Flashback: Random People at California Adventure in September

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday.

(I don't know any of these people--they just caught my eye--and only 8 of the 17 show park employees.)

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Also:

A Good Night At Class

SUMMARY: Boost and Human Mom do well; Tika--well--

It's been two weeks since our last class; the Power Paws instructors were all off at Power Paws camp last week. We didn't do camp this year, so we were on our own for practicing.

We haven't done much in the last couple of weeks. I did set up a straight tunnel in the middle of the yard (usually they're in U shapes around the sides of the yard to give the dogs somewhere to run and keep running back into the yard). This is because, at our last trial, Boost (a) didn't seem to understand about sending to the far end of a tunnel where the opening wasn't facing her, and (b) tends to come out of tunnels and chutes and then turn back to me instead of taking the following jump.

So I set up jumps past either end of the tunnel and practiced a little bit of both of those scenarios.

Did just some random jumps and things with Tika to try to be sure that she stays in shape.

Practiced a few dogwalks and teeters. A few table downs.

Wednesday night and yesterday morning it rained a bit around here. Not a huge amount, but enough to get the ground and the grass wet, and enough so that, when class time rolled around in the evening, when the temperature hit the dew point, everything turned wet wet wet--jump bars, grass, dogs, everything.

Typically in class I alternate runs between Tika and Boost, so they're both getting half a class worth of runs. Two weeks ago, Tika ran well in her first two chances, and then on the third one, she seemed slow and uninterested, so I put her away and ran Boost instead for the rest of the evening.

Last night, Tika ran beautifully in her first run, although it seemed to me that her rear end slewed out from beneath her on many turns. Still, she was bright-eyed, happy, and eager. A break for her while I ran Boost once, then the next time I got Tika out, all she wanted to do was sniff the ground around the start line. I tried to jolly her into paying attention and running, tried restarting her, clapping hands, offering treats. Sniff sniff sniff.

Well, sniffing can be a huge displacement behavior--"I'm stressed and don't want to do this." With Tika, it's sometimes hard to know, as she is SUCH a food hound, and a damp ground probably has even more interesting smells. But when I finally grabbed her collar and almost pushed her over the first jump, she ran with me, but not particularly fast or drivingly. Not droopy or sore looking, just--not all there. So she was done for the night.

She certainly had no issues like that at our last trial. Maybe class isn't exciting enough for her, or the runs are too close together, or,  I think, maybe all that slewing around in the first run made her uncomfortable or nervous, or I dunno--just another sign that she's not going to be doing agility forever.

Boost, meanwhile, ran great! She had two bars down for the evening, and for once I was alert enough to catch her each time before she got to the next obstacle to give her a time out. Everything else was wonderful. Even better, *I* felt great last night--knee didn't bother me at all, I felt like I was hauling butt around the field, getting in what felt like aggressive crosses and such. This doesn't always happen, so it felt good all around. A couple of classmates even commented on it.

If only that all holds up for another week--our last USDAA, and last trial period, for the year next weekend.

THIS weekend, I'm off to a two-day seminar featuring THE Bob Bailey and Dr. Sophia Yin, who is another expert on dog behavior. A sampling of topics:

• "Dog training: Craft or Technology--is there a diffence?"
• "The difference measurement makes: Lessons from the treat and train project"
•  "Your mind's saying one thing, but your body's saying another: The subtle differences in technique that make one handler exceptional and another so-so"

Looking forward to it, even if it is two days of lecture!

Holiday Calendar

SUMMARY: Hummingbird photo.

Back last spring, I posted about a hummingbird nest on my deck and showed some photos illustrating the difficulty of shooting the mom and the chicks.

I kept working at getting photos of the two chicks as they grew, and finally got one that I liked fairly well-- and it's a good thing, because they flew off the next day, never to be seen again.

Of course, it had all kinds of problems anyway--because of the difficulty of squeezing the camera up next to the roof and high enough to see the chicks, and because they're so tiny (the nest is only about 2 inches across), it wasn't even close to straight. Not as sharp as I'd have liked. A little dark. Etc.

