A day of DAM Team-from Point A to Point B.

Turlock is hot. It is located at Point B on this map.

I live at Point A. Point A is on the sea. We have redwood trees and Prius's and artisan cocktails and make fun of Mitt Romney. We live in a groovy bubble and the rest of the country makes fun of us.

Point B has cows and canals and heated debates over whether the canals water the cows and the crops enough. There are likely many people at Point B who would like to throw Barak Obama in a canal.

It takes 2 hours and 15 minutes to drive from Point A to Point B. That includes a stop at Starbucks. At Point A, we converse amongst ourselves about buying local and corporate evils, but sometimes we still stop at Starbucks due to its' convenient locations and our need for coffee to keep us awake since we have to work our asses off to afford our Point B lifestyles.

At Point B, diesel fuel is approximately .19 cents per gallon cheaper and it is a great place to purchase tacos and farm implements. You are almost there when you pass the cheese factory. Se venden animales.

This is where we spent Sunday.

It was USDAA DAM Team day. Otterpop's team came in 3rd place. Otterpop sauntered around. She was all, whatever. At least she saunters accurately, and everything went according to plan, except for when I threw away the big point bonus in team gamblers with a single handling error.

Otterpop hates jumpers, and her dog agility future will consist of no more jumpers.

Gustavo did all right. He is now inexplicably horrified of teeter totters, a blast from the past issue that has been gone a long time. Nothing surprises me with Gustavo. So teeter totters being friendly happy rainbow machines up until today and today they are not, something we just nod our heads and move on to other thoughts, such as wouldn't it be cool to sing just like Bob Seger? Getting anywhere near the teeter totter caused a huge meltdown in his brain. His team did not qualify, because in team standard and relay, not going near a teeter totter in certain classes in dog agility is called E and the whole thing in team is Don't E. Elimination. Luckily, he ran just fine in everything without a teeter totter, and he was carefully placed on a team where they are accepting of Gustavo. I think he even won a couple classes that were teeter-free.

Gustavo loves jumpers, and his dog agility future will consist of much jumpers.

We go back and forth from Point A to Point B a lot. Someday, we would like to get to Point C. In my mind, Point C is like a disco filled with well behaved ponies and free sandwiches and diorama displays like in scientific museums and Team Small Dog are the champions of it. We just came home to Point A though, this time, and will probably go back to Point B again. Then back to Point A. And so on and so forth again.

Where the question is, what was I thinking?

On Sunday we drive out to Turlock, out of our cool forests alongside the sea to the heat wave of the Central Valley to do a team competition.


I'm thinking right now, Now why did I do that? Why did I think this was a good idea?


Nobody really needs a team Q. Gustavo lives in a world without Q's, and Otterpop doesn't especially need them for any good reasons. Team is a good deal, $10 per run. It's fun to be on a team with your friends, and end the day with the relay, and I guess I entered out of habit. Before I decided they were winding down their show careers. I didn't think about 100 degree heat. Getting up at 4:30am. The fact that Gustavo hasn't really been anywhere near consistent in the last few months. That Otterpop has pretty much decided the show ring sucks now.


Gustavo had climbed up on the cliff here, and was deciding whether or not to jump. He just does that. He wouldn't die on any of the cliffs in the abandoned car grotto, where our summer swim hole is, so I just let him. His cliff thing is just plain old weird. Sometimes he swims across here then forgets how to swim back to us. Another thing he just does. He has a lot of those things.


Nancy was showing us a good discrimination proofing drill the other night, sticking a pair of 2x2 weave poles right in a tunnel mouth and switching up the poles or the tunnel, just lots of little fast rewards proofing listening and not just running into tunnels because they're there. It was a drill that Otterpop or Ruby would do all day. The kind where picking the wrong answer makes them cuckoo to do it again to get the right answer, where they think the learning is the game and they just want to win and win and win.

Ruby's been getting a little more training. Since she can't hear anything, I'm trying to do a little sign language thing with her, giving her a thumbs up for doing the right thing as a "click" and then giving her a treat. She can see it good enough if I stick a big thumb right in her face and give her a big fat smile. Makes me think about that cowgirl in the book from the '70's, the one with the extra large thumbs. Ruby's been fading into feral Helen Keller land a little, and I want her to stay in communication with the mothership and not just drift away into her own little universe.

