Out of order due to blasted hogs.

Actual hospital photo taken literally a FRACTION OF A SECOND before fever hit.

The surgeon general confirmed this fact today. Gustavo's teeter totter was attacked by pig fever on Saturday at the trial. It was such a messy attack that it even affected his dogwalk and a-frame. The fever did go down this week, but however spiked again yesterday evening when exposed to dirt in the dark. I picked up antibiotics at my friend the doctor's house last night. They are pink and super fancy and can live in my driveway for a while, to be administered twice daily. With chicken. Not bacon.

I heard this fever can last a long time. Ottepop had it for one year as a baby and it still flares up every so often when she gets stressed out. Like actually she had an ugly flareup just this past weekend. Please don't laugh and point when she has a flareup, my friends. It's an unfortunate part of growing up for some. Gustavo's case should heal a lot quicker, but one never knows. I even just cancelled his playdate for the knitting team competition so he won't even come home with a tube top.

You can send him cards, flowers, See's candy and really good presents care of me. I'll make certain he gets them. Maybe someday, someday a long time far away, I won't screw up a dog agility dog with fevers, mental illness, sore shoulders, whatever other diseases I seem to spread around my dog family.

When Team Small Dog gets to go back to agility because succulent growing totally sucks.

Yesterday, Team Small Dog was going to switch from agility to succulent farming. My blog friends, always ready to accommodate, offer some nice succulent advice. Readers don't seem surprised or worried that they will have to start reading daily stories about cactus plants.

Uh, because you already knew that this was a Lame Idea? My black clouds didn't look DARK enough? You all like succulents THAT MUCH?

Totally over the succulents already. This happens every time I start landscaping something. Likely they'll be dead in their pots by June. I dunno. What was I thinking?

In the spirit of Train, Don't Complain, (aha-isn't using little sayings a weird sign of agility creepiness?) I went out to practice yesterday morning with a mission. Begin dog training boring blah blah blah here. You already guessed the blah blah blah. Because I used a little saying. Yep. Probably had on a fanny pack while I wrote it too. We are going to practice nothing but fun and fast starts that also have teeters in them, and by god, is it going to be fun. Actually, so fun that I think I threw my back out. And we all had a swell time and got tired and it was best agility day we've had in a while.

All we did was work on everyone's personal, preferred method of fun having, and a startline leadout of a couple jumps to the teeter. That was it. Since everyone got to have their own personal fun having thing be the entire focus of practice, you can imagine the mayhem that ensued. I like mayhem, I must confess.

Gustavo's involved his chicken, tied to his leash, and a lot of him hanging onto that teeter with banging and bouncing and flipping and flopping. And some ham. No ham flu here. The stuffed chicken tied to his leash thing is a new development, hoping to teach him to run to HIS leash and not SOMEONE ELSE'S leash after a run. Cookie stealer. A chicken on a leash. Sorry, my non agility friends. I'll say it again. Fanny pack. It's not that bad, but I do have a stuffed chicken on a leash.

Otterpop's idea of hellafun obviously involves the frisbee, but trying to make that the LAST fun and the first fun just playing with me and no toy and just fun fun startline with the frisbee at the end. My sore back and grass stained pants are proof of the Ottepop startline joy. You know how most people teach their dogs not to jump on them? Welcome to dog agility. I am teaching my dog to jump all over me and then chase me in order to jump all over me. It's a sick, twisted world here at dog agility.

Ruby got to chase the frisbee solo with no Otterpop to worry about and the secret Ruby weapon at the end of each startline sequence-the Chewy. She goes crazy for her chewy and tugs and growls and gets to be MEAN. Ruby's never mean, so that's her idea of fun. Pretend she's an Otterpop. And, guys. Her chewy is made of a bull penis. I have a whole bag of those. I am a vegetarian, yet I own a whole ziploc bag of bull penis.

So practice was just like this. Fun fun fun fun startline fun fun fun fun teeter fun fun fun fun fun. Everyone had to just have fun with me until the very end when the fun was causing me to walkrun like a hunchy little troll and then, and only then, did frisbee mayhem for everyone happen. This sounding fun to you? See above re. bull penis. I have a weird life now, is all I can say.

This is how the week is going to go. Every day, just about fun and startline leadouts with one piece of contact equipment each day and poles one day. Today is a-frame. Tomorow poles. Friday dogwalk. Our little experiment this week, and see what kind of difference it makes, or doesn't make, this coming weekend. Hell. If nothing else, we have a super fun week that beats watching cactus plants grow. And if we're lucky, I notice a difference Saturday. Not that years of ring weirdness should vanish in a week, but I just want a little sign here, dog. Just a sign. And maybe some more advil.

Black cloud day so Team Small Dog gets some new hobby friends.

All day, I had this black cloud floating around over my head.


All about the dogs.


I won some cold, hard cash the other day. First I thought, "Hooray! I will use it for a lesson with Jim!" Then I had this black cloud over my head and thought, "No. This is the beginning of my new life, with my new hobby and my new friends, the succulents. Because that is going to be FUN!" Look at those snails! Fun!


So I went and I got a bunch of succulents and I planted them in some dirt. Told Gustavo, "Here we go. Now this, we are all going to LOVE. Our new hobby, you guys. Succulents."


Um, Jim? You reading today? I guess I am fired forever as dog agility student. Because I traded my Jim lesson for some succulents. Tried to show the dogs, get them all hyped up about our new friends. The girl at the store said something blah blah blah about this one. I forget to listen. I always listen to Jim's puns about serpentines. Succulent listening? Not all I had cracked it up to be in my dream of new kind of fun. Turned out to be booor-ring.


"Look, Ruby! Our new friend! Succulent! Fun! Fun! Fun?"

When agility dogs retire.

This is Buddy. And his cake crumbs.


He belongs to my friend Kathy. He had a retirement party this weekend, did his last runs in his 8 year agility career at the dog show yesterday. Even got that hard teeter gamble.


His future? Still bright, just not competing. Think more naps, cake, puttering in the garden, maybe take a ceramics class. Future is wide open for Buddy.

Team Small Dog? After this weekend, really hammered the reality into my noggin that my dogs love agility. Love it so much, when they practice and practice and practice. You see them practice, you'd be impressed with the way they shine like the biggest, hugest diamonds, diamonds 100 times the size of some motley little dogs. At the dog show?

Not.

And really started to think. Maybe that's what they want to do. Retire from competition. Be practice dogs. Have a future like Buddy's, except they keep doing their own private agility in the privacy of their own rented field in lieu of ceramics class.

Not sure. They get Q's. Manage to win Steeplechase finals. But it's not the same dogs I have at the dog show. A lot of people have given me advice, ideas to make them happier, bridge that gap from practice to dog show. Lots of advice, for lots of years. I'm relaxed and laid back and I always think we're having fun. Have tried a lot to figure it out, have tried for many years now, actually.

But it's like I have Stepford dogs out there, they're not the ones I know that run manic and fast and accurate and most important, crazyhappy with complete over the top joy like they have when it's just us doing it, or we're at a class or practicing with friends.

In the grand scheme of global warming and economic crisis, a small problem to have. In the tiny scheme of my tiny little life and my tiny little dogs, feels like somewhat of a more grandiose, lumpy bump in my road.

How to be The Gate-a collaborative photo essay with Ellen from TajMutthall.

Sakes alive. That's my work hat. It's supposed to prevent wrinkles. I wore it to dog agility today. My friend Ellen took these educational photos so everyone can see what hard work we do at the dog show.


I was running around all over the place. Checking on the garbage. Running leashes. Setting bars. Even running dogs. Ended up working the gate at some point. During one of those mayhem classes.


No one was showing up. They were all at another ring or just somewhere else. The judge, trying to stay patient.


Also, it helps if the gate person pays very, very close attention at all times. Wanna guess how long my concentration span is?


Hope no permanent damage done to anyone's dog agility career by the lame ass small dog lady in the cowgirl hat. It's supposed to be FUN, right?

Getting over the freaky outies.

Talked to one freaking out dog agility student last night. Oh dear. I think some people, tend to be sort of freaker outers. Was a case of the disbeliefs that she had actually entered her dog, in a dog show. Like worried it will all be a bad dream, starting at 6am this morning.

Sometimes ladies get the freak outs at horse shows and an old horseman's remedy for the nervous nellies, the cocktail! Travel bar in the dressing room. Port. Chardonnay. Xanax.

So maybe that's something need to add into my list of getting ready for your first dog show. Canopy cocktail shaker if you tend to have the creeping willies about going off course or dog freakout or you forgot to wear pants and showed up for the judges briefing, exposing briefs. Dog agility, I believe more about nice cold cerveza and Mike's Hard Lemonade. You got creeping willies at 8am? Bloody Mary in a thermos? Coffee with a special, secret kick to it?

Tried to emphasize the whole, It's supposed to just be fun, thing. Fun! Dog grinning as it leaps off it's contact/into the off course tunnel/knocks that bar. Just try it. We all were in that Starters Ring at one time. Hell, I'm back there now. Gustavo may be a lifer in Starters Standard, for all I know. But hard to explain that peculiar thing that happens when you and your damn dog finish out a course that had more excellent moments than crappy. You get it when you practice, you get it at the dog show. You never would have signed up, if you didn't have an inkling about it. Most everyone that got hooked on this sport/hobby/dog thing, never thought they'd be spending so many weekends in the middle of nowhere, lugging crap around for a couple of minutes running fast with a dog.

