Oh sorry. Boring dog training again.

If I had called him Hobbit, he would truly be like a mini Hobbes.

What has Gustavo been learning? Besides what fun it is to chew on pillows, glasses, buttons, pens, books and paintbrush handles? And Get the Cat. And I hate Pumpkins. And drop the bird if you catch it in your mouth.

Stay. There is a lot of stay around our house, particularly if you are a dog and you want to eat. Or get in the car. You need to know stay and you need to know your name. Because I am pretty stubborn about that one and NO ONE eats or gets in the car until EVERYONE stays. But we are working on it now, like, say you are on an agility field and you want to get over that jump or into a tunnel. Because that is way more exciting than even dog food or getting in the car. So we're working on a startline stay and using it to get us some good drive. I put him in a down probably way too much but he will stay put there and his sitting and staying is weak. So I'm trying to make sure I have him on a sit sometimes. I am a pretty lazy trainer. There are just so many dogs that when I want them all to stay put and not go anywhere, downs are easier.

Tugging with agility. He gets to play a lot. I don't know how old this dog is but he's still a puppy as far as I can tell. He gets a lot of turns when we practice, but sometimes they are very, very short with mostly just tugging. He is a tug machine. He is so little I usually just sit in the dirt with him. I have a lot of dirty pants.

Teeter. Started working on his teeter using the tables. He flips into a down at the yellow. This is Otterpop's teeter and it makes for a mighty fast small dog teeter. He likes it. It's fast. Just going the slow boat to teeter route with him because he is so little and there are too many little dogs that get scared. Even the brave Bodyguard herself, Otterpop, still has lingering teeter issues and will not do a teeter with me far away still.

Contacts. 2O2O. Trying to get a solid nose touch, he is a nose brusher, but he has the feet and head down great. He is just down at the end of the dog walk and a-frame, and on a little board, but I just bought a friend's contact trainer so he is going to learn in style, unlike my other poor dogs. The new tiny concrete driveway agility yard is taking shape. We will soon have a complete freak show equipment driveway for all the neighbors to mock.

Jumping. Easy grids, easy singles, and angles, wraps, front crosses, the tire, easy, easy easy, and starting to work a bit of a go-on as well. He is not a great fetcher, but he likes to run out for his tug thing then he is training me to run out there too and tug with him. What the hell. I need the exercise. He is not a frisbee hog like Pop, he would rather chase the other dogs that chase things. He could herd guinea pigs maybe. Or tiny miniature sheep.

Would you go see this movie?

In this scene, Susan Garrett comes riding down into the training driveway on a red powder coated broomstick pulled by her border collie and her jack russell. She is wearing a tennis skirt and has a tiny little witch hat on her head. Kind of like the movie critic on in Living Color used to wear.

She lands, and puts her dogs onto a perfect down. Does a super model head twist fling hair flip of her little bob, looking at where our protagonist has all her dogs out in the yard and is painting the roof. Protagonist dogs are busy digging holes in the plants. There are lots of them! Holes and dogs.

Looking at the weave poles, with cages still on one side of them, she announces, "Using my 2 by 2 method of teaching weave poles is the superior way to teach poles. IF you want superior poles." With that, she sends DeCaff and Encore simultaneously through the poles, perfectly, from 50 feet away. Even though the driveway isn't 50 feet away and is barely 50 feet long, the cinematographer can figure this one out so it looks REALLY REALLy far away. And the weave poles look REALLY REALLY good.

Our protagonist starts to cry. Her dogs are laying in the dirt, chewing sticks. The puppy, who is supposed to have figured out his weave poles by now, is eating an ipod cord.

Susan Garrett cries, "Good god. Is that dog eating an ipod cord? DeCaff, remove that from his mouth and bring it to me."

The jack russell does this. She also spells out the letters B-A-D D-O-G in sign language as he drops the cord at the witch's feet.

The evil witch Garrett asks, "Have you followed my foundation training to the letter? Where is your manual?"

Our protagonist shakes her head. Miserably. She has paint in her eye. She is still up on the ladder.

This is where the witch would break into a jazzy number, sort of like a song from Chicago maybe, about successful training and planning and how all it takes is some witchcraft or magic or good training mechanics and an accurate training journal. She would rip off her tennis outfit to reveal another, tinier and more sparkly tennis outfit underneath and her personally trained abs. All the dog toys in the yard all become animated (in a very Rudolph claymation way-no Pixar shit here) and dance around to this catchy song and the bad dogs are sort of laying in the dirt watching, except for the puppy who starts chasing the dancing stuffed squirrels with no eyes around and the witch dogs are doing complicated gymnastics. But let's be clear-not canine freestyling.

The protagonist is still on the ladder, looking even more miserable. The song would become a sort of duet with the paint speckled ladder girl having sort of whining harmonies about not having enough time to train and she really is doing her best and the witch answers with much jazzier, disco inflected parts about successful training happening in 30 second bursts if your mechanics are skillfull enough and you are truly a good trainer. The chorus has all the stuffed toys clicking clickers in a conga line, going "Click and treat! Click and treat!To the rhumba beat!" and the dogs that were laying in the dirt start getting up and doing repetitions of sit, down and stand and backflips in time to the music.

And I take that back about John Travolta. He could play a singing and dancing judge in the big Steeplechase Finals scene.

John Travolta is NOT invited to be in this one.

Last night, we were watching the new version of Hairspray, with the big production numbers. And I was thinking, this is what dog agility needs. A super big production number musical about a rising dog agility star, who has to fight all the odds (bad outfits, ugly cars, Turlock, mean dogs, mean girls, her dog runs away, Susan Garrett, stuff like that) and then in the end, wins the Grand Prix and Steeplechase at the USDAA Nationals and is asked to join the World Team (leaving an opening for the sequel).

There would be giant, swirling, song and dance numbers with all the dogs and exhibitors in the most beautiful outfits, Santino would do all the costumes. Loads of singing with peppy songs like, Stop That Contact and Play With Your Dog. Not only would there be exciting choreography and giant hats but also the best circus dog trainers would be brought in so the dogs would be jumping and leaping over things like a synchronized swimming match of circus dogs with overhead crane shots on a dog agility field. The dog equipment would of course be all stunning and glittery and art directed and the ending would be very, very happy. We may even let Courtney Love be in it.

If I spend all my time thinking about things like this, then that is one less space to worry about global warming and all the christmas shopping crap adding more onto global warming and the birds dying and the rainforests. Hmm. Rainforest destruction or plan a storyboard sketch for the ending Steeplechase scene with the pink lame costumes and the course looks like a miniature golf course with a gothic skatepark theme? No contest.

What does he do if you hit him over the head with a bed pan?

Do you notice the white paint on his foot and the clean floor? Let's try another round of Jingle Bells.

Monday is my day off. Today isn't my day off. I have nothing funny to tell you today.

I love Mondays. Boy, I could have kept you in stitches yesterday. Instead, I slaved around the house. I actually got to meet one of our roofers. Who is working for our roofer. Who comes over every so often to finish our roof. Which isn't actually finished. But should be waterproof, if it actually did rain, since now that we have a roof, global warming has kicked in and it doesn't rain. We had to share the ladder, he was up on top of the roof, coating it with whatever you coat special weird roofs like ours with, and I was under the roof, painting it. He is from Denmark and really wants to quit roofing to become a pilot in Florida. I still didn't finish painting, and he still didn't finish roofing. Someday.


