How we roll.

The air has been gray and cold, which is sort of how it goes on some summer days around here. But the dogs can run for miles with my cruiser when the air is chilly and the evenings are long, so that's what we do.


Ruby gets to ride now. That used to be Timmy's job. She doesn't have miles of running in her, but she gets a ride to somewhere good, maybe the pond or the whale skeletons or a soccer field with pine cones, and everybody runs for another good long while until it's time to ride home. Even me. We have a new sport called walk-run-frisbee. Pretty self explanatory.

Otterpop and Gustavo. those two don't ever seem to get tired. I toss Ruby up in her basket, off we go, and they're ready to sprint, all the way back home.

Because even civil war re-enactors need jobs during the off season.

Team Small Dog has weekend guests. Ones that enjoy throwing balls and dangle food very, very close to the ground. Meaty food.


The guests went to the barn and rode ponies. The Boardwalk to ride rides. The wharf to eat tacos.


And to the Roaring Camp, up in the mountains, to ride the old narrow gauge steam engine.


Some of the guests were forced to pose with the one armed conductor that pinches kid's noses.


But really, everyone was happy to ride the train up the side of the mountain through the giant redwoods.


Not all of Team Small Dog got to ride on the train. Just because. Gustavo was loving it, riding through the forest.


Until, the train had visitors on top of Bear Mountain.


Because what train ride for tourists isn't complete without rotten tooth civil war re-enactors staging a train robbery?


With guns. Yes! A real shoot out on the train full of little kids! If the creepy old gun slinger climbing aboard and yelling, "Hands Up Varmits," didn't already do them in, dying cowboys hitting the dust one by one was exactly what they needed to make their journey complete. BANG! BANG! BANG!


The completely freaked out train car of kids and shaking, quivering dogs had a super ride back down the mountain. NOW who was the lucky dog that got to go ride the train?


Luckily, at the bottom of the mountain was the bbq picnic. Hamburgers. Hotdogs.


And then everybody was just fine.


Although next time, we'll try something more relaxing like sailboat ride out to shark infested waters, or gopher trapping with Uncle Gary. No more mountain folk train rides.

Where we interview someone new, because basically, I am super nosy, and this person will be Katie Trachte.

We're all so over Team Small Dog. Didn't win the lottery, blah blah blah Teeter Totter, took a hike. Let's face it. Bo-Ring. So I started my new hobby of investigative journalism with a series of interviews of people I know on the internet who were weirdly game to answer my slew of questions.

I'm about as good at investigative journalism as I am at succulent farming, but coming up is the first of my series of interviews with people who met my highly selective and stringent criteria of:
1.) Had a bunch of dogs
2.) Didn't say no to my interview request


All right. I bet a lot of you know Katie and Jeep. They have been on the AKC World Team, they have some MACH's, and they also have a whole bunch of USDAA accomplishments. And then there's her border collie, Tag. And of course Taco. Shivery chihuahua who owns a lot of tiny little dog jackets. Who is sort of like the HyCaliber cheerleader. Like does agility in a pinch but not gonna make a career of it. And that's just the start of them. I met Katie at the USDAA Southwest Regionals last year. She brought Jeep on the airplane in a sherpa bag. And got super sun burned.

Then all of a sudden, Katie has her own giant agility park! Actually probably not all of a sudden but in my universe of time and space and how often I visit the Facebook, let's just say all of a sudden. And because I'm super jealous, and also super nosy, I'm all over it like my mayhem of small dogs on a 6pack of carnitas tacos. I'm thinking, who wants to read about boring old Team Small Dog when you can learn here about having your own 290 acre park?

TSD:
All right, Katie. One day I go on the Facebook and here are all these pictures of Katie and her gigantic, 290 acre park in Vermont with this very Susan Garrett/Greg Derrett layout of agility stuff spread out over the perfectly mowed 2 acre grass field. And so right away, of course I'm like, HATE HER. But then I remembered, oh yeah, there is snow and so forth there so I totally take back the hating part. But then like 5 Facebook seconds later, it's like, this is AgilityVision too, which I thought was Eric Larson who videos us out here in California, not on a giant 290 acre park in Vermont, so I'm like completely confused and I am going right to the source here, which is you. And you are a good emailer. You are young and equipped with Blackberry texting abilities. So what gives with this whole Vermont Agility Park thing which is also your house?


