Payback's a bitch

It's Zelda!

I have lost to February

There's a Dar Williams song called February, about lost love using February's horrible oppressive coldness juxtaposed against the cooling of a love affair. While the topic of the song isn't really relevant, I always think of one lyric.

"and we'll gather all our arms can carry, I have lost to February".

I have a lot of anxiety about another February, because last one was pretty bleak.

February 1st: It became clear that Guinness was succumbing to his cancer
February 5th: I said goodbye to my Big Man.
February 12th: I went to the hospital-discovering I was in preterm labor
February 14th: Valentines Day in the hospital, waiting to see if the doctors would be unable to stop my labor
February 15th: Made it to 34 weeks, at which point they would no longer try to stop my labor if things continued
February 16th: Sent home from the hospital on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy.

And then the long agony of waiting began. Each Friday, I could mark another week of my pregnancy. Another week of growth and development, another week where the NICU might not be an inevitability. The remainder of the month was filled with anxiety and the exquisite boredom of bedrest. Suddenly all I wanted to do was laundry. I spent hours feeling minor contractions, counting their duration. Hoping they wouldn't quicken.

With Zoe's illness, I will feel a lot better once February is over. It feels like a cursed month.

I remember you, Big Guy.

Old Dogs

Zoe had something that looked an awful lot like a seizure yesterday. She was at work with me, getting a CBC done to check for adverse effects from the chemo. Yeah, she's got cancer. Again.

Zoe had an anal sac adenocarcinoma removed in 2009, and had chemo in 2010. She has been cancer free since then, and by 2013 I had gotten pretty lax in checking her remaining anal sac. It is standard of care to only remove one anal sac, because the morbidity associated with the removal tends to be higher with bilateral removal, and it rarely metastasizes to the other anal sac. So, we've blithely gone along, and I had finally stopped worrying so much about the remaining one. I had her at work with me in November, and figured, better check. And there was a new mass, in the other side. Lucky us.

She had surgery that day. She refluxed after anesthesia and had horrible esophagitis, which kept her from eating normally for about three weeks. We started chemo in December, and she's had three treatments. The oncologist said she expected we could gain at least a year with chemo, plus "she just looks like the kind of dog who could go on for awhile". She doesn't look 14, I guess.

Having old dogs is a unique sort of horrible at times.  I feel for my friends who've never had an old dog, but will soon. It's a lot of worry. A lot of guessing. A lot of negotiating with fate. Before Guinness got melanoma, I spent a lot of time wondering if his kidneys or his neurological condition would decline faster, and which would ultimately be his demise. Turned out, whammo, cancer. That bastard that just couldn't leave well enough alone.

Now with Zoe, I wonder if chemo is more harm than good. She's always had a good quality of life, even during her last bout. She had some bad days just post-surgery. On the third day after chemo, she'd always look at her dinner skeptically, as if it wasn't quite worth it. But it was short lived. This round, I thought the esophagitis was going to be the end, I've never had a dog so miserable. Once that healed, and it didn't look like she'd strictured, I was hopeful that treating her was the right thing to do. But she's older now, and the chemo seems to take more out of her. Plus, I think it's much harder on her to be in the hospital all day than it was. And yesterday, that seizure came from nowhere.

So I will watch her. If it happens again, I will not scramble to do tests, and I will consider stopping the chemo. I have my syringe of diazepam at home in case she needs it.  I will try to do the best for her like I tried to do the best for Guinness. I won't cut her life short, but I will not let her suffer any more than is absolutely necessary, and I will try not to prolong out of selfishness. Today she ate her breakfast, she played with the boys, and she's sleeping on her bed.  I will watch her, and hope she will tell me what she needs.

New year. Humility. Parenting. Etc.

Oy 2013. Great and terrible. On the one hand, I had a baby. I weathered pre-term labor, kept pregnant til term, delivered my baby without any unwanted intervention (oh, I WANTED that epidural, believe you me). I've nursed him exclusively for nine months (with bites of solid food for the past two). I've gone back to work and weathered the stress of working motherhood. I've battled some PPA. I have a wonderful son whom I adore.

