The time that me and Susan Garrett review the same movies except that she doesn't mention Metallica and I vote for Kirk Hammet not Captain Kirk.

So a kind of weird and surprising, yet unsurprising thing, was when this morning, I go to click on all my internet things, and there is this blog post from dog agility famousness, Susan Garrett about watching the Star Trek movie on the weekend.

And I am all, WHOA, with wrinkle inducing grimace face, because I watched the Stark Trek movie on the weekend, too. Also the rockumentary about when Metallica goes into therapy to save the band and make more money which was a million times better and who doesn't love watching couple counseling between James Hetfield who goes to his kid's ballet class and Lars the drummer who sells his Basquiat painting for 5 million bucks?

But like how weird is this that me and Susan Garrett watched the same movie on the same weekend and we are both notable dog agility ladies? Except that she is actually notable, and my claim is I probably have a lot more actively shedding taxidermy than she does.

Because I've now seen the Star Trek movie, which if you read Susan Garrett's blog you know is about when Captain Kirk and Spock are youngsters because of something something about the future and the black hole, this is like an emotional mind melding from the planet Vulcan. Dog agility minds think alike!

Although then her review starts talking about something something I forget what although she liked the vegetarian chili, and I will tell you that I had to check out after about an hour because the Star Trek future doesn't seem real to me, like all these fields survived global warming and there are no zombie cannibals taking over and instead everyone is flying around space having babies. Although the firey drill to the core of the earth was really good.

I think you would all like the Metallica movie way better. And you can make devil ears out of your hand instead of that Mr. Spock finger thing that my husband can't do. Who actually ended up yelling at me the last half hour of the movie because HE thought the movie should be watched all the way to the end and thought the space guys were better than the balding, Cosby sweater wearing rock star therapist getting fired by Metallica.

A step towards my quest towards being a Retired Person in a hooky day from work on a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend.

I totally played hooky from work and took the dogs out to a Fun Match at our friend Susan's house. Susan has entered Otterpop's universe of people that are not evil. A very shrimpy universe consisting of 8 people.


It is also just happens to be the site of the Silvia Trkman seminar on Monday. So I thought it would be nice to do a little practice there, see if there were any dead people lurking and such.


And it also happened to be a beautiful, sunny day and what better thing to do on a day like that than go do some agility?


It also happend that a bunch of our friends were there.


Gustavo did a bunch of runs. He did all right. I was pleased. I was freakazola pleased with his weave poles and that he did not run away and try to chase any sheep. I think I had him do one too many teeter totters though.


Otterpop ran a little bit. She was awesome.


Ruby ran a teensy, weensy little bit. She hit a lot of bars and had no weave poles and slept sitting up all afternoon. I took her out to chase bunnies later that evening. She liked that way better.

A fast visit to the forest where Otterpop may have been let off her leash for a couple laps around the swimming hole just because I really suck.

Everybody loves the forest I like to call the Grotto By the Abandonded Car. Even though everything I know about grottos is just from that grotto at the Playboy mansion which is actually a giant hot tub filled with monkeys and playmates. I've never even been to that grotto. I don't even know why I decided this was a grotto if that's what a grotto really is. And now it's too late to change it's name. And even though this grotto seems like it's deep in the forest and not in the monkey filled backyard of the Playboy Mansion, it's close enough to a road that someone could drive a car off the grotto cliff if they wanted to. Or didn't want to. That couldn't have gone well.


In the summer, this is all about dog swimming. In the winter, it's all about dog mud and silt and filth. I got done before dark yesterday and took the dogs in for a quick run mud swim.


Here's how we get there.


Fast.

The time that each member Team Small Dog gets tied to a kid and you think you see fast running at dog shows-HA!

I hired this bunch of kids from the hood to run the dogs yesterday. Emphasis on run. I just attached one dog per kid, and off we went, rocketing down the street (YOU GUYS STOP IT'S A STREET! good lord...) to the park strip with the creek. We left the dogs attached to kids, so dog had to do whatever kid was doing and sakes alive. Over the creek, under the creek, up the bank, down the bank, in the drain, fish for crawdads (?), down the park.

Full speed ahead to check the surf then back through the park.

I am not kidding here. The dogs got worn out. Like running in the forest for 5 hours worn out. This was on what I had thought was just a plain old walk called Let's Go Down To Check The Surf. Otterpop's kid found her a tennis ball and she had to keep doing tricks so she could carry her ball. Gustavo's kid, let's just say, known around the neighborhood for his ability to run faster and longer than Gustavo and I could not believe my eyes seeing Gustavo need to lay down with tongue hanging out. Ruby's kid, while shorter and younger than the other ones, equally fast match for those other two.

We ran back to my house (YOU GUYS STOP IT'S A STREET! good lord...) and put the dogs away then they ran down to our Thanksgiving. I was walking at this point. The dogs sat in the front window and howled, last I heard. Because, HELLO. Team Small Dog and a giant turkey sitting unguarded on a huge table at a house with chickens in the yard? Dogs stayed home with a nice bowl of dog food. We all ate Thanksgiving and those kids, once again, didn't stop all night. The dogs did, because when we got home at least, no howling. I can't say the same for the kids. You would have to ask their moms. You know, like after the pie and whipped cream and all.

All you border collie and jack russell people? You guys need to go find you some Kids!

Team Small Dog interview of the weekish, Sue Rush and her dogs, Maddie and Piper who are totally cool and Happy Thanksgiving!

Welcome, wayward Bayteamers who wanted to know lots and lots about Sue Rush, the featured Cool Canine from Bayteam this week. If you didn't click over from Bayteam's website, you are in for a treat because you are going to read about Sue, one of Team Small Dog's agility heros!

Sue is the inventor of an eclectic handling style called "Sue's Way of Handling" that uses a lot of rear crossing and extremely efficient running. You have probably seen them out there, doing a bunch of USDAA stuff. They have probably beaten your pants off, too. Because Sue's Aussies frequently kick border collie asses. Also, once Sue brought like 100 inflatable plastic aliens to hang around her canopy at a dog show. In a tupperware. She just does stuff like that. You probably always wanted to be like Sue. And now you can find out all their secrets of coolness.