I'm even missing work tomorow! See everyone there. Manzanita Park, Prunedale. A nice patch of grass parked squarely between Salinas and Watsonville. Come say hi! Just look for all the little black dogs, or the lady lugging the garbage.

Clip 'n' Save-Your First Dog Show

Some of my students are going to their first agility trial ever this weekend. I sent them a step by step email this morning, with a lot of the stuff you need to know if you've never, ever gone to a dog show. I don't think anyone ever told me what to bring or wear or do and it took me a while to sort of clue into how that whole dog show thing worked. I'm not even sure if I'd ever run a whole course on a field larger than about 20'x30' when I went to my first show. I'm not even sure if I had a clear concept of Contact Zone, and likely Ruby didn't either. We had no crate, no special leash, probably a very wrong outfit. But somehow I kept going, just tried to blend and eventually got a crate and got a better hat and sneakers with tready bottoms and figured out the whole thing by the seat of my pants, with the help of others, and in desperate avoidance of catty comments by more accomplished agility ladies.

Those agility ladies, mostly scared me in the beginning.

Ruby, bless her little heart, just went along with the whole thing. Not sure why. Oh yeah. The string cheese. That dog, complete food whore. Will put up with most anything to get a treat. The foundations of her dog show career.

So here's some things that maybe help you, or someone you know, if you're ready to go to a dog show. Shouldn't be scarey. And most important, just come find me and I'll help you decide if it's front or a rear cross, a hot topic in our classes these days. I'll be easy to spot this weekend at the SMART trial in Prunedale. I'm the garbage man at this one. It's a glamorous job, but someone's gotta do it. Just look for the scowling lady with the chubby knees with rubber gloves and a big bag of trash dragging behind her.

Before the Dog Show

You entered. Nice job. You should get a confirmation email, that has important stuff like what time to be there, how to get there, and whether it's black tie or cocktail attire. For the SMART trial, all this stuff goes up on the website, carefully placed there by yours truly. Because when I'm not being the garbage man for the dog club, I'm the web mistress.

Looky here:

http://www.smartagility.com/events/index.html

Pretty! But also has run orders, so you can see the dogs that you'll be running against, if you go early or late, stuff like that. You should try to check this and just make sure you entered the right thing, and if something got messed up, let the trial secretary know early in the week that something got screwed up somewhere. Tell her on Friday night and you are gonna have one stink eye cranky trial secretary the next day. And maybe she is my pairs partner, don't you know. So let's avoid keeping her up late Friday night.

Plan your outfit! Pack your car! But really, plan your outfit. You want to look GOOD.

At the Dog Show

Get there early. Because you need to not only haul all your crap from your car to your highly coveted little 12x12 patch of land and set it up and learn how to set up your canopy but you need to get your dog measured. Which happens when the judge gets there, not necessarily the time on the info sheet. Judges are late sometimes. They need more coffee. Their feet are sore and their flight was late and there was a snafu with the rental car and the motel room sucked. But you'll get measured, don't you worry.

Bring a hammer. When you pound in the stake things for your canopy, hold it on the end, not up by the metal hammering part. This is how tool guys hold hammers. It works better and you'll look like a totally knowledgeable hammerer. Three hits. Bam Bam Bam. Each stake. Like a pro.

Take your dog on a nice walk. Go play some frisbee. Take some deep breathes. Maybe you have Guns and Roses on your ipod. You can listen to that. You'll be fine.

Check out the rings. Figure out where you'll be running. It might even all just be in one ring for Starters. Look at the order, or maybe even you printed this out because you are organized and brought a little clipboard and a pen and you have this printed and you are going to collect the printed course maps for all your runs and clip them on your clipboard and take notes and memorized them and figure out the gamblers route and stuff like that. Or maybe you're like me and that would be WAY too much work and you don't even grab course maps, except maybe for gamblers but probably not.

Because you will have a BRIEFING! The judge will go out there and hopefully you go to this and the judge tells you how many seconds and how many points and the whole back to back contact thing and you can ask any questions you want. Unless you're like me and you miss the briefings and you just run up to someone to find out the seconds or the tricky bits and they are irritated because really. The judge just said it in the briefing.

We haven't even talked about gamblers and snookers rules in class. Sorry. So many rear crosses to do, so little time. Ask the judge! Or find me in the garbage and I'll tell you.

So you will walk your course, and either follow the cones and figure out front cross or rear cross or threadle or serpentine (AHA! I told you there was a reason you had to learn these words!) or you'll be making it up yourself in gamblers or snookers according to the rules you don't even know yet but you will. I promise.

You memorize it. You can do it. Just memorize chunks and turns and the obstacles put themselves in there and you can do this. I know you can.

Go put a little check mark by your dog's name on the list outside the ring. Don't all run over there at once. They will. Wait til that crowd thins out and you'll get a turn with the sharpie. Dunno why everyone lines up like sharks at the fish parade to get that sharpie.

Keep your ears open. Orders change, there are announcements, sort of just keep tabs on your ring to figure out when you'll go. Jumpers runs, maybe take 30 seconds. Standard runs, maybe a minute. But jumps have to be set, the timer breaks, the judge has to pee. A dog peed by the tunnel. Shit happens. Hurry up and wait is sort of how it goes.

Before You Run

There's this person called The Gate who yells a lot and crosses dog names off the list outside the ring. They might be experienced in this, or maybe not. They might be able to tell you when you run or maybe not. Don't panic. But you do want to be near The Gate when there's about 5 dogs ahead of you. So before this, you should have walked your dog, jogged your dog, run your dog, frisbee'ed it, done a jump or two. You don't know what your dog likes to do yet before you run. So hello trial and error!

Some of the things my dogs and my stalker dog like to do before they run. This might not be useful information. I'm on a roll. Just skip ahead if you're bored, kittens.

Ruby-sleep in her crate til 10 mins or so before when I force her to wake up and go for a jog. And run around. Then I let her go back and hang out for a few minutes until it's almost her turn. I make the gates crazy. And just before her turn, we run over to the ring super fast, run up and down outside it and try to time it so she can just run in and NOT HANG OUT outside the ring. She hates that.

Otterpop-has to go out really early and play frisbee for a while. She likes to do some warmup jumps if they're not near a clump of dogs. She hates dog clumps. She likes to sit on my lap under the canopy to feel the love before she runs. Otterpop is a basket case. I try to get her to the gate right before she goes in too and keep her out of the dog clump. Did I mention I can make The Gate crazy? A lot of The Gates are always The Gates and they know I'll be there. Gates who are not always the gate, not so happy and forgiving. Well, hell. Not gonna change.

Gustavo-he is very low maintenance. Because he grew up at these stupid dog shows. He'll hang out and tug on a frisbee or sit on my lap and can just run to the gate and go if we're having a conflict (usual) or whatever. He doesn't care. Thanks Gustavo.

Hobbes-He has to run around really fast with me and I make him bark and do a bunch of downs and give him a meatball. The secret weapon. I make him bark a lot outside the ring. Maybe I do not recommend this for you if you want people to like you. They are confused when I run Hobbes so don't say anything when I'm letting him bark his head off and leap after blades of grass. He's kind of like Ruby. Sleeps and goes, then back to sleep.

Working

You should work! But at your first trial, maybe not tons and tons because maybe your dog is not used to be trapped in a crate or an xpen under a canopy with barking dogs everywhere. Maybe they're scared. You should check and plan on spending some time with your dog. Don't let them be scared! Working is good though because you can watch good and bad and ugly handling and see your teacher mess up and it will be fun and funny! Setting bars and fluffing chutes and running leashes is so easy even a diabetic cat can do it. If you work, you will get raffle tickets to not win stuff that you don't even need, if you really think about it. But there has to be a lot of workers per capita to keep the show on the road, so think of it more as you can go home earlier if you work a lot.

Check your scores

Or not. I won't even try to tell you now how to read an accumulator sheet. It's the score thing. Just ask whoever is there trying to turn the page of the book it's posted in. Make them tell you if you Q'ed and if you even won a prize. If you won a prize, you can even go get a pretty ribbon from the ribbon table and write down what class it was. And hang it on your dog's cage. Take it home to show yer friends and neighbors and relatives and the mailman. Or not. I think I stopped picking up ribbons after my first year of showing. You might like these though, I guess people do. I'm just a jaded old horse show bitch.

Write it down on a scrap of paper if you Q'ed so you remember. Then you will lose the scrap of paper in your car. These are ways to remedy this called sign up for the USDAA website membership and also, most trials post the results a few days after the show. So then you don't even need to use your memory. You will probably remember.

The Most Important Thing

For real. It's supposed to be fun. Not nerve wracking or horrible or weeping inducing or vomit starting. Just try to enjoy it, and maybe it might even end up a horrible fiasco from hell, but try to have a good sense of humor, find some fun in it, learn from mistakes and be happy about what went right then come back to class and practice some more.

And what a happy earth day it was.

Have you ever returned late at night, to your house, that was filled with toxic gas for 2 days? All your stuff, either sitting outside in the yard, or duct taped into plastic bags on the floor. And anything you go to touch, sit on, sleep on, you know, you KNOW, that it was just recently enveloped, embraced, choked, by toxic gas. You get home, you're covered in dirt and tired and sweaty, it's 10pm, and HI! Toxic Gas!