If only the little bugger would sleep...I kid not, there is nothing to make you crazier than sleeplessness. The arguments around sleep training infants. The middle of the night fights over who will get up this time. Being pinched and poked by a baby in your sleep. Joy. It's crazy-making, arguing with yourself (and others) over your methods. Co-sleeping or not. CIO vs WIO. Any method you choose, someone will tell you that you are damaging your baby. Super fun.

I pretty much found my school of thought on dog training and stuck w it, sure I add more tools to the toolbox, but I believe in relationship-based and positive training and don't question. If only I could find a sleep-coaching method I believe it so thoroughly.

It's funny, being a vet and being a dog person, I see a lot of posts on my feeds discussing people's opinions on not having kids. I get it, not everyone is a kid person, and more power to you! I feel encouraging people to have kids who don't want them is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, a parent knows how hard it is, why would you want someone to go through that if they have no inclination? So for my friends who have had someone imply or outright state they are going to be sorry if they don't have kids some day, I call bullshit. If you don't want to, don't. You'll have a lovely and fulfilling life without them.

That being said, I do resent the implication that I've sold out or bought in to some paradigm because I had a baby. Life is full of compromise, and yes, you compromise big time to have a kid. I can't travel 6 hours for three day agility trials right now. I'm lucky if I get a daily shower, so my dogs aren't getting daily hour long training sessions. Loving your child is not better or worse than loving  your animals. But it is different. It is a different feeling, a different love. To me, it's an experience I wouldn't miss out on. Again, not better, or worse, just different. Amazing. And maddening. And a whole body, visceral, primal, aching emotion that I have never felt for another living being. It's just what it is.

However, you childless folks get to sleep, so I sort of hate you for that.

The terrible-I still miss my Guinness. It's been almost 11 months. I think about him daily, especially around the holidays. I miss his sweet face, and his soft presence.

I miss my normal body. I feel ponderous, tired, slow, lumbering, slothful.

I miss feeling like rest and relaxation were acceptable and not slacking off on my parenting duties.

I miss feeling competent at work rather than always feeling like I'm playing catch up after being gone so long between work weeks.

We'll see about 2014. I've got some goals. #1 is get healthy, which I haven't fully defined yet, but I will. #2 is improve relationships with my primary people, especially my son as I learn to parent. #3 is develop at my chosen profession. #4 is continue to improve with my hobbies, including agility. I need to fully flesh out these goals and make a plan. Easy to say, harder to do. I need a nap.

June?!? Agility and dog-raising vs. kid-raising.

WTF it's June? How can this be???

So starting private agility lessons with the Aussies tomorrow, and since it is best to have a game plan, let's see if I can find some objectives...

1. uh....play agility?

No srsly....

Remind Zig how to perform obstacles
Contacts
Weavers
Handling-crosses esp front crosses, serpentines, threadles?
Distance (someday?)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Didn't get finished until post lesson. Mostly an evaluation of our skill set, as it's a new instructor to us. Not surprisingly, I got lost on course, Griff was steady but slow in his weaves, and Zig was a bit all over the place...She wants us working on weaves until next week, which is good but also frustrating that after all the weave pole practice we've done we are still pokey....well, Zig's not pokey he's just looking for his reward to come out of my hand...I swear I toss them usually!
---------------------------------------------------------------

A friend asked me today whether I saw big differences between being a parent to an infant and raising dogs. Now, I've been a parent for a whole 10 weeks, but so far here are my thoughts on the difference, or lack thereof.

1. With dogs/puppies, you worry about rewarding inappropriate or undesirable behavior, like crate-barking. With infants, you comfort any crying without worrying about whether that is "reinforcing" for the baby. They simply aren't developmentally ready for anything else. They are more like 1 week old pups than 8 week old, just operating on a basic needs level.

2. My dogs and I quickly develop a partnership, they have responsibilities in the relationship as well. Not so much with a baby.

3. If something happened to me tomorrow, I'm sure my family would provide loving homes for my dogs. They might not be exactly the same as the one I provide, but their needs would be met, and I think they'd probably be pretty happy. It's difficult to say the same about an infant. Of course he would be cared for, but the loss of his mama, especially as he's breastfed, would be more impactful I think.

