Dog Agility Fitness Challenge-a primer.

So remember how I will not show you the video from the Steeplechase Finals last week? Yeah. That's right. Because I made the dog hit a bar, blow a contact, and I looked really, really fat.

So next place we go is Madera in March. And I am not going to be so fat by then. Maybe I'll still make the dogs mess up, maybe Ruby will have a sore back, maybe Otterpop will be slow. But I am going to be skinny-er. Or at least less fat. So here's our new fitness regime. Of healthy exercise and diet. The diet part-let's get there later. But first, the exercise.


First of all. While checking the email, and doing the blog, there will be some madcap exercise. To get the blood flowing. In the fancy exercise studio. OK, the office. Well, OK, actually the spare bedroom with the piles of files and ugg boots and books. But there is a tiny patch of floor. We will jump! And twist! And listen to disco hits of the '70's until we are no longer so fat. It is important to exercise for more than one song-maybe a song by Gorillaz. Who are not even people that need to exercise but I believe are fictional animations. I don't get all that.


And we shall do some yoga stretching too. Right? Think about the cute yoga outfits available but only to the cute yoga girls. I go to yoga. Sometimes. Rarely. I went a few weeks ago. I wore sweatpants. I am wearing cowboy pajamas for my fitness challenge right now. Once we are skinny there could be tennis skorts and little capri pants with tiny tank tops that do not expose muffin guts that will make us feel chipper even when dogs are doing horribly at the dog show.


There is much dog assistance in the exercise. And my feet may get bit while they are doing a hip hop jig-like dance move. No one said this wouldn't be dangerous. Because it is the belief of the dogs that they should be on a dog walk. Which is sort of one of the exercise problems. I HATE leaving Timmy at home when I take the dogs somewhere. But he can walk about as fast as a 3 legged turtle pulling a birdhouse full of potatoes. We creep. We shuffle. And it burns absolutely no calories. In fast, I believe that walking Timmy actually adds calories to my self. Which is how the fat to skinny ration has grown against me this year. Of which I have actual scientific Proof.



So when it's time to go for a walk, everyone is waiting. They know. You have to wait for your name to get called or else it's mayhem.


Mayhem looks like this.


Except for Timmy. He doesn't know we are ready for the walk yet. Being nearly blind, completely deaf, and somewhat alzheimer's-esque in demeanor, he is still laying there. I'll go get him and carry him down the stairs. And off to the shuffle we go.

Team Small Dog Diet Tips coming soon!

How many boxes of See's Candy?

Last year, I went to the eye doctor (thanks health insurance!) was was told by the smashingly groomed and outfitted and tall lady eye doctor that the reason I hate reading books and the New Yorker now was that my eye lenses, yes, insides my eyes, were becoming dried up and brittle and crackly and old. And it could be easily solved by getting glasses. This was kind of a blow. Like when you get kicked in the stomach by the horse, even just one foot of the horse, and you have to sit down for a minute, even if it is smack down in the mud, due to the stoppage of the breathing. Like, sorry, you had good eyes for many a year, but now that you have passed FORTY, you have crappy, crinkly little eye lenses that are eventually going to shrivel up and rot like a mummy rat carcass you find behind a feed can. But I got some glasses, and low and behold, I could actually read things again. But it sort of isn't the same.

And then I had to start wearing them more, and the dog ate them, and I couldn't read for a long time til I got some more. Like, I am saying, not reversible. Once you have started this, there is no return.

And I have crinkly weird joints in one of my knees. And the whole TOOTH fiasco (moral of That Story-it is going to cost you big time and make you possibly faint in the dentist office for each time you fall off a horse into a jump and land on your face) and I guess dry skin and now it's a fat stomach. Like I was warned by friends who were older than me, saying things like, "Just you wait. Once you Hit Forty, you can't eat all the boxes of See's candy all by your fat piggy self because you will get fat. And it's a bad and horrible over Forty Fat that won't just go away all magical like a fairy princess, wave a wand take a jog and goodbye." More than one person warned me of this fact, and what happened this Christmas season, after I ho ho ho'ed my way through all the boxes of the See's candy? I'll just let you guess that one and you guessed it right, right down to the pants that are likely going to split tonight when we resume Dirt Night for Agility.

And what is worse, I'm being warned about what's coming. The Change for the Ladies. It is somewhere in the future, past the glasses and the fat but before the plastic surgery and osteoporosis and apparently will make me go insane and sweat a lot and amplify all my bad qualities into truly evil and horrible qualities, causing possible divorce and no friends. And I'm thinking, this is like the total demographic of the dog agility people. Ladies who are over 40 and they are all having their bodies deteriorate to the point of someday in the future nearer than they ever thought, turning into little dust piles to be swept up and thrown in the garbage with rotting black lettuce. But like, hot damn. All out there, running their asses off with their dogs.

Greg Derrett hand, Susan Garrett skort.

I drove up Mt. Madonna road, not to the cabin, since that would be more of a weekend day long journey, but to the property just up the road, $834,900 for the 5 acres and a modular. It is a fairly nice modular, and the property is awesome, up on the hill. But let's be realistic. That is a big amount of money for what is still just a very fancy mobile home on 5 acres of fields. And this one is way far out of Gary's driving range, although it is 3 minutes from my barn. Would be a great horse property with just adding a mere additional $250,000 in improvements to it like fencing, grading, arena and barn. What a deal.

I am fat and the dogs are hyper and untrained andgetting fat, too. Otterpop was already leaping around the house from furniture to furniture at top speed at 7am this morning. It's like having a little wind up bat leaping around as background noise while you drink coffee. And literally my pants do not fit. If it's not one thing with me, it's another. I am pretty sure that complaining is not positive thinking and will not get me into my size 6 pants and will not get the dogs winning their divisions and will not buy me a ranch but my back hurts! So back or no back we will run a little while on the beach this morning.

Another agility-less weekend. They are having a Greg Derrett seminar at Power Paws, but it was too pricey for me and likely will be too hot. While just attending that wouldn't get me winning without practicing, I would have likely learned better skills and more cool things to teach the agility students. But there are just too many bills piling up in other places, just the audit fee was $75.

Greg Derrett is the British god of front crossing agility. He makes videos with his perfect border collies and marriend a beautiful American agility competitor who is also named Laura. Bringing up the outside hand/shoulder as a mini RFP to indicate taking the inside, not outside obstacle, is known (at least by me) as Greg Derrett hand. I probably use closest to his handling style than anything else because he is very popular in the Bay Area and the teachers around here all subscribe to him, as well as Susan Garrett, who is Canadian and not related but also a big huge deal and they are good friends, Derrett and Garret.

I did take a Susan Garrett seminar and I actually learned a lot, more about general training of dogs than anything exactly agility related. I also learned I am a very different type of person than her and am very ok with that. I also learned if I had skinnier legs I want to wear a little tennis outfit for agility. I also always wanted Ruby to place higher than her dog, DeCaff in the 16" and we never did, and now Ruby is a 12" dog and we won't have a chance again til DeCaff moves down to 12" someday if she gets old and decrepid like Ruby did. I think I even wrote that down as a goal at one point. Kick DeCaff's ass in Grand Prix.