Good dogs at dog show.

So moving is going okie dokie, and I had the dogs entered, so what better to do after a hard week of moving than get up at 5:30 and go to a dog show. This one is sponored by my dog club, SMART and I don't do a whole lot except random graphic design things for my own dog club that I am a member of, so I wanted to get there and run the dogs and help. Because we need help. There are a couple local dog clubs, and SMART is sort of the gangly kid sibling one that doesn't totally work like a well oiled machine. But it doesn't have embezellment dramas either I guess.

Ruby was awesome, I had a refusal at the chute in her pairs class. Now that I am moved down to the lower performance level with Ruby, I didn't even realize I don't need pairs Q's anymore. They are just for fun apparently. But it's still a class to run in. She still got a Q because her time was ok. Our partner was someone we've been partners with before, a little bit of a character on the agility scene but a very nice lady. I think a lot of people are little bit of characters. This one talks to herself when she walks courses and is I see her a lot coming out of her motorhome with a cigarette dangling. But she is a darn good agility handler with white hair and her husband is basically a professional dog show worker.

Otterpop had her advanced standard class and it was probably her best run ever. Totally fast, like she is when she practices, no problem on teeter, contacts, nothing. Just an awesome run. She got a Q and won it. Her next class was snookers, it was very slow and she got a Q but not how I want her to run. Same thing happened in jumpers. Was a stressed out kind of slow, sniffy, and we got a 1 second time fault. Horrible! So she didn't Q and I was mortified to have a dog with a time fault. She runs out of the ring though all amped up and ready to play frisbee. A lot of her speed is still frisbee dependent and I have to figure out how to make her excited about agility when the frisbee is somewhere else.

Ruby had a great standard run, and I think won the class. I know she got a Q. I frequently forget to check since I am not a ribbon person, have way too many dog show ribbons from Ruby's first years of showing to get ribbons. Otterpop will never know. So a lot of times I forget to get my scores, then I don't know how fast I was. Now that we are in performance, I am only competing against about 5 or 6 dogs, so a win isn't that big of a deal. But they are all good dogs that have moved down like Ruby to a lower division, so we are in very competitive company. Someone after wards told me that the way I sent her into the weave poles was just like a big dog. Of course it is!

Her jumpers run had a screw up by me and I made her hit the bar. It makes me sad she is still hitting bars sometimes at 12". Not as much as at 16" but she still does. Sometimes it's me (it was my timing in this case) and sometimes it is just the way she jumps. We had a good time though. I just love going to dog shows. Next week is Petaluma. Going to be a long week.

Hey I'll just Cram the dogs in this Slot.

We are mid move to the new ranch. It's about a million times nicer than the old one, but not without problems. One being that the owner is involved in a dog lawsuit. From a former trainer there, that lived in a cottage on the property, whose bull mastiff bit one of her clients, in the cottage, in the face. And that client sued the ranch owner for a million dollars! Because her face got basically bitten off. So the ranch owner is a little paranoid about dogs.

Now my dogs are basically small ranch dogs. Almost every horse trainer has dogs. Usually they are fairly small and portable and horse friendly. Jack russells and corgis are very popular. Ruby is basically a jack russell and Otterpop is standard order generic ranch dog, cattle dog in chihuahua body. Ruby's a good ranch dog because she could give a hoot about horses and just wants to lay in the sun or race around after gophers or eat cat food. Otterpop likes to keep horses in line-she hates horses that hang their heads out of stalls and chew wood. She used to go in the paddock with my little black pony, who I guess she assumed was a dog, but other than that stays out of pastures and arenas and stuff. She is flawed as a ranch dog in that she hates men of the Latino persuasion and barks at them if they are new to her. But other than that, they're good dogs.

At the Soquel ranch, they lived in a crate in my office or out on their grassy lawn in the sun. Sometimes they would escape, Ruby loves horse shoers more than anything in the world and when there was a horse shoer out, she'd try to get down there. Otterpop likes to sit with me and sometimes would escape down to the arena to be near me. But they like their crate ok and adjusted to being in lock down most of the day.

At the new ranch, with the new lawsuit freakout thing, they need to be in major lockdown. Right now, all I can figure out is a crate tucked into a little space between the barn and the building our tackroom is in. It's about 3 feet wide and shady aka dark. On this beautiful, gopher filled, 26 acre ranch, they are going to live in a 3' wide dark slot outside a busy barn. But such is life I guess. Not much I can do about it now. i also have to add them to my liability policy, which worries me somewhat. But I gotta do what I gotta do. The new ranch is convenient to much dog agility and if they weren't in lockdown, I could make a little practice area for them. We'll see.

Gandalf with an attitude came knocking.