Katie:
We're pretty low drama here. Yep, Eric Larson is totally a Vermonter now, and I'll leave it at that! I'm formally from Connecticut and got a chance to snatch this place up, and I TOTALLY grabbed at it. We do have crap weather here, about 4 months of the year, but we're making the most of the good weather while we DO have it! The Vermont Agility Park is the new AgilityVision home... we have classes/seminars and more planned here for the summer. So much that I'm having trouble finding days for all the cool stuff going on. Think LIVE seminars!! Total of 6 dogs here at the Vermont Agility Park but they have plenty to do. Taco takes pride in being the cheerleader and home security system.

TSD:
Wow! This is very cool. Well, maybe except the part where Eric Larson, who was our favorite person to take videos of us at dog shows, moves far away and becomes a Vermonter. It just took me sort of a while to even find Vermont on the map. It is very, very far away from California. So what's on the rest of your acres? Did you have to do a lot to the house or was it HGTV ready to go? And all wired?

Katie:
Mountain on one side, river on the other! My dad and uncle were logging on my mountain, so there are a bunch of logging trails which are now excellent hiking trails. Complete with real dear and fisher cats! This was my old grandmothers house... it was so not HGTV ready but has now turned into super 21st century hi-tech!

TSD:
Are you in a town or is this in the middle of the forest somewhere, in this far off land of Vermont?

Katie:
I am pretty much in the middle of no where. Of course I came from the city, so not having a Wal-Mart or CVS within a mile is out in the middle of nowhere. We have 2 major grocery stores within 25 minutes and we're adjusting. We plan Trader Joe's bulk visits around the trials and seminars we have to travel too. So far the beer has been well stocked and no one has starved to death.

TSD:
So when you have, like a giant park, can you just leave it and go gallavanting off to agility trials? Can you tell I am kind of just completely freaking out here about your 290 acres? Who is going to water all the trees? Taco won't get lost will he?

Katie:
Yes! I usually bring all my dogs. If not my agility friend Kathryn at Great Fields Kennel takes the rest of the crew. Taco is master of the patio. Even when we're at the river he hauls his ass back up and guards the house. He can't be part of that lame-o dog swimming.

TSD:
And then what do you do in the winter time? I get this feeling that Vermont is very, very cold and snowy all winter long. So do you just shut agility down during the snow? Your interviewer here, native Californian. Lived once in Arizona for a few months. Generally must live within 5 blocks of the beach. I know it's summer now, and we're supposed to live in the moment and all that, but what are you going to do all winter?

Katie:
Winter sucks. We drive 45 mins to an hour to visit our 2 favorite indoor agility places. Both you have to rent for $20+ an hour. We'll be looking into our own this winter for sure. Or we'll go all Steve from New Mexico and install some field turf on the lawn to shovel off. The cold doesn't hurt as bad after a while....We just have to drive. We do loads of indoor skills like contact board brush ups and Susan Garret type games while it's cold out. We do loads of hiking in the snow. It's a really good workout!

TSD:
Katie, you are younger than a lot of agility ladies I know. I'm not sure how old you are, but you know how to do the Blackberry and I think you were recently in college. How long have you been doing agility?

Katie:
You get 2 points for that! (*TSD thinks maybe this is not so good, if 2 points based on a 10 point system.*) About 15 years now. Yea, like when there were Crossovers in agility and dogs had to jump 30". (*Yikes. 15 years ago, I was mourning the death of Kurt Cobain and living in a dirty warehouse, trying to build robots*) Oh, and I remember being in the car. A lot. 5 or 6 sometimes 7 hours in the car every single weekend to get to a trial. (*TSD does some googling and realizes Katie's mom is in the agility universe and they were perhaps a famous agility family and these are things next time we do an interview with someone we will investigate first.*)

TSD:
And how did you go from college student to AKC World Team member to owner of an agility park that is also going to be the new cutting edge live streaming video of all things agility and I don't even know what? This seems pretty ambitious. I just rode horses all day and holed up in my ratty old painting studio all night when I got out of college. I don't think I even talked to others. You are like a lady with a plan.


Katie:
It sort of went AKC World Team member to college then to agility dream park, but those are just details. (* Oops again.*) I went to school to become a Graphic Designer. So that's mainly what I do here, design and marketing. I'm not sure if it's ambition, when you have a job you love it doesn't feel like work. The goal behind this idea was to provide people with the opportunity to see some great seminars right from home. We have some really great events planned that I can't talk about yet, but I'm really excited!

