Foster cat gets 'dopted

My little Violet foster cat has been adopted after only one day at the shelter.

This is good.

I am teh sad.

Not because she was adopted, but because I miss her, and I don't know what sort of people she went home with, and I'm worried.

I am not a good foster parent.

Bye, bye, Miss Vi. You be a good kitty. I hope they give you lots of snuggles and pettins wherever you are.

snowtimes

agility notes

Griff and I have been doing some agility work over the holiday in preparation for our trial in February. Just some notes to help focus our training for the next two months.

Weaves-we are finally straight on six poles, and Sunday he did 12 in a row straight! We need to work on more difficult entries, but I am very pleased with his progression.

Contacts-need to work on two on two off contacts being held even if I keep moving

Teeter-doing well, need to get to the point where I don't need to babysit him too much

Turns-doing well. Need to work on tight turn into tunnel.

jumps-need to work hard turns and keeping bars up.

Handling-always need work! I need to focus on clear body language, as well as increasing clarity of verbal commands

Object discrimination-need to practice verbal cue discrimination.

More practice! Need to get to the barn more.

dog park drama

or, why most dog owners are idiot assholes and therefore I should screen every one of them before they get entrance to our dog park.

Actually, our "dog park" is nothing like the traditional small fenced-in squares of dirty ground in Portland, it's a big expanse of city park with river access, trails, several sport fields, and a frisbee golf course. It has areas that are off-leash all the time, and some that are on-leash in the sports season so that the soccer kids don't get checked by a border collie or lab going after their ball. It's a godsend for me, as it's big enough that I can run a good three to four mile route with my dogs off-leash the whole time, we can swim in the river, and meander down the river trail without running into traffic, livestock, or other hazards.

However, there are always a good helping of stupid people in the park, and usually I run into one of them on my morning runs. I forget that idiots who ought not to have their dogs off leash figure it's safest to do so when there is less traffic (AKA, 8 in the morning on Sunday). So this morning, I'm running Griff and Zoe and three men with five dogs come towards us on the bark trail. One tiny but fierce little pitbull makes a beeline for Griff and starts snarking at him. She's a bitch, but she's not serious, and he's smart enough to ignore her. However, three of her male dog gang companions decide that they hate Griff's face, and all descend on him at once. Seriously. I growl like something really scary for them to knock it off, and two back off at the sound of my very possessed voice, but one nasty looking mutt refuses to heed Griff's sideway stance and averted eyes and insists on readying himself for the attack. Finally, I realize that the three grown men in charge of these evil-hearted creatures are just. standing. there. While I'm wading in to the fray, readying my leashes to swing if the jerks try to jump Griff. I snarl thru gritted teeth for them to get their dog, now. I send Griff on forward, and then realize I've got to go back to get Zoe, who is frozen with all five dogs around her. Except for the bitchy pit, none of the dogs even looks askance at Zoe, who is of course the uber-submissive.

Not one of the stupid men tried to help, corral their evil harpy dogs, or apologize. They all looked at me with a slack-jawed bemusement, akin to someone very slow who's just been asked to calculate the velocity of a moving projectile, to three significant digits.

I am annoyed, to say the least. Mostly because I've seen these dogs before act exactly the same way. This wasn't a one-time incident, and it wasn't normal dog grumpiness. The dogs are obviously 1. not trained, 2. sent into pack mentality due to being in a group, and 3. owned by idiots. Luckily, Griff decided not to get snarky back, which was wise and for which I am really grateful. I've seen these people before, and another of their dogs, a border collie, tried to attack Griff but was luckily restrained by a woman that was with them.

I really hate how dumb people are. Just because it is legal to have dogs off-leash does not mean any dog, with any sort of attitude towards other dogs. And there is no way in hell I'm going to stop going there, as it's acres and acres of land and river, the only place in Corvallis that is ten minutes from home and appropriate for dog-romps.

I may, however, start carrying DirectStop, and people better watch out. I'm liable to spray them instead of their dogs.

They're trying to make G go to rehab...

And he says, no, no, no.

We have weaves

Just a brief update...

Griff has weaves! Six straight weaves, I'd say 90% of the time, from directly in front or starting three obstacles away. Very exciting! He also seems to have gotten over his tire jump aversion. Our only remaining hurdle (heh) is the teeter. Our goal this winter is to get it mastered. Our classes don't start up again until January, but we've got two months of practice at the barn to work on it. We have a fun match the weekend of Thanksgiving and one in December, and if all goes well, we'll enter our first CPE trial in February. I'd like to enter the one in December, but it is the weekend prior to final exams, and that may not happen.

Guinn has started PT and had his first water treadmill session on Wednesday. He's got his second tomorrow. He did better than I expected, so maybe we'll get thru this after all. If I bribe him with cookies, he'll keep going. I hope he'll agree to get into the treadmill box tomorrow, now that he knows that water comes in on him. I really hope this'll help keep him strong. It's been about six months since his diagnosis.

It's starting to feel like winter and we aren't getting to the park as much as I'd like, but hopefully tomorrow we'll get a nice run in. Got to get the dogs tired for Halloweening.

selling all dogs

I don't know when I became the world's worst dog owner/trainer in the world.

So last night's agility class was uber-frustrating. We had a run that included weave poles, that Griff flubbed no less than five times, then the tire, that he jumped around instead of thru, and by then I was so humiliated I fucked up the totally easy jump pass at the end. I had to leave the arena and go outside to cry. I don't know what I was thinking about entering him in a CPE trial in a month. I am apparently the world's worst trainer and he's a stubborn a**hole who refuses to weave.

I realize somewhere between vet school and having all three dogs, they've collectively become *disobedient*. I worked on Guinness's recall for 5+ years, and all of a sudden he acts like he has no idea what it means. Zoe also has no sense of when she should come and pretty much does as she pleases. Griffin is a pulling, barking, jumping pain in the ass, and all his agility training has come to naught. I should have stuck with cats, at least no one expects them to do anything when told.

Anyway, I am sorely disappointed. I suppose there is some bullshite explanation about me not being a good leader, or else I've forgotten to ask much of them, I don't know. All I do know is that we're going to tighten down on the rules for awhile and see if it makes any difference.

GRR