Proof.

I also found an organization in Santa Cruz/San Jose that you can sign up your dog to be a therapy dog with only 7 pages of paperwork called FurryFriends.org. I will have to wear a t-shirt with that word on it. That is teal. There is only one place they take dogs to in Santa Cruz on Sundays, an old folks home in Capitola. Gustavo has to go and pass a test in Sunnyvale in January to see if he is afraid of wheelchairs or screams if hit with a walker, and if he passes, maybe they will let me go. I guess I won't be visiting any old folks for Christmas time in my holiday outfit, singing Jingle Bells. But this one seems more hopeful. Then you only go on every third Sunday. So I have to hope dog shows don't come up on third Sundays of the month.

I even washed my floor yesterday. I tried to be a good homemaker. It is possible I am somewhat unconventional as a wife. My husand got somewhat ripped off. I pretty much don't cook or clean, I don't have kids, never mow the lawn, and I like to put taxidermy in the house. I have compromised on the taxidermy issue, and we are down to very limited taxidermy inside the house. If it is a deer head and any part of it is rotting, it has to live in the garage. No one can ever say I don't make compromises.

A perfect Monday would involve perfect weave poles from Gustavo (let's give that a few years), low tide and no one rolling in seal carcass, black thin pens that don't run out of ink and always finding the perfect photo, and my computer battery not dying. Also if it happened on my ranch or beach house in Stinson Beach. And I could sing Jingle Bells to an old person holding a dog. And I had pleasant trail horses living in my yard. And sushi. I better stop now.

One full gas tank and 2 travel mugs full.

The Rio Consumnes Prison at Sunset.

To get to where the dog shows are in Elk Grove, get up at 4:30am, drive past the freshly smashed deer on Highway 17 in the dark, go over Altamont Pass where the Hells Angels killed someone during a Rolling Stones concert during hippies, go through Stockton, turn where you can barely see the sign, pass the prison, hit a bird, make sure to turn after the little horse sign, drive REALLY REALLY slow down the driveway next to the cows, and you are there at 7am! Try not to stay up amost all night the night before because you were drinking margaritas at Palomar.

The big kudos today goes to Otterpop, who won Every Single One of her Good Sized Classes, and rightfully so. She was running like her frisbee was buzzing around in front of her. She was slamming contacts like a tubby little machine. She was racking up points like a, well, like a point racker. Their gamble equivalent in CPE was sort of oddball, and gave small dogs something like 50 seconds to rack up the points in a sort of snookery way and we found 60 points. Which is a heckuva lotta points for a shortie. We did an aggressive-ish Snookers and made it. (I did a HIGHLY aggressive Snooker with Ruby and got whistled off when she back jumped the last red jump in my attempted insanity of making it work. Thanks Tim Gunn.) Flew through Standard and all her other classes. This was the Otterpop I practice with! Thanks Otterpop!

Ruby was actually awesome, but so wild that we had errors every so often and didn't do as well. Even though it's CPE. She is challenging to handle when she's so, um, crazy. But she cracks me up because she is so happy to be out there and SO FAST! She did Q in almost everything, but also hit a couple bars, had the wild Snooker, and had one of those nutso Standard runs that just made me start cracking up at the end where the last error (there were a few others) was totally her and not me, because she was so wild and so far out (thanks all my gamblers practicing!) to the side and we had a wacky comedy run that had me running to the end cackling of the hysteria of it all. After stopping dead in my tracks, just standing there, in my nice rear cross position while she was like halfway across the ring because she wanted to be doing the non existent gamble 30 feet away. HELLO it is STANDARD Ruby!

So it was actually very fun, even if Ruby didn't win all her classes too. When she is like that, it is a good problem to have. Everyone was pretty cheerful there and no griping and freaking out and complaining. It is sort of a nicer crowd there I think. Not a bad way to spend a day. In Elk Grove. Where it's so flat. And we were treated to a stunning sunset over the prison yards on our drive out. One full gas tank from home.

Ew. Are there really scabs in her muffins?

Hey remember the weird realtor who kept telling me the house was not for sale and how it would be for sale for One Point Three Million Sometime in the future? On Wednesday, a new sign went up and yesterday it came up on the mls. For $980,000. Which is basically almost a million and too much for me. Also outside of the Gary Drive Zone. But so very curious, these realtor games. I drove up on the property last night on the way home from work. Because I am a real estate stalker and also just cannot resist doing this to myself. It is sort of like picking off a painful scab. You cannot stop doing it and it hurts but you also cannot stop doing it. Kind of like finishing up the pie.

Today's long day at work ends in showing a pony to a potential buyer that just sounds like a diasaster and plane wreck waiting to happen. I love waiting all day for a nightmarish end of my day. It just makes that day so much more fun. This whole lying, evil Emily Reilly and cohorts and evil, unethical attorneys thing just has me in the black place of all things. I'll just go snap out of that now.

Does the unibomber shack have showers?

Now it's not Thanksgiving anymore, and I have to go to work. I am still real bent out of shape about the findings from the secret legal sellout dealings of the State Park and the Santa Cruz City Council (if you are even slightly interested, the pdf's of the paper trail of the lawyers are here on the Sellout Timeline) which basically mean that for the last 2 years, all the representatives of the City, including Mayor Emily Reilly, owner of Emily's Bakery which I'm done setting foot in even though it's the only muffins right on the way to work, have been looking all us people that just want to keep walking our dogs where we always have straight in the eye and LYING. Yep. Very simple. Just out and out lying to face lying.

Same deal with Coonerty, member of Bookshop Santa Cruz clan, a business I used to support completely and have forever and now, forget about it. Mr. support your local independent bookstore, don't shop the chains, we are good peoples here. Out and out lying for 2 years. Love the politics. It makes me feel all unibomber-shack-loving gun-toting-libertarian ghost-mountain-rider-Boulder Creek joining. Super groovy progressive government, all greenbelts and recycling and love for the homeless, looking people dead in the eye and LYING about what they've already put into motion, signed sealed and delivered.

Oops, sorry so ranty. So very bloggy!

Princess Diana. Thankful we own a house in a fine community such as ours and we can at least walk our dogs on leashes and enjoy the beach from a paved walkway at a distance! Thanks City and State!

Um, more bloggy fun news. Dog show this Sunday. In Elkgrove. Covered arena. Get up 4:30am. You know the drill. Thankful for dogs and family and a job and Team Small Dog.

Nice happy thanksgiving chop that turkey head at the neck.

Nice leashes.

In the interest of customer service and Princess Diana and Thanksgiving I thought I would write a nice story about pie making and the beautiful sunny day and good dogs and fairies with wings. Then I opened up the paper, the quaint, Norman Rockwell old fashioned paper driveway kind, and read about the newest Lighthouse Field development involving the secret legal fee payoff between the City of Santa Cruz and the State Parks and how the whole dog thing is just a big sham and bah humbug and get those dogs off the beach. Like talk about no Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or Kurt Cobain. Chop that big turkey head off it's neck right now. I hate being the naive doof who gets the wool eye pulled over then it makes me want to go out and slash tires with my grindy teeth and slitty eyes and foul language spewing unedited mouth.

