Jamie the healer

Jamie is the "healer dog" at our house. If you have an owie of any kind, he will sniff it out and try to lick it. Sometimes this is appreciated. Other times, not so much. Several years ago, I had some extensive dental work done and it didn't go so well. Jamie nearly drove me crazy, trying to lick my face all the time. As it turned out, the particular spot he was focussed corresponded to a place in my jaw that was not healing properly.

When I had a corneal ulcer, he was constantly trying to sniff my eye and he is also very concerned about ears and noses (a serious job in a house full of people with allergies.) I think I could take him to the U of I Hospitals and find him full-time employment.

Lately, he has transferred these diagnostic and healing skills to Phoenix. My apologies for the pictures. They are not shining examples of photography. Actually, they are examples of late afternoon sun shining through the west kitchen window.

Phoenix tore up the "bumper pad" on one leg playing chase games with Katie over the weekend. Yes, Jen, your 12 pound (?) sheltie girl injured the big, tough malinois. Phoenix is not very bothered by it but Jamie thinks it needs attention. Phoenix has kind of "Whatever, dude" approach to all this nursing.

"You have an owie. Let me see it."

"Lie still so I can clean your foot. Here, I will hold you down."

"Kid, you are a mess. What have you done to your hind foot? I will clean it, too."

More adventures in the Conroy Park

The best thing about being home on the weekend is having time to pack up jumps and ring gates and go somewhere for a a training session that isn’t rushed by the need to do some domestic crap, teach a class, etc. It seems like all too often, my training is done in a hurry on weeknights: a quick 10 minutes here, another stolen 5 minutes there, working fronts and finishes while waiting my turn at agility class, doing stays around the house (put the baby dog between the OTCh. dogs and hope he absorbs something), trying to get a fast session done before the class I teach on Thursdays, you know, that sort of thing.

Admitedly, that’s better than not training at all and in all honestly, training that way makes me focus on the job at hand because there isn’t time for screwing around. I can get a lot done in a short amount of time and for the most part, it works.

But ahhhh . . . the pleasure of driving to a park and knowing if I want to train for 20 minutes or an hour, it’s totally up to me and my dog.

So Phoenix and I took off for the Conroy Park Saturday morning. We got there at 7:15 a.m. What’s this? There are people here! In my park! Nobody in Conroy gets up that early!

Come to find out, the park was a staging area for the Conroy Fun Day 5K. Which, by the way, might have been the world’s smallest 5K. Not that I’m an expert or anything but I think there were more people working the registration table and acting as race officials than there were runners.

I set up my jumps and stuff at the far end of the park and we had a great training session. It wasn’t “great” in terms of Phoenix doing everything perfectly because he was certainly distracted by the race preparation and made all sorts of errors. But it was excellent in terms of having time to slow down and work through those distractions and show him A) he COULD ignore them and B) he WOULD be well paid for continuing to ignore them.

Remember what I said about the Conroy Park in an earlier post this month? Now I have another form of transportation to add to the lawnmowers, ATVs, golf carts and tractors people use to get around town. A skid-loader! Yep, a fellow drove up on his skid-loader, parked it and went on his merry way. I think (hope) he was going to move equipment with it later but didn’t stick around to watch.

We finished our session by doing a sit/stay while the race started and people ran, jogged, walked and stumbled down the street past us. I’m sure Phoenix thought this was one of the most bizarre behaviors he’s ever seen: humans running in a pack but no prey in sight.

Just as I was putting my stuff away, a gal came over and wanted to pet my dog. Of course, he was happy to oblige. (Please, rub some MORE loose hair out of my dog. Wait, here's a brush, knock yourself out!) Her bro-in-law is a K9 officer in Muscatine and has a malinois drug dog so she actually recognized what breed ‘Nix was. That doesn’t happen every day, especially in Conroy!

Bonus dogs!

Around here, we call any "extra" animals "bonus" animals. We have the occasional bonus cat and when friends' dogs come to stay for the weekend, they are bonus dogs.

From left: Phoenix, Katie, Jamie, Connor, Beau

Having a pack of 5 is not that much different than a pack of 3. Granted, the two "bonus dogs" combined would only equal one Belgian, at least in terms of weight, but not necessarily in terms of busy-ness.

Katie is the definition of busy. She makes me laugh. So far, she has helped me do laundry, take a shower, empty the trash, pull weeds, fix two meals for humans and  three meals for dogs. She has her nose in everything. Her first job in the morning is to set Phoenix straight on a few things, then they are friends for the rest of the day. Actually, it's a little scary how much alike they are.

Beau is taking a more laid back approach to being "at camp." He likes hanging out under the kitchen table and in Connor's crate. It doesn't matter if Connor is already in his crate or not. He is such a handsome boy. I could have a blue dog.

Jen and Spencer will pick them up tomorrow evening. I think Phoenix will miss Katie. They invented a new game this morning while I was weeding flowers. The Farmer and his dad were in and out a lot, driving up and down the lane on tractors and the four-wheeler. Katie LOVED to run the fenceline, barking madly at them. Phoenix ran a careful two feet parallel to her, barking equally madly. They played that game ALL morning and are now exhausted.

Time to get cleaned up for the wedding. The Farmer's sister called. He and I are now in charge of transporting 16 floral arrangements from the church to the reception. Possibly during a thunderstorm. In a skirt. Oh yeah. What can go wrong with this?

A pretty picture this time

Took this Tuesday night after all the scary weather rolled through. The skies cleared just before sunset and produced this beautiful double rainbow.