All the stuff, still in plastic. Duct taped shut. All the stuff. So much crap. You want to have a happy earth day next year? Don't buy anything green, just don't buy ANYTHING. There's too much stuff, and then you add your toxic gas, and hey, Happy Earth Day. Sorry I'm a little late with your present, earth. Was it your birthday? I would have taken you out for a drink and a taco, but I was sort of tied up with the whole toxic gas thing. Maybe next year.

We miss you already, Sunset Magazine adventure.

Taking pictures of dogs, super easy, when the temperatures climb to the millions of degrees. You tell them to lay still in the shade, and they just do it, as if they are trained. As long as you are happy to snap a photo of big pink tongues. Because those things never stuck back in those tiny, little mouths.

Weirdo, freakazoid warm here, the last few days spent toxic gassing and housesitting. Makes for well behaved dogs and horses, but ill behaved humans and watering systems. Time to go back to our tiny house on the Westside, leave the estate in the hills.

Here's the part where I should go on about there's no place like home, home is where the heart is, and it's easier to take care of a super tiny house with no yard. Who needs a beautiful estate with a center aisle barn and paddocks, on a hillside under a ridge, with views across the valley, and shady trees and a pool and secluded hot tub next to the olive orchard? And a house with floor to ceiling wood clad casement windows and a kitchen that you can actually cook stuff in and skylights everywhere and no dirt or cluttery bits and decks and decks and more decks? And succulents in gigantic pots and no neighbors and the longest driveway in the world, and the tractor guy out there, grading the arena as we speak. And a long hallway that is a like a small dog racetrack and down furniture and the biggest sliding glass doors in the world? And a pasture? And a giant garage with big windows and a tool shop? And a super long driveway to a really quiet road? And a secluded ridge top up above?

Who needs it.

T is for Toxic Gas Tuesday, which arrived on Four Twenty.

See those little pirate faces? Don't mean that pirates on board that truck. A nice way to pimp a ride for toxic gas tanks that came to visit our house yesterday! On the 20th of April. Also known as Four Twenty, the national holiday where everyone sits around and smokes pot at 4:20pm. Do I look like I have time to celebrate all these holidays? I have toxic gas to deal with here.


Before you pump your house full of gas, you have to be like Dexter and totally plastic wrap all your body parts. Dexter, way neater. Does plastic wrapping for sport. Much of my weekend, spent either dragging worldly posessions to live outside, where there is no toxic gas, or wrapping them in double layers of special toxic gas bags which seal with special toxic gas duct tape. While you all, decorating with whatever it is you string in the trees for your holiday. Have I mentioned this whole thing of the toxic gas?


I am entrusting a man named Jose wearing an African explorer cap, to pump hosefuls of toxic gas through my house. And garage. And various outbuildings. As we tour the grounds, he's all, "You seem nervous?"

"Yeah," I reply. "Maybe because you're pumping my house full of DEADLY TOXIC GAS?"


He agreed. Nerve wracking. And yes. Sometimes they kill cats. We speak a mix of english and spanish. Then goes back to work with the festivities. Looks like there's a circus happening on Walk Circle today, Circque de Terrible Muerte de Termite, and I'm so sorry. We double and triple checked for cats and I went door to door on Sunday, warning the neighbors of the toxic gas. Everyone sympathized. We all have old wooden houses, all in various stages of decay and termite ruin and sometimes, you gotta do it.


So (insert complexities in this mission that involve simultaneously housesitting 25 minutes away on top of a hill where cel phones don't work), I have an hour or so to kill while Jose, African Explorer and the rest of the Death Squad outfits my house in circus wear. It's my day off. And it's lunch time. I have no house right now. Don't normal people go to cafes? There's this cafe, like 2 blocks from my house, I never go to.


Because this is what normal people do. They sit under bright umbrellas and eat salads with fancy cheese. Not walk around with cold pizza wedged between their teeth, wolfing it down while giving shots to horses or dragging things around in dirt. They use forks! And have napkins and sit on benches from Design Within Reach. So I try for like 5 minutes to think this is a nice thing to do, sit in a cafe while all these moms with cute tattoos and babies in gigantic strollers and guys with short haircuts and linen shirts and ladies in bohemian inspired, high thread count outfits chit chat around me and eat their $9 sandwiches.


I could have brought dogs in with me, but hello, Team Small Dog. Otterpop doesn't like people to look at her. So not her scene. Ruby, possibly would implode due to the food, the food, the food, the food of it all. Gustavo, mayhem of joy and to keep still would have to have him hypnotized in a down stay the whole time.

It's so crowded. The hair, so flowing and organic yet avante garde, in a crunchy kind of way. The outfits, so deconstructed. It's a Monday afternoon, and I have toxic gas about to be pumped through hoses into my house and I am sitting next to 2 ladies, one of whom is wearing a vintage apron, trying to speak Portuguese to eachother? Oh yeah. Because it's a holiday. They are celebrating. Soon it will be 4:20 on 4/20. I guess you're supposed to have lunch first.


I wrap up $4.50 worth of sandwich in a napkin, and do what the poodle recommends. We hit the beach.


I'm sorry termites. Not what you were expecting, I guess. Because at 4:20 at my house, oh man. I don't even want to think about it.

Hypothetically speaking inverse advice column.

So let's say, hypothetically, that you are forming a knitting team for a sweater knitting tournament.

Maybe you are even forming a couple teams. Because one of the sweaters is sort of a harder pattern and you want a really good team so you don't end up with like, an extra arm on it. Sweater for a freaky octomom. And it's going to have snowflakes on it. And if you have a crappy knitting team, the snowflakes be all askew and then no one wins. So you got the good snowflake people on that one. And the other team, is just like a sweater tank top and there's no arms to even worry about and you don't really care how it turns out. Just want to go out there and have some fun, uh, knitting a tank top. Like not even a tank top. A tube top! So easy! So fun! Even a cat could do it! An 18 year old diabetic cat that hides under the bed and listens to the radio all day.

So for the tube top team, you have to post a classified ad in the Knitting Knews that sounds something like this:

I love to walk on the beach and I swear I am not an alcoholic. I just like knitting sweaters for fun and I need some tube top knitting pals for the big sweater knitting tournament! Sometimes my tube tops are lumpy, but what the hell!

And no one answers it. Except for a couple friends who are just all, yay, cute sweaters, saw yer ad! You don't feel very hopeful. Maybe you shouldn't have said that thing about the beach? Or the lumpy? Or cursed in it?

But wait, then someone does!

But what if it's someone who, before you went out and picked up your newest pair of knitting shears. Needles. Shears? Let's just say shears. Because you make your own yarn from your sheep and all that. So before you picked up your new shears, you saw this lady at a wool carding class and this lady went all in your face and pointy finger at you about your new shears having contaminated blood. I mean blades. Because you got them from just across the border, in, uh, Canada. And she thought there were plenty of perfectly good blades here that wouldn't contaminate the whole knitting community with disease. Because she knows knitting disease, missy. It's her business. And she had pointed her finger in your face and shouted this at you, PEOPLE LIKE YOU, first time anyone had ever pointed a finger in your face and shouted crazy stuff til you backed away and shuffled off, baffled. Hell. You were just getting some new shears and what a unleashing of wrathlike nutso this lady you don't even know has for you.

And this lady, who freaks you out, is actually a very well respected knitter. Been knitting much longer than you.

And I guess she has forgotten this incident. Or is just crazy. Or doesn't care anymore. But for whatever reason, answered your classified and wants to knit tank tops with YOU. And your contaminated, foreign born shears.

And really, no one else does. They heard your tank tops are sloppy and your stitches sometimes just slip off and go all loopy for a minute before they go back in their stitching row. Even though they end up cute! Super cute!

So, do you go with your first idea which is, to say something super mature to the knitting lady like, "I wouldn't knit a sweater for a rat's ass with you, crazy knitting lady that pointed your finger in my face and shouted all INSANE at me, almost 2 years ago and forgot all about it, but I never forget the ranting of the crazypants, especially when there is a finger pointing in my face! And by the way, I did not import any diseases from, uh, Canada and who the hell cares where you get your shears! Knitting Lady!"

Or, do you just crack open a beer and say, "What the hell. It's just a goddamn tube top. Maybe knitting with a volatile weirdo would be sort of entertaining, actually. Besides, no one else will knit with me."

So what would you do?

Greetings from a relaxing evening at Sunset Magazine.

Here at Sunset Magazine, we have expansive decks made from trees who committed suicide sustainably in rainforests and traveled here on solar powered, pirate free prius ships. They are spacious and curved and surround the floor to ceiling glass paneled doors and windows that ring the great room of wide open square footage topped with soaring vaulted ceilings and skylights galore. The terraced back gardens wind gently up the hill to the pool, and beyond that the hillside climbs to the top of the ridge. Wrapping back down the hill, the olive grove skirts the hot tub side of the house, making it's way back down to the front garden, with the pasture below.

It's silent at Sunset Magazine, oasis in the hills, except for the tiny beating of hummingbird wings, feeding on the exotic plants from around the world. Occasional quiet buzzing of bees, feeding on the subdued, yet colorful and coordinated blooms.

And except for the sound of Team Small Dog. As they go barreling down the terraced gardens. Sounding like tiny little chainsaws as they attack eachother and dive through the yard.

"YOU GUYS!" I hiss at them. "Use the goddamn PATHS!"

Shit. I am pretty sure the gardens are not used to this. A well behaved dog with garden manners lives here. She does not crash through the terraces at top speed, leaping through the plants like Evil Knievel, except drunk. Hitting those cars and ricocheting off of them, then dusting right off and going back for more. Off I go.

