Clever Dog Blog

Dear Air Canada,

2012-02-01T20:35:00.003-05:00

Your embargoes are driving me up the wall. There goes scheme number four.

Love,

Tracy

Done!

2012-01-31T16:00:00.004-05:00

Just bought a Vivitar 135mm f/2.8. It has large (ok, those would probably be considered giant) scratches on the edge of the glass, and some tiny ones in the middle. The tiny ones are fine, the large ones may be a problem. It was about sixty dollars less than what they are un-scratched, and no one else had bought it, so one would think it was probably not a good idea, but we shall see.

I have a few Vivitar lenses for the AE-1, and not being particularly knowledgable about photography in general, never realized they also made a Nikon mount. As does Tamron, etcetera. Which will not require an adaptor, since the D70 mount should, in theory, be the same. (Yay vintage!)

Watch me be ill-researched and wrong. Which is why I went for the broken and battered lens. (I'm not buying the unscathed one, anyway.)

It's funny, I never know anyone with any old Nikon lenses, so it did not occur to me. I wonder why? (No one has one, not that my train of thought was absentee of ideas on this issue for the last six years - that's less surprising.)

(I want to use my camera on specific trips this summer, but I'm not taking anything film as it will be much too heavy, plus I'd be heartbroken if I lost any of that gear. Dented and scratched substitute? Sure. Yes, I finally realized I would not magically finish up my full-frame dreams by May, and I would be left photo-less. Fair compromise.)

Ree Arena (3)

2012-01-30T23:01:00.005-05:00

This is boring, and so I will remember what I was doing.

I joined an agility club. I did, it's too cute.

Ignoring, certain internal distresses at the practices. (Reef. Not politics. Although I can't say she isn't polarizing. Lovely.)

The other day she broke her start line, and on a whim I said "switch", which means Caper up, Reef away. I thought she'd lose the lesson on the next "switch", but she is smarter than I give, I suppose. She wouldn't get up out of her switch, attempting to illustrate how good she was at staying. She hasn't broken it since, and I honestly cannot decide if she perhaps, grew up (unlikely), or if it really had that much of an effect. There have been times when I've had Caper on standby since, and set her up to fail out of curiosity, and she refused. It's the oddest thing. Her legs are splayed all which ways, but her mind is telling herself, no. I am steel.

If I ever did that to Caper, he'd run agility at the speed of molasses in remorse.

Either way, last Saturday we ran a Starters Jumpers course. That was fun. She was on her forehand and I'm sure she'll learn something latently. She used to do this at 16", and she did it at 22". Using my vast knowledge base, I fixed it.

Not really. One day she started just jumping more comfortably, despite the best efforts of my vast knowledge base to likely completely and utterly confuse her.

She was trying to go a little faster too, and I did let her. If I didn't, then she won't figure out how to run faster, and keep up bars. She definitely isn't knocking them to be lackadaisical. Just mis-judged. (I would say it was me, but there wasn't much handling required.)

The next day was arena time, and I was short my friends. I dragged out a few jumps, and let her read lines, and then I had a half hour, and no idea what to do. I also worked on her collecting on her deceleration cue, because we are not very good at that at 26", and likely not 22", anymore. I'm sure it slid about with something else. She had some very pretty ones. I say again, I'm not sure how she can pick up ideas in agility on the second try, but when I tried to get her to stick all four feet on a balance disc, it takes me four days and I end up with a dog barking in my face, thinking the point is to chuck the balance disc backwards between her legs, and I quit because I am about to explode from retrieving it.

I just wanted to pretend I was doing canine rehab.

Caper did the same thing, too. Whomever goes first, the other one just copies. There is nothing more brainless than an excited Caper chucking balance discs around a room. And you can't even ask him to stop, because then he is sad and truly crushed, his confidence broken.

I stood on the balance disc, instead. It was surprisingly harder than it looks.

Anyway, I doubt the collection work will manifest at any recent point, but I'm sure it will eventually.

Then I took all the bars down, and I think I may have a nice threadle, now. I started to say 'in', honestly, why not. I didn't feel like I was trying to reel in an elephant, so that is a general improvement. I can threadle just fine if I limit myself, but I really want to be able to move away, forward. Caper lets me, this is my argument.

So until this Sunday, then, where I think we are setting up international courses, which should be very fun as I've never, ever run Reef on one. Caper, once.

(Edit: now that I'm awake - ok once on a squished, fun practice course - and once in a USDAA class, if that counts. Where she started running around everything because she had to go to the bathroom.)

Hello.

2012-01-26T17:47:00.017-05:00

Just a lil' bit, tiny bit, super excited about next weekend.

Caper's leg is tweaked (has been for January). I suppose he'll coach and eat treats, therefore becoming even fatter. I think he tweaked it on ice while I was gone. He stretches all the time. That's ok, because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to bring one dogs, or two dogs, and he's perfect whether he practices or not, anyway. I haven't worked him in forever, though (November?) and I'd really like to. I poke him (I'd say work, but let's be realistic, here) every now and then, and he doesn't mind (for once), which is adorable because Reef loves massages, even amatuer ones - and is a general pest trying to figure out how to wriggle in between me and Caper, and push him out of the way. Such an innocent face when she succeeds, upside-down in my lap. I've taken to just shoving her away, she is so bad.

Everyone lately said she was so little at 26", that since then I give her time, anyway. She did look, so tiny, such a far ways down - when I started it in August, that I thought, well, I honestly hope I have a reason to do this. I'm not sure if I do! Sometimes I can see the extra (well-done) athletic effort (like yesterday - double jump into soft weave pole entry), but most of the time she makes it look easy. She's got someone pretty good watching out for her conditioning, I would think? The only event I'm running for sure this summer, I think she is at 22" - she is teaming with some fun people in USDAA who want to go to Nationals, I don't think I'll ruin it by running her up a height! Maybe the summer after next summer, and if that doesn't look promising, she can run in 22", again. Some plans. After that, I have absolutely no idea if agility will even be involved. (When I say run, I suppose I mean practice, unless I radically decide to experiment at 26" trialing. I sure won't do that in any US venues, I think. I still hold some value in getting out of Novice.)

We could be walking the moors in Scotland, for all I know.

Dancing, dancing, please don't snow?

(Hello, sheep? You left! Waiting for Scotland? My dogs practically tackled me when they heard whistles on the computer the other day. Agility on the internet: dogs stay sleeping.)

Hiking has been an absolute bust, except for walking on the beach. Everything - literally everything, is ice. It's taken me hours to walk a few kilometers. (The dogs walk off the trail. Cheaters.) I panicked the other day when I started iceskating in my boots. I don't ice-skate, technically. I tried it once in an arena in Florida. I assume one would have more traction and control in actual skates? I would try here, except you must own skates. (No rentals? What is this genuine place? The other day, I felt fairly swag for going to the gym at 7AM. Who walked past me on their way out? Eight to ten year olds finishing hockey practice. On a school day. By god, what time did they arrive?) It either needs to snow, or rain again. (Number of times it has rained in January so far: three.)

Pet peeve, initiated.

2012-01-23T20:52:00.004-05:00

To poke or not to poke - that is the question.

I really like my agility practices. I'll not poke.

Got the best note from a friend who is a novice in agility today. It was a lesson that I should write thank you notes more often. So sweet. I'm really glad to help. I also love seeing people intrinsically good at things. (It's funny that I know these people, before agility, in all cases up here - sort of a foreign concept to me, I've always been last to the party! Cool. New people.)

New people? That sounds so odd. Did I join a cult?

(Perhaps best not answered. I sat in on a horse reining clinic this weekend - what, "equine" reining clinic - and - yeah. Outside, looking in. It's just a little terrifying.)

Silliness.

2012-01-21T22:26:00.001-05:00

The lens is gone, and what on earth was all that silly reflection for?

I saw a dogwalk today, perhaps might have practiced a dogwalk today...it's a living on the edge sort of weekend.

Little vintage heart to heart, wondering about plastic that wants to be loved, too.

2012-01-20T22:05:00.011-05:00

I was browsing our version of Craigslist, and I saw a little lens for sale, a little f/1.8 fifty for Nikon. I had stopped looking because, the lenses that showed up were always Canon.

I'm not sure what to do about it. I probably won't get it. I would bargain down for it, because I don't feel used it is worth only twenty-five dollars less than new (new, it is $125). Someone probably does, though. I know I'd love the little thing, and I'd use it a lot. That's a tough one, isn't it? I keep having to remind myself, fifty doesn't mean fifty. Not quite, don't get too excited.

Then I took out all my lenses, lined them up, all my lovelies. A few duplicates I left at home in Florida. I love the Canon AE-1. I have two; one from my Dad (my grandfather's), and one from my uncle. I get nervous because I use them everywhere; they are supposed to be used. But what if I dropped one from the top of Camel's Hump one time? (I'm not saying I haven't. They're metal. And maybe a little more scratched than when I first received them, but that seems to be part of life with anything I own. Frustrating.) I would like to stock up on those little cameras, the camera parts, I would never refuse an AE-1. I actually use them both, so there is no back-up AE-1. I load one with black and white, and one with color. (That's where it gets a little precarious, switching shoulders.) For some reason, I feel at one point everyone will snatch up all the AE-1s in the world, and mine will break, and I will be left with none.

I really love those cameras.

Honestly, it's always a little hard to write about cameras as I do really love my D70, too. That thing has a special place in my heart. I feel like he's sad. I never bought him a proper lens, I lost his kit lens in a field, and it likely got plowed over. I've just got his little grainy telephoto, and I criticize him all the time for his focus points (the telephoto does not glide easily like the vintage lenses for easy manual focus), his anger issues (I believe I should buy him a new memory card and perhaps should have sent him to Nikon at one point), and the fact he is plastic. I am always fascinated when you can zoom in on other person's photos, and they are still sharp. The poor fellow. He's like an old faithful teddy bear, limping along. Wouldn't he like a present? Wouldn't he like to feel loved? He was no cheap camera. He was good. He was, at one point - the brightest star. When I am patient, and only use him for the photos he should be used for, he is beautiful. And I need no editing. "You are limiting!", I say. And yet he still follows me around, tries - and shows me how pretty can be, when I wait.

Don't you love me?

I do have a project I really want to start.

I would like to give my friends their photos, and not be badgered anymore, because I didn't like them as I was pushy and bullish with the Nikon's telephoto, and they can't even pass as watercolors, when I push.

We don't know anything about bullish, around here.

I would like that project on a full frame. I'd like that fifty, to look like a fifty. I like the style of the film lenses I have. (Like? Love.) I would probably just be pushy and bullish with it, like everything else. I've lined up all my little lenses, all with their stories from people. (They were all given to me.) And I love them. To buy the little fifty, would be to leave them alone and say, no - I can compromise. When I haven't been, I've refused to compromise.

I know I'd use that little lens this summer. The question is, why - or maybe, how. Would I be polite? I would be happier than with the telephoto. I would use it more often. But, would I still be in the same place, looking out? (Should I just keep waiting?) And why do I do that, the poor D70! I did take some of my favorite puppy photos of Reef on a borrowed fifty attached to the D70, but it was older, than the one I used in Perry in 2010; I don't remember loving the newer one as much. The lens does get

a good review.

Vintage status: it's complicated.

Old photo by Grace Smith's still kickin' Rebel.

Whoa.

2012-01-19T09:56:00.002-05:00

Agility everywhere. Confused. Awesome? Confused.

In any case, about to become the world's most organized person.

Maybe I won't buy a tunnel.

Move/Learn

2012-01-18T09:55:00.003-05:00

I love it, I love it, I love it. I want to be involved? The photography on the second one is so pretty. I wish I could do that.

There's an 'Eat' - but you'll go have to check that one out yourself.

Ree Arena (2)

2012-01-17T21:00:00.011-05:00

When it was Sunday, agility practice day:

I thought I had everything incredibly organized, that when I was told our hour was up, I was stunned. I hadn't even practiced my contacts by taking the teeter apart, which was my main goal. I think, by the time we set everything up - even though it felt like an incredibly short amount of time, it likely took half an hour. I also desperately want to run courses, but unfortunately it was not the most effective use of time. I think I ran the most, which of course I felt badly for - I ran Reef twice on one course, with a little bit of training, and once on it, re-numbered. Even so, I think we practiced less than last week.

I'll have it next week (in two weeks - next week the barn is hosting a riding clinic), I really will. When I do practice, I spend an hour between my two dogs, tweaking, resting, thinking, playing - there is no way one hour is too short in a barn if it's all I ever need outside. I'll figure it out.

There was one clip of Reef on my camera. I wouldn't have run it that was ordinarily, but I was just trying to run what we are less comfortable with. And I was forlorn and still addicted, I watched the clip, oh - four hundred or so times. Why did I want to run it that way? I did figure it out. Reef knew I didn't want to run it that way, she huffed for the awkward lead change and wide turn I set her up for. Anyway, I now know the secret to the universe. Or, the final missing piece in my agility set. (At least, making a set that I'd currently be happy with). Things I'd like to add include threadles from speed lines, my secret to the universe (also known as, I want to be in AKC Excellent too and just run, otherwise I wouldn't need to train that skill, but alas, I am not), and I'd like to, you know, just start re-seaming the thread on Reef's running dogwalk. Pretty sure she has no idea what that is. (I would never go to a two-on-two-off, though - because when I can teach her, I'm confident that I'll have everything I want about it pretty easily. We did it once, and I haven't ruined it in the meantime - just haven't done it.) And, the weave poles. Only four things.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing with her, starting in May. I know what I have and what I don't have, and I have no problem running with missing pieces. How else do I get to run? Everything else she does, she does so lovely. I can hardly be blamed for missing something I've said I'm missing. I trust me. I'm not bad at this, or blind. I'm just me. You could try I suppose, but I'd probably win the next time you weren't looking...

