Time out for the Basics.

I went over to Dee's to practice with the dogs last night after work. (This is becoming an agility blog again, which is what it is supposed to be!). It made me want a ranch so badly, or at least a new house with a large enough yard so that I could practice. We were going to be going in as a partnership with my parents so that we could swing financing on our ranch, that was happening all along, even when we had the offer in on our DREAMRANCH that was ripped from us on the overbid last July. Through various financial events, this partnership is off for now and our price range has been considerably reduced to basically not being able to afford anything remotely ranch like. Everyone feels bad about this, especially my parents, but I've been trying to figure out other creative ways to get us to our price range which basically come down to I would need to quit doing the things that make me want a ranch and take a horrible art director type job in a place like San Jose just to be able to barely afford a house payment. Not a good plan. Or move to another state. Not a good plan. Gary buys lottery tickets. Not a good plan.

So anyways. I took the dogs over to Dee's to practice last night after work. Agility blog. Practiced on just a few drills. Otterpop's quick release and sometimes long hold contacts. Ruby speeding up through the weave poles. Both dogs insta-downing on the table and staying put there. Otterpop is so crazy fast when I practice and turns on a dime. Ruby was pretty fast last night, and was hitting bars off and on so I was able to rerun sequences where she dropped them and work on my handling. I have to really keep my arm somewhat rigid and extremely still when she jumps and try to keep a little less distance from her, which helps her not leave that last stride out. She should probably go back to jump grid work again, if she was a pony that's what I'd do, but again, it's something you need space to practice. Ruby's contacts were all of course perfect, the "I am jumping off this A-frame thing" has never happened practicing. Her first run Sunday is a standard though, so that is where it creeps out.

This Sunday we have an ASCA trial. We haven't done much ASCA, I don't even have title tracking numbers for the dogs, so it's just for fun. I gave up the team one in Turlock for this, just thought what would be funner. Drive to a small close trial with no pressure, or a far, hot trial with a lot of pressure since the events are all team and if you screw up, you screw up your team. Hence ASCA. Maybe next year is the year we get serious and make sure both dogs get qualified for the Nationals. Ruby isn't qualified in anything this year. We haven't run any grand prix or steeplechase at all! Or team. Sunday trial goer. Somehow I managed it with Ruby last year on our meager set of trials. But going to the Nationals is a huge time and money committment that I can't really figure out how to make. Kind of like where I'm at now with my whole future since we need a new plan.

I like corgis a lot, but not to eat. The dog world has a lot of white hat/black hat issues, with people vehemently on both sides. I like watching the Animal Planet on Monday night, because they have traditional choke the dog training with friendly Monks! at 8pm, then British dominatrix training with sound aversion but giving treats to wacky British people at 8:30. They are pretty much diametrially opposed in their techniques, both of them offer pretty interesting dog whispery advice, and I sit somewhere in the gray hat view of them.

Back to the basics.

We have been on a week long break from agility and I feel fat and the dogs seem mean. We have a show this weekend, that sort of wraps up our show season for a while, this one is no pressure and in Hollister. It's an ASCA show, which is a venue I rarely compete in and don't track titles, so it will be just for fun and not too far away. I picked it over a USDAA show, in which I could have competed in the team event, but it was far away and in the very hot town of Turlock. So we will just have fun.

I practiced last week at an agility student's house. It turned more into her getting a private lesson than a practice, which was fine. Timmy got to go, and she lives near me. I didn't really practice, her yard was small, but she is a nice lady and it's cool to see random people doing agility and building themselves practice yards. That's all we've practiced. I am going to try and practice tonight in Watsonville though, since we are still on a break from classes.

Otterpop is a little disturbed lately. Ceasar Milan would say she is trying to take over the dog pack. I would agree. She gets this look in her eye like the biggest control freak ever, and wants to control everything about Ruby. Where she sits. Where she stands. When she goes outside. They got in some fights when we were down in LA. All I can figure out is that the dog pack thing is all messed up there, too many people, and baby, and extra dogs and her mind totally melts down. Like Ruby went feral, Otterpop can't stand change. Thank god for Timmy. At least I have one regular old dog. It's kind of my lot in life though. I know I am taking damaged dogs when I get them, and I have to figure out the best way to make them normal most of the time. So praciticing lately has been showing Otterpop that I am the head dog no matter what and she is not my vice president-all the dogs are just plain old citizens of my own personal universe and no one gets to be bad because I am also the police. A nice police without a stun gun or arm pinching behind your back like they did to my neighbor once (who is still in jail) when they dragged her out to the car.

Everyone will have to wait for more vintage photos. Because I have had to spend way too much time researching equine lawyers and indemnity clauses.

Chernobyl paving the way for Polar bear Death.

Hey-the team small dog site uses less energy than many sites out there because of it's black background! That would be 59 watts instead of 74 that an all white background web page uses. Yes, many of us are on swankier LCD monitors these-a-days, but worldwide, particularly in Latin American and China, digital citizens stare at CRT. I have one sitting right here, but not turned on, on my desk. A small step for the drowning polar bears.

Today's installment of vintage archaelogy is for Lexi. So what was I doing during many of the horse years, the years I was in college? Starting in 1983. I was a very devoted student when I wasn't at the barn, although I wasn't always a full time student because I was a part time or full time Assistant Horse Trainer. But I worked very hard in my art classes making very bad art. I am not sure i worked very hard in non art classes. I was an Art Major, specializing in sculpture and printmaking. I did used to work at the art studio til very late at night.

According to my photos, when I was not at the barn or in the art studio, I was hanging out at parties with stoner types. And some of the time, I was poorly dressed. In ramshackle houses. We did tend to live in a lot of ramshackle, filthy houses. But I did not realize how poorly dressed I was. I still have that issue. Some of you may recognize yourselves and your friends in these photos. I am so sorry. All of these photos are within a year or so of 1986, as best as I can figure. Ronald Reagan was president, Chernobyl melted down, LA Law was on TV, and the original bass player in Metallica died in a bus crash.


We discussed baking tips.


Ate things on a picnic.


Had parties in our driveway.


Sat around in the living room.


Sat around in the hallway.