Every year, my small company has a contest for employees and their families to pick the art that we'll include on the little fold-out calendars that we send to our clients before the holidays. Each employee can submit up to 3 images, photos or photos of their own art. We usually get 25-30 entries. Everyone votes for their first and second favorites, then votes again in a run-off if necessary. Then our super in-house artist graphics person incorporates it into a nice fold-out calendar.

Our 2010 calendar used my photo of a Monterey morning (actually Carmel, but close enough).

After your art/photo is used, you can't enter the following year, so I didn't for the 2011 calendar, then for 2012 none of mine were selected.

This year I again submitted three photos, including the hummingbird one. But I spent a ton of time on it first--straightened it a bit, cropped in closer to the birds, sharpened it a bit, adjusted the exposure, added some vignetting (darkened the bright corners to keep the attention on the subject), and spent some artful time artfully cloning out the hummingbird poo.

And, yes, hummingbird fledglings got the vote. Woohoo! Coming soon to a 2013 calendar near you--if you're one of our clients.

Happy 2013, a little early! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now--notice anything odd about the scene?

What's The Point

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

From several years of archives--know I have more but don't want to spend all weekend looking.

Why do I have a zillion of Dave G, Sarah J, Karey, and Martin pointing? Do they really point more than everyone else?

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Boost Jumps In Some Other Direction

SUMMARY: Dang.

Well, this is some of the sort of thing that goes on when we are competing. Am I not being clear that I'm heading to the right, Boost? I'm even clapping my hands. Because all the really good dog trainers clap their hands on course when they're not using the pointy finger.

Although pointy fingers sometimes work.

Mosaic History

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

For a fun view of Taj MuttHall's blog over the last few years, featuring photos, click:

Taj MuttHall mosaic.

(Might take a moment to load.

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Many Many Many Photos from Taj MuttHall

SUMMARY: Fun with Google advanced search for images.

This is cool--using Google's advanced search, I can find all the photos^* on Taj MuttHall of a specific thing. For example:

• All photos of Boost
• All photos of Tika
• All photos of shirts
• All photos with purple in them (although, interestingly, it found very few of the photos in my Agility Colors: Purple post)
• All the course maps (actually did this one by searching for all black & white images)
• All photos of people's faces

This is too much fun! Must stop now.

^*Wellll... it's not perfect. For keyword searches, it seems to rely on the text content, so for example if "shirt" is mentioned in a post, it displays all the photos in that post, even if they're not actually of a shirt. Still, pretty cool!

Another Boost! *Two* Boosts!

SUMMARY: Unusual dog name.

In all the years I've done agility, I've never encountered another dog named Boost.

Just found out that there are two others dogs named Boost who do agility. Is that cool or what?

Here's the other Border Collie Boost, owned and photos by Tanya Lee.


This Boost is a year younger than my Boost but, OK, here's the really spooky thing--her Boost is *exactly* a year younger because they have the exact same birthday!

She told me that there's another Boost, a young Sheltie owned by Linda Robertson. I don't have photos. Nor do I know the birthday.

I feel a sudden kinship based solely on the name but doubly on the birthday. We're a very exclusive club, we owners of Boosts.

Fun in the Sun Even Though We're Not Quite Number One

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

(Thanks to my niece Elizabeth for the photos of us running courses.)

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Oh, What Is the Matter With Poor Tika-tik?

SUMMARY: summarytext

POOR PUGGY-WUG

Oh, what is the matter with poor Puggy-wug

Pet him and kiss him and give him a hug.

Run and fetch him a suitable drug,

Wrap him up tenderly all in a rug,

That is the way to cure Puggy-wug. 

- Winston Churchill, about his daughter's ill Pug

I'm a little concerned about Tika.

She was fine all day Friday. All day Saturday. All day Sunday.

This morning, she didn't want to get up. We went to bed at 9 last night and she wouldn't come downstairs until 10:30 when I offered breakfast.  Didn't want to ferociously shake her doggie blanket while I dressed. Tucked tail (what there is of it) and went further into the house when I invited her out to the yard. Doing an awful lot of the sort of cough-gag smack smack smack with mouth and tongue like she's trying to clear an uncomfortable taste from her mouth. She's been doing that off and on for a while now, but a lot more today.

