The ensemble just isn't cutting it.

You are not supposed be crouching down and grimacing at your dog in dog agility. That is just not part of the whole deal. Because if the photographer happens to catch this, it is just not a flattering photo. Otterpop actually looks kind of cute in a scrappy, feral way.

She was actually a very good dog at the whole dog show. No one took any photos of Ruby that I can find. Who really was a good dog. Ruby has turned into a little worker bee. She is well behaved, and does a good job, even if I screw it up for her. Then she goes to sleep to rest up for her next turn. Easy.

Otterpop is much more high maintenance. Mostly because she is Trouble. Like at work she climbs out of the dog run. She has to know where I am. She is actually fairly well behaved some of the time, but in a shrewd and pathologically calculating way. And of course Gustavo thinks she is the coolest thing ever and probably aspires to be just like her. Instead of the good citizen dog.

OK, so what is wrong with this. In one photo, I am grimacing at her. In this one, it is like I have made my teeth like my old scarey teeth paintings of the J. Crew people. And I am wearing a highly wrinkled and unflattering outfit because, like Otterpop, I am just plain old fat. Blubbery and all grimacing teeth bared and no wonder Otterpop is afraid of the teeter at a dog show. It isn't the judge. It is ME! I watch America's Top Model reruns. I should know a lot better than this. Janice Dickinson and Miss Jay would totally eat me alive for this, not to mention the non anorexic look featured in the outfit. Maybe if someone nominated me for What Not to Wear, someone could figure out a flattering and cute yet functional dog agility ensemble that would make all of us happy.

Why did they hang them all on her reins?

That's Jane. She's still got it. Even at age 24. She hadn't been to a horse show in ages. It was just a schooling show, and she can't jump anymore, but she won every flat class except for the one she broke to the trot in at the end of the day. Was probably more cantering than she's done in years. The girls had to work hard all week to shed out all her weird old lady hair that she grows at strange times of year. I have such good pets.

At the end of the Big Dog Show.

Let's see. How about the time I went off Course in the Grand Prix?

That would have been with Ruby. On likley a winning run. Here I was, nearly winning the Grand Prix, with a flawless and so fast run, and at the very end, I went off course! Wow! Like So Bonehead move is that. It is my second time EVER in a dog show to go off course and it has to be the time i would have ended up winning the Grand Prix. I think that says something about my competitive spirit. How much do I REALLY want to win?

After that run, the judge held the ring for a moment to come running over to tell me that, HEY, I would have won it, and that he was going to have a nice placque made up for me saying "Great Dog. Pity About the Handler". Did I mention bonehead? The moment I knew I was off course was the second to last jump, and I shrieked, screamed, and just let Ruby go on so she didn't know anything was up and sent her over the wrong one, so it was kind of a nice funny thing for everyone else, seeing me finishing screaming, which I think just made Ruby faster.

Ruby got a Q in her Masters Standard, and even though she got the gamble and mega points on Sunday, she knocked a bar in the gamble, so didn't get it. Such is our life. She was great, with the exception of her weave poles slowing down to a crawl by the end of the day on Sunday. She was fast everywhere else, which really leads me to believe something just hurts her in those weaves and I can't figure out what. She wasn't at all lame and didn't hit any other bars-I think the gamble one was me so excited to have her so fast (that's when she will work at a far distance) and that I made it through without walking the course (oh yeah, I didn't mention the trouble I was having getting to courses to walk them this weekend before they closed) that maybe I just shoved her too fast out over that jump.

Otterpop had Advanced Gamblers-with another teeter! Bad, bad, evil teeter far away. I didn't even try it, just ran out there with her, negating her Q. She flew off. I was mortified and freaked out that her teeter is ruined again. So her next run was her Standard, I just crept out to her teeter with her, told her there was a frisbee in it, and she had a great run with a genuine, real cupcake teeter. So now she moves to Masters Standard with the big dogs.

She also moves to Masters Jumpers after a very mediocre but fast enough to qualify jumpers run. That is going to be interesting. I don't really think of her as Masters material, but we will see. Of course her first show in Masters will be next weekeend's HUGE Dog Show. This weekend was a Big Dog Show. The next weekend is a West Coast Regional Event, which means HUGE Dog Show. Many, many people from far, far away. Mayhem, insanity, world class competition. Go Otterpop.

Not sure yet if Favo goes to this one. He was totally out of his little gourd all weekend at the general mayhem-just like a different dog than we have at home. Everyone was saying, "oh yes, that's a good thing. He's very high drive". Which is true, but I felt a little sorry for him-he was just so overwhelmed. He would settle down, but just didn't like it when I left him alone and just wanted to run around and meet and chase dogs all the rest of the time. I left him with great bones and treats in his crate when I left him but he had a few meltdowns. When he would settle down, he took walks and met many new people that gave him treats and played with him, so that part was awesome. But when it got too crazy, he became the barking, shrieking Mexican Song Dog that he truly is, and it is not a pretty sight.

And he escaped once! Not sure how. I left him a few times in the x-pen with the Mutants-I think it was one of those times and he must have squeezed out the door. He trotted over to another tent nearby and jumped in a lady's lap. They figured it out and put him back in his puppy crate. So that's good and bad. Bad that he is an escape artist, but good he didn't actually decide to go chase down a dog in the ring or run around looking for me. I forgot that I had labeled him escape artist from the get go, because he's so good at the barn in their dog pen, but he has it in him and he is very Narrow and can squeeze thru tiny little things like a tiny little rat with his rat whiskers.