4. I now have one more creature that I would throw myself in front of in case of runaway train or zombie attack.

Zig supervises tummy time. 

We'll see how my perspective changes as he ages.

Thankfully, the dogs have adapted very nicely to his presence. The boys are up with me in the night, sitting at the foot of the rocker while I feed him, checking on him when he cries, that sort of thing. I'm pleased, because quite honestly I didn't do as great of a job socializing Zig to kids when he was little as I should have. I just didn't have that many kids around and I didn't feel comfortable stalking playgrounds in the neighborhood-someone would have called the cops!

Regressions

As I type this, Zig is sitting in his kennel yipping like a jackal.

What with pregnancy, the bed rest that ended the last 5 weeks of pregnancy, and childbirth, we've all taken a few steps back in many ways around here. I'm completely and totally out of shape. It's pathetic. It's not as bad as when pregnancy started to make me out of breath, but not being able to do much for over a month before K was born has left me pretty weak. The dogs haven't gotten nearly the training and attention they should for the past few months, and it is starting to show. Probably most for Zig, since he's the youngest.

In general the worst offences are various forms of barking in the house/kennel/at nothing. My poor mail person must think these guys are vicious beasties. Luckily usually K can sleep through barking, but excessive barking is like fingers on the chalkboard to me. We are going to have to especially work on Zig's kennel barking. It's complete frustration-I know you're leaving or doing something without me and I don't like it.

I've been trying to get the boys back in agility, and even had a private lesson tentatively scheduled. I had to reschedule, and now the instructor isn't responding to my contacts. This is so frustrating, no? Just when you take a step forward...But I'd really like to get going and maybe, maybe trial once this summer. Griff especially sort of has a time constraint.

I did take the dogs to the beach for memorial day...Difficult to get decent shots but I got a few of general rough housing.

 Zoe always gets in the middle of the threesome...

Now to try and make some headway, both for me and dogs. Anyone know a good post-partum get in shape program? How about an agility shape-up?

Bowie McGuinness, CGC. February 1998-February 5th, 2013

Guinness was just a quiet black dog in the shelter. I went "just to look", with my mom who was visiting me in Providence as a belated birthday present. The Providence Animal Rescue League was a small cramped chaotic city shelter. Dogs were in small runs, it was hard to distinguish one from the other, really. Everything was "lab mix" or "shepherd mix".

I had considered several different dog acquisition avenues when our landlord said we could have a dog. Great Dane rescue wouldn't adopt to an owner without a fenced in yard. Bulldog rescue didn't have any in the Rhode Island area for adoption. My mom and I were just looking, just looking. She pointed to a large black dog, sitting quietly in his kennel. I was honestly not too interested, but since he was large and young, and my mom liked the look of him, I had them get him out of his kennel. There were no greeting rooms, they pretty much just brought him to the middle of the kennels. His name had been Mickey. His family had moved to Florida, where apparently, they didn't allow dogs.


He was a big boy, all right. I somehow found myself on the floor, and he gently placed his 85 pound self square in my lap. Then a rough looking man in overalls and a wife beater asked gruffly "you gonna take that dog?" Without thinking, I clutched at him and said "yes!" That was it.

He had no idea how to walk on a leash politely, which meant I spent the first few months getting drug around everywhere. We had no yard, so he had to be walked. He had leash aggression. He ate anything he could get ahold of. He also never barked, except at our upstairs neighbor, who we later learned was crazy. He was huge and black and no one would come near him. In the early days, he would look hopefully as strangers passed us on the street, then seem dejected when no one came to say hello. He was always happy to see people. But after awhile, he seemed resigned to being thought scary. He was always very self-possessed, and nothing made him down for long.

I remember when we tried to throw a Halloween party and leave him kenneled in my room, not sure how he would respond to the chaos. He barked so loudly I was afraid the neighbors would complain, so I brought him out on a leash. I was apprehensive about the drunk people making him nervous. He made the rounds, assessed the snack table, then curled up on the futon and accepted treats as folks came by. He never seemed alarmed. He was the best party host for that year. He also made the rounds of Thayer Street with us, stopping at Spike's Junkyard Dog for a hotdog, and the guys in the ice cream store invited him in for a vanilla cone. He ate half a cake that his Lo had hidden under her bed. I always felt safe, even with terrible people living next door.