You can also hear she still sounds like a Rottweiler. I so hope that isn't permanent. She is still hoarse, too. I try not to focus on it. If her vocal cords are permanently damaged, it wouldn't be too healthy to be frustrated about her deep, less personable and expressive bark - every time she spoke, for the rest of her life.

So that is all I will say about it, here.

At one point, on my second course (which was infinitely more fun than this one), I tossed her for a tight turn and left her to get up a line for a rear cross. I am really used to doing this with her, because I like racing her. I usually have a good feel for when to look back, and pick her up for a turn. I'm not exactly sure what happened, because I don't have video of it - but before I had even felt like I needed to look back, there she was. I looked at her as she was jumping beside me and said, wow - you are fast? And she just looked at me and shrugged, and our rear cross was very wide. I don't know how she got there so quickly. I'd be curious to see.

Because agility is serious, I actually dressed for the occasion in three shirts, two sweatshirts, a vest, and two pairs of pants. Usually I go out with one layer, and stubbornly wait until spring. It's very cold, doing that.

The weather this year is odd. So odd, that I have to mention the weather. It's January 17th. There is no snow on the ground. Just ice. It snowed one night, and rained the next day. It was above freezing today. It is supposed to rain tomorrow. I would embrace it, except the one time it will snow it will be March, during the agility trial (just because), and it is much colder outside when there is no snow. I didn't hire anyone to plow my driveway of snow, like last year - so I'm assuming that was sort of asking for it, again? Maybe not? I keep trying to work sheep because the world plopped it in my lap, but it is too icy. It's all right. I have my eye on a different situation with sheep, and I keep it there all at times. Don't blink. Be patient.

And if this is winter, how awful is the summer going to be? Is the rest of the ice shelf in Antarctica going to break off, and I'm never going to get to see it?

A friend took pictures.

Here is Caper, edging up during someone else's turn, because he's adorable like that. That dog has been everywhere, done everything, and is absolutely hilarious in his wisdom and frank loyalty, and ability to mimic a golden retriever in sheer joy. (Like, at the sight of a doughnut.) In real life, I'd be thinking of getting a puppy by now - and I know which one I've wanted for years - but I don't want any, because it means my dogs are getting older. Caper turns six in February. Can you believe that? Six. I like the life I live in, where my dogs don't age.

Reef will turn four. (See her grip the dirt? Entirely different focus...) While I am extremely biased and this is probably the only point I will say it, since we're talking about age and life and all - I think she's one of the most athletic, full of heart dogs I've ever met (and full of some other things, too). I do think someone was right when they said five is when she'll be awesome. I don't mean do awesome things - that's sort of dependent on me - but five will be perfect for when she's capable of it. Five was nice for Caper. Gosh, time goes by fast when you start your dogs at two! I like doing it, though. (Ha, watch me start my next one in USDAA's pre-whatever class. Ridiculousness.)

I can't wait for summer when I can be organized and go back to writing stories, instead of chronicles...but I still like writing and something is better than nothing. Chronicles are so empty for me. Hello, my name is. I had a carrot today. Not my most eloquent moments, other people are better at memoirs. I just like stories. Here's my one, ten second video.

(Isn't my teeter lovely? My uncle built the board - it's planed and levelled and reinforced - he built my table too, which I painted badly and it's chipping - I think I got too impatient. Next time, I think I will make the contact zones something other than yellow. I like the purple. I wanted lime green, but the dirt here would have turned it purple, either way.)

Oh, and Caper might be used for experimental purposes. (Really, when is he not?) Of gait. Perhaps not. We'll see. Reef is too light. They've also been shot with small particles at high speeds, making black and white pictures, which was interesting. I asked a friend to "accidentally" stick in Reef's elbow. She is pretty, inside and out. (Or at least she is the same, inside and out.) It makes me want to shoot all dogs with small particles and use math (I mean, pay someone else or buy a computer program to do the math - I'm morally opposed) to tally them all up.

I like watching movement, but I've always done that. I think people I know (not in agility) are probably better at it than I, because they've always done it. I always send them my agility video, when I have questions.

Chronicles are just rambling when I do it, aren't they?

Stories.

Warm or cold postcards (from actually all the same place)

2012-01-14T20:59:00.002-05:00

Little bits aren't so clear and then I feel braver.

2012-01-13T20:44:00.004-05:00

My short sentence fell from me and I started bleeding. I hurt him. I think. I tried to make amends. Thank you so much, I said. I will try to jam it shut. My thanks had none of reality in it. It was too late. I had lost the moment, and I knew it. He closed the door from the outside, and I closed it from the inside. He turned, and I watched him go. But he didn't. He waited. His first movement was so small, I saw how long then it had taken to walk up my steps. I started crying. I stood there, confused, and watched him go down the steps, very slowly, cane first. It was not sad. But I had disrespected the effort. I had confused him slightly by being callous.

(It's not a story...it's just real life.)

2012-01-10T14:11:00.007-05:00

I really want to go to AAC Nationals this year, but it is in Nanaimo, BC - which is a little blip hanging over Seattle. This is the last year I know I could attend - later, the years are all cloudy, and no one will let me see.

I could fly there, but that's cost prohibitive (I think by the time I totalled all that up, I might as well go to Sweden). I also could drive there, because I wanted to go to the pacific northwest anyway. I think that would end up costing the same amount. How do I do that and visit friends in Germany and London? All of the those places I've never been, I don't have a preference for Germany over Oregon. I don't. (Actually, I think the former would be cheaper - I just need a ticket and money for food.)

There are places I want to see - some things to do with work - on the way, but even if I left from Tennessee it's still 35 hours from Oregon. All right, I think I could figure that out.

But then I have to go back. Not only that, I have to drive back from an ISLAND off the west coast, to an ISLAND off the east coast. That's BEYOND coast to coast.

If I'm going to do that I'd also like to throw in a really, really nice full-frame DSLR because I am only doing that once.

Agh. I keep waiting for a solution to come up, and present itself. Like - the midwest disappears.

I'd have to drive back. With either my D70 or 400 rolls of film.

So, I can tell because it worked!

2012-01-08T19:10:00.006-05:00

After I exhausted my local resources, I asked the internet for help. Thank you, internet. Thank you, people on the internet. I have tried before - but sometimes it just comes down to the right place, at the right time.

I have a place to practice agility for the winter. I get an hour once a week, most weeks! Now I can calm the hell down about agility. (There are angels.) Not to mention, I honestly was not sure what I was going to do with another winter simply walking miles. This way, my dogs (ie, Reef - obviously) will not fall back to ground zero. This way, I can practice (this distinction brought to me by Fred) - something I've never done. I always train. I'm at the point where I can practice now, so even if we are missing skills at the end of the winter - if we've slipped backwards - I still consider it going forward. I can set up entire courses in there. I'm really lucky with the way the cards fell, on this. I think they fell in an organized pattern.

Nice dirt (not too deep), pretty, light-filled arena. And I love the people there. I also am going to rent a small room to do agility (heated) at a boarding facility, but I really needed a large place.

In addition to this - two people practice with me! I'm not sure if they'll consent to most weeks, but they were there today. Two people who don't do agility, are incredibly good friends - participating in a hobby I love. I love running agility with good friends - like I got to sometimes, this summer. To further that, they are talented horse persons, so honestly any help I give has to be minimal, they just need to learn cause and effect. If I say something after they run, I think they already knew it - and if they didn't have words for what they knew, they'd figure it out. One friend is learning on Caper, and another friend is learning on her well-trained standard poodle. (So, not only does Poodles love agility, he'll pick it up in no time. He also is Ree approved for his good sense around female border collies. Or, just - Reefs.) Today we just put jumps in random spots, but next week I'll have a plan that makes sure everyone there gets the most out of the hour - basically, gets a full hour. Both Caper and Reef were in large amounts of heaven. Caper, because he loves strangers with toys, Reef because she got to open up in extension, for the first time since November. Hit a few bars, looked a little shaky, but I saw her before, so I know it's simply the time off. We did lose our 'bad' turn that we had conquered, but if I had it once, I'm sure I can get it again. With Caper, I made up courses and had people run him to illustrate proper deceleration and acceleration, timing, and placement. No one can really ruin him, he responds as you direct him. He's always directed appropriately - they put him there, so it wasn't his fault - he gets to play with a toy, life is grand. Should you put people brand new to agility on hard turns, push throughs, serpentines, and an extension line where they are set up behind? 'Cause I did. They handled it just fine...

Reef still doesn't run well for anyone else. But I might try it, next time.

I get so much help from people, that to luck out like this again because someone decided to take the extra time to help me out - well, it makes me want to use that word from Charles Dicken's David Copperfield that I hate, due to the portrayal of the Heeps. And that's as close as I'll come to admitting it.

Just pay it forward, I guess.

I hope it continues to work out - but, hey - today I had a lot of fun.

Insert dancing Will and Bill (the krill).

Oh, and I wonder if this is enough to let me do something fun with Reef in May without looking totally ludicrous (I am truly at peace with partially ludicrous, as long as I avoid situations like AAC Regionals, 2011). It will be enough to focus on any big events I want to this summer, without a care in the world about getting out of Starters or Novice, when last summer it was the only reasonable goal.

Reward for reading that: I got video! I'm glad my friends were there, so I had restraint and didn't push Ree's little muscles coming back to full practices, it was nice to run and just see how we both felt.

I put music on it to cover conversations, and then I decided if it had music, it needed a title - so yes. I made an entire movie out of thirty seconds of agility footage. And the videographer got creative and put Caper in there, come on, I have to use that...

Story People Day

2012-01-04T22:46:00.009-05:00

Got my dogs back. They're a little off - Reef is hoarse when she barks (so tell us, Reef, what did you do over break), and Caper is sensitively unsensitized, and talking and climbing on my head and having too much fun by himself and being downright odd - is he getting less adaptable in his old age? But I know for sure they were played with much, and Reef was taken care of by someone that understands a Reef, and they haven't lost an ounce of muscle. Unfortunately, they seem to be think I should be playing with them several times a day instead of sleeping while I work, so if that's the case they can just walk on back. Which Reef actually did, when she saw one of the owners as she ran out of a tunnel. Dog has little loyalty, and what she does have is covered by an incredibly innocent enthusiasm. But she's an honest little meter and I know she had a lot of fun, and so did Caper, or he wouldn't be so lost of his routine, he would have just waited for it to come back to him. Funny, you'd think they'd be opposite.

I had just mentioned this as something I wanted to do this summer - the cool thing about a college town (despite the speed at which I was eager to exit the actual city of Gainesville, Florida) is you can float around, and do this all the time. Gotta go somewhere and just start talking, again. Just have to find where. I like change (if I initiate it), I like people...trip, just trip somewheres...almost named Reef, 'Trip' for pretty much this very reason - so overused, but eh - might use it one time, anyway! Got a couple things planned...but I want a legit trip, that involves friends in London or Germany, or traipsing through the wilderness in a big group...(that's where Caper's name came from...) - somethin'.

"Meeting people is easy, he told us, if you don't let them wait too long to know you're not dangerous."

Others...

"I asked her what she planned to do with her life & she said she was way beyond that point already. I'm just happy I remember to be there when it happens, she said."

Makes me laugh - some days, everybody? "keep throwing notes out the window that say 'Help. I'm being held against my will' & wonders what it's going to take to get the neighbours to do more than wave politely & bring over sugar cookies"

Aptly sums up a conversation about my corner when I try to focus on dogs in tunnels and tables (only at certain events), because otherwise I talk and smile too much, and then breaking start line stays are cute, which we could do for free at home, so I just put my head nowheres: "Today she decided to be suitably ambiguous, so you can think whatever you like about her (Amount of time scheduled for opinions of others = Zero)" [I understand where GS may be perplexed due to the amount of crying that occurred the last time she saw me, but that trial also included injury, irrational screaming focused in our direction, free beer, and free - not taken - marijuana, so understandably I feel as if that shouldn't count...]

And: "I tell stories for very good reasons, she said, but I'm not going to tell you what they are or you'd start reading too much into them"

I must be feeling mellow.

In ten seconds you will feel cooler than you did ten seconds ago.

2012-01-03T17:47:00.004-05:00

Scroll down to the Vimeo video on this page. Press play.

How cool is that? He's got a border collie and he trials.

I looked it up to make sure I wasn't being confused:

[While I’m standing there I can hear the guy talking with the other three guys about the dogs and their owners who are competing. “Call your Dog” he says. “You need to call your dog.” Right after he says that the person in the ring calls their dog. Wow, this guys knows his sheepdog stuff. While he’s talking I’m even more convinced that it really is DLR. I take my camera out.. maybe I’ll sneak a picture of him. I don’t want to sneak a picture….he’d probably see me anyway. I keep turning to look at him. By now he must be aware that I’m just on the other side of the truck, only 6 feet away. I’m thinking that this just can’t really be happening. If it were Dave wouldn’t he be surrounded by a ton of fans?]

2011-12-31T15:17:00.002-05:00

I decided to abandon the sinking ship that is iWeb, less because it's a sinking ship, more because I couldn't figure out how to integrate Lightbox (despite painstakingly following instructions) - and I don't like how the URL shows up.

