This is the closest thing that Team Small Dog gets to some kind of New Years resolution. Revolution. Aberration.

Allrighty. So you're probably wondering how that dog agility challenge is going. In case you forgot, since most of you woke up drunk yesterday and maybe didn't visit the internet, it being New Years Day and all, maybe you didn't even know about my challenge. Seems like New Years Day, a good day for beginnings. A good day to start the challenge. Lots of symbolism here, somewhere, stepping up to challenges, fixing up problems with expert help, taking some action on resolutions, because did we even have any resolutions? How about last year?

Something about vacuuming? My haircutter said I had Jennifer Anniston hair? Can anyone even remember my haircutter's name?

I'm living in my own Private Idaho. We'll just move on from that Fail portion of the How You Do A New Year Thing.


So I started on it by getting up at 6am to work. Ha HA! Take that, drunk people with lesser work ethics. But more glamorous, party on lifestyles. When I took a break for me and the dogs to have a walk, it rained on us. I stuffed my face with a bunch of chocolate, even though it is now January, The Month of Salad. I worked, worked, worked all day. Later in the evening, when I took the dogs out for a run at the Whale Skeletons, someone set off firecrackers and Ruby and Gustavo had horrid meltdowns and that was the end of that. So seriously hearbreaking to watch I just move on right now. And then my husband was making cocktails, and the DJ was playing all B-52's on the radio and you know, dance party. The dogs got so comfy on the couch, and I started wondering about whether Lisa Bonet was happy with the way her life has turned out. and what would have happened if she had just married Dwayne Wayne.

Another day. Gone and wasted and we just rebooted the whole year and everything.


I PROMISE, Susan Garrett. I am taking this seriously. I want to be a right on competitor with champion Gustavo, even if I am not signing up for Tony Robbin's class. I am getting right on it. It's just that being the new poster child for Who is Stressed out, the Handler or the Dog, or Who is More Untrained, the Handler or the Dog, is so stressful. Sort of like the mess that looms in my garage out there. In real life, I am supposed to dive straight in with all the techno full stream ahead of a Chemical Brothers song and attack.

In real, real life though, I am looking at the giant pile of Christmas wrapping paper and am just all, dude. What was I talking about?

I watch tv on Saturday night so you don't have to.

So I thought as part of Welcome to Marfa, we were going to watch James Dean's "Giant" last night. It was filmed in, of course, Marfa, Texas.

But someone already checked it out from the video store. We are so '90's. So I thought, I should improve my skills as a dog trainer and watch these dog training DVD's I borrowed from the Dog Club. Because that is what good dog trainers do on a Saturday night. So here you go. I watched them so you don't have to. OK, some of them. Ok, only a few minutes of them.

The first one is called Crate Games. It stars a witch named Susan Garrett. She hypnotizes dogs into winning the Grand Prix with her wiccan powers and Canadian accent. She wears little tennis skorts and bike shorts.


That's what she looks like in her pastel lime green turtleneck-a Rami color. I took a class from her in real life. She was unpleasant.


The video is about how to successfully lock your dog in the cage and teach it to think about going in and out. Bo-ring. It is sure to give you motivation and dogs that do not hear zombies, but I really wanted to be watching Giant tonight and dreaming of the Texas plains. My review? Maybe you would like this one if you had 3 margaritas.

So then we watched the next one.


Starring Swedish dog agility champion with a tan, Jenny Damm. She is fit and Swedish.


I watched the first few minutes thinking how much Sweden looks like Salinas California, and then freakishly, in the next scene, like a dog agility place in Hollister, California. I really couldn't concentrate on the dog training information. Besides the fact it was super boring, how could Sweden look just like where I personally go to dog agility events?

Because it was filmed there. It's a small world. I am sure she has much useful dog training information, but I have learned I am not a DVD of dog information watcher. Attention span of a flea. Sorry, my students of dog agility training. I am busted. This is not a winning attitude. Bad mental management! My review? Maybe you would like this one if you had 2 margaritas.


So then on tv, we watched Victoria Dominatrix Boots, Positive Reinforcement Trainer of Dogs in England. She drives a little Austin Powers car around and cures dogs of bad habits for people with tattoos. Tonight it was Chaos, the huge bull terrier.


That belonged to the nice punk rock mohawk family. Their dog humps things.


The vet said castrate him. Get him fixed, and that's a fix.


Victoria agreed. The mohawk family was good at getting tattoos, but bad at teaching their horny dog not to hump.


She also suggested, how about some dog exercise for him? Like go for a nice run in your doc martens?


It worked super. Dog trained and balls snipped. You can watch her show on Animal Planet and if you're bored, just have another margarita. Good thing the public tv station had a Clash rockumentary on for us old folks. I'm just going with the let's run really fast and I'll throw you a cookie method of dog training. Just wait til the Team Small dog DVD comes out. Lots of margaritas all around.

Even though the song says to I never smack my bitches up.

It certainly was a black mood day yesterday but it was also sunny at work and the horses were all good and except for a clipper blade fiasco, I forgot about the bacteria and polar bears for a while. I also got to practice with the dogs in the morning.