Dyed our hair in the kitchen.


Tortured the puppy.

Rat infestation.

Laia's graduation also involved staying at my parents and cleaning out some boxes that were in the rat infested basement. I found many vintage artifacts there-my sister's giant stuffed bear, old bathroom rugs, all my old artwork, and a box of pictures. All my photos from childhood, teenageredness, and college were in there. This was a most excite archeological find!

Today's photo tour will be of some of my horses from 1978-1988. That's a rough guess on years, but I think it covers Wilbur, Richard, Gumby and Star. There were lots and lots I rode during this time that were certainly not mine, some I may have claimed were mine, some I may have borrowed without permission, but we will concentrate on this group today.


Here's our family dogs, Ruffle and Beau. Beau went everywhere with me and I used to pretend he was a shutzhund dog and taught him bite work with a milk jug. That is my cousin Edie from Minnesota. She is a pig farmer now and likely has her own tractors.


Here's Wilbur. This was sometime when I was in junior high. Note the brown hunt coat and sloppy pro hunter rider position even then. I really don't have that many photos, and couldn't find any Children's Jumper ones, but this shows that I was a sloppy rider even at age 12.


This was Richard. He was my resale horse my parents bought when I was 16 very, very cheap. He was how I learned about cheap horses being very cheap usually for a good reason. I got many neat injuries on him and resold him very, very cheap. Circa rust breeches.


He didn't even jump that well in this photo. I don't really remember showing him. I bet he was tranquilized. When we gave him a little vacation from arena work (aka, too crazy, try getting him tired on trails), I got a head injury from him dumping me after tearing off down a cliff.


Gumby was my pride and joy, and first resale horse I actually made money on. Penny brought him home from LA, he was 3 years old and just evil. But fancy. I taught him tricks and he was the only horse I regret selling. He was half Hanoverian and half thoroughbred and sort of little.


He was so pretty, moved pretty, and jumped beautifully. You have to sell the resale horses though. He had a long career as "Cakewalk" in the Children's Hunters and even made it back to my barn at some point as a very valuable little horse. He was still evil though. In the arena, sometimes he would just stop moving just because he could. The kid who owned him had to ride him with a very long whip.


I probably showed him just a little, trying to market him. These were the only photos I could find though. Who took these??


I think that's Richard Keller. What was he doing there? Gumby sometimes would be walking back from the arena and all of a sudden take off with you just to see if you were paying attention.


Star made me a lot of money. I don't regret selling him at all. He was hard to ride and kind of mean. He could jump very, very high though. He became a jumper but I don't remember with who.


Apparently I never wore boots or a helmet when I rode my own horses at Penny's. I still have that sort of sloppy look when I ride. I never ever ride in pink sneakers anymore.

Feral like a pig.

We are down here driving around Los Angeles county a lot for 3 days. It involves Laia's graduation from college, where Mayor Villairgosa was the speaker and everyone chanted at the end, Fear the Poet, because the school mascot is a poet. It's a Quaker college and seems somewhat stuck in time, from another era. But it is also a really good school too. So it is very wrong of me to make fun of it, even though everyone prays a lot and and speaks as though brainwashed by a Whittier college brochure about passing the Light. I am just used to art school. There is no punk rock tight pants in Whittier or pink hair. At least on the campus. Off the campus, there are many cool lowrider cars and Latino skateboard boys everywhere. On the campus, there are friendly professors everywhere, many of whom live on the campus and have friendly dogs the students all know by name.

Ruby turned feral here, just like she was when I got her. Super! We walked all the dogs down to a school field near my parents' house. She right away ran away from me and started stalking birds, not in a cute, I am chasing birds way, but in a feral, I am going to kill these animals here in front of you way, like I haven't seen since she was young. It was very, very creepy. I captured her, she tried to get in a fight with Otterpop, and then I took her back to my parents'. I guess she is stressed out here and reverted to her old personality? I dunno. She is destroying dog toys right now, another old weird habit. Otterpop howled like a wolf yesterday for half an hour when we left for the graduation. I have such bad dogs. Otterpop and Timmy are perfectly fine and happy now but Ruby is still a little weird. They usually love visiting here and running around the giant back yard. The house is far more spacious than ours and there are stairs for them to run up and down. It is dog heaven, that is probably why Ruby turned feral again. She just thought she had died and gone to heaven.

Do you see what I Do here?

>>>
(Dad) was just reading over the paperwork that came home
with (kid)i with regards to the release.

We have an issues with the indemnity clause they have
in the paperwork. The way it is written the owners of
the ranch are indemnified against any law suits or
expenses related to a suit or injury. What this
means is that if a rider at the ranch gets badly hurt
or there is an accident and the owners are sued, they
are protected by indemnity. So, anyone that signs
that document vows to cover the cost of any said suit
or can be sued directly by the injured party. In
essense anyone that signs this protects the owners of
the ranch.

We understand why they have this, it probably gives
them awesome insurance rates, but honestly we don't
want anything to do with that.

Being held harmless is a whole other thing and we do
not have issue with that.

I'm not sure if anyone else has brought this up?
<<<<<<<

No one else has brought this issue up. I don't
really understand what this means?
I don't really know what to do about this-it's her
standard release that everyone who rides on her property signs.
Laura


>>>>>>>
I would like you to clarify what exactly what you
mean by this part of Paragraph #2 in your email before I reply further:
"So, anyone that signs that document vows to cover
the cost of any said suit or can be sued directly by the injured
party."

Are you saying that, for example, if the tractor ran
into so and so's horse and she got hurt, since the family
couldn't sue the ranch,
then they could bring suit against you and everyone
else who signed that release?

As far as getting a break on the insurance rates,
having a release has no bearing on the rate. I pay $1600 per year for
Liability Insurance whether I have a signed releases or not. The rate
is based on number of horses under my care and number of lessons that I
teach.
<<<<<<<

>>>>
So...in your scenario the the family could indeed sue
the ranch. However, if the family wins it's the
responsibility of everyone that signed that release to
pay the judgement. So in a way it's as if they would
be suing us directly. Indemnity means that the ranch
is not liable for paying any judgements in a suit,
because the people riding at their facility have taken
on the burden.
<<<<<<

This causes me to turn into a cat torturing pirate hillbilly in bad crochet.