We moved back to Portland. He hated flying, so once we arrived, I promised him never again. He came with me to work at dog daycare. He raised puppies there. He came with me to teach puppy classes and raised puppies there. I remember two tiny black pug puppies who were terrified of the other pups. Guinn laid down, and they decided the mountain wasn't too scary. Pretty soon, one was on his head, the other playing near his tail. He never moved.


He became a blood donor at Dove Lewis. He was so excited to go. He never wanted the toy, but he would eat as much as they gave him.

He did many bad things, too. He chased squirrels. He chased horses. He ran away, all the time. He ate anything he could. He peed over the balcony onto the floor below at my parents house. He peed on the Xmas tree.

He was my running buddy, til arthritis ended our running duo. He tried agility for me, but thought it was a very inefficient way to get from one place to another. "Go thru the tunnel? Why, when I can go around all those obstacles straight to the treat?" One time at a doggy Halloween party, they had bobbing for tennis balls in one pool, and bobbing for hot dogs in another. Guinn put his head into the pool and hoovered as many hot dog chunks as he could, not stopping to breathe. We had to pull him away so he wouldn't drown.

When I went to vet school, Guinness became the demo dog for every lab we had requiring a canine volunteer. Physical exams, blood draws, cardio lab, anatomy lab...he was happy to be handled if it meant a visit and treats. He scammed pizza from vet students, a lot. He developed a spindle cell sarcoma that was removed. He developed unexplained neurologic disease, for which he underwent water treadmill therapy to strengthen his hindlimbs and assist with proprioception. Again, he'd do anything for treats, even water which he hated.

My senior year, he developed an intramuscular sarcoma that appeared very histologically aggressive. He had an entire muscle in his leg removed, a large skin graft, got a Pseudomonas infection, spent a week in the hospital. He was a great patient until you put him in a kennel. He broke out of the ICU and went wandering to find the technician in the night. He developed a slough from extravascular administration of antibiotics in his other front leg and wore two full leg bandages for weeks. In July after graduation and months after surgery, he threw a clot to his front leg and I thought we were toast, but he recovered after 24 hours in the hospital again. He never was aggressive or even resistant to treatment, but by the end of vet school he hated hospitals. I promised him then I'd never leave him in one again.

The last years of his life, he got steadily weaker in the hind legs. He developed kidney insufficiency, and GI troubles, and I started cooking for him. He ate chicken and potatoes the last year of his life. His meals generally cost more than mine. As he aged, he lost muscle mass, and took on the look of a little old man, but always was dignified. Always genteel.

In September of 2012, I was two months pregnant, and sick all the time. We went out one day, and when we came home that afternoon, we gave G some water outside. John noticed blood in it. I examined G's mouth, and found the mass. No oral mass in a dog is ever good. I took a biopsy with a scissors. No anesthesia since he was so good. Sent it in. Amelanotic melanoma. Crappy prognosis, even with surgery. And I had promised him no hospitals. So I watched him, and tried to make sure he enjoyed himself as much as he could. I had to be so careful with what I fed him, which was so hard for him. He wanted ice cream and hamburgers but his GI tract couldn't handle that anymore.

I knew it was a race...I didn't think the baby would be born before I lost him. I wished, I wished, but with such a crappy form of cancer, it was unlikely. The oral mass didn't grow too fast, but it did steadily increase in size. Then I found two lymph nodes in his neck, mildly enlarged. I thought about xraying for lung mets, decided it wouldn't help me to know. He had a bout with HGE, he fell in January and couldn't walk for a day, but he bounced back from each. He was weak and tired, he slept a lot, he hated to be left. He had always been so confident, this was hard to see.