"YOU GUYS!" I hear the sound of a hole starting somewhere. It's Gustavo. He is in burrowing heaven but it is ABSOLUTELY ILLEGAL to dig burrows here. OMG. Del and Gary, I swear, there are no holes. None! You guys even have internet on your vacation? No worries here! No holes being dug! Or biting off of twigs and chewing of plants.

I go and break up the, uh, Not Digging of holes. Confiscate some twigs.

They split up, and start running again. Gustavo has this little problem with nature. Being that, he needs to bark at it. When he's out in the forest, he runs at top speed the whole time so nature is a blur, moving by him at 30mph. Nothing to bark at, it's blurry and goes by way too fast. When the nature is quiet and still and terraced and trimmed and olive tree grove, well, whole different situation.

At our house, garbage night is barking night. We have garbage cans out on street for our nature. Because the garbage cans, they're just so, There. Here in nature, the manicured terraces, multicultural plants, fence posts, trees and all of them, suspect. The other dogs, bark at things like intruders, people, neighbors. Here, they are blissfully silent. It's just Gustavo. Who is so wound up beyond belief of the running that can happen, the naturey-ness of it all, right there in his face. Causes him to face it off, and bark his shrieky little monkeyscream back 'atcha, Nature.

Majestic old, heritage oak tree. Crowning glory of the sloping terraces. Nature. And I go off in search of the barking, and here is Gustavo. Standing in front of giant oak tree, barking at it.

It's a tree. IT'S A TREE. Augh. How did I ever teach him to do weave poles?

Not sure how he would actually survive in Nature, if a bowl of dog food weren't served to him every 12 hours. Just watch Ruby out there to know why. She is stealth. She's not afraid of nature, she stalks it quiet and slow, ready to pounce on it and kill it. Not running amuck and letting it know 6 miles away that Hiya, Fella's, I'm HERE! We believe Ruby to have grown up in nature, feral terrier. Otterpop, maybe not a sleek killing machine like her sister, but gets the difference between a tree and a bobcat. Bird and a orange cactus flower. Squirrel and a rake. Gustavo, stray dog about town from the slums near Juarez, Mexico, acquired different survival skills. Has no problem charming the pants off of a group of picknickers, but nervy when faced with a hillside of bushes.

Monkeyscream barking ensues. "Gustavo!" I run back out and he's barking at a pool umbrella, up on top of the hill. Otterpop and Ruby, laying in some dirt, flick an ear towards the ruckus. Really. How DID I teach him weave poles?

It's true, that the nature here looks way different than our usual nature. The tractor, that I just called him off of, way shinier and newer and oranger than the tractor he's used to. And maybe the nature sticks out more because it's all so artfully arranged. Set in just the right spot, so more noticeable, at Sunset Magazine. Every time I follow the monkeyscream, out to him, his little heart beating so fast, himself whipped up into a little frenzy usually reserved for agility barking.

I guess when nature writers get all caught up in the inspiration and the beauty, this is what they're talking about? So inspiring, that you can't help standing there, frozen, screaming your tiny little head off at it?

Escape from the Termites, or the time Team Small Dog went on vacation to Del's house.

Art is this nice guy in a fresh pressed white suit that plays golf with other guys in the termite industry. He's the one I picked to pump my house full of toxic Vikane gas starting Monday to kill the termites that are eating up my old, wooden house. I liked Art. Of all the guys that showed up to tell me about my termites and their toxic or non toxic poisons that will kill them or maybe kill them or maybe not, he was the one I trusted most to seal up my house in a festive, stripey circus tent and pump in the deadly gas.

So yesterday morning, before work, we pretended we were going on vacation and tossed some dog beds and clothes and cameras in the car. If by vacation, you mean sleeping over at Del and Gary's house where the coyotes roam and the tractors come to dig and all the sick pets get shots and pills and compresses and antibiotics and little socks wrapped on their arms to hold the absess at bay. While they go on their vacation, away from their house. See, for Del and his Gary, I am a housesitter. For me and my Gary, Del's house is a vacation spot conveniently located only 20 minutes to my work, and place for us to escape the deadly gas next week.

If by house, you mean Sunset Magazine. A modest, Asian inspired mini estate with pool and hot tub in the hills of Aptos. Garden tours come here. It's minimal. There are niches with backlit objects de'arte. There is NO DIRT anywhere. I am afraid of the oven and forget even attempting the entertainment system. My mission is to keep the pets alive, don't forget to water, and Chano comes to do the lawns on Tuesday. And no dog running on the expansive wood floors. Except we already have an unfortunate dog love affair between Gustavo and Sidney of the big dog, floor scratching toe nails.

It didn't seem like it would be that hard at the time. Right now though, I need to go hunt down the 600 year old diabetic cat whose needs her insulin shot every 12 hours, then go find Gustavo who I can hear monkey screaming off in the distance somewhere, maybe roaming the lower pasture barking at the treeline. He may be gone now, down the road. Dunno.

Kind of old school circa 2007 real estate discussion where you see, nothing, really, changes.

A long time ago, if a long time is a couple years ago, all I would talk about is how we were buying a ranch. If there was a flat property over 3 acres with some kind of livable teepee or wigwam or single wide on it, anywhere in the county, I'd seen it and could tell you all the stats on the acreage and the neighbors and the drainage and maybe even we'd put an offer in on it or fallen out of escrow on it.

You remember.

Because you would see me and go, "Hey, Laura, how's it going?"

And I'd be all, "OMG, there's this property for sale out on Amesti and it's listed at 829k and it's 4 acres and has this totally livable modular except the drainage is sort of weird and it has this great shed and south facing exposure except the county has this zoning thing on record because of the cows and..."

And you sort of were backing away with a glazed over look in your eye because you did not sign up to have a junior real estate freakazoid as your friend/wife/relative/trainer/etc.

And then blah blah blah economy prices mortgage job freeway etc and let's cut to the chase. I don't have a ranch, don't know if I ever will and that sucks but I am dealing with it just fine. When I typed that I might have gritted my teeth together just a little bit but then I stopped. Got a very decent one to work at now and let's just leave it at that. It may curtail certain things in my life such as the horses and the job and the dogs and the border collie and the agility and the open space and the tractor, but things could be worse. And now I have a sliding glass door out here on the Westside that all the neighbors with their 2 story houses can see me in right now.

That you neighbor? Avert yer damn eyes. Or I'll send out the dogs.

But I still keep an eye peeled. Can't help it and you never know.

So the real estate ads and their copywriting, another story for another day. They still come into my email all the time. That eye peeling thing. I sort of have to share this one. I couldn't have written it better myself:

4 bedroom 3 bath home located on aprox. one acre. Currently red tagged and deemed unsafe to occupy by the County of Santa Cruz due to a major landslide behind the home. Needs new roof, floors, carpet and appliances. Has one insurance claim due to water damage.

I swear on god and dog and the easter bunny that is copied and pasted from the email and I did not make up one single word. Not a syllable or vowel or nothing.

You are wondering, how much? In this day and age of foreclosures and rock bottom prices and short sale and bank owned, how much for this monstrosity that is up in the deep dark mountains, where wet mossy strand clumps wave down from the redwoods, where all the cabins are painted brick red and sometimes have no glass in a window and the huskies kept chained to the trees? Where shuffling Charles Manson haired sex offenders wander the road, walking pitbull crosses on frayed ropes and poisoning cats from the privacy of the dingy travel trailers parked outside your bathroom window?

This one for sale for the rock bottom, low low price of $650,000.

This is Santa Cruz, my friends. You love it or you leave it alone.

Terrific news! AKC allows mixed breed dogs to compete in AKC agility.

So you've probably heard. The AKC made this announcement this week about how mixed breed dogs can now compete in AKC agility.

There's a little THING, though. The mixed breed dogs, don't get to actually compete AGAINST the purebred dogs. They pay the same money, but can only compete against other dogs of mixed race. Probably in the same arena, and I believe can use the same water bowls. But not sure on that. When possible, there would be a separate but equal arena for the mixed breeds, if by equal you mean it's actually out in the parking lot. I think that the mixed breed dogs have to take a promise pledge not to breathe or slobber on purebred dogs and always use a different warm up jump, the one located out behind the dumpsters.

Also, they're not allowed to use the a-frame and when it's time for the mixed breeds to run, they just drag a bale of hay into the arena and throw a sheet of plywood down on it.

The mixed breeds won't have the same kind of titles. Mixed breed titles, all have an extra letter in them that you have to wear on your sweater, pinned on with safety pins. So you would earn a MACH-M, and you wear this big scarlet M on your shirt. If you take the scarlet M off, they send the country club police out to your house in golf carts and they drive around your block playing REO Speedwagon songs from a loud speaker and tell all your neighbors that your dog is of unknown ancestry and pass out coupons for Portuguese Water dogs.

Also, you can't go to things like the Nationals or Invitationals. At all the big dog agility parties, the mixed breeds have to work behind the bar and wear maid uniforms and park the cars.

So, maybe you're wondering, Team Small Dog? Going to start competing in the AKC?

Oh you still there? You still wondering?

You just want me to say it. You naughty little kittens.

The time that Team Small Dog met the Water Hyacinth Goose.

Usually, when Team Small Dog goes for a walk, the 2 team members collectively known as mayhem stay on leashes unless they're at the beach or in the forest or in their field. Because when they're loose, there is running and when there is running there isn't always listening. To put it mildly. The team member known as perfect citizen of the world Ruby, rarely has to wear a leash unless the area is rife with cats or squirrels, in which case then she has to stay on a leash with the other 2 degenerates, which she hates. But usually, she just walks with me.