It was House of Pain day at dog practice. Whatever happened to those guys? I think some of them became Limp Bizcit. Oh well. So sorry. The theme was Jump Around. I set up grids and that was all we worked on. Ruby, she of the mos def stay, was all a twitter to GO and when I'd walk up the grid* (*here, let's define grid for you skimmers, wake up Joel Warner! A grid is just a series of jumps that I customly space apart so that, in this case, there was one stride between them all but some one strides longer and shorter than the others. Makes the dogs think and balance themselves to, ahem, avoid knocking a rail). Yeah so I'd turn my back, walk up the line to put out a toy for her to drive to, and badabing. She is up the grid, swimmer turn and back down it to the stay place, 10 jumps all together, in a flash, like-HEY you don't see me RIGHT but i JUST Want to JUMP AROUND JUMP AROUND.

Otterpop, IN THE HOWSE, she has a less than mos def stay. Mos Weak. She wiggles here and there and lays down and likes to start from this weird I am a Lounge chair position. But eventually LOVE for the frisbee overcomes her need to not stay and she barreled up and down her jumps fantastico when she figures out the frisbee vanishes if you split the start early. She didn't hit anything. Did I mention on Ruby's turn she was wacking jumps right and left until she got it that she couldn't have a treat til she went thru without wacking stuff? That worked.

Gustavo is just learning to stay and drive down a line. You know that B.I.G. song "biggie biggie biggie can't you see, sometimes your words just hypnotize me?" He is little but he is learning the hypnotic spell of the WAIT W-A-I-T WAIT so I can walk down the grid and put a frisbee out. Even though Susan Garrett says I shouldn't need to do this. Sorry Susan Garrett! My training is flawed. We spent a lot of time at just a single jump too, driving out to a toy from a stay (Hello Success with One Jump-Say Hello To Success!) and then down the gymnastic, which he got fast and easy and good. I study the technique of Rami Droopy Turban of dresses too, because this is how he has become the powerful winner of ugly dresses-the hypnosis of Heidi and Nina and Tim! These are the new ways I find to train a Mexican Pet.

Yeah, in a perfect world we would all start out day like this. With old school hip hop and morning jump grids with everyone holding their stay followed by a run in the mountains and a wholesome breakfast I guess. In a perfect world those guys aren't all singing about ho's and smacking bitches up either and the polar bears have a big chunk of ice to sit on, not just a tiny ice cube they are balancing on one paw until it melts and they swim to their death.

Hello and welcome to Success With One Jump!

Today's review is of Susan Garrett's DVD about dog jumping! Why did I sit around and watch a DVD one day? Due to our Storm Watch! Hurricane force winds! Giant rain from the side of the sky! Even INSIDE the barn it was wet. I made sure all the horses were dry and safe and fed them some lunch and drove home avoiding tree branches flinging about the roads and big floody puddles. A part day off due to weather! Thanks weather!

I tried to take the dogs down to Lighthouse Field early in the morning but being right on the ocean, there were actual hurricane like winds that wouldn't even let us walk. Like I am not kidding here-you cannot WALK! I had to turn backwards and take tiny little backwards steps thinking, maybe this isn't such a bright idea? There were trees in wrong places from falling down and blowing far across the field.The 3 little dogs were possibly going to just up and be flown away, and as I'm thinking, perhaps I need to tie them together to avoid their being blown away, we just ran back to the car. How long can dogs go without going to the bathroom?

But back to Susan Garrett. This DVD may not appeal to you non dog agility people. I would say perhaps rent the Wire instead. Unless you really want to see Susan Garrett talking a lot and practicing jumping with her perfectly trained dogs. Including DeCaff who Ruby used to try and beat in the Grand Prix and Steeplechase and never did. And then we moved down to Performance and so we will never know, could Ruby beat DeCaff? Probably not. Because. Well, just get the DVD and see why. It will look different than when we practice agility. Does Encore ever take her toy and lay down on it like a big fat goose guarding the golden eggs? Does DeCaff ever start flinging herself over the nearest 4 jumps you didn't even ask for and then look for a squirrel? And then run over to the picnic table, look for the treats, and back in a flash to her sit position as if all that never even happened?

Susan Garrett is like the Martha of dog agility. Except who sometimes you bump into in person. And she's Canadian. She's not going to be your friend. She might have bad hair, but she can work the tennis skort and have good ideas that are just going to come out better when she does them than if you tried them. I have been to a couple of seminars of hers and I learned a lot but she made me cranky. She gives a look that has a tone. You can't tell that from the DVD. She just looks like a sporty, dog training Suze Orman. She lives on a giant Canadian ranch of dog agility. She may be a little passive aggressive. I was afraid of her in real life. If you follow her steps of Success With One Jump, perhaps your dogs can beat hers when mine can't.

Can you imagine if a genie turned Martha and Susan and Suze into 3 border collies and those 3 were staring at you all the time?

Project Runaround.