Handle it like a Princess.

So at the trial this weekend, in Masters Gamblers, you had to run around for 35 seconds, get a lot of points, then when the buzzer went off, run over to the jump behind the yellow line, send the dog out to the right about 30 feet to a set of weave poles and over another jump. While you are behind the yellow line. Not a lot of dogs were getting it-it's hard enough to do the weave poles at a far distance, let alone with a turn off of a jump that made a very hard entrance to the poles. Like would have been hard enough without being 30 feet away.

So when I practiced Tuesday, of course I set it up. And of course Ruby kept acing it no matter how much farther I got back, or set up new jump angles to make it even worse, like making the 3rd jump even farther out so she had to turn away from me after the poles and get it. She is unstoppable when we practice. You show her once, she is ON IT. Otterpop was getting it too, except missed the entry on some of her turns, speeding ahead to the third pole. She does this sometimes when she's in a hurry and I do not stand still in EXACTLY the right spot. I just yell at her and pull her back around and she hits it the next time. She did this once at the trial. Bad habit. 5 faults-refusal. Just start at the FIRST pole Otterpop! Look at That One! Not the slasher sitting there!

My dogs are SO MUCH faster and consistent when I practice by myself. They are faster and more consistent when I practice in class. They are fairly fast and somewhat inconsistent when I am at the dog show. There are tons of reasons why. Stress. Unfamiliar venue. Unfamiliar equipment. I do not have the frisbee. Or piece of cheese or any type of rotting food on my person. Judges or ring crew sitting or standing too close to the start line. Judges or ring crew standing anywhere near a contact. Heidi Klum. Freddie Krueger. Boredom from sitting around bored the whole day. The hot sun. Sore back. Sore legs. Woke up on wrong side of bed.

Come on dogs! I have been working on being someone that does not complain and has a sunny disposition and provides cheerful customer service! Come on dogs! Just go fast and be consistent at the dog show too! What would Princess Diana do? Run out fast to those weave poles EVERY SINGLE TIME, with no complaints or excuses and with Style. Always remember Princess Diana and not Courtney Love. Thank you dogs!

I thought I would go visit the old people.

I got all the paperwork from this place called Therapy Dogs International. I want to take Gustavo to visit old people in nursing homes. Because most people freak out with joy when they meet him and want him to sit on their laps and pet him. When I was a little kid, everyone in 4-H used to do this. We just showed up and walked around with our dogs and old people petted them.

Now, you have to have your dog tested for all these diseases, get proof of each vaccination from the veterinarian plus certified proof of heartworm testing, pass a rigorous test of obedience and tolerance of wheelchairs and walkers and hospital equipment from a certified tester, register with Homeland Security, hire an attorney and make sure your dog has been bleached and disinfected. To get your badge. In Salinas. Just to sign up. To fill out more paperwork. After making the calls. And then, you could go visit. After sending the appropriate paperwork to the appropriate facilities to register. I'm exhausted after just reading all the stuff they sent me.

I was thinking just like I could dress in a nice holiday kinda outfit and go to a nursing home with my friendly little dog and visit some old folks and let him sit on their laps for a while?

In this episode, we visit Turlock, CA.

How do I describe Turlock? What is it about these places and dog agility?

To drive there, you go through long country roads and towns called Gustine and Hilmar. Have you ever heard of them? I didn't think so. I got there Sunday morning in the nick of time to walk the first course. Due to the valley tule fog, which covers the country highways/streets through tiny towns with lots of churches and donut shops and trailers like a big, morbid weight pressing in from all directions.

Fencing is made of twine and cats and sheep and tires and rust out there. It's like another country, once you cross over I-5. Sorry if you live in Turlock! I am sure you can afford a ranch there and can have the last laugh at my ranchless, stone throwing self. The dog agility field is spacious and sits nearly on top of train tracks one direction, a freeway in another.

Hello and kudos to Otterpop for Qing on a run next to a freeway with those 18 wheelers blowing down the line that you KNOW she had glimpses of in her mind of chasing down Highway 99 and running away forever but instead just sticking to the dog agility.

And Hello and Kudos to Ruby for not hearing Heidi voices in the train sounds and carrying on like a pro. Albeit, not sending out to the weave poles that were like 50 feet away or something like that in her gamble. But still. A fine job Ruby!

And kudos to Hobbes for doing the mystery weird upsetting table however also knocking a bar down thus not gaining that LAST Q for his LAA Platinum award, the highest thing you can ever GET in agility and it is up to me to get him that last Q! It was also my job to WIN Steeplechase finals with him and we came in 5th. I was devastated. Rob said, "Well, I could have come in FIFTH with him!" Oops. We tried. It was a great run. The time was like 30.63. 4th place was 30.54. 3rd place was 30.39. And so on. I probably won Rob $12 or so. Enough for a pie or a nice sack of fruit!

The dogs were all just fine. Some runs with Q's, some awesome runs but with a barn down. Otterpop did have a weird paranoia attack late in the day in her Grand Prix and ran sort of crappy. Not terrible, but I mean really. How many dogs look over the shoulder every 3 steps to see if the judge is about to kill them with a giant machete? It just isn't fun to run her when she starts listening to whatever demon that is. Goddamn Heidi, is that YOU? Her paranoia is more like a quickly voted off America's Topmodel girl in a slasher film and the machete/chainsaw/fingernails of sharpness guy is chasing her through the woods in her bathing suit and there is just a slim chance of survival. Where do you come up with these things Otterpop?

Gustavo just perservered and was super behaved and did his ambassadorship duties of making everyone his friend and bringing to light the existence of team small dog. Fine job Gustavo! No screaming or carrying on or running away. Although just in writing this I have rescued 5 contraband items from his chewing teeth. And he did complain somewhat on the drive home. Perhaps the quick stop at Old Navy (the only plus of the drive) just put him over the edge. I can't resist cheap cashmere made by tiny slave children with bleeding fingers. I just can't. It is wrong and I know it and I can't resist it.

Also, here is a Big Love quiz but somehow I ended up LOIS. Take it and see which polygamist you are.


Self portrait as a Lois driving home from Turlock where you know there are a lot of real Lois's. I guess? Maybe they don't practice polygamy. But there are compounds. I did answer one question saying I like to shoot Dr. Pepper bottles off my front porch. Which is a bald face lie. I would never drink Dr. Pepper.

I just like dogs.

I went to work really early today. To get the horses ridden and all the lessons taught. I found myself eating cold pizza for breakfast while giving shots. Yelling through lessons things like "Right Rein Right Rein!" over and over. Try to get a 7 year old to stop crying because their pony doesn't believe he can trot (some logic from my inspirational lecture about hitting the pony REALLY HARD with the whip that got twisted in 7 year old brain). Teach the nice amateur ladies on their perfect horses with impeccable grooming and the nice lady on the really big and dirty horse that is SO NOT a HUNTER but she won't fall off of. I got the good horse and the bad horse ridden early. Get my very serious 12 year olds to school their ponies. They are SO SERIOUS about their ponies. A 12 year old fell off that dirty little terrorist of a pony that hates jumping the black and white panels. The other pony was sound. But the grey horse wasn't. Figure out why this horse does that with her shoulder. Why that horse does that with his head. It just goes on and on all day until I can get home.