TSD:
This sounds very high tech and secret squirrel. I'm sure you'll keep us posted here. Uh, not to change the subject, but can you offer any fashion tips to us over here on the left coast? What are they sporting for nice dog agility fashion wear these days out there in the fashion forward east? That's very close to Stacey and Clinton out there. So I am thinking you guys are pretty much on the ball with your outfits?

Katie:
Fashion on the East Coast. The trick is to wear as many layers as possible while trying not to look like the Michelin Man. We're all about water proof everything out here. Waterproof shoes, shirts, jackets, hats, socks you name it. Some people go all out and purchase the matching sets. I've sort of given up on that and get rain gear on clearance from LLBean or Orvis every few months.

TSD:
Right! The LLBean! We get their catalogs and they make me think whistfully about canoeing and roaring. Thanks Katie. Someday we hope to get out there and visit you. So are you going to be there forever?

Katie:
Vermont is really, really pretty. It would be my forever place if I had a spot to train in during the winter. Right now I don't and that's a problem. For right now it's home. Wherever my dogs and I can be that we're happy we'll call home.

So there you go. Go and visit AgilityVision-there are all kinds of new DVD's and seminars and live streaming video this and that. Wave of the future over there, coming from the agility park in Vermont. Thanks Katie!

RIP MJ and Farrah.

When I left for work in the morning, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett were alive, I think. I didn't check. Didn't really think I needed to.

Got home, and then they were dead.

Michael Jackson may have devolved into a epaulet shouldered, nose rotting, baby waving, freaky voiced anomaly, but deep down under all that, he was still MJ, Horribly Complex Royalty of Pop.

Wait. Stop reading this. Put Billie Jean on.

There. That's better.

I guess we didn't need him anymore. Became too painful to look. Shuffling along with an umbrella protecting his dictator costume, bodyguards shuttling the masked toddlers, I know I couldn't watch anymore. Young MJ lives in my ipod, so we can practice the Thriller dance any time we want. Remember that about him? The way the man could dance? Or lady. Not sure what he really was anymore. Kept the face rot concealed under flowing wigs and dust masks, a cautionary warning to everyone going under the knife for better, stronger, faster faces. Looking for something that might not really be there.

Farrah might have been a little loopy, a little tipsy, never really lived up to her swingy, shiny, fantastically blow dried hair and that one nipple, popping out of that red bathing suit forever. Her big white teeth and non stop hair kept girls and their curls in a dysfunctional relationship from junior high until the revelation of punk rock saved the day. Farrah hair was something we all endured, just because.

They both hit the top, back in the day, and maybe had a hard time figuring out what to do after. For years and years after. Let's say personal amusement park rides. Exotic animals. Marriage to Elvis's daughter. Maybe bought a country? Life got creepy for MJ, and then it got creepier, and even creepier, until he went broke and sort of faded back.

I'm not crying, but something seems wrong. That both of them died on the same day? And that Farrah had been sick a long time, but Michael Jackson? I guess he was too. Just in a different way. Did anyone ever call him Mike? Something always seemed wrong with his eyes. His gaze was so very indirect. The look of a man who had a pet chimp and who couldn't ever bring back what he used to have. His devolution may have been painful for everyone, but I don't think his flavor of super mega, nova star is someone that comes along very often. So when he vanishes from the ether, the gap that's left leaves a blazing sting.

In a day or two, for us it will seem like a distant memory. I guess. The legacy of a genuine legend doesn't really go away. What do we think about now when we practice the zombie dance? And I feel guilty now for not teaching it to Ruby better. Total deficit in my clicker training. The reminder that nothing and no one lasts forever, even when it seems like they will.

Dirt night rides again.

We've been on a little break from Dirt Nite. The arena got sprayed down with the special dirt polymer that makes the dirt oh so sticky and black and gooey and makes Dirt Nite what it is. Hella Dirty. So classes cancelled the last few weeks, and it was good to be back.

After I taught my class, I made sure all my dogs got turns running in the other classes. I tried to take the pressure off Gustavo, and just let him be who he is, and he had a bunch of super little runs. Not perfect, not trying to handle him through the hard master's courses anymore. I took all the pressure off, made things easy for him, and he didn't have to sit tied to the fence when the really fast, over the top dogs ran. Just did short easy sections of the sequences and he was great. And did a couple teeter totters. I can tell now when he's reaching meltdown point, and I have to know for him when enough is enough. Gustavo is who he is, and I'm finally getting it that he can only focus as long as he can. Then he has to have a break.

