Holiday cheer and so forth-shopping and shouting and lessons people in feather boas teach us in how to train our dogs.

Me and the dogs had an awesome practice yesterday. Really, really fabulous. All listening all the time, fast running, contacts hit, hard skills worked on, sequences run, frisbee played, really, I could go on and on. A practice like they all should be. I did write down notes, but I won't bore you with the details, because it's holiday time and we're all in a hurry.

We had one of those days where my dogs were shining stars and I was a shining handler and nobody could do any wrong. I had to just slip that in. Sorry if you were in a hurry.

My friend Mary brought her dogs down for me to run. It went ok. It got very complicated with one of them, a dog who I need an instruction manual to figure out. I am a simple person, and I'm used to simple dogs. Run fast, yell loud, point straight. Very basic stuff. When things get complicated, I have a hard time. I like simplegility.

One of the problems I had was that I was wearing my nicey nice voice. I have that smalldog chirpiness when I run dogs. I say Yay a lot. I call them Sweetie and say Good Dog! all the time. I reward, reward, reward. I play ball. I give treats. I like to be the fun auntie. Works with most dogs, but not all.

Some dogs like things a little more rough. Gruff. Grough? And speak French.

Something to work on as I expand my horizons. Be a little meaner and a little more French.

After my great morning of agility, the penalty was, I needed to go Christmas shopping.

I am a bad shopper. I hate crowds, I don't know what to get, and mass consumption in all it's forms exhausts me. My husband, ace shopper of excellence, coaxed me out downtown and used his high tolerance, voodoo consumer magic to do most of the Christmas shopping on Sunday. Everybody needs a Gary. But there was a little bit MORE that required a trip to the mall in San Jose.

I live on one side of the mountain, agility practice is part way up the mountain, San Jose is on the other side. It's like another country over there over the hill. There is immense bravery involved in Christmas shopping over there, but me and my awesome dogs were up to the challenge. All they had to do was sit in the car. I was the one that had to enter the mall. Thee Mall. It's that kind of mall. Where palm trees glisten, and drivers listen, to screaming and honking and horror instead of carolers in the snow.

There was traffic insanity. I used patience. There were cops directing drivers into the parking lot. I used patience. They had gloves and whistles. I had my dogs. There were a million cars looking for spots. I was but one with the flow. There was a car in front of me waiting for a spot forever. I used patience some more. There was another car in front of me waiting for a spot forever. I used totally even more patience.

Then a girl comes running across the parking lot and stands in the middle of the parking spot that the car in front of me was about to pull into. It was one of those tight parking lots, with barely room to breathe. I was breathing, and the dogs were sleeping. Well, except for Gustavo, he doesn't sleep in the car. I think he was working on his breathing with me.

The car pulled up to the girl, and the driver motioned for her to move.

The girl clutched her arms around herself, and shook her head. She looked up and down and sideways, and didn't budge.

The car in front of me REALLY pulled up to her, like an inch away, and motioned for her to move. Girlfriend just kept shaking her head and stood her ground. Her spot.

Mutha-flicka.

That car-less girl was owning the parking spot. She was pudgy and had on nice jeans and a fluffy scarf kind of thing wrapped around her neck, those kind some people use for dog leashes, like a feather boa. Even though it was 70 degrees. Festive Christmas shopping-wear. A serious contender. She just stood there in her spot in the parking lot of mayhem chaos, shaking her head until the car in front of me, that had been waiting and waiting and waiting for that spot, rolled down it's window.

I rolled down mine, too.

The girl called out to the driver that she saw the spot first. I couldn't hear what the car driver said back. I am going to guess something like, Uh, You Have No Car. Parking spot girl held her ground and shakes her head again, and says, "No way."

Cojones!

I don't know who she was saving it for, she was out of her happy ho ho gourd if she thought she could stand there and let irritated parkers squeeze by in the procession of hell lot until whoever she was saving it for rolled along.

I pulled up closer, and yelled out my window, "HEY!"

She looked over.

"SWEETIE YOU ARE HOLDING UP TRAFFIC MOVE YER GODDAMN ASS OUTTA THE WAY NOW!"

I might have said it sort of mad. A little meaner than normal. It was very, very easy to do this, and I think this was how I was supposed to get Rocket to give me his toy. "OUT!"

Sweetie pie looked at me freaky bug eyed for a second, then scrammed. Just like that.

Not sure what it was exactly in my Tone, but it was enough to send her trotting away from whence she came, somewhere in the vicinity of Macy's or Safeway. The car in front of me got the spot. You are welcome, car.

And then instead of parking and shopping and ho ho hoing I drove straight out of the parking lot and fled straight home back across the mountain and didn't go Christmas shopping at all.

The end. With added bonus moral of the story, maybe this will help me running Rocket, and at least I didn't get out and start moving towards her and possibly face Christmas season arrest for parking lot chick fight. I think remainders of the holidays I stick with happy chirpy voice. Really the end.