Good citizen.


Degenerate.


Degenerate.

So yesterday, I was driving home from work and I decided to stop at Freedom Lake. That's a generous name for a blob of water out near Freedom Blvd, a low spot in a little valley of apples and strawberries and mobile homes and wood cutting yards known as Corralitos. Over the years, it's become thicker and thicker with water plants, to the point of the lake, choking on it's own watery slime. The water choking plant's name is Water Hyacinth. Which, you have to agree, is a beautiful and glamorous name. Doesn't it make you picture a raven haired mermaid, like the Starbucks one, draped luxuriously over the faux cheetah upholstery of a gold flake lowrider Chevy with midnight blue pinstriping? With exploding periwinkle blossoms everywhere in the pink and orange sky?

Me too.

But really, Water Hyacinth is a weed that no one likes and it's filling the lake up so the lake is sad and dying and now mostly populated with wrinkly, leathery skinned Latino gentlemen wandering it's shores in crisp white cowboy hats and faded work dungarees. And shifty eyed teenagers in black hoodies. Hardly anyone wants to visit Freedom Lake anymore. The siren song of Water Hyacinth mostly singing out to people that enjoy dropping beer cans in the lake's murky shallows.

I pass the lake every day, driving out to the ranch. Decided to stop yesterday and take a little stroll, something new and different to do on a windy, blustery evening. So off we go. Mayhem is on their leashes and Perfect Citizen, trotting along behind us. Behind us until, we reach the shore of the lake and amongst the Water Hyacinths, we see this.


A goose.

I don't think we've really seen too many genuine geese ever before. Actually, never. But Ruby used to see some ducks that would hang out in a puddle at Lighthouse Field every year, and there was one thing on her mind when she saw those ducks.


Get 'em.

And before I can say a word, Ruby is off and running into the lake, after the goose. Except Ruby forgets one problem. She is the dog that doesn't swim. She sinks. None of my dogs are great swimmers, but Ruby, really not even a bad swimmer. A sinker. And before she knows it, she has swum, half sinking, out after the goose and has found herself a floating log to hold herself up.

There's no picture of this part, because I am holding on to TOTAL FREAKING Mayhem now, who also wants them a goose and a swim and a Ruby, and calling out to the now befuddled, miserable, soaking citizen who has managed to find a floating log and is holding on with her front legs, floating farther and farther out in the pond. And just to make it even better, the goose has turned around and is coming right at her.

She looks back at me, blinking back the misery, and her eyes say, "GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW."


And then at the goose. Which is floating it's way through the slime, perhaps wondering if Ruby tastes like chicken.

Mayhem wants to swim through the slime. They don't care. The goose, basically a fat, feathery squirrel and who cares about a bunch of wet slime.

I'm torn. My options are plentiful.
A-Take a photo?
B-Unleash mayhem?
C-Swim through the muck to rescue sweet doggy floating on loggy?
D-Throw a beer can at the goose?

Can't really take a photo, because if she drowns or is eaten by the goose, boy will I feel shitty. Also, I can barely hold on to mayhem, let alone the camera. No plan A. Plan B, unleashing mayhem would no doubt be seriously entertaining, but perhaps take a really long time to corral and involve then plan C times 3 if everyone gets stuck out there. And have no free hands to try plan D. That goose, one big ugly face though.


In the end, I just keep calling her name, she keeps looking at me, the goose, at me, the goose, and breaks free from her log and does the most pathetic sink swim back in to the shore. I can't help laughing at her, shaking off the wet and the slime, soaked to the bone, as the goose swims back and forth in front of us.


"Bubba," I tell her, as we walk back down the path, back to the car, her shaking and dripping in the icey cold wind, "You know what they say. Bad for life, good for story."

Seasonal greetings from me and my yelling accountant.

I have this really nice accountant. She wears frumpy cardigan sweaters and very sensible shoes, and has a big box of kleenex on her desk in case what she tells you makes you burst into tears. Usually she has a very soft, quiet voice, except this year a lot of things about the economy and AIG and taxes made her actually yell and she sent me home to find more write-offs for my business taxes. So usually she writes off some dog stuff, but this year, because of AIG, I guess, she said, everything. Write those dogs off.

Her face all red, she shrieks, "People like you, shouldn't be paying so much taxes!"

So thanks dogs. You are written off. Maybe not everyone try this at home. I do teach dog agility for money, even though it is, ahem, not very much money. And even though, ahem, I might not be much of a teacher. And I do also have a limited liability corporation for training horses, and the dogs sort of roll into that. Because their stellar behavior and amazing winnings at dog shows should be bringing people in to take my classes by the hordes. Droves. Swarms.

Hey, come on. We're working on Go On and rear crosses right now! We play fun teeter games! Greg Derrett Lite!

So I built the dogs this Sunset magazine deck for the new sliding glass door. If by I you mean it was Brian and by Sunset Magazine deck you mean some nice wood steps that Brian said will rot eventually and are not up to code and also possums will take up residence underneath. The new sliding glass door, sort of like a dog door? I mean, they use it. And it did replace their trip to the USDAA Nationals, which would have been a tax write off. So gotta ask her that. Is like home office AND dog training item?


I guess depends how mad she is at the government next year.

Cheap Trick Demolition Derby and what falls in between.

You know, usually I don't lose my temper about stuff my dogs do. I chalk it up to bad dog training and really fast squirrels and try to move on. But sometimes, sometimes, Otterpop makes me so crazy my brain explodes. Usually because her brain has just exploded. And then I had this Easter Sunday Religous Epiphony. It's payback. Otterpop is payback. The baby Jesus up in heaven, of Easter bonnets and bunnies and people not in league with the devil spending the day in church, on their knees, repenting, decided that Otterpop is payback for everything I ever did to my parents to make their brains explode.

"Ha HA," Says the baby Jesus, in whatever language he speaks, sitting up there in heaven in a giant sea shell, big pink polyester bunny ears perched up on his head. "We give HER, an Otterpop."

We drove up to Dixon Sunday morning, dark o'clock. Stopped and picked up a carpool buddy in San Jose and yacked her ear off, jacked up on 3 big cups of coffee. Sorry Derede. The way I am at 5am not how I am usually during working hours. Got to the dog show for the last day. Everyone else staggering around like zombies, already shown 3 whole long days in the rain and wind. Big dog show, 4 rings stretched out across a fairground grassland, with everyone running in all the rings. Usually at the same time. It's one of those shows. As I frolick out of the car in the sun, I see lots of my friends sort of dragging around and bags under their eyes and seems like I just walked into Michael Jackson's Thriller dance. If the dancers are mostly over age 40 ladies and gentlemen in fleece and spandex and slightly muddy pants, trotting as only zombies can, back and forth from Ring 2 to 4 to 3 to 1.

I know. Boring, boring, boring. Because you really wanted to know that indeed, Gustavo did weave poles. And contacts. And startline stays. And no blind crosses. First pole attempt was a drive-by, second attempt drive-by, then he saw them and flew in and Aloha, poles. Although they were at the almost end of the course and the sheer joy of the moment shook my body as if spirt posessed and sakes alive, if I didn't throw him in an off course tunnel at the very end. So no Standard Q for him.

After his run, super tall Kevin with the super fast border collies told me it looked like I was running him so careful to direct every move he made(I was) and just let loose! Run him hard! He's a man! He can do it.

Since I'll take advice from basically anyone that offers it, I tried that on his next run. I ran him hard and we ran so hard I saw the a-frame but he didn't and he ran right around it. Twice. Oops. And didn't get the last jump of a pretty darn easy gamble because of, what I think the technical term is, "Handler Nearly Falling Down on the Line due to Total and Complete Spaz Attack."

After that run, my friend Vici comes over and says, "He's just is watching you, running, and not looking where he's going." Yeah, like not even looking at the giant blue and yellow plywood behemouth right in front of your face. Crud. So much for just letting loose. So we just have a lot of bugs to work out. Keep throwing that advice out, bad or good, I'll try anything with him. He's not in a class very often, so if you're a good handler and you tell me it would help to run him wearing evening wear and a tiara, I'll try it.

He did march around in pairs for the first time, nice and tired, and picked up a Q there. We ran with our friend Vici and her super amazing black and white starters sheltie and Gustavo just acted like it's totally normal for him to stay in a down and act calm while a super fast black and white dog runs around the agility course. Where that came from, I dunno. The last run of the day thing helped a lot. Maybe he's semi trained and I just forget. But totally used good, non border collie chasing manners out there.

Ruby, had an ok day. A couple bar crashes. Refused the a-frame in her first class and hit a bar, and I just ran her again. I don't think she was lame. Just weirdo. But I never know. Ran her in Standard later on, no problem at the a-frame, but one HARD crash with a bar, then a drive-by at the teeter, took a moment to sniff around then finished up. Lame or just weirdo? i can't tell. She was running fast. Wanted to get out there, just like she used to. Just crashy. And weirdo. She's a mystery to me. I always say that. I don't care. She's my super good citizen among dogs. If she is weirdo at agility, then fine. Be weirdo. She can have a Rimadyl when we get home and lay in her bed with a chewie.