Just a little coffee break. His union demands it. It's taken me a long time to be willing to accept that his work ethic is a little bit different than everybody else. He's kind of the minimum wage guy around the office. Sweeps up the hair off the floor. Runs downstairs for a smoke. Sends the faxes, maybe to wrong phone numbers. Has a little more coffee, and he totally knows all the good gossip. Might not get around to getting those copies made. But he is the guy that EVERYBODY wants to hang out with after work. Party on, dude.

I gotta just keep his little square peg in the square peg hole. Let us all learn a lesson from super mega breeders Jon and Kate Plus 8. Kate, I believe tried to shove square peg Jon in the circle hole and then he left and had an affair with the 20 year old and then she had an affair with the bodyguard and my god. Hair plugs. The man has hair plugs and got a motorcycle and now, they're divorced.

The lesson we've learned? His inner championness will come out on it's own time schedule. And if it never does, PARTY ON DUDE! Like it's 1999. Hair plugs!

Ruby jumped low and she just seems so happy being an agility dog again. And Otterpop was Otterpop. Just doing her thing and like a hunk of zucchini bread on wheels zooming around and not a care in the world. I tried to make sure to take care of all my dogs and give them breaks and have a couple walks and let running be fun and stress free for all of us.

Wasn't I quitting agility just a few weeks ago? Something about a succulent farm? What was up with that?

Thirty Nine Million Smackaroom Jackpot that I believe was supposed to be mine.

Everybody in our neighborhood keeps asking each other, "Was it you? Was it you?" Some of the asking is all friendly and joking, but some of it, sort of squinty eyed look comes first, then, real slow, "Was it you?"

Personally, I think it might have been the guy that lives in the tiny shack house a couple blocks over, I think he's not quite right and doesn't brush his hair and has a squeaky voice and rides his cruiser around, brown bagged beer in one hand. His house is the size of a can of frijoles, and I think his mom might live in there with him too. Across the street is where they crammed the 3 modulars onto one lot and not sure how you get to the door of the back one, wedged so tight onto the tiny lot.

The surfer guys, who have been spending the day on ladders on Richard Next Door's house's roof, they don't know who it was. Couldn't believe it happened at the market they've been working across the street from all week. All morning, before I leave for work, I hear all about this, over and over. They say Dude a lot.

"Dude. No way. Can you totally believe it?"

"Insane, man. Like we are RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from that Market!"

"Sick. Dude. Like I almost BOUGHT ONE that DAY!"

"Dude. That's so tight. Someone is so stoked."

"Sick."

We heard it's a He. That's the latest rumor around the street. So not the grandma of around the corner, the sea of crap multiplying by the day in her front yard. Cars and mannequins and boxes and masks and bears and chairs and things to wear. Leaves moldy old rolls out for the pigeons on palettes outside her gate, where the Mickey Mouse See and Say hangs faded by the sun. Not her daughter with the haunted house stuff out in front of her own junk heap yard display a few doors down, barking white and black spotted dogs that live out in her front yard, or anyone from the funny half shingled nun house across the street.

Maybe Mr. Lopez, who quietly sits out in his yard weeding, day in and day out, songs from the '40's playing on his tinny and teeny transistor radio, laying on the grass? I wouldn't mind if it was Mr. Lopez. He moves slow, like he lives underwater, and I hate it when his big white fence gets graffitied. He's too old to paint that big white fence.

I know most of the neighbors. The ones that don't know my name just call me The Lady With All The Little Black Dogs. And I might call them The Guy with the Baby that Fixed Up the Jones' Old House or The Guy on the Corner that Works at the Mushroom Plant or the Guy on the Corner's Son with the Lowrider that Got it's Tires Slashed.

A lot of the neighbors, they know my name, I know a lot of their's. Lynnie, she feeds the squirrels and takes care of all the sick birds. Her husband had some bad health problems, and they don't have health insurance. Actually, I would be super happy if it was Lynnie that won. She showed me her special French Pigeons the other day. She lives across the bumpy street from Fern who has a big mean dog and a million parrots. Right by Dorothy who has a giant hole in her roof, still after all these years. Can't imagine how all those tarps still keep the water out. They helped out Dorothy a lot before she went in the nursing home. Dorothy's house is next to the one that's vacant now, but the punk rocker son still has band practice in the garage. Which is next door to Lexi whose husband died and rented out the barn and still hasn't painted her house, after all these years. Also next to the old guy with the vintage Willy's jeep and a million trailers and all the cardboard you would ever need stacked out back. You find out a lot about your neighbors when you walk by their house, every single day.