So is it just me, or is Project Runway sort of sad this time around?

Like it is more about being on Project Runway, then just being on Project Runway.

Even the entertaining ones are just really, not that entertaining. And while I was happy that Chris got to come back, and it was sad Jack had to leave (not a surprise because he leaked this to the press like weeks ago so everyone knew this was happening) I was still sort of like, left, unsatisfied. Like when you split the piece of ho ho cake instead of getting your own piece. It's good, but it could be a lot better. Because I have had my own piece of ho ho cake on more than one occasion and I KNOW how good it is.

And the thing of Steve going, who did make a super ugly dress for sure, is he was very witty and sort of was the main witty guy actually. Who is going to be witty now? Chris will be voted off soon. Christian is not exatly witty, just humorous and interesting and his hair is witty. Ricky just cries. Sweet P can jump like a monkey and she is sweet but to be witty you need to have that somewhat evil streak. Jillian and Victoria are just mean and humorless. They will grow up to become Nina. Rami is very serious. They're all just serious which means the producers will have weird challenges I bet to get them all a twitter fight. Not going to be good.

I am trying to approach training Gustavo as if we have been asked to compete on Project Runaround. So I am trying to do a serious and good job, yet also be fun and witty and get a lot of camera time. Yesterdays challenge started with "leave its" because we started training out with 3 big barking dogs running up and down the other side of the fence, as if screaming, "You are letting her make you a sissy boy Gustavo and should come out here and let us kick your ass and become a barking ranch dog!" At the exact spot I had planned to start with, my little organized sissy jump chute with a tunnel on one end and a chute barrel on the other. But, Tim Gunn was there and he said "Make it work," so we worked on clicking leave its and stays, something I haven't ever really done with him because he is a good dog. And I had been thinking, something my other dogs had done a lot of and really did build trememdous focus from them because they both had issues. Otterpop spent many a day walking around random guys in parks doing leave its. Ruby spent years doing it with other dogs everywhere. So that was one turn. And boy, those dogs have learned to leave it and stay. And they're no sissies.

Then we did contacts for his next turn. He has to sit and watch the other dogs have very fun turns of practicing real agility things, not the training wheels. Tricycle wheels. That gets him amped up. So we did contacts to build focus next. He is getting good at those, we just worked on the dogwalk and he is running down from the top now. Nice and fast and solid each time! Clicking and treating, then a fast run out to a toy which he likes to grab and then just tug with, not a fetcher. I really, really, really don't want to get voted off yet. The contacts could be our saving grace right now.

Next turn, runs up the full size teeter into his down. I've been alternating with him tipping it himself on the tables, or just running to the top where he gets to eat a piece of Trader Joe's string cheese all the way down, real, real, slow. That was today's. The only problem of this is that he loves doing this, and I have to really watch him that he doesn't run up when he's on a loony toones run around the field moment, tip it himself on full height and get scared. Which he did a couple weeks ago and I can tell has changed his relationship with it some. He is tiny! That thing is huge!

After each turn, besides just playing and tugging we do some jumps with runs to tug or front crosses or I send him over after a toy. So he thinks fast jumps are part of playing. Sometimes he gets too focused on the toy and misses at the jump. Susan Garrett saw this and I saw her shake her head and tell me to go get her DVD about foundation jumping. Augh.

So when it was his turn down the runway, we didn't get voted off yesterday but we weren't in the top group either. Our scores were high enough to avoid elimination was all we got. So at least we're still in there but we need to get better to win the next challenge. I have to remember the next challenge may be with Susan Garret and Rob and Nancy Gyes as judges and so I better keep doing better training and not complaining my dog is retarded. Project Runaround is hard for a slacker type like me.

John Travolta is NOT invited to be in this one.

Last night, we were watching the new version of Hairspray, with the big production numbers. And I was thinking, this is what dog agility needs. A super big production number musical about a rising dog agility star, who has to fight all the odds (bad outfits, ugly cars, Turlock, mean dogs, mean girls, her dog runs away, Susan Garrett, stuff like that) and then in the end, wins the Grand Prix and Steeplechase at the USDAA Nationals and is asked to join the World Team (leaving an opening for the sequel).

There would be giant, swirling, song and dance numbers with all the dogs and exhibitors in the most beautiful outfits, Santino would do all the costumes. Loads of singing with peppy songs like, Stop That Contact and Play With Your Dog. Not only would there be exciting choreography and giant hats but also the best circus dog trainers would be brought in so the dogs would be jumping and leaping over things like a synchronized swimming match of circus dogs with overhead crane shots on a dog agility field. The dog equipment would of course be all stunning and glittery and art directed and the ending would be very, very happy. We may even let Courtney Love be in it.

If I spend all my time thinking about things like this, then that is one less space to worry about global warming and all the christmas shopping crap adding more onto global warming and the birds dying and the rainforests. Hmm. Rainforest destruction or plan a storyboard sketch for the ending Steeplechase scene with the pink lame costumes and the course looks like a miniature golf course with a gothic skatepark theme? No contest.