Finally, those lymph nodes that had been slightly enlarged became one huge mass in his neck, overnight. Literally, I came home to a softball sized mass where only the day before there had been two small nodes. The lymphatic drainage was occluded from his neck-his face got swollen. This was Thursday. Friday it got slightly less swollen. Saturday was my baby shower, and he looked a bit better. I had brought drugs home from work, but I was hoping for another respite. Sunday the swelling came back a bit. Monday, it was definite. Monday night, he just couldn't rest his big head comfortably. I thought maybe I could get thru my work week, but Tuesday morning, I looked at him and knew I couldn't leave him again.

I called my mom, who helped me pick him. My dad whom he loved. John was there. He got a hamburger. He got treats. My mom fed him an ice cream cone while I gave him a sedative. He acted like it was a party for him, seemed so happy to see everyone. He went from eating ice cream to snoring. No hospital. My parents loved on him and left the room. John held off for me so I could place a butterfly needle, then left. Just me and my big dog. I told him I loved him, that he was so good, that he could be done and rest now. He left so peacefully, so quickly. He was tired. He was 15 years old.

He was just a big black dog.

He was the best dog.

Down by one, up by one

Lots of changes since last posting. Had a baby, lost my big man. We are once again just a Three Dog house, with a new two legged! Trying to get back to myself after a difficult pregnancy, and eight weeks post-partum. Hoping to start agility again. Hoping to get a reasonable fascimile of fitness back. Missing my big man...will write about him when I can.

Babies are cute tho...

DAPAC Trial

CPE Nationals-short recap

Oy, three day trials are tiring! Especially considering my normal work week....

Nationals was the biggest trial I've been to, but it didn't feel all that different from other trials at Clark County Fairgrounds, which was nice. I had no expectations of us (NONE), especially considering I was on my own for 10 days while John was out of town and was trying to work, hold down the fort, and then trial. Thank goodness for the parents or I never could have done it.

There were three runs a day, a standard and two of the six games per day. About 4-500 dogs entered, so lots of runs a day. I'll just try to sum up the major points.

Friday: Standard, Fullhouse, Wildcard
Friday Standard: Worst run of the weekend. I wish I could chalk it up to jitters, and some I can, but oy, some badness. Weave pole disaster. Griff acted like he couldn't see them, and then he popped out at the 5th pole multiple times. We didn't complete either set successfully, and they were only 6 poles. He also had an off course due to really poor handling on my part.
Fullhouse: Q and 3rd place. The only run we placed in. Pretty nice. I love Fullhouse.
Wildcard: Weave issues were present but mild. Consistently this ring made Griff dingy all weekend-I'm not sure if it was the open door, the pigeons, or the light changes. We still Qd.

Saturday: Standard, Jackpot, Jumpers
Standard: again weave poles. Why??? We have worked on nothing but, and he's unshakable in practice. I don't get it.
Jackpot: wow, a traditional Jackpot in which we Q? Amazing. He did come into me, but I was able to send him around the tire to the teeter...go Griff! And in the video, I can clearly see why I made him drop a bar....the wonder of video
Jumpers: ring 2-good run except in the last serpentine where he got distracted (pigeons? sparkly vampires? ) and actually had a time fault-first time ever!

Sunday: Standard, Snooker, Colors
Best day of the weekend. He was tired in colors, steady in standard, and did really well in Snooker.

Overall-I'm very glad I bought the video, even though I hate watching myself. I can see when I was late to cue, when my handling was less than stellar, and when I was working obstacles hard. It'll be good to review, even the crap runs.
He Q'd in 7/9, had four really great runs, 3 so-so, 2 bleh.

I'd really like to get this dog his C-ATCH. He's talented enough. Too bad he didn't get a better handler earlier in his career. Hopefully Zig will benefit from our mistakes.

This will probably be our only Nationals-I can't imagine traveling across the country for a trial-we just aren't that competitive. But it was a fun experience, even considering the time and exhaustion.

CPE Nationals-Fullhouse Lev 5 20 inch regulars: 3rd.

Last Sunday's practice...

Griff:

Did distance work-the infamous jump-aframe-tunnel-jump sequence from 75% of Jackpot runs I've seen. Then me standing in the middle of the arena directing him over jumps and tunnels and out to weaves. He did pretty darn well I must say.
Around-practiced a lot of getting the back side of jumps without my having to work them too hard.
Weaves: practiced. I don't like the slowness I get sometimes-I think it's hesitancy or tiredness, so we stop and take a break.
Contacts: Much better this week, but some creeping on the A frame which again I attribute to hesitancy about the criteria. My bad.