Everything except, Who It Was. That got my lottery ticket.

Monday was a very lucky day.

I'm lucky to have a Gustavo.

He's just a tiny little thing, 11lbs of fast. And I don't believe a sweeter dog, there could ever be.


I'm lucky to have forest agility nearby, and lucky to have Team Small Dog to take there.

Just up the mountain above Santa Cruz, Kathleen lives in the forest on the sand hills, and she's put 2 huge, grassy agility fields in her 20 acre yard and we can go up there and practice and run courses and do teeters. We're lucky she set up a really hard Standard course that Otterpop and Ruby could practice on.
The tiny dog, that fits in the tiny house, he even did the course, section by section, and slammed a bunch of brilliant fast and happy teeter totters.


We're lucky to have a tiny market across the street from our tiny house.

We buy beer and chips and ice cream and lottery tickets and really, all kinds of corn based products there. Bobby owns the market, we always wave at each other when he's having a smoke out front. Everyone in the neighborhood stops by the market for a snack or a smoke.

We are lucky that it's a lucky market and someone, who ISN'T US won the 39 million dollar lottery with THEIR TICKET from OUR MARKET the other day.

Lucky. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky.

When doom and gloom enter the room.

I went up to Power Paws for a lesson with Jim yesterday. Haven't been in a while, in a long while. Don't even remember my last lesson. Last time I was gonna up there, I went out and bought a bunch of succulents and tried to start a succulent farm with my lesson money. Not sure if Jim knows that one. Uh, Hi Jim!

So I gussied up the demented homeschoolers in their best prairie dresses, brushed their bangs up sky high, and we took a field trip off of the compound. Ran them hard at the beach first, low tide and thought that might help a bit. Woke up when they got to their road. Boy do they like going down that driveway.

I unpack mayhem out of the car and we sit down in the fine plastic agility chairs and Jim's all, "How's the Team? What are we working on today?"

Isn't this sort of how therapists open up therapy session? He thought I was just going to say, can we work on sending out to weave poles? Some 270's? I get to watch Jim's eyes go all wide as I unleash the horror of horrors of what's been going on with Team Small Dog. Actually, I don't because he's wearing sunglasses. But I'm pretty sure they're going all wide. Or maybe that was because someone started to dig a hole in the grass. Have you seen Jim's grass? You just don't do that.

Horrors. Actually, if you want to have some even more horrific horrors, go see the movie Food, Inc. Holy moley, that will get you freaked out. It's about the politics and industry of food. Basic old food and really, there's no aspect of food that isn't completely messed up, possibly beyond fixing and even if you've read Fast Food Nation and the Omnivore's Dilemma, you would want to go see this and then figure out where you can plant a garden, although you might be afraid of seeds. And Monsanto. Just ask Indiana seed cleaner Moe Parr about them.

There are graphs and animations and interviews and ammonia washing beef. I mean hamburger meat filler. I don't even eat meat, and I was freaked out. I won't even say I watched this one so you don't have to. I think everybody who likes to eat them some food now and again should go see it. I mean corn. Because almost all food is made from corn now. Except for the mutilated chickens in the dark that can't use their legs. Tractors dump their chicken bodies in the manure heap.

So actually I didn't tell this to Jim, instead just unleashed all the Team Small Dog traumas from the last few months. Although he would have liked the movie. There were tons of tractors.

I tell him about Ruby and she can't even jump or do any agility, anxiety and lame lame lame, then miraculously I have lowered her jumps heights to 8" and she's back doing agility. That's the good news.

And no one here has E. coli. There's some good news.

He gets the earful about Gustavo and the teeter totter whip and the blowing tarps and the sounds and the scaredyness and going back to foundation stuff and the horror of it all. Although I kept my mouth shut about the immigration sweeps from Tyson chicken processing plants and how they bring up illegals from Mexico, use 'em up then throw random folks back at immigration for deportation, just to make some numbers. Happens in pig factories and cow slaughter houses, too. That's the labor force and woe to any union organizers that step in.

I do tell the Otterpop story of her mental illness and weirdo aggression and freaking out about Ruby and can barely run in the show ring.

Basically, I'm like, "Jim, Team Small Dog is just really messed up."

He's sort of squirming in his plastic chair. Jim is super nice and I can see he's kind of like not sure how this lesson is supposed to fix all of that. Thank god I didn't start talking about bacon.