I am going to Los Angeles now.

Cat crochet disturbia.

I just wanted to supply proof here. That I do own a cat-I also own barn cats but they are more difficult to photograph, they always think I am coming with shots when I try to pick them up-and I do knit. OK. Part of that is a lie. But it is true that I have done crochet once. Twice, if you count the half crocheted corn yarn hat. OK. Part of that is a lie. The corn yarn hat is not even half done. But I did finish this red one. It took me about 6 months and Lexi calls it "free form". It is a little bit like those little strawberry caps gradmas knit for little girls. I do not have a talent for crochet, and even less talent for knitting which really didn't make any sense to me at all. I am better with glue.

Because half of my readership has cats and knits. And the other half doesn't. Now I am sort of more balanced. I know some people might read this because sometimes people order Team Small Dog shirts. Although I am running out of almost all the sizes, I think I have only 1 in each size left in fatigue, and a couple of each in red. Boy were those a popular way to lose money! A true collector's item. Order the rest up while you can. Back in the days of what perhaps was the first blog, the Very Popular Laura's Data Entry Gossip Newsletter circa 1995, I had a very large amount of readership. Since hardly anyone was in the internet then, I also provided it via email. I wish I had saved Timmy's first website when he was cyberTimmy. But there are lots of things I wish. That's when I used to give out free handpainted stickers. That always said Timmy. Life was so quaint back then. My celphone was the size of a beer.

In real estate news. That house that was on Cox road in Aptos is now relisted. That was the one that listed the house and the driveway for $899,000, and the front yard, aka the Meadow, for $899,000. Now you can buy both pieces, the front yard and the house and the driveway for $1,295,000. That would be a cool one point three million dollars. I liked that one. When I thought it was the house and the front yard (it's about 4 acres total) for nine hundred thousand dollars. Which was still out of our price range! The ad calls it flat. Part of that is a lie. It is flat where the house is. The meadow is a slope and would require considerable grading and retaining walls. Kaching!

The antithesis of the Pomeranian Grandma.

In CPE, one of the handler types is the Pomeranian Grandma. She is heavy, with leathery, lined old skin. Her size is a plus plus size, and perhaps her t-shirt, which definitely is graced with a large cartoon dog or realistic montage of her preferred breed, is embellished in some off kilter bedazzler method or some kind of knotting or lacing. Her pants are denim, thin and ill fitting. Her voice is gravelly, and she may be spotted puffing on a camel after her run.

She has a small herd of teensy, tiny, pomeranians. There are 3-4 of them, and they do a damn good job at agility for a little ball of fluff. They're not all that fast, but hotdamn if they're not dead on accurate. Pomeranian grandman carries one up to the ring, runs casually around, qualifies, croaks out a wisecrack to the judge, and carries precious fluffball out. She'll be back in a minute with the next one. Her tent setup is covered in ribbons.

Pomeranian grandma has been doing this for a while. I'm not sure what she does when she's not at a dog show on the weekends. She lives out in the central valley somewhere, and is most definitely a senior citizen. Between rounds, she helps out or hangs out at her tent with other like ladies. She might be running slow, but she is out there running.

She is not at the USDAA trial, where her opposite handler of a paralell universe runs border collies. Kickass handler goes to the gym and keeps a blog of her training journal and all her trials. She is in her early thirties or maybe is still in her 20's, and works a full time job and teaches agility and writes a blog with CSS and dabbles in web design and science research. Kickass is perky, in a hardcore sort of way. Like a cheerleader who also has a masters in physics. She has pink hair and can sport a pink tennis skirt because she goes to the gym. Her border collies are perfect, and win the Grand Prix and are in the USDAA top ten.

Her blog is updated constantly, with photos and videos and in depth text about every run and how to make it better and handling systems and why the rear cross didn't work and where it did when she won the Steeplechase second round. Her blog is about winning and goals and making it to the world team. I am sort of exhausted wondering if I could ever be like Kickass handler. I feel like I am too lazy.

There's a lot of shades in between Pom G and Kick Ass. Recreational professionals and professional hobbyists. A lot of them are really good dog trainers. and some of them seem to be pretty clueless dog trainers. Some of them have great dogs that run well, great dogs that run badly, and weak dogs that run great. Most weak dogs that run weakly don't usually make it to competition level, at least in the USDAA. At the CPE, maybe they do. There's the computer program lady from the mountains that shows up with her gentle, overweight dog and her son and by golly, it can slowly make it's way around a course and heave itself over the jumps. There's the screaming lady with the aussies that never seem to make it around, although they are speedy.

I'm not sure what any of them would say about me. I keep a pretty low profile around the dog show and fly under the radar. Sometimes we do really well, and sometimes I am mortified by how badly we perform. Like when Ruby, who won every other class that day and had some of the fastest times out there, ran away at the start line, and like a bad stage mom, I called her back in and finished the round so I could get the Q. But she also went the whole show without a dropped bar, and had 3 amazing runs, some of her best ever, that were fast and clean and handled exactly as planned. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else out there doesn't pick up ribbons. I see all the other ladies grabbing them up. I stopped a couple years ago, first only picking up Q's with blue ribbons then just starting to write them down. What would I do with all the ribbons?

Your boyfriend says you got the Ghost Chair.

This weekend was somewhat busy, what with touring potential ranch land, glamorous VIP museum openings and dog shows.

Let's just say I love the ranch land (including historic barn which has been in the family for 6 generations and had old horse plough tack hanging in the rafters above the vintage caterpiller crawler and ferguson tractors) and that Gary doesn't and also we can't afford it.



Then Camille had her opening for her big huge museum art show. Besides being super fun, and getting to visit with her mom and cousin and Monique and Jer all of who I haven't seen in a couple years, it also made me remember why I got out of that whole artist thing. I am though, super, very proud of Camille who is a super famous artist now and makes a lot of money now selling her paintings and prints, even though her gallerist is kind of a pimp. Well, actually she is a pimp. So there's the 2 sides to it thing. But being at that opening, and the amount of shmoozing, made me remember it all. But what I relief that this time, I was there to just have fun and see the show and see Camille and not have to worry about it. I didn't even feel any pangs of "I wish I was a famous artist". I did feel pangs of "Camille's paintings are so much better than mine" but they are because I am not painting and am not practicing. So that's what I get for switching to animal training.

