The newest issue of Clean Run came yesterday. Do you get that? It's a dog magazine. Once my picture was in it sort of randomly, as an illustration for an article, and I felt like a big huge movie star for like 3 minutes. Fame is so fleeting. And thank god it was a flattering photo. And was being used to illustrate something I was doing nice in the photo, not crappy.
I try to be a good dog trainer and be excited about sitting down and reading it, but it's a little dry. It had a big upswing in it's design a ways back, but it seems to be going down a dicey road right now. Maybe the old designer quit and moved on to Hustler (hey, lots of people start their graphic design careers in porn) or took to the big city and became a Conde Nast peon. Whoever is designing it right now is rendering it not possible for me to read articles because you know how that kills me. Throw some ill-set headlines in unsuitable type down on some big flashy backgrounds and I am outta there.
Some of it was ok. There is a little section on puppy training featuring Jim's puppy being trained by his wife the big huge agility superstar, and I like that. Because I recognize their big hedge in the background and because I don't feel like I am doing anything too wrong with how I'm training my puppy. Although of course Nancy and Jim's puppy will come out 9 gazillion times better trained because that's the way it works when you can't finish reading the magazine because the pictures are all in the wrong places. And other reasons. But I was excited to see that one of the ways Nancy is teaching the teeter is like one of the ways I am teaching it now too. And I didn't even ask her, because I'd be embarassed at my lack of skilz. I just thought I was making it up.
The other thing people do is take out big full page ads to honor their friends who get a big award or their dog dies. That's how magazines run, the ads, man. Legit and self promo style both. For a while these were looking good but now the design is looking a little scrapbooky again. However there was one I was able to look at even though it was ugly and nasty and my eyes started to bleed out the sides. (OK, it's not that horrible. There are WAY worse pages in this issue.) Because it had a 3 year old little blonde toddler running a corgi and said she was the youngest person ever to achieve agility titles. OK. I know a lot of 3 year olds. I know a lot of corgis. I know a lot of people who can drive cars, type in text messages and cut up things quickly with very sharp knives who would be hard pressed to get around any kind of agility course. So go look on page 48 of your February Clean Run with a big slobbering poodle face on the cover and even though you'll have to look quick so the pink and blue layout with blurry oval portrait insets and soft fadey grass and sort of ill fitting headlines doesn't make you keep closing it (OK, I did have to just close it again so it's also not all that lookable) you will be impressed!
And I am pretty sure we could get your toddler to get Ruby around a tiny little course someday if you want to try!
Did you ever dream that you were a dog agility super champ except then it switched and you were at some germy, grungy, derelict seaside park in the dark and the carnies were actually drug addled zombies that were shambling after you with hammers and their big teeth? And then as you're trying to escape your way out from under their oily, horrible claws by clambering up a rat infested palm tree, you're all, this is about dog agility like, how?
1 comment:
You know. Kind of like how my stomach churning grammar and sentence structure won't let some of my writer friends read my blog. They won't see this comment. Because they can't read my blog.
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