To run the dogs quick, pack the car, boil up some chicken and set that alarm for 4:30 so we can drive to Turlock, CA. Just so you know, I used to do that for horses but now I only do this for dogs. Not boil the chicken. I never boiled chicken for the horses. But when I was a kid, get up at 4:30 to go to weird little horse shows. Then be a grown up and go to really, really big horses shows that we had to drive long and far to in the horse trailer. Now I have zero interest in going anywhere with the horses. I just like to go to the dog shows. For so many reasons, this is just so much better. It is kind of a bad thing for a horse trainer. Let's watch this trend in the future. I always do things in a Different way.

These witches are just stuck in my brain.

Poor Ruby. Even though Heidi might APPEAR to be offering praise ("So Chic!"), her demonic presence plagues her in all walks of life. It's like when you just don't know when the demon is going to get you and it might strike at any time. I wish there was a way to strike the witch from her life forever.

Everyone has their demons. Gustavo still worries about pumpkins. Otterpop carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, and it manifests by her loud, control freak musings and uncontrollable big mouth. Timmy has to deal with the spectre of Lila if he shuffles around in the park, where I have to worry about the new official law of a $120 ticket per dog for letting them walk around there, like they all have their entire lives. Kaching. That could come to nearly $500 per walk. Nice!

I would like to see Hillary take all of them on. The State Park System. The City of Santa Cruz. Heidi Klum. All witches in general. Pumpkins. You go Hillary. Just tell them. Let 'er rip.

Thank your lucky stars she doesn't speak to you in tongues.

Run, Ruby, Run!

I know you all waited up to see it. Project Runyway is on again! It's timed conveniently for me, so you walk in the door covered with DIRT, and the dogs' feet are all covered with dirt. Only they don't walk in the door, they RUN in the door with their dirt to get some food. And then I have to take off my pants and shoes and socks and outermost shirt layer in the dogfood/washing machine/backdoor area to feed them because of the dirt. After I scrub off my hands because I can't touch the dogfood with all the dirt. And the dirt is getting on the floor and everywhere, no matter what I do.

We got to meet all our new friends. It was brief. We know the art puppet goddess lady who imbues her fabrics with grass stains and teas to invigorate them won't last long. It was almost evil of them to put her on. They let her stay last night I think, just to string that plot line along. They got rid of a girl with just one bad, ugly, falling apart dress. It looked like I sewed it! Not a compliment! There was a girl Jeffrey named Kit Pistol and a weeping 42 year old named Sweet P. I am a little worried about it this time, it's been such a perfect show for 3 times and they could blow it this year. And now I know why Tim Gunn never comments or tries to help me out. He is a Chief Creative Officier for Liz Claiborne Inc. and he didn't used to be that. Thanks Heidi Klum. I'm sure this also means no way does he have time for dog agility.

It does take time. Thank god Project Runway is on at 10pm. But what other sane people drive to the dirt at night after work, and in some of our cases, stay there til 9:40 in the cold covered with dirt? I drive 2 mornings a week to practice with my dogs on the way to work. I am lucky to have a weird, flexible schedule. And a place to train the dogs that is right by my work. I know some people drive hours for a class or to practice. It is a sickness.

This weekend's sickness takes me to Turlock. I can't even explain where it is. Far, on the other side of I-5. Fog, cows, fields. We haven't been there in a long time because there are trains there and Ruby has a train noise thing. I'm interested to see if it's better. Or worse. I am sure we'll find out. Certain noises don't just scare Ruby, they start talking to her in her brain and she thinks it's witches. Fireworks and guns just scare her and make her shake violently and climb under a low piece of furniture and just stay there shaking until the noises finish. Flies and trains and buzzing speak to her in excorcist tongue and tell her to go to the corner and spin around. Find a door outside and fling yourself onto it. Crawl under the couch and back out and back under. At agility, if Speaking with Witches starts, it could mean starting on a startline, running over the first jump and doing donuts out in the ring until I realize it's witches and pull her. A fun weekend in store.

I realized the Witch in her Brain may be Heidi Klum. We'll never know for sure. Boy would I like to see her covered in dirt someday, lugging an a-frame back to the equipment trailer in the dark. Take this, Heidi Klum's fingernails. Get out of Ruby's brain with your ice tongued, german inflected words of horror.

A little bling in the morning.

So the other day, I am pulling the 13 clowns out of my tiny car, I mean unloading 4 dogs of various speeds out of my compact yet still SUV, at the Field. That same one we talked about yesterday. Timmy gets special careful unloading, then the others have to wait on command while shaking and barking of the excitement of it all, before they go leaping out of the car. On leashes. We have to do it this way if Timmy comes because he can't walk all the way there from my house anymore. So sorry Al Gore! But I got some re-usable shopping bags and compact fluorescents!

So this lady is unloading her dogs. What a sporty group they are. She has on black stripey Sporty Spice pants and some kind of shiney vest with fur and matching porkpie hat number. And both her dogs match! Yes, they have on Sporty Spice, Addidas style vests and very bling but in a Fifty Cent way pink ribbony collars with silver chain through them and braiding and they are sparkling in the sun. One is some kind of staffy type mix, small and not pitty looking and the other is very Team Small Dog. It is a hot sunny day but they are dressed in these matching vests. Like, vests, OK?

So the first thing she says as her dogs, who poured frantically out of the car and not on leashes and are barreling towards my group which comes slowly out of the car and are On leashes, is Be Nice.

Let me rephrase that. As her dogs come flying over to me, she starts shrieking, all fur collary vest and leatherette porkie hat, "BE NICE BE NICE BE NICE!!!!"

Never a good sign.

The staffy comes barrelling over to Timmy, I am used to this now from our dear friend Lila, and get in front and put some mutants in front and it comes growling in, full boar, no teeth or attacking but, let's just say, confrontational.

Shrieking is ensuing, "BE NICE BE NICE BE NICE!!!!"

My tactic is, we just keep moving. Be nice is a phrase we've heard a lot out there and it means to me, keep Timmy safe, and keep moving. The other dogs can handle themselves in anything other than flat out attack or huge dog. Ruby and Gustavo deflect, Otterpop will snap back but in a deflecting way. Leashes off, and we go.

Ms.BeNice Porkie Leatherette proceeds to walk and chat with us. I am so not a walker and a chatter with people I don't know. I have very limited social skills, can't do the small talk, possibly did not finish my coffee, and have 4 dogs to monitor who are moving at speeds from painfully slow creeping to insane fast running in places far away from me.

While she is chatting about something, the staffy dog every so often goes into a growly charge on my dog or a random dog and she is merrily, happily asking questions or talking about something until my very, very slow walking to stay with Timmy grows tiresome and off she goes to a new band of dog ladies. The whole time, not once noticing that her dog has some really crappy social skills except with the admonishment of BE NICE!! BE NICE!!