So I just say good job Camille. You are the best. You deserve to be a famous artist without shmoozing, and just painting!


Also, Camille and Jeremy are cashing out on their house in LA and buying one near Crescent City. In nowhere's ville. For the price of their house minus a lot. So they will have extra money left and can travel if they want and rent houses elsewhere. It really made me think about how insane is it to buy such an expensive 30 year mortgage at my age. What am I doing. And seeing old friends that made me realize that there are other things I should be doing right now too...Maybe had I worked the famous artist angle harder, I could have gotten to that place, but maybe not too and then how miserable would I have stayed.

Then it was dog show day again. As usual. I didn't go to the after party because I had to get up at 4:30 am, etc. etc. for the dog show. Ruby was the Big Huge Champion-one of her standard runs had the fastest time of all the dogs in her level-very few of who went clean! Except for her last run of the day, in the heat, where she just totally blew it off, ran out of the ring and back in at one point. Ok...a little scarey but I think she was just telling me she was done and was so good on those other runs, I should have left it at that.

Otterpop had 3 fast and perfect rounds! She loves to run inside, in the dirt, as does Ruby. She does not love outside, on the grass, which 80% of our shows are. So her 2 outside runs were the slow, lopey ones. But she was on fire indoors, and it gave me hope.


What they look like in the car. They spend a lot of hours in there.


This is our little tent set up at the dog show. Their travel crate goes in the xpen, and I put a shade cloth over it so Ottepop doesn't escape, and because they are very private dogs. They like to be hidden. And it makes it cool. I hate that damn tent thing I have to cart around and set up but you need it, it was in the 90's out there.


There's the tired champion dogs. That's what they do most of the day, I walk back there and tell one of them it's their turn and they snap right out of it and go running to the ring. Ruby, because she loves to run and knows there is chicken in it for her, Otterpop because there is a frisbee, and a piece of cheese in it for her.

Graying rockabilly rockers.

There were several of them sitting together on the white plastic chairs. I had never really thought about what happens when the perfectly coifed and styled rockabilly people get old. There they were. They were probably in their 50's, which is how old Alejandro is. The guy was balding and a little pompadour combed over, but still perfectly dressed in skinny pants and snakeskin boots and a vintage cowboy dress up shirt. One of the girls had pig tails and cat eye glasses and blonde hair. And the other girl looked like a corpse. I think she was ill. She had a giant sun hat on, in the evening, covered in flowers, and yellow ringlets hanging down and a lot of powder and the bright red rockabilly lips and sat so quiet and still in a little 50's suit.

We saw this show at the UCSC arboretum. I didn't really know what this place was-it's a botanical garden at the campus, full of australian and new zealand trees and plants. It was totally gorgeous, and the show was just some plastic chairs out in front of a little deck on a little hillside. We rode a tractor pulled wagon up to it from the parking place, which was a eucalyptus grove off the road. We brought beer and burritos and just hung out while he played an unplugged set (at some points so unplugged they just brought their guitars up to the chairs and played without any kind of plug at all). Totally beats going to a show in a bar. The sun was setting behind the trees and it got cold and I brought a blanket and a jacket and it was done nice and early. Even the rockabilly people looked older than me, maybe I am deluded. But most of the people there were pretty gray.

There's this ranch now on Freedom Blvd. I've seen it a couple times. It's price is 999K. Too much. But now I'm obsessed.


That's the view down from the house of the old barn. It's an old red barn. The property is 10 acres with a forest, a couple meadows, a graded place ou put an arena, old barn, old horse stalls, cute un-updated grandma house high up on the hill, looking over to the ridge where the Devine's house is. there's an apple orchard on a slope, from the house to where it flattens out in the barn area. A creek runs behind where the barn is, so you access the property from the arena part on a bridge.


That's the property map. Freedom Blvd is the road along the upper right of the picture. The front piece is where the arena goes, you can see the house all seperate, way up on the hill. It's a long, long steep driveway up there. There are no neighbors anywhere that you can see, it's a hike thru the forest or down the hill. It's not dead quiet-Freedom is a busy, loud road, but it feels very private and remote, with these gorgeous views. But it's at least $200,000 higher than what we can spend.

Practice makes perfect.

Last night after work, I stopped over at Dee's to practice by myself. This is a rare luxury for the space challeneged agility handler like me. I guess back in the day I would go to the park, dragging all my stuff out there and practicing with a few agility colleagues, but I didn't really work well with the others there, and it was a hard environment for my dogs-next to a large soccer game on one side, and bbq pit with ribs and chicken bones on the other. A lot of work for once a week, and not much fun for various reasons.

Having my own field to use is so huge. I was there for less than an hour, took a few minutes to set up a box and a nice rear cross staggered line. Made up one easy out/distance exersize that I could repeat and repeat until they had this long distance out going. Made up a fun little box pattern that could be done with rear crosses then front crosses, and sometimes calling off one obstacle-the tire to the table I used in the distance pattern, and sometimes using it. Then I made one other exersize with the poles and a-frame with a turning away jump sequence at the end, working on Ruby's speed in the poles, and Pop's distance from me on the entries and thru the poles. Just to be able to decided what I want to work on, and get to repeat it at the dogs' own paces is so good. To think some people can do this every day in their yards! Every time I screwed up, it was readily apparent to me exactly why, since I had planned the pattern and knew where I was supposed to be in it. And the dogs got nice and tired-this is why they are in such bad shape, they just don't practice to this level to where running a 19 obstacle course is a breeze.

I had the responsibility of all the livestock out there-making sure they stayed away from the goats, and the freaky sheep things. And the fact that I was a guest at someone else's field, at someone else's house that just my prescence likely irritated. Now that Dee's field is so close to the new barn, I hope I can go there a lot if it works out for the owner.

