06 May 2008

This is sort of like a really quiet musical theater production but not really.

Well, since I said Ruby could be on vacation, it wasn't really fair to make her pose for pictures. And then, if I wanted to show you what we did on my day off, it wouldn't be fair to do that without Ruby. So I just hired actors to stand in for the whole team to show you and so I wouldn't be playing favorites between dogs. That's not good pack management. You can see how many training opportunities I have to work on good manners just in a basic day off around the house. See, I am a good dog training example! But, as a disclaimer to all those dog training students out there, I don't recommend always using hired stand-ins for training the real dogs. Just for special occasions.


So you know, they all eat breakfast together. Everyone has to wait patiently until all the food bowls are filled to eat.


Timmy has to get all his pills. He doesn't have to do any tricks or anything for them.


Ruby and Otterpop totally climb on the little foot stool and do tricks while I give Timmy his pills. They are operant dogs. Gustavo is somewhere else. Maybe not so operant.


Took a walk. It would be neat if everyone walked quietly on a leash and didn't pull.


Then Timmy just goes back to sleep for the most part.


Some of them like to hang out in the bathroom when I take a shower. I'm not sure if that is good or bad dog manners or not? Does Cesar Millan do that?


We had to do errands. They ride nicely in their crates. Thanks Susan Garrett's Crate Games!


I had a bunch of office work to do so the small dogs all just slept quietly on the couch. Until it was mailman time.


Otterpop has a total mailman fetish. She waits here like a stealth assassin.


And when he comes, she sounds like she is going in for the kill. I wish you could hear the barking.


Augh. This is a bad habit. Good dog trainers do not let their dogs bark at mailmen.


At some point during the day, I realized, wow, it SO MUCH EASIER to work with the actors than the real dogs! Like for stuff like toenails!


They spent a lot of the day outside. Hey is that their border collie pals Hobbes and Fate? Of course not. They live in Salinas and Otterpop hates border collies. Can't hire actors for every dog I know. Those are just fake deer.


Otterpop won't give anyone the tennis ball.


And they all start digging holes again. Bad, bad dogs.


For agility practice, I LOVED working with the actors. Like look at Ruby and Otterpop just sitting so quietly while Gustavo practices his contact!


Gustavo worked on his poles.


Everyone did some tables. And we called it a day.

9 comments:

Simba said...

Friggin' hilarious! Thanks TSD!! For brightening my morning!!

Mel + Simba

Anonymous said...

You are SUCH a conniving, er, ARTIST! I'll bet your art friends are all STUNNED. Just let them TRY TO DENY IT: they read every single word you wrote about agility dog training today AND LIKED IT!

Way to go on Good Customer Service, Team Small Dog!

Elf said...

Oh, wow, I used to have a rabbit JUST LIKE THAT, with the foot broken off in exactly the same way! I even just ran up to the attic to look for it, but it's not there, so either I got tired of having pieces of rabbit sitting around waiting to be reglued or one of my earlier dogs chewed it up enough for me to finally throw it away.

Your posts always make me think of important things like that! And it was fun rummaging around among my barbie clothes and kukla and ollie dolls that I made myself and mamie eisenhower pink all electric kitchen plastic toy appliances from 1959. Which all will be useful someday, I just know it, being an agility aficionado like yourself.

-ellen

Elayne said...

Too funny.

Urban Smoothie Read said...

LoL.... i thought u r the cowboy instead of sheriff...

i alwiz ask my dog to 'attack' the mailman....

Anonymous said...

Capt!
I can only hope that the art has been even better than what you pictured in Marfa, (your art definitely has been) and maybe just maybe you get a get out of jail free card to protect you from those fomenting rangers with assault rifles.

Hey it ain't writing if there ain't readers. And it ain't reading if there's aren't writers.

So you seemed to have worked the Marfa madness, I mean magic.

team small dog said...

Stunned is probably an apt description. Let's use it in a sentence. They were stunned to find out what weird little path to formerdom she took and decided that the degeneration of art skills to the point of taking pictures of christmas tree ornaments and salt shakers masquerading as pets would blackball her from the Art world forever.

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

What excellent actors. I are you sure they aren't union? :)

Anonymous said...

The art world approves. TSD will be encouraged to continue in whatever world it chooses.