Some of your outfits, and the sturdy nautical rope you use for a leash on Maddie and Piper suggest you may have been, or are now a pirate, when you are not doing agility. Please discuss.

Yaarrrg! I've been discovered! Why do you think I live on the coast?

Maddie and Piper both are very fast, often winning Australian shepherds. Can you give us some of your secrets in telling them apart, because it can be hard to tell which dog is which when you guys are out there running at lightening fast speeds.

Luckily Maddie is 1/4" shorter than Piper. Without that, it's difficult to tell them apart sometimes. Of course the short one makes really weird alien noises and sometimes quacks like a duck. I think it's the same one that barks while she runs, requires massive amounts of pillows while resting and is extremely demanding. Yes, I think that's it, plus she has the silver cheeks. The taller one has a little bit longer tail and has better hair.

Maddie is 9. Piper is 7, soon to be 8! Yikes! Now you know why I am on a quest for a new puppy.

Sue, I believe that your dogs have all kinds of shiny titles in metallic colors. You are a very modest person and would never brag about these so I'm going to forcibly extract some of their achievements from you right now. Enlighten us to some of their achievements, please.

You believe correctly. By the way, do modest people wear cool socks and sport sometimes homemade do-rags? I think not.... therefore I'm not.

Wait, that didn't come out right.

Do modest people open their mouth, make words come out and then have to start apologizing?

Probably not.

Hey by separating out all Sue's sentences into their own lines, it sort of looks like Sue is talking to herself! But she is really talking to YOU, Bayteamers.


Most modest people are well mannered, wear stylish clothes and have fancy dog leashes. Not sure I fall into that category. Just being elected to be part of the Cool Canine Club strips away any remaining modesty that I may have possessed. Thankfully most of my do-rags are stretchy.

She is really modest. Do you see how long it took to get the metallic title info out of her?

As for the shiny titles, I have racked up a few. I have traveled far and wide to put those letters before and after their names. We even went to Montana to enter an ASCA TD test. I wrote an article about those adventures and you can read all about it in a past issue of the Aussie Times. If you need even more sleepy time material, I wrote another article for the Aussie Times after Maddie and Piper passed their ASCA TDX's together. But wait, there's more! Maddie has her Silver ADCH and her Silver LAA. She is after all Madeline Silvercheeks so I would not expect anything less. Piper has her Bronze ADCH and her Bronze LAA. We've won some money, won some classes, won some byes into PGP and have several Team and PVP medals of various colors. Not bad for two little Aussies that are NOT minis. Mostly we have fun. Titles are cool though too.

You don't have a backyard. Or even a sideyard, I believe. Do you have any good training tips for Bayteamers without yards to practice in?

One thing I have done is set up weave poles and jumps on trails and fire roads in the forest. Oddly enough there have been several "crazy person in the forest" reports on those same days but I have never seen anyone like that while practicing. The forest is really big though. Another tip for yard-less folks is to make friends with lots of people with large yards.

You and your dogs are most excellent at really fast running. Do you have any special training secrets (you're already used the crazy person in the forest one) that you would like to share with Bayteamers?

I'm not sure I have any real training secrets. Keep moving and do what works best for you and your dog? That sounds good!

As you know, I don't really follow a system and like experimenting with different ways of handling...hmmm, maybe that's why I don't have a Platinum ADCH. There is more than one way to get around the course though and I've incorporated a lot of things from different people from various seminars to create the ever-changing new and improved "Sue's Way" of handling.

What other words of wisdom can I impart on the hapless readers? Ah yes, the ultimate secret to my success.....drum roll please....relax and have fun! Trust your dog is a good one too.

Okay that's two secrets.

Of course it would be really really really nice to have my own agility field. Really.

What do you guys do if you're not doing agility?

Since we are officially retired, we do beach walks so Maddie and PIper can roll in dead things, dig giant holes and eat seaweed. We also go to the forest so Maddie and Piper can chase innocent bambi-esc forest creatures, scare other hikers and eat huckleberries. Sometimes we travel so Maddie and Piper can bark at new things, poop in new places and get their picture taken in exotic locales. We occasionally meet up with friends so Maddie and Piper can jump on them, work them for treats and put wet nose prints on their windows. It's a rough life but someone has to do it and it might as well be me because after all I deserve it and I am extremely modest.

Is one of your dogs cooler than the other?

They each have their own cool factor and unique talents.

Let's just go to our happy place right now because how many of us will be in line at the grocery store tonite instead of running with the dog in dirt?

Preparing for the future, which either will involve dog shows and the Silvia Trkman seminar or else motorskooter riding zombie death squads.

There are some days when the dogs do everything perfect. They blow me away with their intellect, their ability to understand what I'm communicating, their speed and precision of executing every task, down to the most minute detail. We understand each other perfectly, and Sarah Palin vanishes from the horizon and is replaced by rainbow glitter unicorns and universal healthcare and there is no threat of cannibal nuclear apocalypse in the near future.


Then there are some other days when one dog has to run away across the field to find something invisible. And another dog wants under the fence to look for the deer that were there a week ago. And the other dog has commandeered a toy and has decided that only she will have the toy and will only drop it long enough to bark tauntingly, then pick it up and run off. In short, a day where dog misbehavior spreads like a festering plague. And all I can think about is solyent green is people and in the future, if you have bad dogs, their barking alarms the zombie torture patrol and everyone will die to the throbbing backbeat of Black Mountain. And have skin that peels off. And no showers.


I don't know why I have these days. In a glass half full way, I suppose it's to prepare me for a time when the planet is taken over by apes and only a cool, rational thinking cap will prevail or else everyone is going to be caught by the cannibals. Zombie ape cannibals in the future that ride jet pack skooters and carry fireshooters. And if I can find a way to clearly put that front cross in so nobody pops that last weave pole, I am preparing us all for the skills we will possibly need to survive. Or at least get us an ADCh. Or around a cute little agility course without some bonehead, glaring error.

Glass half empty? This is just the way it goes.