It is kickoff day for Dog Show Season!

Today was Day one of the Dog Show. I took a day off work to go! To a partial day.

Let's see. How many errors did I make?

Ruby-in Masters Gamblers we went in the wrong end of the tunnel. But then she did get out to the teeter which didn't matter anymore points wise but made me feel happy inside like a cupcake! And the cupcake had the extra frosting smeared everywhere of that I still had the most points! But the error cost us qualifying. Just like the frosting gives one a fat ass.

She won a big Masters Standard class and qualified though! Go Ruby! She was perfect and I did not make any errors! Hooray for Ruby! She was happy and wild and did exactly what i asked her to. Why? I have no idea, probably to get away from the screaming puppy?

In the Steeplechase, she had the smoking crazy fast time but hit a bar. I take responsibility. Hitting a bar in agility=not good. Hitting a bar in non agility world is a-ok with me. Our time was so fast! But it does not matter when you are hitting the bars. Ruby is like an alcoholic in that way. We need to go to meetings.

Otterpop-Advanced Gamblers-she did great and super speedy but the Gamble had the teeter in it and we know how Otterpop feels about doing the teeter far away from me. She does not feel this. In her heart, it is not a cupcake but a black and rotten and gooey old banana you find behind the seat of a car. Say goodbye to that gamble!

Advanced Standard-Wow so fast and so speedy and where is that scarey old judge (WITCH) standing, near the teeter. On a good day the teeter is ok but on a day with a judge and where earlier I told her to run 30 feet away from me and do it on her own-very, very bad. I put her back on anyways-against the rules, I know but I HAD to do it! Bad, bad, bad agility person and 20 faults for you.

Gustavo-spent the beginning of the morning screaming, screaming as if he was being tortured by a Torture Master of Pain. Every time I ran a dog. I put our tent thing far, far away but he could still see and hear due to super sonic hearing of his breed, the Mexican Song Dog. His songs are so very loud and mournful and cause Torture of Pain to everyone who hears his songs!

On the upside, he exhausted himself after a couple hours of this, and later could go out and play with a rope attached to him and be a very good dog and impress many fine agility masters with his cuteness and ability to Sit for a piece of chese and apparently unusually handsome good looks and confirmation and "fine muscling" (genuine quote of some lady with a dog logo on her shirt). His breeding is causing quite a stir. In fact, he will be genetically swabbed for a border collie DNA study next weekend by someone who does this. Not sure why. Am not mentioning the whole Mexico thing at the moment due to the crazy lady from Jim's seminar lurking nearby, but the coach of the US World Team approves of him so I think we are safe. His only mission at dog shows at this point in his life is to think they are fun and get treats from people and meet people and learn to not make the insane screaming sounds when he sees a dog running that he would rather be chasing.

Training regime of the Champions!

Part of my training regime is called Yoga Sushi Beer. This happens on Thursday night to help recover from Wed. Night Agility. What happens is Tash saves me a spot in yoga class that I cannot, no matter what i do, get to on time anymore because it takes me about an hour to get home from work in the evening due to the traffic. I suffer through yoga class, which used to be so easy and now is like torture but I try to think of how Healthy and the Health aspects I am gaining by being so miserable for 1.5 hours and also how afterwards we have beer and sushi and now somehow it has turned into sake too. So I am hoping the health aspects of the yoga (the teacher said when we stand on our heads we are Doing Age Defying Feats to Undue the Gravity Defying sagginess of our Internal Organs and Skin!!!) is not cancelled out by the beer. And sake.

Last night we went to a new sushi place that is conveniently located next door to the yoga! That seemed like a sign and since I am the lucky wheel of fortune in the world of tarot and I think tarot kind of matches yoga somehow we went to that sushi place. Because it is new, or because the owner is a very jovial Japanese man, he just brings out lots of extra food right and left and lots of sake that we do not order but he is sure we need. Really good top shelf sake. I am kind of like wine drinking with my sake expertise. Bring it on, I say. But when someone brings out the really good stuff, I can start to tell a difference and this stuff was really good and it just kept coming. Highly jovial, even blocking out the odd combination of beginning electric violin class in the front of the restaurant and housey kind of jazzy related music coming out the back part of the restaurant and us sitting in the middle with our sakes.

I have concern perhaps that my training regime is not all it could be. Wednesday night agility, I move heavy things a lot, run three dogs, teach, and then there is always the cake. I am there trying to have a training regime, and many people use it as time for celebrating things about their dogs. Their dog has a birthday. Get a cake! Their dog wins an award. Get a cake! Their dog almost won an award. Get a cake! A big cake. A big, frosty goodness cake straight from Costco with big, giant pieces cut from it. That is how I have dinner on Wednesday night usually since there is not other time than in between running dogs at 9pm.

Right now, this moment, I am prepping for out big training walk of the morning. One of the team needs to ride in the car to the beach and just walk very slowly there, and since he is a very valued member of the team, that's how we train today. Does not help remove sake and cake calories! Like me, Otterpop now has huge rolls of fat on her neck and people are commenting on her enormous fatness and I can't help to feel that we are reflections of eachother, me and Otterpop, except my rolls are along my waistband and I know exactly what my training regime consists of. Otterpop doesn't have cake-I am not sure exactly where her fat rolls came from but there they are, clear and rolly as day.

I took the What Tarot Card are You? Test and Now I Know!

Because really, I have so much time to kill and if the tarot says it's so, it must be so.