We know it's going to be one of those days when seconds later, a group of ladies with a little poodle and I forget what else, see my group and start shrieking, dropping to the ground to pet my Puppies! How neat I have the mama and here are all the Puppies!!! Shrieking over Puppies!

Gustavo is happy to act as token puppy. Ruby and Otterpop run as fast as they can from shrieking, dropping to their knees ladies. Not their scene. Timmy doesn't notice. The only thing I can think of to do is just keep on moving, nod and smile, and keep going while they talk about what a nice lady I am to keep all my dog's puppies.

It's one of those dull and gripey ones.

Allright. I've yammered about this before. I'll keep it brief. So the place I walk the dogs is a giant, 33 acre field on the beach. It also includes a beach. Known as Lighthouse Field because the Lighthouse is right there. It's not just a field-it's a like a little nature preserve, bisected with paths everywhere, trees and bushes and it's where everyone walks around on 33 acres worth of paths with their dogs. No fences or houses or swings. Room for everyone. Dogs, babies, meth dealers, kids, surfers, crabby neighbors, birds, gophers, cats, drunks, homeless, eldery people. And the beach is the only local one of the WHOLE COASTLINE of beaches here that you can run your dogs on. That is, before 10am and after 4pm.

Here. Enjoy a vintage photo of the dogs enjoying the beach while you're bored. Fashion styles of the year Kurt Cobain died!

For years we've been fighting over it. Me and the 3,000 other supporters who enjoy walking around out there with our dogs. Here's where the story gets confusing and I won't even bother to go into it, go to the Friends of Lighthouse Field website to find more if you have the slightest bit of interest or are wondering but Why Don't... So the "end" or I guess more like "latest" is that the State gets it back to be a State Park, rather than a City managed neighborhood park, on Thursday. The why, you can read about. It's not about dogs anymore. It's about lawsuits, timing of an EIR, CEQA law, grant money, loopholes, and 3 neighbors that hate dogs.

I never even thought it would be my neighborhood park anymore. I thought we were moving to a ranch and I'd always just be able to open my door and let the dogs run around in my giant huge ranch-like yard. Yet here we are. And as of Friday, Officially, dogs have to walk tied to their owners on a leash there. No running allowed, unless you are also running with them. (Have you seen what some of my dogs consider "Walking" to be?) Or you will get a ticket. The state officials will Educating us for 100 days about proper leash usage. You KNOW I am unteachable. Then start writing tickets. Maybe. The state doesn't even WANT the park but because of lawsuits, CEQA, the EIR, 3 grouchy neighbors, LONG STORY, they got it.

Then when they write the tickets, One Per Dog! Kaching! We go to court to contest them. Tie up the courts. File a new lawsuit. Blah de blah de blah. To walk the dogs in a field and on a beach without their leashes on like we always have for a million years. This is dumb and boring right? Right! It drives us nuts! Makes us want to move. What a waste of time. But talk about something stuck in a craw. And weird the amount of time and energy spent for just a nice place to walk around

A darker family portrait.

Timmy couldn't be in this photo because he was asleep. But he's ok.

Have you seen the Soprano's last season? Being HBO-less, we rent DVD's. We're on the last Season. It's creepy and very much about families. Tony does this thing all the time where his eyes sort of roll up into the top of his bald head when he's mad and then usually shoots someone or beats them up or bashes something to bits. I want to make sure that I don't ever become friends with someone in the mafia. I am pretty sure if you met me, you would know I am not in the mafia. And Gary works in the garbage industry but in Santa Cruz, that's a City Job with benefits and no one is in the mafia that he knows of. So we're ok.

So then, what would you do if someone wanted to take dog agility lessons and they are in the mafia? But they also have to have a normal life and maybe they bought a border collie and think dog agility looks fun and want to take some classes. And then they really like it and start making lots of cash donations to the agility club and this and that and then, if you watch the Sopranos, you know all the places it can end up. Like Christopher Moltisanti shooting the movie writer. Is it discrimination if you try to steer them to another agility club? There's that whole etiquette thing of including everyone, does that include members of the mafia? Like what if it was Carmela Soprano and she's a mafia wife and she wants to do dog agility?

It's just one of those uncomfortable situations I guess you deal with when it happens. Always good to pre-plan things. Don't tell me the end of the Soprano's though because I'm only part way through. It's no Deadwood but you might like it anyways.

Is it real? It's not an estate!

So there is this piece of property, down the road from my barn, that has had little For Sale signs on it since we moved to the barn last April. They are sort of cute little yellow signs with a strawberry on them, and a realtor's phone number. Like, we're not talking David Lyng here. I think I wrote about this property at some point? Remember how much I used to write about property when I thought we were actually going to be able to sell our house and buy one? Back in the bad old days?

This one is out of the Gary zone. Why did I even start stalking it? I have a sickness, that much is true. But it had this sort of cute house on a knoll, and a big flat parcel, that was possibly 5-7 acres according to another home made sign up on the fence. Long access road, and on further stalking (you know I am completely shameless and will just go up on anyone's property) it turns out it's a shared access road down to some ag fields and runs through the parcel. There was also a mobile home, some sheds, pump tank, stuff like that. Another side backs up near the giant commercial nursery.

The house is raw and kind of chintzy but of a sort of charming design and bone structure-not unlike the DREAM RANCH M$%%&*CK S$#T Sorry Cannot Even think of it WITHOUT FROTHING MOst DAYS- but lacked some basic things like floors and such. My standards are pretty low. Had a little creek (ie, runoff ditch) running through some willows behind, and was well placed on the parcel with the long flat Horse Section out behind. No fencing or anything like that. And also this weird sort of hippie earthship I live in a house made entirely of trash by my cousins houses/structures/farm running alongside the narrow property edge on the adjoining parcel.

In short, far from perfect, very Watsonville, but intriguing in a way that indicates how sick my mind is and how I need some sort of life or therapist to help me figure out my whole real estate thing and how do we solve it.

And then, a couple weeks ago, a Countrywide Financing sign got added to the fence. Small and simple, with a phone number. Out of the blue. Little strawberry For Sale signs forever, house never on mls, and then, kaboom. Countrywide.

Foreclosure?? Could it be? So I started further stalking. Leaving messages for the realtor and for the cell phone number on the sign. Gary even drove by there one day on the way home from a work field trip to a far away dump, sort of assessing the distance. Because foreclosure! What if we could get the property for like $500,000?? This is the number I stick into my head.

No one calls back ever. Curious? More mysterious and intriguing and price lowering in my mind. I drive by it and sometimes drive up there and do mental property layouts of where barn could be and arena and some pasture space. There is a seperate flat area for trailer parking and dog field! I am not supposed to do this. Finally one day, I get the realtor to pick up the phone, I called her cel on a Saturday afternoon.

I introduce myself, and tell her I'm calling about the property for sale at 294 Casserly.

She says, "What do you want to know?"

Um, I sort of ramble how I drive by it every day and wanted to know the pricing and acreage and I just happened to notice that Countrywide sign just went up.

