it's related to the puppy or not. Puppy is usually tied up when I'm working with Tika. I am at a loss.

Jake: Well, he's Mr. Grumpy Pants a lot. Hasn't really landed on Boost much lately (she's heavier than he is, now, although not by much). But he growls and snarls CONSTANTLY if he has a rawhide and she's anywhere within his sight. CON---STANT---LY!!!! The only solution is to take the rawhide away, then he starts licking his feet or something obsessive like that.

Can I please have my REAL dogs now? These can't be the ones I signed up for--

An--Interesting--Note from the Past

Before I bought my current house four years ago, I lived with Remington and Jake for a year in a horrific rental at the corner of Taylor and Twenty-First in north San Jose. One of the few saving graces of the house was that it was wonderfully close to Watson Park, a huge public park that was hardly ever used by anyone, at least not during the hours when I usually walked the dogs. There were tremendous grassy fields over which I could throw the frisbee again and again for Jake, surrounded by dozens and dozens of gorgeous mature trees containing squirrels, so that Remington would exercise himself by running and running and running from one place to another. One side of the park, along Coyote Creek, was left more or less au natural; a path ran parallel to the creek but not too close to it, among meadowlands and semi-forested areas, and both dogs loved exploring, their noses down in the dirt, racing along raising dust paths behind them, rejoining me and exploding away again. And the park was so huge that I could get in my own walk of half an hour or more just following the frisbee and the dogs around and back again.

Watson Park, San Jose; my horrid rental house circled in orange. Just half a block over and one block down.

Now, boys and girls—the reason I have this map labeled "site" rather than the more congenial "park" is because I obtained it from a government web site—and the reason I went there is because I came home from a weekend away from home to find this splashed across the front of the San Jose Mercury (excerpted):

Troubled park's buried past

EXTENT OF POSSIBLE PROBLEMS STILL UNKNOWN AS CITY PREPARES TO SPEND $800,000 ON AREA STUDY

Years before San Jose closed large parts of Watson Park this summer because of environmental contamination, city officials were told at least three times that the popular spot for dog walkers, families, gardeners and soccer players had been the city's main garbage plant for decades.

The city was informed as early as 1987 and again in 2002 and 2003 that the land had housed a major dump and incinerator...

It wasn't until a construction crew uncovered burned trash beneath the park last summer that the city started environmental studies, discovering elevated levels of lead, arsenic and other toxins.

In addition, none of the information released by the city has revealed the extent of the possible problems or the size of the dump and incinerator. A Mercury News review of historical documents found that the incinerator, dominated by a 125-foot-tall smokestack, handled up to 75 tons of garbage a day. Old property maps show that the city-owned site likely extended beyond Watson Park, possibly onto land that now holds nearby homes and Empire Gardens Elementary School.

... Both garbage and incinerator remains -- now recognized as sources of toxins -- were apparently buried at the dump and along the banks of nearby Coyote Creek.

... the hazards posed by old dumps and incinerators have been well-documented. Similar sites around California have proved to be laced with toxins such as polychlorinated biphenyls and elevated levels of lead and arsenic -- all found in Watson Park soil. The potential for problems at such sites is so serious that in 2003, state regulators issued rules for handling old ``burn dumps.''

The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time:
here.

It goes on to cite a long history of reports that call out the possibility of problems that somehow no one took seriously.

So for a year the three of us were romping in a toxic mess. Isn't that nice to know?

And of course the first thing that hits me like a runaway truck in my stomach: Is that what killed Remington?

Hot and Nippy Weekend

The CPE trial in Elk Grove this weekend suffered both from intense heat (over 100 both days) and from horrific mosquitos. I've never seen them this bad there. They were eating people alive. I left on my jeans, rather than switching to shorts, in large part to avoid getting chomped more than just on my arms (and through my shirt, but not as badly).

Despite it all, Tika ran with her usual intensity. She flew off 3 contact obstacles in a row in 2 events; the first two I made her lie down afterwards before continuing, and when that had no effect, I just took her off the course and put her away after the 3rd. Her next 4 contacts in a row were totally gorgeous.

She had one Gamblers (Jackpot) run in which only 2 dogs out of 72 had higher scores--and we could have gotten more but I planned a course where we sat on 3 different contacts and did several touches to reinforce staying put. And she had one Jumpers course where no dog of any height or level--not even those really fast little shelties with short turning radii--ran faster. Unfortunately, she knocked 2 bars in the process, and unfortunately that was the run that she needed for her C-ATCH, and she was allowed a maximum of only 1 bar.