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Last night, I had a break between teaching and running in dog class, so I took Favo out (I think maybe that is his new name. I just never even say Gustavo unless he is eating Timmy's food or eating a cardboard box or digging a hole in unsanctioned hole territory and I say it real, real mean-like) and I had him on a long, long rope. Here is a nice dog training secret. Long, long rope on a clip on the collar. Favo is all about the long rope.

I was very proud of him, sitting outside the arena where dogs were running doing stays and recalls and and running by me, all attached to his long rope. I was like Laura Dog Trainer Superstar because he was doing everything right. It is a good place to look like the super star dog trainer because I teach there and it gives me some creds, since I am not the big huge super star dog show star like the other teachers. And then, right when I'm almost done, Favo just goes into that batshit mode of insanity that I have seen just a few times. This time it was triggered when Merlin, the Friendly Lab walked by. Not a dog running at top speed with a bike or doing agility-Favo was working like a champ not 40 feet away from barking dogs doing fast agility. Nope, a friendly lab. And who is named Merlin.

So not only totally embarassing and ruined the whole Super star fantasy thing of my mind but also I'm like, why is this perfect, little puppy have this little weirdo switch that just goes off on these occassions? Because when it goes off, I'm like thank god the dog weighs like 12 lbs. It's not like an attack mode just cannot stop barking and freaking out mode. And this was the first time triggered by something else. So my official dog theory is he just gets all wired near the agility, training w food, his toy etc. and in an aroused state (them is dog training words, I am not suggesting he is all pervy or some such thing) and then he has a little meter in his head that overloads and KABOOM when the meter sets off. So we have a new challenge, of course.

How about some fun and cheery horse news? Murphy's leg maybe not as bad as it looked. Not sure yet. Still looks bad but maybe not crippling bad. Little Vanessa can post on Jane. We got the hairy neck of Jane less hairy. Today Lisa and Rachel will canter together is my plan and no one fall off. LeeAnn bringing a new mare over for a lesson today. Bailey and Brennah and Susan all managed to get their horses straight to the jump on the right lead. There is a new irritating dad, not mom, that calls my cell phone at night to reschedule things. The horse news, it is pretty banal, another day at work.

But how about this which is going in the new bathroom??

Mimosas in the land of the Rainbows!

I tried to call the anger management hotline last night and all I could hear in the background was yelling from the smoking cessation corner and a screaming toddler and then someone was yelling at someone else to get their underwear on before they left the house and no one ever did help me with my anger problem. Which stems from the fact that maybe I need to go on a vacation? Because many moms and many horse girls are driving me to the brink of insanity. For good reason. Right now, one of the horses is very seriously lame because of some bad horsemanship by a teenager. You live and learn, but she is one of my main meal ticket employees and is perhaps really good and lame, like hello new lawn ornament (and I don't have a house with that type of lawn-see last year of real estate posts), for the rest of your years lawn ornament. And then the moms all ask stupid questions and someone infects the helmets with the lice and someone gives notice on the pony and everyone just in general causing me grief. And hello, I am providing you with a service that you pay me money for so your kid can ride horses and not have to buy their own! All this grief and I am actually saving you buckets and buckets of money by owning the horses (or in some case renting them!) myself! And then they are lame and then I have even more anger.

All I want to do is play with the dogs and paint the bathroom. The weather changed to damp this week, which makes timing bathroom painting especially challenging. If I went on vacation, all I would have to do is play with the dogs and not even paint the bathroom. Drink mimosas and play with the dogs! And on a vacation there would be no rotting seal corpses for rolling in, no sewer drains for climbing through, no horses flipping over on their backs to kick asses of (true life things done by dogs, not me, already this week) just nice laying around and mimosa drinking to do.

I guess some people take actual vacations in the summer for reasons such as Managing the Anger. We have scheduled a vacation for 3 whole days in October. But on tv, they go to a week in the Hamptons in August! Or my customer who went to the country house on Martha's Vineyard for the whole month of August! Right now I would take a Monday without graphic designing and count a Sunday dog show as a big vacation. This Sunday's dog show is put on by my dog club which means not so vacation-y. My job this Sunday besides running dogs and keeping Gustavo from going completely wacko will be sort of like being a sherpa teamster and moving large heavy things around a lot! And late in the day moving many large heavy things into trucks. A super fun use of recreational time that I actually pay for! So that kind of doesn't count as being a good target for complaining since I have completely brought this onto myself. And according to the Secret, if I do the complaining things will get worse so I am supposed to put on the positive thinking cap for solving the Anger Management and then pray that god brings me a shiny new bike and eliminates all evil racoons from my path and life will be good.

Ruby wants a spa vacation.

I had a lesson from Jim yesterday. I got there early to walk Gustavo around which is his pre agility training-right now he just needs to run around on a leash on the field, playing with a toy and not peeing on equipment-we have a long way to go. Jim thinks he is a Border Collie Chihuahua, a Borderchi or Borderhuahua. We will see. I am skeptical, however, there were sheep out in the neighboring pasture when we got there. Ruby is completely blase over sheep-they don't even register on her radar. Otterpop will notice them, then ignore them if they are not causing problems. If they cause a problem, of course she would be ready to kick some sheep ass. Gustavo, though, was watching and staring at them with a steely eyed look which is, um, very Border Collie! Perhaps I have my real agilty border collie in a nice handy shrunken state!