This little white haired troll like guy came to the door to solicit money for something about missing children. He was brave and tiny like the hobbit movie, he actually had to make it through a dog gauntlet in the yard (thank god no one bit him and liability lawsuit) and then encountered more barking at the door. I tried to just send him away and he wanted to argue. Since he looked like a tiny version of the gandalf of the hobbit movie, I tried to banish him by casting my arm out like I was having a spell and he wanted to keep arguing about how nice it is to have people come and sell you things, even good causes, at night at your door. So finally I just banished him by saying "away, away" and then he thought I was crazy and left and no one bit him on the way back to the gate.

I am a mean person but I didn't want to argue with him about why I didn't want to give him money. He seemed like a mean person too. We clashed. But don't clash with me when my dogs are all out and wanting to bite you!

Timmy is having a bad day and doesn't want to eat so I gave him some steroids! He loves the steroids! I just gave him a little but I am sure he will be crazy by tomorow but at least eat. Just need to find some middle ground for poor Timmy.

I have been getting better at leaving voice mails in spanish for people, since I've been trying to round up the guys to help us move this week to the new ranch. The one we are renting not buying. We are almost out of the old ranch, by next week it will be the distant past and I will drive 45 minutes to outer Watsonville every day but I will also be closer to all things dog agility. We are moving over the weekend, and it is my dog club's dog show that I hope to at least run the dogs in on Sunday and help out at. It's a busy week. We are down to only 6 horses, from the 18 we moved there, so it won't be too hard to move, I hope. I will be able to practice with the dogs more at Dee's once we move since it's 5 minutes from her agility field. Actual dog practicing!


This is on the fancy pants mailer I just made so people know we moved there and will become our nice, not problem causing customers that pay on time.

The coffee, it is everywhere.

Where was the dog agility this weekend? Not at my house. We had a houseful of toddlers and vicodin. Coffee, straws, and stickiness everywhere. This is like a big huge dog party for the dogs. The children trail food everywhere they go most of the time and the dogs just follow them around and eat. Otterpop looks like a huge fat oaf right now.

Here is a typical day in Santa Cruz, this is exactly how everyone believes my life truly is. Wake up. Whenever you want. There is no alarm clock! Leisurely drink coffee outside in the garden. There are no weeds there and many flowers and birds! It is ok to leave coffee everywhere you want because it will be cleaned through the magic! Once you have sat around long enough, it is time to go to the beach. Go there and have fun, it is a beautiful day. The dogs will frolick and you will view the Whales! Come home and it is time to take a trip to Downtown to have lunch. At a restaurant. And there will be a perfect parking place that is waiting for your car. You will park there and on the way to the lunch buy things at the stores of Expensive. Urban! I shop there every day, and throw whatever I get there away in 3 days because it is disposable and made by the cutest of the fingerless slave children. I buy scented lotions and oils at the smelling store! Then stroll to the lunch where a table is waiting and I pay with the $100 bill I have in my wallet.

Then it is time to go to the Boardwalk, where a magic parking place so close and for Free is waiting once again. And the rides are cheap and you are the only one on them. And can go twice sometimes for free. No one throws up and the ice cream looks like jewels when it melts everywhere. No one is sunburned and hats await anyone bald that match their outfits. And just by shooting pirates it is possible to win free prizes!

It is possible things may digress from there. But when you live in the land of Vacation, that's all anyone needs to know.

Nice horse corral.

Beautiful, sunny, usable land it said. Lovely, lodge style home near Soquel Creek. My realtor emailed and said we should go look. I emailed her back, I think this is the place that sold last year that had all the red tags. She said no way. I secretly smiled inside, knowing, aha, she will find out now that I am the real estate wizard and understand how the game works. I am the Stringer Bell of real estate clients, truly now in the game.

I drove up there and yes indeed. It was the house under Old San Jose Road that when we looked at it, was covered in red tags. Apparently they are all cleared now and the price has been raised 100,000. The sunny usable land is the lawn, the rest of it is redwood soaked creek frontage. The horse corral is an ex-pen, perfect for 2 small dogs. A basketball player had remodeled part of it and it's perfect for the over 7foot tall buyer. It did have cute elements, was sort of like grandma's holiday camp inside from the 1950's (the parts that hadn't been remodeled by the basketball player in the 70's) but some of the other flaws were too major. Like the fact it sat under a road bridge on a busy fast part of San Jose Road. Like the steep driveway that no truck or horse trailer could ever make it down. Like the janky little retaining wall holding up a giant cliff over the illegal unit. Like the fact it was covered in trees and there was no place to put horses.

When we looked at it a year ago, the seller's eldery dad took us on a tour and talked to us in depth about the polluted well and the fight that started between his daughter and the tenants and all the red tagged features and tried to upsell things like the weird sauna and the super high basketball player counters. And someone had kept a tiny, magic pony in the pen at one point. It probably fit in the backseat of their car.