Otterpop loves to get the wrong answer, she loves to get the right answer, she just loves to have another turn and the thought of earning frisbee or stick or treats drives her nuts. She will work on learning things as long as I ask her. For a dog that's so easy to train, I still don't know why I can't train her to shut up. Today at work she got in an electrician's truck and was going to drive off with him. She hated him, but she loved his truck.


Gustavo doesn't learn like that. He doesn't do anything like anybody else. He is marching to some other kind of beat. Or running 100mph in the wrong direction to some other kind of beat. Or in a circle or in the slimy drainage culvert that runs under our creek. But I'll tell you right now which dog is sitting on my lap, wedged in there while I'm typing. Who acts like he just won the lottery when he figures out how to bring a stick back out of the swimming hole. The dog that, no matter what happens on Sunday at the dog show, is always going to be the most special little guy anyone could ever hope to have in their lives.

We are very lucky to have Gustavo.

Dog agility memorialization of an invisible, unsung hero, the dog agility spouses.

You know who gets forgotten a lot? Besides all those who gave up their lives for the USA, even if actually they were giving up their lives for misguided policies of occupations of foreign lands and got shipped off to a country far away to kill innocent people and then died in a horrible, unspeakable manner before being forgotten about?

Dog agility widows and widowers, that's who. Those proud men and women who spend their weekends and evenings and afternoons and mornings not doing dog agility.

Sure, you see some dog agility wives and husbands at dog agility. There's your dog agility Power Couples, who both run dogs and are around each other 24/7. They frequently live in an RV together, along with a pack of dogs, and they say nice things to each other in public and maybe sometimes boss each other around. Rarely, but occasionally, they breed. More likely they breed dogs instead.

Breed the dogs to other dogs, that's what I meant. Pick up your mind out of the gutter.

Think of the wealth of junior handlers we'd have if the power couples would actually breed to each other. This is just how it goes, probably power couples are too busy with their dogs to, you know. Hopefully, power couples enjoy each other's company and live in harmony in their RV's.

If the power couples don't both run dogs, the spouse is usually there to video or run the gate full time or drag equipment around or run a score table or fix motorhome problems and be awesome and cheerful. Or maybe stays home sometimes to mow expansive agility fields. Right on, power couples, is all I can say.

You might think there might be more of these than there are at dog agility. But there are many single people at dog agility as well. For ladies seeking other ladies, no shortage of single ladies out there in dog agility land. And gentlemen seeking single ladies, hubba hubba hubba, a PLETHORA. But for men seeking other men, and women seeking unhitched men, pretty much no go. Hence the small amount of power couples.

So what happens, a lot of the time, is that there is the dog agility widow or widower left at home. It may be hard to believe, but there are husbands and wives out there, who, when it comes to dog agility know only a couple things. One is, how to set the alarm clock for 4:30am on Sunday mornings and not even wake up when it goes off. And the other is, that no matter how much time, sneakers, yard space and money dog agility uses up, it is probably going to use up even more than that.

Their relationship to the dogs may be along the lines of "Stay Stay STAY STAY STAY! GODDAMN IT, Why don't they STAY for me?" and "SHUT THE F%#K UP OTTERPOP!"

Likely, the thought of even pointing at a tunnel and saying, "Tunnel!" and having the dog run through it is stupid beyond belief. However, they might have their own interests that are equally arcane, such as screaming at fellows on tv costumed in floppy white pants and vintage orange jerseys wiggling their butts and waving large sticks to hit a fast ball for other guys to catch and dash about a diamond, that are even more curious, and hold their tongues.

They probably enjoy feeding dogs pancakes, quiet dogs relaxing outside in the sun during gardening, and fetching. Dogs who play a wiley game of not fetching with them, then fetching and doing a whole trick show for the dog agility spouse, perhaps grow tiring, yet amusing on occasion. Agility equipment in the driveway and garage becomes part of the landscape. They know not to throw away anything made of pvc.