Team Small dog visits the forest, and the same old story starts again.

So on a Sunday when I don't work, and there's no dog thing to go to, we always go up to the forest. I'm not naming names of this forest, or the Evil Jurisdiction it falls under, but we've walked in this forest for years and years and it's always been the best dog running forest there is. Even if dogs maybe are not supposed to run there by decree of the Evil Jurisdiction that I don't name here anymore because of this little debacle I like to call the Courtroom Drama. Maybe you remember all that. Besides teaching me about our State's great legal system, creepy comments started coming in on Team Small Dog and also creepy run ins with the Evil Robots of the Evil Jurisdiction and everything got way too creepy.


We park in an undisclosed location, maybe hike in to a place that may be labeled NO DOGS. We may actually walk through up to 3 various No Dog Allowed jurisdictions in one trip to the forest. Which is a now forest run only for Gustavo and Ruby and a forest walk on damn leash for Otterpop and her damn hinky leg. Poor Otterpop. I don't follow her vet's advice 100% which is to tote her around in a damn stroller.


The forst is attached to the flowy, wide meadow that looks like it stretches all the way to the sea. It's probably the most beautiful place in the whole entire world. I had my tiny pocket camera with me, but no photos I could ever take do our forest justice.


Every time I walk there, I get blown away by the righteous level of stunningness and feel unbelievably luckylicous. It can render me speechless. YO.


Revel in the rendering.


You can see forever from the top of the meadow, before you drop down into the dark of the redwoods. I'd like to say I take the dogs in there for cross training fitness for agility, but really it's just because I like to let them run in the woods and I could walk around in there forever, just staring at trees and moss and rocks.


Once you're in the forest, it gets dark and damp. There's a couple caves and a river, old kiln artifacts and long gone structures. I know I still haven't found every single track and trail in there. Sometimes we explore new paths, other times we walk on our old favorites. Some people live way out in there, under tarps strung under trees. We haven't been out there in a while because of Otterpop's leg, and I will remind you of the damn stroller part of this Otterpop, every time you protest about being tied to me.


We share the forest. Some days in the forest, not another soul out there. On Sundays, a lot of mountain bikers come down the steep hill they call Mailboxes. Sometimes we hang out at the dramatic bottom part and watch to see if they crash on the steepest part of the hill. It's a good show.

How do I tell you this next part. So you don't cry. I'll just say it.

She Ranger. On a bike, packing pistol.

That's right. The Evil Jurisdiction is now sending their pawns out into the forest on mountain bikes. Oh boy oh boy did she hit the motherlode today. Because bikers were out, and then here comes running off leash dogs.

Poor Gary. He saw her same time as me, and I know his first thought. Laura's big mouth and mad camera skillz are going to get us shot. Or at least ticketed. But hello. Deep dark forest and big fat gun, and I've learned a thing from the creepy internet stalkers and trucks following me. They win.

So I decided my best tactic was to pretend she was invisible and la la la just keep sauntering down the trail, past where she's apprehended the rogue mountain bikers. She stops me, and asks do I know I an in the Evil Jurisdiction? Where did I come from?

I was vague. Sort of gesturing up to the treetops, and say I walked there. From a road.

Which road? She gave me a couple of choices.

I decided to do a faraway look in my eyes, and say Um. A lot. Um, I walked. We walked. We were walking, and we walked here. Gary wasn't saying nothin'. He was very impressed with my new persona.

She made me leash everybody up, and explained I was in an Evil Jurisdiction and blah blah blah and the gist being, Go Back Whence you Came.

She didn't recognize me. I didn't know her. She came from a different Office of Evil than the one I tangled with for so long. And it is amazing, when you don't whip out your camera and start a photo shoot of cops, how different they treat you. Like don't whip out the ticket pad or set hand on top of handgun. Even though I was less than forthcoming of the information she was desiring to hear.


I leashed, and we reversed, and this is where it got really good. Because she had rounded up like 8 bikers from the forest and was making them go back out, Up Mailboxes. NO ONE goes up Mailboxes. You go down. Straight down. You ask your mountain bike friends about that. She sat at the bottom of the hill, and watched them start shoving their bikes up, against gravity.

We walked up to the ridgetop where we came, from our vague direction, and let the dogs go when I was pretty sure she wasn't coming for us. Dogs were small potoatoes for her, I guess. She was out for the bikes. Who have been using that forest forever. Who were now hiking it back up for a long, long way.

Gary was super impressed by my persona that let us walk away unticketed and unshot. It's a big forest. I think we can walk in other sections of it, I guess, and not run into them. The Evil Jurisdiction is supposedly out of money and can't afford patrols. Maybe they can afford bike patrols only? Were going to start closing forests. How do you close the forest? I dunno. Maybe she wrote tickets to all the bikers. Tell all your bike pals about this new trend. For us, just the sad part of a happy day.

Hola Gustavo!-Up close and personal tips about learning how to do the bucket trick.

Hola! I have put my feet upon the bucket and righteously rocking on DUDES!


Hola Otterpop! She joins us on the bucket and it is like on Oprah and they are giving out Mini Vans to best bucket feet on buckets! And cashmere! Oprah gives out cashmere to buckets and do they have cashmere on facebook? Hola Oprah!


Hola! Gustavo is still on the bucket!


Hola! Hola! My feet they are totally UPON the bucket! Oprah gives out washer dryers and has her own cable channel. HOLA! CABLE CHANNEL NETWORK of righteous Oprah MINI VAAAAAANS! Listen Listen Listen to how Oprah lung screams Gustavo-IT'S, GOOOOOOSTAAAAHVO! Then she gives Gustavo keys to a min van and it has a ribbon and Gustavo cannot drive! Jon and Kate Plus 8!


Gustavo is still on the bucket.

Training dogs to do tricks for no better reason that because I am so very, easily amused.

So the last couple weeks, when I go out to where I practice with the dogs, pretty much all we do are a bunch of tricks. Because it is just too funny teaching everybody tricks right now. If you want to crack up for no good reason, get out a clicker and some dog treats and a bucket and see what you can do. We've been doing hybrid circus agility because I stick a bucket and a dog bed and a block of wood out there and agility is way funnier when someone has to go from the dogwalk to their bed to spin around a bucket and then over some jumps.