Having so much fun with the dogs makes me wonder why I think of them so differently than the horses. The horses are work. The dogs are family. I love horses, but they are animals to manage and control and put up with. The dogs are pure joy and fun to be around. I love training them. A lot of the time it's a chore to get on and school a client horse. I like working on the ground more. Maybe if I had less of a working relationship with them, and did fun activities with them. But it's kind of like work colleagues vs. family. You don't see me dying to get up at 4:30 every weekend to take kids out to a show or want to go back to resale horses and showing them. I think horses are what I love to help others with, and dogs are for me. Could I get rid of the horses? I don't think so. That's never worked. By wanting them at my house, I think I am trying to develop that dog like relationship with them. But there's always a different boundary there with them that I don't have with dogs.

This thing the Ladies like to do.

I don't have official stats. But I have some rough ideas about the types of people that gravitate to dog agility. It's different at the competitive level than it is at the class level, and it's different at the types of competition. I mainly compete in 2 venues-the USDAA-US Dog Agility association, and the CPE-Canine Performance Events. The CPE is a lot newer.

In comparison to the horse show world, the USDAA is a lot more like A show events, and the CPE is more like the B shows. The Bay Area is a hot bed for dog agility, with some of the biggest super stars and world cup trainers and competitiors all competing locally. I compete against them all the time, and it's always fun to hope I can beat them. Which I only very rarely do. They are mostly women. There are definitely men out there running, but it is mostly women. Most of them are over 40. A lot of them are over 50. There are few teenagers, since it's really hard to train your dog to learn agility while you are learning it. Some of the more successful teenagers have moms who do agility and probably got dragged around to a lot of dog shows. People that do agility are hooked-they drop everything to go to dog shows. Many of the older folks have RV's and this is their retirement job. There are a few husbands that make up some of the full time ring crew and gate steward jobs.

Lots of border collies, shelties, and jack russells. Especially in the USDAA. Some other types, some mixed breed types, but those are the preferred dogs for winning. In the CPE, there are lots more dog dogs. People with dogs who got into it and will do agility with their pet dogs. I think this is what I like about CPE. Although I like training my dogs to be competitive in the USDAA as well. It feels like the pro league. There is no sitting around in the USDAA. We are workers.

These are women that talk to their dogs, and like to talk about their dogs. Many conversations overheard at dog agility (I am not a big conversation haver, because I am a little freaked out by ladies of dog agility) are one sided. One person talks about their dog, then the next person talks about her dog. It's not really a conversation exactly, more like people telling other people about their dogs. And about their runs in Great Detail. It is really easy to obsess over tiny mistakes that cost you the qualifier or sent your dog out.

I think the dogs' performance is very much a reflection of who you are. If you have a good, fast dog, you are a good person. Your dog is sort of so so? That may speak to your character. You are not a great handler, your dog screws up a lot, is slow? Maybe you can shout the reasons that you are hoping for in your head as you exit the ring "Fluffy is so tired today!" but deep down you know you just aren't good enough. But if you can change your dog, maybe you can be a better person. And the dogs will only love you more and more and more. Your dog runs perfect? It must love you the most and you are a good person for training it that well. It's kind of a control freak thing. Anorexia for the chubby. But possibly just as disturbing. I am a bad, bad person when my dogs are just not good enough.

In the USDAA, people are a little more fit and upscale. More folks from San Jose, and Marin. Purebred dogs. Professors and software engineers who run shows like little armies. A few more men than usual. In the CPE, there are more folks from the valley. A little chunkier, smoke more, more trucks than new SUV's. Tight gray haired perms instead of fancier hair cuts. Loose lavender sleeveless blouses tucked into flowery shorts. More sporty clothes at the USDAA. And tie dye-goes with the age range and maybe sort of Bay Area thing.

But one thing about all these people, they just plain old love dogs more than anything. Really, more than anything else in the world I think. To do what they do and spend the time they do, that's just how it is. This thing is fun. So even if I think some of the ladies are so different than me, and I am scared of becoming a short gray haired lady in stretchy jeans with a plus size purple shirt and a giant dog cartoon on it with stickers all over my car advertising dog agiltiy, I still have something in common with her. Agility is just too damn fun.

Dog show duJour.

This last weekend started at 4:30am, the time I had the clock set to. Luckily, Timmy had to go out at 3:30am, and I never went back to sleep, so I didn't even need to hear the alarm. Thanks Timmy! Ruby loves to get up early for agility-she knows that's where we're going and sort of runs around the house while I'm getting ready in general excitement. Otterpop, on the other hand, gets into bed with Gary and I have to drag her out of there when it's time to get in the car. Timmy just gets confused as to why everyone is up in the middle of the night with him.

We get into the car at 4:45, ready for the exciting and fast 2 1/2 hour drive ahead of us. The dogs go automatically asleep. I have 2 travel mugs of coffee ready. Ipod plugged in. Car has been packed all night. I have even started making my sandwiches at night due to forgetting my sandwiches (I hate dog show fat food) too many times.

This week's show was in Elk Grove. Somewhere between Stockton and Sacramento. There are many cows and a prison near by. I have to be alert not to miss it's freeway exit. If I drive extra fast, I can get there in about 2 hours. I love my ipod so much-that has made dog agility Sundays that much easier except the drive to Elk Grove has a lot of weird radio zones where it doesn't work as well (it plays over FM radio on a magic thing) so my This American Life episodes become unlistenable at some point. I only wish I could talk to my ipod so I didn't have to look at it to find new things to listen to. It's possible I can and I just don't know how.

I got there before 7am, found a perfect place to set up, and set up my little camp. It was hot, so I brought my tent thing and put the dogs' xpen and crate underneath. I put a ugly green shade cloth over the whole thing for Otterpop (escape artist) and so they don't have to look at dogs walking back and forth all day.

They both had 5 classes each, although I ended up scratching Otterpop's last jumpers run of the day in the heat. Otterpop had one great, fast run inside the covered arena. The rest of her runs were just kind of lackadasical-she sort of lopes around then wants to go play fast with her frisbee. At least she isn't barking at judges anymore. I think she is still a little stressed out about being in the ring without her toy, and I think it will go away with the right kind of training. I just have to figure out what that is.