And they spend a lot of time alone.

Because there's class. There's dog shows. There's practice time. There's special seminars. There's parties and dinners and dog walks and writing about dogs and reading about dogs and photoshoots of dogs and studying videos in the computer. Dog agility is very time consuming.

And who is going to buy the toilet paper and the milk and load the dishwasher and wash the towels and pull the weeds?

Dog agility husbands and wives, that's who. At our house, if it wasn't for my husband, who please don't ever call Mr. Team Small Dog, ever, ever, ever, or say that you saw him on the internet, we never run out of toilet paper. And always have clean towels. And many delicious meals from the taqueria are served to me on late nights home. If I am grumbling about not enough money for agility class, my dog agility husband has been known to slip me some bills to pay. He has nodded knowingly when I come home after a particularly crappy day at the dog show, and always manages a "Yay" when I come home with word of some exceptional runs. Dog tattoos are a-ok with him. And he would never, ever forget to make a pancake for the dogs.

My dog agility husband may decline my many offers to come and try some dog agility. Because, touche, I decline his many offers to go and listen to, shudder, jazz at jazz clubs. We can agree to disagree on these topics. Just like he won't turn Led Zeppelin off the radio when we're in the car together and I will sit through dub step electronica. We find common ground at our favorite bar that also serves crepes, plays indie bands and doesn't start shows too late. And we both sure do like walking around in the forest with a pack of little dogs running donuts around us and usually not jumping off of cliffs.

He may be invisible to the dog agility community, but he is always there at home when we get back. Well, unless he's at work. Or mountain biking. Or at a baseball game. Or a jazz show. Or gone out to hear real music. Or had to go to the store because I forgot to buy milk and bread and bananas. But he is an unsung hero of the agility world, and today we take a moment to think about how lucky we are, and say, Thanks.

Stick to the plan sticks.

Stick in the mud.


Stick 'em up.


Stick with it.

A little bit further, into the woods.

I will admit that I have not been telling you many tales as of late.


There has been a lot to listen to all the time. And if I'm busy listening to Things all the time, when am I going to listen to nothing?


Just stuff like what footfalls sound like where the sand turns to leaves.


Stuff like choking monkey sounds coming out of where the corpse moss hangs down and smothers out the light.

I just made that up, that it's corpse moss. Could you tell?

And doesn't Gustavo look like a tiny forest fox? He has been a real good dog, damn my agility loserdom hystronics all to hell. A-1, top quality dog.


I don't really have a plan right now. I am mostly just stepping along and listening to Things. Doing what they call nose to the grindstone and life goes on and who did she used to be? I will walk a little deeper into the woods next time, though, since the light is lasting longer up on top of the trees. And I won't hear you, only the choking monkey noises. Helicopter buzzing low across the far off ridge. Dog feet brushing fast along the trail. Probably through the poison oak.

All of our mouths, excepting Otterpop's, they're just staying shut so it's more quiet and then we only have to hear what's actually important. On point. And maybe that's when we'll get a plan.

Or maybe not.

Scientific exploration continues.

Gustavo and I practiced on Monday morning. The exact same time, the exact same place as Sunday. The difference was that on Sunday, he could barely run, eat any kind of treat, focus, or play. He was weirdly quiet and calm. He could kind of, sort of, do agility, but just a little. He once ran under the a-frame to hide.

Otterpop filled in for him. Otterpop ran pretty much her normal Otterpop way, as she can do. Not her best, but not her worst. Produce the frisbee and off she goes.

But on Monday morning, Gustavo was cuckoo for any kind of treat I offered him.  Boring, vegetarian treats. He was tugging madly for a little piece of cheese hidden in the corner of a tuggy, for up to 5 minutes straight Because yes. I timed this. He was running VERY FAST. And VERY FOCUSED. He could do no wrong. He just wanted to GO! With me. And he could fetch his frisbee. He was barking like a madman, like a BAD DOG barking madman. We made up some VERY HARD courses, courses that were stumping me and Otterpop, and he could run whatever I threw at him, if we made a mistake, he was all, screw it all and lemme at it again!

So what was different?

