How Danged Refusals Killed Our Snooker Run

SUMMARY: Boost won't go over jumps that are right in frigging front of her.

This is an ongoing problem. There are certain situations on course where she's so busy looking at me that she won't take a jump that's right in front of her. Rear crosses are sometimes the cause, but not always. Drives me nuts. Instructor says her mother was the same way. A friend was shooting photos this weekend and got a lovely sequence that shows her looking back at me constantly instead of looking at the course.

Coming through the #2 tire--we're good, she's fast and ahead of me, which is where you want the dog before a cross-behind. (Although I see in the photo that she caught the tire coming through.)

Uh-oh, already halfway to the blue jump she's looking back at me instead of looking at where she's going.

She's still looking at me instead of looking for an obstacle. Can you believe that she actually finally took that jump without knocking the bar?

As she's taking the jump, she's STILL looking at me and not picking up that I want to go to the left. I think I must have taken the extra steps past the jump to keep her from backjumping it after this point.

And now I'm on the wrong side of jump #3, she's facing me, and we have nowhere to go. She's jumping around in front of me, looking at me, instead of thinking about obstacles.

On this snooker run, we had a lovely lovely opening with me being able to send her a bit over jumps and back through a straight tunnel. She was so good, and kept her bars up, and didn't run around the first jump when I led out quite a ways. Then we rounded the very wide 180 from the tunnel exit to the tire, and that's when the trouble began.

I wanted to send her ahead of me over the blue jump (#3) so that I could rear cross and pull her back over #4. But she'd glance at the jump, then look back at me, so she was running kind of half sideways at the jump, repeatedly. And I'm holding my arm up and saying HUP! and running at the right side of the jump. Instructor said I have to keep going, don't try to cut across behind her until she's committed to the jump. Which, in this case, wasn't until after I was PAST the jump, so now she's between me and #4 and I have no way of getting her there because she's still facing me instead of looking around for obstacles.

When she finally turns, she turns to her left and the wrong end of the tunnel is the first thing she sees, and in she goes, for an offcourse.

And it was SUCH a nice opening, too!

It's All About the Titles (2007)

SUMMARY: 2007 agility titles earned.

On any given day, I might tell you that agility is all about the clothing, all about winning winning winning, or all about having fun with your dog. But those are days on which I am not thinking clearly. Obviously, agility is all about how many titles you can earn. Because there are a lot of them. And because you get lovely certificates, suitable for framing, and sometimes even cool plaques to hang on your wall that are easier to dust than ribbons and that don't require that you hunt down a frame in which to put them.

Herewith¹ are my dogs' titles earned during 2007 (I don't seem to have all my cert's yet--dang--)

Boost

2	USDAA Starters (novice level): SSA (Starters Standard Agility: 3 Standard) AD (Agility Dog: completed novice level, at least 3 Standard, 1 Jumpers, 1 Gamblers, 1 Snooker, 1 Pairs Relay)
	USDAA Advanced (intermediate level): AG (Advanced Gamblers: intermediate level, 3 Gamblers) AS (Advanced Snooker: 3 Snookers) AAD (Advanced Agility Dog: completed intermediate level, at least 3 Standard, 1 Jumpers, 1 Gamblers, 1 Snooker, 1 Pairs Relay)
	CPE: CL3-S (CPE Level 3 (intermediate) Strategy: 2 Snooker and 2 Gambler/Jackpots (under the old rules)) CL3-R (Level 3 Regular: 4 Standards (old rules)) CL3-F (Level 3 Fun: 2 FullHouse and 2 Jumpers (old rules))

Tika

	USDAA ADCH (Agility Dog Champion: 5 each Masters Standard, Gamblers, Jumpers, Snooker (including 3 Super-Qs--top 15%), and Pairs Relay)
	USDAA Snooker: SM (Snooker Master: 5 Masters (top level) Snookers (including 3 Super-Qs--top 15%)) SCH (Snooker Champion: SM + 5 more Snooker) SCH-bronze (SCH + 5 more Snooker)
	USDAA Standard: SACH (Standard Agility Champion: 10 Masters Standard) SACH-bronze (15 Masters Standard)
	USDAA misc: GCH (Gamblers Champion: 10 Masters Gamblers) RCH-bronze (15 Masters Pairs Relay) JCH (10 Masters Jumpers)
	USDAA TM-silver (Tournament Master silver: At least 25 Grand Prix, Steeplechase, and DAM Team, with at least 5 of each.
	ASCA: GS-O (Gamblers Open (intermediate level) title--3 Gamblers) RS-E (Standard Elite (top level)--3 Standards) JS-N (Jumpers Novice (novice level)--3 Jumpers)

---

¹ Yes, another useful everyday word in the Here clan, which has many aunts, uncles, and cousins, many of whom are in the legal profession, and which also includes hereabouts, hereafter, hereaway, herein, hereinabove, hereinafter, hereinbefore, hereinbelow, hereto, heretofore, hereunder, hereunto, and hereupon. Now go read a dictionary and stop bothering me with these questions.
² Today was Fun with PhotoShop day, not Fun with Photography Day. The light level was too low, I didn't use a tripod or a flash, so pictures are crappy. Yes, all the USDAA certs are exactly the same pale ivory color, not assorted khakis and blues. But cropping out backgrounds is so much fun, and doesn't it look so much cooler! I mean, were you going to read the certs anyway? (If so, click on an image to enlarge it.)

CPE Weekend Wrap-Up

SUMMARY: Mixed bag again. OK, it's almost always a mixed bag.