Otterpop. To her credit, had a fast and honest pairs run, with a questionable yet legal teeter, but her partner had some kind of mishap out there so I don't think we Q'ed. An ok Gamblers, with a totally do-able gamble, where I didn't hear the buzzer go off and sort of floundered a couple extra obstacles KNOWING the buzz should have buzzed, then finally gave the judge this sort of LOOK, and she was like, yep, that was yer buzzer. Like 5 minutes ago. Crap. Maybe now that I need glasses I can't hear either. Sent her in across the line way too late and that's how it goes. Being the easiest Master's Gamble in like a year. Later a couple people told me that the quiet buzzer problem had been happening. So don't have to go to the hearing aid store this morning. Although do need another pair of glasses.

Standard though, brain explosion. For us both. A lot of confusion at the gate, changing of orders, no one really knew when anyone was running. This is a tough show like that. Hard to make it so everyone doesn't all run at the same time, but also have to keep things running. I had a little dog assembly line to run Otterpop, Ruby, and Hobbes one right after each other and was late because also had to run Gustavo in a far, far away ring at the same time. So got to that gate, they told me Ruby would be up. Ran to wake her up from her nap under the trees. Brought her to the gate, someone said, "That's Otterpop, right?"

Augh. Run back get her. Hand Ruby off to the first taker that would take her. This is not protocall according to Otterpop. Not at all. Otterpop needs things by the book. Never, ever, ever break protocall. Or else. Protocall is that everyone waits their turn in the x-pen. Always. And this breach involves Ruby over there, getting fed treats by our nice friend Mardi, and Otterpop sees this, and I see it.

The Black Cloud. Seether. Ugly Genie has popped the bottle. She goes to the dark side. Right as she walks in the ring.

Stink eye, hackles, ears alert, and everything about her tiny little meatloaf shaped body says, "My brain is starting to Explode."

I know what I should have done. Excused her then and there, fix the dark side, don't worry about agility when the Seether is out. Don't let the brain actually explode.

But I don't.

My brain explosion is all, Dog Agility! Must Run the Dog Agility! Even if it's with SEETHER!

And then her brain explosion tells her RUN!

However, not run dog agility but run out of the ring to GET Ruby. At least does not go GET Ruby, but must monitor her and not do agility when there is monitoring to be done and we are doing things not according to The Way Otterpop Likes them Done. I capture her, I'm already super late to the ring, judge is cranky. I have PAID for this run, I am doing my best here, but I am not keeping things rolling along and Otterpop is Seether and that's just how that run ended. At the beginning.

I am livid. With Otterpop. Who is evil, but also can't help it if she can't deal with things not in the protocall. Rain man. I think I stomp my feet and curse the day Otterpop is born. Am not thanking baby Jesus for bringing her into my life and am wishing she was a Cadbury Creme Egg instead. Maybe I say some bad words and Otterpop's name is sort of wedged in there with them. Which you are not supposed to do at dog agility, only when they run away to eat piles of Burger King trash in the field. Start juggling dogs again, she ends up with someone else, I find Ruby, somehow pass off dogs so Ruby and Hobbes can do their runs. Hobbes got a Q, at least, and that was Ruby's big crash run. Otterpop unseethes on her own, and then I have become Seether because I am the dog trainer and shouldn't I be training my dog's brain to NOT explode instead of just letting it happen?

Um, so actually was sort of a fun dog show. Even though I whinge and complain and used a potty mouth. And also we got home really early and Gary made us blueberry pancakes.

Silence of the creepy lambs.

So when the alarm went off Thursday morning, the DJ was announcing how county wide, there was no internet or phone service. Sort of a mystery, but it would be up soon. Huh. Weird, but what do you do? Then he played some Beatles songs. And Gustavo jumped onto my head. Thursday morning, Beatles day. How we know what day it is when the alarm goes off bright and way too early. Which is Gustavo's cue. Wake them UP! FAST NOW! By jumping on heads with small feet and licking heads! Well, hell. Not gonna kill me to have a morning with no email, and my cel phone, frequently rings way too much for my taste all day long. Good riddance.

So went off to work, stopped to run the dogs, drove out to the barn. Wow. No one calling. I am so happy. Life must be good. No issues! Total weave pole day for Gustavo. YES. Although, dogwalk contacts have mysteriously disappeared when a tunnel sitting right there next to the dogwalk. Always something. Otterpop practiced some gambles. Has a chance on Sunday again, when we go up to Dixon for the last day of the big 4 day extravaganza everyone else got to go to today. Ruby did a couple jumps. A tunnel. Looked ok.

Get to the barn, and my vet has stopped by and used an old fashioned note written in marker on bright orange post-it, because she couldn't reach me. A note! Imagine that. Me and my large animal vet, usually joined at the hip on our cel phones. I'm going about my day, the cel phone still dead so I don't even have it stuck in my pocket, have no idea what time it is because the clock is my phone and since no one can call me, I am free! Of time! Of space! Of no calling!

As people started to come out to work, we hear the creepy gossip. Someone crawled down a manhole, cut some fiber optic lines that run Santa Cruz county landlines, cel phones, internet, ATM's, 911 calls, you name it, it went down. Santa Cruz and some other close-by cities. Creepy. All of a sudden, the super nice Sound of Silence started to be more Silence of the Lambs and like armageddon. No 911. Credit cards not working at the store. Gas pumps not working. Armed guards in front of the bank. People freaking out!

Like, NOTHING works without the the fibers.

Out at the ranch, we don't have old fashioned phones. We have an emergency, we are outta luck. Usually, everyone carries their cel in their pockets. Have a little worn groove in all my jeans pockets from it. In the right light, maybe you mistake it for the outline of a Skoal can. NO! Is just my phone, which is my whole business office, in that little duct taped, broken hinged, scratched up piece of plastic. So business still runs, I'm still there with the horses but just can't talk with people, which is another big part of my business, I figure out, after a day without talking to anyone I can't see the face of.

It's only in our county and a few other surrounding areas. Just us. We're like the little pocket of incommunicado. Got home, had about half an internet, enough to post this little ditty up but not much more. You probably didn't even notice. Because only some of you live in my county. Most of you, had a day with no armageddon practice. Still checked your emails. Had to answer your calls all day and call everyone back that leaves you a voice mail. Got your cash at the ATM and paid for stuff with a plastic card and put some gas in your car. Me? Jeez louise. You need to call me this week and I don't answer, is cuz I'm out digging a hole for our bunker and stockpiling ammo and canned soup and non genetically modified seed starters. With my helmet on and dressed all in black. When all those lambs go silent in all the counties at the same time one day, stuff going to be more than a little bit weird around here.

Dirt Nite with squeaky clean poles.

So I brought everybody to Dirt Nite last night. It's been a while since I banished Gustavo, and being a somewhat foolish masochist and all, I thought, let's see how it goes.

So as far as the barking goes, well, yeah. There was still a lot of barking. But maybe perhaps, just maybe, a teensy, tiny bit less. Smidegen less. Teeny weeny tiny bit less.

I'm all, "Hey Rob-doesn't it sound like my dogs are sort of quieter? Kind of? A little?"

He's all, "I dunno. I can't really hear them over my dogs."

Cool.

Isn't that sort of like they're quieter?

Never mind the peanut gallery up there on the deck with their fingers in their ears when Rob ran Fate or when I ran Hobbes and monkeybarkscream over the top started in. Or Michelle who got really fed up and started trying to make them sit and shut up. Her dog never barks. I was just ignoring.

So when I'm ignoring, it sounds sort of quieter.

And maybe you're wondering, how were Gustavo's weave poles? Did he do them? Am I gonna come clean on that dirty fact?

Yep. A bunch. Fast, in courses, hit every entry, no driveways, no popping out. Just fast and head low and like super professional looking.

Right on. Good boy. Just bark. I don't care anymore.

It is like the circle of life but no dancing lion babies.

Remember when I didn't go to USDAA Nationals last year, due to the fact of USDAA Nationals costing the same as shoving a sliding glass door into the back wall of my house? Even though we had byes into the Grand Prix semi-finals and it would have been all super glamorous and just think of the exciting fashion reports I would have reported on here? Which would not have recommended this particular outfit I am showcasing for no good reason other than Satan said a green baggy shirt looks nice over a blue ringer t-shirt when I was digging something clean out of the clothes nest.


Right. There it is. Which just happens to cost the same amount of clams as I am supposed to pay extra in taxes next week. Which are due the same day as entries are due for the upcoming April USDAA trial, where I am taking on the role of garbage man to pay part of my entries. Which is the weekend before the May USDAA trial. Which would cost the same in entries as I would make schooling my beloved riders at a horse show, which happens to be on one of the same days as the trial.

So I think in mathematical terms, you can write that like this:

Sunset Magazine = Drive Dogs to Arizona for Agility Fest = Taxes - (dog show entries / garbage) + (dog show entries / ponies) - (Must sell more drawings on Etsy and Print New Shirts) = No Buying Anything Ever Again

The story about the sun hats.

Yesterday morning we went up to the forest. Been keeping Ruby from running, so no one has been to the forest for a while. But since she looks fine right now, on her meds, took them up to the easy forest where usually only those other 2 run anyways. Ruby trots alongside me there. She's never liked this forest much. Not sure why. There's pesky joggers in there, and she always gets this paranoid, over the shoulder look when she senses people in tight pants running up behind her. Like the British are coming! if the British wear shiny black skin tight bottoms or little skimpy nylon shorts that flap over running legs. Whatever it is, she keeps her cool in this forest and no manic running. This is the forest though, where I have to keep Gustavo and Ottepop on leashes until we get up to the trail to the springs, where I let them run. So they're impatient.