And those are all the fancy website words, right there, that I know - URL and Lightbox - which leaves me with a problem. Any WYSIWYG editor is a sinking ship. (Well, if you read the angry comments on forums started by people like me, just looking for something a little better than iWeb. "Learn CSS or drown!")

I can't learn CSS, or (X)HTML (when did the 'X' come in, was it always there?). I have absolutely no interest in learning it, or I would have learned in seven years ago. (I mean, honestly - I use blogger. That alone should imply my motivation level here is oh, - zero.) My general theory is that I'll make a website, and then pay someone to fix it later. When I'm a multi-millionaire. (All my theories end like this. My head is a lovely, optimistic place to be.) But the website has to be pretty. And that's where I get stuck. Why can't I just buy a wordpress site, and learn little bits of coding to tweak it? I don't know. My head is stuck on building a template by myself. (Well, I already have the damn thing. I've always liked drawing templates, like in InDesign.) I tried exporting my non-internet font (ha) as an image, but of course it is all pixelated. I could fix that by making attempting to figure out how to make a header in Lightroom and export it as a image, is that even possible? I never considered getting Photoshop again. (Anyway - that is not happening.)

I liked the word free, so I downloaded a free trial of Dreamweaver. Whoa. Mass panic triggered. What is that thing? I spent a day on figuring it out, and then realized I was running out of time, and abandoned it. I then downloaded a beta version of something like InDesign from Adobe, but soon it's going to be subscription only, and it kind of resembles iWeb (although a little better), and I can't decide if I'm impressed or not. I think not. I don't think I want to pay for that, all the time, every year. It's so new, that I just can't tell. I then sort of abandoned that, too - for a dashed line they wanted me to make a vector, and you know what? I don't have Photoshop! Leave me alone! I then tried to make a margin larger and it didn't work. So I kicked it.

What is RapidWeaver? What is that thing? Will that be enough just to get me through? That's my next target. I only have a plane ride tomorrow to finish this all with, though.

(This is why I never finish.)

I'm going to go dance around the fire pit with my club, now.

Weave Poles!

2011-12-31T12:48:00.013-05:00

I saw my new 24" poles for the first time today! I got them in May, but they were hand-delivered (awfully nice) to my home in Florida, sadly after I took off for New England. And they didn't follow me.

I'm determined to take them home with me, though. The only question is how - but buying 2x2's: foresight.

They are royal blue, because I asked for bright blue but said I disliked royal blue, which was idiocy on my part because I supposed royal blue can be a bright blue. I have no idea what I hold against this color when it is so pleasing to look at, but the fact remains that the color royal blue on agility equipment I've bought (I'm not being picky, here) makes me discontented. I'm going to have to paint them.

They also don't have holes for stakes, which is odd. Fletcher blew them apart the first time he went through them. I can wait until the summer and have a relative drill holes in them, and just be creative until then. Besides that (and ink on the poles), they are really well made and sturdy for the cheapest set I could find. The legs are a nice length, and aren't poking out in odd places, like most 2x2 sets (except for the $300+ sets) do. I like them.

I taught Molly to weave straight poles in three tries - she's so smart. She must have remembered running between the uprights, as I taught her (so briefly) two years ago. Too bad she can't do agility! She takes it so seriously, just one of those dogs who you wouldn't have to teach to drive to the end of something, they just would. (All things being equal, like common sense and clear directions for the dog.) I would take her to the big agility trial here they have every year at Christmas. It was fun to play with her, she had fun too, I was careful and she sure looked like she thought it was worth it. She knows a ridiculous amount of tricks because my Dad does the clicker with her...since I've been home we started naming toys, and I thought that would be a really cool things to do with my dogs, make it into a game, in the middle of winter...

...ramble, ramble...[plot weave poles' mode of travel]

I also wonder if I can fit my little four foot fabric tunnel in my suitcase. I want to bring it back for Mav. (Who is still non-existant, but highly anticipated, what's super cool is the breeder pretty much, seems to dislike everything I like in breeding...I hope my golden retriever puppy curse doesn't extend to my friend, eeek - so nervous about that!)

Edit: I'm laughing at myself for the last comment because, don't people say all the right things in breeding dogs, anyway? I just never listen. But it's fun to hear assessments come out that match what my head lined up, and expectation and fair judgement meet the reality of what someone says.

(PS - within my own bias for straight working border collies, of course - but the brief peek into golden retrievers and deciding what I would compromise on has been fun, just as I have compromises in picking a working border collie, too.)

I can edit!

2011-12-28T00:01:00.003-05:00

But you can't edit the un-editable. Just takes the whole thing right out of you. I'm sorry, horses and puppies. If it sucks, it sucks, and there is nothing you can do about it, and no amount of begging will make me give it to you. I will work on more rewarding projects, and shoot you with a different camera. In about five years.

Here are editable and edited photos. Nothing particularly interesting. This is not my (loose terminology) puppy. This is just one of a number of golden retrievers I know. Reef got plastered by one before I left for vacation. I had visions of her vertebrae being jammed down her neck, as just as she turned, her head rammed into a massive golden retriever chest. Every time I ask Reef to trust me, she gets hit. Toby, dude - she was in your sights for a good thirty feet. And you still ran into her.

She never says anything to golden retrievers about hateful indiscretions. I think she knows it's useless. She just didn't come back to me for the rest of the walk, as that's what got her a faceful of golden retriever, in the first place.

I'm sorry, peanut.

Please cease and desist.

2011-12-24T13:09:00.002-05:00

I did it again, I ran competitively against someone who was walking, already down four miles and dehydrated, and out of shape anyone so I had decided it was going to be a slow run, and I saw someone I barely recognized in the last half mile. Synapses fired in my brain, I went into overdrive, which was not particularly impressive but calculated to at least appear sturdy; however my calculations failed leading to subsequent nausea and attempted vomition.

Every single time.

Is that impressive, Tracy? Have you ever been a talented runner? No. No, I haven't. Should you even be paying attention to what everyone else is doing? No. Did you? Yes. And what happened? You had to stop by a bush. That's what happened. It isn't thirty degrees outside. It is eighty.

That's not conspicuous, at all.

For I all know, she just did a half mile sprint, and was hence walking. Can I sprint half a mile? No. Could I have kept running quietly and looked for all the world like I was finishing fifteen? Yes.

It's not sensible.

2011-12-23T12:58:00.004-05:00

4 things I have learned about soccer that you may find useful. No. 1 If

you run too much your lungs burn to tiny little cinders & all you're

good for after that is a low-key desk job for the rest of your life. No. 2 A

soccer ball is softer than a rock, but not much. No. 3 If you have a good

goalie, you can look around more & see what some of the other teams

are up to. No. 4 People on the sidelines yell at you because they know

exactly what they would do if that had the ball & were 3 feet taller than

the biggest kid on the other team.

- Story People

'Way back'

2011-12-23T00:16:00.005-05:00

I was systematically looking at every admirable golden retriever on youtube - all of which, if we are to go by my definition of admirable, are Canadian.

I just thought it was interesting. (Actually, I just wanted to say the word Canada again. Canada!) Also interesting was the acquirement of my most recent book: "So You Want to be Canadian: All About the Most Fascinating People in the World and the Magical Place they Call Home." Gifted to me by a "Canadian" (a term I learned to use in the book).

Anyway, I look to the right at the little suggested videos - and honestly, that from the pixelated mass of pictures (and honestly, that the thumbnail was that picture), I think - so cute - that pup looks like Reef.

That pup looks like Reef. I think that pup is Reef. And is that Clicker? Is that AAC Quebec Regionals, 2009?

Why yes, yes it is. It rather blew my mind, because I thought Caper's downslide into begging, disobedient oblivion happened when he was older. Not when he was three. I don't know those people. Caper would have never done that if he thought I would have noticed. And I always notice. I'm a keen, intense sort of person who doesn't stand for that sort of ruckus in a public area.

Er. Reef staring at camera, Click lounging on Grace (I know Remy was there, where did he go?), I'm smiling because I'm trying to get Grace to stay for my ribbon (which you can see ever so subtly in the corner at 2:04 - no, rewind, really, that's us - are those shorts really that old; because then I need new shorts....) - I'm not really sure why it mattered if we stayed or not, because Grace fell asleep later when I was driving, anyway. And I got lost. But she was sleeping. Either with Reef on her lap or in the back. Or with Click and Caper in between Reef and Remy. Who would probably never stand for that sort of thing now, but back then they probably realized to be grateful for their 1/16th square foot of space in my VW Beetle. (I love you, Nemo.)

Nowadays Caper lounges on a raised platform, from a decent sized crate and a quilt. Reef isn't appreciative, because I bought her a smaller crate. She's a front-seat sort of dog. I'm appreciative, because my speedometer was broken and now I know how fast I'm going in the newer car.

Which rather explains that one time, when my cousin and I were driving, and perhaps a governmental agency got mad at us with no time to pull us over, and we decided we had done no wrong and thus stuck it to the man (or rather, I panicked).

Gem is also standing with no apparent owner in sight. At first I decided Caper was Fen, because obviously, that was not Caper casing the area for food (he's pretty smart about it - he looks like he's coming to see you, but watch his eyes) - but that's Caper, and Reef is being held in a death grip by me (I should get an Oscar for how relaxed I can make that look), typically requiring all of my attention because I think she griped at Gem.

So that leaves Caper, and some edible item. (Or so he thinks.)

I want this photo. I want to frame it.

Surely I actually knew what was going on. And let him go over there. I just can't remember it. But it is solid proof he was a golden retriever prior to being further corrupted.

I'm sorry I didn't stay for your ribbon this year, Caper. I think we made up for it?

1:28.

(I can't believe I just wrote about that. I hope no one who ever meets me for the first time, googles my name in any sort of relation to the word 'dogs'. I'll just have to own it.)

Then tell me what the point is.

2011-12-20T13:55:00.003-05:00

Never worry about focusing your camera again.

I am not excited about this technology. It bums me out.

Excited

2011-12-17T23:58:00.005-05:00

I had the vague-ish idea of what I wanted to do with a new website and small business, with the hope of making it bigger (but not faster than I can give). My brother is home and he was able to take my vague ideas in my head (pictures), and give them words, and tell me exactly what it was I wanted, that I wanted to target. Since I'm not a professional team I'm not sure I can project it, but at least's he's given me a fantastic direction to go in.

So excited to have the right words. I'm also really excited because it's definitely mine, so I feel like if you start with your own idea, and stick to your niche, that's already a positive step. Know what you want, believe in what you want, don't get too big, too fast. I don't think I'll hit the red target at first on being unique and specifically representing my idea, but I'll try to be patient enough to let it grow, and not be frustrated when I'm wrong...

Then there's the dog website that I never seem to finish...but I'm on vacation. So it's all a go. Go, go, go!

Thoughtful.

2011-12-11T19:57:00.004-05:00

It is very courteous of my dogs not to sit in my chair when I leave things like, computers, in it. I wonder if this is a remnant from when they were puppies, and sprinting across well organized papers was followed by a blood-curdling scream. Reef has tried various other places to sleep for an hour, before standing dejectedly by the chair, head hanging.

She's not supposed to ever sit in that specific chair. Busted.

Choose your friends wisely.

2011-12-08T19:22:00.013-05:00

Because they could start their own blogs (and only mildly laugh at yours), and buy a working golden retriever puppy.

(Here puppy, puppy, puppy...)

Can't get any clearer than that.

2011-12-05T11:00:00.002-05:00

I needed to clear my head (of shoes and ships and sealing-wax), and looked for a light, corny video to share with a few friends, have a little laugh, and reset-to-launch.

Instead I found this, and I suppose it's me, it's the mountains that pulled me in, but for the rest of it, the video itself kept me watching. Not for the context, or the shots, but in the idea of being free - to have a clear head.

I want to hike to the point where I expand my ideas of walking up a mountain. Mine are so little; yet I still don't know them very well. (This is what happens, when for all intents and purposes, you are a Floridian. I would still like to maintain I was born in a state with mountains, however.)

(I promise I haven't become a you-tube playlist.)

Somewhere, but outside.

2011-11-24T17:49:00.002-05:00

From a friend. Liked it, passing it on.

Happy Feet Two.

2011-11-20T22:37:00.006-05:00

Currently listed as an all-time favorite. I would torture everyone with an incredible listing of fantastic quotes; however, I can't remember them. I only have a stupid smile affixed to my face. Covers rocked; news songs, rocked - and now I have good-luck krill. Perhaps they could double as traveling gnomes?

Otherwise, currently excited about a photography project that grew from a late night discussion (we'll see if I can find an old Nikon manual focus with a wide aperture - or change the cams on one of mine - dare I?), wanting to write after seeing the movie, book list is growing larger.

Almost there, almost there.

I'm trying to resist from linking to every song in the movie. (Ok, how about a Pink interview?)

Christmas and dogs...

2011-11-14T20:58:00.002-05:00

I had to stop listening to Christmas music (I just go with the holidays here - easier), because it was making me so sad, that Caper wanted to leave the room. Except I had the door closed. Awkward, I'm sure he thought. It's my favourite holiday, and they don't actually miss me, and last year I got them back with more muscle than I had brought them in with, in the kennel. But, I just miss them. We all work really hard in the fall, they're always there, and I'd just like to take them outside and throw the ball at Christmas.

The planes here won't fly my dogs in cargo (or as a service dog in the cabin, actually - you need some levels of certification, and even then, it's apparently not that easy), so we (ok, I didn't - helpful people who love me did) looked into driving into the States. The planes that would fly my dogs, had no direct flights (which is expensive, not to mention I'd rather Reef not end up in the wrong city, I'm sure she'd escape on the tarmac, never be caught again, and become feral), and if an airline did have a direct flight, they didn't fly dogs in cargo.