She says, "Oh-it's not for sale." She has a TONE to her voice, of unpleasantness and like she is scowling at me and all I've done is call her cel phone. I recognize this tone. I have used it when I am providing Poor Customer Service-it is the Tone of Irritation! It means How Dare You Call My Phone Right Now! Can't you see I was busy doing something better than talking to you?

I sort of pause, thinking, um, ok, weird. I say, "um, I thought maybe it was BECAUSE IT'S HAD FOR SALE SIGNS ON IT FOR 6 MONTHS and a Countrywide sign just went up last week."

She says, "well, it's not for sale."

I am like, "Well, is it going to be for sale?"

"Yes, it will be for sale in the future.:

"How much?"

"One Point Three Million Dollars."

I am sort of puzzled by how this exchange is going. I ask about the Countrywide sign that Just Went Up there! I think I use the F word. She says it is definitely not in Foreclosure but won't indicate why that sign got posted. And keeps re-iterating the not for sale thing. She is a realtor with not one but 3 signs on the property's fence!

The conversation kept going in a sort of circular fashion from here. I tell her that is not my price range so I guess I won't try to follow up In the Future with it. She asks my price range. I come up with $8-900k. Not that we can afford that anymore but it was my price range for so long that it just flows off my practiced tongue of real estate talk.

She sort of pauses again and is like, "well, it probably won't be for that. One Point Three Million."

That was kind of the end of that. This is how the real estate market goes these days. Just a little funny? And not really real.

Wait til the iphone is a dog!

Did I really write a whole Wardrobe Essential post about being sweaty?

Here I am, trying to make dog agility the new brown or black or iphone and I am writing about sweatiness. This is an issue I sometimes have about editing. I have never been a great editor of anything. My mouth runs off into places it shouldn't. My house is so full of stuff that I just can't stop collecting. In the art show days the pattern had to be painted EVERYWHERE and I had to always add more tree branches. My sentences get really really long because I have to keep adding words. Don't even talk about my how long my paragraphs are. The subject matter runs amuck and makes weird tangential turns. Have you ever heard one of my riding lessons?

To make dog agility the iphone, I have to remember not to scare people! Have you seen an iphone? It would never scare anyone. It is like having your best friend turned into a tiny little, um, thing, and it goes on the internet right there in your palm and your favorite pictures and songs are there and you can be in ebay and the real estate listings and team small dog and then the phone rings and it is Santa! Or it could be a mom trying to reschedule her kid's lesson too, but it could be Santa or my nephew with a song. This is sort of like how cool dog agility is but the iphone had such good marketing and dog agility has so very, very little.

Except for my blog! And when it's on the Animal Planet. And when everyone tries teaching their dog to do it and they are so happy, just like they got an iphone of their very own. Not just using Karl's. An iphone is full of information, negligibly essential information. Is that a word? Like, you don't really NEED an iphone but you can convince yourself that you do and it is not just a cool little, um, thing, you worry about breaking and take out to check the weather. Dog agility, is it essential to our lives? Would be we sad if it just went away and there were no more dog shows? Yeah, we would be. We would get back to being a regular artist again, the studio would be less full of boxes and the couch with the BROKEN LEG and magnolia. The trees in the yard wouldn't be dead and the office would have been done by now.

But do you see how much we like it for us and for dogs that we actually take time out to go train the dogs so they will get good at it and exersize them? So here is what Gustavo is learning now, getting ready to be a good agility dog.

His contacts are doing good-nice and solid on the end of his little board and contact stuff.

He is hitting a fast down on the table and on the end of a stationary teeter. I am holding him in the down and getting him used to motion by moving it to a table.

He is solid on jump and tunnel and tire. On a straight line. We are working super easy patterns with front cross, no rear cross for now, go on and I am just starting an Out.

We probably spend 80% of our time practicing just doing tugging out there and close (come on over to my left side and do not do the tunnel 8 times) and side (come on over to my right side and do not run up the dogwalk a-frame and teeter while i blink my eye) just working on control. So the other stuff is coming together more slowly but we sure do need a LOT of control.

Since I am essentially a completely LAZY dog trainer (ala NOT Susan Garrett!) the control issues are being built out there on the agility field and not in the obedience world. A training flaw? Yes. Is it fun to do obedience? No. There, I said it. It is out. I am a bad, bad, bad dog trainer. But I do not have an iphone and I am not hardly being an artist and we still don't have a ranch so there you go.

Um, what was the point of what I was trying to get it here? Something about editing and not writing about sweatiness but good marketing? I can't remember and I have to go to work and there is no weave pole training (still open channels and cages on one side halfway through) this morning but OK! Have fun!

Wardrobe Essential Number Four-The Sweaty Factor

OK. Hello Tim Gunn and Carson, can you PLEASE help me out here?

I have never really considered myself a big sweater. As in sweating liquid out of my pores and not like a big fuzzy sweater that goes down to my knees and giant cable knitting-thanks mom-Cute! But lately I seem to do a lot of running, the more dogs I add on to my dog collection, and the more I run the more I get sweaty.

Now I know they make the special wicking anti fungal sporty fabrics that are supposed to magically dry you off. But the thing is, sweating is part of my day that happens on and off the whole time. And I just look crummy and sort of dampish all the time.

Let's look at today's agenda items:

Slow walk with dogs around the park-no sweating!

Take faster dogs to beach on way to work-up and down the hill, fast walk on beach-sweating! Also sand and perhaps dirty dog paws! Perhaps extra fast and much because we are already late today!

Body clip a horse first thing at work-sweating AND the fun of tiny pieces of clipped horse hair inserted into each and every pore and under all clothing, every layer.

Ride a horse or two-maybe sweat. Usually. I forget who I need to ride today. Perhaps it is a certain mare who spooks with her owner every time she goes around one certain corner in the ring. You know who you are! Or perhaps someone very stiff on the left rein and making me tired when I am making her ridable for her owner-You know who you are, you horses that need the fixing make me sweaty!

Teach the lessons-if it involves sitting on the fence and just yelling without moving-no sweating! If it involves dragging a lot of jumps around because I am sick of whatever is set out there or it is Quinn and he hits the rails or I have someone jumping big, then someone jumping tiny then someone jumping big again later-sweating!

Walk to and fro from the arena to the barn many times during the day to get your spurs, your whip, your water, find the martingale, find the drawlines, find the bit-sweaty! Fast walking so I am not late, late, late all day!

Slow walk with all dogs around block-nighttime-no sweating. Unless walk involves mulitple cats every few feet leaping out in front of 4 dogs on leashes who all like to chase cats. Then sweating!

Speed walk the smallest dogs around West Cliff drive in the pitch black dark for about an hour-sweating!

This is a day without even doing any agility. 3 days per week I practice with them. The other night, I ran 3 dogs in class, and there were 6 people in class. That meant half of the running done in class was by me. So that is sweating with a layer of dirt attached! One dog was Hobbes which means extremely fast running. 2 dogs were mine which means the same jump height so run one dog, run it back to it's parking place, grab another dog run the course, run it back to it's parking place and be ready to walk the next course.

When I practice with them in the morning, hopefully not on a PIG WHAMMING SCREAMING day, the same sweat and dirt happening before I even get sweaty at work! I try to get 3 dogs practiced in one hour with fast turns for each which means no resting for me thus the sweating! One of those dogs is Gustavo which means practice very fast with no stopping to think-all thinking must be done before ever taking that dog off his rope. There is no planning and running him because once you start he just keeps going and going and going.