Otterpop was the star of our lesson and aced every distance challenge Jim threw out, so I was vindicated from the humbling seminar a few weeks back. Maybe she has to take Ruby's place showing this year in Masters. No one can tell them apart. Ruby wasn't as up for the challenge and honestly seemed not that into running. She was fast but a little frenzied and unfocused and not sending out. With very slow weave poles. Uhoh. I talked to Jim about her soundness issues and what I can't figure out and he didn't really have any great ideas either. Just not sure what Ruby wants to do. Maybe this is the year she backs off a little and Otterpop gets to shine? We'll see. And if we have a true albeit shrunken border collie here, then maybe we see how he goes. Although he is at the "here is some equipment and just don't pee on it" stage of his career which is far, far away from competing.

Poor Ruby. I can't figure out what she needs to do. I've tried time off. I've tried a lower jump height. Some days she is super fast and on. Other days she seems sore. Other days she just knocks bars like crazy. She hasn't actually been limping and lame in quite a while, it mostly seems like a sore back. I haven't gone the regular chiro route, but if she still seems to not want to run at the beach much, and doesn't want to run on the trail or next to the bike (that's been her latest the last few months) something has to be up somewhere. She is first and foremost a beloved pet dog though, and I am not going to go to huge lengths to diagnose something subtle. If it comes to it, she can just do a little agility and be happy chasing sticks at the beach and laying in the sun at work. If Ruby wants, she can even lay on the clean and light colored new bathmat in the stunning new bathroom which is semi banned from all the black dog fur right now (I'm sure this will last all of a week) to keep it clean and stunning.

I let 8 year olds train my puppy.

Very David Hockney. My camera is very sick so I now just carry around a giant laptop to take low res photos of things. Maybe some people use cameras for this? Does it truly reflect the stunningness which is the new Bathroom?

Of course the damn painter is slow, always a weak link with the subs. There was a near fiasco with the marble counter top which I think it grade A super Triple Class Act. An important thing I have learned in all of this is speak good spanish to remodel anything. Most of the people who actually know what is going on, do the work, have good skills and are on the ball speak the spanish and if you just deal with them you will learn interesting facts about their bosses and also ensure that things are done right, which their bosses may or may not be doing. For instance, a wife of a boss who is one of the subs and who may or may have have not contributed to near fiascos may be lovingly referred to as La Diabla by the guys doing the work. Big red Flag!

We are off to a dog lesson in a few minutes with Jim in San Jose. Always humbling to have my world rocked and be shown the true level of mediocrity that my dog agility skills have reached. Big dog show season starts next week so my weak attempt to get ready with my out of shape dogs and unpracticed skills. Gustavo has been gettting some training time and is doing well, although if he had to go to a lesson with Jim today, I would probably hear differently.

Jim and his wife Nancy Gyes have been publishing puppy training articles in the big national agility magazine Clean Run. Anyone who is anyone in agility got one of their puppies this last winter, and as Nancy and Jim train them, they are writing an article per month. The level of committment and structure and methodical, careful training they put into their border collies is, um, staggering, and quite different in my approach of letting the kids at the barn just take the puppy on the leash and run around with it til they are bored. Such is my lot in life.

Keep out of the Bad, Dark Place.

On Wednesday night, Ruby came screaming around a tight little corner after landing off a jump and ripped her dew claw half off her leg. Super. Poor Ruby. All blood spurting, dog screaming, limping little Ruby. One of the vet techs there (lots of vets and vet techs do agility) wrapped it to stop the bleeding then that was it for her. She just went to sit in the car with Gustavo. Then, being a horrible dog owner, she had to sit in the vet office kennels all day to have it looked at because I had the audacity to go to work all day. She is just fine, there is a little stub left and I have to keep crazy glue on it. That is my kind of injury. She did miss a couple practice days with trials coming up, but Oh Well. Oh Well is what I try to keep telling myself, along with head out of ass. Should help me from hollering at the poor little 8 year olds if I can just remember Oh Well.

All things well and good today, we may have an inaugural bathroom party tonight with an actual sink and working shower and working plumbing. We have to wait on the stunning and breathtakingly adorable wall treatments til the damn painter gets over here and works painting into her busy dog showing schedule, but I think that painting will happen with all the time I am saving by not running around to Home Depot and marble guys and the cheap tile place and wherever I have been spending so much time this month. The dogs enjoy the new bathroom very much-there is much more real estate in there with the moved around fixtures and plenty of room for 4 small dogs to run simultaneously whilst other things happen in said bathroom. And then this will go back to being a blog about dog agility and real estate and not bathroom remodeling anymore.

The whole real estate thing is hard to watch. We are the jumbo loan people. We would have been taking out a very large, fat loan for the ranch. We would have had one already if we had bought the dream ranch last summer. So while this may mean that ranch prices drop to what we can almost afford, whether we qualify for loans anymore, or can sell our house for anything that gives us enough down payment will be interesting to see. Having a new bathroom takes some of the sting out of this, and the new dog and also having the horses and work safe and sound out in Watsonville helps some. I guess it's a good reality check to keep going over the spreadsheets and making sure whatever the next one we find to put a bid on, whenever that will be, will not be sending us to a bad, dark place.

It is the Joy, it is Here!

Look at the Joy in my Face! I am very thrilled to show off my brand spanking new toilet that actually works and flushes and all that! The shower does too but we are not allowed to use it til Thursday because of letting the grout sealer Cure. Unless it gets very foggy then maybe longer so we hope hope hope it stays sunny and nice.