He's says, "Maybe you need to start having your lessons with Nancy?"

Maybe I need to start growing carrots.

Doom and gloom is sitting on his field and bumming out a sunny day when he could be riding his mowing tractor around, cutting the grass. Doom and gloom brings bad dogs that sometimes try to dig holes in the perfect grass. Doom and gloom can't help thinking about the specter of Monsanto, measuring the wind for currents that blow the genetically modified seeds across a fence line, into some unsuspecting farmer's fields.

Oh. And now doom and gloom's boy dog just peed on a post. Probably because I said I made him wear a prairie dress. And he's going to have to start eating carrots.

Doom and gloom trudges out, head hanging low, and sets the jumps really low so Ruby can have a turn.

"Sounds like Team Small Dog is just in a slump."

He gives us a pattern and Ruby just knocks it out like she's been practicing every day forever.

Give it a try with Otterpop and she's flying around like a rabid bat zeroing in on the vampire blood bank. No problem.

Jim's all, "Uh, they look pretty good? Wanna try it with the rear cross?"

Augh. I know! Right? They always do this to me. Perfect little beasts.

So then I bring Gustavo out, he's holding his start line and does the same sequences as those two. Some pole entry issues, not a surprise since we've kind of abandoned poles for teeter fixing the last months. But he's back to crazy fast and is actually handling well and actually not doing anything wrong. Listening! Much listening happening! Not much to get scared of up there, on the Power Paws mountain.

Jim's all, "Should we do some teeters?"

Doom and gloom all hemming and hawing. Maybe they'd be ok. Maybe not. Dark, windowless chicken farms. We've been working hard, it could be a backslide, or it could be time to move up and just get over it. I dunno.

"I dunno!"

We do some teeters. Start slow, just a teeter, not in a sequence. I tip the first boards for him. We build it into a sequence. His poles are actually a lot worse than the teeters. Those are just fine. We work on some stuff with the poles. They fix up just fine. It's just that old too fast to hit the first pole thing, which was why I went back to the 2x2 method and has clearly deteriorated recently. A proven fixable problem.

So we're back on the plastic chairs, and Jim says, "Not really sure I helped you much today?"

I'm not really sure how, exactly. But I think he did. Maybe everything's not fixed, and stuff could go wrong again. The cows will multiply and stand knee deep in shit, the corn subsidies stand in the way of affordable broccoli. Victoria Stillwell fixed the attacking Jack Russell in an hour, but Otterpop is still crazy. Later that evening, she leads Gustavo into a homeless camp deep in a willowy thicket and they pretend not to have recalls and guzzle down whatever was on that guy's foodchain. Probably some corn product.

But I'm just saying. Maybe not so much doom and gloom as I thought.

Where smallish dogs need to just jump smaller and smaller until the strippers totally tower over everything.

If you get your measuring tape and set it to 8", not many things in life gonna measure up to that. A framed 8x10 portrait of you and David Lee Roth after he became washed up and puffy and botoxed and bleached over gray. Almost the width of all the pieces of paper that are not so neatly stacked and cluttered over the desk and the counter and the table and spilling on to the floor. The heels on the stripper shoes that tranny guy goes tottering down the street with, downtown after 11pm.


In USDAA agility, the teensiest, tiniest performance level jumps are 8". Otterpop could aspire to those in her old age if she wanted. Ruby, too ginormous, as small dogs go. She is 13" tall. Supposed to be jumping 16" high, double the stripper heel 8 and she tried her little heart out doing it too, until I couldn't bear it anymore and moved her down to jumping 12" just a few legs before she finished her ADCh. I just couldn't watch the carnage anymore. And at 12" high, the carnage started soon after and anxiety and freakouts and sometimes leaving the ring, sometimes not, sometimes hopping around on 3 legs, sometimes not. Sometimes flinging herself off the ground, propelled by her twisted little back legs so as not to have to use front legs. Also very much affected her weave poles. And then drugs and rest and rest and drugs and then really, with an exasperated sigh, I just declared her semi-retired unless she seemed to be having a good day and does a run or 2 with various, mixed results.

A few weeks ago, started setting all the jumps at about 8" when I went to practice. Teensy, tiny, little things, and decided to give Ruby a go and see what happened.

Good god almighty, these tiny little jumps, that the tranny stripper would just step over with a flick of a toe, changed her agility life. I take a coconut shell right now and bang it against my forehead. Why didn't I think of this before?