Sunday:

Lots of other dogs. Border collies. Papillons. Most of whom he knew.

Lots of other people. And their cars, and crates and stuff. Most of whom he knew.

Later in the afternoon he could run after he watched Otterpop run.

That's about it.

He did improve as the day wore on and I ran Otterpop first. It got hotter. He's generally sensitive to heat in wilting violet wave a hanky fashion. But a lot of people did leave and later in the day, it became a pretty small group of people and dogs.

He goes to class with lots of other people and dogs, some of who were at the seminar, while Otterpop sits in the car. He is usually very comfortable there, barking and obnoxious and running fast. And focused when he's focused. Which is not so much lately. He has been to many trials, group practices, fun matches, agility things, in many places over the years, albeit with various degrees of success. 

His old stress mechanism was to stress up and RUN DO MORE TUNNELS! New, sad Gustavo, creepy.

Plucky, rugged, pig brained optimism tells me, this is a training issue that some way, some how, some day, can be overcome. Common sense and the wisdom of looking backwards in time tells me I am chasing my tail in a circle on this one. The background noise of "health issues" is a blinking red flag.

Science project.

A classic dog agility weekend, the seminar.

Well, and also eclipse viewing. This was kind of cool. We made fancy viewing rigs since we all forgot our welding masks. It was cooler later when the sun became more obscured and light outside looked like the world was being swallowed up by a giant volcano.


Perhaps you know my friend Ashley. He is also known as World Champion Agility Guy Ashley Deacon. Probably you hire him to come and teach you in seminars on the weekends somewhere that requires an airplane ride which means no agility practicing for us.


So this weekend, Ashley taught a seminar here. It was kind of like an all day agility practice except with loads of our friends and also Ashley got money. Perhaps more peanut gallery from the sidelines suggestions by the participants. Do many other agility handlers usually reward other handlers with beer between obstacles for not forgetting the courses at your seminars?


Some handlers listened so that they did not make the same mistakes as everyone else. This Laura was a good listener and did this. There are a lot of Lauras around here. Most of the Lauras are very good handlers. I am the Laura who screws up a lot, although I did try to listen but I am not always successful in executing what I thought I just heard. Actually, rarely.


Look at this peanut gallery. Sue is an old skool rear crosser. She is looking skeptical here about something that probably involves a tight decel turn or a backside serpy bit.


Squid did everything the more experienced dogs were doing, no problem.


Don't tell Sue you saw her on the internet.


This is Blancette and Patch. How cute is Patch?


It was kind of a weird day. There was the iphone fiasco. Mary forgot her course. Gustavo had a bad morning. People had to leave early because, I guess the eclipse? Where was everybody going? It just meant that by the afternoon, we ran a lot of courses. We are pretty hard core around here. We have Kathleen's amazing agility backyard, Heart Dog Agility. We are pretty lucky.


Ashley is an excellent agility teacher. He is very patient and doesn't yell at anybody.


Except sometimes Mary. But not today. And we gave her beer.


We had a good day at the end of the day. Gustavo could not run at all in the morning. Whether it was too many other dogs, he felt bad, he was waiting for the eclipse, he missed Otterpop, he saw ghosts, he is poorly trained, I do not know. He wouldn't play, tug, fetch or eat any kind of treat I had to offer at the start of the day. I get all, Oh, boo hoo poor me and my sad little dog.

Yes. I am the irritating lady.

But as the day wore on, as the other dogs got more tired, agility Gustavo started to come back and we had a nice afternoon. I didn't really mean to run Otterpop, but I found if I got her out, ran a quick course, that revved him up and he could hold it together enough for a course and eat some cheese for rewards. He finished the day successfully and happily.

Otterpop was all, whatever. Frisbee.


Here's Otterpop doing a bit of a run. You can probably hear Ashley doing some teaching in there if you turn up the sound. Also some comments from the peanut gallery in the background. Maybe you would like to hire Ashley to teach you a seminar. Just please try to do it on a weekend we were not going to practice.

Dogs that go to work, some of them working, some of them snoozing, some of them schmoozing.