Of course, right, the whole thing sounds dangerous in the first place to just go home for a couple of days, so maybe it is just selfish, and there's a reason they haven't been able to come. I don't know. Am I very, very odd, to want them home, anyway, when they are perfectly fine?

I wouldn't fly them as service dogs, I don't mind if other people do; I just can't. I know people who legitimately use dogs, and I see them get a hard time, and I can't pretend - even though I honestly think it's highly unfair that my extremely well behaved animals, cannot safely come home with me because of it - and someone's un-housetrained chihuahua gets to ride in the cabin because it fits in a carrier? Or a cat? I hate cats. (It's born of ill experience and allergies, I apologize to all cat lovers. I do not understand them, and I never will, and unlike most animals, I have no interest in trying - all they do is taunt me.)

So, I turned the music off...

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

2011-11-10T21:17:00.003-05:00

I took both the dogs to the agility field today.

(Why do I always inappropriately draw a blank after the first sentence? Damn scientific writing, and concise summation. Let us all infer that I therefore practiced agility, at the agility field. And then left.)

I'm having a lot of fun with the dogs, blissfully ignoring some aspects of training I can't fix at the moment, and basking in the rest. We really know each other. (You know, when our pupils aren't pinwheeling.) The problem, however, is in going from one dog, to the next. It's a little frustrating, as I've never had to adjust to different timings, in a matter of minutes, before. It's not as if I have two left hands to throw a ball with. There's always just been one. And Caper, as perfect as he is - I've usually just pointed, and managed, and concentrated on Reef.

And then I went to an agility trial with Caper only. And he wasn't in novice. And I finally figured him out (after causing him to knock one, unfortunately important gamblers bar, on the first run - catalyst). Now he bloody loves agility, and I want to do it justice. Not that he didn't like it before, and maybe I'm just filling up a space where we both currently lack sheep - but he's a bit of a trip.

I still find Reef much easier to handle. I can be sharp with my motion, and she understands. Today I set up a straight tunnel, with the backside of a jump. (I pivoted, instead of pushed. I was standing on the backside. Jenny showed me and now it's all the rage. I thought it was extremely uncomfortable, until I forgot I learned it, and then started doing it - forgetting where I learned it in the first place, thinking I had always done it. Funny how that happens, no? It will likely hit dance floors soon.) I did Reef first, Caper second - meaning Caper shot by me by about six feet, activating his 'bark, on' button, and then I yanked him back over the jump and up onto the teeter. For Reef - all those movements separate. Caper, needs them all one fluid motion. I turned much earlier for him after, when he shot out of the tunnel. If that had been Reef, that would have been asking her to take the jump into my face. (I tried. It happened.)

I find it sort of sad that he's five, and now lovely, and after that he just increases in years. Not exactly something one should think about on a regular basis. (I suppose you couldn't tell, by all the Caper-oriented posts lately?)

I also wanted to shoot Reef, through no fault of her own, today. When we got Daisy, my dad said I could train her. (Likely wanting to involve me in being responsible for the puppy - he had no idea what he was starting.) The last week of class was heel, and I had studiously and precisely taught that pup every single command in increasing distraction and reliability. She used to have an amazing recall, until she figured better. Then, when I went to college, my mum could only get her inside not of her own timing by going, - oh, hi, TRACY, causing Daisy to barrel in. (Daisy was aptly amused, I believe, whether I was there or not - but I will never forget her face the day she was brought to my dorm; I called to her from a crowd and she didn't see me at first, only heard.)

In any case, I didn't teach Daisy to heel.

Or Fletcher. Or Clancy. Or Caper.

I don't teach my dogs to walk on leashes, either.

Caper can heel, incidentally - but only because he's a clicker training genius; he picked it up before I lost patience with it.

But heeling, I decided, is going to get Reef to have a startline stay, a table stay, and a teeter stay. It's not that she doesn't do these things, it's just the amount of energy I have to direct at maintaing them on course is rather adrenaline inducing. And, I have a running dogwalk and I must be able to cross her threshold. And leave.

I'm not quite sure how everything is related, but I usually get an idea, and find out later why I was right.

So unfortunately, I extremely dislike heeling, but Reef is a quick study, albeit with a loud, piercing bark. (All right. I don't teach my dogs to shut up, either.) I thought she had improved enough to take to the park, and she had. She can pace me, although I think I'm cheating and I should likely rectify the way she paces me. (Can't it just be over with?) Holding Reef back is somewhat akin to holding back a loaded slingshot, and she scuttles beside me implosive energy. Literally scuttles, as in, I step on her foot while she stares avidly at my face. And then she cries. She has a very small foot.

I decided to incorporate some trees, as my figure eight 'people' (I vaguely remember them from puppy class, with my fake-heeling golden retriever), and that went well. She stopped forging in front of me when she was on my outside. And then I let her wrap a tree once, I thought, hey - let's make this a little more fun. I thought she could wrap a tree, we'd circle a tree, we could wrap a tree. No. This is what I got: "I wrap? I wrap? I wrap? I wrap?". From then on, I was too slow. We could not walk the outside of a tree without her wrapping it, and ending up in heel without me having wrapped anything. She refused to stop to listen to me in her honest enthusiasm, because if she had, she would have adjusted her rules as fit.

But no, she left the teeter, table, and startline, because I'm a failure at teaching a nice heel.

So now, obviously - we must keep doing it.

If I never write again, you'll know why.

Caper waits.

2011-11-09T20:17:00.004-05:00

I trained the dogs inside today, instead of a walk in the afternoon - because it was dark. Surely this isn't a new situation, and yet it stumps me, every year, when it happens. I think I still run in the dark. But I can't remember.

But for now, I just shaped a better obedience heel.

How cute is he?

HEART (Captain Planet, he's our hero...)

2011-11-07T21:18:00.004-05:00

I superstitiously did not mention it previously. If I did, the bridge would have broken, the ferry would have gone out, or my car would have broken down. (As a matter of fact, things did attempt to crash down upon my plans, but I narrowly avoided being hit. Was Rev feeling guilty? Benevolent? Just wanted to remind that it could be brought down in any case of misdemeanour?)

I went to an agility trial.

Caper was in Starters, because it was a Canadian trial. Reef was in Starters, because that's where she'll likely be, forever. (Never say I'm not an optimist - I'm optimistic about our chances of remaining in Starters. How did she title out of Novice at her first trial, anyway?)

I've never attended an agility trial here, because I thought it was a waste of money to start a process I won't likely finish. But, given that I own a dog named Reef, the trial seemed like a fantastic way of keeping her at least at a current level of trial-worthy, without regressing.

And I entered Caper, because I knew he'd qualify - and everyone likes to do so now and again.

The first day, Reef had a definite edge. She remembered what we where there for. She put so much fire into running - I've never seen it before, but I knew she could. A few people noticed her dogwalks.

She then proceeded to have the worst dogwalks of entire competitive career. This must be in support of my theory (Reef is nothing if not supportive) that people notice flashy, somewhat un-trained dogwalks. And not nice, flowing running dogwalks. As they have never been noticed before.

(Causation without true correlation? I'm allowed.)

At one point, I optimistically, was going to blind cross the end of the dogwalk - to avoid an off course tunnel. If I had half-crossed, given the high she was getting from running, she wouldn't have even seen me. I had a good head start - and I can beat her - and I didn't get there. She got there. Yellow and a fifth stride (depending on how you count), was left behind, also. I'm still rather impressed.

Another time, after causing a refusal, I stuttered to see if she would still add an extra stride to the dogwalk when asked.

No. That is so last year. We do that? (I guess not, really. Must she be so honest?)

After that, no one mentioned her dogwalk.

I made it to three in Snooker - it's the farthest I've ever gotten. In order to keep her from being frustrated, I made a course with a ketschker turn (except I haven't tried the angle I used it on, because it wasn't what I intended on using it for), some post turns, a rear cross - basically the most time inefficient path one might think of. Unfortunately, I cause her to knock three - but it was generally successful. (God, she can turn tightly and dig out of it.)

Numerous times I was impressed that if a bobble happened I caused, she didn't give me a pattern of five consecutive ones. She dislikes mistakes. Once she broke her startline stay, which usually is disastrous; but we almost came through, on that one. (Then, I asked her to turn tightly in a new sort of fashion I've been working on, and I overestimated, once again, just how tightly she can turn - refusal.)

She still is about as soft as a rock. At one point, I wondered, what playing with a toy after a run, was doing for her. After our second run, she was clearly getting high off of playing with the toy, and it didn't involve being a reward, or a team building exercise. I give Reef real feedback to make any sort of progress, and just playing with her tells her nothing. It gives Caper everything. Despite having dilated pupils, Reef was extremely intuitive on Saturday. I know she can work under her own pressure. (Hello, she's sort of bred to.)

Sunday, Reef had slowed down a notch - somewhere a little below practice speed, or most definitely general smoothness. She started squeaking, which generally doesn't bode well - I think she had been at the amusement park for too long, and was being slightly too demanding without reciprocating.

I make her sound completely psychotic, when I think she is completely sane. I don't mind mucking about with her, she always improves and she's incredibly talented. Sometimes I look around and wonder, did anyone see that? Surely - I wasn't the only person who saw that? She just needs experience.

Caper, who is mentally the better athlete (although infinitely less competitive against himself), was just fun. You can train in the ring in AAC, which I love. On his third Standard run; as we couldn't get out of Starters under the same judge, I trained him a little. He had fun. He has pretty weave poles, now. If I leave, he still slows down and becomes less confident in his footwork - but I'm sure that will go away.

(Thumbs up to electric fence poles from the feed store. Who knew? Thank you, peanut gallery, we know you might have known.)

Everyone was incredibly friendly, and I loved not knowing most of the people, to step into agility again and think - how marvellous that everyone happened to arrive here, on the same weekend. I also loved all of their dogs - and I've been told, in essence, that watching Maritimers do agility - well, I won't even go there. But, they are very good. So many lovely dogs! Even Reef felt the love; she solicited many greetings from people she hardly knows; which she rarely puts the work into. I was brave enough to ask for video sometime on day two - and I missed a bit from the camera fogging up, but I have Caper - who, by the way, to be running - was running with a lot of heart. He didn't feel well, and I didn't know it, although I started to suspect.

And then I got stopped by a police officer on the way home, who instructed me to tell everyone from home, how friendly the officers in the Maritimes were. Everyone from home: the police force is amazing friendly and jovial, here.

Show-and-tell.

2011-11-05T21:48:00.006-04:00

I saw the last colors of fall today, dusted with a light snow on boughs not yet touched by the sun. (It might have been around five in the morning.) I had to stop looking, because I have a low tolerance level for ignoring such lovely things (I know some of you know what that means), without thinking too much. I like trees. (That sentence is so weighted, and entirely inefficient, and cowardly. But I am also tired. And, maybe you don't like trees.)

This has always amused me for absolutely no reason. I'm not sure why. I'm not Canadian.

Well, by gosh.

2011-10-26T19:05:00.005-04:00

You know, I don't expect help, but I will say. I think I am rather spoiled by all the kind (and extremely) generous people I know. (Starting of course, with my family.)

And I think (I hope) that I pay it forward - sometimes, I guess - I can't reciprocate as generously because I'm not in a position to, but oh! I do think about it so hard, and try to do something else.

(I am just as selfish as anyone in light of self-preservation, though. I'm talking about hobbies, friendly people, going out of their way - people taking time out of their life, to help me do things I'm interested, but can't necessarily invest - in; I don't need to do these things, in any way.)

I love you, peoples! You have spoiled me, it's true - my little heart just told me so, it says so all the time.

The photos are to distract you from the increasing proportion of words:photos that have begun since summer ended.

I can't help this layout. It refuses to be fixed.

Bounce-back-ability level: HI!

2011-10-26T15:03:00.009-04:00

Disclaimer: I didn't actually read the study or look at the statistics, or want to argue the definition of academic achievement, or even the overall purpose of academic achievement. I am literally, the last one - to box a word into a single definition. (And what is hope, if not part of personality - and one study defined hope, not optimism, as an overriding factor; I actually rather define hope and optimism in the same category.)

I won't go into detail of how the word 'hope' is too overused to be liked by me, anyway, and coloured by other factors to be called anything other than optimism, coming from my own breast. (Inherent bouncebackability; oddly. And then I think, what would have to be done to deflate it - I don't want to know.)

It's just that Yahoo News caught me with a catchy title.

Hope uniquely predicts objective academic achievement above intelligence, personality, and previous academic achievement.

Yes, yes, and dogs have dreams - of course, we all know, they could have asked us. Don't knock my optimism and willful exclusion of factors that normally make me amused when defining human life.

We all look for what we like to hear, anyway.

Hey, I live here.

2011-10-24T15:19:00.002-04:00

I heard some music on the radio yesterday, and didn't know what it was called.

My friends gave me a lot of it (how cool is that?). Now I feel pretty slick because I can sing a chorus or two.

This one reminds me of flying here.

2011-10-18T19:44:00.004-04:00

A friend shared this, I liked it. I think about it a lot, and was, in fact, just talking to another friend on a parallel theme last week.

[Edit: I laugh at myself...downswing, upswing, optimism.]

I'm in the sunroom, and Caper won't get off the couch to come join me. Reef did, she is sleeping on the hardwood floor. Who is the loyal dog?

USDAA Nationals.