Overall, she was knocking more bars again, it seems--we've been doing virtually NO jumping practice in the back yard, what with the wedding and all the prep and follow-up and me working up in Foster City for a while--but she still managed to earn a nice Standard Q (no bars allowed at the top level), two Jackpot Qs, and the one Colors that she still needed towards her C-ATCH (again, no bars allowed). Only 4 out of 8 for the weekend.

The next CPE that I was planning on attending isn't until Thanksgiving weekend! I don't know whether I have the patience to wait four months for a chance to finish her CATCH when she's so close. There is a CPE the first weekend in October--I wasn't going to go because it's right after 2 USDAA weekends and right before two more USDAA weekends, all of which I'm planning on attending, which is a lot--too much--in a row. There's another one after all those USDAA, which again I wasn't going to do because of so many in a row. On the other hand, if I don't go to that CPE, then that would be an entire month with no agility weekends right before the USDAA nationals, which seems like a bad plan. (Still, even I do go, that would leave me with 2 weekends in a row before the nationals, unless I go to Camarillo for a USDAA, and I wouldn't want to do that AND the CPE.)

I'm pondering whether to just go for one day for each trial to try to get the jumpers run. Driving 2 hours one way with the always-indeterminate agility schedules for one run doesn't seem like a great idea, either, though. And I'd be so annoyed if I DIDN'T get it. Argh.

Jake was uninterested in playing frisbee almost the entire weekend. He ran smoothly but not superfast in the 2 runs in which he was entered; popped out of the weaves in one run (!) so didn't Q, but had a nice Jumpers run on the same course that Tika sped through and earned a Q for that.

Boost simply did not get enough attention or exercise despite my pulling her out of her crate to play far more often than I did the other dogs. She's been a whirling dirvish this morning since we got up (and she insisted on getting up about 6:30 to get started...yawn...). I forgot and left her in the x-pen during one of Tika's runs, and sure enough someone had to retrieve her from where she ran, trying to get to us. Thank goodness she ran up the wrong side of the fence, away from the entrance to the ring, or otherwise she'd have ruined that one Colors run that we needed so badly.

She's fascinated by other dogs doing agility or playing. Very hard to get her attention at all, even briefly, once she's focused on them.

Discovered a couple of interesting things. When Boost is out wandering around and I want her to come, I'd call her name, but get no reaction (have noticed this over the last couple of weeks at least), which is much different from how we started. I don't know why it deteriorated. I have avoided yelling "Come!" because I want to use the command ONLY when I know that she's already committed to coming or when I can actually get to her to enforce it if she doesn't come. But I finally gave up Sunday morning, while she was off leash rooting around in an open field and ignoring "Boost!". I called "Boost, Come!" and she flung herself out of the bushes and raced towards me like it was the most wonderful thing in the world. So apparently I've done a better job of training "Come!" and a worse job of training her to respond to "Boost!" than I had thought.

And the second interesting thing had to do with Jake. He largely seems oblivious to me saying his name any more. I try high voice, low voice, very very loud voice, and so on. If he's headed away from me into an open field, he keeps going and going (sort of like the Energizer Semidachsund) without even a twitch to his ears, which is a little scary when he never turns around at all to see where I am, thinking that I've got a deaf dog about to disappear over the horizon. Imagine dozens of scenes of me over recent weeks or even months, yelling "Jake!" pause, change voice, "Jake!" pause, change voice, "Jake!", getting louder & louder, dog getting farther and farther away, nose to the grassy ground. So, Sunday afternoon, with Boost's reaction in mind, I yelled "Jake, COME!", and he immediately picked up his head, turned around, and headed back to me. Argh. So HE has also learned to ignore his name! What have I done to my dogs?

Just Been Busy--Some Random Stuff

My sister got married in my back yard this last weekend. It has been a long process of fixing and planting and painting and trying to keep things from deteriorating more rapidly than normal with the assistance of certain four-legged yard inhabitants.

All three spent Saturday at The Kennel--never have done that before with any of my dogs, but I really had no other good choices. And in fact it was up where we usually do agility classes anyway, so they know me and my dogs, and they have huge outdoor runs (bigger than some people's back yards) as well as smaller, more standard concrete runs for the dogs to rest in. Seems to have gone well, even with all 3 dogs in together.

I put away the Nature's Miracle spray a couple of weeks ago because Boost had had no accidents, but then of course that same day... She varies. Fine for a few days, then peed in the wrong places (a) Saturday evening when she got home from the kennel and went to greet people on the back deck, (b) Sunday sometime in the hall in front of my housemate's room, (c) Monday morning while I was showering, on my bedroom carpet, (d) Monday afternoon sometime while I was at work, on the tile near the garage door. Today--so far as I've noticed--we've had no accidents.