I think have a really short attention span. Or an off sense of humor. Or I need a more exciting life. But right now, this is far more amusing than going to a 6am cross fit class. Which was what I thought I was going to try last week and get all ripped and buffed and instead, I'm throwing little bits of cheese at dogs for acting like maniacs. So much for eliminating the donut gut.

Today, the funniest trick dujour was sending Otterpop out to an upside down bucket, she pops her front front feet on top and spins around in circles, hopping her back feet like some kind of weird, rabid bunny. Like the Donnie Darko bunny but shrunken and barking frantically.

I'm teaching her to do this right now with her back feet on the bucket, and front feet rabid bunny hopping, but she's still on a little low block of wood. Maybe will have a therapeutic pilates effect on her crappy leg? I think what cracks me up so much is how hysterical she is to get the right thing, and the bizarre things she tries. I believe nutty trying out of stuff is called shaping. I just stand there and click when she does the masterful thing I have envisioned in my mind. Rabid bunny of Satan. Although I think she knows when she gets it most right because I laugh the hardest. With you, Otterpop, not at you.

Ruby's bucket trick is smashing her feet on it like she's playing a drum. A really LOUD drum. Like Ruby is Lars from Metallica. SMASH SMASH SMASH and if I don't click when she thinks I should click then she grabs the bucket in her teeth and flings it around. Actually, Ruby IS Lars from Metallica. I need to teach her to do this in a hotel room and then throw the tv out the window. We might have the most E's in Agiliteeee, but our E's go up to 11.

Gustavo's bucket trick is very cute. He is learning to lean on it with his arms and lay his head down on his feet. Like he is saying a prayer. I would like to point out, not one to assassinate Obama. Geez, weirdo conservative ultra prayers and their bumper stickers. I just learned this one today. Psalm 109:8 is like secret Christian code for presidential assassination? Holy smokes, the drama. You are all safe to buy t-shirts from where I sell them on cafepress and no one will support Obama assassinating there now. Gustavo will pray to the baby Jesus that this trend continues. Everyone is fine. And Gustavo is working very, very hard to make this happen.

I'm really not a very great trick trainer. We don't always finish the trick. I move on to something else. Attention span. I'm sloppy. I show a great amount of emotion because I laugh and I encourage and the most scientific I get with my learning theory is wondering if Gustavo can stay balanced on that bucket long enough for me to lead all the way out to those weave poles over there. I just like doing it.

Getting ready for the Sylvia Trkman seminar by regressing into an insecure, hair wadded diva.

My friend Rob took this at the last USDAA trial we were at. Like a couple weeks ago. Not in the '70's. Has that fadey, expired kodachrome vibe to it that makes me think of levi's cords and macrame plant holders and owls with giant cartoon eyes. I think the photo is lovely, though. Far more lovely than my soccer shoes and baggy shorts from the Target sale rack and slumpy posture and messy hair wad and rope tied onto little dog. Is very much not working for me. Whatever happened to my quest for cuteness and style in dog agility? Kittens? Have we somehow moved off track here? This is what my world has come to?

And also, perhaps of equal import, where is my dog looking? Certainly not gazing up into my eyes but off into the distance where there could be cats. Tunnels. Border collies. Snacks. This makes me pause for thought. In a week and a half, I'm taking a seminar with agility luminary and dog trick trainer Sylvia Trkman. She of the fewer vowels than we're used to, but who makes up for lack of vowels with amazingness in dog training. This is like the agility equivalent of going to lunch with Axl Rose. Momentous occassion. Will happen rain or shine. Something new and completely different.

I looked at the email offering up some details this evening, and perused the names of the others on the list. This is the magic of email, if you're going to a party and you're all, Who ELSE is going to be there? The email tells all. And it's certainly almost all people I know. Hi, some of you! But a leaning towards people who go to places like Europe to win in dog shows. Who win the biggest, shiniest awards at the USDAA Nationals. We'll all be seminaring with togetherness.

I joined this seminar with Otterpop in mind. And I would like to run her in it as much as possible. But I think it would be really interesting to run Gustavo in it as well. It's called Masters Handling. He's a little bit in Masters. Where I attempt to handle him. Except when I look at the party invite cheat sheet list and read those names, my first thought is, uh, they all have really TRAINED dogs. And how humbling would it be to run Gustavo, a dog who beautifully illustrates all my shortcomings as a trainer?

Oh, this is the part where you are all, Ha HA! Yeessss! Because now, that would be a Really Good Story.

Sometimes things are just so very simple.

I got done at work in time to get to the low tide beach before the sun went down. When the tide is out there, it looks like the sea has been sucked back into the middle of the bay, leaving a flat, damp pad where birds walk around, shredding little crabs and shit. When you walk out there, you suck your breath in for a minute when you think that the sea could come back in, like it does in tsunami, but it won't and we can all walk out farther than you ever imagined possible. Where almost every other day, is an ocean. Trip that righteous fact out in your minds, kittens.


All of us ran around out there, the dogs chasing a million shore birds. Even Otterpop, who isn't supposed to run. Much. It seemed wrong not to let her. Because how many days can your feet touch the floor of the sea? The little skim of wet across the flat sand pad was a blurry mirror image of everything above it. Inverted, upside down, and fuzzy. I didn't bring a camera down, didn't have my phone. Nothing in my pockets. Just me and the dogs ran out as far as we could before the waves would touch us on the widest beach in the world. There was a whale and her baby out there, really not that far from us. Don't know if they could see us or not. I would like to think, not.

I don't hate Mondays.

I haven't had a lot of days off lately. Could anything be funner than to hang out with your 3 best friends on a sunny day off? And pretending you don't have to go home and clean the bathroom and do laundry and vacuum?