2011-10-16T09:15:00.010-04:00

Caper's brother was in Steeplechase Finals! He ran it in under thirty, but had a bar; first time he and his owner have gone to Nationals. I think he's slightly more flexible than Caper...(inflexibility - scientifically proven.)

(That is all. I'm extremely loyal to four, at least, of those puppies. The ones that sat on an a-frame together for a photo, and/or rocks; or have run in Pairs and cannot shut up.)

(Reef does not talk about her own half of the family. Except for Remington. She loves him. But, merely because his talent is held back by an owner with mis-assigned priorities; much like her situation. When he starts winning - disowned.)

Pictured: puppies at eighteen months old!

2011-10-12T19:15:00.003-04:00

Don't have a picture of her I can reach right now, but - Daisy died. This far away, you think I still would have known it without having home call me, but I didn't.

She started everything.

Oh, wow.

2011-10-09T21:24:00.004-04:00

Favorite run (of my sporadic watching videos in tiny bits of allotted free time) I found - Lisa Frick's individual standard run. Total class, total sportsmanship - I love it. It's a perfect run. (Killer handling, while waving - skill.)

(I'd link to it, but I feel badly - the live stream looked incredibly well shot and organized, although I'm not sure how well it functioned for those who bought it.)

(Edit: Although, gosh - how painful to watch the other dog I liked, Little Jackie fairly long name - opposite reaction, but completely justified - that's a picture, right? Someone tugging with her dog for her, while giving a sobbing, disappointed person a hug.)

Seals (Spring, 2011)

2011-10-05T21:03:00.002-04:00

(Including proper respect of all seals photographed at all times. And one of these I was lucky to see, and are fairly aggressive, so I was told. But I can't remember which - perhaps it didn't make it into the final edits?) It was really dark out - sorry!

I think it was this kind.

Reef (Spring 2011)

2011-10-05T20:55:00.002-04:00

I kept the funny white balance, because I shot it that way. So, I must have picked that for a reason? I can't remember, now. It did look cute all warmed up upon editing, not so much real, I suppose - it wasn't very warm.

Caper (Spring 2011)

2011-10-05T20:52:00.002-04:00

(Spring is subjective.)

Lake Ontario (August)

2011-10-04T22:42:00.000-04:00

True.

2011-10-04T16:23:00.011-04:00

Don't want three dogs, but do want THAT dog.

I'd be lying if I said I was not highly skeptical that I could easily find a dog, at the shelter, that I instantly liked. Key: instant fit, instant likability - there are plenty of dogs I would take; but all of them, I can say no to. While I like dogs - I like my dogs. I have strict requirements for living with me that puppies grow up following, and so just are. No one told me I'd walk in one day and there'd be a dog who just is. Naive, or truly rare? I don't know. I've asked - I get more rare; but then, how could I like one so much on week five of really, not-so-many dogs?

Hurts. I guess if I was going to get her, I'd have gone and gotten her already. Which is why I haven't gotten her. But I can't completely say I wasn't, because then I would just sit around crying all day. (Instead of half the day.)

She isn't going to be euthanized and has no particular attachment to me, other than she knows what I'm saying, and I know what she's saying, and there isn't a lot lost. She doesn't mind talking to everyone else. She has a comfortable bed, toys, personal trainers, and dog-walking volunteers. So, no one panic.

I've written about her three times, perhaps this time I'll actually publish it?

(Might I trade Reef in? On certain days?)

2011-09-27T16:31:00.003-04:00

Quote by Lyle Lad that made me laugh:

"Every dog is different in how much control they are going to give you. So each relationship with a dog is a little different - some will let you control them totally, and others are dogs that you'll need to work out a deal with."

Up, up, up!

2011-09-27T13:46:00.008-04:00

At this point of the year, time is my only currency - I am missing a few (more interesting, but less relevant) pages, I suspect it appears to be a crossword puzzle in all untested browsers, there are so many photos that need to be added, and others that aren't mine that need to be edited to match the Canon's AE-1 shots, I lost my battle with fancyzoom one evening, when the sun started to come back up again - and yes. I shamelessly admit I used dulled, kindergarten scissors for my craft project. Otherwise known as iWeb.

But it's nearing the holidays, so something had to go up. I present to you, a Vermont farm.

I'm in one of the photos - wearing a blue coat. My brother is in orange. I shot my photos on there, as the year when someone finally let me play with a camera, and my brother was still shorter than I was, and I could still topple him over with one elbow.

(I've tried that since. It doesn't work.)

Golden Retrievers

2011-09-23T21:07:00.004-04:00

“Golden retrievers are not bred to be guard dogs, and considering the size of their hearts and their irrepressible joy in life, they are less likely to bite than to bark, less likely to bark than to lick a hand in greeting. In spite of their size, they think they are lap dogs, and in spite of being dogs, they think they are also human, and nearly every human they meet is judged to have the potential to be a boon companion who might, at many moment, cry, "Let's go!" and lead them on a great adventure.”

― Dean Koontz

I'm watching a golden retriever for a few days, and he won't stop following me around. People can hear him breathing when I am on the phone. If I am upstairs in the bathroom, he thinks I might have incredibly teleported downstairs. He has not concept of, "GO LIE DOWN, TOBY!". There is drool on my jacket and Caper politely requests that he goes home.

Reef is indifferent, Toby is too deferential to go near her.

I tried to teach him agility, but he is having difficulty stringing two jumps together when the toy is, very clearly, still in my hand. Perplexing, he says. Perplexing.

I had words, somewhere.

2011-09-16T19:57:00.012-04:00

I went and watched a friend train one of her horses, tonight. I've done the same thing to a certain level and ridden a few horses, but from that my greatest realization was that I liked the smell of a horse barn. At one point, I could have really loved horses, but my heart is stuck on dogs.

I was watching, and it is not a new thought, but just watching and thinking how this colored working with dogs. I knew what she was doing. The subtleties are lost on me, it's not my field. But I watched her and I knew how she felt, and if she could watch me work sheepdogs, she would know how I felt, too - and how working felt. I think probably the best thing I have done, in terms of training sheepdogs, is to work with horses. I am not is a position to be having leaps and bounds of experience traded, but I think it has helped; already.

As I sat, and reformed thoughts I've already thunk - so clearly I must not be done with them - I started with relationship. Not in a qualified way, as in positive or negative, but in a way where communication is the relationship, and you are not even seeing clearly, just working. I'm not putting working sheepdogs on a pedestal - as there are all kinds of relationships, and I've seen obedience-type sheepdogs, but it never seems to apply in agility. People are not impressed. I can bring it into agility, on a run I really want. That is it. And really, in the end, that is more a level of mental focus, being used to a certain environment, anticipating and reacting to it, and using what I have. It's training come to frutition.

Obviously being intrinsically intuitive is going to help you in obedience or agility. That's why I can't write a post. I'm not sure what I'm saying, I only know what I see, and is very clear to me, and my friends working their horses. I suppose I should ask them; they could probably sum it up in two sentences, in typical fashion. But I see agility as a replacement for soccer, or tennis, and working sheep I don't see as anything but sitting there on the edge of the lunge line, communicating. It's relaxing. Agility - I'd rather be on edge. There is a difference. But I am not able to pinpoint it. When people see me work with my dogs in agility, or in everyday life, it's taken more for granted. I am a very good dog trainer. If you see horses for the first time, or someone talented working a dog - you recognize they are seeing something you do not. I can see the latter, just seeing someone talk to a canine. Sort of the same. But as my friend said, horses are larger. It is not quite as impressive as walking down the street with a dog. (This is an issue I always mentally stamp my feet in frustration with - can't someone see, can't they see? If I was working sheep and it was going well, they would see immediately. Which - is why I prefer to work sheep when people cannot watch me. Sometimes I miss large chunks of understanding.)

I am afraid people with misinterpret, and think I'm saying they don't have an appreciable relationship with their dogs. Of course they do. To that relationship, I am not referring.

I was almost to the point of having a succinct verbal differentiation - and you either know, or don't either way, honestly - someone reading this probably thinks it's a pompous dump heap of a theory. Or they are nodding, but not realizing. I was sitting in a barn and it smelled like hay, just watching a horse move. And if you want to read it without being inside my head, in truth I sound like I'm trying to find a difference between an egg, and an egg, and you are likely scratching your head. They could both be eggs.

But I am not you and you are not me, so those are the different ways we see.

Either way, a fourteen week old golden retriever puppy walked up to me, and I forgot I was writing because he asked at first if I was a stranger, and I said yes, and he braved his little soul right up and said well then, hello - now we're friends.

I need a recording device for my brain.

Next week Caper and Reef are in two agility demonstrations for a thousand or so people walking through, and in the afternoons Caper goes to another event where I give him food and take it away with an assess-a-hand, rub him with a towel, and in general ask him to be a complete ham and tease him, for which afterwards I will buy him icecream. I decided Reef may not be the best demonstration dog for a shelter temperament test. I don't need her tugging on the hand, or barking and wriggling in the towel, or playing tug with one of the toys and refusing to let go until I give her something else to do.

What I did really want to share, was flowers. Five dollars worth of flowers.

As in yes, I got all of those flowers for five dollars. A friend walked into my house, and didn't even comment.

I didn't think I had arranged them that badly.

Before, after:

Here, there, and now about.

2011-08-29T12:33:00.005-04:00

I'll give it to you in pieces, because you probably won't get any trial video for another year. Which is why I look like I'm going to cry in my JWW video after I fall. But who wants to get out of Novice, any way? I refuse to conform.

I'll show you later.

Firstly, probably not my greatest production - but I did wait all summer to get some video to use the song, so I present to you, Reef's one trial video of 2011, just like 2010 - remix! (Ha.)

Ok, no - writing another post later just seems like a waste of time.

One JWW - in which we Q'd.

And another, in which we did not.

And I won't be showing you the one where I forgot to watch her weave poles because she's not actually a puppy, and then felt like perhaps she didn't get the entry - whereupon I begged the judge to tell me if she had hit the entry or not. She was stone. So I looked at Grace, videoing. She didn't know. I looked at the crowd.

They looked bored.

And Caper. Here is my lovely comic at Nationals (great photos, I think), and here he is below, in our one video'd run of the summer. Just picture that with no refusals, tighter, and faster, and that would be one of the nicer runs we could have shot.

We won't talk about JWW. He remembered he could leave weave poles. I was waiting to have a discussion about this, but I wasn't given the opportunity.

Last week I audited a Jenny Damm seminar. It rocked. I could probably go win the EO, now. I don't like seminars, I don't like not running in said seminars, and it was the best seminar I have ever been to.

Out of two of them, but - had I been to more, I think it would be the best one. It explained things I do on accident, and how to do them better, in a way gave me an excuse to lose handling things I have to work to keep up (I'm not sure I will - but options are nice - surely I lose them for a reason, right?), as well as now I see moments I didn't see before.

That's all very well, nice, hope I get to keep it up, moving along quickly, quickly now.

Caper worked sheep with Ina. Not in an invited fashion. He was having a party all throughout the seminar, and helped himself. However, Caper working sheep by himself is like sitting on a puffy cloud eating cookies. Nothing bad will happen. Or so I was told. I was too shocked at how bold he was being.

He had too much fun.

Reef and Ina, suffice to say, are not friends. Of course, out of the eighteen or so border collies all running amok, the only two that did not like each other, were Reef and Ina. I thought Ina intensely reminded me of Tori Self's Revolution, which may have had something to do with it.

One border collie thought my foot was a soccer ball. It is not, upon further inspection, a soccer ball. It was only next to the soccer ball.

I'm glad we cleared that up. It would be terrible to go throughout one's life, not realizing your foot was not a piece of sports equipment.

I also met Reef's sister, who is very similar, and here I thought Reef was more singular than plural. But they are still different. Her sister is more talented at sixteen months old, than Reef is at three. She's fun to watch. And tease. I would have put her in my pocket so I could have a plural Reef, except Reef was too busy watching Ina to give or deny me permission a little already-trained repeat.

No one would have noticed, as I had a twelve hour drive later, and I would have been long gone before I was discovered.

I'm not sure Caper even noticed there were multiples, to begin with.

Something was off with his clone, anyway.

Public Notice.

2011-08-28T11:37:00.002-04:00

I just thought it should sound official.

But, for anyone looking for me on facebook - don't worry, I still love you. But I'm not there. For all intents and purposes now, facebook is work only. There are plenty of other ways to communicate with the people I want to stay in touch with. It is really that easy, and it was such a long time coming.

Don't yell at me. (You know who you are.) You should have seen it coming, before I did! I just sat down and decided to organize the internet. The internet, is now organized.

This is also partially because I plan to re-launch my website in January, 2012. I've been working on it all summer, but I've also been working on one for a friend, that comes first. So, hopefully that will be a solid way of blogging, pictures, and communication. (By the way, I have some video I plan to put up soon! When I figure out the best settings for it...).

End of public notice.

Niagara Falls

2011-08-09T00:27:00.007-04:00

Reef was trying to wave, and feeling pretty pleased with herself. Caper is not even trying, really. Elbow up, done.

Still trying the whole 'patience' thing.

2011-08-01T22:23:00.008-04:00

Was watching a video and hundreds of ideas rushed into my head, and I'm trying to pick up all the pins, but I think some of them are rolling away. I might step on them, later? I also sort of feel like I'm trying to photograph a sunset - I think there has been one roll I have ever shot, that came out as beautiful as I saw it. Maybe if I read this later, I'll remember.

Still, a shot of a shot, right?

Scrolled, picked:

The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes. - Frank Lloyd Wright

Blueberry jam?

2011-07-29T22:18:00.003-04:00

Nine pounds of blueberries.