Tika ran nicely, for the most part. She really is my reliable agility dog. Finally! At age 7!

• She knocked 2 bars --one in full house that didn't matter, one in Jumpers that prevented a Perfect Weekend of 10 Qs. Back to bar-knocking drills.
• Contacts: Got all of her contacts--barely--but there were almost no contacts all weekend on course! Aframe/teeter/dogwalk in Standard on Saturday (she wasn't entered on Sunday), Aframe in Jackpot on Sunday 3 times, and that's it.
• Most of the weekend, the only dog in her same height and level (24" Level C) was Annie the very fast & experienced rescue BC, who debuted about the same time that Tika did.
• But in CPE, levels 4/5/C run the same course, and sometimes Level 3, too, and even sometimes everyone competing at the trial, all levels. So I can compare against more than just my group.
• Sat Jumpers/no Q: Very fast and smooth, that one dang bar. 6th fastest of 56 4/5/C dogs (faster: Cody the Aussie, Reilly the spotted mixed-breed, Vixen, and Cory the super Sheltie, but not Annie for a change).
• Sat Wildcard/Q and 1st: Really smooth-looking on a twisty course. The fastest of all 44 4/5/C dogs--but Annie wasn't entered.
• Sat Colors/Q and 2nd: Nice but I forgot to call her coming out of a tunnel so she way overshot and had to come back. Still, 6th fastest of 57 3/4/5/C dogs (Annie beat us by 3.5 seconds! Jeez! Also faster: Sydney the Aussie, Cody the Aussie again, Steamer the zippy BC, and some dog named Boost.)
• Sat Full House/Q and 2nd:That's the one where she was a stride away from exiting a tunnel for 3 more points. I thought she had made it, she was moving so fast; had to review the video to assure myself that the scribe hadn't made a mistake. Still, she was 5th-highest of all 114 dogs, with 46 points; Annie had 49 and three had 47 (Django the 24" Border Collie, Sydney again, and Sooner the Papillon, who is fast but also had 5 more seconds than the rest of us).
• Sat Standard/Q and 2nd: One big turn where she headed the wrong way after the dogwalk so wasted time. Still, she was 4th fastest of 49 4/5/C dogs (faster: Annie of course, and Steamer again, and that Boost critter also).
• Sun Jackpot/Q and 2nd: I chickened out when the whistle blew and didn't take one more 5-point obstacle. Turns out that I had 7 seconds left, so I could've easily done it, it was right next to me. I remember that when I ran Boost. So, with 59 points instead of 64, she was only 9th-highest scoring of 114 dogs (all levels same course). (Scoring higher: Annie, naturally, with 61, Boost with 61 (would've had that 64 except she popped out one pole early on her last weaves), Cory the Sheltie again with 63, Chaps the Aussie (who wasn't there Saturday) with 64, Steamer again with 62, and three little dogs who got 7 more seconds--Porsche the Corgi with 66, MeiMei the Corgi with 62, and Beau the mini poodle with 61.)
• Sun Full House/Q and 1st: I thought I had a clever course that would get me 52 points, but it involved lots of tight turns and I didn't call/manage Tika tightly enough. We ended up with 46 points (she knocked one 1-point bar and the wide turns didn't allow time for the one final 5-pointer). (For a change, Annie had only 44--they missed 4 more points on a misdirected jump--but Chaps once again had more with 48, and that Steamer zipped with 49.) So Tika was "only" the 3rd highest of all 101 dogs.
• Sun Jumpers/Q and 1st: A clean, smooth run. Annie knocked a bar and bobbled a jump, so we took 1st again, but there were two other dogs faster among the 55 4/5/C (Chaps 0.4 secs faster, Sydney 2 secs faster).
• Sun Wildcard/Q and 1st: Pretty smooth if you ask me. Don't know that it could've been faster. Annie was over 2 seconds faster but knocked the last bar, so we eked out another 1st. (Others faster in the 64 3/4/5/C dogs: Cory again by 1.1, Steamer again by almost 2.)
• Sun Snooker/Q and 1st: The 7-pointer was a combo of a 20-foot tunnel and 12-pole weaves, but I really pushed her and we made it through the last weave just before the whistle blew, for a perfect 51-point round and a 1st place. Only 3 other dogs out of 68 3/4/5/C dogs got 51 (Chaps again, Cory again, and Ouzo), but Annie didn't run this one, or Steamer, or Sydney--and Boost and I blew it.

Boost had her moments. She's very fast--even sometimes having to repeat obstacles or recover from repeated refusals, she still had some of the fastest course times.