My realtor feigned surprise. This is not the first time I am seeing houses back on the market since I have now been looking for a ranch for officially more than 2 years. About 2 1/2 years. I did have to drive by the Evil One, the One We didn't Get the other day. Just to stab myself in the eye for giggles. They were having a party on the deck and all their dogs ran down the driveway to bark at my car. The fields were unmowed or fenced, no horses to be seen. It seemed a little smaller than it had, so I did think, that would have been tight to make it into something and so expensive. But then I drove back down the hill and had that ocean view and I knew it that I still wanted to live right there.

If I studied the Secret Laws of Attraction better, I would still be saying I live on that road and then the lady would sell me Seven Springs Ranch for $650,000 which is even better and I would live happily ever after as the Queen of Dog Agility with Really Good Hair! But just writing that makes my eyes shrink down to stink eye little slits and my mind go all black inside and mean.

Trainer mutants bark at camera man.

Wednesday and Thursday are long days. Interspersed into them are nights where I still get up at 1am or so to let Timmy out and make sure he's ok. Agility night ends with putting away all the heavy stuff then driving home then getting up early to get to agility again in the morning before work. Work has been pretty easy this week since I am losing people just before we move to the new barn, so I've been trying to pack and get ready. Then I rush home Thursday to make yoga sushi beer, which can be very exhausting until the sushi beer part.

Last night it included sake. One of Tash's friends comes sometimes and she makes me feel so poor and stupid. She is wealthy and smart. I came home feeling poor and stupid and flopped onto the couch to sit with the dogs who make me feel happy and smart and beloved. The show that has the very fancy lesbian personal trainer who is building a mega monolith of money over calling people fat and shaming them into a million pushups was on. It is boring, and not really watchable for more than 5 minutes except that she has a tiny black mutant pair of chihuahuas that usually seem perfect. But last night when I had it on they were running around barking and she was yelling at them, and I think one of them was named Peaches. Maybe the sake made me hallucinate. I know I have a dog named Otterpop but why would you name a tiny black chihuahua Peaches?

Biting some dust.

The winds have been howling, high, high winds that don't stop and later in the day turn icey. I had thought it was spring which I interpret as summer therefore no jackets. It is possible I forget this every year, just block it out of my mind. I have had enough wind though. Makes the dust churn up and get in eyes and allergies start and I haven't had a voice in weeks. Kelsey said I sound sexy, most people think I sound scarey.

Another family has decided not to come on the move to the new barn. I see my program dwindling before my eyes. I kind of am of the mind I don't care at this point. Although part of me wants to believe I am so good, that people would follow me blindly to the ends of the earth no matter what. Even to Webb Road near the fairgrounds. But it just ain't so. I'll live, I'll get over it, and I'll get some new people. I can't always be the queen bee.

Timmy is doing a little better, a little more stable today. That makes me happier than anything else. The health of that dog trumps all other things.

Sort of like 2 ranches for the price of two.

So the place on Cox road was interesting. It was a total of 4 acres. But the ad said 2.1 acres? Because the ad was offering the house at the top of the hill, the driveway, and the brushy slope on the side of the driveway. It was one Long driveway. All for the price of $998,000. The front yard, aka, 2ish acre meadow, was being offered for an additional 1 million dollars. It was a little bit of a secret and no one is sure if it's even legal to do that. It must have originally been split 30 or more years prior. So much for that ranch. All in all, I would have been buying one long driveway and a nice house at the top of it, and then waiting to see who built a house in my meadow.

Drove Matilda quickly to Atascadero and came home. Lot of driving for one weekend after our quick trip to Dixon. I got there, my dad unloaded my car, her loaded her up, and off they went. Hi mom and dad! My mom brought me 3 tiny little dog sweaters that are way too small for the dogs, who also would never wear a sweater, and a little china windmill plate from the Netherlands. And some candy which I ate on the way home. The dogs had a nice day of napping in the car. They are good that way.

I am addicted to listening to This American Life in the car. That is sort of the only way I can do these drives. I am out of fresh episodes though in my ipod. My ipod doesn't really work good in the car because it's broadcasting thru the radio, and it just sounds crappy a lot of the time. But that's the way it is.

Right now, my alcoholic neighbor is sleeping one off in our back bedroom. She showed up this morning after a night and morning of multiple cops and 911 calls which apparently put her in the drunk tank. She was bloody and wasted and I gave her coffee and toast and she's asleep now with her brother on his way over. She has a court date in 2 hours. I went over to her house to get some clothes from the boyfriend so I could put her in my shower and went up to their crack den. Not really a crack den but it looks like one. Smelled so bad. They are both terrible, although he was sober and groveling. There is a lot of broken glass on the floor. When I brought the clothes back, I noticed the bra I ended up with for her was padded and strapless. Probably not the right one for court. I also didn't end up with shoes.

It was the big dog show.

