A fun and motivational game for nice dogs.

So when we practice, after practice comes the best game. Insane Frisbee for a Treat.


The rules are, Otterpop is the great and powerful ruler of all frisbees. Anyone who can get the frisbee who is not Otterpop will get treats.

Much barking and running and frisbee theft and slamming into other dogs is encouraged. I yell. It is a loud game. Nuns maybe would not allow this game at church.

This is not a good game for dogs who are not Team Small Dog to play with Team Small Dog. Dog feelings get hurt. We have tried. It just doesn't work the same. Big dogs, other small dogs, it just changes the dynamic. There is snarkiness and there could be border collies and SOMEONE just laying on top of the frisbee until border collies go elsewhere.

Everyone looks forward to Insane Frisbee. Mostly we play it after practicing when we practice by our lonesome because it is a game of yelling and barking and attacking things. And the whole feelings getting hurt issue. If you could see my dogs practice by themselves, anyone who has ever seen them be less than speedy, or downright slow, would be aghast. They are the fastest small dogs in town. They never miss a contact. Or a pole entry. They have mad distance skillz and are nuts. When goats are the only ones watching.

Practice with a couple other people, they're pretty fast.

Practice in class, they're ok fast.

Practice at a fun match, ok fast.

Go to the dog show? Maybe fast. Maybe slow. It depends on 47 different factors including weather, what articles of clothing judges are wearing that day, who else is in line with them to go in the ring and the train schedule.

We are hoping Gustavo breaks the cycle of madness that is our downfall in the dog show ring. Today we practiced doing actual little courses, running as damn fast as we could. Me and him. It was the first time really doing that. We have done so many little drills at slower speeds it was cool to see he knows a front cross and a rear cross and go ons and outs. Just like how it works on tv! So that's going to be how we all practice for a while, just bringing the speed back into things and some of the Insane Frisbee Madness onto the course. There was no Buck Owens today. I wish I had a boombox out there and it would have been classic rock day, if your classic rock is the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys.


View from the table cam.

Well, let's try to analyze this mixed bag of a dog show.

OK, so here are some kudos. Maybe the rest of this story will be boring because I believe if i was reading this about someone else's dogs, I may be bored. But maybe there are lessons here for all of us, or maybe you are such an agility star you have some good ideas about things I can do to improve on some, um, issues.

Kudos to Gary for getting up at 5am and making sure my leaky radiator was full so I did not throw an engine rod on my car driving there! And he wore the head flashlight to do this too. How much are we loving that head flashlight?

Kudos for Gustavo for not escaping or screaming and being super well behaved and acting like a well trained puppy and taking walks and playing a lot of tug on his nasty ratty piece of fleece.

Kudos to Ruby for just being so fast and what a good dog. And winning all her classes, except for 2nd in one. It was CPE. So it's not like winning all her classes in USDAA. But I was super happy with all her runs, except for her slowish weave poles, which continues to be disturbing, especially when she is flying around out there and then hits those poles and slows way down. (In CPE, slow poles aren't that weird so she can still win I guess, but that doesn't make them ok.) She got a 2nd in a class where they had to do 3 sets of poles. I avoided them in things like Gamblers and those Wacky CPE Point Hogging classes. Which in one, I hogged more points than I believe anyone else in the whole dog show. I have to recheck that score when they post it online, but I apparently got 83 points when most people were getting 40 or at the most 60. I just used shrewd strategy of ground covering and weave pole avoiding and hogged points like it is the end of the world and I'm the last polar bear trying to collect the last ice cubes. Sorry polar bears. Also rocking, Super Q worthy Snookers. Ruby, you are the best. But your weave poles continue to disturb me and I am not sure if it is me, are you trying to tell me something about my handling skills by slowing down in the poles? Is it you? Does your shoulder hurt, which seems unlikely because you are never lame anymore and so fast? Is it both of us? Is there someone else? I don't want to break up Ruby! But I don't know what your slow weave poles are saying!

Otterpop. I am not giving you Kudos. OK. You won all your classes except for 2 which we need to have a little talk about. She had a good fast first place winning first run. It was a points one and I did the fast point hog thing. In the next class, Standard, the start headed straight down a line right to an old man setting poles. There are a couple guys in like their 80's that do CPE. They rock. They are so cute and I find it amazing they can run around out there with their dogs and they are 80! And there was one of the fellas, sitting in a plastic lawn chair, ready to dash out on his spiderly 80 year old legs each time a dog knocked a rail down. And Otterpop takes one look at him, beelines out to him and starts barking.

Take that Otterpop. I called her in to me, and instead of keeping going, marched her to her leash without a word, put it on, and took her straight to the car, not even picking up BELOVED FRISBEE, and just locking her in the car. Alone. I took the other dogs on an enjoyable walk. Thank god I do not have kids. I would go to jail. I think people probably think I beat her, which I DO NOT! because she was all cowery the whole way there probably because I have not spoken even a word to her this whole time and she thinks I have become the dog Whisperer or abominable Snowman.