And, it is entirely possible that if the stars align, we will even have a counter and sink on Friday. We'll see. Now is last minute detail time of learning about the extra 1/8 inch of space we forgot about for the baseboard and the light is sort of weird amd the stained glass panels need to be thicker and the sound of plumbing on the other side of the kitchen wall but really, even with little weird things, we have a bathroom that is not horrible, ugly and rotting! It is new and shiny and needs painting with the cool wallpaper pattern and it did not cost as much as many people warned me it would. We got it to stay in budget. I think. I still need some final invoices so I shouldn't sound so braggy yet on that one.

Also if all the dogs bark in the door-let's just say a cat has run in there and is in the bathtub-boy o boy does all that shiny white tile echo like a sunuvagun! Very exciting for all of us, humans, cat and dogs! We all are in love with the new bathroom.

Hey. Wait. Hey. Hey. Hey!

Hey is that tile and a tub?

This is a typical conversation at my house.

Me: "Hey you guys. I mean it this time. No one is going anywhere til everyone is on a sit."

Me: "OK, Except Timmy. You are fine. Go find a snail. You can have a leash later. You are perfect"

Me: "Otterpop that is not a sit. (Otterpop is flinging herself into downs and leaping in the air and flinging herself into another down because she is an overachiever in an evil way.) WAIT THERE! OK. Down is fine"

Otterpop gets a leash. One dog has a leash. That one is now waiting in a down with a frantic look on her face and is making howling noises while down. I am ignoring the howling noises. Ruby has been sitting perfectly this whole time. Gustavo has been sitting this whole time but gets up occassionally and the whole goal of this is that when the word is sit, that is what you do. Nothing else.

Me: "Timmy, come back in here and get a leash"

Timmy comes out of the bushes. He was eating a snail. He walks slow but he is very excited to go on a leash so will pick that over eating snails in the bushes. He will even walk fast and maybe even run. He gets a leash.

Me: "Gustavo Sit. (he sits. as soon as I put a leash on, he gets up.) Gustavo sit. (he sits. as soon as I put a leash on, he gets up.) Gustavo sit. "

This time he gets it. He gets VERY excited to go on a walk because hopefully it will mean running and that is what he likes to do. But if it means walking that means maybe he will see someone ride by on a bike with their dog running which is almost as exciting as running himself to see this and the more he thinks about it the more excited he gets then he thinks about it some more then he gets up!

Me: "Augh!!! FAVO!"

Gustavo flops into a down. Do we see this elsewhere in the Team? Did I mention we are late right now and all I want is 4 dogs on leashes and out the door?

Also this whole time, Ruby has been sitting there, perfectly still in a perfect sit, not really looking at any of the bad dogs. She gets a leash.

Now they know they are ready to go out the gate but that their plan to go out the gate is ruined if anyone moves. Even Timmy knows this. Otterpop is in a down. Ruby has never moved out of her perfect sit. Timmy is in a sit. Gustavo is in a sit.

I put all their leashes on the ground. Now I am not saying anything. This one has been rehearesed and they know, NO ONE WILL GET to GO ANYWHERE if anyone moves and no one better blow it. Gustavo is the wild card.

Me: "Wait"

They are waiting. Thank god. I am late. A contractor will be in the driveway at any minute (unless it is Jerry the marble guy, we seem to have lost contact with him and our bathroom counter).

Everyone is motionless. Otterpop is in a down but we'll go with that. The howling noises have never ceased and sometimes there are barks in there but I am just picking battles right now. Gustavo has not moved. He gets it!

I pick up 4 leashes off the ground. The gate is wide open. I can move around. No one has moved.

Me: "OK"

Bam exciting crazy running here we go down the driveway and the Team is off. OK means release with gusto and that means with gusto we go down the driveway and down the street and the neighbors are likely laughing at the Team Captain who they just know as the Dog Lady and that is an average conversation for me.

Also the Team, all 4 of them, in unison, just chased my cat over the fence.

Augh.

Would a hyper sensitive have hyper focus at hyper speed?

Yesterday, I took Ruby, Otterpop and Favo (this is just easier to type and say than Gustavo, a 2 year old clued me into it and it's the dog nickname dujour) on an outing. It is truly easier to cart 3 dogs and accessories to a dog thing than 2 toddlers to an aquarium. This is something I learned this year. Although the toddlers certainly appreciate the aquarium more than the dogs may appreciate the dog thing.

Not that the dogs don't like it. They like the agility part and the running around, then they just go to sleep. Which would sort of be perfect if toddlers could do that-run around, look at jellyfish and otters, sleep for a while, then run around again. But I guess this is why I have dogs and not toddlers.

Favo didn't clue into the sleeping part yet though. He wants to go to the aquarium I guess. It was his first time out at an event, and this was a small event compared to what is coming up the next 2 months for him. He hasn't actually seen agility yet-he stays in the car when I am running usually. So yesterday he was in an xpen with the other dogs and I tried leaving him in there where he could see. He just went plain old batshit crazy when a dog was out there running-which is a good thing but sort of akin to having a jacked up on sugar toddler to contend with. He gets all jacked up on watching dogs run and screams like a banshee in the pen. So I would put him in the car each time I had to run a dog (I was running 3 of them) and that helped, but still watching the random dogs, especially the big, fast ones, made him crazy. In a good way. The jacked up on sugar toddlers are having a great time on the slide, they are just insane. Same thing with the dog.

There were quite a few people with puppies there and this is a common thing in a high drive dog. So it's good he gets all excited and can't wait to get out there and run (right now I think in his mind he plans on chasing dogs around a course) but now I need to start showing him that agility is focusing on me until it's his turn to have fun then he needs to hyper focus but at hyper speed. We've got a ways to go. I pulled him out a lot and would walk him so he thought it was fun to just be on an outing and not think too much about getting out on a field and running around like the other dogs.