It's spring break for a bunch of schools around here, so the other people using the forest today, besides homeless guys, the super scarey German Shepherd ladies and runners were moms with packs of kids in floppy sun hats. Like every single kid had a floppy cloth sun hat on. I guess global warming totally trying to fry baby skin on baby faces and that's what you do to your kids. But right? Isn't it weird to see these packs of kids and they're not related packs and EVERY SINGLE ONE, floppy cloth hat, held on by a string?

I have the forest runners out ahead of me, pulling me along with their combined 25lbs because they know the running part of this forest comes later and it's best to get there really fast. Like NOW, slow lady. Ruby doesn't ever wear a leash, and she's sort of lolly gagging along behind so we're not making very good time as we head out through the meadow to the woods. Team Small Dog manages to stay spread out sometimes, even when 2/3 of them leashed up to me. So one of the floppy hat kid gangs sort of making time on us, and I can hear the conversation with the mom and the 2 little shortie boys she has with her.

"Yes, the lady has THREE dogs."

"Can you count them, there's three"

I hear this a lot. The way parents talk to their kids who can barely talk, have to hold up pretty much both ends of the conversation since the shorter end basically just mumbles and can say meow and moo and woof.

"Yes, and they're all BLACK. Three BLACK dogs."

"I wonder what the doggies names are. Do you want to know the dogs' names?"

This lady, has a particularly grating kidspeak voice. I have blackboard fingernail of irritation walking behind me. The British are coming. I get it Ruby. I like kids. I probably talk to them weird too. But this lady's voice, already grating on me. Maybe it's the matching sun hats bugging me. I dunno.

"I don't know what their names are. Maybe the lady knows."

"Maybe the lady will tell you their names."

"I bet the lady will tell you their names."

So this is my cue, right? But it's like, Ms. Lady in your Oprah wear, drove your Hybrid Hylander up to the trail head and somehow got these floppy hats on your moppets and got them out of the car seats and onto the path, and hats off to you - no offense meant here, not trying to fry your skin - for getting them out of the house and this far. But it's like weird and almost passive aggressive, to keep kid speaking in a loud voice behind me, when I think you are asking me, actually, Adult, the question.

Your kids can't talk hardly, right? Maybe that kid mumble meow moo was them asking. But I'm pretty sure not. So Ms. Parent, with your frazzled look yet still well cut hair, how about you just ask me? Use your outside voice if you want. But hey lady, talk to me.

She's right up on me now, the kids sort of in tow, sort of under their own steam. Possibly problematic, if 2 kids dive on my dogs at once. Gustavo and Ruby, pretty darn bombproof but probably not perfect. Otterpop, never done a darn thing to a kid or anyone. But she's unpredictable and weird and doesn't like kids if they don't have a stick or a tennis ball. Would just prefer to not be near them and unknown kids launching themselves potentially on top of her, not a good thing.

So I stop. Gather up dogs.

"You want to pet a doggy?" I ask the kids.

"Look, it's the doggies! You can find out the doggys' names!"

Kids are fast approaching.

"Pet the red leash dog."

This is Gustavo. He's the best one. He likes everybody. Ruby will let kids pet her, but sometimes more interested in what they got. Crackers? Kids always have crackers. Or maybe ice cream. Useful to have different color leashes on everyone for this whole reason, because we walk in the neighborhood a lot and everyone always wants to pet doggies.

I line up Ruby in kid firing range. "Pet this one too. You guys - don't pet black leash dog."

Otterpop knows her cue. She's got a black leash, and she knows how to step behind me and just move herself away from kids. She's no dummy. If they're handing out food, she'll get in there, but otherwise, she just gets behind me, and frequently, lays down.

Goddamn lady still not talking to me. Talking to her kids. I'm right HERE lady.

"Careful petting the doggy. Do you like it? Only pet this one."

Gustavo, so cute with kids. They can hug him, squeeze him, and he licks them in his face. Ruby allows petting and will just quietly stand there and even let you poke her in the eye if you want. Because of that possiblity of crackers. Gustavo, he just likes people. Loves the attention. He has way more friends than me. Within 5 minutes hitting the beach on a busy weekend evening, he's made friends with 8 sets of picnics. People take their picture with him. Everyone loves Gustavo.

"This is Gustavo you guys, with the red leash. This one is Ruby. Otterpop doesn't like petting. Don't pet her."

Invariably, this sends all the kids over to Otterpop to stare at her. She lays down and looks away. I love this about Otterpop. She's very, very clear.

One of the kids steps on Gustavo and he kind of squeaks in pain, that small dog sound you hear when you step on one when they're milling about the kitchen floor while you're preparing cocktails or meat based snacks. The mom grabs the kids.

"CAREFUL! Oh my god! Are you ok?"

Lest you think she's saying this to my tiny dog with tiny feet, it's to the kid. She pulls them away.

"Are you OK? Did it hurt you?" She's grabbing the tinier kid's hand and checking. The kid is like, Huh? He has on tiny little orange sneakers.

Also, by the way, the mom has never once acknowledged me. I tell her, "He stepped on the dog. That was the dog."

She looks at me, finally. "What?" She has a pointy little nose like a beak.

"The dog. He stepped on the dog and he squeaked. He's ok. It happens to him a lot. He's little."

"You have to be careful with dogs. They can bite." She is sort of grabbing the kids back and away.

I'm irritated. That's a registered Pet Assisted Therapy dog there. That you're kind of insinuating possibly bit your kid, who's voice you can't tell from my dog's voice. I mean, whatever. But still.

I sort of stand there for a second. She has the kids backed up at a safe distance, like I'm showing them a nice, hungry snake. All I can think of is, damn, irritating lady. Good luck with this whole kid thing.

"Bye you guys." I'm off. Why bother. Give your kids your nervous dog phobia. I'm out of it.

We keep going. Passing other packs of kids in identical hats. Gap Kids had a sale? They pass these out now as regulation equipment?

We finally get up to the Spring Box trail. That's where running starts. No kids around. They don't walk out this far. German shepherd ladies, they took another route. Today they just ran by and one of the dogs, barking as she yanked and jerked it by us. Whoa. I let my dogs off, and for a while, it's just us up there on the forest trail, running up, to the top, down the side, back up and we do the trail a few times. Until I'm out of breath, Otterpop and Ruby out of breath, and Gustavo covered in redwood tree pieces and mud from running through the spring. But him, never out of breath.

We finally come back down to the main trail. Those 2 go back on leashes, Ruby goes back to her trot with me, and we walk back out to where it's going to be mini vans and floppy hats and more kids petting the doggies.

We realize, on a Sunday night, that we are failing miserably.

"Hey Otterpop, is dog agility the new black yet?"

The look says it all.

Not that I put any stock whatsoever in what a 14lb, demented little cattle dog chihuahua thing from hell thinks. Which is likely mostly about getting every tennis ball in the world as she knows it into her fat little posession and laying on top of them in a cool dirt hole. And bacon. And one day biting the blonde mailman with the creepy sunglasses. We all hate that guy though. I think he's in cahoots with the robot mailguy that lives down the block and always looks past me with a vacant gaze when I walk by his house. Which, can I just tell you, is repainted to look like an easter egg from some cartoon duck bad dream.

Not that I'm the kind of person that really thinks my dogs would have an answer to a question like that. I'm pragmatic. Dogs think about dog stuff. Like whether they can run fast enough to reach the carcass before SHE comes running up behind shrieking some crap about "Leave It."

I think about people stuff. Like whether these jeans make my ass look fat and why did I walk around all day with a black dirt smear on my cheek and is it wrong to think about ponies when the job loss rate rises another percentage point?

If dog agility was the new black, we'd be wearing Spring Fashions and handmade asymetrical cut jersey dresses from avant garde Dutch girls' Etsy stores.

It not being the new black, and somehow failing in my mission to draw all of you non agility friends into my agility lair of coolness and fun, somehow gone from bad to worse and yeah. Because not only do these jeans make my ass look fat, somehow they cultivated that mid-drift muffin roll thing between a faded shrinky shirt and weird sale rack waistband of non fitting and wool socks showing under rolled up cuffs and just wearing that now. Just wearing it.

And the socks. Wool. They don't even match. And they are Wool.

I mean really. I'm just wearing it.

Portrait of the artist or former artist or else just portrait of the hair wad.

Portrait of the artist with Gustavo and sheetrock and doesn't the inside of YOUR house perpetually look like this because why not just rip the whole wall off of the house instead of just shoving a sliding glass door into a hole in it?

Or you could also say Portrait of the artist with hair wadded into the hairstyle we've just given up on and calling Hair Wad™ and sucking in tummy due to profile angle and thank god I haven't shaved my head.


Portrait of the artist with driveway scrap pile which has now taken over prior driveway usage of Driveway Weave Pole Training™ and looking like going to bash that stick right over the head of crazy guy who just waltzed up the new porch wearing plaid shorts and some kind of purple tie and a shirt that didn't fit and tall socks selling some slapdash cleaning crap and when he left the gate open and Gustavo ran out and he says "How ya' doin' today?" and holy smokes and by gosh if that guy didn't stop in his tracks, start slowly backing away, then reverse direction and high tail it up the street all licketdy split to get away from the crazy Hair Wad™ lady now running after him holding a snarling Otterpop screaming, "IRRITATED! I AM IRRITATED!"

This is a dog training tip but actually probably not really a tip because that sounds like it might be useful as opposed to polyester bear rugs.