• Weaves: Problems again. She's running past them completely again, or ducking in somewhere in the middle, or popping out. Can't they just stay fixed? If I can be there near the beginning and end to manage her a teensy bit, she's good. But I want independent weaves like Tika's! Out of 16 sets of poles, 7 had problems. Back to the drawing board.
• Refusals: Only maybe 3 really bad ones, one of which cost us Snooker on Saturday when I had to run out of position to get her to take the danged thing. I think rear crosses are the worst. Back to the drawing board.
• Go on: At the end of the courses, where judges like to put several jumps in a run for a really fast fun race to the finish, Boost keeps stopping and looking back at me, while I'm running as fast as I can yelling "go hup! Go! Hup! Go! Hup!" and my arm is up and then half the time we end up with a refusal or two because she's too close to the jump to take it comfortably. Known issue. Work harder.
• Contacts and start line: Lovely lovely lovely.
• Bars: Well, she knocked fewer this weekend than last weekend jumping 20" instead of 24", but still knocked enough to make me go back to my thinking that it's a bar-knocking issue, not a height issue.
• Sat Jumpers/Q and 3rd: Ran past 2nd jump on a lead-out so I reset her to get into position, wasting beaucoup time.
• Sat Wildcard/Q and 1st: Missed weave entry so had to come back for it.
• Sat Colors/Q and 2nd: Yay! Kept bars up! Finished Level C! But looking back at me instead of running to end.
• Sat Snooker/no Q: Started very nicely with 3 sets of weaves but in the closing, that stubborn refusal on a rear cross, leading to a juicy tunnel offcourse.
• Sat Standard/Q and 1st: A really really nice run.
• Sun Jackpot/Q and 2nd: I got into the wrong position so we bobbled some things, leading into a refusal, and she popped out of one set of weaves, but our score was 2nd highest of all 112 dogs, so I shouldn't complain too much. Except that the only dog with more points--that lovely Steamer--was in our height/level again, keeping us from a first place.
• Sun Full House/Q and 2nd: Missed weave entry twice, so couldn't pick up the rest of our planned points. Not a bad score, and also, too bad that fast Steamer is in her height and level!
• Sun Standard/No Q: Bars bars bars, missed weaves twice, looking back at me at the end.
• Sun Wildcard/No Q: Missed weaves, and when I pulled her around to try again, took a juicy tunnel offcourse.
• Sun Snooker/No Q: Lovely two sets of weaves, then she didn't go where I wanted after the 3rd red, and I fell flat on my back trying to call her to me. She came over to tell me to GET UP COME ON! and I petted her, stood up, then just took her straight to the table to stop the clock instead of it occurring to me until the next day that what she did was LEGAL and I could've just stood up and gone on and maybe gotten the Q. But I don't think that fast. Dang. You'd think that after hundreds of snooker runs--this was my 305th, if you'd like to know--I'd have that idea embedded in my brain. But no.

But I had a good time, weather was great, judges were nice, friends were fun, dogs were fast and a joy to be on the course with.

CPE Weekend Photos

SUMMARY: Today, some photos. Later or maybe tomorrow, some narrative results info and post-game analysis.

	There is always a workers appreciation gift (WAG--isn't that clever? I made it up back in, uh, gosh, when we were still doing trials up on the lawn between the buildings at Hayward) raffle, and you can get tickets only by working. This is what I really want and why I work a lot each trial. Free-entry certificates. I put in many tickets. Did I win many free entries? Not this time.
	But this looked like it would be a useful thing to have around the house, so I put a ticket in here, too. I also didn't win this. I'm guessing that's a good thing.
	This is what most of the raffle offerings look like. It's exciting until you realize that I already have 60,000 toys, rawhides, and leashes lying around the house, many of them never used ever for anything.
	In the Easter spirit, the pens for filling out your raffle tickets are decorated all flowery. Or maybe that's all the time, to prevent the miracle of the pens rising and walking away under their own power.
	This keychain looked pretty cool but as we saw earlier, my keychain is plenty crowded with useless gewgaws already, so I did not put in a ticket.
	Instead, let's look at some entertaining results for ouir runs on Saturday. The darker horizontal lines separate dogs who are competing directly against each other.
	Compare and contrast Tika's results with other dogs. All the dogs on the sheet are at the same level of competition, just different heights.
	If only she had been one stride further to exit the tunnel, we'd have gotten those 3 points, too!
	This is the only thing that kept Tika from having a perfect weekend (10 Qs out of 10 runs)--that danged knocked bar for 5 faults. Dang dang dang.
	This was Boost's really lovely Standard run Saturday. We went downhill considerably on Sunday.
	Ribbon for Boost finishing her last Level 3 requirement, so now she's earned "CL3".
	Our ribbons for Saturday. They don't fit on Boost's crate, so Tika's crate is kindly holding all of them. On Sunday, Tika had 5 ribbons and more firsts, and Boost had fewer ribbons and fewer firsts. It's nice to have two dogs.
	When I'm eating lunch, I have the crates open to toss them orts (there's that crossword puzzle word again) from my plate. The rule is that you can't exit the crate. Tika isn't big on rules. But it took me about 20 shots to catch her, because every time I raised my camera, she ducked back inside.
	The neighboring Little Black Dogs, Sparkle and Scully, get watermelon cut up specially for them.
	Scully enjoys and Sparkle drools. My dogs get Zukes or maybe cut-up Rollover served from my slobbered fingers. As also previously recently discussed. Not watermelon tenderly and loving cut into LBD-sized pieces and served with a fork.
	Wear sunscreen. Wear sunscreen. Wear sunscreen.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

SUMMARY: Is Boost night-trained or isn't she?

When Boost came to live with me, she was about 3 months old and sleeping through the night. We did have a rare case or two of peeing in the crate at night, but at the time I was using a crate with a waterproof base, so clean-up was easy. Eventually, I switched to a lightweight fabric crate, and eventually (like with all my dogs) she ended up sleeping on my bed.

I've never had a problem with my dogs regularly needing to go outside during the night. Usually, if a dog suddenly feels nature calling--even needing to throw up--she'll leap off my bed, which is what wakes me so that I can usher them outside (or, in case of imminent horking, onto the tiled bathroom floor).

In Jake's last year or two, he needed to go out during the night more and more often, but he was 15 when he died, so I'd cut him some slack. Plus he somehow cleverly figured out that, if I didn't wake up and let him out (and I tend to doze off again unless the activity continues), he could walk into my shower stall, do his business there, and get back to bed. How clever is that? I *never* ushered any of my dogs into my shower stall for anything exept a very rare bath.