Ruby and Otterpop were great. Hobbes was perfect of course. I didn't run anyone hard-it was hot and I just wanted it to be an easy day and it was a practice match. Ruby just withers when it gets hot so I ran her twice at full speed then let her just sleep in her crate after that. She'd be an easy toddler. But she is 7 years old now, whole different thing. Otterpop was good and fast, her a-frame was a little slow since I think I've confused her on when she is running a contact and when she is hitting it.

Her left hind has been getting hinkier and hinkier, and I'm worried that stifle joint is not happy. Her knee surgery would cost the same as a chunk of the bathroom did. Poor Otterpop. Tiling or fancy dog knee surgery? She got so fat this summer too, me and her both. That couldn't be good for the joint. Of course a dog orthopedic surgeon rides with me and I just have to show it to her one day, but I am worried what I am going to hear and then have to make a choice on what to do with the surgery or not.

Oh Yeah-the Weekends Calendar

Weekend of:

Aug 25-26-Dog Show all Weekend-USDAA in Prunedale

Sept. 1-3-Dog Show Sunday and Monday-USDAA in San Jose

Sept. 8-9 We are Here! But I have to fly to San Juan Capistrano early Monday am for a horse thing Monday/Tuesday.

Sept. 15-16 I think we are going to LA

Sept. 23-Dog Show Sunday-USDAA in Woodland

Sept 29-We are going away to Booneville!

October 7-Dog Show Sunday-USDAA in Dixon

October 14-Not doing that dog show. Even though it's close, let's have a weekend off!

October 21-Dog Show Sunday-CPE in Elkgrove

The rest of October, until late November-no dog shows I think! Do some lessons at Jim's and have a break.

Nov. 23-Thanksgiving Weekend Dog show CPE in Elkgrove

Find the Taco.

I took Gustavo to a surprise birthday party last night at the beach. He was the only dog I took and the only dog there. The thing about Gustavo is that he has an off switch-even though he is so hyper other times (ie, such as right now, at 6:40 in the morning, he is running fast around the backyard with a giant green stuffed spider in his mouth and jumping on and off of things even though the other dogs are just sitting around) if I seperate him from the Others, he is very quiet and super well behaved. So he went to the beach party, I could put him in a down on his Place, which was a towel last night, and he would basically stay there until a party goer would borrow him and walk him around on a leash. Dog socializing for the Lazy Dog Trainer! He is the first dog I have had who will go and sit with a man, and lots of the men at the party thought he was cute and would make him sit in their laps, which he is very happy to do and not have to share with other dogs.

I felt sort of bad to take him and not the Others, but he needs to practice skills like this, and he is more like Timmy in his socializing with humans skills. Ruby and Otterpop don't have that in them. Ruby just ignores people unless they are willing to stuff food in her face and Otterpop only likes Certain People. Of which it can be tricky to discern if a new person can be a Certain Person. I am a little baffled by her criteria.

Gustavo has visited the inside of Home Depot and many parking lots to practice walking around calmly and waiting calmly in a down (that one needs a lot more practice) and at Home Depot he even gets to ride on a cart when I get the things like plywood and beadboard paneling in the correct size. Not the wrong size. Because that will go on next week because the tiling will be all done on Monday! The bathroom is looking stunning and has so much tile it makes nice echos when the dogs bark into it. There's a gate up while the current tile layer is drying and the dogs apparently think that racoons live anywhere there is tile and bark into the doorway alot to hear their barking echo. What fun for dogs! I am happy to be running dog Disneyland in my house, which also features the Find Simi's Taco game-endless fun searching through trash bags of the backyard to see where Simi threw away the tacos.

Red Bull makes the tile go round.

Simi doesn't speak much english, and makes giant messes in the backyard, but he is the 12 hour day tile machine. I had no idea tiling involved the cement stuff getting slathered everywhere and the hose and the mud but it does and he is working through the weekend because he seems obsessed with getting our tile done as fast as possible. So I am not complaining. His boss is the wacky tile lady and there is a lot of red bull and cigarettes involved and so it all seems to make sense now.

So I don't know. Maybe a bathroom next week. Seems like something could still go wrong. The tile is not actually glued in place and even though he has my nice spec sheet which I make for things, I had a horrible vision a couple nights ago of the tile lined up like little soldiers (this is a tiling term! butt joint!) and not bricked. This is how we talk in the tile world.

I have given up sweeping the floor or trying to clean up anything. Someday I will just move into the clean, sparkly bathroom. Which of course, at the end will need the Small Brush Lady to come and paint the complicated wallpaper pattern in 4 colors on the wall and I heard she didn't even buy the paint yet. So it will be a while til it is really truly done. We can probably live with the nice gray primer walls for a while til the Small Brush Lady gets off her ass and gets it painted. I heard she will work nights and early mornings though and has a lot of dogs so I won't rush her. Maybe she will use the red bull and cigarettes. It is dog show season soon so there are very Important things she will need to take care of then.

Follow the Bad One.

OK-Here is what Gustavo has learned to do in a low distraction environment-ie, my backyard with the other dogs locked in the house and they are howling and making weird noises to come out to have a turn.