Boostie is doing Sit and Down fairly well on command now, and her stay is pretty good. Working through a variety of distractions.

A couple of weeks ago (or maybe more) I started occasionally putting her through tunnels with the "through" command. It took a while for her to get the concept. Note that she has always run full speed through tunnel after tunnel while playing by herself or while playing chase with Tika, but doing it on command with direction from me was an entirely different thing. Now it seems she's got it, so we're trying different angles and approaches (e.g., her in a sit and me near tunnel; her in front of me with my hand in her collar; stuff like that).

Have just started putting her over one or two jumps set at maybe 4 to 8 inches.

Haven't spent nearly enough time on getting her to do a nose touch to the ground or a target, let alone sending her to it, let alone transitioning that into a world-shaking contact.

Last Tuesday, in the potty yard at agility class, I turned around and discovered that Boost had somehow slipped through the fence into the pasture with the sheep and the llama. I called her a couple of times but she was oblivious, starting to cautiously head towards the flock. So I resorted to a "trick". I yelled "Readyyyyyy--" which is what I use for all my dogs to get them revved up to fetch a toy or do agility or whatever--then turned and ran like crazy in the opposite direction, whooping excitedly. Boost blasted back to me, barely slowing to slip through the really really tiny gap between the side of the gate and the fence.

Our instructor was a bit surprised that anyone could slip through that gap, but I said that he probably didn't have a lot of really skinny BC puppies checking it out.

So, the very next day, same 3 dogs off leash, same potty yard, same sheep and llama. I pick up some poop, turn around--and Tika is in the sheep pasture and charging full tilt towards the sheep! Mind you, these dogs have been off leash in this same area every week for years. Maybe they've done something different with the gate. Maybe Tika took note when Boost went through and decided to try it herself.

At any rate, the llama popped right up and went to work doing her job; chased Tika right out of there. I was afraid that Tika might get seriously injured, but after attempting to briefly stand her ground and say her piece, she decided that discretion was the better part of valor in the face of a charging llama, and blasted right through that little tiny gap between the gate and the fence.

Our instructor was particularly amazed that she had gone through. But I still don't think he's gone down and changed anything about the closure.

So now I have to keep the dogs on leash in the potty yard, which is a pain in the patootie.

A Good Weekend But No C-ATCH

I'll have a cool photo of Tika to post later.

Tika ran beautifully this weekend. She had only 2 bars down in 10 runs. One of them still allowed us to earn a Qualifying score; the other, unfortunately, didn't, and it was one of the 4 we needed for our CPE championship. We also had two offcourses, which is unusual for us, and they were both painfully clearly handling errors, one where I briefly forgot what I wanted to do and then got caught moving in the wrong direction at the wrong time, and the other where I just chose the wrong place to put myself. And, also unfortunately, one of those was another of those 4 necessary Qs.

So we Qed 7 out of 10 times for, I believe, 6 first places and two 2nds. The classes were a little larger this weekend for us than they sometimes are in CPE--instead of it being either just us or just us and one other dog, we were usually competing against at least two other dogs and often as many as 6 or 7 others.

But, as usual, I can compare Tika's scores against all other dogs, all heights, all levels, who ran the same course. It varied by class, but in general this meant about 50 other dogs.

There are two basic categories of classes: Those judged primarily by time and faults, and those judged primarily by point accumulation. In some ways they're similar, because a fast dog can generally earn more points. But the point-accumulation ones also tend to rely more on a handler's design and strategy for choosing obstacles to maximize points and make best use of the dogs' skills. Of course a dog with a wider range of solid skills has more options on how to run a course to accrue points.

I don't have my score sheet next to me at the moment, but in almost all the classes, Tika was among the top three fastest or highest among those 50 dogs. In CPE, that's not hard for us to do, but the top dogs are also some of the top dogs in USDAA, where the competition is fierce. It's nice to see that I'm in there with them. It's also scary to see when they beat us, because they probably speak for a couple dozen of top-caliber local USDAA dogs who do not compete in CPE.

JakeyMeister did very well this weekend. I entered him in two runs each day again, and he performed like an experienced champ. He qualified in all four runs and placed first or 2nd each time. Of course, he was competing against only one other dog in most cases. :-)

In an interesting comparison, Tika and Jake ran the same Jumpers course on Sunday. Tika went past me like a rocket, ran past the tire that she was supposed to take and blazed across the next jump 20 feet beyond that, eventually managed to swing around before taking the *next* jump another 15 feet further, came all the way back to me, and swung around to take the correct tire and then continue around the course smoothly to the end.

Jake had no bobbles at all of any kind on that course.