During the time she was sleeping in the crate and for a while thereafter, I was going through a period of insomnia, so I'd rise in the night, don my robe, and head downstairs for a hot chocolate and a crossword puzzle to put me back to sleep. If in the crate, she'd start to make a ruckus, so I'd have to let her out to keep her from waking my housemate. Whereupon she'd want to go out, so I'd let her. When she stopped sleeping in her crate, she'd just immediately get up as soon as I did, trot downstairs, and demand to be let out. And I'd let her.

I've had less and less trouble with insomnia over time, and now (bless hormone therapy!) it's not a problem at all. So, in recent months, I've realized that she's been waking up in the middle of the night on hre own and needing to go out. Not every night, but I doubt that a week goes by where she doesn't want to go out at least one night. This is the dog, mind you, who can go most of an entire day at an agility trial without peeing and a whole weekend without pooping because things are just too interesting to want to take time for potty breaks. So I figure maybe she's just holding it.

I've started insisting on her going outside before bedtime and waiting for her to potty (and giving the verbal signal and all), but most of the time she just tries to play. (I don't do so, and I take away her toys, but that doesn't necessarily stop her.) It's rare that she'll actually do something at that time under my guidance.

I've started getting pissy in the middle of the night when she wakes me up. Maybe that's the wrong thing to do (she says in retrospect), because now she apparently tries to hold it, which makes her restless, so she moves around on the bed and moves and moves and moves and moves and moves and STOP IT DAMMIT! (or I keep telling her to settle and then rolling over and dozing off).

Two weeks ago, in one of our rare stays in a motel, she DID pee right before I went to bed, and she did get really restless in teh middle of the night and I ignored it, figuring it was the noise of an unfamiliar hotel setting. Finally I rolled over, reclaiming more of my bed--and discovered that it was sopping wet all through my dog-bed-cover, the bedding, the mattress pad, and the mattress. Fortunately there was another bed in the room. I took her out right then and she peed some more.

So I don't know whether I managed to train her to wait for the middle of the night to go potty or whether there's something else going on. We have none of the other likely symptoms of, say, a bladder infection, so I'm just thinking it's a training thing, and I'm struggling with fixing it.

Friday night, she woke me up leaping off the bed and refusing to settle. In the yard, she walked all the way around the yard slowly (not her usual pottying mode, which is a trot to an appropriate location), peed for about half a second, and then came back into the house and settled for the rest of the night. Does she think she HAS to go out in the middle of the night even if she DOESN'T need to go? Dang dog brains.

Busy CPE Day 1

SUMMARY: Each dog Qed 4 out of 5; filmed for TV!

A day of mixed success, although the goods outweighed the bads.

The weather was lovely; started out with frost on everything, but warmed up to a short-sleeves kind of sunny day. Should be more of the same tomorrow.

Tika, who has been keeping her bars up most of the time in CPE, has started knocking them again--only one today, in Jumpers, putting us even farther behind in Jumpers than everything else towards our (far-distant) C-ATE award. She had some very nice runs but one of the fastest dogs at the trial this weekend was the only other dog competing in our class and level. So, instead of a given 1st place in everything, we had to work at it:
*In Jumpers, Tika had the fastest time on an otherwise smooth run but knocked a bar, so no Q and no 1st.
*In Wildcard, she had a beautiful run that made it look easy and the fastest time of all dogs all heights in levels 4/5/C (about 55 dogs) by a couple of seconds, so she had a well-earned Q and first.
*In Colors, I neglected to call her for a turn after a straight tunnel, so she blasted straight out and away from where she needed to be, easily wasting 2 seconds or more, which is how much we ended up behind the first-place dog (Annie).
*In Full House, Annie had a lovely run but ran a slightly different course than we did. I thought we had her on points, but in reviewing the videotape, I discovered that in fact Tika wasn't quite out of the last 3-point tunnel when the whistle blew, so we were 3 points behind Annie. (But were were still among the top few out of all dogs all heights all levels.)
*In Standard, she had a very fast run except where she ran through (at least not jumping over) the dogwalk down contact and veered off towards the wrong obstacle before I could call her back, putting her I think about a second behind the first place dog (Annie). But again, our speed was among the fastest of all 55ish dogs all heights all levels on that course.


Boost did much better about bars jumping 20" this week instead of 24" two weeks ago. At least I have that option in CPE. She knocked only one bar...
* ... in Wildcard, which at Level 4 is still a Q, but not a first place, especially since she also ran past the first set of weaves and I had to bring her back around to restart them.
* Her Jumpers started with her running past the second jump on a lead-out pivot, so I reset her before it and walked back out to position to make her take the jump. So it was a Q but with a really slow time. But that also moves her up to Level 5 in Jumpers for tomorrow.
* Her Colors was nice, I believe a first place, and that last Q we needed to get completely out of Level 3! W00t! That's our level 3 title!
* Her Standard run was drop-dead gorgeous, beating even the super Steamer (who for example won Steeplechase last weekend) and she earned a 1st on that, although Annie (at a higher level) still beat her by a tenth of a second or so. But we're in the range! Woo hoo!
* Her 7-7-7 12-pole weaves snooker opening, covering 6 jumps as well (#7 a 2-part obstacle of jump plus weaves) was also drop-dead gorgeous--fast, driven, tight turns, bars up, driving out ahead of me. But then in the closing when I tried to do a rear cross--our bugaboo these days--she just kept refusing and refusing and refusing the #3 jump and I had to run past it to get her over it--at which point she saw a lovely juicy off-course tunnel and took it. Sigh.

