Da ball

Phoenix can spend hours entertaining himself in the house with a ball. I took this series of pics last night while I was folding laundry in our bedroom.

Phoenix loves his ball. He has a blue ball, a green ball and an orange ball in the house but the blue one is his favorite. It is an Orbee ball and originally was blue and green. Phoenix very methodically chewed off all the green stuff. I thought it was just a fluke until I bought a second one and now he is very deliberately doing the same thing to it.


One of his favorite games is "Shove the ball someplace and then try to get it back." Here, he is contemplating shoving it between the cedar chest and the foot of the bed. This is a very thinly veiled way of getting me to play with him, because eventually he will shove it somewhere he cannot reach it and you-know-who will have to stop what she is doing and get it out for him before he destroys something.


Like here. Uh-oh. Now it's under the bed. What did you put it there for? I don't understand the point of this game but apparently it is very entertaining. He enjoys shoving it under the recliners in the living room and occasionally under the couch. I finally put a stop to shoving it under the antique glass-front secretary in the dining room.


Got it back! More contemplative ball worship atop the cedar chest. Notice Jamie's paw on the left side of the pic. He is deliberately not acknowledging Phoenix.


Jamie: You are a freak.
Phoenix: This is the coolest ball in the world! Watch, I'm gonna stuff it under the bed again!

Aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!

Here’s the problem: A) It’s Monday. B) I’m back at work after a great week of vacation. C) This is the Transition Week From Hell, the first week our papers will not be printed here in Marengo but instead will be sent electronically to Des Moines, where they will be printed at the Mother Ship's production facility.

I’m sitting here with 10 million memos explaining how to do everything totally different from the way I’ve done it for the last 21 years, including changing every single freaking type font to something I barely recognize. ITC Franklin Gothic Demi Condensed for cutlines? Seriously? What's wrong with helvetica? Everything is changing: deadlines, type styles, column widths, page sizes. I feel like I’m caught up in Dorothy’s tornado, spinning around and around and expecting to see a witch flying by on her broomstick. No, wait. That’s probably my own reflection.

The newsroom is not a happy place right now but we’re all glad we still have our jobs so we’re going around with maniacal determined-to-suck-it-up-and-make-the-best-of-it smiles on our faces. This is different from our every day maniacal smiles. The latest Gannett-induced slash was shutting down our press room and in-house mailing and distribution center. When I started working here in 1988, there were 40 people employed in our Marengo office. Today, there are 13. Overall, our three-county newspaper and shopper operation has dropped from 200 employees to about 40.

The place is quieter today. There’s no steady rumble from the press room, no rattley-clack from the bundler in the mailroom. Never thought I’d say it but I miss the ever-looming threat of our head pressman coming up to the newsroom, rattling a page negative in one of our faces and saying dryly “Did you mean to do that?” while pointing to some incredibly stupid typo in a headline. That guy was the best proofreader we ever had. I’m proofing now. Wee iz inn trubl biig thyme.

Agility at Davenport, Day 2

Remember the "Bang Head Here" sign from last weekend? I could have used it today. No clean runs for us and both courses were absolutely beautiful and lovely and flowing. Can we have a do-over? Please?

Our JWW run had its moments until bars started flying like shrapnel. Std. was super except for the part where I released Phoenix from the teeter and sent him flying out into the abyss where there were no jumps . . . oops . . . um . . . there's the jump I MEANT to send you to. Sorry. Again.

Some friends and I were discussing our current Q-drought (it's been a really loooooong time) and I realized that while I would certainly PREFER to be collecting a green ribbon at the end of each run, their absence is not bothering me as much as it does other people ("other people" being folks I observe at both obedience and agility trials). Not that these other people are dismayed by the fact Phoenix and I are not Q-ing . . . I meant they are dismayed that THEIR dogs are not Q-ing. Dismayed, distressed, distraught, disturbed, depressed, you get the picture.

I guess it all comes down to why you participate in this sport. I do it for fun and over the years, my definition of "fun" has become independent of any judge's score or Q rate. Sure, I want high scores in obedience and clean runs in agility. You don't get an OTCh. through careless training and you don't get double Qs by being an indifferent handler. But there's more to the sport than the few minutes in the ring and what gets written in the judge's book. At least there is for me. If you depend solely on "winning" to feel good about the weekend, dog sports would be a very futile and depressing experience for most of us.

I look at all the things that make up a show weekend (either obedience or agility): loading the van, grooming the dogs, choosing my clothes and packing, meeting friends to drive to the show site, sometimes battling the elements, hauling everything in and setting up, watching friends show, sharing training ideas, meals and snacks with friends, playing with my dogs, going out to dinner with friends . . . and oh yeah . . . the 10 minutes or two 30 second intervals each day we actually spend in the ring. Did ya notice, FRIENDS are pretty darn important. My dog friends are the best people in my life.

And so the bottom line, at least for me, is Qs and ribbons are not a requirement for a "successful" weekend. I love the social aspect of dog sports and even more, I love watching Phoenix and I grow as a team. He is an amazing, beautiful dog (am I prejudiced or what?) and a riot to train. We are vastly improved from where we were a year ago when we started running agility and quickly found ourselves dazed and confused on Excellent courses. 

I've gone from running Jamie, who was a wonderful Steady Eddie type of dog who loped around the course at a moderate speed, giving me all the time in the world to commit and correct handling errors, to running a "feral cat on crack, made out of steel-belted radials and industrial springs." (Found that definition of a malinois somewhere, it's perfect.) This has not been an easy transition from a handler's perspective and believe me, I am still learning.

(As I type this, Phoenix has the butt-tucking rips. He is ricocheting around the house with a ball clamped in his mouth and a totally insane gleam in his eye. Just try focussing on nothing but winning when you live with THAT!)

Yeah, we're not bringing home agility ribbons of any color right now but so what? I love the fact we are making only one or two mistakes per run instead of half a dozen. I'm feeling more confident about my ability to handle him and I'm doing a better job of figuring out what happened when the wheels fall off so hopefully I can keep it from happening again.

Looking back, I remember showing Jamie in Utility for a year with no Qs. Talk about frustration. Then bingo! He titled in three trials and a year later, had his OTCh. To everything there is a season. Each dog has his own timeline. What fun would it be to Q and/or win every single time you went in the ring? Seriously? Where would be the sense of exhilaration and achievement? 

The best trainers I know are the ones who are "input focussed" (enjoy teaching the necessary skills) versus "outcome focussed" (only think about wins and titles.) Over the years, I have changed from the latter to the former and am a lot happier for it. Shows are a test of where we are at any given point in our training.

I know Phoenix will bring home agility ribbons sooner or later. And he will be spectacular. In the meantime, we're enjoying the journey together.

Well, vacation is over. Back to work tomorrow. Good thing, now maybe I can finally get some rest!

Agility at Davenport, Day 1

Up at 4 a.m., on the road by 5. Met the Orange Bunch to caravan to the show site at 5:30. Arrived at show site at 6:15 a.m. Building opened at 6:30. All the folks who train with Smooth Sailin' Agility wore their orange gear. None of us could ever hide anywhere. We glowed like Rudolph in the fog.

Celebrated Rilda's status as deer-slayer by decorating her chair with a tanned deer hide and skull with antlers. People stare at us. I wonder why? Photographs were taken later with Rilda, hide, skull and her deer-bashed car. 

Ran JWW first. Nix dropped a bar. Rats. But just ONE BAR, nothing else. Our NQs are getting prettier and that was an incredibly FUN course.

Ran Std. next. You get done with the course a lot faster if you don't do all the jumps. On the other hand, Nix jumped back over the chute after he went through it so that should count for one of the missed jumps, right? And the other missed jump . . . well, um, video shows I didn't even INDICATE it so that shouldn't count either, right?

Ate cookies to ease the disappointment. Well, not ALL of these cookies. My mother taught me to share. There was a lot of disappointment-easing cookie eating among the Orange Bunch. Sigh. It's a good thing the cookie fairy baked yesterday.

Friends, dogs, cookies, what more do you need? Tomorrow is another day!

Foggy morning

My plan for this morning, Day 3 of vacation, was to take Phoenix to train at the motel complex at the interstate. There are lots of grassy areas and wide sidewalks for heeling around the restaurants and shops and tons of pedestrian traffic for distractions, especially first thing in the morning when people are checking out of the motels, going to breakfast, etc.

But when I couldn't see to the end of the lane and several local schools were delaying because of the fog, I decided we would stay home instead. We trained in the front yard. It was as good as a new environment because Phoenix was very concerned about sounds when he couldn't see the source, like the Farmer doing chores and the neighbors out banging around.

It was good to work in the wet grass, since Mal nationals are outside at Purina Farms in Missouri next spring and my experience with showing at Purina has been WET WET WET. We don't show outside very much around here. With the exception of a few agility trials, we Midwesterners like to show indoors . . . where it's safe from blizzards, ice storms, blazing heat, tornadoes, lightning, hail, pouring rain . . . yeah, I think they've had the last five at Purina . . . 