Today when we practiced, we had some new distractions. Ice on the morning grass, and 3 deer that strolled right up to Kathleen's agility field. One for each dog. One dog, a Very GOOD dog named Otterpop, stayed put, and didn't go get hers. I think this is due to our Master Plan of me teaching her to read my mind so as to start getting more gambles and I guess she could read all the bad words going through my mind when the other dogs took off and thought better of it. Unless she actually just heard the bad words coming out my mouth and thought better of it. One dog, a usually much better behaved dog named Ruby, ran after hers and but came running right back in when I called her using You Are In Really Big Trouble Young Lady Voice. Ruby has a conscience. And one VERY NAUGHTY dog that could be no one else but Gustavo, totally blew me off and tried his best to figure out how to run out the fence to go after everybody's deer and I had to go catch him.


Oh Gustavo. Someday. Every day, Gustavo teaches me to be a better trainer. This is the zen way of looking at it. The non zen way is to remember that the cursing always stops the second I catch him because really, have you ever seen anything cuter than Gustavo?


We're not doing a whole lot of agility this month. Otterpop and Ruby certainly can use a break, help preserve their legs. Gustavo, he'll practice a bit, but mostly agility lite. Work on tricks, work on focusing, and learning actual distance skills. Not just relying on his out of control, far away from me, rocket propulsion to get the Master's Gambles. Not running away after deer. I guess it's not really work. It's pretty fun. Except the part where I'm cursing because of the deer. Everyone needs to stay in just enough shape for the fun Team Trial in December. Gustavo's first time on a DAM team. Lord have mercy on us now. It's in Santa Rosa where there are no deer but where Otterpop once slammed on her brakes because of the hamburger cart right outside the ring. This trial even has a wacky nighttime class that Ruby can crash through bars in! And in 2 weeks, we are going to a seminar with Sylvia Trkman seminar, my super waify agility hero!

The commentator shrieks, "She just SMOKED it!" and Rob goes, "I guess SO!"

A bunch of our dog agility friends were big winners tonight! Congratulations to all of them.


Ashley and Luka won the 16" Steeplechase, Nancy and Jim both placed in the 22".


I think Nancy beat Jim by a little bit. I doubt Jim is mad.


But holy smokes, Rob. With Wings who is only 2 1/2 years old winning the Steeplechase Finals! I was a teensy bit sad for Hobbes that he didn't make it into the finals. But he probably was having a nice nap while Wings was busy SMOKING IT out there. Super big congratulations to Rob and Wings!

Thinking different part 2-this is sort of about dog training if you can just get past the part about the naked, sandy people.

A long time ago, in a land called the 80's, I lived in a crappy, falling down shack with an ocean view and indoor/outdoor carpeting, with a band of degenerates as roommates. They've since gone on to become things like employed. Parents. Dead. I was sort of the oddball of the group. Because I had to go to work every day and ride a bunch of horses, instead of sitting in the living room, doing bong hits and watching Bruce Lee movies. And then at night, I was too tired from riding horses all day to enjoy the wild nightlife, which involved extra people coming over for sitting around, doing bong hits, and watching Bruce Lee movies. And Dallas. Those were the only 2 channels we got.

Oh, those were the days.

One of my roommates loved to cook. I think. She would tear around our miniscule little kitchen without cupboards, slicing and dicing and frying and always ending up throwing a bunch of stuff into a giant pressure cooker. She'd get all worked up and start yelling at everybody in New Jerseyese, put on that pressure cooker, then go enjoy the nightlife in the living room gathered around the tiny little black and white tv that lived on a cardboard box. Which meant she'd forget about the pressure cooker. Due to the bong hit portion of the evening.

And inevitably, EXPLOSION. And pressure cooked contents of god knows what hippie food, flying everywhere. Like the poor pot just couldn't stand it anymore. All that stuff sealed in, heat turned on high, and then just left there on the stove until it blew it's top.

I think dogs do this sometimes. I know some of mine do. If I make the pressure a little bit too high for them, they flip their lid, which manifests in various ways, all of them just as messy as enough rice to feed 20 stoned out of their gourd hippies and punk rockers stuck to a peeling, rotten ceiling and lead painted walls. The rice I mean. Although sometimes, maybe we did have people stuck to the ceiling there. The house's name was The Notorious House.

Gustavo can go from a dead run to deer in the headlights, slam on the brakes. And either stand there staring, or bolt. Ruby shows the pressure by sticking her nose to the ground and sniffing around, feigning interest in looking for snacks but really, just trying to shake the pressure. Otterpop can slow way down, or start barking at dogs and people that displease her.

Pressure off, none of these behaviors. Model citizens. The dogs we all dream of.

What creates the pressure? Lots of things. Bad handling. Things that scare them. Just getting the heebie jeebies because something isn't right. Uncomfortable environment. Pain. And when the pressure gets to high, they have to find something else they can do to release it. And I think they get really good at this, because who wants to always be cleaning rice off the ceiling when you are plain old sick and tired of rice and moldy cheese staring you in the face everytime you just want to make a peanut butter sandwich which is what you live on and who the hell keeps stealing your bread?

I digress. But looking for those pressure signs, and heading them off at the pass, way more constructive than trying a million times to get that dog into the weave poles. With their tail dragging and a sad face that makes everybody want to cry just watching it creep through those poles. Or because it has just bolted and zoomied across the ring. That's a point where the pot long exploded and the bottom burned and the house is about to catch fire until thank god one of those hippies discerned the difference between burning weed and burning house and made a save.

Maybe teaching that dog a couple tricks it can use to relieve stress. Like a backup, plan B for dogs. Maybe coming up with a different way to reteach the poles. A creative way to make an evil teeter totter a dog's best bud. Something new, something different, instead of just keeping on with something that isn't working. But trying to never let the pressure cooker reach the boiling point of explosion.

Eventually, I moved out of that house. Enough was a enough. I think it may have had to do with coming home one night to 100 naked, hairy, and sandy people dancing in the living room. Naked AND sandy. And we had no vacuum. And naked asses sitting on our threadbare couch that I would have to touch? The last straw. I believe we will call that the motivating factor for change. Moving? A super solution. I think I even bought a vacuum cleaner at the flea market. And my roomates had a color tv and we could watch LA Law. No more pressure cookers.