On Sunday, we got up at 4:15 and drove to Dixon for the big dog show. This is just how I go to dog shows. Everyone else got there on Wednesday and showed all 3 days, one day in blazing heat and one day in pouring rain. I lucked out and showed up for the high wind warnings day. People come to this one in giant RV's from Canada and Washington and Utah and Arizona, and all kinds of other places I'm sure. I drive up Sunday morning from Santa Cruz. I did wear my sporty pants though so I felt very agility competitor.

Ruby had masters classes, although this was her first show moving down to the 12" Performance Division. A lot of people move their dogs down there as they age, like age 5 and 6 like Ruby. So she still has some mean competition, but it's the slowing down mean competition. I think she is a lot happier jumping lower. Her first class was Standard, and she had a beautiful, speeding, flawless run until the table. She has to stay in a perfectly still down for the Slow count of 5 til the judge says go. On number 5, she jumped off, I threw her back on, she got another 5 and go and off we went to finish, but with 5 faults. Such is my life.

Her next class was masters gamblers, where the dog has to do part of the course with you 20'-30' away behind a line. We do so so in these, you never know. You make up the first part of the course yourself, given 30 seconds to rack up as many points as you can. It's all about strategy, because you want to make sure to end up exactly at the first gamble obstacle when the timer buzzer goes off and get tons of points. I had a pretty good course, I never did count up all my points so I am not sure if I won it or not, but I think I may have been the only small dog to get the gamble. They had to do a jump, turn back towards you, go out to a jump, then turn away even farther to the teeter, and do that and go to the table. Ruby did it!

Otterpop had snookers next. I just picked out an easy course for her. She started out slow but sped up, but we got whistled out and I am not sure why. Poor Otterpop. Usually I don't have time to walk her courses, sometimes literally not at all. She sort of gets the shaft because I end up in the Masters area which is the Important area. This show was spread out all over 4 rings and Otterpop's ring was far away. But she was really good, even though we didn't Q. Q is getting a qualifying score which allows you to move up.

Ruby's other class was Snookers. I made an error in the closing, so we didn't get through. I won't even try to to explain snookers except that you have to haul ass around a usually weird little course to try to win. So we got whistled out on the 6, and just squeaked out of qualifying. Oh well. She was really fast, I love running her when she is so fast and people come up and say wow, what a cool dog. A lot of these people don't know us because we only compete in the bay area and only on Sundays.

Otterpop's Standard group is now Advanced. The wind at this point was gale force and people with little dogs were nervous about the teeter blowing and little dogs blowing off the dog walk. I just went for it and Otterpop had the best, fastest, happiest run she has ever had. Beautiful contacts, flying around looking happy and not out at judges and ring crew. And then at the very end she popped a weave pole, the last one. As she is prone to do occassionally. If I had taken her back and fixed it I think I still would have qualified but I just let her keep going. I didn't want to mess up what was such a gorgeous run just to get a Q. I do that.

Otterpop had one more run, her gamblers which is the one thing I really wanted to qualify in so she would have her Agility Dog title. And I missed it! I ran down there as they were closing the ring, I had been up in masters for Ruby's last class, the pairs relay that was sort of a wash, she was tired and done. I ran in asking how many seconds I had and "what's the gamble??" and went for it. Pop was great, she really acted like a little trooper but I didn't get the gamble and I have no idea if I had anywhere near the right opening points. But at least I got her in there.

Poor Pop gets the shaft a lot at the dog shows because Ruby is the Important Dog. And masters is Important and Advanced isn't. But I have to keep working on her just as I hard as I always did with Ruby because she is going to be such a great little speedster some day. Poor little Pop.

Then we drove home 2 1/2 hours back to Santa Cruz. The dogs alway sleep so hard on the way home. We are going to try to get into better shape starting now so they don't get so tired! There is no way they could have competed for 4 days straight in the shape that they're in. We are taking Matilda home today so we can start longer small dog walks. Timmy is doing better, he started on prednazone and he is off his gourd on that but doesn't look so toxic. I want him to live long in a happy and painfree way. I wish I knew what his shakes were. He is going to miss his senior day care buddy.

Your career is killing you.

Last night at yoga, my teacher was pulling on one part of me and pushing the other which made my leg twist out at a funny angle and she said, your career is killing your body. You didn't look like this before you switched back to riding horses. Which is true!.I had lots of time to sneak away from the computer for an hour and go to a dance class or yoga but that was it. So I had better posture. Right now I am barely riding, mostly I sit on a fence all day and teach people and lug jumps around. There is also the added fun of running as fast as I can in short, less than 60 second bursts and turning quickly running the dogs. And lugging the very heavy equipment around. All that is probably super.

The possible ranch I am going to see today is only 2 acres, and Del lives down the road. He said it has a beautiful field in front of the house. A house and a lovely field all for one million dollars! That is the only other issue, the one million dollars. It just dropped in price from one point four million dollars to 998,000. So they are not super likely to take another 150,000 reduction. But I am going to look all the same. Because I have such a sickness to own a ranch that I really can't afford. And this one isn't even a ranch, another house with a field!