Ruby was on fire. Her first class it was bad onfire though, because she was flying off of contacts and running every which way. She settled down to good and controllable fast later on, won a couple classes, got a couple Q's (Qualifying score) and then started hitting bars by the end of the day. The bar hitting is disturbing. This was at a lower jump height, and she still takes off long enough at top speed that she just jumps thru them.

Otterpop Q'ed in everything, and actually won all her classes as well, but the competition at her level in CPE is pretty low so it's not saying a whole lot. No one believes me when I tell them she is the faster of the 2 dogs. Otterpop never lopes anywhere. Except in the dog show ring.

We made it out of there around 5pm and were home by 7:30ish. It might seem insane, but I really love these dog shows. I don't have many friends at them. I am shy and also I have a hard time relating to most of the ladies there. I sort of hang out on my own, work a lot (if I'm not running, I am working at a ring) and run my dogs. I love working rings and watching all the runs. I am considering becoming a CPE judge at some point, although without a practice field to make up courses with, it would be a challenge. CPE has a lot of heavy ranch type ladies with hard working dogs and who smoke and wear all dog themed clothing in plus sizes. A lot of tightly curled gray hair. A few Pat types-there are definitely a lot of lesbians in dog agility, CPE has the Pat type ones that are easy to identify sex of though because of the sports bras visible under t-shirts in the heat. And hot it was, in the 80's. Ruby used to not run in the heat, now you just show her a piece of chicken and tell her that's waiting for her if she's fast, and it works like a charm. Otterpop isn't quite so easy. She's a little more complicated than Ruby.

Ruby has her neurosis, but is pretty cut and dried. She just is a worry wart. Otterpop, on the other hand, is a hard dog to figure out sometimes. She is plain old stubborn. Ruby wants to do the right thing but can't always manage it. Otterpop does not want to do the right thing. She pushes buttons. She is a brat at heart. Timmy is just Timmy, and he doesn't have to go to the dog shows. He stays home with Gary and has pancakes and sleeps in.

Everybody on their own trips.

At the ranch, everybody just does their own thing and so far there are no crazy people. Likely, there will be some crazy people but we just haven't met them yet. Today, it was easy to just be out there and work and teach lessons and move the jumps around and the horses were good and the people weren't crazy. This is a good sign. At the old ranch, all that happened was that people were crazy and everything was hard and irritating. Here, it is just fine. It enabled me to come home and start packing up for the dog show of the weekend. In Elkgrove.

On the way home, I drove by a ranch. It was a 2 acre lot where they are building big houses with a fancy road near by. Just off Larkin Valley Road. It isn't on the market, my realtor is friends with the owner and they want to sell off the market. The house was a dump that's converted into a triplex and has a weird little unit on it. It appraised for 1.4 million. For a 2 acre field with some dumpy old houses.

I also looked at a 10 acre place with a weird 2 story house high up on a hill, just off of Freedom Blvd this week. It has an old barn and some funny buidlings and about 6 acres of redwood forsest. It's hard to tell just what's on that property. It is under one million dollars. By one thousand dollars. Still higher than we have the money for. The old barn is red and falling down, and the house looks like a colonial suburbia 2 story crossed with a redwood forest a-frame. A lot of the property is a hill but it was ingtriguing. A big bonus is the back of the property line touches the property line of the evil Santa stepdad old customer of ours. I am pretty sure he would not be a good neighbor. It would be a long walk through the forests to get to his house though. Directly across the ridge is the Devine Ranch, another old customer that built a 20 million dollar ranch on 80 stunning acres and the most beautiful barn ever in the world. Like I could live in one stall and be happy. Then a pipe burst under the expensive stonework somewhere in the giant tahoe lodge house beautiful house and they had to move and get all new expensive leather furniture. The house on the 10 acre place looks across the road at their ridge with their house. But at least this place has a ridge!


Here's our horse shoer Pierre. He is from France and brings his baby and his 2 year old horse shoeing. Super dad does not even begin to describe Pierre.

Civil disobedience with obedient dogs.

Last night was the big Friends of Lighthouse Field broohahha panel festival featuring Assemblyman John Laird, Santa Cruz Mayor Emily Reilly, State Parks Regional Superintendant Dave Vincent, State writer of Reports Lisa Foster, and Santa Cruz County Animal Control Head Honcho of Control Todd Stosuy. Besty Firebough, who has 2 aussies, one of which once chased baby otterpop out of the park when she wasn't looking, was the moderator of the panel and was sharp and did a good job.

This is too long of a subject to sum up here. We've been dealing with it since 2001, and it has involved lawsuits and is beyond coming up with good ideas or going to city council meetings to ask for help. I used to have a way back blog about it but that is long gone. Folf.org has a pretty good summnation of most of the goings on. It's all about loopholes and interpretation of the General Plan and SEQA.

But I guess come November we need to be ready to get ticketed or arrested for it. I am wondering though, what happens to our dogs if we are arrested? And how do those of us with multiple dogs figure out that ticket cost, I think on state lands, it's $120 per dog per ticket. I am worried civil disobedience will clean me out. Financially at the moment, from the move, life pretty much sucks. It's neat to look forward to the future and see it sucking even more.

Life is getting expensive. A pretty nice house with parcel came up on the market yesterday for 999k. Under a million. It's clear our price range is no longer that luxurious. And the car needs fixing, the credit card needs paying, the dog needs pills and blood work, it just goes on and on. Maybe time to work harder.

He was guarding the seal and wearing a purse.

Driving the dogs to the beach at night, I see the lady who had the affair right after she got married, got pregnant and then divorced, with the baby and she looks pregnant again and commented on my short hair. She talks a lot and her baby never talks or smiles when I see him. On the beach, a Marine rescue guy was holding court at a beached sea lion and had stuff strapped over his shoulder and was handing out cards. He chased away any dogs that ran to the sea lion and wore his khaki pants unusually high up over his waist. A lot of people I don't know were down at the beach last night, it was so hot out and everyone brought their dog to the beach. Ladies I don't know walk by and comment on little dogs chasing a frisbee. I keep Timmy out of big dogs' way and where he can always hear me so he doesn't get confused.