Zig:

Teeter: worked it. He hates the bang, so we c&t for the bang, rewarded at the bang, and rewarded in his 2o2o position.
Tire: worked it. He wants to go around or thru the side sometimes, but so did Griff in the beginning. Just a lack of being 100% on his criteria.
Weaves: great. He loves weavers.
Contacts: have to watch it, we were getting a little bit of anticipation...lots of rewards for holding them.
Rear cross: don't have it. Can rear cross jumps and tunnels, but no way on contacts esp dog walk.
Front cross: reads well.
Lead outs: working em. He has no trouble with reverse flow pivots. The dog reads body language well.

Entered Zig in his first trial in July if we get in. I want to trial him first at his own barn, so if we don't get into the July trial we'll try for September. I'm not looking forward to nationals, because J will be out of town and I've had to wrangle all this special help for the week he's gone, which is right smack around nationals, plus I have to work the Monday after, which means 40 hrs in 3 days, 3 days of nationals, then 50 hrs in 4 days. Feck.

Practice notes from today

Took the boys to the barn this morning for some practice. Just a few notes...

Griff:
-Griff really doesn't understand "contact position". If I am I normally am enforcing his contacts, they are great. If I hang back, he won't hit 2 on 2 off position. If I work for lateral distance, he usually stops with all four feet in the yellow but again, not 2 on 2 off. We worked on this some today.
-We worked the jump-aframe-turn tunnel at a distance since it seems to be the most common gamble in Jackpot. Again, contact position was difficult.
-Weaves were really on...of course, he's used to those.
-Getting better at hitting his sit on the table, which we haven't historically done since CPE doesn't require a sit or down or a pause at all on the table.
-Ball is the best reward!

Zig:
-Worked his teeter-he did several independently, although he still squints his eyes a bit when the teeter bangs.
-he's got nice jump form.
-worked some lead outs-including a reverse flow pivot.
-he still needs lots of work on the "turn" command
-practiced lots of "tire" since he seems to have forgotten how to do it correctly. Tuggy thrown ahead once he was thru helped.
-good weavers!
-worked full height A frame-he finds the contacts hard to stick still on a full height one.

Hopefully I can get Zig into a trial at our barn in July. It'll be interesting.

Worst agility trial ever, or why a botched standard run made me cry and consider never running agility again...

There are as of yet no pictures of this trial. However, one highlight, the concept introduced in the photo below, the automatic pancake machine. Now only one minute stands between you and pancakes!

Granted, the concept is currently flawed in that these pancakes aren't any good, but with time and technological advances, there's hope. This was in the hotel we stayed in, along with scary sausage gravy and bad cinnamon rolls. I had a banana.

Anyway, trial in Gold Hill which is about a 5 hour drive, so it meant hotel stays and driving and bad food. It also was a place I'd never trialed in before. The judge I'd trialed under and liked so I had hope that we'd enjoy the courses. We trialed one day in Portland in April and Q'd in 4/5 runs, even though our weaves seemed suddenly to be broken again, so I was hoping for some good runs and some practice before Nationals in June.

After a crappy night's sleep on Friday night, we were at the trial site by 7:15. Fullhouse was first, and other than a bit of a hasty (read, broken) startline stay, seemed like a normal run for us. Q, no problem. Then things went poorly.

Standard 1st round: again plagued with startline stay break. Everything was going ok though, until a late cued teeter caused Griff to jump on IN THE MIDDLE, something that he has never done before. That's an immediate major fault, and NQ for unsafe performance of a contact obstacle. We finished the run, most of which was good, but that stupid teeter baffled me. Yes it was late, but never before would he have tried to execute it in that way, he'd have blown around it and we would have gone back and fixed it. No refusals in CPE, so no harm would have been done in that case.