At work, some of the dogs are helpers, and some of the dogs get to have a relaxing day in a nice big pen, right in the center of the universe where they can be a part of everything, but in a contained way. Ruby used to be a great ranch dog, but she's not seeing or hearing enough for my comfort level anymore. I don't like it that she's not operating on all systems go. Ruby's ok with this. She enjoys the luxury pen with multiple dog crates and beds and the occasional gopher making a guest appearance inside.


Gustavo, on the other hand, has never really been a ranch dog. He has the horse sense of an oven mitt. He wants to eat MEAT and I don't know that he wouldn't run across the road to find it. Or dig up catfood somewhere. Or run over to the neighbor's. Or chase a butterfly into a pasture. Or just start running somewhere just because. He sure does like running. So he and Ruby are dog pen buddies. He does like to sit in laps and talk little walks with moms who come to watch their kids ride. Many little girls take Gustavo for a walk on his red leash at the end of the day.


Otterpop is a useful employee. No sitting in a dog run for Officer Ottercop, she's up and in everybody's business. She likes to lay down and stare at horses with the evil powers in her stink eye to keep them from moving. I'm not sure that all the horses buy into this, but she thinks it keeps them in the stalls when I take off blankets or throw them lunch. She helps me move horses around, she lays in the sun, she rides in the truck, she does whatever I do. She probably thinks she should be teaching my lessons or riding, but she has to stay outside the arena when I'm inside, so she hasn't gotten a chance. Otterpop is obsessed with trucks and tractors and buckets and horses. She probably would like me to get her a herd of cows. Dogs like Otterpop should all have ranches.


At the end of the day, though, is dog time. The horses are tucked in and I am done. That's when it's time to go in the creek and run around the lawn and play frisbee and hunt gophers and run laps and do what dogs like to do. We have some long days at work, but my dogs are always happy to be there. And I'm sure happy they're there.

Gustavo is a science project.

Gustavo is a science project. Last week he got blood pulled again, the only way to monitor how we are doing duping his non functioning liver into thinking it's a useful organ and cleaning up his blood.

Gustavo loves to go to the vet. I can happily hand him to any doctor, tech, receptionist, or random person in the waiting room and he greets them like long lost kin. Most times he's in a vet's office, he gets blood drawn, but this doesn't phase him. Maybe the moment of needle sticking he does, when he screams bloody murder like a herd of wee wee wee pigs being attacked with machetes.

Sorry about that, friendly vet tech.

But in a flash, it's erased forever from his mind, and he's happy to tour the back with a tech and greet all his pals. This is from a dog who still can't recover from being anywhere near a cigarette lighter or match. Who thinks pedicures are Satan's way of welcoming you to hell. Who freezes up in terror when a bus drives by. But poke him with a needle, within seconds, life is good.

As usual, there was good news and bad news. This week's results finally put his bile acids within the realm of a normal dog. Which means his diet and the meds are keeping ammonia out of his brain. That's a big thing and it should keep him from having his fuzzy little seizures and hallucinating. Did you see Roger Sterling take LSD on Mad Men? Imagine being Gustavo.

His brain has to be feeling a lot better. It might be permanently messed up from so many years of being attacked, but for now, no ammonia penetrating the boundaries.

There were some other things out of whack though, which means we tweak and adjust and try to make him feel better. Let's be clear. He cannot eat protein, ever. Only things made of plants and every so often some dairy goods. This is unnatural for dogs, just so wrong. No meat EVER. To save his liver and his brain, other things might go kaplooey in his tiny little innards. It's hard to know how he really feels. I actually think in the 4 days since I adjusted some of his medicine he seems to feel a little better, so this is good.

It has been a year since he was diagnosed with micro vascular dysplasia, AKA Ammonia Brain. He has his ups and downs, but I think he's doing really good. Most importantly, his life is being prolonged. I think his agility career may be winding down, though. He has a date to run in Team in a few weeks, and after that he may just make occasional appearances in Jumpers and Pairs. Short courses and courses just made only of jumps seem to suit him. We'll keep practicing and going to class, because we really like agility.