Sit (very useful at all times!)
Down (even more useful at all times!)
Run to a towel and lay down (very useful at the beach! it will have more agility uses later)
Wait in a sit (I use this instead of stay because people always yell stay at dogs and this is like a secret word that means do not move at all!)
Wait in a down (I like em to stay put-the sit and down has a builtin stay function since he is supposed to stay in that position until released)
Wait at the gate when it is opened or closed
Touch his nose to a target
Come to his name when called, I am just starting to use the word come with this.
Running fast into his crate and staying in there until released

So now we are starting to move these skills to higher distraction environments like work and the beach and parking lots at fun places like Home Depot, and at home teach:
Positioning through my legs to the right
Positioning around me to the left
Nose touching target in different locations
Side and close for walking and running staying located at my side, we can't really teach this on walks because too many dogs everywhere I look. Same thing at the beach since the other dogs think training is like a trip to Target and everyone wants to be right there, in the front to see what presents it will bring.
Roll over - he is cute so he will have to learn some cute tricks

We are using a combination of food and tugging. He is not going to be sent out away from me as much as I did with Pop to get a toy, he is learning to come in and tug on it, then at the end he can go chase the thing.

What is Gustavo learning from the other dogs?

Play rough. If you are playing with Otterpop, you need to play rough.

Jump into the window to look for Evil Mailmen! I am sure that learning to bark at them is just around the corner.

Get the cat. He already has more of a cat fetish than anyone else here and they actually follow his lead to get the cat. At least the cat thinks that he is no force to be reckoned with and completely blows him off but I did see him try to put her head in his mouth. Her head is way bigger than his mouth though. He will get over that, especially if he tries it with a barn cat.

Run around and go insane when I get home. I ignore them, I yell at them, but they just go insane no matter what I do. Otterpop does I mean. And what Otterpop does, he wants to do. Of course he falls in love with the Bad One. Why not perfect Ruby? Why not model oneself after Timmy Best Dog? Because Otterpop is possibly cool in her Badness and he might want to be like her.

The sheetock is ok with no screws.

Hey, look Timmy and Gustavo both are demonically posessed! But, more importantly, that is a coat of sheetrock mud you can see behind the tub. And the tile lady is coming tomorow morning. It is as if I truly am a Wizard and all the subs as well as Otterpop are under my power! And likely I have just jinxed my whole bathroom.

The Sheetrock screws of Horror.

Gustavo has a horrible fear of sheetrock screws. We had a neat day with the Sheetrock Guy today. Much to Gustavo's dismay we now have bathroom walls. Otterpop and Ruby were appalled. Timmy just slept through his outburst that took place during all screwing of sheetrock screws or getting them out of boxes. He seemed ok with the drill. Just anything involving the screws. You all explain that one to me.

The Wacky Tile Lady seems to be not returning calls. Wacky Tile Lady can be zany. It is zany to not call back when the tile is sitting there ready for her wacky self to get in there and stick it down in nice patterns.

Sometimes the house next door where we like to go to the bathroom has locked doors. Locked in such a way as to keep all intruders and bathroom users out. Today was such a day.

Yesterday we saw the Moscow Circus at the Boardwalk. It opened with a disco dance of all the acrobats and a guy in a velour bear suit. The acrobats had little figure skating outfits, some trimmed with fur and short white boots. This should not be missed. The clown ran around blowing a whistle but no one shot him.

We also saw Shakespeare Santa Cruz. They had ok costumes too, but there was far less singing and dancing and limboing with knives and strong man twins and snake girls. You could bring wine.I fell asleep somewhere in hour 3 of Shakespeare and could not tell you how Much Ado About Nothing ends. I think it was happy though. I will take barrel chested, gray haired twins in striped pink body suits balancing on each other's heads over loud Shakespeare talking any day.

Favo has a Girlfriend.

Well, this might not be exciting to you, but my bathroom has a sheetrock ceiling and electrical outlets now.

Also, this article on the breed of dog we finally researched may be useful and insightful. I do believe there to be several historical inaccuracies reflected by the writer (which is understandable since he was drunk), but the new dog is proven to be a Mexican Song Dog! Muchas gracias to Joel Warner for doing this important research.

And the new dog has fully settled into his dog personality in our household I think. For now. He is definitely a puppy. He is definitely high energy. He is like how Otterpop was as pup. Like does not stop ever except at night to sleep. Or in the day in the dog run at work, where he has managed to shove into the big dog crate they have as a dog house and sleep in a pile of black dog during the afternoons. Gustavo and Otterpop have their own very rough and tumble hardcore show now and give a whole new definition to Small Fast Kick Your Ass. It's a match. Ruby has moved way down to the bottom of the dog totem pole and gets left out a lot, but I honestly think she is happier there without constant harrassment. She still lives in a crate with Otterpop some of the time, and I seperate Gustavo some of the time so he does not overbond to Pop the Bad Influence.

She is like the Bad Influence Girl of junior high. Who was the first one to smoke and wear lace up tank tops and long ratty sweater coats and started the dragging the ends of bell bottoms in the dirt fad and 11 year olds wearing platform sandals. She is the one who started smoking pot first and all of a sudden had a million boy friends who were the guys everyone called the Dirt Bags. But who is not so bad that she fails out of school, she is the one that in the end manages to get the straight A's and goes to Harvard or something if it was the Lifetime movie. But who just cannot stay out of trouble.

Otterpop is actually a good influence in some ways because she always stays in my sight line. And is very much in my power. But who is always going to find a way to get into trouble and drag someone down with her. And now she has a sidekick who is a wild child puppy and god knows what they will figure out together. Right now it is destroy the stuffed toys and kill them all and attack eachother while running fast.

