Dog Training….Unraveled

Flyball super dogs!!

Dyson and Teak made their flyball competition debuts at the “Racing Rim Country” tournament put on by our team in Payson, Az. It was pretty cool, way fun, and so neat to watch it all come together. Teak did a bit better than Dyson, while she may not be as fast as the dogs with longer legs, she gets the game and runs her little heart out. Dyson bombed his first races as he kept running around the jumps on the way back. He redeemed himself the next time out though and did well enough to earn his first title - Flyball Dog. Teak got her Flyball Dog and Flyball Dog Excellent (FD and FDX, respectively). To put this in a bit of perspective for you, FD is achieved when your doggie earns 50 points, D got 55 that weekend, and FDX is I believe 150 points (but don’t quote me on that). Teak got 200 points. Karma, a lifelong flyball competitor, recently received her Flyball Grand Champion title (FGDCh), and that is I believe 30,000 points. So you see, our little titles are merely the tip of the iceberg - but boy was it fun!! Here are some pics of our weekend.
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I love love love the shot of Teak coming back over the jump with her little tail flying. Is it bizarre that I think her butt is incredibly cute?
More pics of doggies jumping! How many can you take, you ask? Oh, so many, you have no idea. These are just my dogs, I must’ve taken 300 over the course of the weekend of our team dogs. Don’t worry, I won’t torture you with those.
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The second one her is actually of Teak heading over the finish line. I was SO PROUD of her. I kid you not, the whole crowd was cheering for her. Clapping and whooping. I wasn’t the only one thrilled to get to see this little bitty dog run her heart out. There’s just something about those little ones, running as fast as they can to play a game with the big dogs. Pretty exciting day for me, her and my team. Always fun to start new dogs.
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I love the first picture, not only because you can see my fabulous new elbow rolls (hey pregnancy has not been kind to me), but the look on Teak’s face “I did it huh ma? I’m doing good huh? This is fun stuff!” Thanks to Jonnie for catching that awesome moment. And for those of you who know flyball, yes, Teak’s box is terrible, and we’re working on it. The problem is she doesn’t seem to be able to catch the ball at an angle, so while we can get her to come up sideways on the box, she then misses her ball. Must have something to do with having no nose. The last pic is of Fromage, one of the original INXS legends. She’s got like a million points, holds a bunch of records, and would dearly love to kick the snot out of Karma. The feeling is mutual. It just killed me how she had her ball hanging out the side of her mouth. Barely hanging on, maybe with one tooth? She did this several times that day, it was hysterical. She doesn’t drop it, but I can’t imagine how.
Some last shots of Dyson, who for a big dog, has a pretty decent box - three feet up there is pretty good considering his size. And can’t go without some shots of the amazing Karma. Love the grass flying and the shot with her mouth open, diving at the ball. All in all, a great weekend!
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And last, but definitely not least, can’t forget little Jester in his official capacity of team cheerleader. It’s good work if you can get it.
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How cute is that?

So we went to Build a Bear in Vegas this weekend. A good friend of ours gave us a gift card for puppysitting her dog - Hi Bella!. Josh made a cute floppy bunny for our baby, and I, of course, couldn’t resist making this black lab. It was the little assistance dog jacket that got me. How awesome is that? I just love it, his name is Trusty. Of course, cause he’s a lab. Duh.
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And you think I’m nuts

I live in a condo. With four dogs. And three cats. And four birds. One of which is very loud. And two very well behaved fish. One husband. One poor, sad, tortured husband who never knew he loved pets quite this much. People think I’m nuts. They tell me so all the time as they write a check to send their doggie to my house to get some manners. Too many animals. Hahahahahaha! Check out my sister in law’s blog - SEVEN, yup SEVEN kids!! Now who’s the over achiever?

Granted, I’ve matched her pet for kid, but I can put mine in boxes and it’s ok!!! I do enjoy the blog though, and it makes me think that kids must be pretty darn funny sometimes. The things they say.

Check it out, they’re cute kids, and it’s good for some laughs. And it might give you some perspective on “your busy life.” I dare you, I just dare you, to try it with seven kids. Bet you can’t do it, I sure couldn’t. Tending to the pets is often a dance of timing, intuition about bladders that aren’t mine, and sheer perseverance - but I can crate them and say “I’m done for now.” Apparently you can’t do that with kids, hmmm…. the things they don’t tell you in high school sex ed classes.