At the new ranch, the have been getting asphalt grindings from Watsonville repaving and building out some roads with them. The owner worked for a big construction company for years, his dad for an even bigger one. It's essentially a mafia in that world and they get the asphalt trucked to them for possibly free. They own big tractors and compactors and the 2 of them plus their groom built a bunch of roads in 2 days. 3 guys, 2 big tractors, and 175 truckloads of crushed asphalt. It smells of road tar and is loud and they have giant hoses to water it down. They are big guys who started this work the day they graduated high school. The owner has hot rods and customized old trucks and a huge blue harley motorcycle that all live in their own building. His jack russells follow him sometimes, sometimes they stay locked in the tack room. His dad is old and drives around the golf cart most of the time, with a little chihuahua that rides along. The groom also shoes horses, rides, breaks and speaks perfect english. The other laborer there, Jacinto, gets up at 3am to clean stalls at all 3 ranches. His wife helps feed then babysits the owner's baby all day, and then they feed again in the evening. His 3 little boys translate for him, he has no words of english, nor does his wife. A lot of customers come and go there, most are blonde girls in their 20's with nice cars. Their horses' blankets stay on all day, even in the heat.

On the way out yesterday, I stopped at Seascape beach to run the dogs before they had to sit in their pen. A man came up behind me on the path, with sun proof hat and short shorts and a poodle strapped onto him, he was speed walking and hitched to his ipod and never looked my way. Our horse shoer brought his new baby to work with him. He's a french cowboy, with a 2 year old and an infant. His wife works hard too, and of their two jobs, horse shoeing seemed like the easiest to also do full time childcare with. Go figure. I had my working student, a sorority girl who loves to talk and check email on her phone, watch his daughter for part of the day. Later that day, a well coifed wrangler wearing customer of the ranch owner, came galloping by our seating area on his arab and ran up the steep hill to the dressage ring.

All the neighbors want to know.

I would be nosy too if every cop in town were out in bullet proof vests hiding behind cars on my street and then it was in the paper about the resident holding a gun to someone's head.

It's hot out and sunny. Everything about the day feels like it should feel perfect and there are so many flowers. The sky is bright blue and I hear one neighbor gagging and one neighbor hammering and all the other ones driving down the street. If neighbor Richard comes to his window right now, I will see him, but I planted the big ferns so he can't see me. My neighbor's brother over the fence working, I guess she is still in jail. I'm not sure. I don't think I'm going over there right now.

Bullet proof vests.

It was kind of a busy morning. I went back in the house to take the dogs for a walk and noticed police cars blocking off our street on both sides of my house. Just as the police dispatcher called to ask me not to leave my house. So I figured that there was a big neighbor issue, but likely one involving Bruce's gun. Bruce is my neighbor's deceased husband. Who died and left her a big hole in her life that she fills with drinking and depression and big huge loser boyfriends. A way back, currrent loser boyfriend told me he had it safely locked up. But he is also a pathological liar and frankly, a nutjob so I'm not sure why I ever belived that. I do exersize caution when going in to check if she is dead sometimes.

I decided I wanted to leave my house so I got all the dogs and put them in the car. A panicky looking cop motioned me down to his end of the street and I asked him, is it Jeanine with the gun? He said it was. He asked me a few questions, like had I seen her (another dispatcher had called my house asking if I had her) or who I had seen. I said I just wanted to get out of there. I took the dogs down to the beach, hoping she wasn't shooting anyone. Which truly isn't her nature. I heard sirens when I was at the beach and it wasn't very nice to be down there so I decided to go back. Put the dogs away. Before I went out to work to check on things at the new ranch.

Our street was still blocked off, with the officers crouched behind cars ala swat team and the Wire. I drove over to the circle church for some reason and that turned out to be the staging area. Joe saw me and came running over when I went up. A detective came to talk to me. Automatically I told Joe to go away and sit down and not talk. He had a bloody shirt and was crying, which isn't unusual. He sat under a tree. He wasn't cuffed, so I knew it was him that called the cops on this whole thing, making it possibly bogus. I asked the detective if anyone had called her brother, and he said they were doing that just then. He wanted other cell phone numbers from me, but I only have the brother. No one else should be called-he had wanted to call her mom and daughter. I guess they didn't know if she was there, or had gone. Joe was begging me to drive around to see if she had jumped off a cliff. He always thinks she will do that, and she never does. So I gave them some info and left.

When I came back from work, it was all gone, just some detectives in the yard I hadn't seen before. They weren't nice. They had arrived to the scene after they took Jeanine. I asked was she ok? They said yes. I asked if she was arrested or in psych. They said, oh, arrested. She had been in her hiding place in the yard. Oh yeah. Poor Jeanine. This one might send her to jail for real. And she needs to be in a psych ward. It made me so mad, the time I was in the emergency room with her and they evaluated her and said she didn't need help. Was just a drunk. Which isn't true. She's a drunk because she needs help and we can't get her to get it. But at least no one got shot. I think. Their renter is in the hospital, so maybe. The brother came over later and he wasn't sure. He didn't really know what to do either. Neither of us could find the dog.

I drive around and around in Petaluma.

On the way up to Petaluma, I drove into a black hole of not finding my motel and finally I found it. It was dark and late and most Motel 6's you can see from the freeway. But not this one. It was hidden behind a strip mall. I would get off the freeway, stay one the freeway, drive on country roads, use the force. It took a while. It was a lovely Motel 6. In the world of dog agility, I like to do it up right. I rarely stay over night for a dog show so it's nice to have a luxury splurge like this. My own queen sized bed. A tv with quite a few channels! A tiny soap and 2 towels. Free ice! The dogs love to stay in motels and enjoy running around the room and jumping on the bed for about an hour until I make them go to sleep. All Motel 6's have the same blotchy pink, purple and teal color scheme on the bedspreads and plastic shower inserts. This one had a pool though! Which we did not use since I got there at about 10pm. But we did have a nice stroll around the grounds and enjoy the thoughtfully large font of the address numbers used to number each door, vertically. I was room 137. I even had my own parking space right in front!