Standard round 2: start line stay held, smooth first five obstacles. Then, in a tunnel/dog walk discrimination, he bizarrely took the farther tunnel, rather than the easier and cued dog walk. Then, he would not re-cue and take the dog walk. He took the tunnel a total of four times before I finally realized I could not fix the horrible tunnel suck loop he was stuck in, and for the first time ever excused us from the course. So embarrassed.

Jackpot-nice run, couldn't do the gamble. damn distance.

Jumpers- finally, another q. clean run.

The day was definitely complicated by the fact that I got vomit-y between standard and jackpot, puked once, and then was praying I wouldn't have to run off the course to vomit again. Also, we didin't finish our jumpers run until about 8:30 pm, making it an over 13 hr day. I drank sprite and huddled in our hotel bed, once again only sleeping a few hours.

Needless to say, after two badly botched standard runs on Saturday and a very queasy stomach on little sleep, I was not in the best frame for Sunday. First run was a non-trad jackpot that we totally had nailed-until he knocked the last bar. Fucksocks.

It was the standard run that made me seriously consider never trialing again. There's a stupid amount of emotion after multiple bad runs, sleeping in a strange place, hanging out with strangers, and while I didn't expect us to qualify in this run, it was the way it happened that made me lose it. Lots of dogs were getting sucked into the wrong side of tunnels or missing discriminations, which I was pretty sure would happen to us. But, what actually happened was this:

I entered the ring, the gate steward announced us. I repeated Griff's name. The time keeper hit the "ready" button. I put Griffin in a sit-stay, and started to walk to position. Then, the score keeper, for reasons unknown but probably because she hadn't been paying attention, decides she hasn't heard the first two announcements of his name, can't recognize his breed and yells, " who's this? " in a snotty tone. And I, walking out to my position,without thinking, yell his name. Which , of course, makes him think I'm calling him. So he takes the first jump, but I am in no position to direct him to the next obstacle, so he out of confusion takes a (far, far) off course tunnel. And it's NQ right there.

The rest of this course, he executes perfectly. I handle on the fly because I am so rattled, and all of the traps and pitfalls others fell into don't phase him. He gets weave entries, he gets discriminations. But because of that off-course tunnel, the run is void.

Now I am aware that his release word is ok and not his name, but really, when you scream out your dog's name, you can't blame him for hightailing it to you as quick as he can. The stupid score keeper really shouldn't have hit the ok button until the stupid scribe was ready, and the stupid scribe should have been PAYING ATTENTION! And stupid me should have done it differently. Believe me, I will never, ever, leave my dog again until I am sure they know who we are.

After this run, I nearly called it a day. I had vomited, I hadn't slept for two days, we'd just spent too much money and time and things were full of bad. Plus, people kept saying stupid shit that you just don't say to people having a rough trial. I cried like a dork after the run.

Then I took the dogs for some ball and a swim to cool off, we ran two more qualifying runs, and at least finished on a better note.

I have a lot of work to do in this sport. I need to handle better. I need to leave my nerves at the door. I need to WATCH MY DOG at all times. I need to proof more. I need to proof weaves a lot more.

Oh well. Another ironic thing was that I brought my video camera but didn't record any runs since they were going so badly, and that there was a professional video company there who would have sold us our runs for 9$ and yet they were so full of badness that I couldn't bear to buy them. Maybe the photographer got a good shot or two of us? I'd like to imagine a pretty shot of Griffin on an obstacle rather than the bad memories I have of mistakes, so maybe I'll see if I can buy one.

Sand and snow

Xmas with cousin

Cousin houndie didn't appreciate Griffin's focus on the tennis ball, unless he was running away from her so she could chase.

practice time

During our winter break from classes, I've been working on some goals for the dogs. We were at the barn with our friends Jen, Clue, Tag, Delilah and Holly on Sunday, trying to work a few exercises. 

I've been watching "Dial up the Distance" and found several helpful exercises to work with Griffin. I am insistent that we can get some distance with Griff. We've also been working some hard weave entries and refining our contacts. 

For Zig, it's contact work, weaves, and jumping. Baby courses of a few obstacles and teaching front crosses. I need to teach the tire. I'm not going to work on the teeter on my own, really don't want to f it up! 