So glad!!

Thrilled to discover that I am not the only one who thinks pushing your perfectly capable of walking little dog in a stroller is like, one of the weirdest things ever. I laughed hysterically over this post - check it out!

I wondered if other people noticed. It’s just weird man. Let them walk. They’re DOGS for dog’s sake! They have twice as many legs as we do and they generally enjoy walking!!

And just because I can
HOORAY FOR DOOCE!! That woman rocks!

Karma’s Birthday

Ok, so I probably should have posted this ON her birthday, but since she can’t work the computer yet, she’ll never know. Karma turned 6 on April 27, and to celebrate we dressed her up in pink bows and brought yummy cookies to share with the flyball team. Now, I don’t normally make a big deal out of their birthdays - maybe a cookie or a new toy, but mostly they get the promise that I will continue to feed them every day, give them a place to live and they are quite content with that. Something about Karma though just invites you to dress her up and make her do dumb stuff. She loves it, the whole diva thing. She lets me put all kinds of clothes on her, bows, necklaces, and even little slippers. She loves it. The freak.
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Plus the obligatory picture of the goofy lab doing a complete alligator roll in the tub. It was seriously over 100 degrees that day, so we kept all the dogs wet so as not to, you know, kill them. Karma got to do her favorite thing for her birthday, practice flyball and play frisbee with her dad. Her life is so hard.
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Happy Birthday Karma! Here’s to many, many more!

Decadence and hedonism

We went to Las Vegas this weekend. One last grown up trip before we get baby. It was fabulous. We were lazy and slept all day.

Vegas really is a culture all it’s own. Within the first 20 minutes, before we had even checked in, I saw some lady vomit into her hand and all over the floor. It was cool. At least my dogs have the courtesy to barf on the easily cleaned kitchen floor.

Friday we slept late and then went and saw the new Beatles Cirque du Soleil, Love. It was an awesome explosion of lights, color, sound, and of course, amazing acrobatics. If you ever get the chance, see it, it’s worth it. Saturday we slept some more - I know, real party animals we are - and then went to see Penn and Teller. That was also a blast. Amazing and so very personable. You just sort of want to hang out with Penn and Teller, and it’s easy to imagine that they must be fun at parties. We sat in the second row, so you feel like you’re part of it. And I was. I was the very first audience member to get drug up on stage that evening, lucky, lucky me.

Penn comes right down to my seat, uh, uh, oh seriously, I make a career out of being a wallflower - he’s not really gonna pick me is he? Oh dammit. The trick involved him taking my glasses - so now I’m on stage in front of like a million or so people, and effectively blind - neato. Some fabulous slight of hand thing with a billiard ball, a sad little magic wand and Teller with a cement box on his head. Somewhere in all the movement, Penn managed to get my glasses over to Teller, and when Penn hammered apart the cement box, my glasses were on Teller. Hmmm, clever, but probably more entertaining to be in the audience. I was brave, very very brave, but a bit confused. If you wear glasses, you’ll know that without them you can’t see, or hear, or move.

It was fun, and I’m glad Josh decided we should go. Over all, thrilled with my Vegas trip. Although we are totally lame, we go there to sleep in, eat at the Pyramid Cafe, and we don’t gamble or drink. We had fun anyway. See, we’re already boring, we’ll be great parents!

Next weekend it’s off to Arizona for a flyball tournament. This doesn’t count as a grown up getaway, because if you take the dogs, you’re not really getting away very far.

Things I say to my dogs that I hope I never have to say to my child

Kids being kids though, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if I have to utter these words in her direction.

1) Please don’t eat the snails.
2) Good girl for pooping outside!
3) Stop scrounging under the birdcage.
4) Did you piss on the couch again?
5) Stop nose raping the cat! (For Teak, and her incessant need to try to get milk from the cats, the altered, non milk producing cats)
6) Don’t lick the sidewalk.
7) Hey, don’t lick the carpet.
8) Why, why are you eating the snails?
9) Puke on the tile please, not the carpet.
10) Dammit, spit that snail out!!

Cuteness

Just a few random shots of puppies that belong to some friends of mine - hard to resist that much cute in one tiny package!
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This last one is my favorite - so much wrinkle. Rough life, obviously. Hard to resist playing with such inviting puppy smush.