Tika still finished almost a second faster than Jake.

Just Dinking Around...

Changing the colors a bit so it's not so dark. And added a search bar that's supposed to search only through all of my blog pages by default—but apparently not until Google has indexed my site, which I have to request, and even then there's no guarantee that they'll ever do it— That's all...

*#%$*@ Puppies!

Boost is mostly a very good girl.

I've been patching my lawn with pieces of cut up sod, laboriously, one small piece at a time, plus some larger bits. Lots of hard work. I've also been planting pots full of flowers and (finally after almost 4 years) a single annual border on the far side of the back yard.

To top it off, this week I worked 3 days up in San Mateo all day, which meant that the puppy was loose and unsupervised for several hours each day with little or no exercise or attention before I raced out the door to get to the client site. This morning I did take them shopping with me--mostly involved staying in the car, but I took them out individually for some training and visiting the pet store (2nd pet store in which Boost has been freaked out by--what, a magazine rack? a wastebasket? she is so spooky about so many things, which worries me more and more, having been around a lot of other nonspooky 5-month-olds recently). But that was it, while I slaved away putting down more sod and digging more dirt out of an old planter in preparation for laying down bricks, and so on, and THEN I left them again for about 4 hours while I went to a meeting up in Mountain View.

Boost is usually very good. And although I've held my breath and girded my loins (yes! I've finally figured out how to do this! for only $10 you too can learn the secret by purchasing my personal how-to manual) every time I've walked through the door upon coming home, the lawn has been intact, the flowers have been intact, the house has been intact (with no apparent accidents in the house, either), the assorted tools and supplies sitting in various places in the yard and on the deck have been untouched, and so on.

About 9:00 this evening I got a phone call from a friend and started chatting. Realized that Boost was digging in the lawn around the edge of my new large sodded area, where I've so carefully been building up the soil height to match! I chased her away from there and filled in the hole as best I could while still chatting and went back up onto the deck. (It's such a nice evening out, couldn't ask for a more pleasant evening, but it's dark so I can't see much in the yard.)

While talking, I noticed that there seemed to be one section of lawn that looked a little lumpy near where Boost was currently cavorting--sure enough, apparently while I was filling in the hole, she had gone behind me and uplifted a roughly foot-square bit of sod (but irregularly shaped to fit a specific bare patch) and had dragged it around the yard. So I chased her away from there and put on my gloves (still chatting) and again painstakingly eased it into place, lifted the grass around it, staked it down, and so on. Took off the gloves, washed my hands, went back out on the deck.

There were unidentifiable noises coming from the other side of the hot tub. So I strolled over there (wireless phones are a great invention) and, sure enough, she was in the process of digging up a large area of my flower bed, which has just been in long enough to start to look established instead of freshly planted. I chased her away from there and tried to restore a bit of stuff in the dark, one-handed, and as I turned, Boost raced by me dragging something large and dark that in no way resembled a dog toy.

I followed her across the yard (in the dark hoping not to step in any dog deposits) and got just close enough to see that it was a roll of landscape fabric--has been sitting there for a couple of weeks, at least, while I gradually take pieces out of it--and tried to approach her in a nonthreatening manner to prevent her from running, but apparently this was her time to be full of piss & vineger, because she dropped it, but immediately grabbed *one end* of the fabric and took off across the yard at a full run, unrolling thirty or forty feet of landscape fabric joyously behind her before I was able to get into a position to stomp on the fabric and bring her to a halt.

Still chatting, I returned to the deck and slowly and carefully rerolled all the fabric--

I think she was taking those five minutes to make up for all the long hours in which she's been SO good on her own. Carnfounded dog.

The Weekend

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

One: It was danged hot.

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

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

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

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

Two: Toenails Too Long

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

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

Three: The old guy

Jake, who's cool no matter the circumstances.

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

Four: The baby dog

Boost at five months.

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

Five: Tika's Championship Chase

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tika's Championship Chase

OK, we'll probably get our CPE championship (C-ATCH) before we get our USDAA MAD—which is a long way from the USDAA championship (ADCH).

One thing is that, on the way to a C-ATCH, one can have simple, single faults in many classes and earn a qualifying score. So—knocked bar?—that's OK; if the rest of the run is flawless, you're OK. In USDAA, all runs must be flawless no matter what level you're competing at.

So Tika has earned her way all the way up from Level 1 through Level 5 and has met all of her C-ATCH requirements in 5 of the 7 classes in CPE. She needs 4 Colors legs (not coincidentally, that being one class that does NOT allow a knocked bar) and 4 Jumpers legs.