I have specific wardrobe requirements for work related things. Jeans. Boots. Clothing that I must be ok with getting bled on, saliva'ed-green, goey horse saliva-on, chewed, ripped, disease mobiled. Shavings. Hay. Warm jackets now because it is cold-it can be cold yet still sweaty! A warm hat on my head which gets cold even if I might start to get sweaty! All must be ok with getting ruined!

The hair and the sweaty? Don't get me started. The dirty face and the sweaty? Don't get me started. The freezing cold foggy air and the sweaty? This is a true Wardrobe Essential Dilema!

Sheetrock, dogs, html-I am really just a lazy bum.

So the thing that my blog lives on is called blogger. Well, actually, it lives on my server. Which isn't actually my server, but Bev and Steve's server, but is actually I think a server which lives somewhere top secret and fireproof. Not their shed in their backyard where their office actually is. The internet is all about the trans world cyber location baby. But the thing that makes it a blog is the blogger and that is what was broken.

When it was broken, I know my readers were worried! Why is there no Team Small Dog blog? I was doing due diligence internet blog research to see why it wasn't working and if I could fix it. And I entered the realm of the blog help groups. And everyone else's was broken too, so I didn't feel so bad. But some of the bloggers in there, boy were they worried about their poor readers and how not feeding their ADDICTION to the blogs was going to end the world! It was bad. People freaking out.

You guys don't freak out right?

I just can't get too upset from a broken internet. I think the days of the dotcom and the TOTAL FREAKING out that went on when something was broken cured me of that. Yes, i do feel a winge of concern but I just cannot bring myself to a freak out panic insanity. The internet gets broken, and somehow it has to get fixed. And it is always better if someone else fixes it that isn't me.

We had a dirt night last night. It was ok. Ruby was slow. Otterpop was fast. Hobbes was fast. He hit a couple bars, and my goal is NO BARS with him. Not sure why Ruby was slow. Could it be sitting in a boring dog pen for like 7 hrs straight then sitting in the car for 2 hrs then having to come out and run? Poor dogs. Some days it just sucks to be my dog. Slow dogs and bar hitting dogs are a bigger problem to me than broken internet. But I have about the same drive to fix it. Maybe someone else will fix it? Please magically speed this dog up, fix this one's broken teeter and make this one not hit a bar.

The thing with the darn dogs is that it's sort of like my sheetrock. You have to fix it yourself. And if you don't, there is half plastered sheetrock just sitting there and a construction site and until you get off your ass and do it, it's just not going to get much better.

Mad skilz and WHAM.

Yesterday I went to practice with the dogs before work. It was contact brush up day for Ruby and Otterpop, and distance skills, and just mad skilz day for Gustavo. Who most of the time I call Gus. But it's pronounced Goose. Like Goose-tavo. I add the tavo on when he does something bad like tries to eat Timmy's food or any cat's food. That's pretty much all he does that's bad.

So where I practice has a little mini farm next door to it. It's sad, it's been sold to developers and I won't have a practice place by the end of spring, not to mention the agility instructor who rents it won't have a place place. I've heard that one before. The little farm next door is very 4-H, and has goats and horses and cattle-the cattle live right under someone's window in their side yard. I think it's their bathroom window.

So I tie the dogs up and am planning out what we're doing when I start hearing these crazy noises that sound like something attacking something and then "WHAM WHAM WHAM". Then I see goats leaping out of the barn en mass and jumping on to the picnic table in their paddock. Like I said, very 4-H little farm. And then goats run some and then run in the barn and then loud attacking noises of strangling animal sound and then "WHAM WHAM WHAM" some more. And goats jumping and this happens a few times.

I go over to the fence. Anyone around? Doesn't look like it. If that sound was coming from my barn, I would come a-running. So there's a gate over to their property so since the strangling attacking noises and WHAMMING noises are still going on and the goats look freaked, I go over there. I've been coming out to this field for years and have never heard the like. I have caught horses there before and once dealt with a cast horse in the barn so you know, it's just what one nice ranch lady does for another.

I am a little freaked out about what I'm going to see. One of their big dogs is in the yard and I am hoping it does not try to bite me. It doesn't but it has the stink eye on me since I am now the evil intruder besides poor dog having to deal with attacking strangling sounds and WHAMMING. The noises are still going and going and kind of have been building and I am kind of tip toeing and wonder what I will do when I find what is attacking whatever it is and if it is going to be bloody and what am I going to do? I'm sort of creeping all slow and careful just in case it is maybe going to attack me too? So there's a little window into the little barn covered with some black cloth and I pull it aside and there it is. There is a giant pig in a stall with one of the goats. I guess it's the brave goat. Only the goat is just sort of standing on top of the pig and the pig, who has genuine pig tusks, has a feed bucket in it's mouth and every time the goat climbs on it it is making these squealing, strangling noises and WHAMMING the feed bucket into the side of the wall. Then the goat jumps off and runs outside, then it runs back in and the whole thing starts again.

I am not sure if they are supposed to be doing this but no one is bloody and the pig seems pretty happy and so does the goat so I guess they are having a game and this is why I do not have any pigs or goats.

My dogs did not have any problems with the pig and goat sounds and we practiced insane far distance skills and running contacts at high speeds. Good dogs! Gustavo practiced his brakes and jump skills and just running next to me and not in mad circles around the field (I swear to god, he is a tiny border collie). You have to move very, very quickly at all times with him or have the tug toy in his mouth. He would prefer to do agility 5 tunnels or jumps at a time then run to the contact then run to the table then run to the teeter all in the time I am still standing there looking for a treat in my pocket. Since I cannot ever hope to work at his speed I now throw treats to him from far away to encourage the stay and I am getting really good at high accurate aim of tiny little scraps of cheese at his little nose. Some skills just do not translate to resumes.

When the queen comes to town.

In the movie The Queen, the big star was the herd of corgies that sort of always flocked around the Queen's feet. They were always there, and seemed perfectly behaved. The Queen looks like a dog agility lady too, except with cooler little suits.

When the Queen comes to my house, my little flock of dogs goes insane because it means small children with food snacks at small dog mouth height all day, all crackery cheesey snacky goodness. Sorry, I mean princess. Sorry, I mean DRESSED like a princess, not a real princess. I don't have lots of friends with small children, but I think perhaps not all of them are brave like Pixel and Atom who are unafraid, for the most part, to just plow through groups of dogs wandering about, sometimes at high speeds, in my living room and kitchen. And backyard. And bathroom. And bedroom. Or have one launch onto their head during a diaper change. Sorry Atom!

We also experimented using some dog agility training techniques to see if the children would be obedient. Like my dogs are real obedient. I always picture most hardcore dog agility people sitting at home doing all the stuff the dog training books say to do to build drive and work on 4 hour down stays. And my dogs are flying around the house like howler monkeys on acid with mouthfuls of squeaky toys, crashing into walls and leaping from the couch to the next room. Like don't even try coming in my house Susan Garrett! We taught the children nose touches, come, wait and thru with great sucess! Next time, tunnels and weave poles. They learned way faster than any of my dogs! Good children!