She has taken to once or twice a week, somehow climbing out of her dog run, which entails climbing a wire wall like a monkey. (Contrary to what Joel Warner may tell you, I do not put up hot wire to fence the dogs in, even Otterpop.) And sneaking down to the arena when I am riding and silently placing herself in a down outside the fence and hiding there. And watching me ride then wanting to follow me back up to the barn. Which is actually what I trained her to do as a pup at the old place. Except I had thought she was retrained to stay in a pen. She just wants to default back to the old ranch dog life which was more as a helper ranch dog, which I think is the cattle dog in her. Poised to wait outside the ring, and kick any horse ass that gives me grief.

Ruby, being a terrier, is the perfect ranch dog type too because she has no interest in horses and used to be content to roam the property killing gophers. Now she just stalks foot trimmings after the shoer has been there and enjoys laying in the dog pen. She may or may not mistake the hoof trimmings for the Mexican French Toast eggs, but there is little we can do about this now.

Gustavo has no ranch dog traits. He is fine with the horses now as long as they keep a little distance from him. If he's laying in the barn aisle and one walks by, he needs to back off where the other dogs will just lay there and let the horses step around them. He just wants to either lay in the dog pile or take walks with the kids. Pierre, my horse shoer, has some big Beauceron dogs. They are big french attack herding dogs. His wife breeds standard poodles. His toddler loves Gustavo to no end and walks him around on a leash calling him Favo. And screaming Sit at him like she sees her dad do. In french. So maybe Gustavo will end up trilingual. So that's the kind of ranch dog he is. A leash walking kid dog. A singing Mexican Song dog. I cannot wait to find him his costume! Viva del colores de la Bamba!

John Travolta secret to success.

We had a couple training days happen and go. It went unnoticed here because I was probably driving around looking for a bathroom to use. We do have a plywood subfloor now, plumbing and an installed tub. But that's it. I'm going to venture a guess of 3 more weeks til it is actually a bathroom that you look at and say, "Now that is a bathroom. Tub! Toilet! Sink! Walls!"

Something I was noticing a lot teaching class this week was giving your dog a nice Spatial Boundary while jumping. Imagine your dog is boy in a plastic bubble. They need to be surrounded by a cushiony plastic bubble filled with air and you cannot touch them in there or they will grow up to become an overweight scientologist with an airstrip for a front yard who ruins the movie Hairspray. When you crowd and push your dog's bubble, it can cause a run around. Refusal. Turnout. Backjump. Any number of sins that depending on how you look at it, are worse or better than having your own personal baby John Travolta. Really, his career is sort of like how my dogs go. Brilliant! Look Who's Talking 3! Wow Quentin Taratino! You are so Fat! Movie Musical Star! Movie Musical Ruiner!

Crowding to a rear cross can just slam your dog right up to the bar, where they are going to jump poorly, not read a rear cross, or just plain old not be able to jump it and refuse. And you are going to think, why is my dog refusing? Not thinking about Spatial Boundaries. Let your dog get ahead, way ahead. Teach that skill with a Go On. Which is what we happened to work on in class the other night because I was so in Spatial Boundary mode.

Sometimes this happens when your dog's speed is inconsistent. My dogs all run Fast Fast Fast on Wed. nites. There is a lot of barking, it's a stressful environment, and it's on dirt. The barking and the dirt and the cool night time air are all things that get my group moving. If every trial was in the evening and under a covered arena, I would be set. When I go out to Dee's practice yard in the late morning and it's already warm and sunny and there are gophers Everywhere and everyone is kind of laid back and hanging out, they are harder to get moving. I need a frisbee for Otterpop and have to really work on Ruby. This is when I run them differently. I have room to get out there ahead of them and put in a front cross I might not have been able to do the night before. I have to adjust my pace correctly to work with what they are dishing out. When the dogs are inconsistent, you have to match up.

It's a big hole.

Here is how we don't go to the bathroom. It's like camping! Now I get it. Because whenever I said we were remodeling our bathroom, people would say that. "It's like Camping". It's like camping if you are basing your whole campout on when or where you could use the bathroom next. Luckily we have a construction site next door that has a working shower downstairs, and a working toilet upstairs. People are around and it in during the day, but at night and early morning we have it to ourselves.

How it became a construction site and not the neighbor's house is a long story. The near end of the long story is that when the neighbor was about to be released from rehab after she got out of jail, the horrible evil squatter boyfriend, upon her release and his official eviction (which was a months long process during which he was turning the house into even more of a crackhouse and a lot of this is the long story part) turned on the upstairs water in the tub and left. No one was home all day, he did it after I left for work. When they showed up so she could see her house again after all that time, surprise. The whole home was flooded with 2 feet of water. So it's ripped down to the studs and subfloor. At least her bathroom has some working plumbing and subfloors though. So it's a horrible story allright, but the upsides are the loser boyfriend is gone with warrants out for his arrest and we have a bathroom to use parts of the day.

The dogs take this all in stride. Timmy doesn't mind spending the day with the plumber or whichever Guy is coming over to do things. The other dogs I just get out and leave with. The other dogs enjoy trips to Home Depot or specialty plumbing stores and trips to places to go to the bathroom. Work days are actually perfectly fine because we have a porta potty right there. I am so sorry how pathetic this tale has gotten. We have dog agility tonight, although I am teaching more than running while the advanced teacher is out doing seminars in Australia. So that isn't so fun. I will try to sneak in some runs with my dogs though and get Gustavo out and doing some training there in the distractions. In no distraction he has a smoking recall, sit, down, wait, hand touch and run into the crate. But we haven't proofed it anywhere other than the beach and park the easy sits and downs. He does better and better every day, which is fun to see.