We're off to a 3-day CPE weekend in which there will be 3 Jumpers and 2 Colors runs. In two more weeks, my Bay Team's CPE trial is in Sunnyvale, and that's offering 2 Jumpers and 2 Colors. And then, 2 weeks later, there's another CPE trial with one Jumpers and 2 Colors. So, over the next slightly more than a month, we have 6 chances each for the 4 legs each that we need.

It could happen...

But after that, it's pretty much all USDAA until November. (There are CPE trials, but sometimes the same weekend as USDAA trials and sometimes inbetween USDAA trials and I really am trying not to do more than a couple of weekends in a row.)

Wish us luck.

But I REALLY want to get that USDAA MAD. All my friends' dogs are already champions! I hate peer pressure...

Jakester Loves Attention

Finally, after months, I've got Tika and Jake in separate classes again so they don't have to share the time (or me).

Jake was absolutely completely delighted this Wednesday evening. He chitchatted with me all evening, wagged his tail a lot, looked just thoroughly vindicated.

Our first exercise was on a challenging 20-obstacle jumpers-with-weaves course, which he absolutely nailed. I was so proud of him! Of course I had run it with Tika the previous morning in class, so I had some experience with handling it, but there's no doubt now that with Jake's deafness I have to handle him differently from Tika. (And his speed is no match for hers, either.)

But here's the thing--I think he's starting to have trouble seeing things a bit, too! Nothing really specific, just lately when I've tossed food goodies his way while other things were going on, he kept looking at me and never even registered that I was tossing goodies. THAT'S a little scary--an old, grouchy, deaf AND blind dog would be very challenging. But that's the only thing I've seen, other than that he sometimes runs right by me when I'm standing or sitting still, not seeing me, obviously looking for me. He didn't used to do that, either.

Soooo--we shall see--

Potty Training--Not So Much Training

Boost is usually peeing outside on her own—I think—although still I try to remind her to go outside as often as I think of it. Yesterday afternoon, while I was furiously working at my computer, she left a puddle in the middle of the kitchen (just around the corner from the doggie door). I didn't notice it until I had tracked little urine-covered footprints all around the kitchen and dining area, fortunately no carpeting, but it still took a lot of wiping and spraying with Nature's Miracle.

Last weekend, the previous housemate (OK, her name is Char) and our little black friend Casey visited for 3 days. During that time, Boost peed on the floor and mat just inside the doggie door twice and just outside the doggie door once. She wasn't very confident about having another dog in the house, and Casey didn't help by snarfing at her the first couple of times she approached him. At least he isn't a major brute like Jake is, but I think that might have had something to do with her hesitation to go all the way out to the yard, since Casey as always liked being out on the deck or on the lawn just beyond the deck.

At least I *assume* that all of these puddles were the Booster; she was seen doing only one of them.

Tuesday night, she went outside to do #1 and #2 around 10:30 or so (somewhat later or earlier than when I usually try to get to bed). Half an hour later, when I headed up to bed, I asked whether she wanted to go outside (rather than insisting), but she turned and headed for upstairs. So I closed up the house and we went up to the bedroom.

She's very good about going right into her crate whenever we go into the bedroom. I straightened out her mat this time (like Jake, she seems happiest when she has majorly rearranged the furniture into a pile on one side of the space) and I left her happily rearranging the mat while I brushed my teeth and all that. When I came out of the bathroom, she was huddled sitting up against the crate door with the most pathetic expression. So I sighed, put on my bathrobe, and took her outside, where she peed AND pooped.

But when we went upstairs again, she wouldn't go into her crate. I looked—sure enough, she had peed quite enthusiastically.

At least we're not having much of an issue with #2. Except for one time that my current housemate found a little gift in his bedroom a month or so ago in a brief unsupervised moment (Boost, not the housemate), and except once early this week when I found a little gift on the deck carpeting, that's always been outside.

So we remain Not Very Good at being housebroken. I have no idea how this compares to a typical 5-month-old puppy. I don't remember much at all about Amber's housebreaking schedule as a puppy (back in early 1980).

Rattlesnakes

After the large-rattlesnake visit to our back yard last summer, I enrolled Tika in a rattlesnake avoidance session for this last weekend. (Decided that Boost is too skittish about ordinary things for me to want to put a shock collar on her yet, and Jake is 13.5 and what are the odds of him encountering a snake in the rest of his life--which, ok, could be as much as another 4 years if I'm lucky, although at the rate he's going, it seems like he could go forever!)