We have house guests this weekend: shelties Katie and Beau are visiting while Jen and Spencer enjoy a get-away to the Twin Cities. Katie moved in and made herself right at home. Beau is not sure this is a very good idea but as long as the cookies keep coming, he's making the best of it. Hope to post pics soon.

Tomorrow is niece Alicia's wedding at Immanuel Lutheran at 4:30 p.m. The Storm Prediction Center has us earmarked for severe weather potential in the late afternoon. Would it be too redneck of me to take my all-hazards weather radio in my purse and get updates during the ceremony?

A midsummer night's obedience dream

“If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.”

In other words, the definition of insanity is doing something the same way every time but expecting different results.

Over the last three months, I’ve enjoyed the beginning of an incredible journey with Phoenix. We’ve debuted in the obedience ring, had a tremendous amount of fun, earned some titles, had some spectacular successes and some resounding failures and I’ve learned a lot about my dog along the way. The best part of it has been spending time with a dog I love very much and a group of supportive, creative, wonderful friends.

Since we have two months off from trials, now is a great time to re-evaluate where we’ve been, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.

My training goal is to be ready to show in UKC Open Aug. 8 and 9 in Ft. Dodge. (Hopefully we won’t have to camp in the chicken barn again.) In order to do this, we need to:

• Put a turn, front and finish with the broad jump while continuing to cement the concept of jumping the center of the jump, not cutting the edge. And not touching any part of the jump with any part of the dog.

• Proof the drop on recall so he understands HE doesn’t get to choose when he drops, even though that is apparently an incredible amount of fun.

• Continue heeling training: body position, head position, turns (especially driving and wrapping to the right) and halts, plus maintaining position during speed changes. In other words, pretty much every aspect of heelwork.

• Proof retrieves both on the flat and over the high.

• Continue building speed on all recall/retrieve exercises.

• Continue to work out of sight stays, especially around the house when he thinks I am not paying any attention and might not actually mean it.

Perhaps the most important thing on my training to-do list is attitude building. Obedience will always be about precision, control and formality. That’s the nature of the beast. But don’t get me wrong, that can all be done with a great deal of joy and enthusiasm and that is my #1 goal beyond any title or score.

So here’s my final goal for this summer: to build attitude without over-reliance on toys and cookies. I was so pleased to have quit using so dang many cookies until a dear training friend pointed out I had just substituted toys for the cookies and was still very reliant on those external motivators to get attitude. Thank you, RS!

There! I’ve put it out there on the Web for billions of people to read! People in Timbuktu know my training goals! If that doesn’t get me off my arse and outside to train my dog, I don’t know what will.

More wild weather

This shelf cloud was the leading edge of a severe thunderstorm that rolled through late this afternoon, just as I got home from work. It brought straightline winds of 60-70 mph to some places in eastern Iowa but I don't think they were that strong at our place. We had a few small tree limbs down but nothing like the straightline winds back in June '98 that tore the hell out of everything.

Since Friday evening, we've had three rounds of severe t-storms that brought torrential rainfall, flash flooding and wall clouds with rotation, then heat indices over 100 degrees and now this cool shelf cloud and high winds. Could we have some nice weather for a spell? How the heck am I supposed to train my crazy dog with all this thunder and lightning?

Hawkeye trials

Showed Phoenix in Graduate Novice last weekend. It was a weekend of fun, frustration, good friends, achievement, disappointment and the realization that I need to put more energy into this dog if I am going to get the level of work from him I want. In other words, it was a typical obedience trial.

Saturday, our ring work was not terribly inspired. Heeling was laggy and everything else was a ho-hum affair. Phoenix invented a new exercise, the "Recall Retrieve with Stop and Drop." No points for creativity there, just a big, fat NQ. Honestly, if you TRIED to teach some of the stuff dogs come up with in the ring, you couldn't do it. I would have blamed the heat and humidity except the building we showed in was about 56 degrees and I think there was a wind chill from the ceiling fans. Darn, can't use that as an excuse.

I worked Phoenix at the match Saturday night, playing lots of running and chase games and felt good about where we were. Plus his group exercises with the Open dogs were great and I'm more confident we'll be ready for Open by late summer.

Sunday's judging was a marathon affair due to our judge being "shared" between breed and obedience assignments, both of which brought in much higher numbers than anticipated. Then she had to put her Open B assignment on hold before it was finished to go and judge the hound group! Needless to say, obedience judging continued long after Best In Show. To make a long story short, it was after 5 p.m. before Phoenix and I made it into the ring, the first time in more than 30 years of showing that I'd ever gone in the ring that late. Aside from the judge, stewards and a few folks who were still loading up their stuff, we had the building to ourselves.

His attitude was much better and he powered through the heeling like the dog I thought I'd trained. Horray! (Truly an improvement or lack of any other distractions?) My left hand mysteriously returned to my waistline. I swear I cannot remember where I want to carry that arm! Phoenix's head position is slipping — not that I'm into dogs who heel with their heads totally vertical but he is dropping his lower and lower and with that, comes a lack of eye contact. Sigh. Another problem to fix. Gee, what would I do with all my time if I had a perfect dog?

Aside from whacking the last board of the broad jump with a hind paw (I swear, we are under some kind of broad jump curse), he worked a 196.5 to win the class for his second GN leg. Do I have to say we were the only entry? No? Good.

We're off obedience trials for eight weeks now and boy, do we have a lot of work to do. Actually, no trials at all until a four-day agility blast the end of July. Time to train!