Best thing for dogs, don't even let the pressure build. For some dogs, it's always going to be inevitable. Our jobs as dog trainers, help find ways around that pressure, and ways to let it release so that learning and training can happen. Teach them that a little pressure on can result in fabulous things and then getting the pressure off. Instead of resulting in ricey, sandy, hairy explosions all over the walls.

Thinking different to make a change.

Last night I taught a different group of agility students than I normally teach. One great thing about their class, major rounds of applause every time someone ran a sequence correctly, or made their front or rear cross happen. A momentous occasion! Right on! Weave poles-party time, excellent!

A couple people in the class, challenging, frustrating issues with their dogs. Kinds of things that can really fry your brain. Dog out of focus and blurry and maybe going off to sniff things, or not stay with the handler, and the more fried the people brains, the more fried dog brains. Some pent up brain frying, coming out in that class.

Here's a thing I noticed though. The handlers that didn't let their brains fry, kept trying and kept it together for their dogs, rewarding for the little things, big successes. The handlers that handed me a laundry list of all the things their dog couldn't do or why it always did this, who had their dogs so pinned down as to why they were such failures, their dogs didn't much improve. Just got more fried, to the point they didn't really notice their dogs got better when they upped the reward schedule and made it easier.

Or else they just flat out wouldn't increase the reward schedule, and just kept trying to shove their square dogs into round holes out there. Shove and shove and shove, instead of backing up, and thinking creatively. I know whenever I have training trouble, I have to really think about it and come up with a plan. I may not always exactly solve the problem, but I know when something isn't working, you have to think different to make a change. But some of their dogs, thought they were doing chores. Agility shouldn't be a dog's equivalent of cleaning the bathroom.

I asked them to try a homework assignment. Teach their dog a funny trick they could use to regain focus, and signal fun. Emphasis on the fun part. Use it to rev their dogs up, use it to fix a blooper of a run and reboot with. Lighten things up, get their dogs' tails wagging again and make the agility really fun. Maybe no more sad, draggy, robotic weave poles. Use it during class time to keep the dogs' attentions. Because, HELLO, this is supposed to fun. And I think not all the dogs in that class got the fun memo part.

Some of the students, thought this was a great idea. Some of them, told me why it wouldn't work. A lot of reasons why. Some of them, just thought that was a dumb and useless idea. Didn't have anything to do with agility. Doing a funny trick? Hello, they just need their dog to get over that first jump. Who has time to do a trick?

I wish I could show them all, each one of my dogs that took so long to get from square 1 to square 2. Ruby, the dog that hated other dogs, and thought agility meant run across the field to steal food out of people's purses and sniff in the grass. I spent a lot of brain fry time in Ruby's very first agility class, then someone showed me that whole clicker training thing, and BINGO. Good god. Ruby, Steeplechase Queen, the dog that anyone can run now and who runs always at lightening speed. A different dog morphed out of the evil, feral terrier I started with and her whole life changed for the better. Otterpop was mean and wanted nothing more than to bark her head off at each and every person that came near her. She'll always be a little crotchetdy, that's just her nature, but the power of the fun dog training created an agility dog that tries her hardest and amazes me with her ability to know exactly what I'm asking. Maybe not when I'm spazzing out during Masters Gamblers, but our goal is that she outthinks my spazzing out now. And can be near people without batting an eye. Usually. A work in progress. But who thinks training is more fun than anything else she knows, and always tries her hardest.

Training Gustavo has been unlike any kind of dog training I've ever done. I may have called untrainable. Under my breath. To myself, maybe sometimes here. Poor buddy. I feel bad when I think that and just need to go wash my brain out with dishwashing liquid. When I think that, it's my brain starting to fry and I'm just not being creative enough. Have to make training u-turns all the time, and I know he'll keep challenging me at every stage in his career and make me find better solutions again and again. But he has never, ever thought that anything in his training is less than one giant frat party and the beer never stops flowing.

Every different dog, always different. No one training solution going to work with everbody. And to stay one step ahead, always have to think different. What's most important for the thinking to work, is that the dogs think they're at one helluva knock down, drag out fiesta every single time they step out there, and that the party never ends. Agility can be hard sometimes for people to learn how to do. But if the dog's tail isn't wagging, it just ain't going to happen.

Team Small dog possibly really needs to go on vacation and proof that Laura is just a retired person trapped in a non retired person body.

I think November is a month where things repeat themselves. The weather starts to turn and you remember about winter. Like didn't that just happen? When I had to put on a damn jacket? All the dog people are on vacation, and driving across the desert. I'm not sure if they call it vacation exactly. They have a higher purpose, a vision quest, and that vision is called USDAA Nationals.

I would very much like a vacation, and I would very much like it to be in a desert, except I would very much like to spend it staring at enormous painted rock mountains and houses made of bottles and memorials to borax mining mules. So going to the USDAA Nationals would be cool and all, but also sort of time consuming, not leaving enough time for strapping on goggles and mining for opals with my tiny little hammer and looking for the diners with the most taxidermy. Walking around slow, wearing boots, where there is no one else around for miles and miles and miles. Hoping the dogs come looping back and don't fall down a mine shaft as they run fast and hard across the hazy vista.

You have to drive fast and purposeful across the desert to get to USDAA Nationals. It's the destination. I don't think there's time to just stop and look at weird stuff on the side of the road. Unless you have my dream job, Retired Person. The vision quest is that you want to be the big winner and run your dog under the nighttime lights, with everybody watching you and and drinking beer and cheering you on. Hurry up and wait and then rush around and hopefully end up a champ, and when it's all done, speed back across the desert to get back to work in time.

Right now, what would be best of all would be just to pack the dogs in the car, and just get in and head down to Palm Springs and out through Coachella then up through Mojave and towards Lone Pine and across to Death Valley. Not driving real fast. Stopping anywhere and everywhere. Watch for the moving rocks. Out to Chloride City and back to Tonopah. Find the secret ghost towns, and driving out when there's some snow up high, where the burned up forest is and the stick trees are. Taking a long time to walk all around Mono Lake and squeaking through Tioga Pass before it closes up for the winter. It would take a long time to do all this. A long, long time, just driving along for days that turn into weeks and days that never repeat themselves.