It's a very short session for each dog. The dog is fitted with a remote-control shock collar. A "neutral handler" takes the dog on leash and approaches a rattlesnake. When the dog acknowledges the rattlesnake (e.g., looking at it), the main trainer gives a shock and the handler turns with the dog and runs away from the snake, praising the dog for running away. They start with the dog upwind of the snake so they first have to look at it rather than smelling it; they also start with the snake's rattles taped so that there's no sound. They progress through 3 different snakes from different angles so that the dog is eventually exposed to sight, smell, and sound.

Rattlesnake stations; snake under bucket to the right; there's a loose snake about 10:00 of the yellow cone that the guy's about to cover up until the next dog. (I can't find the snake even in a high-res photo.)

Tika caught on pretty quickly. First, she obviously noticed the snake from several feet away (other dogs had to get pretty close before they even paid attention the first time). Then she'd directly acknowledge the snake from a LONG way away on additional approaches, so the main trainer I think had to give her a shock only perhaps three times for the first couple of snakes. I saw at least one dog take 5 or 6 shocks before his reaction was to turn and move away rather than try to approach the snake.

On the 3rd snake, they approach & then turn the dog loose while you stand on the opposite side of the snake and call your dog. So you can see how the dog avoids the snake. As Tika eventually came back to me (she headed away from the snake but it was in a fenced field so she very hesitantly followed the fence line back to me past the snake--probably 30 feet from the snake--she suddenly shied away again. The trainer's wife pointed out that a lid from one of the snake buckets was sitting on the ground there and Tika had apparently reacted to the snake smell on the lid.

So that's a good thing.

They were processing dogs through at one about every 5 to 10 minutes, I'd guess, at $65 a shot. That's a pretty good morning's haul. And I did have to sign a waiver that said that there's no guarantee that this will prevent the dog from getting bitten by a rattlesnake. But I think Tika took the lesson to heart.

Dropping By Briefly

Oh, it's been a while; not that I don't have anything to report, it's just that it takes a while to type (and I type pretty quickly) and I'm busy BUSY BUSY.

We've had no agility competitions since May. Our next isn't until 4th of July weekend--3 days of CPE out in Elk Grove, then another 2 days July 23-24 in Sunnyvale, then August thru October go nuts (see my perpetual weekend calendar at finchester.org/weekends).

We've had minimal agility classes because I've been splitting one class between Jake and Tika, which isn't very satisfying for either of us. AND there's no class this week at all. We're starting up 2 different classes again next week. It's good because I need the exercise AND the practice, and they need the attention, which they've been short on lately.

Tika's speed

A friend of my sister finally reassembled my teeter totter (it's been over a year since it disintegrated and I bought a replacement fiberglass top) and I've been trying to get Tika to blast to the end. She still hesitates at the drop point (where it starts to drop when she runs out onto it) instead of continuing to the end, but I THINK she's getting through it faster and moving out of it faster to the 2-on, 2-off at the end.

In Oct 2002, Clean Run Magazine published "Obstacle Performance Times", which are probably still pretty accurate. In seconds, they are:

Teeter: Avg, 1.7. Very good, < 1.4. Excellent, 1
A-Frame: Avg, 2.4. Vg, < 1.7. Exc, 1.3
Dogwalk: Avg, 3.4. Vg, < 2.5. Exc, < 2
Weaves: Avg, 3.2. Vg, < 2.8. Exc, 2.3 (surface and pole structure affects this a lot)
Table down: Avg, 2.8. Vg, < 1.5. Exc: < 1

Tika has been closer to the very good range in most things, but her teeter's the slowest, and she tends to slow down on the dogwalk down ramp, so I've been working on that, too. But we want to be in the Grand Prix finals this year! And in the Steeplechase finals! (Well--OK--latter doesn't have dogwalk or teeter, and she tends to be pretty danged good at weaves and A-frame in competition.)

We've timed the performance in class occasionally, and sometimes I time it from videos (which I haven't been asking anyone to film lately--guess I should get back to it).

The Booster

I just don't spend enough time with her, or she'd be able to do Sit and Down on command by now, and probably be more reliable on her Come! Crud! Where does the time go? She's 4.5 months already, getting big.

Housebreaking Auuuughhhh

I don't know that we're really getting anywhere with housebreaking. Boost certainly goes outside on her own many times a day for a variety of reasons, but I haven't noticed that any of the reasons are primarily to go potty. For example, first thing in the morning she chases Tika out into the yard when I first open the door. Coincidentally, she stops and pees halfway across the yard before continuing to chase Tika.

The last couple of days I waited on the deck to see whether she'd go off and poop on her own, because she always does it first thing in the morning, but nooo, she eventually wandered back to see what I was doing. So I stepped out into the yard and she then headed towards the back 40 to do some #2.

I mostly have been letting her free all day recently, with only some monitoring. But I've still been trying to walk her outside at critical moments.