She can't show at that height, I guess in CPE but we don't go to many of those. She could finish her CATCH title with a couple 12" rounds of Colors, if we ever get around to it. USDAA, not gonna happen. But to practice, to have my old dog back again and run her with everyone else out on the field, amazing. Flying like the wind and no anxieties, nothing but all this right on agility that's she's had just stored up, sitting there on a brain shelf, all this time. Just by changing the look of the field, making it all look so tiny, to where it doesn't hurt her arms to jump anymore.

Not gonna do Otterpop any harm to practice with low jumps, me being way to lazy and late for work to set a bunch of different heights. She's so structurally impaired, built like a low rider Chevy mini truck in front and a straight hocked chihuahua in back. Those back legs not gonna last forever for her, the way she uses 'em. Gustavo jumps pretty darn horrid at that low height, but he's on the no pressure, back to foundation rehab of everything right now, bringing back the flying mayhem of joy and teensy little jumps are an ok way to go right now.

Teeter totter rehab center-maybe ours ain't like yours.

Radio control tower teeter, as yet unencrusted with jewels or the intended crustaceon decorative objects de arte which I believe are supposed to shells from the sea, is ensconced in it's new role as driveway teeter. I know it is supposed to be shells, because the submarines said so. I used to be unencumbered. Light. Didn't have to speak to subs. Now will be spending my days hunched over, walking around with a plastic bag for collecting sea shells and shiny sea glass and my phone for calling seal rescuers and all the while, trying to make sure I got the radio frequency right on my teeter totter so we don't miss any important calls.


You know, from the subs. Or the aliens.


In taking all the pressure off Gustavo, he sometimes does full teeters from running at full speed, sometimes just hops on the side like he's catching the cement train heading north. Slams it into a pile of soft, hops off and runs around to get another ride. The pressure is off. Sometimes I hop him on and just hop him off. Tried to take all agility pressure off in fact, and letting him just run and run and go back to what he loved about it. There's not really handling right now. Just running. A backslide for an agility super star in the making?


I prefer to think of it like this. I started to lose something precious to me. More precious than the biggest pile of rubies and diamonds and giant crab shells and broken sand dollars and old green beer bottle shards worn smooth by sand and surf. I started to lose my little dog. My fast and bright and shiny tiny dog, who valued running and playing and flying along at rocket speeds more than anything. I wasn't sure where he went, and I got all hung up on he's so far behind. How that reflected on me. Like I looked at my reflection in a chunk of glittering mother of pearl and I was thinking more about that than who my dog was. So I'm just all, screw it. Insert some parable mythology crap here about the raccoon who looks at his reflection in the pond while he's washing off his chunk of shiney tin and then the alligator comes up and bites down and snaps all his bones into bloody pieces and that's the painful end to the raccoon. That's not going to happen to me. Not that I know what's gonna happen to me, or to Gustavo's agility career. It's just that I think we can be happy radioing into the mother ship or meeting new German friends who live under the sea and finding stuff to stick on the radio tower with glue. This is just the Team Small Dog way, for better or for worse. Can't be any worse than one bloody, mangled, former raccoon, at least.

Summer light before the solstice starts back towards winter.

The light stays at a dim gray level, under the clouds, later than it seems like it should. Lets the dogs have more time looking for squirrels, out on a soccer field across the Westside. Brave hunters, out on the land.


Takes a longer time to walk there, but if the sun stays up that long, I guess we have time. It's been a long time since I've been out that way. Running around on a soccer field. In the middle of tract homes on streets that have names after glamorous locales like Reno Way and San Jose Street.


I used to live on Reno Way. Once my boyfriend found a dead body in a van at the end of our street. Most of those crappy old houses are torn down now for mini mansions that all crowd together for ocean peeks. Granite countertops. And crown molding. Walking all the way down there, we walk by the lion. Some dogs, they're not afraid. Some dogs, you notice, not exactly in the photo.


Some dogs, can line up to sit in front of the landscape wall. To imagine that they're at the sea. We have to brave the tract houses on Stockton Ave to get there. A soldier on leave from Iraq shot himself there, on a bench at Stockton Ave, a couple weeks ago. Just sitting on the bench, looking out at the sea, nicely called the police first to warn them, then blew out his brains with a handgun. Some dogs, you notice, not exactly in the photo.


