Inspirational quotes from Team Small Dog to brighten up your happy light junior mornings without even giving you extra skin cancer.

If you aren't good enough at agility to go to a big dog show where you fly on a plane or drive across Utah posting pictures of awesome rock formations on facebook every 20 miles or so, that's ok because you did all your errands AND returned your friend's ukelele you borrowed 100 years ago back when ukeleles were really cool.

Life is great when sometimes people pay cash.

Yay! Yogurt! The GREEK kind!

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do, for instance, opening up a can! Or slicing tomatoes into the exact best thickness of slices without the seeds going all over the counter!

A short inspirational story:

I was walking down the street this morning, me and the dogs. It was cold and I had on the new jacket that was a present from Gary which is a giant, puffy, bright orange jacket. It is shiny, and it is made from synthetic fluffiness so no goose or duck is tortured for it's feathers in the name of new jacket.

Have you read about how they extract down from birds? Bummer, dude.

I have even named this jacket, I love it so much. Orange Puffy. I picked Orange Puffy out from all the jackets to be mine. The only thing about it is no pockets, but that's why we wear pants, right?

Anyways, I was walking down the street and some people at the end of the street saw me, which it is hard not to do when I am wearing Orange Puffy. They looked like leathery, gray haired hippies, which recently I learned, so do I! So they were like my soul sister and brother of gray haired hippiness, however, no Orange Puffies on them. Maybe ponchos. Or sweatshirts.

The male person recognized me from a newspaper article about me from a couple of years ago, the lady with all the little black dogs who competes in a dog sport named agility. I was kind of a big celebrity in my neighborhood for a while after that. Then I quietly faded into obscurity, which was fine, because being a celebrity can really be a drag, what with all the money and gifts people are always throwing at you and everything.

He asked me, "So, you still doing that dog thing?"

I answered, "Why, yes, I am." I might be paraphrasing. My mind says I said that but I am pretty sure I don't often say, Why Yes. It's very thoughtul, and I am rarely thoughtful in my speech. More like blurtful. At least I didn't mention that I was also a historical detective.

He points at the dogs. His wife looks somewhat irritated, or perhaps just bored. "Which one is the champion?"

I say, "Well, that one," gesturing my poop bag at Otterpop, who is eating some white flakey crud off the asphalt, "is my big champion. She's the number one dog in her height this year in the nation."

Which is sort of true. Right now she's number 1 in standard and number 2 in gamblers. In Performance 8" of USDAA. This is a somewhat pathetic claim to fame, but I'll take what I can get. And how complicated do I need to get for the uneducated layperson in terms of complicated things like agility points? Should I invited them in to see her Lifetime Achievement Bronze plaque? Her name is engraved on it's little plastic nameplate and I think it's sitting under the newspaper stack on our dining room hoarder table.

"Which one is the oldest?" he asks. His wife kind of looking at her watch and at a tree. They have important places to be ambling off to. Probably going to check the surf then maybe to the taco truck that has the Salvadorian torta thingies.

"Oh, this one here," poop bag pointing to Ruby, "that's Ruby. And this one is Gustavo. He's the youngest one."

There is a pause. Which is supposed to be when one of us goes, "Super!" and we are all on our way.

Except I'm all, "He's a really good boy. He's had a lot of health problems that have made it harder for me to train him. We don't really compete that much. But he is a really, really good boy. We just have a hard time. Maybe someday he'll be a champion. But maybe not. Which is ok. Because he is a really awesome dog. Really, really good boy. He's my REALLY good boy! And he doesn't even have that many teeth!"

They are now sort of backing away because all of a sudden, I went from neighborhood celebrity to weird dog lady in an oversized bright orange jacket with fleet of matching purse size dogs. The wife is looking to the distant sea, so I have a really good view of the back of her gray head.

The man says kindly, "Great" and they're on their way.

The end.