Here's the part where she'll try to sell you something because of capitalism and all.

You know what would be a good idea? Buy all your Christmas gifts from me. This month, I'm going to start loading up my cafepress store with items. Heck, Walmart was advertising last night during Dr. Drew's Sex Rehab, so why not start here? At least I don't have commercials with dancing zoo animals. Way more disturbing than Dr. Drew's collection of porn stars wandering around their posh Pasadena rehab digs with runny mascara.

Let's start with some team shirts for the upcoming DAM team trial in December. EVERYTHING'S for sale at Xmastime. You can have one too. Even ones from the team I'm not on. Just make sure you save 'em for Xmas.

Pretend you're on Gustavo's team. Because who wouldn't want to do that? The most E's in agiliteee. Hey, come on. It's going to be a really CUTE team.


Or, for all you fans of Jewish aetheist Emma Goldman, a team shirt I made for some friends? Because nothing says dog agility like the 19th century Danish socialist anarchist movement.

Who you calling a lukenutkin?

The dogs had to stay home all weekend and be bored out of their skulls. It was that kind of weekend. A weekend I like to call work.

Which meant when I came home, mayhem. Criminally unexercised dogs running and one in particular, screaming. Because wanted to be RUNNING. Or needs to have THE BONE that OTHER DOG has. Because has not been RUNNING.

Which if I tried to write it sounded out like what monkeyscreaming looks like spelled, I realized that I would be writing in Finnish.

Oioi, olen joskus lukenutkin Team Small Dog -blogia, mutta kiitos että linkkasit tuon hauskuuden! En olisi siihen muuten törmännyt. Naurattaa. Töissä.

Which either means, "I sometimes read the Small Dog Team blog, but thanks to the linkkasit that fun! I would not otherwise have come across it. I laugh. At work."

Or else it means "GIVE ME THE BONE GIVE ME THE BONE AND I AM RUNNING NOW AND THIS SOUND IS YOUR PAYBACK AND YOU WILL NEVER CATCH ME SO HA HA!

Every day with Team Small Dog offers a certain amount of paranormal activity.

You guys seen the movie, Paranormal Activity? We saw it. I'm not saying nothin' about it. Except it is REALLY scarey.

Hold on.





What WAS that?


Holy crap.

A public service announcement full of gleeful positive energy and sparkly unicorns from yer smiling friends over here at Team Small Dog.

Holy smokes people, is it the armageddon or what but have you noticed that everyone is just off their skullz right now? Life is short. Shit happens. Kittens, make sure you're just frying your biggest fish and save the small ones for something else. Like tossing back. Ahchoo and over and out.

What it looks like on my couch in the hours after Dirt Nite.

1-Ruby, 2-Otterpop, 3-Gustavo

After Dirt Nite, the dogs go home and there is about 20 minutes of running and running and running through the house. Not by me. I've had enough of that running crap and am foraging for food. Not by Ruby, she's foraging, too. Not by Otterpop, she's collecting toys and making weird sounds and just taking care of business.

Gustavo though, gets, shall we say, somewhat wired? Dirt Nite, with the close proximity of border collies and running so fast over his little courses, over and over til I get them right, makes him crazy. As soon as he's back in the door at home, his dirty feet go 100mph through the house, running around with his little plastic bone. Back and forth, bedroom to living room, bedroom to living room, banking off the couch, just running in his own little world. The other dogs barely notice this anymore. Sometimes they might join in, but if they're busy with more important projects, it's just him running to the beat of whatever drummer it is that he's listening to.


When the running is over though, and as soon as I hit the couch, he's right there. The other dogs grab a spot on the couch. Ruby and Otterpop have to be touching. Otterpop brings some already shredded toy up to shred some more, and Gustavo finds the spot on my lap and crashes. Out like a light. The barking and screaming, a distant memory, unless that's what he dreams about, motionless, until 5:30am when the running starts again.

Instructions for building the bombproof gambling dog.

Since it's apparent that I'm lacking the coordination, smarts, and any kind of wherewithall to get the stupid stupid stupid gambler's Q's I need with Otterpop, I've been on a mission to bombproof her. Make her impervious to the kind of gambling abuse I dish out at her in the show ring, so that when faced with weird suggestions that I give her such as "Get in the Car!" when she is trying to decide whether to turn into a tunnel or come back over a jump, that she just understands to do the harder thing. I am building a better, stronger, smarter gambler.

So we practice and practice and practice gambles. Otterpop isn't even supposed to be doing much agility, yet there I am, back on the practice field, scheming like a scientist. Otterpop is my monster, and I am implanting a better brain in her head, one that can take over when mine does whatever it does during gamblers.

I think this is what they mean when they say use the science in your dog training. Scientific method at work. Building a brain better than the handler's. Otterpop will become my Jamie Sommers and kick Steve Austin's ass. And eventually, will learn every gamble that can be invented, and will just go out there and do them even if I'm leaping around shouting in tongues. Also, I actually think that learning how to do gambles is fun in a sick, disgusting way. Even with all my trial and error, I always think it's pretty fun to figure out how to make it work.

I am giving myself the Tim Gunn award for today. No one else might be proud of me, but I'm pretty sure if Tim Gunn was my friend, he would be. Wouldn't it be cool if Tim Gunn was actually the bionic man and besides just being his awesome Tim Gunn self, he was a helicopter? A girl can always dream.

So here's the 3 we learned today as part of Project GambleQuest.

Gamble Number One

I call this one Go Over the Dogwalk Without Me There and Go in Whichever Side of the Tunnel I Say.

This is useful and fun for everyone to practice. It let's me tuneup on Ruby's running contact, and is the beginning of official gambler's training for Gustavo. Pretty much all his gambler's Q's have been based on the fact that he is running 100 mph far away from me and somehow I manage to get him over or through the right thing.

And Otterpop just needs to memorize it and add it to her database. So we practiced this on both sides of the dogwalk and everyone had to go in the left or right side of the tunnel based on whether their name got called or just a tunnel.