I like going to Petaluma though, it's a little bit of a longer drive but not that bad, and I can have dinner with Brody and family on the way up at their bay view mansion on the hill in Tiburon. Cole enjoys teensy tiny dogs and they have steak there. So I vote for more dog shows in Petaluma. And I just looked on the website, which would have helped to do before I went and found more coffee near the beautiful motel, which was a problem at 6am and sent me to a derelict donut shop because I was in a hurry. On the map, it looks like I could have found Starbucks galore had I just been a little bit more patient.

The dogs were essentially good. Otterpop's new thing now is why should I run fast in the show ring because the frisbee is outside the show ring? So she clocks around, not super slow but not all that fast. Kind of lopes. Then when you are running out, towards where she knows I leave the frisbee at the gate, she speeds up and goes for it. So she made Q's, and received her official AD title, but it's really pretty half assed. I have to figure that one out.

Ruby on the other hand always goes for it, except her last run at the very end of the day in the heat, where she just seemed a little pooped. Ironically, she Q'd on that run. But all her other super speedy runs had enough of an error that she didn't Q. And I forgot to write down her times. Her standard was stunning but she knocked the very last bar on the course. She got the hard part of the gamble in her gamblers run then I screwed up the easier ending. I moved too quick on the closing of her snookers putting her on an off course. The usual small errors that are just enough to not Q. I have a hard time not being perfect. I watch other people and see some of the best people out there making errors too but I still want to be perfect and be the best one out there and without practicing more, it's not happening.

we just finished move to a new ranch.

it is my goal to leave work earlyish on saturday so i could come to your house 6:30ish...we will see how that goes. we just finished move to a new ranch.

it is a million times nicer than the crappy one, but it is just insane moving a business with horses and employees and customers and tons of junk. i still feel like i am running around w my head cut off. it is like having an art show except some of the horses hate their stalls and some of the customers don't like the commute (it is 45 minutes from my house and the old barn was 20) and the ranch owners haven't finished the improvements so there is a construction site near the barn and regina let the dogs out so the dogs ran thru the arena and they are supposed to be locked in the tackroom and the moms have to learn how to help their kids get ginger out of the pasture and can i teach the cats to sleep in the feedroom so they get the large rats and jacinto doesn't work on wednesday and boone's bridle doesn't fit and where is my girth and so on and so forth every single second i am out there.

A lot of things to do.

Moving is harder than I ever think it will be. It's all been going well, and it looks super organized, but it's not organized to point where things run like clockwork which is how I like it. So most of the day I spend looking for something, and in that process lose the thing I was holding for whatever I was doing before I had to look for something. All my helpers and working students sort of make things more difficult. except for the few of them that I can give a job to do and they just do it all by themselves and perfectly. I am apparently not the kind of person that should be a supervisor. I am a control freak and too mean.

The new barn is beautiful and quiet and clean and a million times better, but not without it's share of issues. Which I have a feeling will work themselves out in a month of so, but in that month I will likely not sleep that well. Between Timmy and waking up in the night myself wondering how the kid will have time to get up to the pasture to pull the gray pony up and should I just have her ride a horse in the barn, I don't sleep. Like these are the pressing questions of the day. At least I am not waking up about the melting polar ball ice balls in 50 years but I probably will as soon as the barn settles down.

We had agility last night. I thought it would be a quick trip across Watsonville and I could get there so easily from the new place, but such is Wastonville traffic at 5:30. Heavy and a lot of lights. So I still get to class late. My students are doing better but I wish they were doing more better. My dogs were pretty good and I ran my instructor's big dog, but I wish I ran them better. Basically, I just want everything perfect and error free all the time. I think being post move makes this even more so.

This weekend we go up to Petaluma for a dog show. Nice quick drive. I have found that I can take the dogs to run down at Seascape on the way to the new barn, that is a plus. Not that it's a super quick trip but it is a place they can really run. If I can get up early enough. Being a commuter is a whole new thing demanding a whole new organization level as well.

Two of the girls that I had out to work yesterday had magic phones that do email in a tiny screen. I had no idea. I have heard of the blackberry but these were phones and apparently even I could do this. I gave a 10 year a ride out to the barn the other day and she spent the whole ride telling me about magic things I could make the ipod do that I had no idea. I have become a luddite even though I thought I was a big huge geek.

Yes I know I look like a Witch.

Last night I had to go check drunk alcoholic neighbor because drunk drug addict neighbor came to get me at 11pm when I was asleep because she wouldn't talk to him. Someone had bashed in the door. I went over earlier when he came to get me and her lawyer friends/old clients were there and they were all talking about rehab. We'll see. I just never know who is lying and who is on what, it's very confusing. I made Gary come over with me last night because it was so late and he doesn't really get the scope of the situation. He was a little more freaked out and actually barricaded the house from inside and locked the back door. I think I have everyone's keys right now. I have checkbooks, drivers liscenses, keys. Anyways, we just left drunk alcholic neighbor, who seemed really drunk but not anything out of the ordinary or near death, barricaded in her own house and hopefully she can get out this morning and drunk drug addict neighbor has to just stay in the garage. That's all I can every figure out to do with him. He usually stays there for a while if I order him in there.

Now Ruby doesn't like to run next to my bike so I have Timmy in the back bike basket, Ruby in the front bike basket, and Otterpop running fast next to the bike. Usually with a frisbee in her mouth. I cannot take a picture of this because I am working too hard to balance and make sure all dogs are in the right spot. Lots of people like to point it out to me that I have lots of dogs! I look like a witch! I look like a Dorothy! I have lots of dogs!

The cats love the new ranch and have decided to live on top of the hay. The dogs don't like their dog run but that's all I can figure out right now. The horses love it ok, Jane is a little freaked out that she can't see out the door to all her neighbors all the time, but I moved her a bit yesterday and we'll see if the new spot makes her happier. The owner loves selling horses and is good at it and I can see why. I had her around much of the day talking up horses right and left. It will be useful once we get going because there is a plethora of horses around to put people on but right now it is overwhelming and frankly irritating. Just want to get to work out there. Which I will today.