She did come out to the yard in the middle of the day while I was having a fun loud game of fetch and agility with Boost, looking halfway perky, and chased the toy about half of her normal speed a couple of times, but didn't actually pick it up or want to play with it. Then went back into the house.

No whining this time, no obvious soreness. She's just been lying there all day except when food has been involved, when she gladly gets up to participate, then goes right back to lying there doing nothing.

I do know that she has a bit of a heart murmur. Last visit, doctor said to let him know if she started doing any coughing. I told him about that cough-gag thing and he seemed unconcerned, but now I wonder.  And, of course, after my experience with Remington's cancer, I wonder about something like that, too.

Maybe time for another vet visit (but she becomes so stressed unless she's on tranqs, either way not a good way to judge her condition) and maybe an ultrasound of her innards.  It's just--jeez--$640 in vet bills and meds in the last 2 months already. Sure, that pales compared to what I spent fighting remington's cancer, but still.

I've been petting her and kissing her and giving her a hug (all of which she seems to like quite well, thank you), and she's been getting a suitable drug (I hope so, anyway--rimadyl through the weekend), and it's too warm to wrap her up tenderly all in a rug.

Doesn't feel hot to me; gums look fine.

Hmm, well, there was just a loud noise in the distance and she charged out into the yard and is now making warning whorfing sounds.  ...Oh, back inside and on her bed.

Will see how she's feeling in the morning and how I'm feeling about how she's feeling. But it still remains--I'm a little concerned about poor Tika-tik.

An Interesting Weekend

SUMMARY: In which Boost *almost* got more Qs than Tika.

Of course we all know by now that what I really want for Boost is Snooker Super-Qs and Jumpers Qs.

What I really want for Tika is just Qs any way I can get them.

On Saturday, our long-time friend/competitor/teammate Chaps showed up just for one day to try to complete their (I think) Silver PDCH (championship redone 5 times over!) and all they needed was one Pairs Relay Q, and Chaps teamed with Tika.

So what I needed Saturday was Boost to win (or place high) in Snooker and a Jumpers Q, and what I needed for Tika was a Pairs Q and as many other Qs as I could get, even just plain old Snooker Qs.

What I *got* on Saturday was Tika won Snooker and got a Jumpers Q (2nd place) and *Boost* got a Pairs Q and a plain old Snooker Q. Completely the reverse of what I needed.

Sunday, Boost finally got her 15th Gamblers Q (last one was back in February), completing her Gamblers Champion Bronze, and placing 3rd! of about 30 dogs as we finally managed to put together her high-point openings with a completed gamble.

Both dogs Qed in Grand Prix, yay; Tika placed 2nd (of a whole 5 this weekend) and Boost was 11th out of 30--those folks who are really competitive don't hold their dogs on their contacts and stop to say "good dog!" I have no reason to blow off her contacts, so we did that, which is why only 11th.

Tika also Qed in Standard (2nd place) and Snooker (2nd place) again.

So--only 5 out of 11 for Tika this weekend, and actually 4 out of 11 for Boost!

Boost and I again had a few really nice runs or partial runs; I think I learned a couple of things about what I'm doing that doesn't help her; dogs stayed healthy and happy, even Tika.

Boost did knock a few bars this weekend, but not a lot. Not too many refusals or runouts but enough to make me crazy a couple of times. Tika had weave pole issues in an odd way and we didn't seem to be communicating all that well on course. But overall, I'm fairly satisfied with the way things went.

Except it got so hot today! Whew! (Actually only 79 F (26 C) but it sure was hotter than we'd expected.) And I think humid as well, as my clothing was soaked through with sweat by the end of the day. Quite draining. But we survived.

And that's a quick update from the Taj MuttHall newsroom.

Goodnight, Chet.

Transient failures

SUMMARY: Pondering the frustrations and annoyances.

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

So.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villa Montalvo Stairs al Fresco

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday