Let's talk tagging.

So now that I am a Facebook friend, I am learning all this tagging stuff. This week, tagged to write a list. I used to think that tagging was like you had this huge black waterproof marker and really quick scrawled your Thang on a nice public surface and ran away super fast. However. This is a dog agility lady phenomena, and it is sort of like playing tag because, why? We are like pre-menopause and this is what happens before hotflashes and creepy horomone stuff? Nothing better to do with our time like go out to actual bar and drink with genuine human people or clicker train the dogs to climb backwards up the wall when you tell them Go Get the Monkeys?

No one said I'd be killed if I didn't write the list of 25 random things about ME. But since it was all about ME, I wrote it anyways. If you're my Facebook friend, go find it there. If you want to be my Facebook friend, just Friend Add me. I swear I'll friend you back. Hi Facebook friends! I have like 60 of you now! I write lists when you tag me! Facebook has swept the dog agility world by storm. If you are a dog agility lady, or man, you need to have a Facebook because you are missing out on, uh, really not sure what actually, but you are missing out.

The Bernadette from Obay Shelties did this sneaky tag blog business. Of course I will obey Bernadette, because some day I will go to England and show up with Team Small Dog all stuffed into one sherpa bag and I'm staying on her couch. So I will follow her rules so she likes me. She has super world champion shelties and also has sheltie puppies that you can see pictures of in her blog. Maybe she has even tagged you, so you should go check. She is one powerful sheltie lady.

What is this tagging crap about?

Open a document or file folder. You can pick whichever one you want because I am nice that way, maker of these tagging rules. This is assuming your computer is organized and you actually use things like folders.

Click on the fifth folder and then the fifth photo. But also, if it isn't the fifth, you can do it while you are drinking a fifth of scotch and this counts, if you are still able to count.

Post the photo and describe it, and it is ok if you totally lie.

Then tag 5 other bloggers. Whether they read your blog or not since it is possible they will have no idea that you tagged them. Because tagging is sort of weird and at first I was like, HUH? And now I'm like, oh yeah. Tagging and Hi Bernadette, we sure would like to visit England some day and have your shelties kick our asses big time!

Well, I have a mac and it is not organized, but this was the fifth picture in the picture folder. I like to call it Fifth of Scotch.


I am holding Gustavo up so he looks as much like a bat as possible, and to get this photo, I had my computer sitting on the counter and let Otterpop and Ruby sit on the KITCHEN TABLE and then the computer timer counts down THREE - TWO - ONE and I would run back over to the table to get there in time and hold Gustavo up like a bat. I think my skin looks less wrinkly in this picture than it does right now.

So now I'll tag you and Bernadette will totally kick your ass if you disobey. Right, Bernadette?

Heather from Elite Forces of Fuzzy Destruction
Ellen from Taj Mutthall
Elayne from Days of Speed and Slow Time Mondays
Vici of KVK9
Three Woofs and a Woo Food Lady

Hinky Dog of Hinky Town

So one of my super beloved customers just happens to be a board certified dog surgeon and orthopedic specialist. So when she came out to the barn yesterday, showed her Hinky Ruby and described the problem.

"Like you go down to a jump and instead of being all nice canter, canter, canter, jump, like your kid does on her pony, it's like, canter, hinky, hinky, canter, hinky FLING. "

I sort of canter regular-like, then hinky-like to show the difference.

Aha. Total understanding of my excellent vet terminology. Maybe we should look at the actual patient, who has been having a busy day sleeping in the dog pen.

Ruby, being a good sport and one to always follow all the rules, was happy to demonstrate her phenomena in the barn aisle over a broom strung between 2 patio chairs. A nice party trick, agility dogs have, that you can point at anything and say jump or climb, and they do it and get all spazzy and happy about it. She did a couple hinkies, then a couple normal. Of course she does the normal because the real vet is watching her. But the couple hinkies were enough, good illustration, and she gets an exam.

Turns out, much fluid and inflamminess **HEY NON DOG FRIENDS THIS PART GETS BORING BUT INVOLVES DRUGS AT THE END OF THE PARAGRAPH?** where there should be not fluid or inflaming in a bursa of her shoulder or something, I forget what. On her good front leg though. Has been of and on chronic tendonitis on her right front, until I kinda sorta semi retired her, and doesn't seem like that one has bugged her for a while. Now it's in her left leg at the joint and probably has been like that a long time and just now really, really bugging her to the point of mucho pain. Sort of makes sense, when I think about how Ruby's been doing things for a while. Was weird there was no lameness like when it was her other leg, but there you go. No running now, no jumping, climbing, turning, a lot of sleeping and walking around on a leash. **HERE'S THE END OF BLAH BLAH BLAH DOG SORE LEG** Drugs. For a good while.

She's been through this before. Had a slow Timmy to be slow with her. Now it's her and me, tied together, walking on the beach and through the forest, while those delinquents still get to tear it up. Ruby is 8. She'll be back. There's more agility for her in the future. But it'll be a while, and maybe won't be much. Just enough to see her make that big dog smile she makes when she's flying along at Dirt Night. Mostly, I want her joints preserved for chasing birds down the beach and bigfoots through the forest until she's old and gray.

This picture has nothing to do with the rotten sounds they make at night.

Look. They are so adorable. Little cute muffins of Team Small Dog. Makes me wish I had my own.

No they don't. Not if you are a member of Rob's Late Nite Dirt Nite Class. And you have to hear constant BARKING and shrill, high pitched, crate hole making monkey shrieking all night long.

Other class members, talented agility dogs who are also well behaved and valuable members of society and likely rescue people from crack dealers with machetes and save old ladies from burning cars on collapsing bridges, all the while remaining quiet and polite and have perfectly dremmeled toenails.

My dogs? Me, the lady running the most dogs? Who should be good at training them by now? And hi, let's don't forget I am also one of the agility teachers god help us, delinquents. Total, complete utter, ill behaved delinquents. The shame of it all.

You asked for boring, here it is, but with peppy beach photos.

OK. You're out there. We all just have the winter blahs. Tight pants and scowly faces and freaking out over money. Maybe if Barack wore a funny hat next time he gives a speech on tv? Or gets a border collie? And hires Heather from Elite Forces of Fuzzy Destruction to train it and bring it back and forth from her house to the White House on Airforce 1. And she'll take pictures and we'll all be super entertained and agility explodes and is no longer a fringe sport of the weird dog training ladies! Because then we will all have Blackberries!


So since you're ok with boring, at least those Norwegiens among you from the Midwest, here's some nice boring for you. Boring but I included beach photos from after work yesterday.

Old news that is new again:

Ruby is lame. Poor Ruby, Hinky Dog of Hinky Town. I have no idea what is wrong with her. She's been pretty darn sound for, like a year? You guys remember? There was that time I tried to run her after her getting kicked by the deer. Oops. Danger prone Daphne.

She looks sound at the trot and canter (I forget what we call this in dog language) but when she canters down to a jump (in dog language, hauls ass down to the jump), she looks all hinky (we say this in horse language too) and then flings herself over from even longer (horses are not ever allowed to fling, saints preserve us, give me more gray hairs) than she normally would with her unorthodox, bar hitting jump style (hang a leg and knock a rail in horse language). And there were a couple times when she was just running around the last couple days when all of a sudden she screeches out a random yelpie sound (would be seriously disturbing if a hinky horse ever made a random yelpie sound).

The good dog owners would have her in the chiro and the vet and the massage therapist and the xrays and the ultrasound and swim therapy. Hi! Team Small Dog here! We just put the hinky one in a crate for a while with a bone and if it stays hinky for too long then jack her up on the Metacam again, and no running for you, missy. We've been down this road before.

She was only entered in a couple things this weekend when we are at beautiful...Turlock! for the dog show. Hi Turlock friends! Turlock, where you will see cows and hear the train and the freeway and did I mention some cows? Come visit Ruby in my car, which is always parked super far from the ring and most of the dog show you see me running back and forth out to the car swapping black dogs in and out. Got herself a free pass out of another agility trial.

New News for the First Time:

Our Gustavo is going to run Standard for the Very First Time! With super weave poles and outstanding contacts JUST LIKE YOU PRACTICED TODAY GOO! Went allcaps on you for a minute just in case he can hear that. Boy o boy did he have a good practice. All speedy and focused. So maybe this is totally weirdo, but I brought a crate out on the field and reverted to the Space Pod game.

You remember that?

I sort of invented it yet actually, no, I stole it from Susan Garrett when he was but a pup.

This is a weak version of crate games where you use a crate as mission control center and send the dog from far off places across the field into the crate, and then release them out of it into a sequence. Also a super funny party trick. This was a huge element of his foundation, Space Pod Foundation. This is what happens when you teach a dog yourself and you get bored easily. I am pretty sure Moe Strenfel does not feature this on her dvd yet I could be wrong. It makes them go really fast though! Since he's been having to sit in a crate for less insane barking during practice, I thought why not make the crate fun again like when he was a teensy, shrieky, out of control little monster. I dunno. Still works good as a blast off station, and makes him happier and quieter in his crate when he thinks it is a piece of agility equipment.

And this is helping us prepare for the trial how?

And anyways. Well, was just trying to think of some news and that's how we practiced yesterday.

Unpleasant, Crabby News:

Otterpop, gets a try Sunday at Masters Gamblers for one of those pesky last Q's that stands between her and her ADCh. She's been extra unpleasant lately. Doesn't bode well for being a cheerful, well mannered lover of judges running near her this weekend. Send happy unicorn thoughts to Otterpop this week and bring her out of her funk. Like where unicorns stab you in the eye and leave you for dead in the desert covered with tar. For some reason she was been all rainbow brite ears for a while, and really is just back to her Bright Eyes Loving Emo unpleasant crabapple.

Don't bother saying hi to her at Turlock.

She's just send you the stink eye and think super mean things about how your pants fit.

Team Small Dog, here to bore you today and then send you off to blogs that aren't so boring, I guess.

Otterpop asked me the other day, in a very unpleasant voice, "What, Beeyatch, you stopped with the blog thing now? Because how will the people know when I take over the world?"


Oh Otterpop. I am boring and old now and my neck hurts and all the readers went away when I stopped putting up agility videos with copyrighted soundtracks to get unposted by YouTube. L-O-S-E-R. Or maybe all the Team Small Dog Readers went over to Three Woofs and a Woo and Susan Garrett's blog. All the search words that people type in the internet to send them here now are words like Small Ass. Did you type in Small Ass to google and come here? Looking for small asses and instead, Hi! It's Laura and here are my dog pictures! Now go visit Susan Garrett and she'll tell you about 2x2 weave poles and some inspirational crap and you can laugh at funny captions for border collie photos taken with a fancy lens by that Canadian girl who is probably size 5 and has no gray hairs and her own personal border collie herd.


Otterpop reflects for a moment, then is all, "You stopped putting up videos of Me? You know I will have to plot against you now. Ugly Fat Cow." Gustavo started to cry. Ruby apparently started having an allergic reaction from the shock of it all and her tongue swelled up in her mouth over this disclosure. She is so sensitive, that Ruby.


Yet wait, Team Small Dog has a plan! Maybe the readers will come back if we sit here and wait and look like a nice dog agility team. Isn't that what we're famous for, screwing up in dog agility yet looking cute? Like ambassadors for plucking random stray dogs off the streets and sort of training them not to be assholes? And getting you in trouble in Lighthouse Field with cops? Small Fast Kick Yer Ass? Running in the Forest? We can wait for them to come back.


We are good at waiting. But actually it is more preferable to wait for the cat we spy over there. Because it could jump off the fence. Actually, as it turns out, that is what we would rather wait for.


"Because Cats are For to Eat!" Oh. Just. Stab. The Knife. In Deeper, Gustavo. Because that's how the dogs talk on Three Woofs and a Woo. Like already stooping awfully low here, writing dog dialog. Isn't that like writing personalized Star Trek porn novellas?


Who cares because We shall pounce on a cat like so when it falls from the sky like cat rain and we shall call it the Day it Rained Cats in the Backyard When Laura Did not even Take us On a Walk and Did not Even Write in the Blog Due to Her Boringness!

Then Otterpop and Gustavo ran away to play with the dog toy which was much less boring than me. They are probably escaping through the back gate right now to go find a less boring owner on the next block. Maybe the lady that owns Icey. She seems not very boring and totally cute outfits whenever she walks Icey and doesn't make him do dog training stuff.


But Ruby stayed to wait. So she's out there waiting now. She's gonna get cold. Shivering! Come on you guys. She looks like Fenwick over at Elite Forces of Fuzzy Destruction. But is a girl! Shivering! Um, is it because I raised drawing prices? Got all navel gazey? Put on that Xmas 10lbs? She's shivering, people! We'll go to a dog show next weekend and I swear I'll write about it! Swear! Shivering!

Total Cheap-o Agility.

So maybe some of you are feeling the economy hit. Even if you're not laid off, for every person that gets laid off, some of us that aren't laid off sort of get laid off. The trickle down. Maybe people who can't afford to ride horses anymore should all come out and take dog agility lessons on Wednesday night? Trickle, trickle, trickle.

In the meantime.

We cut back, we cut out, chop, chop, chop. We make choices. What do you do when John Doe and Exene and the Knitters are playing at a tiny club early on a Sunday evening for old people but charging $20? Augh. The choices. Having a personality which makes me hate shopping helps, but somehow there is still much money needed every month for stuff. Repeat after me. No new tattoos. Trickle, trickle, trickle from Madoff to Silicon Valley to Horse Trainers to Tattoo Artists. It's just freaky times right now. Where talking about the economy is the new weather chit chat.

Dog agility? I think I was already doing on the cheap, pretty much. But we are tightening all the hatches big time right now, so I have to make agility even cheaper. No money costing hobbies for me. Let's pinch agility pennies here.

Pinch One: Lessons. I have had to cut out my once-ish monthly, to sort of every other month, to sort of no lessons with Jim. Does this affect our agility skills? Yes. Bummer, man. Just have to try harder when we practice, and be better observer and learn a lot by watching others. I am staring at YOU, super world champion. Am lucky to still be able to run my dogs in Rob's class on Wednesday nights when I teach, which is good practice but a busy group run through is not the same thing as an intensive lesson. Sorry mad skilz of Gustavo.

Teaching my own class definitely makes taking a class possible, so am grateful for Wednesday nights. I may not the best agility teacher in the world, but my students seem to like it and end up ok, hopefully not scarring them in any way and I make sure everybody has a good time. I would say my teaching style is Greg Derrett Lite Except with New Names for Things In a Screechy Way. Dumbo Ride Arm. Stop In The Name of Love Hand. Need to keep recruiting more new people to agility, to keep our classes nice and full! We have other teachers like Rob and Dee who are actually highly knowledgeable and did you know I was going to be doing a sales pitch here?

Pinch Two: Practicing. Am super lucky to rent my friend's field to practice on and use her fabulous stuff, but have had to make some cutbacks here little bit due to the renting part involves money. What's a girl to do? Basically let the dogs run amuck in the forest and the beach. Lazy and free. Helping agility? Uh, makes them fast but not sure how much good focus and training skills we build out there in nature, actually let's call it unbuilding. Oops. Use the contact trainer in the driveway! There is that old tried and true method called lug the crap to the park on day off. Augh. Very cheap though and tones yer arms.

Pinch Three: Trials. So just going to one day of multi day trials, a good start. Yes, I have fewer Q's than you but well, it's the journey right? Slower to get a lot of letters to go in front of each dog's name. I also enter fewer classes on that one day. Haven't been entering everybody in everything. Three dogs x full day of entries = holy cow. So Ruby, just a couple things. Gustavo, a couple things. Otterpop, maybe a few more than anyone else. Harder to get our letters? Yep, but again, journey, kittens. Think of the motel fees you save. Haven't started sleeping in the car yet. Just not going to go there. Occassionally splurge for that one night in Motel 6. Usually just drive in the dark a lot.

Most trials, have important yet time consuming jobs that you can do to earn some free entries. Do I do these? No. Should I? Yeah, but hard to do in one day and also the stress of running multiple dogs and working every second would make me hate trialing, thus what are we talking about here? Kudos to the hard job workers and you have cheaper entries! I am more of a volunteer worker at the gate or running around setting bars out there. Doesn't pay anything, but I like to help but I like to like agility too. But a hard job is a good thing to do and get a free entry. For you.

Pinch Four: Training books, videos, dvd's? Ha. Never really spent anything on this pinch, so there, money very saved! If you like reading books and watching dvd's to educate yourself then you are a better and smarter person than me. Not hard to do. And, if you are a member of a dog club, maybe they have a library. Bayteam and Smart do. You can borrow a lot of training stuff there. Which I have, and tried to watch dog training dvd's except they generally made me want to rip my eyeballs from my skull. So saving lots of money here!

Pinch Five: Buying dog crap. I don't buy much for my dogs. They get teensy scraps of string cheese from Trader Joe's. Big pack that lasts weeks, $2.99. Have a bunch of crates that I've collected over the years, and they enjoy old saddle pads as beds. Those flying squirrel frisbees work surprisingly well even as a scrap of plastic tube and orange tattered dirt fabric. And yeah. They are teensy, tiny dogs. Eat less, tear up stuff less, smaller stuff. Thanks dogs, for not growing beyond 14lbs. Really people. They are dogs. Do we follow the Clean Run chatter? Do we need all these dog accessories? I know. Trickle, trickle, trickle. But my dogs just gonna play with a damn pinecone.

Pinch Six: Barter, trade, and sell. You buy my drawings, I go to dog show. Buy some shirts, you are stimulating my economy. Once I'm stimulated, maybe I stimulate yours. Trickle, trickle, trickle.

3 on a Leash.

Is it weird? That you could turn happy on and off like a faucet? Maybe not the antique bronze faux farmhouse faucet from every single remodel in Sunset Magazine. But possibly the mid priced Home Depot one that isn't yet rusted and covered in scaley white crud. Just a faucet.

That something like sitting there on the couch, or should we say Love Seat since couch would indicate a living room large enough to hold an actual couch, with your dogs lumped around you can help that switch stay on, not turn off. Maybe doesn't make everything perfect and put a million bucks in your bank and switch your crumbly house into a dream ranch and save the polar bears and get that fat gut to tighten into Beyonce tummy. Hi Jay-Z! But can help enough that life doesn't look so crappy and the sky looks a little bluer and you can think that you are a-ok with what you got. Maybe don't try to look at the future like a gaping pussy black abscess but more like something that is going to happen tomorow, sun comes up in the same exact place as today and the dogs will still be there with you. Maybe running away to roll around inside a rotting corpse of a seal or monkey barking at each other as they completely shred the polyfill guts out of what used to be a taxonomically correct stuffed duck, but still counts technically as there with you. Just perhaps smelling really bad.

Not sure why a pack of funny looking dogs that make people laugh and point, aren't even as tall as your knee and climb on your head when you're asleep can have such strong powers of voodoo, but somehow they do. Do they change the fact that a whole bottle of water poured itself out in your purse and is slowly drizzling out all over the carseat next to you as you fly down the freeway at night in the rain, soaking your checkbook and papers and planner and all the items of you life in there? Do they change the fact that they're currently covered in sticky black mud which is about to get tracked over much of the surface of the newish carpet in your teensy, tiny house? Change the way the ice cubes for the polar bears to sit on melting and we're not sure how long they can swim? Change anything much?

Nope. Dog the opiate of the masses? Maybe. But I think Marx also said that dog is the heart of a heartless world, in his next breath. Right? Or brother Groucho Marx maybe said that? Or Otterpop? No wait. She is over there screaming her head off at the tiny yellow bus stopping down the street. Look out kids! Wait. Now are we promoting communism to the K-6 crowd? Naw. Just getting ready to start out another day. Suspect we'll be back to your regularly programmed agility nonsense soon.

Team Small Dog fixes everything for Laura by just running around until she is smiling again.

Been a lot of ups and downs for me all having to do with land lately. Where I live, so beautiful with my ocean hooked to my mountains by my meadows, but less and less land for our horses and dogs. And I guess if you have camels and llamas and donkeys and huge, fanged cats, less for them too.


Unless you can buy it. But even for some folks that bought it a long time ago, or have some extra buckets, the biggest size, to buy it now, a lot of problems sharing the space with other people who are not neccessarily fans of dogs and horses. Or strawberries or apples or cows. They are mostly fans of their own houses.


Been going out to the forest more. Where indeed, not supposed to take the dogs. But still go out, find the paths that not frequented by the rangers, and be happy that it's a big forest, hundreds and hundreds of acres, where the paths are narrow and the redwoods shade the weird 70 degree January hot sun. And that I can still find ways to let my dogs run and run and run and run.

The Obama's need one of these.

Gustavo, you are a majestic creature.


And a troublemaker. Don't make those 2 penguins laugh. I mean it. They are good dogs that were told to sit still and look at the camera. Angels.


Here, has launched some devious plot designed to make Ruby do his dirty work and get Otterpop. So he can be up by the camera, the ham. He can convince anyone to do ANYTHING. Does the name Eddie Haskell ring a bell?


And he has decided now it is time to do the LEAPING! LEAPING I tell you! And then rev your motor because it will be time to RUN!


Barky Face with Otterpop. If you could only hear this. Ear blistering, monkey shrill and relentless.


Until Otterpop is driven to brain explosion and it becomes bitey face. He doesn't care. Totally knows how to work the Otterpop angle. Does stuff Ruby would never DARE to do.


Majestic creature or missing member of the Banana Splitz? We should all be so lucky to have a Gustavo in our lives.

We hope it's not a labradoodle.

Hello and Welcome to The Wrestler.

The Wrestler is a movie where you will not see any dogs. Not a single dog, anywhere. However. When Mickey Rourke won a Golden Globe for fine acting last week, one of the people he thanked, in his graphite purple satin suit and Steven Tyler scarf, were his dogs. He has 7 chihuahuas. Rock on Mickey, mumbling, "Sometimes when a man is alone, that's all you've got is your dog." Dogs or no dogs on screen itself, you might like this movie, or at least Mickey Rourke as Randy the Ram.

You will have to understand a few things. One is that you might see a lot of sharp things gouged into skin, drawing not just dribblets of blood but thick, steady streams of it. You will learn something new about wrestling I suspect you didn't know before. And that Mickey Rourke, who calls himself Randy the Ram but is named actually Robin Ramzinski, in the movie, fancies himself an Axl Rose in a Dee Schneider, post metal-post rehab sort of way. Banged up and cheaply blonded and puffed up and sliced up. Remember when Axl Rose got his work done and it was so confusing to see him, all puffy yet with new pointy bits? Hair tied up in a little knot, and his duct taped down jacket which causes you not to picture a Sartorialist caption saying, Grunge Layering with Tape, New Jersey. But something about the heavy breathing mic they keep on him the whole time, and his unlaced boots, makes you like him even more. Most of the time.

It's a story about f***ing up and trying to do ok. You can probably sort of guess how it goes. Nothing new there. A van down by the river and steroids and sparkly spandex tights with appliques. Been there, done that. You will see Marissa Tomei with no clothes a lot, so if strippers are not your thing I would say between that and a lot of sharp things in the skin maybe you wouldn't want to go to this movie. However, you could also learn things about stripper panties and how they stay attached to bottoms, and how wrestlers chit chat before their events. Sort of how you will learn new things about staple guns and bashing stuff with prosthetic legs.

I would say as a movie, overall, it is mostly sad and a story you already know. If instead, you go watch for a couple hours of Mickey Rourke's low grunty breathing, and shuffling, painful walk, banged up, drugged up face, and wonder how just a quick flick of a hearing aid can make you almost cry, this is quite an amazing thing. Wait til you go to the lonliest autograph signing with him in the American Legion Hall. Really, the whole movie is about looking at that face, so close up, like all his chihuahuas see at home.

When you can't quite see across the sky.

Hardly ever do I leave the dogs home when I go to work, but yesterday was a day I did.

When I got home, together we all walked down to West Cliff, the narrow, cement path that hangs above the sea and separates you from the water with only a thin rail above the cliff.

Looking across the bay, it became apparent that the I am in global warming, the smog filling the sky lit a wrong kind of orange, from the sun about to drop down, in the same spot as it does every night.

No matter what you do, never going to get it to come back up there.

Quickly I realized, this is the future I see. The air shows poison today like how we'll see it every night when the future starts.

The sea below was rolling and boiling, the tide high on a big surf night and you can feel the spray stinging skin. A sting you can live with, not always so bad to know what a sting feels like.

Lots of people walking, and the path was crowded and everyone together watching and wondering what was wrong with the color of the ocean and the sky, bleached out sort of toxic, like the chemo drained the right colors out and put in the bad ones.

------

When we got to the beach, I was surprised that there was still a small patch left bare by the rising tide and we joined the tourists and locals on the steps to make our way down, closer to the thick, hard sea.

Past a girl in a faded, shrunk pink top, with the saddest prison tats scaling her arm I've ever seen. Both her and her black and gray work had a dour look and I brushed her tattoos on the crowded stairs.

A naked old fat guy in shades was sitting behind a rock where the beach makes a turn, twaddling his twiddly bits in the sand but we just marched by and found this little patch where the tide was still staying away.

Everywhere you look, scattered amber turnips I call sticks but are really seaweed bulbs ripped loose by the current.

Diseased, thick air, waves slamming loud, and we still had a few minutes before dark where everyone could run, a dead, fast run, through the mist after sticks. For a second, I looked the cholo guy with a black striped shirt and the knee socks with his boxer puppy, right in the eye, and we smiled at each other, then turned back to make sure the rising tide didn't swallow our dogs.

------

In the dim, walking home across the field, a drop line of ground fog hugged the weeds and stumps and obscured a scurrying few out there.

The signs, where decals stuck for a while, and now just show the stick guy walking his stick dog on a stick leash, freshly marked up with black marker tags that I couldn't really read.

We headed out through the bushes, out of sight, and when I felt how hot the air was, for a January night in the north, I realized that this is just how things are now.

Something is different, and we are learning how to do things over again.

Hello from our vacation!

Team Small Dog is on vacation! That's right, we're all on a beautiful island in the Caribbean. The dogs are running amuck on the white sandy beach that goes on for a hundred miles and they bring us giant omlettes with swiss cheese and spinach and peppers right to the veranda and whatever cocktail you want. Mimosas for breakfast, and these fruity things with pineapple on sticks and rum in them. And sandwiches. Magnificent, towering sandwiches. All we have to do all day is walk on the beach and lay in the coconut field during the rain showers. No one else is here except us, and at night it's so quiet and starry and warm and all you can hear is the sea which never boils or rumbles or flings bloody seal carcasses to our doorstep. It's the quiet kind and it just makes nice sounds. Only nice sounds. And did I mention the sandwiches and the sky blue sky, stretching from left to right and all I have to do all day is to sit quietly and look at it and then take a nap.

A tiny part of a bigger plan.

As part of the Team Small Dog economic stimulus plan, all drawings sold in the Team Small Dog Etsy Store will now cost the same as one USDAA Dog Trial class. You buy a drawing, Otterpop, Ruby, or Gustavo gets to do a run. Otterpop is 3 pesky Gambler's Q's from an ADCh guys. In honor of your purchase, at the startline, after I kiss my dog on the nose, I will look up at the sky, squint into the sun AT THE RISK OF GETTING NEW WRINKLES, and say quietly, "Thanks (insert your name here)!" I'd get you a plaque or something but no I wouldn't.

Look for the button over there on the right that says "hey! Get your original Drawings from here-Now!" Click on it. That's just how the capital letters came out. Pens do that. More drawings to come.

And today, I will let you in on a little secret I'm going to call the Secret to Life.

Richard Todd took this, not me.

That sounds like a big secret.

Even when stuff is going pretty crappy, try to find a way to stay happy. Can you just keep shuffling forward? Slow is ok.

You are at the beach. The sun is going down. There might be a lot of crummy doings going on during other parts of life, but this part is looking all right and it's low tide. A Ranger shows up, and maybe it is even Officer Walters. Who walks like a lumpy, lumbering ape. You just down all the dogs, clip them up on leashes, and sit your butt in the wet sand and watch the sun as it drops down, like a runny yet somewhat firm egg yolk dropping into blue, gummy plastic but is actually a sea. You don't look at the Ranger. You just sit and stare and maybe count to 10 a couple times and think, it's ok. No one is about to amputate my leg with a chainsaw. I have a house and the internet and teeth and all my dogs are the best ones.

Then when the Ranger finally leaves, and you sit there a while longer, and you are not even that mad you have a totally wet, sandy ass. Things, they could be worse.

Do you have a USB Humping Dog? I thought not.

This was my present the other night. Hilarity ensued.


It's a little plastic dog that you plug into the usb plug on your computer.


Take off it's little plug, and let him go to work. It's all he does. On and on and on. Til you pull his plug.


But ha HA! I have saved it's very nice plastic packaging.


And is now something maybe YOU get for your present.

The perfect hybrid, which is a little like the perfect storm but not as wet.

I figured out Gustavo's perfect thing. We all should be so lucky to have so perfect of a thing. Forest Agility.

We went to an agility party at the beautiful agility house in the forest the other day. Thanks Kathleen and Stan! We only made it for a few minutes of the actual agility part, since I had to go to actual work that day too. But we got to run around a little bit. When the jumps out on the field went down to 12", took each member of Team Small Dog out for a spin. Had been a doozy of a work day. Just wanted to run around and have some fun, and so did the dogs. They were so happy to hang out, tied to a log, for a few minutes of barking and agility.

When it was Gustavo's turn, was a little nervous. All the agility people are there with their super trained dogs, and one of my agility friends who is also an agility super star. With her 12" dog. Who always beats Otterpop. She's never seen Gustavo yet. And you never know what Gustavo is going to do, especially in a forest. I guess being publicly humbled always good for personal growth if you are happy to be growing into something that lives under a rock. I want to be fancy and make a good impression. Not shameful and not worthy. Ha, HA look out Jack! Maybe someday, we could beat you! Or maybe not!

Put him at the startline, led out a couple jumps, and he was OFF. He has this funny go kart takeoff where he rears his head back and then blasts forward. It's like someone behind him powers up his tiny little motor with a string, and lets it loose in perhaps a somewhat unsafe manner that could take someone's eye out with that thing. KABLOOEY and YER OFF!

Holy moly, he loves to run. However, we are faced with a pardox, my friends. It is agility, yet it is forest. Forest is where there is no dog training and is for running amuck. So he sees a-frames, yet he also sees forest. The good dog trainers, their dogs just see the agility. The lazy dog trainers, their dogs also see forest. So his course sort of went like jump, jump, run around towards the forest. Jump, a-frame, run around towards the forest. Jump, jump, try to get him in the weave poles but instead run around in the forest.

Everyone is watching. I am mortified beyond belief by my bad training skills displayed in front of the world team coach and other accomplished and important members of the agility community yet also totally cracking up and also almost hyperventilating from having to run so fast. I KNOW Silvia Trkman says her secret weapon is forest running with the dogs but I think my forest running just creates forest running dogs. The Goo Show just keeps going on and I'm doing some laps around the field. HOWEVER, was basically a perfect hybrid of agility and insane forest running. So I believe this adds style points. As agility goes, let's just say really super wide turns if a quick jaunt towards the treeline between jumps counts as a turn and never did get through those weave poles. As forest running goes, fine job, Gustavo and thanks for not diving into any creeks.

I dunno. Was pretty fun. What can I say. I'm easily amused. Remember that Susan Garrett question, what separates you from World Class Competitors? Yeah.

Should one ever take interior design advice from the drunk?

So let's say you had to stop at a bar on the way home from work because of a shitty day at work. That involves real estate and commercial use permits and the shrinking land for horses and animals in Santa Cruz county and maybe will steer this blog back into the sordid world of real estate. Dogs? One of those days where they never, ever leave their pen or their crate. Luckily it is a bar with a nice couch and big glasses for the wine and no one can hear the sound of anyone crying or cursing from the couch. Sorry dogs. Waiting in the car.

And the bright spot of the day is someone emailing for advice. Rock on, advice emailers! Here is our question for the day:

Question:

I live in a rental home here on Long Island. A raised ranch job, with fake textured shakes on the upper part. Kinda popular here in the 50's when they started raping and pillaging this island. I digress. Anyway, this house has primary living quarters upstairs, and canine and avian living quarters downstairs. The "dog room" (i.e. paddock and stall/crate area for 3 rottweilers and 1 english cocker) has a lovely fake forest mural of wallpaper on the back wall. Numerous people have commented on how nice this foresty background is! I like to think of it as the Eyesore, and the dogs have decided that the lower bits are kind of tasty. I'm thinking that we should follow the TSD lead and go with some wall-mounted faux deer and squirrel motifs. Whaddya think? I could throw in an owl or a crow in there too I suppose... would love advice on how to turn this into tasteful kitsc h instead of looking like I just slapped some stuffed animals on the wall! Need help with integrating 2D and 3D.

This is from our BFF Sarah. With the big dogs.

Answer:

Oh my god can I come live there too! You have a whole dog and bird room with a forest wall! Who is the luckiest girl in the world??? I think it is not an eyesore I think it is fabulous! Hopefully the neighbors have not worked with the county to villafy animals in your neighborhood!

First of all. Remember our art interview with Artist Kelsey? She totally OWNS forest mural wallpaper. Kelsey, are you there? Sometimes she goes to New York on important Artist Business. Can you go help Sarah? Kelsey tends to use more restraint than me, but I say there is never enough taxidermy and faux can be the way to go if you are not down with the whole shooting animals with guns business. Or you scrounge at yard sales for when people are selling their taxidermy. That's where I get mine. Including the big turtle!

I think a good idea would be a shelf and on the shelf is all your animals! Out of dog reaching range. High. So they are staring at the dogs, all the time. A lot of crows and owls are good. Also perhaps trains and little train trees? I think you need to think in terms of grouping and multiples and quality of faux; wood and there is that etsy girl that covers taxidermy blanks in wallpaper or if you are crafty, you get your own taxidermy blanks and go crazy! Try not to use the stuff out of the vacuum bag for covering squirrels. Does not work good. Or flocking stuff. Or dirt with the glue gun. Fake fur! Tweed! Lots! At least 26 squirrels! At least 2 deer heads, looking at eachother from either side of a corner. The owls, you will not regret going to the owls! Can someone build you a shelf?

Don't worry Sarah. We will help you. Send pictures and it is like a makeover show and I am your Tim Gunn except with a giant chunk of hair just cut out with scissors! Right on!

A philosophical rumination about dog fun and exploding clown heads.

Does the red santa clown dog give her nightmares?

Had a weird couple dog training days. Hmm, non dog agility friends. How do I explain this to you? You are actually going to be bored really soon and goodbye so sorry about that, thanks for playing! Dog agility friends, you'll get it right away. It's about drive. When I practice, I like dogs to be wild and hyper and irritating and running all around. Super fun that way, even if maybe things not perfect, it's pretty funny to watch little speed demons fly around and take an off course just due to my slowness of getting them their crucial information on time. I felt fast, but they perceive as slow because they are dogs and I am just a lady. Like pretend you have driven up to the Jack in the Box clown. To order. And the clown talks back to you really, really, slow. You say you want a milshake. And the clown says back like this:

t   h  a    t

w      i      l     l

b    e

o        n   e




m        i    l         k          s      h        a        k             e

And then you need to blow him up. Isn't that what happened to all the Jack in the Box clowns? They got blown up? They're all gone? Due to slowness? When you are slow, and your dog is fast, you have to be fast and accurate and then you have good agility and no one explodes.

When that drive isn't happening, agility not so fun. We have that problem at the bad trials, when Ruby checks out or Otterpop freaks out. Might be having a bunch of fun and wild and fast runs and then some that aren't and super bummer. For all involved. When the dog is slow, the dog is not having so much fun. The dog is sad. Would rather be doing something else, is what I think. No one wants a sad dog. Freaky dog, nervous dog, scared dog. Turn that frown upside down. Hopefully good trials outweigh the bad ones. Practicing super fun because we always have drive practicing. Me and the dogs, we love practicing.

One of the funnest things of Gustavo, super drive, super fast, all the time. Practicing, at a trial, all super, never frowning. Last couple days, dirt nite, not super. Uh oh. Where's the drive? He's not slow, but that crazy spark not so much there. He's running fast but not FAST. Found it eventually by playing around and doing some easy little runs through jumps to a tunnel, but I like it when it just comes straight out of the box and not exactly sure where it went. Not rewarding enough? Overfacing him? Too many weave poles? Something is confusing to poor little squirrel brain? Didn't seem like it.

I do have an idea why. The barking and carrying on during not your turn is making me crazy. When I am running around with another dog, or when a speedy black and white dog runs around, the barking is making me NUTS. And I am trying to make that go away. Sometimes by yelling "SHUT UP you guys!", sometimes by rewarding for not barking, sometimes putting barker in a crate, but I think that some of the fun of Gustavo's agility is in that insane, shrill, awful barking. And as I'm making that go away, I'm taking away some of the fun. Evil barking police nazi. But fast equals fun.

So I have to make a fun substitution. He especially likes to bark when Otterpop and me are running instead of him. His best reward is to play with Otterpop. Which maybe now in hindsight, a dog training faux paw. Dog is supposed to have most fun with me and I have a dog who has most fun with Otterpop. She's the life of her own little party, in her head. Be more fun, I can just hear dog trainers say. I heard it myself a lot of times, when I first started agility with Ruby and she had 3 speeds. Run away, run amuck and run and hide. I couldn't be more fun than squirrels. Focus, focus hocus pocus. Good dog trainers have their ways. I do have ideas. I know it's there. Just making me a little bit sad that I made something that was there go away, and dog agility, not supposed to ever do that.

This is because we love dog agility even more than cocktails.

Dirt Nite started again. Oh my god. Just shoot me now. Night starts off with my giant, "mixed level" class which means I have beginner dogs, not beginner dogs, mean dogs, hyper dogs, dogs that do contacts, dogs that don't, dogs with weave poles, some dogs without, experienced handlers, brand new handlers, teenage handlers, mobility challenged handlers. I can see your faces now. All the dog agility instructors are like, "Yeah, that kind of class." I love my agility students. Hi Students! But this group, gonna keep me hopping and creative.

Then I try to do agility office hours, so people can get extra help. Then it's time to dig out dogs. Find 'em in crates. 4 dogs, and my poor sluggy legs haven't run this much in weeks. Run, run, run, run. By 8:30pm, I've gone off course like 3 times, slammed dogs through bars, screwed up discriminations, uh, anything else? Gustavo has barking freakout meltdowns any time a speedy black and white dog is running. Guess how many speedy black and white dogs at dog agility class? And if I try to get him to shut up, then Hobbes is barking. Stereo irritation! By 9:00, when someone else tries to throw treats at them to shut my barkers up, Ruby the GOOD DOG almost takes off someone's hand trying to get a treat. Yeah, blood spurting. OH MY GOD. And there's still barking. And Gustavo now has weave poles but has lost serpentine arm reading skills and not sure what else. Instead of cocktails on the veranda to end the night with, drag the whole course back through the dirt and into the trailer. Does ANYONE'S agility ever end with cocktails on the veranda? Does anyone even have a veranda?

Basically, unbridled mayhem of fiasco all night. This is what I go flying out of work a the crack of 5pm and drive fast to get there to drag stuff around and do this and dinner on dirt night equals banana? For the crowning ending, someone brings the dirt from the night into my house and it somehow puddle water activates dirt nite paws and all of a sudden everywhere, tiny black paw prints because the guilty party is running and running and running through the house with a squeaky santa in tow to make up for all those screwed up serpentines and did I ask you to just shoot me yet?

