When doom and gloom enter the room.

I went up to Power Paws for a lesson with Jim yesterday. Haven't been in a while, in a long while. Don't even remember my last lesson. Last time I was gonna up there, I went out and bought a bunch of succulents and tried to start a succulent farm with my lesson money. Not sure if Jim knows that one. Uh, Hi Jim!

So I gussied up the demented homeschoolers in their best prairie dresses, brushed their bangs up sky high, and we took a field trip off of the compound. Ran them hard at the beach first, low tide and thought that might help a bit. Woke up when they got to their road. Boy do they like going down that driveway.

I unpack mayhem out of the car and we sit down in the fine plastic agility chairs and Jim's all, "How's the Team? What are we working on today?"

Isn't this sort of how therapists open up therapy session? He thought I was just going to say, can we work on sending out to weave poles? Some 270's? I get to watch Jim's eyes go all wide as I unleash the horror of horrors of what's been going on with Team Small Dog. Actually, I don't because he's wearing sunglasses. But I'm pretty sure they're going all wide. Or maybe that was because someone started to dig a hole in the grass. Have you seen Jim's grass? You just don't do that.

Horrors. Actually, if you want to have some even more horrific horrors, go see the movie Food, Inc. Holy moley, that will get you freaked out. It's about the politics and industry of food. Basic old food and really, there's no aspect of food that isn't completely messed up, possibly beyond fixing and even if you've read Fast Food Nation and the Omnivore's Dilemma, you would want to go see this and then figure out where you can plant a garden, although you might be afraid of seeds. And Monsanto. Just ask Indiana seed cleaner Moe Parr about them.

There are graphs and animations and interviews and ammonia washing beef. I mean hamburger meat filler. I don't even eat meat, and I was freaked out. I won't even say I watched this one so you don't have to. I think everybody who likes to eat them some food now and again should go see it. I mean corn. Because almost all food is made from corn now. Except for the mutilated chickens in the dark that can't use their legs. Tractors dump their chicken bodies in the manure heap.

So actually I didn't tell this to Jim, instead just unleashed all the Team Small Dog traumas from the last few months. Although he would have liked the movie. There were tons of tractors.

I tell him about Ruby and she can't even jump or do any agility, anxiety and lame lame lame, then miraculously I have lowered her jumps heights to 8" and she's back doing agility. That's the good news.

And no one here has E. coli. There's some good news.

He gets the earful about Gustavo and the teeter totter whip and the blowing tarps and the sounds and the scaredyness and going back to foundation stuff and the horror of it all. Although I kept my mouth shut about the immigration sweeps from Tyson chicken processing plants and how they bring up illegals from Mexico, use 'em up then throw random folks back at immigration for deportation, just to make some numbers. Happens in pig factories and cow slaughter houses, too. That's the labor force and woe to any union organizers that step in.

I do tell the Otterpop story of her mental illness and weirdo aggression and freaking out about Ruby and can barely run in the show ring.

Basically, I'm like, "Jim, Team Small Dog is just really messed up."

He's sort of squirming in his plastic chair. Jim is super nice and I can see he's kind of like not sure how this lesson is supposed to fix all of that. Thank god I didn't start talking about bacon.

He's says, "Maybe you need to start having your lessons with Nancy?"

Maybe I need to start growing carrots.

Doom and gloom is sitting on his field and bumming out a sunny day when he could be riding his mowing tractor around, cutting the grass. Doom and gloom brings bad dogs that sometimes try to dig holes in the perfect grass. Doom and gloom can't help thinking about the specter of Monsanto, measuring the wind for currents that blow the genetically modified seeds across a fence line, into some unsuspecting farmer's fields.

Oh. And now doom and gloom's boy dog just peed on a post. Probably because I said I made him wear a prairie dress. And he's going to have to start eating carrots.

Doom and gloom trudges out, head hanging low, and sets the jumps really low so Ruby can have a turn.

"Sounds like Team Small Dog is just in a slump."