Edit: There would be a Caper picture here, but coming off a mountain I had to haul his butt out of the middle of a bunch of backpackers eating lunch. They would have given hand-outs, but I can finally feel one of his ribs, so...

Not helpful.

2011-07-27T19:53:00.003-04:00

I got on Story People and pressed, "pick one for me", in order to calm down - and this is what it gave me.

"Universal Law #2. When God closes a door, He opens a window & then it usually rains & the water damage is a minimum of 2 times as much as your highest estimate."

I don't even find that funny.

Aw, I love them.

2011-07-26T21:40:00.003-04:00

Photos from Grace Smith, who over-came her ancient Canon (I can say that as I have the same-era Nikon), to take these beautiful shots. She said she came out with a few photos of Reef after training this weekend, and would send them to me, unedited. I thought, well - shoot. I have nothing to edit them with.

And then I got these. Edit for what? I love them. I cannot pick a favorite, so I hope you like Reef. Currently I am wrestling with how to handle a very specific turn in agility, and no-one (meaning, Rev), is on the internet to answer the question for me. It's one of those moments where if you just figure it out, all the other little pieces you've noticed here and there, will fall in line too. Right now they are just clothing line clips all askew, someone needs to twist them about.

So I'd rather just look at the pictures. I'm at the verge of drawing little people and border collie figurines between jumps, which I never do. I feel like I'm trying to remember the title of a movie, and it won't come to me. (Stop thinking about it, right? Sadly, I'm not sure that will actually work here.)

If you've never tried to shoot dogs working before - it's hard. Grace is published, by the way.

I love that one. Those are Cheviots, and she's covering the pressure. Not sprinting. (Which is sadly, all my doing - but I can't help it, I find her difficult to start. The coach not in the photo is patient, that is for sure.) Reef's sister might have helped a lot, too, covering one side. But this is all about Reef. She's the younger sister, of course.

I love that one, too. Honest, hard-working, pain in the ass, wicked sense of fair vs. unfair, independent, likes me. All in one picture.

Hi, Ree.

Her ears always go up, when she's working sheep. (And look - pace! I didn't realize it when I was trying to work her, Grace's photos make me feel so much better about the whole thing. I was just watching for when it might go wrong. Not exactly the way to be pro-active and keep her engaged. But she's really fast. So I watch. Probably cyclic.)

That one is my favorite. I never see that move, because I'm always wrong. But not if someone is telling me I'm wrong. I will try to remember, for when I'm by myself. I think I've got it now, though. I think.

That one just make me laugh. I look anxious, so she looks fast, so I look anxious...is she going to lie down? Is she going to get up slowly? Is she going to lie down?

Actually, I think I got chastised, there, for asking her to lie down.

I'm done. That was shameless, really. Just shameless. Trashy writing and shameless. Isn't my dog cute?

Hints!

2011-07-21T20:52:00.004-04:00

Hopefully this will be sort of a starting point, and an ending point. I have a lot I want to just give to people, but first I have a lot to finish, as well as people will have to receive fun surprise packages in waves - I finished some products today, looked down, and I have an inventory of four.

I'm trying to be patient, though. Patient. It's not just dogs, but it's starting with them.

And what am I, chopped liver?

2011-07-18T14:00:00.010-04:00

Caper is so tired of playing second fiddle that he refused to sit in a position that made him look less like a beached whale. I tried, he was completely ignoring me. He actually left to go in the river, as I tried to find him to take the picture. (Phone picture.) At least he didn't yawn, lie down, and give a good roll to squash his ribbon in dirt, like Mirk.

Also, probably dropping him off at a dairy farm for a week, picking him up, driving four hours, picking ticks off him, then being like look - a sheepdog trial - go run now, then compliantly winning two day champion anyway and someone finally takes a picture of something he's done this summer, was finally the last straw.

He's been sleeping ever since, except when I woke him up this morning to take him on a four mile run, to try and make him un-fat again. He's also probably sick of dragging me through novice-novice, though he is usually very polite about it.

If you can tolerate rambling...

2011-07-14T21:23:00.014-04:00

It's on Youtube because I'm borrowing a camera, and I am not savvy enough to struggle with how Vimeo processes it differently. Walmart should sell HD DV tapes, how hard is that? (I would visit some other place, but it's a small town.)

Reef, her sister, and (uncle) Caper at some point in June. I ran her sister, who looks like she is floating next to you, and yet somehow I was running so fast to keep up with her that I was nauseous afterward.

Just lately have I felt Reef is where she was in August of last year - three weeks later than I was hoping she would be - so there is no AAC Nationals with Reef. I'm bummed, but there's not a way to fix to it. I can wrench out most a solution most of the time, but there isn't one to this here, except hope that next year I can have another goal, too.

Everyone tells me she is a puppy, (in theory) but she isn't. Something was off, and I hadn't figured it out at that point. I did exactly one week later, one small handling tweak fixed, and we're fine. I also didn't handle being completely by myself well (unusual), the language barrier cost me gamblers points, and I had points ripped for training in the ring (sit on refusal - that's a don't, apparently), and running such two different dogs was difficult.

I have wrestled for weeks about writing that, because I actually despise any sort of excuse or even explanation. But, it's what happened. I've been without my dogs for a week, so naturally, all I think about are the dogs. The only time I have ever actually, lived without a dog, was my freshman year of college. What else do you do in a lull moment, throw a ball? What do you do with that time, otherwise? Ramble.

Normally I would just write, we didn't hack it today. I like the 'action' thing - for bragging or excuses. And we didn't. So that was it. She did well a few times, I got an idea of how fast she was when she was running quickly, and where she placed when she was running more slowly. I've never seen that, so that was at least interesting to finally get an idea of where to put her. I also, on day two, wanted to hug everyone who came up to me to say something about her. It didn't matter if there was an epic fail, because I always put in the effort - at least the fail was because I went for it (within limits of what she knows - or what I thought she knew). And people had something to say about her for it, which was interesting - because no one says anything about her to me (in person). Everyone was extremely enthusiastic there, there were less rules, people sprinting, people handling in whatever way they felt comfortable, and I almost feel like carried over into the atmosphere. I was killed on day one, but I wish every trial could be like day two. No one I talked to was there to be there, half-way. Or if they were there for basic fun, it was like a soccer cup spectator, not what I am used to.

I have a huge problem with training in the ring, I do it all the time. I forfeit working runs, I forfeit agility runs. I'm not called on doing it (I've usually already lost what I personally wanted when I do it), but when I realize something is not being handled as it should be - either help is needed, or it's something they haven't seen before due to minimal training, I stop and help. I believe this would be a good idea in the long run, but it does hurt a bit in the short run, when it's over. Reef has had five agility trials in her life (two were four day, so seven, really?), which I think is enough for no excuses.

She is a puppy as far as her jumping in a situation she hasn't seen, she didn't stay very well on either the table or the startline (which is pretty solid now, due to testing her while people set bars before our run, setting up a routine for entering the ring - which required trusting her off leash not to start without me), etc. She doesn't remember how to turn on the dogwalk (I've seen contacts a few times this summer and started putting that back in - very large mistake, I should wait until I get back to my twelve foot board and table), and she just happens to do the a-frame, nothing consistent in a competition, but she hits it and I hope she'll settle in one day. But if she goes off course, or has a refusal - she's not a puppy, she's very highly trained. She should never, really, go off course. But between last year and this year, something was lost, and I had to figure it out. The slow response to my front cross, the decel, even her speed in the video have all been tweaked and are now 'normal'.

(How on earth she hits the dogwalk, at all, is beyond me.)

I'm trying to enter Reef in a DAM tournament, just one more agility thing - I don't care if it's a practice or a trial - I just want to do something, I want to play with the dog I had in August last year.

I don't feel like re-training all of this next year, so I hope my plans for training this winter work out - and I'm hoping it won't rock any boats. (It wouldn't if I was allowed at last year's practices! Necessity is the mother of invention...). And, it would be a little helpful if the snow melts in April. Just a little. I'm not sure what I can do as far as trialing next year - I don't want to anticipate, or even think of my fabulous summer coming to a close - but at least one trial should not be unreasonable. I have a job this year (the first job I've ever chosen, not had to have - I'm excited), not a lot of hours - but some. I'm not working now. This summer has been only because I have a team of people behind me who help/let me do this shit. I'm not sure why. They are awesome.

Also awesome brothers who hike with you, because no one else will go with you. I have a completely un-earned reputation for grueling hikes, and now he's the only one brave enough to go with me:

You better believe that Reef would be up this in four seconds:

I suppose I'll keep going.

2011-06-29T21:41:00.003-04:00

I haven't read a (new, fiction) book in over a year. Yesterday I went to an independently owned bookstore, in Manchester. I know the bookstore has pretty things for tourists to buy - and I still want to buy them, I came up with a wonderful idea for some journals. I wistfully put several quoted notecards back down. And a magnetic poetry set involving nature.

Clearly, I have not been to a proper bookstore in a very long time.

I should buy the one-dollar-used books from Amazon, but I can't ever pick one out. On little placards in this store, are hundreds of staff picks - sitting on the shelves below their appointed books, little descriptions, sometimes in handwriting I can't read. I wanted something very specific. I don't want to read anything sad, or anything recent. Unfortunately, my favourite authors will not be writing anymore books.

I almost picked up Emma, but I just can't. I don't like Jane Austen. I am fabulously in love with the most recent movie version of Pride and Prejudice. I hate the book.

I'm not sure how that happened.

I don't really remember how to read books. They sort of intimidate me. I spent two hours in the store, and thought I was going to walk away with nothing. I feel like sometimes I forget how to be creative, when it used to be intuitive. I wanted to pick up The Sound and the Fury, because I've only read it once. But I thought I might not understand all the little pieces, anymore, and it made me nervous.

I did pick up Atlas Shrugged, because I had read The Fountainhead, and I liked it. And it wasn't too hard to think about. I also picked up a book that claimed to be James Herriot-esque, because the cover was pretty despite the bold promise. (Do you know what I really dislike? People who make characters out of Dickenson, or the Bronte's, or worse - steal their characters and give them a modern life. Why are there so many of these books?)

I basically just wanted to say, despite my best intentions of saving the books for this weekend, I did just open one. On the first page, it's mentioned a much-loved volkswagon beetle (my baby, once upon a couple weeks ago), Ireland, medicine, countryside, and the Beatles. And I could make sense of all the words.

Just a little excited. I'm sure perhaps I think my head is worse off than I think it is. 'Internet' isn't even a pretty word.

heart burst -

2011-06-27T19:07:00.003-04:00

Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all

-black eyed peas

Just thinking.

2011-06-26T23:54:00.003-04:00

You know, I wonder how it is I made far more friends, or there were more open people, at a trial where I understood most of nothing of what was said, and sometimes I was not understood, than last weekend's trial where I volunteered all weekend, and everyone spoke english.

Fetch it! She can do this while swimming, also.

2011-06-23T15:00:00.001-04:00

(end series.)

Solution, Part 2:

2011-06-22T21:00:00.000-04:00

Dogs are bored at agility trials. Solution:

2011-06-22T18:00:00.000-04:00

I don't understand...

2011-06-21T18:00:00.001-04:00

...why you would throw the stick over the waterfall. Now I have to think about this.

I fetch sticks, nbd.

2011-06-21T01:52:00.003-04:00

Now, throw it.

Throw it!

There's hope!

2011-06-18T13:06:00.001-04:00

I just taught Reef to fetch a stick in a swimming hole. End of a three year process - go Reef, what a good girl.

FML.

2011-06-18T10:00:00.005-04:00

1-5, 1-7, 1-7 - REEEEEEEEEEEEF.

It went down like this: - oh, teeter contact practic - (Tracy: NO REEF! - turns shoulders in for emphasis since Reef is about as hard as a rock - fatal mistake), oh, haha tunne - (Tracy - NO REEF! Look I'm turning, yay see - directions!) Reef: tunnel? Tracy: No. Please heel. Please. Reef: tunnel - you too slow, you lose. I think it's the tunnel.

You can picture that, right? Well, picture it in about a quarter of a second.

(In retrospect, I think I probably should have gone for - TOUCH THAT TUNNEL AND YOU DIE. Trust me, it's not too drastic.) I swear I'm not out there flailing, pointing her in all the wrong directions. She is easy to run, but you get no breaks. You do have to be perfect. I mean, why would anything less be acceptable - but usually I see people get some slack. There's no slack. I think we look a bit calm, generally. In IHC Jumpers, where she skipped about half the obstacles because she had to poop, I just kept running. As if she had taken them. It was slightly surreal.

No slack. Zero. Nada.

I practically - ok, actually did - stop her before each red, and went, Reef - THINK. And if she said, "okayokayhahathinkigojump", I pulled her back, until she let me take a step forward. I can just run a course, but I have learned Snooker is one giant batch of nothing where she can roar forward on her forehand, so if I ask her to wrap a red it sort of goes like - CRASH -WTF WE ARE STOPPING SINCE WHEN!?

I hate Snooker. It can rot in hell with Pairs. I am also beginning - again - to extremely loathe all Starters classes. She keeps looking at me for the difficult bits, but there aren't any, so she just keeps running - faster - looking at me on occasion because surely there is something truly epic coming up, perhaps mind-bending. I think I missed the opportune moment - when the dog is running only slightly above the level it is trained. Last summer went very well, I thought. But now it's over. So over.

Well, that was the last Snooker until next year.

Photos by G. Smith.

2011-06-13T21:48:00.003-04:00

This is my favourite photo of the weekend, actually. I'm sorry Tracy, says Reef - did you need time to make a decision? Here, have some.