Otterpop you are FOUR YEARS OLD!

So her next run, wow! Super speedy! Perfect manners. Not a glance at any old men or photographer or pole setters or judges. Wins class! This pattern followed for a while. Til the last class. It was like she sat there and figured this out to get back at me. I mean, I know this isn't what dogs do, right? There has to be some other reason, I am a bad handler, I did something, but she has never done this. She starts out, not super fast but just fine, fast enough, it is Snookers. She takes a few jumps (I was doing the same aggressive all "7's" course I did with Ruby), and then just stops and gives me the look she gives when she is playing fetch and there are other dogs around and she is not giving up a precious stick because THEY WILL TAKE IT and IT IS HERS. But she is in the dog agility ring and there is no frisbee or stick or tennis ball, she is just supposed to keep on jumping and she has just stopped. And is looking at me like "I am Otterpop the Great and Powerful Ruler of the Universe and Screw You." What did I do Otterpop? Do you want to break up with me too? I thought we had a beautiful relationship and now this.

I just ceased the run and took her to jail again. BecauseI didn't want to signal that behavior like that is going to fly for even a second. I don't know. It was our last run, so I didn't get to test the post jail Perfect Dog On Parole technique. I think my dogs are messed up. Obviously I messed them up. I am trying to give myself objective advice as an agility trainer but I am a little baffled other than I think I am doing something weird to mess my dogs up. We do fun tricks, they seem excited and motivated and happy to go in the ring. They are amazing when we practice. But we have weird patterns here. I don't think I am a bad handler. But I know I'm not the greatest handler, and clearly not the greatest trainer. I have many successes and handlers I respect tell me I am doing a good job. Even let me run their dog. But, I have a new young dog here and if I am doing something completely crazy and lame I want to fix it NOW before I screw up what might end up being a very talented little dog.

Maybe it's just my shoes? Or my accessorizing? Should I start wearing makeup? Get a boob job? Follow everything Susan Garrett says like I am in a cult? Take the pressure off the dogs and just do a bit of a run and leave the ring and play? Is it a customer service issue? Heidi Klum? Aack, the karma is catching up with me for being a mean lady? Damn, it's always something.

Opposite of meth people but just as bad.

That house from Sunlit Lane is back on the market! This was the one we thought about buying back in September 2006-I think there are some posts in this blog from then. It had the neighbor mayhem going on because of the horses and the no permits and we basically ran screaming from it. It's back on the market at $150,000 less-only $649,000, which is exactly our price range! Except that we have already run screaming from it once and don't need to do it again. Frantic and determined neighbors that speak of horses with this sort of meth addled look in their eye (except they are the opposite of meth people, they are baby owners, hemp wearers, volvo drivers) and the Flies, the Dirt, the Smells are not good neighbors. And they were everywhere. They surrounded us the second time we went out to that property. Like literally, we drove away in our own Volvo (ok, Gary's) fast.

There are no longer horses on it. It was an adorable spot-not exactly a ranch. Only 2.4 acres, with a 1 bedroom house. Small! But the house, (ok, unpermitted cabin with nice decks) was perfect and the property layout (ok, flattish 2 acres of poorly graded eroding dirt), with exception of proximity of the crystal wearing stockbrokers or whatever they were, made it frightening. You could walk right out to Fall Creek Park and trail ride amongst steep redwoody trails though. Likely full of serial killers. And, from my current barn, would be about an hour and 15 minute commute in good traffic. Let's say hour and a half plus in bad. I think that one was the rebound property from the Perfect Ranch of July 2006 in which the cocksuckers outbid us by the $200,000.

Um. Why don't we just move out of Santa Cruz? Would be hard to do in such a perfect June.

Ran the dogs yesterday morning in Watsonville. The other half of my life. Half beach, half ranch. Love having the agility field right there near the barn. Dogs were actually fantastic- fast and perfect contacts. Speedy weave poles. Only one dropped bar. Did a scientific experiment with Otterpop. Have been not taking her frisbee anywhere, it is a Special thing to Play with at Agility, hence making agility always fast because Frisbee is there? Yep. Super incredibly fast if it is in my pocket. Even trying to sneakily hide it as if it is still in the pocket or leaving it sitting with Ruby for convenient retrieval at the end of a course is not good enough. If I have that stupid, dirty piece of orange cloth, Otterpop is a speed demon. Frisbee anywhere else, she runs faithfully and cleanly around the course but not fast enough to Win. She is like an addict. I can't believe so many brain cells in my head have to think about dog frisbees. With an ugly cartoon squirrel drawn on it. Like, this is something Al Swearengen would never, ever approve of. Ever.