I am still hoping to win the million dollar house lottery. In just 35 days, I will know if my $150 lottery ticket bought me the house a few blocks away, that retails for one million dollars. It's a fund raiser for what I thought was a very buddhist private school in the mountains. Although the very cowboy kids of the owners of our new ranch also go there, so maybe they are sort of buddhist when they are at school. Also they live near it. But someone on the westside is raffling off their big fancy house as a donation to the school and I am hoping to win it. And then cash out on the house and use the buckets of money, maybe about 700,000 after taxes, to buy a ranch! I know the owners have a small tan dog that looks like Otterpop named Annie that wears a pink harness at the field and they always wear raincoats. Not sure why they can just raffle off their house to support a buddhist cowboy school in the mountains but that is what they're doing.


Before I went to work I pulled some weeds. The dogs sure love just sitting outside doing nothing. Their life is a-ok.

Not obsessed about ranches.

I have been working on not being. And we are moving to a perfectly good one. But this is one on Cox road-not a ranch, house with a 2 acre field for nearly a million bucks. But I am going to go see it tomorow and I am not obsessed about it.



Also, you may not realize everything I write is based on sleep deprivation. A little known fact about me is I have to be awake at usually 1am and then 4am to let Timmy out and usually I stay awake after that. So I basically sleep very little anymore. In case that explains anything.

They guy was reading stuff too.

Last night at 4am, the guy going through the recycling was also reading things out of the cans by flashlight, in between getting the cans out and putting them in his sack. He was really big. I didn't really think calling the police was the right thing to do, because he was probably just a can guy. The flashlight reading was kind of strange though.


Last night at agility I taught an extra class because the Real trainers all went to the Big Dog Show. I'll go just on Sunday. All the cool kids go Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. If you are a real agility person, you take work off or you are retired. Many people that do agility are old. I am like young and I am almost 42 and have gray hairs.

My small dogs were fast and did a good job. I could tell you everything that they did, but that is why most agility blogs are pretty boring. Who cares. They ran some courses, did their contacts, Ruby had a smokin' dogwalk, Otterpop was pretty darn fast, and I made a few errors. Then we had to put everything away and I was really, really sleepy. I got home just as Lost was ready to start but I fell asleep before it ended so I don't know what happened. Maybe Claire died. Vincent, the dog, is only a character some of the time. It seems like it would be a hard life for a lab on a tropical island with monsters.

This is Timmy's 7th day on toxic Lysondren, a sort of chemo drug to shrink the benign tumor that wreaks havoc on his pituitary. He isn't having a good day today but I took him out to the park and he walked around some. Every other day til now was a-ok, in fact quite smashing. I talk to the vet a lot. In fact today she brings out her little girl for a riding lesson, so I can talk to her even more. It's all pretty subjective though, probably what it means is that he needs to go in for the $300 blood test tomorow. I always think, what would Omar do in this situation. For a stick up guy with a sawed off shotgun and long coat, he seems like he always has a pretty good plan and a lot of integrity. Likely he would rob someone to get the $300. He must make buckets of money robbing the stash houses, but I think he gives most of it to Butch, the old blind bartender with the Jack Russell.

Might be construed

These things could possibly be construed as dog training:

Dogs must wait in a sit at top of the driveway until their name is called with their release word to run down to the car.

Dogs must sit quietly outside while I fill up all the food bowls until their names are called, usually in random order or order of who fidgets the least, to come in and get food out of their bowl only.

Leave it at the park in reference to burgers, chicken-both KFC and raw, human shit, taqueria dumpster food, dead animals, crazy guys, firefighters putting out fires started in trees, unidentified stinky things that smell rollable.

Go get the frisbee. Bring it back. All the way back. Drop it. Catch a cookie in your mouth.

Close-walk exactly next to my leg and do not stray away if we are walking near where the crazy guy across the street has dumped a mound of raw chicken and fish tails in the park.

Go get in your cage, when I get to the barn and let them out where they are not allowed to be, and they run up to the office to their crate. Poor damn dogs at the barn.

Get away from that cat food. Doesn't work. Bad dog training.

Shut up stop barking goddamn it now shut up! Also doesn't work, bad dog training.

Glamorous things I did yesterday:

Wore dirty jeans that were dusty and had some kind of oil spill on one leg because they didn' t make me look fat.

Select outfit's shirt based on being top of stack in armoire. Select long sleeve shirt to go over it based on same thing.

Select socks due to fact that they are same style-I buy 2 styles from target-white short ones and white really short ones, it is a challenge to get a whole pair that is either just short or really short.

Look at hair, wish hair girl would call me back so I don't have to look at my hair. It kind of could not look worse, and bad hair does nothing for the wrinkles and bad skin and bags due to sleeplessness under eyes. Sleepless comes from one dog, beloved Timmy, who needs to get let out at least once every night.