Crazy cow dog

Have a fun new client. Something actually challenging instead of you average jumping up, peeing in the house pet. A darling little corgi, who very easy going until someone turns on a ceiling fan, the microwave, or the computer printer. Then he turns into psycho killer herding dog who will keep that darn ceiling fan in line! It’s pretty funny, which is how it got started. Someone in the house just might have been entertained by it and encouraged the behavior. That’s all he needed to turn this behavior into a sacred duty. Poor little guy, he thinks he’s taking care of his family by barking and spinning whenever any of the evil machines attempt to take over his happy home.

It’ll be interesting, he actually responded very well to some distraction techniques and giving him a different job to do when the fan went on. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll keep you updated. Because his mom has a very good relationship with him already, he’s been to obedience class and gets the whole “how to learn” theory, I think his prognosis for learning to not react to these things is good. He’s a very reasonable little dog, which is something I don’t get to see very often.

Also, for those of you who’ve been paying attention, Flash did move on to another foster mom - this one with 15 dogs for him to play with, acreage for him to run till he drops, and swimming pool to practice dock diving in. Last I heard he was in doggie heaven. And my house is finally quiet. Yippee!

Why I hate people, revisited

It’s no real secret that I am not a huge fan of people in general. Three (or was it four?) years of working at a big box pet store really made me see how asinine the general public can be on a daily basis, and even before that I was known to prefer the company of dogs. Is she really yelling at that poor stocker because we are out of “her flavor” of cat food? Wow, take a pill.

Yesterday, I am out at a little high end strip mall with a client and her little fluffy dog, who we know has a history of biting people. Shit, he tries to bite me at least once a lesson. But he’s all of maybe 10 pounds, well controlled on a gentle leader, and not lunging at people snarling. Like many small dogs, he only gets twitchy when you stick your hand in his face or get too close to his mommy. Hell, I get twitchy if you put your hand in my face!

So he’s done really well, ignored lots of people, not once tried to go after anyone (except me), his obedience is looking good, and we’re just kind of going over homework and wrapping up the lesson. The whole hour we were there, not one person approached or tried to pet him, which I consider very considerate since it was fairly obvious that we were working with him. Tall guy in a suit walks by, shoves his hand in the dog’s face and as the dog is shrinking back in fear says “Can I pet him?” I politely replied, “Please don’t, he’s doesn’t exactly like people.” Easy enough, right? Guy get pissed off and INSTEAD OF TALKING TO ME LIKE A GROWN UP HUMAN (I’m sorry, but the hick in me is screeching - ACT LIKE A MAN, FOOL!) the guy mutters as he’s walking away “Well he shouldn’t be in public then.”

This is where I fell into total “now you’ve pissed me off” mode and acted just a bit impolitely. I spoke rather loudly and said “I bite too!,” followed closely by “I bring my boobs in public and you can’t touch them either!” As he left the store the dog’s poor owner tried desperately to explain that “this is his trainer and we’re working with him” while I’m muttering “stupid asshole.” It was not exactly a pretty scene and while I rarely lose my temper in public like this, something about this guy’s complete disregard for my efforts to protect his flesh from a cranky little dog really pissed me off!!

Here’s the thing. My dogs are perfectly friendly, but I HATE for people to touch them. When Teak was a baby, I never let anyone pet her, mostly because I was constantly working on her focus as a pup and didn’t want her to think that she should react to people who coo “oh, look a puppy.” Like nails down a chalkboard. Even now, my dog are trained, I don’t take them out so strangers can pet them. I take them out because I enjoy their company. I don’t like people that close to me, and dog only knows where their hands have been. I’m sorry, no, your sticky fingered, candy covered child can not pet my very clean dog. Working at said big box pet store, I had my dogs with me all the time, and got very good at politely telling people that no, they may not pet, the dog was working and needed to focus, blah blah blah. You would not believe how pissed off and offended people get. It’s amazing. It’s just a dog folks! I’m sure you have one of your own at home to pet!

The dogs belong to me. They are, for all intents and purposes, my property and I am under no obligation to let strangers touch them. People who believe just because a dog is in public means they should touch it, fluff it’s ears and make over the poor animal are stupid and rude. I would be just as incensed if you reached out and touched me. (Thus, the boobs comment.) So, yesterday’s little fiasco just set me off, and now that I don’t work at a big box pet store, I can be as cranky as I want.

I don’t ask to pet your kids, leave me and my dogs alone. And don’t get bent if you ask and someone says “no, don’t touch.” It’s not your dog, get over it!