What you can't see, are my feet swimming in pools of water called "cleats". They are now cracked cleats. I was going to run without shoes, but it was a spectator heavy event, despite rain. Why tempt fate? If you have gortex shoes, I don't want to hear about it, at this point. My hair is wet, my hat is wet, that sweatshirt and the dry fit, t-shirt, and long-sleeved shirt under it are wet. As well as the shorts. If you were curious.

Here Reef is turning, because I said, "turn". She's very honest. Caper usually assumes I mean at an acceptable distance from sharp objects and wings. After this, I ran her straight into the wing of a double jump. No hard feelings.

Titled, "Click Happy in Rain".

2011-06-13T14:58:00.004-04:00

Caper and one of his brothers ran pairs together. Grace and I contemplated switching brothers for the second steeplechase round, as we were already feeling slap-happy. We should have.

lend me your ear

2011-06-08T00:17:00.000-04:00

Fuming.

2011-06-07T20:07:00.005-04:00

That is my username.

That is my password.

And that is my birth date.

I don't know why I have to enter the same thing multiple times, have you tell me it's wrong, and then on the fourth try, accept it as right. It's lovely you're not accepting it at all now, or having any record of me in existence, period. That is my username. That is my password. And that is my birth date. I am typing with only my index fingers. One key at a time.

I am not making a mistake.

And don't you dare come out with another version. Don't you dare.

I hate you, you monopolized conglomerate of music.

Edit: Oh, yeah. Now I'm really going to remember my password to my new account. Just a part of the machine, I'm just a part of the machine.

Sort of like this.

Edit 2: Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in...

Edit 3:

Replace, revise, re-invent.

2011-06-06T22:50:00.004-04:00

In our senior year of high school, my literature class wrote a novel. I fought to write the ending. We wrote all the time, so it was very easy. I could not write half of the things I had written, now.

Writing truly is practice, and the internet really does ruin it.

I have it, somewhere. It started off well, very Brave New World. The guy who initialized the book was a decent writer. He also sketched. He played tennis and went to Princeton, later. He grew up in Africa at some point. I bet he had some very interesting things, to think. Maybe he played the same game I did. We also had our own personal SNL cast, and some people who scraped by, some people who were sweet, and kind, some people who were superficial, some people who were in love with writing, poetry, and pretty words.

I always did get yelled at for using commas inappropriately. I'm glad I still do it. Commas are for pauses, I was told. Well, I wanted a pause there. And William Faulkner didn't use any punctuation. Not that I'm William Faulkner, but who is to say what I write can't have a hope of a life, too? If I meant it some way, someone was going to read it another, so the least I could was plainly spell out it's intention with a comma. Which is sort of interesting, seeing as I never hit 'publish' on half the things I write because firstly, I hate to be misinterpreted, and secondly, it's a blog, not an attempt at winning a Pulitzer Prize. This is all the little pictures professional photographers throw away, and those previously un-discovered Conan Doyle stories about Holmes. I bought them, and decided he hadn't published them for a reason.

I always use incomplete sentences, too. I remember one critique where someone said it was poignant, but I had used too many. I never realized I wrote like that, until someone told me. This was pre-internet, too. I didn't have a computer in high school, we all just shared a slow desktop. I'm not even twenty-five, but I can tell that to a kid, and probably have the same effect as when my Dad tells me he listened to shows on the radio, and had black and white television. I remember when it took an hour to print something, too. The panic, if you accidentally pressed, 'color'.

I had used too many, if you were curious. I am not good with critiques, but I try very hard. I took one photography class in high school, and it was my first and my last. I looked into double majoring in both photography and animal science, but I had too many classes I had to take, extraneous classes needed just to apply to professional school. I'm not sure why I have a major. Anyway, photography was rather intensive and the classes were the same time as classes that I needed to take, as of the other classes, that I needed to take. I had a speech professor tell me, once, it was endearing the way I tilted my head to the side, very effective - but perhaps overdone. I hadn't done that on purpose, either. I never wrote out my speeches, or memorized them, and I suppose tilting my head to the side helped me ad lib, as I went along. So now I notice that I frequently tilt my head to the side when talking, or to appearing to listen, or actually listening - or. It is very annoying and I wonder if one side of my neck is stronger than the other. If I am going to be critiqued, it had better be in something I am going to continue studying, so I'm not left hanging, tilting my head to the side and littering partial sentences with commas that land like the flower seeds I ran through today. They were floating.

Yesterday I saw a bear.

So it was no surprise, really, when the book became full of unicorns, I think some gnomes, and maybe some edible, cotton candy pink clouds. When an idea fell into my lap to rectify the situation (which really, was cliche - but it seemed original at the time), I was pleased. The idea was cliche, but the words were not. They were universal and I played a game in which, I think, in the end, only my teacher understood. I write for amusement, really. That's why I hold things back, I find them amusing, but really, to write anything is to write something of someone else. And I don't like writing about myself. So I put up photographs. But I was amused, sitting there among my friends and peers, who I knew would like the ending to the story, because they were engaged with it on a surface level. That in itself was a part of the amusement, because I made the characters God and Heaven and then I wiped it all out, non-existant, a fancy dream. It was not any sort of political statement - it was just something to write. My friend had an anti pro-choice shirt on, when I thought of the idea. So it was not really mine, but I wrote it, so I own it, and ink is permanent, so it is yours. I never got many compliments from the teacher, I was not her favorite, and in fact, I did not get the scholarship for literature on graduation, which was sort of disappointing; I never got anything except the highest grade on any paper. Princeton got it; not from any measure of improvement of hard work, but maybe she could see what he thought, and a bit of favoritism. She just said the ending chapter was very well written, when everyone was gone, and looked at me to say she understood it.

I still don't like to give away answers. I wrote all that so you might have one, but perhaps it is too vague, unless you are in my head.

As far as benign information that I meant to write, now my fingers are tired. But firstly, wedding photos I am editing are not cooperating. Secondly, my cousin gifted me with some multipurpose sports wrap. To use as headbands.

That third sentence has solved headband dilemmas of years. Years.

You see my problem, my dislike of math caused me to pick an inappropriate lens, and now I am attempting to remove the dramatic, haunted look. Also, whatever child stuck his arm up and gave his playmate an extra limb - we're going to have a discussion.

Training.

2011-06-04T23:27:00.011-04:00

Reef didn't run this weekend, but we (I use that term loosely, I might have been shy and gotten dragged around by my shirt for being too passive) started her, and I had fun. I ran Caper and I'm not exactly sure what happens, except that I get to stand there and think, which doesn't happen exactly on time, but I still like it. I forget people are watching. I like watching all the dogs, trying to figure them out, trying to listen to people and learn what they see when they, too, watch the dogs. I just like border collies.

Cummington, 2011, best of version.

2011-05-31T23:49:00.005-04:00

Still sitting here.

2011-05-31T19:18:00.005-04:00

Lightroom says I have it down to about 69 photos I'd like to edit. Ones I've edited, after an afternoon of editing, in a way I like: one.

And I went to do the same thing to the next one - and I can't remember what I did.

ETA: Reef and Caper are doing an agility demonstration for a bunch of kids on Tuesday. Cute. If I see a dog-savvy looking one, I'll let them run Caper. Reef would probably just stand there looking haughty, although she let one total novice run her before - but she almost quit. She wants proper direction.

Life is good.

2011-05-30T12:25:00.004-04:00

Not sure if it's due to my new hard drive, or if Adobe simply came out with new versions, but I just downloaded trials for Photoshop and Lightroom. I now have 30 days to make something of myself with it.

Ready. Go.

I have also conveniently located almost every file deleted on my memory card to due to card, or camera error. (Websites point fingers, each at the other.) Some of them will probably be corrupted, but I get most of them back - not so bad!

I decided I'm on a fast track to a D3. It's happening. Somehow. By next summer. I've got the materials, now to build.

There's someone who used to read this - I'm not sure if you still do, since this blog is never particularly dog oriented as I've been shooting more film than digital (and the epic adventures of Reef are over - at least until her sheepdog debut next Friday, dear lord), but I just wanted to say hi, thinking of you. I hope you don't mind.

Memo.

2011-05-26T16:46:00.004-04:00

I have kick ass dogs. I mean, just dogs. As dogs. They are kick ass at being dogs. In a good way. Not in a jump on you, drool on you, scratch the hell out of your pants, way. I mean in a waterfall riding, tub swimming, rock climbing way.

Training!

2011-05-21T21:59:00.005-04:00

Trained with Sarah, at a friend's beautiful field. Had so much fun!

Pushed Reef physically, but, hey. She's had an entire winter and spring off, she can kick it in a little. She single stepped in the weave poles when she wasn't tired, what on earth? I just bought weave poles for that sole purpose. (Her double step doesn't look natural.) Figures. I saved up for those things quite awhile, too.

I would say they are for Caper, but I'm not sure, at this point, if his feet will ever go in the same direction in the weave poles. Five is a little late to train them.

All the golden retrievers are barking at the dark, staring suspiciously through windows. Yes, now I really want to go outside to pack the car.

Reef knocked about twelve hundred bars. Eh. She never knocks my set of five in the backyard, which probably means I should stop practicing by myself.

Edit: Right after I wrote that, the power went out. I waited in the dark to be attacked by some sort of zombie apocalypse. I was taking comfort in the idea of being surrounded by five dogs, until Molly, the largest of them all, attempted to crawl in my lap. She's not very good in the dark.

Standing ovation of one.

2011-05-19T19:32:00.003-04:00

I went outside to play with Reef, and ran her through a little sequence. Immediately after, loud clapping commenced from a direction I could not find, until I saw a lady walking a dog across the pond, standing, clapping. She continued for at least twenty seconds, where I finally raised a hand in acknowledgement, embarrassed, then she picked up her dog's leash, and carried on.

See, I would just completely spy upon the person during my walk around the perimeter. None of this clapping, and ending with a brisk walk away, without so much as a backward glance. Who resists such temptation?

I have absolutely no idea who that was. I wonder if they know me. It must have been a little odd to see me and Reef charge out of the house, and march straight into some sort of strange dance over some PVC which she was likely wondering, what on earth are they for? Before we came out.

I love you people, I really do, but I still want a farm in the relative middle of nowhere.

Of course, if I knew there was absolutely no chance of someone watching me, who knows what I would look like.

Some agility.

2011-05-17T08:30:00.008-04:00

(Oops, my bad.)

Guess who remembers how to weave?

Likely cutest little dark tri border collie ever. (You have to be specific in this crowd.)

Edit: You can't see my shirt, but it makes me giggle every time I put it on, and play with Reef. It says, "World Champion", and was given to me by a probable future world champion contender. Good thing Reef can't read. Caper can, which is maybe why he seemed a little fried as far as the trial went - he was probably like, "World Champion? @#!@! - too much pressure!". I probably should have switched shirts while running him, maybe something that said, "I like sunshine", or, "Feed me".

Oh, and also - I'm in Cummington! I hope Caper doesn't keel over on his little outrun, and I hope him seeing sheep once or twice before then will suffice. He's a good dog though, nothing terrible will happen, except me losing the sheep and having to retire. I can't really imagine anything ever going quite to hell, with Caper.

Hi All.

2011-05-08T19:40:00.002-04:00

I'm going to run in an agility trial on May 14th.

Bounce, bounce.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Very glad the dogs have seen some agility.

Excited. Outside! Dogs! Tan?

It's actually not withering outside, I'm not sure why. Tentatively hopeful.

Sheep! Agility! Pool! Sheep! Agility! Pool! Harry Potter World.

Winning lottery ticket!

(Just in case.)

Might be a little excited to be here.

2011-05-06T20:35:00.004-04:00

Just switched two agility trials for sheepdog trials. Again. I should stop doing that. Feeling pretty content with AAC Regionals/Nationals though. It's not like I have any real reason to run the dogs in agility, otherwise. Just bide my time, on that one. I don't want a championship title with any fervour, and I'd hand my dogs off to friends for Nationals, but they aren't going to USDAA Nationals, and Reef won't qualify in time for AKC Nationals. Caper could, if I didn't keep on chucking them out. Reef has one designated sub-handler, but Caper can run with anyone.

Reef will only run with National Champion handlers. She's a bit picky.

I've got Reef on a track to be a demo dog at WTT next year, so that should be pretty slick. I can make it my own private little competition.

Entering Reef in a sheepdog trial one month earlier than I thought, if there's still room. Someone is going to help me sort her out a couple days beforehand, and off we go!

Hopefully I won't need to scratch. I worked sheep once a week last summer with little improvement, but then, I'm sort of a dunce when it comes to Reef on sheep. (Who knew I had to correct her outrun before she had moved a centimeter from my foot? A problem solved in one lesson, I hang my hat.)

I love dishes.

2011-05-02T22:16:00.004-04:00

Was cleaning the kitchen, opened boxes my grandpa brought me of stuff I had picked out last summer, that was my grandmother's. Too tired to be eloquent, not sure when I sleep. Totally my fault. Lots of boxes, many dishes. I am in love with dishes, and stories, and so I picked things that had stories. My grandmother collected dishes to give to me for Christmas, I like putting different ones together, I like cooking for people. I realize this is weird as I don't actually like food that much. But I do like creativity, presentation, and Pottery Barn. Which all of my dish choices sort of look like. But anyway, she started one collection, I can't remember the name...I have enough for four people and some serving pieces. When I see a nice one in antique stores, I buy it. I bought a little cup and saucer last year for five dollars -I didn't have the cup and saucer. They are lined up in my china cabinet, all pretty to look at.