Talk one barn customer down off ledge of insanity from having way too many horses and not knowing how to manage them, her whole life is many cooks in the kitchen and I am not even really her trainer. She was crying, and the end of the story is she wants to put 2 of her horses into a trailer and take them to a bad shoer at a bad barn. Stop the madness.

Deal with one passive agressive mom, don't call back another passive agressive mom who calls at night to see if she can reschedule her kid's lesson. Horses don't grow on trees, just because it's spring break doesn't mean the seas part and horses come out of the woodwork on different days for your kids to ride. If you don't own a horse, it has to happen on my schedule.

Give a lot of shots and pills and things to horses. Will Jane back to soundness. She isn't horribly lame but sure isn't sound.

Feel many minor power struggles brewing. Vow to just let it all go and try to do what is right. Be less of a control freak. Yeah right. I feel my chest constricting just thinking about this.

Go to Trader Joes at night when I am tired and just want to lay around and fall asleep. This makes me so glad I don't have kids, I could see all these ladies in there with tired kids and the ladies looked so tired and I bet they haven' t made dinner either and they have to go do that and then probably a load of things for their kids. I just have dogs that need pills.

Just not that glamorous of a day. Thank god I am not the star of Entourage.

Black Flag and Camo

When people start agility, usually they think their dog is the most talented rocket scientist dog of the neighborhood. It can jump the highest, is the smartest, the fastest, whatever the thing that drove them to agility is. Sometimes the most out of control hyper. Then they try agility, and in general, for the non dog training people that have a basic dog that basically sits and comes and goes on walks, it's really hard. Because if the handler doesn't catch on quickly to the fact that dogs do EXACTLY what you show them, the dog really doesn't get it.

Once the handlers start to get that concept, and if they have enough coordination, agility becomes fairly do-able, and you get better at it. But the fast, smart, high jumping dogs sometimes get pulled out of class for being too hyper, too scared, too unfocused, just because the handlers can't get their heads out of their ass, indeed.

I know. I had a hard time with that at first. Now every time my dog isn't getting it, I just figure out what am I doing so wrong here? And the dog usually begins to get it.

There are a lot of fancy trainers with training systems. I am pretty not fancy as a trainer, I don't really even practice, unless I am starting a dog in which case I find a way to practice and it is a pain in the ass because it may involve dragging non portable weave poles out to a school soccer field every morning before kids go to school and doing a few repetitions then packing them back up and doing it again the next day. Heck, I don't even go to the whole dog show because of Work, so I am pitifully behind most dogs in terms of titles and awards. But we do ok. We work through problems and I basically try to keep my head out of my ass.

Right now, training consists of endurance and we do an extra speed walk with the mutant element of the team since the senior citizens need to not walk so far. Can't walk so far. Timmy is currently on lysodren and just holding it together enough to have a drive or bike ride to the park. Matilda inhibits bike rides due to being a big fluffy lunk with bad walking skills so we go in the car a lot. And then I have the bad habit of eating fries and pints of ice cream and pizza which is not so good for the training regeim.

We tried wearing sporty pants and so forth last year but this season I am feeling the camo and punk rock tshirts, so that is our fashion theme. We are very excited about the big dog show this weekend!


Otterpop looks like a little fat meat grinder fox with an upright tail rudder when she runs. She is blazing fast in practice but dog shows freak her out and she goes slow. Someday, she's going to kick ass the way she does in all other parts of her life, but for now I just let her get used to a dog show and hide her frisbee outside the ring and don't even make her do a whole class-if she is speedy and fast I pull her out and play frisbee. Retarded if you want to get prizes, but for the long term will make her a better competitor.

Pancake Club

If we have pancakes, so do the dogs.


Also for happy easter, I pulled more weeds and bought more plants for my plant addiction.






As an agility blog, this may show why I don't practice agility like most good agility people do. Because I landscaped my yard into a non agility friendly plant extravaganza and weed fest before I knew about agility. At some points I believe i got 6 weave poles or a single jump in there but that's long gone now.

Hopefully the move to the new barn will mean I can practice at Dee's a little more, even though I pay to rent the field. But practicing would be so exciting. This weekend we go to Sunday of the 4 day Dixon trial. One of 4 days. The last day. Last year, Otterpop had the freakout at this one that lasted til recently because of the rain and rain outfits and general insanity. I'm hoping to get her over it this year and it should be sunny!

Where does the Easter bunny hide your eggs.

I know I once got a stuffed easter rabbit. Which was a big deal because when I was little, I used to pull all the fur off of stuffed animals and stuff it up my nose, so I don't think I was always allowed to have them. I believe the rabbit's name was Reuben. At some point Reuben made it into the toilet and had to be destroyed. I think I got a new rabbit later, but it just wasn't the same. That was the first time one of my pets died.