The good dogs sit still, even though they're watching something, out far across the field. That something is running, and running, and running. Not going to waste another second of the light, slowly going dim, by sitting around and staring when there's running that still could be done. Doesn't really matter where to him, I guess. Forest is good. Beach is good. But a soccer field, by the skateboard park, doesn't turn his nose up if it isn't the preferred kind of nature. He'll run around til it's dark, until it's time to walk back home.

Today is a day where we feel the history and it feels like sparkly abalone shells.

This is the Kitchen Brothers' temple. It's down the street from my house. Lately we've been walking by it a lot, because we love it and the beach has dying baby seals and the forest has joggers and I've taken to just heading North on the railroad tracks and coming home by the temple because that seems like a nice place to walk instead.


Ancient Santa Cruz lore has it that Kenneth and Raymond Kitchen built it to listen to German submarines during WWII.


The radio towers are beautifully encrusted with sonic radar listening abalone shells and bricks and stones. It sits next door to the Hare Krishna place.


The two brothers would soak old mattresses with the garden hose, and lay around together and listen to the subs through the towers. Then Kenneth, or maybe it was Raymond, would walk home to his own temple, that's up the street, on the other side of the railroad tracks.


Not sure what they heard exactly, if submarine chatter came through the shell towers, or if they talked to aliens, or maybe they just heard stuff nobody else could.


Another piece of ancient Santa Cruz history moved to my house yesterday. Ancient in the history of agility in Santa Cruz. It's getting a makeover. I was thinking to beautifully encrust it with abalone shells and bricks and shiny things that glitter. And seeing if it will speak soothing magical chatter to Gustavo, or contact aliens, or just tell him stuff that nobody else can hear about what a beautiful thing it would be, to lose all fear and feel the teeter love.

And, just in case it doesn't have super sonic radio skills, we'll still have the most beautiful teeter for miles around.

I always wear shoes and socks on the beach. Because I hate to touch the sand.

You remember how that Surf Punks song goes? You had on pink neon pants when you sang it and white ray bans. Oh yes you did. Shout along with Otterpop, now. My beach my chicks my waves go home go home. You know all the words.


It's summer now, and the beaches have actual people that want to come down and use them. Imagine that. Too crowded for me when it's more than one person including me. Everyone butts heads. We only like the beach when we can't see actual people on it, or they are very few and far between.


Our other beach, besides rangers, has the yearling seal lions washing up to die. They're starving, is all anyone can figure out. Sad, starving baby seals sharing the beach. Someone said it's the global warming. Someone else said El Nino coming. Ruby and Otterpop, good about leaving them alone. We always turn around when we see the babies, and lately we switched beaches completely to one that doesn't seem to be a baby death beach. Has the most winter big seal carcasses, but has been strangely free of any babies, just a few miles further south.


Breaks my heart to see the pups. Who are starving and shriveling and too tired to swim and just want to come up, lay on the sand, then maybe die. Not ready for the, all, "Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" of the manic cheerful of Gustavo and the seal watchers. Just want to be there and see no one. No dogs. No strolling ladies. No kids with buckets. No field trips. No sand castles. No volleyball. No joggers. No One.


Just need a little peace, whether not it's for living or dying.

Handling the pinhead-a polymer.

I swear to you, this is the end of pinwheels forever. But wait? Didn't you learn so much useful information?


Like, clearly I eat way too much See's candy, pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and not much else and it's all gone to my ass.


Lord have mercy.


I am pretty sure Greg Derrett doesn't have this problem. Also, not sure if he would recommend rear crossing into a pinwheel. But it's a useful thing to do. Ruby is my only dog that likes rear crosses. Everybody else, would rather take a bath in honey at the country bear jamboree.


Did I really just say that? Pretend I said it in a Loretta Lynn accent. Same with Lord have mercy. Do you guys know the song "Pizza Hut Taco Bell" by Das Racist? They're sort of a slacker-art-rap Dutchpop world music band with mad street cred. Pretend you sing that song with Loretta Lynn accent. It might work ok, or totally fail.


I'm pretty sure Das Racist does not do Loretta Lynn covers. I think that would fail. They are like all about irony.


Ruby is pretty much not about irony. She is like super, incredibly straightforward. Stallwart. Is that a word? Ruby might talk to witches in her brain, but she also really, really, really always tries to do the right thing.


So if she can jump over the teensiest littlest jumps in the world, and will wait patiently while I dance around to the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell song, I give her a treat, and tell her she's very beautiful and feel honored to have her by my side.