At the border, the guard wanted to know why a student needed good china. Excuse me? What do you think I'm going to eat on, paper plates? No way, Jose. All the stuff I have I'm keeping forever, I don't do that student run down, dump later thing. I am a careful collector, with some generous benefactors. I have a beautiful desk from my uncle and aunt, including a very nice couch. And my grandpa brought me his old dresser, I have my other grandfather's old, extremely comfortable and regal arm chair. My Dad bought me an end table I very much loved, once. I am not your typical student. I like playing house. I am lucky. My parents used a box for a table at some point when they were married, I think. They labelled it, "table", after some questions. Around the age I am now. I am very lucky.

Damn dog hair.

Anyway. Opening boxes, beautiful things. Some things my mom said were likely my great-grandparents, but we wouldn't know the dish stories, now. Why would I ever stop to think, and say, grandma, where is this dish from? My great-grandparents were dairy farmers in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Old family. We have glass milk bottles with our name on them. Smead. The barn burnt down in a fire, and eventually they processed milk from other farms, instead. My aunt (my mother's aunt), cataloged the entire side of that family, way back. I love leafing through that book. Proof that farming is genetic, I think. One day. I have farmers and book publishers back there. Books are definitely an obsession. Funny, right? How different would I think, if the farm had been handed down. I'd take it, I would. Greenfield is lovely, it's home, just like several other places in the country are home for me. I love a lot of places.

I do have my great-grandma's frying pans. Still work great.

The good china the border guard was confused about, I almost didn't take. I was more attached to the story than the piece, and I didn't remember ever seeing the china. Grandpa just said, it was grandma's good china. But my mom said grandpa brought it all the way back from Korea when he was there (war). Those are some special dishes, I think. Some polish pottery (hello, I am Polish, Scottish, and English...I believe not everyone was pleased when my grandma married my grandpa, makes me giggle, his name is on the gravestone in our little graveyard -wonder what some of the other Smead residents in their plots, think, I say hello to them, but I do not know who some of them are), from Yankee Candle, which I go to almost every year. It used to be a little place and they had candy in a loft on the second floor. Sugar is all I need for a positive association.

So many things. I am so pleased to have them and so pleased to be given them, I will love and use them all. I am glad my cousins and I are different, we all wanted different things. I think they are more practical whereas I am more sentimental. But everything I have is practical, I don't like useless things, but I don't like having things with no association, either. I like flea markets and yard sales. I bargained for the first time ever last year, my roommate said I was doing it wrong when I didn't. I didn't bargain on purpose, really, I just needed a sewing table but thought $25 was too much. Fifteen! And my chair fits perfectly by it. It was my great-grandpa's (non-farmers), that was in his woodshop. Just a wooden chair. I need to sand it down and paint it.

Should likely sleep.

I get by...

2011-05-01T21:38:00.003-04:00

Live on one of the most beautiful places on earth (for me, anyway), and now my mum and grandpa are up to share it with me for a little bit. Feeling very peaceful! I can only see green spaces, people, sheep, love, flashy agility equipment, mountains, skies, working physically on projects rather than mentally, switchin' it up for a couple months coming, excited to show who's here all the secret spots I have found (my specialty).

I should grab some film to shoot.

Made valiant effort at cleaning the house before admitting defeat in several areas due to necessitating sleep. But my mom is here, so you know we can crank that out.

Need website. Like The Pioneer Woman's. So then I can ramble on several different pages.

Dog related...I got nothing. Dogs are happy, too? Reef is cute. Reef is also likely badly behaved. I have failed Reef of any sort of obedience training. She doesn't jump on and bark at me. She only really sees me. Whom she does see, lets her jump up and bark, because they're obviously a little over the edge, like myself, and find her amusing. At least she sat for my mum like my roommate taught her to. I forgot she had such a mouth until I suddenly envisioned it in an urban setting. I prematurely apologize to all urbanites meeting Reef including family and friends in the month of May. She's really cool, calm, and easy to live with. If you're me. She's funny and has a wicked sense of humor, is incredibly loyal but rather independent. She's sharp and talks quickly and is very intelligent. She doesn't talk to strangers.

She won't do something if I tell her not to before she thinks about doing it.

Overwhelmed.

2011-04-29T20:18:00.001-04:00

Can't clean house. Unsure where to start. Unsure when it will stop.

Blink.

House elf?

Twelve years later.

2011-04-27T21:55:00.005-04:00

Six grade is when I started reading Harry Potter. A few were out, I managed to catch up, and was distraught realizing it was an unfinished series. I was out of the loop, Harry Potter was 'juvenile' and I didn't want to start it. And you?

"But it was more than that. I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning one ever expects to be fulfilled. And during this time, these days when when I read all day and all the night, when I slept under a counterpane strewn with books, when my sleep was black and dreamless and passed in a flash and I woke to read again -the lost joys of reading returned to me." The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield (page 32).

Found her kryptonite.

2011-04-27T20:17:00.002-04:00

Pretzels. Why didn't I think of that, when she was a six month old puppy learning recalls, instead of being ignored despite wielding raw steak?

Need a little help from the universe.

2011-04-25T12:27:00.008-04:00

Fourth on wait list for Cummington. Would really like to get in, please.

Too many things going on, thought I could enter now. Nope. Post is closed, might not get into Cascade, either. Would rather give up Cascade for Cummington, as Cummington is being made into a family trip. My buddy needs to run.

Out of everything going on, Cummington was the only one that made me cry. Just wasn't thinking.

Going to check on the alignment of my planets, now.

Want to go home.

Edit: Someone said they were seventh, with multiple dogs last year, and got in. I shall tentatively be happy? Back to your regularly scheduled programs...

Edit 2: I dislike constant life lessons telling me to be organized. I personally thought I had vastly improved in this department.

dancedancedance

2011-04-23T20:42:00.004-04:00

Maybe I've been hiding under a rock, but I was reading a USDAA premium of a trial I want to enter, and it said, "next day move-ups are allowed at this trial".

Comes too late for Caper, but maybe it'll help me and Reef out a little. Would have helped me out more, if I didn't have to scratch that USDAA trial last year. (Bitter, what? She could have gotten out of Starters. Or, she could have gotten out of Starters at this trial and run in Advanced the next day. Or, if she did not get out of Starters, I could fearlessly enter Standards at the next trial, and maybe be brave and enter some games on the last day -which before, was a grave risk of wasting money. Because all of your games classes would have still counted towards...Starters. It wasn't fair to the little people, wasn't fair. Oh, USDAA. I love you again. Sadly I still can't add any more of you to my summer, unless I cut out a sheepdog trial. I'm not sure I'm capable of doing that.)

Wait. I'm confused as to why I need to get out of Starters. I need to get to Excellent B.

Do I need to get to Excellent B? Whatever for?

Why do I do agility, again?

I'm just going to look out the window now. What a lovely sky! Agility fields have lovely skies. Who wouldn't want to see the sky? I'd pay for that.

I knew it had a point.

Presidential.

2011-04-21T22:12:00.003-04:00

This is actually one of my favourite photographs of Reef, but to edit it (I shoot everything a little darker than it needs to be, because I could, originally, fix it. And the lens is not so hot. Ha, not so hot...I make a pun), I used Piknik.

Piknik wants me to pay them. I would, except my debit card is not compatible with online deals. Come on Canada, catch up a little. So I took a screenshot of an example, so instead of a telling shot of Reef, we have the poster for her next campaign. But going picture-less is getting tiring.

I did agility with Reef today. Caper also. Then he ran after a frisbee, slipped, and cried. Reef never slips, she is fully aware of where all her limbs are. I don't think Caper's butt completely synapses with his head. Too happy, too invincible, not turning properly.

Not like he gets any raw end of the deal, though. Last night I locked his red-dirt ridden self in a pen, and awoke with my legs asleep, and a dog draped over them amongst my papers and blankets. And I knew the dog was too heavy to be Reef.

Reef's teeter is stunning. It's a four on, theoretically, but I can't seem to prevent some feet from sliding off. I can say it is stunning because I am most certain it will not hold up. So, I am telling you now: we are capable of a stunning teeter, really. If I early release, she slams the teeter down whilst at the very edge, and keeps running. It isn't anywhere near a fly-off, and is very interesting to watch.

The problem is, it's a wooden teeter. Reef and I love wooden teeters. When we were exposed to an aluminum teeter last summer, I think our response was, who would make such a noisy, awkward abomination? It just isn't quite as fun. So therein will go our teeter, as soon as she sees an aluminum one this summer.

Anyway, I practiced some turns with Reef. When I say 'turns', I mean specific turns, ones that we are bad at. I have been doing some turns, just running her, and rewarding lines I like, and hoping we'll drift slowly in the direction I intended.

And then I realized today I was doing nothing of the sort. I was just doing something over and over, with marginally the same result, expecting acclimation to be the instructor. That never works for me. It's a slow process, and I'm not cool with that. If I don't ask a dog to think, then how are they learning? Get it, mark it, reward it. Then move on. Why would I forget that? Why? Why? Survey says I'm a kinesthetic learner, not auditory (oh, absolutely not auditory). And Reef doesn't exactly take the time to pay attention to minute details, either, why do I have her listening to a lecture?

I'm almost about to get a little cocky. Look at that. I'm better than just standing there, waiting for Reef to change. I have to do things faster, and I can do them faster.

Anyway, I just told Reef I was turning. Imagine that.

Actually, I told her I was turning a little too much, and I used her name. She was sad. Her face crumpled. Reef doesn't lie, and she is never sad. So that was a bit of a dart to the heart. I can see her face in slow motion. But her turn was perfect, like we've never had a miscommunication. And so was the subsequent turn, and every one after that. A few bars, but I didn't look at them, they're to be expected.

I told her she was fabulous, which is absolutely her favourite. For such an independent dog, it's odd that her highest reward is to be fawned over. She remembers it. It is certainly the reason she pretends to ignore the existence of my roommate's dog now, rather than wish her to fall to the furthest fiery pit of hell. Because my roommate might pet her, and tell her she is beautiful.

Then all her next turns were ideal, also.

In the car, I decided I should have a name for this, until we get it in sync.

I really tried to avoid writing, "in sync", but alas. I can't think of a synonym.

Then I realized I received a written solution for this a year ago. With a verbal already.

Maybe, not so much faster.

Before I left, I 'cheated' and drew the line for her with a front cross. It was fun. Gotta remember I can do that -once I start training something, I forget everything else I can use. And Reef loves it when the lines are drawn. Less thinking, less thinking for us all!

Is this legible and literate? I feel like a third grader. But I took a screen shot of that picture, and I wanted to use it. Words. It might have something to do with working on details and concepts, and then being asked to reiterate a simple value, complete with alliteration in a normally beige scientific mess.

Would I be a parasitologist? Perhaps.

I feel a little more literate, now. I write, I train, I write too much, I miss concepts, I shorten them, I shorten my words, I become simple, my brain restructures due to simple questions, and also, I believe it is almost May.

And, yesterday it hailed all afternoon and evening.

One more thing: 2012 Beetle. Absolutely not. Whose idea was that?

Just wondering if someone turn on the heat, apparantly.

2011-04-04T20:49:00.000-04:00

A Tale in Tiny Text from the Tundra

2011-04-04T12:03:00.007-04:00

(Click text to make photos larger.)

Bouncabouncabounca.

2011-03-24T15:45:00.003-04:00

Reef is three!

While I wax poetically about Caper's yearly getting olders, I don't think Reef really cares.

Demand. Expect. Win. Run.

(I think when she's impatient, she speaks in a monosyllabic manner.)

Spring in the Maritimes

2011-03-22T19:36:00.005-04:00

I sort of had a vision for this, but lacking the necessaries to make it happen, here is a amateur version. This is one of my favorite songs; I have a specific purpose for this should I find a professional video camera at some point; but for now, it's the only song I could think of.

I can't currently browse my (limited) music collection. Penny isn't feeling well.

This 24" screen library Apple desktop isn't too shabby a replacement, however.

I saw a two week old seal pup. Last year, the ice melted so that you could hear the seals barking and echoing under it. You'd sit on the beach, and they would pop up through holes in the ice. This year, the ice melted differently. There isn't a lot of it, and there was a little white seal pup sitting alone on the beach. I had wide angle lens in my car, but that would have required me sticking the camera in his face, which I thought may not be particularly prudent. So, in my head, I have a few National Geographic-esque shots sitting there. If anyone is telepathic, they are welcome to see them. Some of the dogs are in there, too. However, I have too much film to develop to allow myself to shoot anymore.

He may have been waiting for his mum, or I may have seen him carried off by a very large bird. I didn't see any bird tracks on the way back, however, I did see a bird carry, and falter carrying on the air currents, a large white object. Faltering between apathy, journalism, and compassion. At least I have good dogs, and I don't own a bird.

You might be bored, but I'm excited.

2011-03-17T22:08:00.002-04:00

Snow is not really the problem, he said. It's that the world can hold way more snow than my mind does.

- Brian Andreas

The camera had no battery left for Caper. Sorry pal.

Those phones sure got fancy.

2011-03-15T22:43:00.005-04:00

They can't both be right.

2011-03-14T22:21:00.003-04:00

Feeling mildly panicky which is likely going to descend unto utter apathy, which will rise into a heroic effort since I can't let anything go, likely with some tears and not the hoped-for outcome, but a rationalized outcome which will be possible as my brain will not longer be in state of seizure. Not that I really want to rational. It's just a part of my internal GPS, some damn re-set button.

Then it starts all over again.