One thing I want to work on this year is better editing skills in my writing.

On Monday, I was supposed to be cleaning out the artist studio garage and working on my exciting, upcoming work move that will squelch our agility career as we know it, I decided it was a good idea to take the dogs on another mad dash on a muddy path in the rain wearing totally unsuitable clothing walk in the forest to waste some time build our championship relationship. Before Oprah started.

This day we went to the more Starters Level Forest, because it offers convenient parking which is part of our city's greenbelt. This forest is sort of different because of the convenient parking for super fast sporty runners nice flat walking path for leathery old homeless guys to walk to their secret camping spots people who might not be able to do much clambering and bushwalking and crossing streams on suspended air logs.


Done editing now. I give up. I talk like this too. Since EVERYONE forgot to nominate me for this, no more editing. Ha, take THAT, reader.

And also, ladies with labs and now unseasonal holiday sweatshirts to enjoy the forest. Sorry holiday sweatshirt lady. We didn't mean to scare you. We use the Starters Level Forest a little different than the more Advanced Level big meadow forest. Because of the sporty runners, Otterpop stays on a leash until we get to the more foresty section, off the main path. And because lots of people walking around in there who don't neccessarily want an 11lb missile blasting into them, Gustavo stays on his leash until we get to the foresty section. Ruby can do whatever she wants in the whole forest, because she's a good dog.

And holiday sweatshirt lady, with her friendly yellow lab, she didn't know we were coming up through the foresty section. And also didn't know that I was going to be imitating monkey calls out there. I don't know what we were hearing at first, me and the dogs. Sounded like monkeys to me. And the dogs were so funny, stopping in their tracks every time they heard it. So when they would go running off, off and away, and I would make the monkey calls too. Except mine were like flying monkey calls. Just to freak the dogs out. Because that's how we build our relationship, out there in the forest. Freaking out the dogs with fake monkey calls.


Poor lady in her holiday sweatshirt. Who is smartly vacating the forest in time for the rain. And also planned for the rain with smart rain walking outfit. Me, just out there making monkey calls, dripping wet in cashmere and muddy slip on vans. While those dog missiles just keep flying around. Running on the foresty path til we get to the goldfish box, and just sit up there for a while, getting rained on and listening for monkeys.

Some healthy weight tips from a special secret guest who is Oprah!

This is my friend Oprah. You might know her. We used to hang out sometimes on my day off. It's been a while though.


How much do you love her couch? Oprah is richer than God. If you're her friend, she might give you Balenciaga and hand crafted donuts and a van.

We hung out the other day. It was raining. She packed on some pounds last year. I feel for you, Oprah. You eat the blue chips, I eat the See's candy. She is REALLY upset about it though.


I'm all, "Maybe you can have a banana for snack?"

She's all, "No way-total carbs. Is not on my food schedule. Grilled chicken breast!"


So I'm all, "LOOKY! Broccoli! Total healthysville! Hippie food! Just stick it in a pan!"

She's all, "Cardio! I hate the cardio but I cardio!"


So I found this. "Oprah! Carrots! Totally eat the carrots! Then just go take the dogs for a run out in the rain. I think you might have special gore tex dog rain running accessories, even?"

Oprah sighs. "I'm overscheduled. I do not love myself. No time for self. Self? Sweater capes?"


"Crunchy apple? It's orgaaaannniiiccc...."

I might be wearing her down.


"I put this in my coffee instead of Mr. Jack Daniels! It's non fat! Just switch to this, Oprah. And you could come to Dirt Nite this week too, help set jumps and stuff. We'll getcha running out there. It's like the new black for the over 50 crowd. Sophie and Timmy, they're up there somewhere scarfing down garlic fries. But you can do this with one of the golden retrievers, bring 'em up from the Montecito house. You still have a couple of those goldens, right? Watsonville Airport, right down the street!"

You can just see it in her face. A lot of my friends have this reaction now. "Always about the dog agility with you. Just not going to happen. The producers said it's just way too time consuming. Bob Greene never approved it and not sure if it's the way to our better Life. Oops, almost 5:00 and poof, I vanish."

She never gave me Balenciaga anyways. Or a van.

Might be how come we don't have art shows in museums, too.

Took the dogs went up to the forest yesterday. To run and pretty much keep running. It's kind of mayhem, not sure what kind of calm and assertive leadership we have anymore in the forest. It's more like I am taking a walk with Ruby and Gustavo is just Running and Running and Running and Otterpop is following him. Doesn't matter if they've just crossed a ravine or gone up a cliff or down a steep bank into the creek, they're just running and they are in general following us, or leading out ahead of us, but not exactly. They're just running. No deer chasing today, just flat out RUNNING.

Not sure if Susan Garrett lets her dogs do this. Not sure if I should do this, but this is just what forest walks are now, so that's what I've taught them. As productive as going to practice contacts? Hell no. Detrimental to dog training skills including things like reliable recall? Probably. But is pretty much fun to just let dogs run total unhinged loose in the forest and across the biggest, fattest, widest meadow looking out to the sea you've ever seen.

Susan Garrett put this thing in her blog, "What (if anything), do you think separates you as a competitor in the sport of dog agility, from the best competitors in the world?" and you are supposed to answer it in her comments.

I'm not much of a commenter. I'll just tell you guys here. Not sure if Susan ever comes here to read about Team Small Dog. Small potatoes in the potato pot of dog agility. Also, once I said she was a witch. I'm mean like that. So what are those separation factors? I suspect there are a lot. But I think maybe the big, meta one is that I like just walking around in the forest with my dogs batshit loco running unglued mayhem up slippery leaf slope walls while I saunter down the path and think about oak trees and rocks and Keith Richards and Mickey Rourke's hair in the Wrestler a little bit too much.

Hello and today we review the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

Well. You've all heard about this movie because it's the kind of movie that has something for everyone. Slums! Dogs! Millionaires! Even my dad liked this movie!

It is also a good movie to see at a movie theater close to your house because possibly your husband loses the only key to his car either before, during or after arriving at the movie in the car, and you may be walking home. Hopefully you wore sturdy boots and not high heels! And a warm hat! And good pants for crawling around on a sticky movie theater floor with a flashlight looking for keys.

These antics pale in comparison to the hijinks of orphans Jamal and Salim in Mumbai. The director is the same guy that made Trainspotting, one of my most favorite movies ever. His name is Danny! Sort of like you cross City of God except not in Brazil with a No Doubt video except no blondes or ska music and let Baz Luhrman fetch tea and help out with color coordinating. Tea fetchers in India are called Chai Wallahs. There are trains and taj mahals and cute kids and horrible poverty. I'm not kidding about something for everyone. It sort of scooches genres together and there is love and there is hate and there is suspense and there are sex slaves and literary references and one big dance scene with bright yellow scarves fluttering in the background. It's not highbrow, yet not lowbrow. Sort of unibrow, but in a peppy way.