He gives us a pattern and Ruby just knocks it out like she's been practicing every day forever.

Give it a try with Otterpop and she's flying around like a rabid bat zeroing in on the vampire blood bank. No problem.

Jim's all, "Uh, they look pretty good? Wanna try it with the rear cross?"

Augh. I know! Right? They always do this to me. Perfect little beasts.

So then I bring Gustavo out, he's holding his start line and does the same sequences as those two. Some pole entry issues, not a surprise since we've kind of abandoned poles for teeter fixing the last months. But he's back to crazy fast and is actually handling well and actually not doing anything wrong. Listening! Much listening happening! Not much to get scared of up there, on the Power Paws mountain.

Jim's all, "Should we do some teeters?"

Doom and gloom all hemming and hawing. Maybe they'd be ok. Maybe not. Dark, windowless chicken farms. We've been working hard, it could be a backslide, or it could be time to move up and just get over it. I dunno.

"I dunno!"

We do some teeters. Start slow, just a teeter, not in a sequence. I tip the first boards for him. We build it into a sequence. His poles are actually a lot worse than the teeters. Those are just fine. We work on some stuff with the poles. They fix up just fine. It's just that old too fast to hit the first pole thing, which was why I went back to the 2x2 method and has clearly deteriorated recently. A proven fixable problem.

So we're back on the plastic chairs, and Jim says, "Not really sure I helped you much today?"

I'm not really sure how, exactly. But I think he did. Maybe everything's not fixed, and stuff could go wrong again. The cows will multiply and stand knee deep in shit, the corn subsidies stand in the way of affordable broccoli. Victoria Stillwell fixed the attacking Jack Russell in an hour, but Otterpop is still crazy. Later that evening, she leads Gustavo into a homeless camp deep in a willowy thicket and they pretend not to have recalls and guzzle down whatever was on that guy's foodchain. Probably some corn product.

But I'm just saying. Maybe not so much doom and gloom as I thought.

Gustavo's First Agility Lesson

So Gustavo had his very first Official Agility Lesson yesterday. Up until now, I've been just training him all on my lonesome. Snuck him into some runs during Dirt Nite the other night, run him around at Dee's, but this week I asked Jim to give us his first Genuine Dog Lesson. He's practicing at Master's Level, just starting to trial, time to get official. People are always telling me I need professional help. This is what you mean, right People?


So everyone got to do some lesson. Otterpop and Ruby, they can always practice something. Gustavo though, time to show Jim what we can do. Jim had us start out a jump drill with a nice long leadout.

"Uh. Jim? He doesn't really stay? You know how I always run with my dogs? I sorta just thought we'd start like that? Like, Always?"

Jim nipped that fantasy in the bud.

I'm like, "But the papillon people, they always run with them...right? Look, like this." I demonstrate my papillon people startline. Off Gustavo goes 100 miles ahead of me, down a row of jumps and into a tunnel. Jim is sitting there, just sort of staring at me.


Gustavo is really fast. Sometimes running with him and him getting out ahead makes him run like a teensy drunken sailor. No matter how fast I run. Oh, like how sometimes I shouldn't startline run with Ruby and I do and there is a near crash which frequently precedes a dropped bar and the beginning of a crazy, disaster attack the jumps run?

Advice from Jim, "Work on his startline stays. You're gonna need them."


Then we worked on rear crosses and serpentines. Neither was as crappy as I thought, in fact his rear crosses were way better than I thought they'd be. I need to work more on driving faster and straighter and stepping behind him earlier. And he showed me a good drill to teach a clearer understanding of that serpentine arm The Power Paws Way.

When Jim shows me a basic drill and starts talking about the Power Paws Way, that's when I know sometimes my teaching method of It's a Fast Running Party has a few holes in it. We'll practice standing way closer to the jump. For real. We want a bombproof serpentine dog that ALWAYS knows where to go.