Meanwhile, a graduate student in Broadcasting at San Francisco State came down for the day to film for a class project that will also probably air on the college station eventually. Our main club contact turned her loose on me, and she focused on my dogs and their runs for the day, although I tried to direct her towards people with small dogs, more rescue dogs, someone who earned her championship that day, dogs who also do therapy, dogs of less common breeds, dogs who do tricks (well-that's almost all of us, right?), and the trial chair and secretary and so on. She got tons of film and was there almost all day, got most of my dogs' runs, too.

I'm eager to see what she turns it into. Probably a 5-minute segment on their sports show.

I'm tired. Should go to bed.

My Email Going Astray

If anyone has sent me email to which they think I haven't responded, please try again. I'm discovering that some of my email is randomly going astray, mostly without bounce notices. Just vanishes, and I don't know about it.

Nondog People

SUMMARY: In which I am reminded that I hang out with a rare crowd of doggily aware humans.

On the Wednesday night hike, dogs came up more than once (and it wasn't even me!).

One man told how his sister-in-law had adopted a dog after Katrina who was rescued floating on a mattress in the Mississippi. "It turns out," he says, "that the dog is half German Shepherd and half Blue Heeler!" I say something about, or best guess, if it was found abandoned, and he said, no, really, that's what it is. And he said, do you know what a Blue Heeler is? And I said yes, it's a (and he couldn't wait for me to say it so had to rush in to say it slightly ahead of me) "a kind of Australian Cattle Dog" (except I didn't say "a kind of").

He later said that the dog has lots of energy and can run really fast and jump over really high things and climbs on all kinds of things, so he told his family (I'm thinking "to teach the dog agility", but no--) that they needed to teach that dog to play fetch so he could burn off some energy. That's OK, I think that's a worthy goal.

A dog-owning lady ("I've always had a dog my whole life") said, Well, some dogs retrieve and some dogs don't, and you can't teach them. It's like playing with you, some dogs will and some dogs won't. I said, oh, but they can be taught. And she said, I dunno-- and the other guy said, it's really pretty simple, you just make it clear to the dog that he's supposed to bring the stick back to you when you throw it.

Later another guy said, I've heard about the newest thing in dog training, where you're supposed to train them by talking to them and telling them what you want and using food to reward them, instead of, like, punishing them if they misbehave. And I'm afraid that I did then go off on the "oh, yes, operant conditioning has become much more popular since my first dog back in the late '70s, its popularity probably started with dolphin trainers because you can't hit them with a rolled up newspaper if they don't do want you want, and dogs learn so much more quickly with positive reward and negative punishment blah blah blah--" and their eyes started glazing over, except the dog-owning lady said, what if they bite somebody? And I stopped, sort of stunned, and stuttered something about contacting the humane society for a good behaviorist and that's definitely something that I'd give a very harsh correction (positive punishment, but I didn't say that) for.

So then I realize one reason why I like hanging out with my agility friends. Everyone seems to have so much deeper understanding about dogs, dog genetics, dog behavior, dog training, and just--dogs!

Except my sister who is more into horses, although she's always had dogs, too, but there's a lot of similarity in communicating with any other animal who doesn't speak English or other languages commonly taught in the local high schools. So she understands. But doing horse jumping competitions is a whole lot more expensive and challenging than dog competitions. For one thing, when you go to an out-of-town event, your horses can't sleep in the hotel room with you on the other double bed. They at least need their own giant crate. (Ha ha. That's a dog person's joke about horse people. Whereupon the horse people say, now I realize one reason why I like hanging out with my horsey people friends.)

OK, I have to go finish packing for the trial tomorrow. We got everything set up this afternoon in record time for 3 rings with only about 4 people (or really it was at least half a dozen)--no contact equipment in any of the first classes! But a REALLY low turnout for our shows. We are going to lose so much money. We were discussing whether it's because it's Easter weekend (over 100 fewer runs on Sunday than Saturday) or because of the cost of gas for people farther away, or because it's harder to get titles now with the bigger requirements in CPE, or because there are so bloody many agility events available in our area.

From My Writing Life

SUMMARY: My fellow Clarionites do well.

One of my fellow Clarion West 1998 classmates (jeez--has it been 10 years?! This July!) announced this week that she has just sold 2 novels. Another just announced that he is on the Hugo ballot for Best Novelette. And that's just this week! I'm thrilled to be associated with this small group of talented people. Someday I'll get back to writing. Really I will. Any day now. Between the dogs and the photography and...

Phone, Conditioning, This Weekend, Teams

SUMMARY: Phone is out, getting in shape for Grand Canyon, CPE this weekend, do I have my DAM teams straight yet?

Phone not working

It's a sign of the times that I didn't even know it until a friend emailed me, saying, "Why aren't you answering your phone? WHY?" But, now that I know, I'm so stressed about being cut off from the world. I don't know why--everyone important has my email. I think. Although they won't know why I'm not answering my phone. The phone company won't connect me to a live person and so now I have an appointment "between now (11 a.m.) and 7 p.m." I wasn't able to tell them that I'm leaving here at 6:45 for agility class. The dogs tried to help me debug the problem, but to no avail.