Slums: Many. Dirty. Big. Includes chase scenes.

Dogs: Some. Not one dies at all during this movie. If you want to see a movie where the dog doesn't die, this is totally your movie.

Millionaires: So not spoiling the fun for you if you didn't see this movie already. But I keep seeing it refered to as The Feel Good Movie of the Year. Just saying.

Closing Credit Titles: You know the typeface I use when I caption photos here most of the time? Type snobs, you totally recognize good old House Gothic Three Bold, total old school House Industries face with little roofs and descenders added on. Oh my god! Don't you love it when you see type you love repurposed? Who else recognized that typeface?

Can you bring your kids: Do they like torture by the police? Do you want them to learn how to hang upside down from a train roof with a rope? Did they like Bambi? If you answered yes and you don't have handgun rules around your house, then bring your kids!

Can you bring your dog: Can you get it into a tote bag?

Actors: Super cute kids that grow up into super foxy super stars. Plus some other actors too. I think they are all from India. And tons and tons of extras so you can see what it looks like inside a call center and on busy streets in India. I think they all did a fine job. Look happy! Look sad! Look scared! Look lovey! Run!

So maybe not like totally deep, but look who is writing your review. Just go see it, you will like it.

Small Stuff From a Small Dog House.

Did you know one of my hobbies is interior designing? Is a direction I am thinking we talk about more of this year here on Team Small Dog. If by talking about interior designing you do not mean you are my husband muttering about hiding some of my deers. Or antlers. Or whining about, "Why do we now have owls up there?" and "When is the last time you DUSTED." Interior designing, really a very little discussed topic here on Team Small Dog and one I think we could delve into much deeper. Like wouldn't you want to see home tours of your favorite dog agility favorite people and their taxidermy?


So today, a quick tour around stuff from on top of my tv cabinet. It's where I keep most of my antlers.


They are all just so very, necessary.


You can never have too many deers around the house. These ones are sleeping.


My new idea is start collecting black ones. Debbie gave me this one. Eachan, are you watching? Can you tell her you saw it on the internet so she knows how much I like it? Sorry tan one with some chewing on your head. You may have to move to the back of the display.


My owl is black. I think he is so beautiful!


This dog is black and is very, very heavy. Now that you know about my Facebook and you can probably find out where I live, this is what I would smash you with if you were a stalker and tried to get into my house to steal my underpants. Just so you know. It is the heaviest thing I know of in the house.


This is where I keep my pinecones. I know, you all probably have a better place to keep yours. Or you are Monique and have a fawn in a case or I don't even know you and you have a standing grizzly bear in your living room and I hate you both. Interior designing, very, very competitve. Totally way more competitive than dog agility, if you were thinking about those cutthroat Steeplechase percentage cut off lines. Scoring of cool interior items and wall plastering and wallpaper? Don't even get me started. Sort of like how I end up in Steeplechase. Not neccesarily the winner. But, like everything else, something keeps me stumbling blindly along on my own little path and that path is paved in pinecones and that something is how could we install a life sized plastic feedstore horse on the roof?

A very nice way to get pesky dogs to sleep away the afternoon.

I had this old friend, you may remember, it's name was dog agility. Like some other old friends, whose names may also be Joel Warner or We are Buying a Ranch, it vanished away, like Oprah's size 6, into the night. Never to be heard from again. But not willing to let this one get away, last couple days we found some time to get out to the practice field before work. Slow days at work, this week of old year and new year sandwiched next to each other so close, like beer friends nestled together in their 6 pack, not realizing the significance a digit makes when it swaps up one, trade an 8 for a 9 and instantly, everything is shinier and brighter, promise looking you head on like that wrong way deer in the freeway that you are Just. About. To. Smash.


Didn't really know what to expect, as I was unlocking the rusty old gate. Can't even recall last time me and the dogs went out for a practice. Who would remember any skills and style and flair? Well, wasn't really that bad. A little bit of mayhem, everyone obsessed with a patch of the field that smelled like fresh ground tenderloin, but after that, we all had some fun. Although. A few weeks of not running around with multiple dogs 3-4 days a week, took it's toll. I knew right away. Felt this big sloshing gut, lumbering out of shape legs, barely slogging through the wet grass. The sheep across the pasture, could certainly hear my heavy, sweatin' with the oldies breathing, each time I swapped out a dog, ready to run through our loops again. Because what's better to practice, when you're so horribly out of shape, than long loopy sequences around the field perimeter where everyone could get flat out speed to everything out there? For me, times 3. These were days to just practice running and funning.


Gustavo, like our frizzy Richard Simmons, out there wall bouncing manic in a star spangled leotard, remembered poles, and remembered contacts. A feat that impressed me to no end. Had some trouble hitting entrances on poles, coming in at the second pole a few times, but really stayed in there and fast and confident and slowly erasing those months when I thought I could never teach this one how to swiggle through those plastic poles. He got the most run arounds the field, was on border collie setting and he never wanted a break. Just back through the sequence, back on that teeter, back through those poles. Wants those lady dogs to run him to the frisbee again and again and again. By the end of it, all my jackety work layers shed across the top of the fence, doubled over, palms on knees, sweat welling up in new folds across new fat places, realized dogs are just fine. They forgot nothing. Me on the other hand? Have some serious holiday cheer to undo.


Later on, we took a real quick run down to the beach to watch the sun drop for it's first time this year. Lots of tourists, lots of dogs, surfers, saxaphone player, and what looked like an ancient old commune on a field trip with their didgeridoo and rabbit fur vests. As we walked back through the nearly dark field, you know who showed up. You know it. I just had to share. I am so totally going to read Moby Dick, once and for all. White truck, white whale, maybe Melville has the answer for me. This time, we all dove into the willow thicket where the creepy men sleep. Clipped on leashes there. Poor Ruby appalled, she is the good dog and she knows that No Dogs Are Every Supposed to Go Here, and is the only dog that every obeys that rule. Sorry Ruby. Because I drug you through the thicket and ran for it this time. Ran for the street as fast as we could, and we made it. I think we're going to be in good shape in no time.

Not exactly a quiet New Years.

Because we left the party early to go save the dogs from the warm and fuzzy New Years holiday tradition of setting off massively booming fireworks on every Westside Street. Basically same holiday as 4th of July except with mittens. Fly across town from Pleasure Point before the insane bombers start up with the really big ones. Because nothing says Happy New Years like a really good explosion.