This morning, around doggie breakfast time, after she had been out in the yard for quite a while but had recently come in, I headed upstairs to get dressed, with a phalanx of dogs preceding me up the stairs. Two steps ahead of me, Boost got to the top of the stairs and immediately squatted and started to pee. I grabbed her, yelled "no!", hustled her out to the yard, and repeated the request for her to "Hurry up", which she then did.

So, after taking 10 minutes to clean up the wood floor and one corner of the large throw rug (probably too big to fit in my washer), I got dressed (jeans & t-shirt day), took the dogs out back and threw toys for Jake & Tika while Boost chased them for maybe 5 minutes, then went back into the house for doggie breakfast.

Since she always pees and poops right after breakfast, I decided to wait and see what she'd do. So I went down to my desk and opened a document. Puppy played nervously with a variety of toys, so I was watching closely. Then she started to sniff around in that slightly urgent manner, so I quickly shooed her away from the wall-to-wall carpet and said something like, "OK, let's go outside," turned around for a moment to save the document--and heard liquid tinkling behind me. Fortunately she chose to pee on the 2-tile-wide border around the carpet rather than on the carpet, but I wasn't able to catch her before she was done, she was that quick. So I hustled her outside again--she showed no interest in doing any more Hurry Up but sniffed around like she was going to do #2, and I went back inside and cleaned up again.

Apparently she did #2 on her own and came back in to see what I was up to.

This follows after one day last week where I caught her in the act of starting to pee on my bed (she jumped up, I tried to grab her because she's not suppposed to be there, she skitterd to the other side of the King bed, I dashed around to grab her, she skittered to the other side, sniffing all the while, I threw myself across the mattress just as she squatted, yelling "No!" and grabbing her and hustling her outside--where she peed and got praised, but I still had to go back and clean up the small bit of pee on my sheets.

And after one day last week where she kept peeing on the plastic drop cloths that we had taped all over the deck and deck carpeting for painting. At first I tried mopping up and spraying with Nature's Miracle, but half an hour or an hour later there'd be another puddle in the same area. (And this is with me allegedly watching her closely.) So I threw away the drop cloth, then we repeated the process with the 2nd drop cloth and then a third one. So then I just left the deck bare--we'll have to put down more plastic when we pick up painting again; this just makes it more of a hassle to get started. I mean, even when I was *right with her* and grabbed her the instant she squatted, yelled "No!", took her out to the lawn, praised her when she finished peeing there--which I did 2 or 3 times, I think--she still wanted to keep peeing on the drop cloths on the deck. (At least I don't THINK she's peed on the carpet on the deck since then--but it's not as easy to see as a puddle on plastic.)

So I'm feeling a bit discouraged at the moment.

Mucking with Blog Format

I've just gone cruising through some of Blogger's features again and have added a 10-most-recent-posts section in the right sidebar. This is tricky, because if you click on any of the dated archive files, you'll still see the 10 most recent posts from today. HOWEVER, if you view each post as an individual page (rather than about a month at a time), you'll see the 10 posts by title previous to that post (no dates in sidebar, though).

I added a "View as separate page" link to the top of each post to make it clearer that you can do that (also easier to use those links if you want to hang onto the URL for just that one post rather than to the whole main page).

Hope this makes sense.

The "current" link in the sidebar doesn't seem to be working. In fact--I don't know that I ever fixed it to make it work. Sorry about that.

Puppy Class

Yesterday we drove down to Atascadero--about a 2.5-hour drive if you don't stop--for a puppy class with my favorite puppy instructor, Rachel Sanders. She's been Tika's instructor all along, but she recently moved down there so regular classes aren't a possibility any more.

I convoyed with two agility friends and we met up with another one of their friends down there; they all have Australian Shepherd puppies from the same litter, born a day after the Booster. We had Boost (blue merle), Ruby (short for Rubicon; red tricolor), Jasmine (black tricolor), and Dylan (red merle), so we had quite a color collection.

Learned a lot, practiced a lot. Might get around to talking about it eventually; maybe not.

I also did a couple of half-hour sessions just with me and Tika. She didn't knock a single bar the whole session, even though we tried to set up situations where she might. On the other hand, it was a challenging surface (sandy) and it was hot so she wasn't always moving as fast as usual, AND it wasn't a competition. But, still, that was good.

We worked on my acknowledged overhandling issues. I have so far to go still in becoming an excellent handler! Argh argh argh.

Going Potty Over Potty

We were going to be very successful at potty training. I have all kinds of information from various sources that I've gathered over the years, and lots more experience in dog training and in understanding dogs, and I'm working at home almost all the time, and I'm using crates and x-pens and leashes and all that to control my dog.