Conditioning for Grand Canyon

I think I'm still on with my Santa Cruz Mtns friend for our hike down to Havasu Falls in May. I'm really trying to get serious about dropping those 10 pounds I somehow found in the last month. Why why why? Could it have been something to do with how many hours I've been working? Hate it. But have been struggling to keep sugary stuff out of the house. Helps some--instead I tend to eat too many pretzels and dried apricots, but probably better than ice cream with hard shell.

AND I've been trying to walk at least a mile every day, although some days I miss, so try for 2 the next.

Last evening went for a brisk, maybe 4-mile hike with a Sierra Club Group along the beginnings of the Stevens Creek Trail out into Shoreline Park, where we could see the back side of Moffet Field and its blimp hangars. Lots of shrubs blooming, native (like the brilliantly yellow-flowering Fremontodendron) and not. But it was getting darkish, I had only my cheapie snapshot camera, and every time I paused to turn the camera on and take a shot, I fell about 2 miles behind. So mostly snapped photos at a couple of our "regrouping" stops. And it was such a lovely time of day to be taking photos, such great light! And a beautiful sunset! And a full moon! But a crappy camera. Oh, well.

There were about 18 people, seemed like a lot to me for a weekday evening, but they said this is normal. Sometimes some bring their dogs, but not this time.

Also, I've been doing a couple dozen climbs up & down my stairs every day. I'm trying to work up to several dozen over the next 6 weeks.

My knee is holding up well. It's all my other muscles that are out of shape!

This Weekend CPE

This weekend is a local CPE trial in Sunnyvale. Boost will make another attempt to finish her last Level 3 leg (Colors). Tika will attempt to keep her bars up and get all her contacts. At least, that's what they've promised me that they'll be working on.

Teams Teams Teams

Here's the current working list. It could change at any time.
Haute TRACS:
* Boost/Bette/?? (name TBD)
* Tika/Kye/Delilah (Choose Your Color)

NAF June:
* Boost/Bette/Brenn (The Three Bs?)
* Tika/Tack/Savanna (?)

Bay Team July:
* Boost/Bette/Trek (Sisters on a Trek)
* Tika/Brenn/Savanna (Borderin' on K-Aus, but need to decide after Haute TRACS)

Bay Team September:
* Tika/Brenn/Savanna (Borderin' on K-Aus)
* Boost...haven't really discussed

LoveYerDog AKA Bath Day

SUMMARY: Dogs are now officially clean.

According to Wikipedia:

In Scandinavian countries, Saturday is called Lördag or Löverdag etc., the name being derived from the old word laugr (hence Icelandic name Laugardagur), meaning bath, thus Lördag equates to bath-day. This is due to the Viking usage of bathing on Saturdays.

OK, today isn't Saturday (dang! that always happens! At least 6 days a week!), but we all got baths today. So when I looked up "bath day" on the web, I found the preceding quote, which says that bath day is called Loveyerdog in actual Scandinavian countries! See how appropriate that is!

I almost never bathe my beasts. Once a year maybe. They get hosed off often enough on warm agility days or muddy winter days, and they don't have greasy coats. But Boost has been scratching a lot lately and Tika's white chest has developed that dangling-tag gray, plus they're both shedding like crazy, so it was time.

But who'd have thought a mere two lady dogs could have gotten so many things wet?

There Is Nothing Like A Frame

SUMMARY: Today's song lyrics

Update March 19: See end of post!
Sometimes I wander around the house singing to myself and to my dogs. This is what came out this morning (from the famous musical, South Pacific Dog Agility):

Apparently not doing 2-on/2-off today. Photo by Sarah Hitzeman

Teddy the Beagle demonstrates the viewing potential of an elevated structure.

We miss contacts on our teeter,
We miss contacts on our 'walk,
We got weavepoles that are iffy,
We got bars that we can knock,
We got rules that can confuse us
In the tricky Snooker game.
What is the worst?
The darn A Frame!

We get runouts and refusals,
We get broken start-line stays,
We get lost on Jumpers courses
That are set up like a maze,
We get caught in chutes and tires,
Visit judges for a spell.
What is the worst?
You know darn well!

There is nothin' you can fly off so wide from...
There is nothin' else you can't really hide from...

There is nothin' like A Frame,
Nothin' in the ring,
There is nothin' you can blame
That is anything like A Frame!

[verses omitted to get to the grand finale--]

There are no flyoffs like A Frame,
And no creeping like A Frame.
You can perch on A Frame
And look around from A Frame,
Run around an A Frame,
Bail right off an A Frame.
There ain't a thing that's wrong with any obstacle
That can't be worse when you have to pull
To a big wide, steep-sided, slatted, faultable Frame!

NOTE: If anyone can successfully fill in the missing dadadas with an appropriate line, I'll add it here with credit! Update March 19: Thanks, Wishy the Writer, for this suggestion: We get caught in chutes and tires, Visit judges for a spell. (Read lyrics to original "There is Nothing Like a Dame." Oh, cool, YouTube has the scene with the song from the movie, so you can see and hear the original, too! Don't they look like a bunch of handlers walking a course? Sure they do!)

More Photos Than You Can Shake A Rope Toy At

SUMMARY: Finally.

I've been wanting to do this for a lonnnng time. Herewith:

Taj MuttHall photo album, all the photos ever uploaded to this blog or used in any of my finchester.org dog pages anywhere.

(Disclaimers: Very basic HTML pages, nothing fancy. Lots of photos per page, so I hope they don't croak your browser. No captions, and occasional random text comments that might look to you as if they don't line up with anything.)

Wendy Does Tie Dye

SUMMARY: Contact info for my tie dyer.

For those who inquired about Wendy's tie dying, I checked with her, and she'd love to hear from people interested in commissioned work. Contact her directly at wendybruce (at) comcast (dot) net.

Here are reprises of some of her commissions for me:

	Tie-dye hankies March 2008
	2005 USDAA Nationals team (Run-TMZ) shirts at Scottsdale.
	Me in 2006 at Scottsdale in my 2004 team shirt (G'day Bayou).
	2006 team shirts with finalist team, "Three's a Charm."
	The backs of our shirts.
	Detail of shirts
	Yet another wendy shirt.
	Borderin' on K-Aus, scottsdale 2007
	Shirt details.

Tie Dye Rules the Nose

SUMMARY: Now I can clear my sinuses in style.

I'm one of those people who always carries a hankie, because my nose always runs. (Sometimes faster than I do with my dogs. But not faster than my dogs. Usually.)

Anyway, I'm also one of those people who hates white. I mean, it just gets dirty. Well, OK, everything just gets dirty with dogs, but with white, you can tell that it's dirty about 30 seconds after you get it out of the drawer, especially (but not exclusively) with dogs in the household. So, for me, no white hankies (or sheets, or towels, or undergarments, or shirts, pants, shoes, tablecloths, walls, or nuthin'--I mean, NO WHITE! The only reason I own bleach--and sometimes I don't, for years on end--is because sometimes I have to kill something).

Hankies are a problem, because for some reason everyone assumes that the fabric upon which you exhale your sinusoidal byproducts (good word, must use more often) should be white. No one asked me, or I could have demonstrated why white's a bad idea. Anyhoo--I've had a huge stack of lightly flowered white hankies for years--they were gifts, and although I'm not particularly a pastel-flower type of person, either, they were much much better than all-white. However, now they're all wearing out, and I need replacements. I can't even find little pastel-flowered ones in mass quantity.

I tried tie-dyed men's hankies in the past but they are wayyyyy huge. That seems to be the only size that the ubiquitous tie-dyers at all the Art and Wine shows sell--perhaps they think that (a) only men blow their noses? (b) only men would dare to use nonwhite hankies? Well, I just don't blow my nose THAT much, plus I have little dainty ladylike pockets in my jeans. (No one asked me about that, either.)

Fortunately (and this is where dogs come in), through dog agility, I met the fabulous Wendy who does fabulous tie dye for many folks in the agility community, and when I sent her a package of brand-new white dainty ladylike hankies, this is what I just got back in the mail. Every one is like a little artwork all on its own! I particularly like the one in the lower right; makes me feel like I'm on the Millennium Falcon, blasting my sinuses into hyperspace.

Blowing my nose will never have been so much fun!

Doggie Junk Food

SUMMARY: What wakes up the dogs' salivary glands?

Team Small Dog posted an excellent recipe for dog training treats, with explanatory photos, which you must read before you read this. Because here's my response.

This was an excellent recipe for hot dog rewards and one that I have used on many occasions when chopped-up-tiny Rollover (or the healthy choice alternative^[1], which is what I usually use these days) wasn't quite special enough.

Although World Class Trainers have told me that hot dogs aren't special enough; they should be getting a whole roast chicken, probably with truffle sauce.

I don't get it. If my hypothetical dog (hypothetically named Tika) thinks that stale left-over puppy kibble is most delectable and so salivates heavily about it, why do I need a whole roast chicken? And do dogs really know the difference between orts (that's a useful everyday word I learned from crossword puzzles) of chicken and minutiae of hot dogs? I don't think so. But certain hypothetical big name trainers said that she felt sorry for my dogs if I thought that hot dogs were a special treat for them. Who am I to argue with success? I don't argue, I just usually use the stale leftover puppy kibble for everyday rewards.

And I use chopped-up Rollover (which I still call "rollover" even though I haven't used that brand in years) as a secondary level of escalation, and chopped-up hot dogs for a real treat. And, in-between, when I'm in a hurry and want something moderately stinky, not greasy (which kibble is, actually), very small (so dogs don't fill up on candy between meals), I use Zukes Mini Naturals, which have the added conveniences of being already chopped up into tiny pieces and of coming in sturdy resealable bags that can withstand almost anything^[2].

But I'm still not certain how much difference it makes--at least, with any of my dogs, "high value" treats tend to be either "food" or "toy" but without a lot of levels of distinction within those categories. You know when vendors at dog shows offer your dog a piece of freeze-dried Alaskan Wild-caught Salmon or Free-Range Montana Organic Smoked Buffalo and say, "my dogs really love this stuff, and look, yours does, too!", I frankly see no difference in the quality of the tendril of saliva coming from Tika's lips or the level of frenzy with which she takes the treat and most of the fingers holding it.

I read somewhere recently that dogs don't taste food in the same way that we do and don't make that much distinction among flavors. I believe it, for the most part. Tika can quickly identify whether something is either "food" (snatch it out of midair and swallow in one gesture), "probably food" (including fingers that might be holding "food" but you can't tell until you've actually closed your teeth around them), or "not food" (say, gravel, which you can spit out quickly, or bananas, which are obviously not intended for consumption by canids of any level of intelligence^[3]).

Or there's Boost, who has to (a) evaluate via olfactory methodology whether it's actual food before she'll even open her mouth, and (b) decide whether perhaps there's something going on that might involve running that would be more worthwhile than taking the time to eat. In which case, she might take any kind of food reluctantly after a call to her attorney, but she'd rather not. Hot dogs might make a difference, but it's hard to tell what level of duress she feels that she's under.

-----

[1]: With a name like Natural Balance, you know that it's healthy, right? Or Science Diet? Or Natural Choice? I'm sure that it's all honesty in naming, so of course manufacturers would call their brand Unidentifiable Ruminant ByProducts if it were really so. Right? Am I right?

(I also need to point out that, right now, the quoted string "unidentifiable ruminant byproducts", when put into google, comes back with exactly 0 results. Let's see whether we can effect a sea change in Google by (a) doing a search right now on the quoted string (quotes are important) "unidentifiable ruminant byproducts" and then by adding it to your web page. Aren't community projects fun? And educational?)

[2]: Except Jake experiencing a premonition that he was going to have massive brain seizures that night and not survive beyond the weekend and so needed to consume all reserve bags of Zukes (and everything else) stored in the van. After he was done, the bags were no longer resealable. But I digress.


[3]: Except Jake, who once ripped open my ex's gym back to get at a banana and, on another occasion, nearly tore his crate open to retrieve one that I had in my gear bag sitting next to the crate. There was a dog whose definition of "food" was considerably broader than Tika's. I had to remove gravel from his mouth on many occasions as he was trying to figure out how to chew it up to swallow it. In his last couple of years, I had to put screening on all of my potted plants because he was starting to eat the soil out from around the roots, and Boost was starting to think that this was a normal thing for puppies to learn from their wise and experienced elders. (See photo of typical agility home's potted plant with screen, dragon head, and Ethernet cable. )

CPE Weekend Results

SUMMARY: Bars. Weaves.

Tika's Bars

Here's how many jumps Tika actually took this weekend: 86. Here's how many she knocked: 3. Here's how many classes she didn't Q in: 3. Coincidence? I think not. Dang; she'd been doing so well in CPE at keeping her bars up.

One of those non-Qs, however, was combined with her apparent long-term strategy that "Come" means " ". On a long lead-out in Snooker, she knocked the first red bar, and when I stood still, facing her, and kept yelling Come Come COME!!!, she made a sharp right turn and took the tire. So that's yet another 0-point Snooker run to our lifetime credit, of which she has now earned 8. (That's out of 116 Snooker runs. That's almost 7% of her runs! Jeez.) Jake had only two 0s of 96 Snookers; Remington never had a 0-point snooker run. Because he pretty much never ever knocked bars. Boost, though, is on her way--she has managed two zero-pointers already out of 35. (That's 5.7% for those of you who like weird numbers like that.)

Boost's Bars

And speaking of knocking bars--Boost knocked 12 out of 89 for the weekend. This is a bad number. She hit 4 in one Jumpers run. Out of the 4 bars that she needed to keep up to Q in Colors to finally finish our Level 3 title, she managed to keep up only 3 of them. Of the 4 bars that she needed to keep up to get a 51-point Snooker, she managed to keep only 3 of them up. At least it was the last bar, not the first--Tika, are you listening?

Boost's Weaves

And Boost's weaves went south again this weekend! After being pretty much pefect since late last summer. She attempted 6 sets of weaves on Saturday and took at least 2 tries on every one before getting them. The first 3 that she tried on Sunday required 4 or more tries. The last of those 4, when she popped in and out of the entrance, I made her stop and put her back at the previous jump in a sit, so she had to sit and wait and think about it, then when she popped out at #10 anyway, I actually was so frustrated that I yelled "No!" on course, violating my own rule against punishment in the ring. I made her stop and wait and very slowly do the last 2 poles correctly, then went on.

Then I just made extra efforts to be in position to babysit the entrances and exits, and she nailed the next 2 sets, and I cheered and praised loudly and enthusiastically and she seemed happy about it. So, for the last run of the weekend, I risked some challenging entrances to the 7-point weaves in the Snooker opening, and she got all three of them like a weavin' genius! Dang dogs.

Tika's Contacts and Scores

Tika's contacts were light on the contact part all weekend, but when I really yelled and was right there with her (which was hard in several places), she managed to get toenails into the yellow zones. But one Standard run combined an A-frame flyoff with a knocked bar for a non-Q, and the Jackpot flyoff on one A-frame meant that she lost her only chance to be the highest-scoring dog of all dogs entered; instead, she was the 4th-highest.

In Full House, usually our forte for whupping everyone's scores, I misdirected her twice so we took a couple of lower-point obstacles instead of a couple of 5-pointers, putting her at 7th highest (although 3 of those were small dogs with more time).

No Perfect Weekend, No Fastest Times

Tika tried hard, though, to have the fastest times of all dogs entered. But she kept getting beaten by either Chance--a pretty danged fast sheltie who jumps 12" instead of Tika's 24"--or Tahoe, a USDAA-national-champion-type veteran dog who also was jumping 12" this weekend to relax and just stay fit before the April 4-day USDAA extravaganza (Really, you think an Aussie jumping 12" could beat Tika's times?!)--or by both, so she was 2nd or 3rd fastest of all dogs in 5 of the 7 timed classes.

Dang, and Qed only 7 of 10, not her best CPE weekend. Boost was only 5 for 10. But, boy, does she have nice sticky 2-on, 2-off contacts, and a great start-line stay!

Wrap Up and The Blues

The weather was lovely; as usual I kept forgetting sunscreen on Saturday; had a good time with my friends. Got some videos, too; if I have time sometime I might post a couple. My prediction was correct that my dogs would place first in all their classes (helps being the only 24" dogs in our levels), so that kind of blue weekend I can handle! (Although I took home only the 1st place ribbons for classes in which we actually Qed.)