I'm not sure if this is giving up or doing what is best. I can tell you this though, competing in agility when your parter doesn't feel right just feels wrong. I learned this with Ruby. And I suspect Otterpop has been trying to tell me something, too. I will always do what is best for Gustavo, and this makes sense right now.

Officer Ottercop and the rules of Frisbee.

Just in case you haven't been paying attention, here is an important rule. If you can only remember one, let it be this. Otterpop always gets the frisbee.


Otterpop pauses here to remember Adam Yauch and Maurice Sendak. She is not glad they are dead, yet she is glad that they are not here to get her frisbee.


Gustavo understands the rules clearly, and is in the best position to make Otterpop insane while she gets the frisbee. This is his specialty. He was either a mosquito, a cat, or a drunk clown in a former life. But he has learned the rules well. Otterpop gets the frisbee.


Otterpop doesn't get to do this all the time. This is not a good game for a dog with gimpy legs. However, MCA died at the age of 47 years. One year older than me. And because of this, Otterpop gets some good air throws.


And she gets another, because we are on a field that is labeled NO DOGS. Because there are fox tails in our field, and because our house is not a ranch. Because when we were at work today I busted for bringing her real frisbee out into a pasture. And because of this, another air throw.


And she gets another. Because she is Officer Ottercop, and because this is the rule. And because it's Mother's Day. And because the guys in the skateboard squat hovel across the street have up and abandoned it, leaving a empty, stickered shell. Because I have learned to Samba. Because the wind is cold. Just one more throw.


You can't always count on her to bring it back every time. Dirty rotten, corrupt cop.


She likes to have some hoarder time, just her and frisbee. This isn't even a real Frisbee, it's some cheapo, knock off frisbee I found in the driveway. Good enough to be hoarded though. If I have a decoy frisbee, this is when Gustavo works on his retrieve, and Ruby gets her throws. Hers need to be not too far, and with everybody else on a LIE DOWN because the last thing Ruby needs is someone bashing into her.

So we all just ignore Otterpop. You know what Otterpop hates? Ignoring. HA! Take that, Otterpop.


That gets her back real quick. Turn your back on a cop sometime, and see what they do. They expect you to roll that hind end underneath and stand and face with some respect. I just say, LIE DOWN. And the frisbee is mine, in my pocket. Good night.

An offering of the burden of unwanted advice.

Meta lessons learned:

Many sporty quotes say that if you don't give up on your journey of rugged determination, you will still succeed because it's all about the journey and not the destination. What the minds of excellence advice are leaving out though, is that some of the destinations involve a grand prize cruise to Hawaii. Some of them involve limping down the hall to the bathroom. Some of them are to hell on a rocket powered scooter.

And some of them are just crawling along a weedy sidewalk with ripped trousers that cause chafing, and that if your rudder is on the slightest bit crooked, you're just going to spend a long time slowly spinning in gravel scented donuts.

Specific lessons learned:

Many things can be handled with compassion and integrity. If you are handling a thing that cannot be, stay far away from facebook.

Just stay far away from facebook anyways.

Deaf dogs might not know what's going on most of the time, but they also don't bark at the UPS guy.

Dogs are expensive.

Horses are expensive.

Ranches are expensive. 

Life is expensive.

Positive thinking works great but if you wear the badge of mediocrity, you are just thinking positive thoughts that will hopefully keep you hovering at somewhere near average, which, like, YAY, is better than being totally shit.

Old dogs can learn new tricks but they will probably not be very good at them so see above about mediocrity.

Some old dogs can learn new tricks and be really good at them, but they probably will be somebody else's dogs and you are evil if you try to secretly poison them in your mind because who poisons dogs? See compassion and integrity. Get the hell away from facebook.

If at first you don't succeed, you can keep trying if you want but you actually might never succeed. Refer to special discovered information about the journey above for clarification.

Rolling under the hind end will solve a lot of things, but  even if it solved everything someone would still have to feed the horses dinner.

He just walked across the street and handed this to me.

Team Small Dog, by the totally awesome Gabe who lives across the street.

An exercise in patience.

When you have animals, it helps to be a very patient person.