On Easter, they would have the Blue Bird on tv, with Shirley Temple from 1940. I couldn't remember exactly what the movie was about except that it was disturbing and I can always remember pictures of it. Luckily we have the internet now so I don't have to rack my brain trying to remember these things.

It is Christmastime of 1808 in the Austria of the Napoleonic Wars, and young Mytyl is a selfish and unhappy woodsman's daughter whom we first encounter illegally trapping a bird in the King's forest. After the kids' dad is called to the forces, the children are awakened in the middle of the night by a knock on their front door; it is the Fairy, Berylune who tells them that they must find the Blue Bird, the symbol of true happiness. She zaps them into their clothes, and then changes their faithful dog, Tylo and conniving cat Tylette into humans to provide them with escorts for their journey, and then presents them with light who is also a human in a scarey costume.

The intial part of their journey is to the Past, represented in the form of a graveyard, where soon enough, their deceased grandparents are revived, and the children recall fun times at their home with a little song and dance along the way. So now we have zombies along with the human dog and cat who are already horrifying.

After their brief visit back in time, they rest by the roadside, and the cunning Tylette suggests the children search for the Blue Bird in the land of Luxury-a visit she will enjoy more than they will. They are greeted by the fashionable Mr. and Mrs. Luxury who comically slide down the balcony to greet them. There, they get a valuable lesson in what the lives of the rich children are really like, which is obviously bad because Shirley Temple is very poor. Despite Tylette's efforts to sabotage them, they escape. Who needs money? Also, of course I need not mention the cat is a wearing a catsuit! And I am scared of this very much every single year I watch this movie.

So, Tylette goes to the woods to summon the trees of the forest to settle scores with their father, the woodcutter, who has chopped down so many of them, by summoning the natural disasters of the woods to destroy the children. Destroy the children! This doesn't pay off well for the cat, and after Tylette is justly condemned by her own treachery, Tylo and the children escape disaster and travel safely to shore, where Light guides them to the Kingdom of the Future.

There, they meet the unborn Queen Victoria and soon-to-be-born Abraham Lincoln. Who else would you want to meet in the future? There is some kind of dance sequence here about their upcoming baby sister being born but also a huge tragedy at the same time. It takes place in heaven, with greek outfits and angels and Maxfield Parish and for some reason seemed like the scariest part of the movie to me which is probably some kind of Catholic issue. Like worse than the zombies. Then, just like in Scrooge, they go home and it's Christmas and all the kids that just watched this movie are likely seriously disturbed.

Looks Like This

This is what it looks like to be me.


They know when it's time.


They stand at attention.


You get them all together.


Because of Timmy, we put them in the car.


They walk around.


Some of them run around.


They walk around some more.


And sniff stuff.


Keep counting to four.

Repeat at least twice a day for at least an hour.

More Lame With

Under any other conditions other than the really hard footing in the ring at WP, I would say get a vet out, and likely this lease situation is not a good one since the pony is not staying sound. However, the footing is abysmal out there, and we have had this problem with Kissy, Wonder, Jane and Quinn coming up sore out there off and on, exactly like Dude, in the same time frame. Dude's is compounded by the fact that it first started after a very extreme shoeing 6 wks ago where he went from very long to very short.

He is getting shod on Tuesday. I want to ride him couple days after that and see what happens. Shoer can put hoof tester on him, see if something sensitive in there.

His pattern has been lame 2 days at most, then fine. He is only off to the left. When I got on him today, he was barely off but I could get him to feel lame on a tight left turn. On the longeline, so so. Much more lame with Jacki on, I think the fact she leans left somewhat in a left turn and that's where he is sore makes it a lot more noticable with her on. I longed him Thursday, and he was very sound.

If he is at all off next week, Kathryn's vet should do a workup on him and see what is going on. Was hard the first time this happened because he was perfectly sound by the time the vet came out.

I definitely understand both of your frustration-Kathryn's in that her pony is just not staying sound, and Laura's in that Jacki is missing lessons because of this and wondering if she is making a mistake bringing a pony to WR that is not going to stay sound. I don't have an easy answer other than that we use the next week to see what is going on with him. This is the 3rd time this has happened during the last 6 weeks. He had a great last 2 weeks since his turnout schedule was modified so he didn't go running around out there with Highland, so this last one certainly surprises me and frustrates me as well. Weird things like this are always frustrating to figure out, especially since he become sound very quickly, stays sound and then, boom, off again. Usually something more serious stays lame, doesn't go completely away for 2 weeks. WR also has good footing, which is what I think is really making this issue come up over and over.

Kathryn-If you would feel better having Anne out early next week, before he's shod, then you may want to see if you can get her out there, I had Jacki give him a tab of bute this afternoon but won't give him anymore, I have a feeling though according to the pattern he is going to be sound next day or so. I know what a valued family member he is to you, and that you are worried about him. I was honestly shocked to see him off again today.