So did a bunch of jumping drills, then ran some courses that had all the contacts in them. Ruby dazzled Jim with her newly consistent and fast running dogwalk contact. Otterpop, dazzled. Right Jim? You were DAZZLED? Well, anyways, they did just fine. Jim is used to them. Time to show Jim Gustavo's contacts on the course. Good turns! Fantastic dogwalk! Fantastic teeter! Then on to the a-frame. My super trained running a-frame. That we worked so hard and methodically on and has seemed like a no brainer.

Until now. Fly off. Fly off. Fly off.

Maybe some trace of toes touching yellow. A tiny trace of tiny toes.


Jim has me keep doing them. Counting his strides. Boy he is close. I am running way ahead, sometimes closer. Left side. Right side. Faster. Slower.

"Jim I am like freaking out here! His a-frame was stunning until just now!"


Jim is like, "Yeah. Right." No, he was sympathetic. He understands the running a-frame drama. We did about a million a-frames. Uh, we have a little backtracking of work to do on these. I think he was hitting the a-frame harder and faster in his lesson than I usually have him do in practice and thus the little mess. This is a new priority of dog training. Work on the a-frame.


We didn't demonstrate the poles. Even though HELLO FOR THE LAST WEEK WE HAVE HAD SUPER FAST STRAIGHT AND WIRE-FREE POLES in the driveway, I didn't feel ready to try this in his lesson. We are in the middle of the Take the Poles on the Road Show. Which is going well. I think we almost have ready for prime time poles. Also, poor Gustavo at this point is hiding from me under the teeter in the shade. This is more agility than he has ever done in his life, the last hour and a half.


Best advice. As always. Practice hard. Run fast. Train like you want him to always be. Thanks Jim!

Um, does this get any culture points?

This Santa currently unmarred by dog attack. We'll see how long he makes it.

Yesterday I had a dog lesson with Jim. Jim is Mr. Power Paws. He lives on 10 acres in the hills above San Jose with his wife Nancy and they are kind of like the head honchos of all things agility. They are like the agility equivalent of Posh Spice and David Beckham! Madonna and Guy Ritchie! I take lessons with Jim every time I get a chance. Not only does he help me get better, but he shares my love of tractors and llamas and ranches, and frequently we talk about ranch stuff to the point of I forget my course because of chattiness of us all. Usually I tell Jim what we need to practice. A lot of the time it's distance stuff. Yesterday was basic tuneup day, Ruby bar knocking, Otterpop hard weave entries, stuff like that. Jim is my best teacher because he has helped me figure out a personal handling system that works for me. And yesterday he told me I have turned into a good handler. How long has that taken? A long time! The dogs were good, I didn't screw up much, and I am a good handler now. Thanks Jim! That's the best agility way to start a day.

Also it was a sunny day. And there was no traffic on the way home. Huge plusses any time.

And then, instead of plastering or painting (I will pay for this today and all other days after with my unfinished construction albatross stink birds hanging over my head) I bought like 2 Christmas presents, but also it was the antique fair downtown! This meant things I NEED! I needed yet another scarey santa doll (but this one has WHITE boots, I forgot I also collect these) and a book about ghost towns and also a new hat. I am one bad, bad, bad Christmas shopper. And new sunglasses so now people won't stare at my messed up eye! And then my friend Janet was having a studio sale, and I also needed a slab of wood she had screenprinted with a horse head and also a thrift store polo shirt she screenprinted with snakes and a horse head and Johnny Cash. I had been thinking of polo shirts for a while now in my head and then Janet has one right there. So much for the Christmas shopping. So much for the plastering and painting. Hello all the new things I needed! Thank you the consumer gluttony of the holiday season getting to my brain! Welcome back to cultural consumption as opposed to production. Can a blog count as cultural production?

AND THEN it was still sunny and then it was low tide and 3 of the dogs got to run for an hour chasing balls and seaweeds and no one barked at any guys in flippers or stole any tennis balls and they were so tired by the time I got them back that no one complained if I took Timmy on his very own walk, just me and him. Sometimes it's nice to have really one heckuva good day.