I work with animals all day long. All day long, they try my patience. I was using power tools today, and that tried my patience. And a hammer. Using a hammer tries my patience. Ruby is deaf as a post these days. I use much patience. Take a deep breath, and apply my brain.


Gustavo doesn't want to try my patience, he is who he is. My sweetest little buddy. He has definitely been on the 1 step forward, 19 steps back plan lately. We had an agility class last night that was very old skool feral dog. Vintage mayhem of no listening. It's weird when that happens, behavior that I had thought was extinguished, and requires either extreme patience to work through or just quitting. I was patient. Gustavo wanted to eat meat and to do nothing else but eat meat.

I stayed patient, and found a tuggy and put in some liver crack and worked to get him engaged and tugging. Nancy's idea is that maybe he could learn that just tasting and smelling some meat through a tuggy could become reward enough when he goes into meat seeking missile mode. It did fix him enough to knock out a couple of killer runs. We will work on this, but unless I stay really patient, it's just going to be another patch. I think I have a very patched together dog, training-wise. I have tried a lot of things, and given up when I couldn't make them happen. So maybe in some ways I'm a quitter, and Gustavo's work ethic reflects this.

I am going to work to be even more patient, more patient that I even knew I could be, and see if it helps us move forward and get back the last 19 steps of backslide. That's what I'm going to do.

Practice with the Team-Dog show debrief.

Of course we went to practice today.

I mean, what else are we going to do?

The video shows a startline disconnect with Gustavo. I was talking to Mary, handed her the ipad, and didn't hold little buddy's attention to the startline. Very dog show. Shit happens at dog shows. The scribe is talking to you. The gate person's talking to you. The judge is asking for a dog. The timer is saying hold on. It's not always an easy trip in there.

The ring game, though, works right now to get him back. In fact, I used it on some runs at the dog show over the weekend with his leash. Leash off, let him leap his little head into it like it's his ring. You can see him a little stressy off the start in the video, so I don't even lead out, we just go. He seemed off over the first jumps, so I take a break, have a couple ring tosses, then off we go.

Of course, not a good sign when it happens during on a nice, quiet sunny morning with no distractions other than whatever talks to him from the forest.


Here's the ring game.

Otterpop ran some courses, did some gambles. We sure do have a good time, me and her. Several times over the weekend, she shut down in the poles, breaking to the trot halfway through. The weave poles have always been her go-to spot. If she seems slow and weirdo on a run, if I can get her to a tunnel or the poles, that usually solves everything. I can't even imagine her slowing down in the weaves when we're practicing. Not the case this weekend. Otterpop and slow weave poles, now that was a creepy one.


We test drove a few here, and all systems fast.

Sticking to the plan, with a bonus jumpers, just because.

Sometimes agility is hard for Gustavo, and sometimes it isn't. It wasn't here. This is agility like we practice, this is agility like it's supposed to always be.

We stuck to the plan on all runs except for Jumpers, as a test. Jumpers is usually ok for him. He earned a Jumpers Bronze with this one. Sticking with the plan worked allright, he had 3 of 4 good runs. 1 meltdown in the ring that seemed to be harder for him to run in, sandwiched between 2 others. This one with a wide open space on 2 sides of it made him happy. Could be a coincidence, but who knows? I am keeping notes and records, so now I know these things.

I'm not sure what our agility future will bring, me and Gustavo. This is something I'm going to think about a lot.

Otterpop was fine. Some fast runs, some slow runs. She earned a Tournament Silver with her Grand Prix win and a Standard Silver in Performance. Her favorite run was Gamblers, but she left out one of the weave poles in the gamble! Oops.

I'm not sure what our agility future will bring, me and Otterpop. I think she has some Gamblers and Grand Prix and Standard runs still in there. I know for a fact Otterpop likes agility. She tells me before we go in. I will never crack the nut that is the why of Otterpop. But every time we practice, she tells me she never, ever wants to quit.

I did run my favorite lab again and this time got an E! Oops. We had a very fun run nonetheless. Thanks Peggi and sorry about that! Hopefully Peggi will let me try again.