Hint: Always call the tunnel a tunnel. This will be easier with your dogs that don't have running contacts. I am really, really glad I taught Gustavo a stop on the bottom of the dogwalk. And boy oh boy are you going to get some good running exercise when you practice this one.

Gamble Number Two

I like to call this one Pick Different Sides of the Tunnel Then Go Out to the Jump and Into the Poles and Then Do It Backwards.

Otterpop excels at weavepole gambles. This one she pretty much has memorized. I can even dance around like Missy Elliot when she's in the poles. But I have to say go go go. I learned today that I can't sing Missy Elliot songs and dance like Missy Elliot at the same time or she pops out of the last pole. So we have a scientific goal to work on. I love Otterpop.

This one is hard with Gustavo. He is ok backwards direction but that tunnel, jump and into the poles does not guarantee a perfect pole entrance with him. We practiced. Ruby didn't have to do this one because she only has to do poles in case of emergency now.

Hint: This uses the path pushing! Also don't use punching bag arm. You will be sorry.

Gamble Number Three

I like to call this one Dreaded Teeter Totter in a Gamble Then Turning to the Chute.

The team nemesis, teeter totter. Now that Gustavo is confident of his teeter totter practicing, I am starting to build a little bit of distance from him and me when he's on it. Otterpop has just recently been able to do a teeter totter without me standing next to her. Because now she is brave. She is almost 6 years old.

We had to do the chute in the gamble last weekend. Clearly that needs to be added to Otterpop's database. Mission accomplished, but Otterpop had to do this a bunch, the turn to the tunnel is hard off the teeter, we learned. Ruby was really good at this one. She likes teeter totters. Gustavo was doing it great but I was staying closer to the teeter with him than with everybody else.

Hint: Uh, make sure you taught the WORD Turn or your Left Right because no amount of arm flailing is going to get them in that tunnel. I just use Turn. I am way too lazy of a trainer to do left and right and Tim Gunn says he still loves me anyways because I have other nice qualities and he always wanted to be a helicopter.

Top Ten things ranked from Really Low Like a Lowrider Except Not Cool to Really Not So Bad Yet Not Surprisingly Still Not Cool from the dog show.

Gratiuitous abandoned house shot. Because I just can't drive to Turlock without pulling over to take an abandoned house tour, ever.

Which means that yes, it was a Sunday drive out to Turlock for a day of USDAA. Perhaps just the highlights will do. Shall we go from high to low or low to high?

Let's start Low. And then, it can only get better.


But first, one more abandonded house. What. You wanted dog photos?

10. Changing Gustavo's adv. snookers plan seconds before he ran, then running face first into a festive #7 flag and letting that little event snowball into a festival of handling mayhem resulting in I don't even remember what, but it really wasn't pretty. I distinctly remember at one point thinking, OMG. I totally look like one of those people you watch in the Starters ring with a pity face, and think, that's just really too bad. And then clap politely when they exit, hoping that inspires them to maybe take a dog agility class or rent a how to video. As I'm running this in the Starters ring. During the time I was busy thinking that, Gustavo was long gone into some contraband off course tunnel and I was just out there flailing and flicking and god knows what.

9. Shrieking, "NO ONE WATCH THIS!" to the crowd as I entered the Masters Gambler ring with Otterpop, after 99% of the handlers aced what seemed to me like kind of a hard gamble. Executing a lovely opening, hitting the gamble right as the buzzer went off, then getting Otterpop stuck halfway through it by shouting Tire! Tunnel! Tire! Get in the Car! That Thing! at her instead of just Turn Chute, which would have probably worked swell. Then thinking, in my already addled brain, must keep body motion pointed towards dog's path, so striking a very nice Statue of Liberty pose well after Otterpop was stuck so we both looked stuck, although it was easy to see which one I was because luckily, mouth wasn't stuck and able to just yell random nouns at poor Otterpop. Everybody watched and I believe I received polite clapping.

8. Hobbes flat out refused to lay down on the table, for the very first time. Abject refusal, would lay down but keep an elbow floating on a wafer thin pillow of air and stare at me with a funny look on his face. I kneeled down, I told him he was so beautiful, woofed at him, tried all my special tricks from the last couple years of our Standard runs together. I guess it means we are now truly family and I should be honored, however, he may never, ever again lay down on the table for me in the show ring.

7. Sending Hobbes out to a special a-frame that was not exactly the course. Actually, not at all in the course.

6. Oh and how about the time I sent Gustavo in the wrong end of a tunnel in Masters Jumpers.

5. Oh wait, how about the time I sent Otterpop in the wrong end of a different tunnel in Masters Jumpers.

4. Or the time I sent Otterpop into the wrong end of another tunnel in Masters Snookers? When she was running fast and had the most opening points of all the little dogs? There was this little theme in my runs today, you know the thing in the story that is usually implied instead of stated explicity according to wikipedia, and the little theme today was, SOMETIMES LAURA REALLY SUCKS AT THIS DOG AGILITY BUSINESS.

3. Not walking or even having time to watch anybody else in Gustavo's Advanced Gamblers. Perhaps due to conflicts but more perhaps due to taking all the dogs on an enjoyable short walk and spacing out that I should walk a course over there. Yet resulting in a lovely Gamble opening, including 2 stellar dogwalk contacts and organized handling and very nice Gambler's Q. I think that was the last one he needed to move to Masters.

2. Otterpop had a nice Standard run in Performance. And her leg seemed comfortable the whole day and she tried hard to win every single run.

1. Gustavo knocked out a beautiful Starters Standard run in the ring where last time he was in there, was full of dead people. This included contacts and a table and poles and a confident teeter totter. It wasn't a Q, he popped out of the last weave pole and there was no way I was taking him back to fix that, I just let him run on and he ran like the wind and like a dog with not a care in the world.

You know, I did end the day with a realization that I just might be one of those pity people out there. This may be a reoccurring theme in my life. But you know, it might be better to try to not even think about that and live with the perhaps unrealistic hope that one day, I stop screwing up out there. So there. If you were one of those polite clapping people as I ran quickly out of that Gambler's ring.