On the other hand, my personal theory is not simply that "accidents will happen", as most of the books and trainers will tell you, but that in fact learning doesn't happen without accidents where you catch the dog in (or, preferably, just before) the act so that you can tell the dog "wrong" or "not here" and speed him out to the desired potty area. (OK, in truth, this is something you'll hear a lot in dog training--and in people training--one learns best when one makes mistakes along the way. Just no one ever seems to *tell* you that about potty training.)

So, OK, we were going to catch Boost in the act (or preferably just before) and rush her out to the potty area.

These are nice theories.

During the closely monitored period of her life, the first few weeks, where she was virtually never out of my sight, we still had a few accidents--maybe half a dozen at most. The morning when she squatted at the door while I was unlocking it; the next morning where I decided to carry her down to avoid this and then she got excited when the other dogs ran by and peed down my shirt and pants; the middle of the night when she was very restless and woke me up but by the time I was fully awake she had peed in the crate (plastic tray at bottom so cleanup not too bad); the time I left her in the crate while playing with the other dogs in the yard and didn't make sure she had peed beforehand.

Once, while I had her with me in the bathroom, I realized I was looking at pre-poop behavior and rushed her outside, where she pooped immediately and got a lot of praise. This was according to plan.

But because I controlled all of her access and timing, she was never in a position to decide when to go out on her own--I always took her out when I thought it was time to go potty. And I was usually right. But was she learning anything?

Then began the less-controlled portion of her life. For the last week or so I've been giving her lots of off-leash in-house freedom, although I'm trying very hard to still keep an eye on her everywhere in the house. In the first couple of days--

• We had breakfast, exercised, tried to potty but did nothing, settled down with a chew toy in the kitchen; suddenly I realized she wasn't there (she's like a little gray ghost) and called her. She came running downstairs (she's not supposed to be up there without me but she doesn't really know that) and then settled down nicely for a nap. Housemate came down about an hour later to ask whether Boost had been with me the whole time because there was a little poopy gift in his bedroom.
  
  Fortunately it was dry and easy to clean up.
• The next morning, I worked hard at keeping an eye on her *all* the time in the house. She was sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes down in the office (which I can see from the kitchen), playing with toys, lying around, running back and forth. I could've sworn I watched her all the time, anyway. But when I headed out to the garage, there was a little puddle in the middle of the tile just behind the staircase wall that's the only place I can't see through between the kitchen and the office.
• Later that day, we were out in the garage unloading groceries and sorting sodas. The little puppy nose got into everything and I kept fending her off. She was constantly underfoot, and so followed me closely from the garage to the kitchen and back again. About the fourth time I made the trip, my little human scent detectors thought they smelled something funny (not as in ha-ha) in the garage. Sure enough, in the far corner, was little poopy gift again.

And it has gone on like that, although not so many in a single day as I become wiser to her sneak tactics. Not always wise enough:

This morning, after Boost and Tika had a very intense play session in the back yard, then in the office, then Boost ran like a maniac through about a thousand tunnels, then we all came into the kitchen and Boost collapsed on a mat under the table. Jake collapsed on the other mat under the table. Tika looked at us (panting) for a moment or two while I watched her standing there with muddy feet, then turned and headed upstairs. I immediately called her back and put a gate across the stairs. As I headed back into the kitchen, there came a loud thump from upstairs. I tried to imagine what could have been precarious enough upstairs to fall and make a noise while no one was up there--then I noticed that there remained only one dog on a mat under the table.

The little grey ghost had whisked herself upstairs, silently, during a time when I was 100% positive that I was watching the area and knew exactly where she was. It's amazing.

A couple of days ago I thought I smelled dog pee in my bedroom. I checked everywhere, crawling all over the carpet feeling for wet spots, checked in the closets and the bathroom and checked the mat in her crate. Nothing.

This morning I plopped my laundry basket on the foot of my bed--and noticed a large stain across the comforter cover. Completely dry. But smelling intensely like puppy pee. Went all through the comforter (milkweed silk, if you can believe it, not down--supposed to be better for allergy sufferers, but that means it needs special handling) and the sheet and onto my electric mattress pad--all dry but all stinky. Thank goodness all of that padding kept it from getting down to the mattress itself.

When did she do that? Cripe.

When I strippped the cover off the comforter, I noticed another large stain on the comforter. But no matching stain on the sheet. Which means it happened at least a week ago and I didn't notice.

The puppy isn't even allowed on the bed, but she gets up there ASAP the instant I take my eyes off her. Little grey ghost--

Life is full of surprises.