Laura, I know you are frustrated about paying for lessons that she is missing, there are a extra days in next couple months so I am sure she will ride plenty. She has been learning about looking for lameness, how to figure out which foot a horse is off on, how to deal with a lameness, so I wouldn't say her time has been wasted out there. Horses do this. Some of these days she has had half a lesson before he came up sore, and I've had her jump Murphy. That said, if he just can't stay sound, then definitely we would look for a new horse to lease.

I wish I could give both of you a simple, easy fix it to this, but I don't think that there is one, I think the best thing is to give it a bit more time, see if we can figure out what is going on, and then make decisions about what to do about the lease.

Orange Down Jacket

This lady makes me feel so tired and lazy. All I had time to do this morning was go off on the irritating guy who rides the sit down bike in sandals and a faded orange down jacket around the field was out of my life for a while. Today he came riding by, clean shaven and vague. He pulled up on his bike that is like a chair and asked, So where will you walk your dogs when you can't walk them here? I spit back that I've been trying to move off the goddamn westside for 2 years and I damn well hope I'll be off by then. He suggested the fenced dog run in Scotts Valley. I suggested that a fenced dog run 15 minutes up the freeway is not the same thing. I think I suggested rudely. He rode off quickly in his little brown sandals.

This was moments after I snapped at the flute playing guy in a navy ballcap and sweats who asked me if I was a professional. I am pretty sure he meant dog walker since I had 4 dogs on leashes. I have all sizes now, from burly chihuahua to fat greasy aussie. I think I had to snap at him due to the flute though.

The Pioneer Woman has time to bake and cook and wrangle cows and seems to have at least 4 or 5 kids. I can barely get to work at a plenty late hour in the morning, get stuff done, and return emails and then at home I fall asleep on the couch every night before 10pm and can't even finish one DVD of The Wire episodes. And basically I sit on a fence and yell at people all day to ride their horses better. Sit on some horses sometimes. It's not that rough.

Sometimes in my mind I am having this whole other life though while I'm having my normal one and maybe that is tiring. Right now I am a Hermes bag toting member of the Entourage and Ari calls me constantly but I am not making any deals with him then I have to be driven off to a dog show to handle my award winning, Animal Planet starring trick dogs who are extremely well behaved at all times and then win the dog show!

Dog eaten is more Like it.

When I appeared on What Not to Wear recently with guest star Jimmy McNulty, they had a really hard time getting a handle on what it was that I needed fashion wise. Something that looks chic and age appropriate, yet functional for moving large amounts of dogs places, running quickly with dogs in oily dirt, riding horses and doing horse related jobs that frequently involve blood, green and viscous saliva and dust. Stacey and Clinton's biggest concession seemed to be allowing the ballet flat over heels, while we all acknowledged that the heels did certainly lengthen my leg in the straight leg jeans. Although the straight leg jeans barely fit under my half chaps. The hair part was really hard too, since most hairstyles go bad under a helmet and sun hat and baseball hat which Carmondey did agree with to help keep my skin dewey and sun damage free.

Jimmy had a harder time I think because he was drunk the whole time and tried to get into it with Clinton, although they discovered that they had some mutual relatives in East Baltimore and left to go drinking. I liked JImmy in the argyle sweater, and they found him footwear that worked for undercover, harbor patrol and the office. i didn't think dressing him was all that bad. They didn't think that dresssing me was all that bad but I am now stuck with $5000 of clothes that are already all ripped up and ride up my ass.

If this is Monday then I am irritated

If you are hearing this voice mail on Monday morning and my car is still locked up behind the chain link gate, then you know when you see me I am going to be super freakishly irritated.

Top things heard while walking dogs lately are: Wow, your dogs look so fat. Are you the lady with the little black dogs? Wow do you have four dogs? That dog's frisbee is bigger than her! Repeat, rinse, repeat.

Are you sure this is the name your prescription is under? Would you mind jotting it down. How do you spell L-A-U-R-A? Hey how come I can't log into the computer? Did you try Sharon? Type the name Sharon. It is Sharon's name. Yes, Sharon. S-H-A-R-O-N. I can't get into the computer. Let me try. Wait, maybe I can get in. Did you spell it like that? Yes, it's Sharon's name. If you need to get into the pharmacy computer at Long's, I think that you only need to type in Sharon's name. But it might not let you in.

Then I had pancakes for lunch, a quesadilla for lunch after the sandwich lunch, then a Reeses peanut butter cups, then another quesadilla then some pizza! Yep, that was healty Sunday food for me. The dogs rode around in the back of Gary's car all weekend because of the whole car locked up behind the security gate issue. Also the cell phone does not work even with the new battery. When I said, Thirty bucks? What a ripoff! She said, Oh no, that is really a good deal. Usually they are $40. But the phone was so expensive, it seems like the battery should last longer. Oh no, they only last a year, then you get a new one. She was so young and so pregnant, calmly sitting there, clearly used to people like me.