I think this is a successful Recall!

Let my hate mail begin parents!

It's just been such an exciting week.

So the big KaBoom of a dog show, USDAA Nationals finished yesterday. Luka, who we used to desperately try to win against until Ruby moved down to Performance, won both the Steeplechase and Grand Prix, which is never done and he wins buckets of money too. His times were just crazy fast. I can't wait til Luka moves down to Performance one day so we can never win in the 12" again.

Raymond ended up 5th in the Grand Prix with Tater. He sent me an email. Poor Raymond, the stats were all slow to come in and confusing and he didn't realize he had made it into the finals. So it is the big fancy finals at night, everyone drunk in the stands, like a crowd that would be there for a big, drunk, 49'ers game. Except different because they all thought they should be out there in the Finals too. Potential for meaner drunks, except they are all nice dog agility people and likely, not mean drunks. Not wearing weird face paint etc. too is how I imagine it but then, I don't know. Anyways, Raymond had gone out to dinner, the dogs were in the car, he is sort of hanging out down there and someone yells at him, "How does the course Look?" and he is like, "I dunno?"

And someone else is like, "HELLO Raymond you are running FIRST in the Grand Prix!" They are already done walking the course (you get about 10 minutes to walk the course in dog agility so you can figure out just where the hell the best place to move is to get your dog over and through everything in the right order without screwing up) and he runs out there and gets a quickie walkthru and Mardee runs to the car to get poor Tater who is sound asleep thinking his day is all over with. Tater is such a good dog. He is just this little fluffy pomeranian that does not look like he would ever kick ass out there and he does. I think he is going to be an honorary member of Team Small Dog. I need to find Raymond a shirt.

And then just like that, he's in the ring, there were a couple bobbles and Raymond's hardest thing is learning courses and he did it and came in 5th place in the whole darn thing. Maybe not as glamorous as Luka's double win, but for Raymond and Tater, HUGE! This gives us regular folks huge hope of having our 30 seconds (I think Luka's time was 31 seconds, Taters 58 or something like that) in the spotlight of a world championship event!

Hey Gustavo, would that be you? He just climbed up on the cat food thing and knocked over a cat water bowl. Do world championship style dogs do that?

Hobbes didn't do bad, he didn't do great, he did ok. I still love Hobbes just the same. I just like dogs.

Last night we played this thing called Wii which is like a video game except you project it on the wall and you hold remote controls that look like little phones and push the buttons on them and your video game character does things like bowling. In video game land, I am a great bowler. I do not know if I am a great bowler in real life because I think I've only done genuine in life bowling a couple times and sort of feel like I was rolling the ball into the gutters. So likely, not so much.

But wouldn't this be cool, you would all love it, if you had the wii and could run in the World Championship Grand Prix of Dog Agilty with your own dog you make by picking out eyebrows and marshmallow shaped heads and beanies except it's dogs and you could pick jack russel fur and border collie legs and sheltie spins and whatever you wanted to make your dog of your dreams. And then you go out and run it over the course and you are just really waving around a little remote control in the air in Karl's living room instead? And your other hand can hold a glass of wine! And the dogs can just lay around and watch or just sleep. I think it's a hit!

Results coming in!

So some of the results are coming in on the World Championships in Arizona. In the Performance Grand Prix, Tater came in 5th overall in the 8" dogs! Why should you know about Tater? Tater started agility the same time as Ruby, they used to compete against eachother in NADAC when they jumped the same height, then Tater moved down to lower performance height when we both started USDAA. Tater is a teensy pomeranian, and he came into the vet hospital where his owner's wife worked with no skin-probably got dragged by a car. They kept him, and long story short, he became the husband's first agility dog. Tater is just one good dog. His owners are super nice people-they work from dawn til dusk at every trial. All of their dogs were ones that came in to the wife's vet hospital with horrible injuries and needed homes. They always invite me to sit with them, since I always come rushing in to trials Sunday mornings when everyone else has been there since Friday. I always like talking with Raymond, he keeps everything in perspective but also tries hard and has reached a lot of high level titles with Tater-he has a C-ATCH and a Performance ADCh. He is very, very tall, and Tater is very, very short and they are very very fun to watch run together.

Another Bay Area person won the 22" Grand Prix semis, with her very fast dog. Her very fast small dog always beats the pants off of Otterpop. Thanks internet for being there so I can go check on everyone. I haven't seen Hobbes name anywhere yet. Everyone can go check and see the courses posted on the USDAA website for yourselves and it's just like being there except actually not at all is it. But you can check up on things and maybe think about going another year.

And results on Timmy show not a whole lot. He had a really bad week, he is now having a freakishly good week. For no reasons his doc can find in any tests. So we just have fun with him while he's having such a good week. Timmy would like to be at the USDAA Nationals for sure. Too bad Ruby does not have his exhibitionist personality. I am not sure Ruby or Otterpop would find the USDAA Nationals with spectators and millions of dogs and flags and such all that much fun. They mostly prefer just dirt and nothing around them to do their best agility.

Is it wrong to dress up dogs?

Everywhere I went yesterday involved near faux paws of wondering if people just looked really wrong, or it was Halloween. Timmy had to go to the vet multiple times in the morning for multiple blood draws out of his jugular. I thought there was a new doc there. Nope, it's a doctor suit on the new receptionist? I think. Didn't ask.

That guy sure looks bad on his bike, all heroin junk gray and eye sockets with his cowboy hat. Hey wait, maybe it's his Halloween makeup? Not sure. The girl in tutu and black legwarmers held up with garters and vintage Michael Jordans and huge Kipling backpack? Last week while waiting in line at Longs for way too long there was also a girl with a similar outfit sans the Michael Jordans, so it is possibly a style or possibly Halloween. I don't know.

At agility, there were blessedly few dog costumes, a couple minor decorations. I had a period of my life where I could dress up dogs. Timmy had a standing Princess Diana costume that worked for some years and was real easy. Just slip on pearls and tiara and you're done. One year him and Ruby went as Kurt and Courtney, which involved an old sweater and Ruby some tattered piece of slip and pearls (which had been previously owned by Princess Di). It became apparent Ruby was not the type that you dress up. Timmy sort of liked it. Then I think we stopped having friends and getting invited to places where you might dress up dogs. That was a San Francisco life. Down here on Halloween, you just try to tell skeletons from skeletons.

Dirt night was Halloween night so we didn't have to worry about eating all the candy. I just made the classes do lots of rear crosses. Everyone seemed please to be there instead of dealing with Halloween. Maybe we are a dour and friendless bunch, no party on, no elaborate costume balls to attend. We train those dogs, rain or shine. Get dirty, eat a cupcake, deal with the barking. Hobbes was gone, at the Really Biggest Dog Show, so I just had small dogs. Tried to let Gustavo sit on the deck and watch with someone else but as soon as I ran one of my dogs, the horrible monkey sounds began. Back in the car. Otterpop barked incessantly and I realize now having a large border collie sitting next to her and staring all night may be the key to a quiet Otterpop. He has her whipped. But she sure did run fast last night. Just not dressed up fancy.