You sure do learn a lot about ups and downs in agility. Lots of ups and downs happening over the weekend, for everybody at Bayteam and everybody in Minnesota. Some times people's kind words about the downs come out a little bit crookedy and sideways. Luckily I have a sense of humor. So when someone said I looked like a hobo, and someone else thought perhaps we might better enjoy competing in CPE, I can smile on the outside with my new tooth and not put a curse on anybody, because I'm not a witch.

There is a lady in dog agility that looks like a real witch. And she is not me. And for this, today, I will be grateful. And me and the dogs, right now? We'll just go to the beach.

Stick with the Plan.

The plan was, just run several obstacles for every run at the next dog show with Gustavo, and run out and reward. This was a good plan, better than quitting dog shows forever starting now. Nancy has a lot of good plans.

Gustavo went along with it. I won't say he looked amazing. He had a look on his face that reminded me of a haggard desert explorer who's camel just took off in the wrong direction when the mote with pool is still miles away across the sand. Usually he looks like a perky little fellow, so haggard and camel-less desert explorer isn't quite right. Curled in a ball in the back of his crate all day isn't right for him either. So this plan doesn't fix all.

But in 5 of his 6 runs, the shorty course worked. Had his pairs partner not E'ed, pairs would have been a Q. 10 things was a good way to end the day. 3 obstacles of Steeplechase fried him, but we were late to the dreaded spooky ring, and not prepared, poor guy. No more late to the ring for Gustavo. His standard shorty course included a very nice table, so double birds smacked down with one desert rock for that. A couple nice dogwalks.

A work in progress. We've been down this road before, back to square one, patience of a saint and all of that. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Otterpop was Otterpop. Some fast runs, some really shitty ones. I pulled her out of Steeplechase for looking even more haggard than Gustavo. I think her days of Steeplechase and Jumpers are done. I think she may have earned some silver things in gamblers and standard, I'll have to find my spreadsheet (aka piles of post-its with Q dates on them) and count them up. Otterpop drags me to the ring, barking and cracking me up with her tricks, tells me she's ready to do fast running, throws down a sort of blah run, then drags me back to the car to go get a frisbee. Otterpop messes with my mind.

Some of my best agility pals all flew on airplanes to Minnesota for the World Team Tryouts this weekend. They are all doing great and we sure do hope they all make the team! I am thinking of them zooming around the skull crusher courses on fake grass, the kind of courses that Otterpop loves, while me and Gustavo are all jump-jump-tunnel-poles-jump-out to toss a ring on his head tomorrow. This is just how it goes.

Everybody needs a fort.

If you are a small dog, sometimes you need a fort.


A fort is anywhere a big dog doesn't fit.


You can wait for your frisbee there, or just hang out and see if the big dogs go do big dog stuff. Over there.


Everybody needs a fort.

Gustavo doing some learning in dog school.

Here's some videos from Gustavo's class with Nancy. Thanks Jen for videoing!


So here's one with a mini meltdown. There was a jump that was set too high, I stop him in front of it and am sort of freaked out I guess because, yikes. Little guy could damage himself trying to jump 26". I freak out, he freaks out, you get the picture. Too much pressure and off he goes.

This is in class, where he's pretty comfortable. So it's not hard to see that in a way more stressful environment, pretty much the drop of a pin is enough to send him into meltdown mode.


So then the rest of the night, his runs look like this. Reward, reward, reward. A lot, pretty much for anything. It's hard to see, but we're using his brand new trick of him catching the wooly ring on his head. It's a weird trick, but he really likes it.


Nancy had the good idea, go ahead and run him in the dog show this weekend, but try to just run a few obstacles then run him out and reward, reward, reward. Keep him away from the ring, just get him in and go, no leadout, no nothing, just get him in and out fast and reward, reward, reward.

He only has so much capacity for stress. His so much is not much at all. So I'm going to try to make the show ring just stressful enough that he doesn't get overloaded. Back to the drawing board, and trying to train the dog I have, step by step, little by little, inch by inch.

Back to basics.

Gustavo's whole agility practice today was spent learning how to catch a wooly ring on his head. Then chasing me around to get his wooly ring. We are back to basics. Tricks and treats, fun and games. Again.