Remember when I was all obsessed with Gustavo's barking, like SUPER OBSESSED, and I think that might have been when a bunch of readers switched back to reading knitting blogs because mine was like, about barking. And doesn't get more boring than that. Team Small Dog Lady, all freako about barking again, could be reading somewhere else about how Leonard Cohen, Canadian, used to be a monk.

Just as an aside, while I wrote that Gustavo was alternating between tearing around the living room and jumping up on the bed to bark at a bucket across the street he could see out the window.

Yep. A bucket.

So how did I solve THAT barking? Meaning, not bucket barking but agility barking? Well, sort of like Leonard Cohen became a monk. Had to quit smoking and shave my head and learn not to hate all the super irritating other monks.

I don't especially even love Leonard Cohen, Canadian or not. He's from the Sixties. Revered poet of singer songwriting. Gary says, for the educated, when I quizzed him on who loves Leonard Cohen.

"Like doctors?" was my question. "Doctors love Leonard Cohen?"

He shakes his head and starts to wander away. He hates these kind of quizzes.

But how cool is it that you start out a rockstar and end up a monk? Can you start out a horse trainer and end up an artist then end up a graphic designer then end up a horse trainer then end up someone with their own swimming pool? Do you think monks ever swim in pools? Don't you think Leonard Cohen probably has a pool? He's Canadian, though. I think it's too cold for pools up there.

Which makes me realize, I was talking about a bucket. That kind of barking is sort of funny and he stops when you tell him to. Not like agility barking at border collies. And I would never, ever shave my head. I do not have a profile that supports baldness.

So one way to quell the barking was to eliminate Gustavo from Dirt Nite. Just like that. His behavior there is abominable. He doesn't run his normal manic fast there, and stuff spooks him. It was weird. So I just eliminated him for a while. Poof. Gone.

Well, banished to the car. How you like them apples of dog training?

He misses out on Dirt Nite valuable training time. A minus. But it's weird, having beloved speedy dog pick this one place to be both weirded out and just be so over the top screamy. Kind of freaked me out, honestly. So that's working for now as a fix and I'm not freaked out and Gustavo isn't barking. He has to just practice with his valuable teacher of dog training, yo. His special teacher, me and my hair brained dog agility ideas. I know. You shake your head right now, and a tear runs down your face and you weep for Gustavo. She doesn't read the Clean Run! But he doesn't care, because he is busy barking at a bucket. And I let him listen to Dee-Lite instead of Leonard Cohen.

So at our friend's practice field, where we have been stopping a lot on the way to work for Proyecto Dos y Dos, I have this new anti-barking method that sort of works, and I don't know why, but I'll take it.

You have to do it this way, in case you try it for yourself.

Otterpop sits on the table. Not tied up. She just stays on the table. So you need an Otterpop that just stays on a table.

Ruby sits on the grass, tied up to the fence. Sometimes she lays down in the sun and has a little snooze, even. If she's sound, she gets a little turn, if she's lame, she just gets to lay there. She loves to lay in the sun, tied to fences. I'm not sure how she helps the not barking because she doesn't bark. But she's just so cute.

Gustavo sits on a chair. Like one of those plastic K-mart chairs. Patio furniture that is stunning if you live in an aluminum mobile home with stained sheets for window coverings and you have area rugs with pictures of bears on them that are made of material that shocks you if you rub it the wrong way. And those area rugs are hung on your walls as object de arte with red plastic thumb tacks. And you enjoy Leonard Cohen but perhaps don't LOVE Leonard Cohen, and you never did quit smoking and you don't know any monks. You know those chairs. Sorry if those are YOUR patio furniture and you do not live in an aluminum single wide.

They are super agility chairs. I have no beefs with those chairs, although I wouldn't have one for my patio. Actually, maybe I would. But I would wish it didn't look like that.

When Gustavo sits on his chair, he doesn't bark. Maybe just a little. But nothing over the top. Not like before. And Otterpop has to be on her table and Ruby just wherever. And they are actually, not border collies. But it's just nice and quiet with just sort of happy barking.

And that's how I trained him not to bark so much.

Dos y Dos Poles, Como esta, Gustavo mi amigo?

Smashing. They are smashing.

Yeah, because of life and so forth, we haven't been able to do them every day. Just how it goes. But we are up to 4 in a line, with a big gap between them, hitting them from all the clock numbers with SPEED.

Still doing weird driveway angle poles, 2 sets of 6.

Little experiment, ran through the full set of 12 a couple times this morning, on a little course, just to see how they were going.

Smashing. They were smashing. SMASHING, yo dice.

All in how you look at it.

Was it April fool's yesterday? And I didn't even do anything foolish? I forgot. It's been a shitty week.

Dead cat. Dead baby horse. 3 legged dog.

Oh no. I forgot again. What happens when Laura writes something like that and here you come in the morning with your coffee and you read it, and then you get the crabbies? Sort of like you have crabs, except not so itchy and you just glower at people all morning through your eyebrows which maybe you forgot to pluck. Because you wanted to hear something dog trainy like how crappy Gustavo's weave poles were? Oops. Sorry. I forgot again. Or see a photo of a dog wart. You know that's the most often searched upon thing that brings people to my blog? Dog warts. That's what we're known for best around these parts.

Hi, new readers who just googled Dog Warts and you have found me. Are you still reading? No one around here has them anymore. Was a puppy thing. Go back to yer googling.

So here, this is cheery, in a twisted way.

Perhaps or perhaps not coincidentally, when Ruby found out she was spending Wednesday in the hospital, she because 4 legged again. Like a miracle! The dog, it can walk again. Praise Allah, Praise Jesus, Praise Nutella. No skulking around, no hopping, no leg suspended up like sooo miserable anymore. Just fine again. Took a walk around the block before I drove her down to begin her sentence in the animal hospital prison cages.

After her exam, the doc called me and said basically. Yeah. Special Ortho Doc, he can't find anything on her and she was totally sound and good. No neck. No shoulder. No leg. No nothing. Mystery ailment, continue to treat with rest and rimadyl.

Glad they did all this for free. Probably wouldn't have sent her down there if it wasn't going to be gratis. Because being a The Kind of Person Who Just Plays Jr. Vet on TV, that was exactly what I prescribed too. How many years we been going through this?

So I guess best I can hope for, maybe Ruby spending the day in the hospital scared the little terrier pants off of her and she keeps herself sound and healthy and 4 legged again? is that too much to expect? A day of listening to dog surgeries and yelping and everything that goes on back there in the back of the animal hospital, feeling a little bit more happy to walk around on her own 4 legs? Who did she think she's fooling?

Honestly, I don't care about her being able to do agility. If she only ever walks slowly on the beach, and has to stay on a leash in the forest, I'm ok with that. I'm just happy to have her here, and in one piece, over there in her dog bed, chomping away on a bone, and able to still wave that little stump of a tail back and forth like someone shot it full of meth then dipped it in caffeine and it can't sit still, even for a second. Not one second. Then when you see her, marching to the beat of whatever drummer that is Ruby listens to, run across the room, grab that dirty old ball, and run it into a corner, stand there for a minute chomping on it, then run back across the floor again. Maybe not the rest the doctor ordered. But I just feel like I want to see it today.

She blinded me with science. And bacon grease.

When you have animals, and I have a lot of animals, medical problems never go away. They might ebb and flow, but you always keep a special credit card that always has space for whatever the next thing will be. You might know the next thing, or it might just fling itself up into your face like bacon grease gone hot and spattery. You just have to be ready. And I don't even eat bacon. Vegetables, don't make much grease. Oh wait. But donuts do!

Wasn't ready for kitty. Hot grease to the face. Little spatter in the eye that makes you weep, unexpected charge on the card, and sad loss for our family hearts.

Ruby, we are used to her limpy ways and try to keep her out of the vet as much as possible. Thank you, my friend and customer vets who come to the barn for their personal recreation time and sometimes get put to work doing dog vet stuff. And cat vet stuff. But we don't make them do the horse vet stuff! Most vets, happy to stay either on the large animal side of the fence or small animal side of the fence and nary any fence climbing. Like not even give their own horse a shot. Makes them sad and queasy, even if they take apart dog insides and put them back together all day.

So Ruby is going to go be fun science project for the small animal vets today. No, PETA, not animals testing! Stay away from me with your firebombs! I don't even eat bacon! I felt bad enough comparing her to Guess Jeans the other day. Not selling her off for that. Ruby not for sale. She's a good dog. But, instead of going to work this morning, she has to sit all day at the vet office because the vets' friend the super dog orthopedic guy is coming to visit and they want to use her to make him really mad. Because they bet he won't be able to figure out Ruby either. The vet with the orthopedic friend, he gave up on Ruby long ago. Why, why, why, he wonders, do I still try to figure this out? You are such a horse person, he says. Always looking for that reason, when we suspect she's forever hinky. Just give her 2 weeks off and her drugs.

Poor Ruby. But it is a mystery, a dog who can be on 3 legs one day but not react to anything anyone dishes out looking for a cause. The vets all agree, whichever injury it is, same thing. Rest and drugs. We do that a lot. She did some agility last week, this week she's back on rest and drugs.

Actually today, since I told her where she's spending her day, back on 4 legs. Even got to go for a little walk on a leash. Spooky.

So, uh, can dogs fake injuries? I mean, come on. She was hopping for 3 days like her leg, it's broken. And then, poof. My leg, not broken.

We'll see tonight, when I get her back after super orthopedic guy gets done with her.