They both did well. Griff was driving ahead nicely, especially since his reward was a thrown ball. It was easy to reward him working at a distance that way. Zig worked mostly for his frisbee, which was pretty cool. Treats just for contact work. 

I am planning to neuter Zig on Saturday but I'm dreading it. Especially since that means no more practicing til the start of classes! 

Fleet Feet December 2011 trial, day two

Fleet feet CPE trial day two....

Standard run:

The decoy tunnel near the dog walk got a fair few number of dogs, but not us. Got a front cross in between jump 10 and 11 tunnel. Got another one in between tunnel 13 and weaves. Really solid run all around, and our last level 4 standard q! On to level 5.

I'll have to compare the difference between Wildcard, which was a great run, and Colors, which was a passable run-maps will help but the main difference was in wildcard, I handled the way that was the most clear and smooth, and in colors, I ran to prevent knocked bars, which made the run much choppier. We incidentally had no knocked bars and no weave problems all weekend. But right now, too tired to analyze more. Going to rest and recuperate.

Fleet Feet December 2011 trial, day one

Today was day one of FF's December trial...really, really early. I was up by 5:15, in the car by 6, and at the trial by 7. In 25 degree weather. Brrrrfreakingbrrr. 

Wish I had a video camera of the runs we did, but I do find watching myself painful, and my iPhone doesn't really take the best video, so we will settle for some course map illustration! 

Let's talk about Standard....

Tricky areas-I wasn't too worried about the Aframe-tunnel discrimination the first time, Griff highly prefers contacts and is much easier to pull than push, so I just planned to lead out. The pinwheel led to my favorite dilemma, where to place the front cross I know I needed to do. I walked it with the cross between 5 and 6, between 6 and 7, and with a rear cross to the weaves. The rear cross option was the least promising as far as getting him to nail his weaves confidently, so I really wanted to get a front cross in there. Needed to be on the left of the weaves to pull to the 8 jump and not into the tunnel. And then finally, the tunnel choice instead of the Aframe was going to be tricky, but I knew I could keep up with him on the jumps and just planned to run straight as if I was going past the aframe before asking him to tunnel. 

So all that worked well. Front crossed between five and six, lovely weaves, no problem with the jump, nice jumpline and turned into the tunnel nicely. Feeling home free when we hit the teeter---and that of course was my mistake, because I was not working the 16 tunnel and somehow got an off-course jump (14-15-8). Not really clear on why, but perhaps the teeter was offset just enough that I was still pulling to the left slightly, and again, Griff doesn't push well. So NQ on that, but really nice work in general on the run. I was disappointed only because had we Q'd we would have been done with level 4 standard and on to level 5. But usually we don't struggle in standard like we do in, say, Jackpot, so I know we'll have plenty of chances to get those.

Now Snooker, which I used to hate, worked out nicely. I decided to do the #5 tunnel after each opening red jump because, hey, no chance to knock bars. I thought we'd start with the far left red jump, but there ended up being a cone to mark the start line on the near left jump which interfered with the wrap I would have needed there so we started with that one, then alternated sides, then 234567 done. Did a reverse flow pivot on the first red, which somehow popped him in the other end of the tunnel than I'd planned, but it worked out fine. Nice wraps. Plenty of time. Didn't get point greedy, because for me any snooker Q is a good one.

Fullhouse was typical-fast, fun. Jumpers was a fun course as well, I'll try to remember how I ran that one as I really was impressed with both Griff's work and my ability to think on my feet. I'd planned a front cross in two different spots but didn't decide until the run when I determined which made more sense.

Anyway, 3-4, and a nice NQ standard run. Griff did well. I was proud of him and a little sad because he seemed tired before Jumpers, although once on course you couldn't tell it. I guess he's grown up.
Back tomorrow...I need to get a more mellow hobby...

Training break

Haven't been working on much lately except game play with the puppers, namely Frisbee. Today, we had retrieve and tug in the front yard for two sessions of 5-10 throws! That's pretty good for a dog with not a lot of retrieving drive. Baby steps.

Griff and I have a trial this weekend. We'll see. I'm sure Jackpot will be a frustration due to our lack of distance skills, and we usually crap out in colors, but we'll see if we can't get at least a few Qs.