03 January 2008

The Big Storm will start today is what they say.

Dirt Night started up again last night, I got to run my old friend Hobbes who I hadn't seen since before the holidays. I am such his stalker. I tug with him and his weird, stinky old toy for a long time so he likes ME. I don't know how much Hobbes actually likes Me and how much of it is he just likes to do agility and tug and if you will do that with him, he likes you. I like it when he starts barking nice and loud though when I run one of my dogs. I ran all 3 dogs last night and am feeling very much the See's candy everywhere in all my joints. No major screw ups with anyone, everyone fast and accurate, until at about 9:30 I forgot someone's course because my brain just stops functioning somewhere around 9ish.

We had a lot of hard weave pole entries from right angles off long fast straight lines, where you had to send em in from far and then run out and rear cross it, and all the dogs, not just Hobbes, aced it every time. They were all happy to be at dirt night. Also, now that I've led everyone to believe that smarty pants Hobbes does all the work (Hobbes can count. Hobbes can read numbers. Hobbes speaks 3 languages), no one thinks I have to do anything to run him accurately. So let the record show, he is a big fast dog that still needs handling, even if he is trained a million times more perfect than my dogs. Border collies just are a whole different kinda thing, way more brain cells per pound.

And kudos to Gustavo, who is able to be on long stays, looking only at me, outside the ring when dogs are running and barking. Who woulda ever thunk it?

It is supposed to be the Big Storm today, I am providing poor customer service to the horses by not going out there first thing and getting everyone out before the storm but getting the dogs out instead. I'm a little worried about their dog run at the barn, I have this feeling it is going to be a dog dock unless I build some kind of floor, um, right now before the rain starts? They can either stay home or just sit in a crate inside the barn. Poor dogs. The lawyers want all the dogs tied up or in their pen at the ranch at all times. Poor ranch dogs. Everyone just gets good customer service some of the time. Can't please everyone. Horses, horse owners, dogs, dog owners, lawyers, readers, everybody just wants something a little bit different.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was too tired to stay to see you run your dogs and Hobbes brilliantly, but I thought the dogs in your beginner class were pretty impressive even if one of them ran away into the night. Agility, smagility...I had forgotten just how dirty Dirt Night is. I made Ariel get in the shower with me so I could wash her white parts -- I just left the black parts because, well, obviously.

So, who knew Art Girl had *actual* severe brain damage!?! Really, her dress was better than Sweet Pea's, but, come on, talk about Product Placement. But Hershey's needs it since it really is the worst chocolate in the world. I mean, calling it chocolate is stretching the term.

I ate *one* of Michael's oatmeal cookies. Not a single See's Candy. (There may be something wrong with me. Maybe I haven't actually been losing weight. Maybe there is a tumor on my appesat or something.) What's with agility people and putting all kinds of candies and cookies right on the table that you have to go buy and resist at least 10 times?

Ariel never do as well as we should in class. It's 90% because I get nervous about *IT'S OUR TURN NOW BETTER HURRY UP AND HAVE OUR TURN AND NOT KEEP EVERYONE WAITING*, and then I forget the basics of drawing the line in the dirt. (God, there's a lot of dirt. My fingernails are still black.) Ariel did a perfect table, and then refused to drop on the table after that. I have learned so much from Dee. I'm glad she made it home safe and sound from South Africa.

I spent hours today trying to format a table in html. Agility is a lot more fun. But dirtier.

team small dog said...

Let the record show the sheltie that ran off into the night, was from Dee's class, not mine! The wayward Australian Shepherd though, from my class.

The tables! Always remember a td has to stay in a tr and you will be fine as you nest. Draw it in pencil first, label your tds and trs and there you go. Or beg them to get you Dreamweaver!

There is a weird thing with agility classes and sugary snacks. For things like celebrating a dog birthday or it got a Q or an ADCh or what have you. Maybe for Otterpop's birthday I will just set some raw broccolli on the table some day. Because that is pretty much all we should be eating, me and her. Spread the love.

Anonymous said...

What I want to know is why tr align="center" works and valign="middle" doesn't work. Valign actually sounds kind of dirty. Which is probably why Ariel didn't want to do the td on the tr, either. The table was the only clean object in the whole place last night. Everything is so related, which is why I kind of feel bad about the Art Girl getting kicked off PR. She would have said that everything is cosmically related, and I would have laughed at her. But maybe she is right.

Sheltie from Dee's class?!?! Funny that you were the only one worried when it didn't show up again, after 15 minutes!!!

team small dog said...

Put your align tags in tds, not trs. As I recall. From the old school days!