The spider webs were really pretty this morning, too. Are there always this many spider webs in the morning or did I just notice them today? Okay, it creeps me out a little bit that there are that many spiders around our house . . .

Agenda for the rest of the day is a shopping trip to Iowa City once the fog lifts, then agility class this evening. Plus reading more of "Echo." I read the first 100 pages yesterday. It is classic Jamie and Claire. And I keep swearing I'm going to clean and organize the spare room. Yeah. Right. I'll let ya know how that goes.

Vacation, Day 1

I'm on a genuine vacation this week - not a Gannett-mandated sign-me-up-for-unemployment-furlough. Yippee! 

First things first: the report from agility at Granger over the weekend. How can I put this? We had a sign hanging over our crating area that showed a red and gold bull's eye with the words "Bang Head Here" printed in the center. It got plenty of use from me.

Phoenix was wonderful and gave me some of the best Excellent Std. and JWW runs we've ever had. He did everything I asked, which was both a blessing and a curse. I was a total idiot as a handler and found new and creative ways to screw up every good thing we had going. So, after a lot of head banging, I have put those train wrecks behind me and am already looking ahead to another two days of agility at Davenport next weekend.  

Our runs weren't a complete disaster. He was 6 for 6 on weave entries and 3 for 3 on tables, two things we've struggled with and worked hard on. Hmmm . . . training actually helps?!

Camping was fun with great fires and plenty of marshmallows. Probably our last camping of the season. Phoenix got to splash and play in the Saylorville Reservoir with Kruz, Mad, Seeker, Addie, Paulie and Vinnie. He's not much on swimming but had a good time splashing and fetching tennis balls close to the shore. Plus, 45 minutes after he came out of the water, he was dry, I brushed the sand out and he looked fresh as a daisy. Malinois rock!

Today, 'Nix and I went down to visit my dad in hospice. He's about the same, semi-alert, tries to communicate but has a hard time finding and forming words. 

It was actually RAINING when we got home. We haven't had a drop of rain in 24 days so it was welcome although now we'll have to mow the $#@! grass again. No lightning or storms though, so Phoenix and I went out and worked contacts. They were OK at Granger although Mr. I Know How To Do This Faster was doing some self-releasing and I'd like to clear that up before the coming weekend.

Tomorrow: training with Michele and Cider in the morning, then going to Barnes and Noble to pick up "An Echo in the Bone," the seventh Jamie and Claire book from Diana Gabaldon, which is released tomorrow. Then coming home and READING!!!

La Vida Loca - fall edition

This post comes to you from the “It seemed like a good idea at the time” files.

Starting this weekend, Phoenix and I are showing seven of the next nine weekends. And we just showed two of the last three weekends. So that makes us going nine for 12 from late August through mid-November. There are so many great trials this time of year and many of them are local, no overnight stay required. Now tell me, how could I NOT enter?

This weekend we’re doing three days of agility at Granger. Then Sept. 26/27 it’s agility at Davenport; Oct. 3, UKC obedience at Adel; Oct. 10/11, HOME; Oct. 17/18, AKC obedience at Moline, Ill.; Oct. 24, UKC obedience at Davenport; Oct. 31/Nov. 1, UKC obedience at Cedar Rapids; Nov. 7/8, HOME; Nov. 14/15, agility at Muscatine.

Fortunately, the only overnight trip is this weekend (camping - hurray!) so we’ll get to sleep in our own bed at night for all the rest. And I had the good sense to only enter one or two days of each UKC obedience trial, even though they are ALL three-day weekends. Phoenix needs one leg to finish his U-CDX but I’m not interested in the title as much as I am in seeing improvement on his out-of-sight stays.

I honestly think our dogs work better when we’re in the ring consistently with them, no matter the venue. Showing, then having a month off, then showing again, often feels like three steps forward and two steps back in terms of teamwork and focus. When this is all wrapped up by mid-November, I’ll have a better idea of what direction our training needs to take over the winter.

Canine sports vet Chris Zink says she tries to give her dogs one entire month out of the year in which she doesn’t train at all, just goes for walks, plays ball, etc. She feels it’s good for their minds as well as their bodies. I’ve never actually managed to do that because I am just too OCD about training but I’d like to try it this year. My club’s agility trials are Dec. 4, 5 and 6 and after that, maybe I’ll see if Phoenix and I can go four whole weeks without doing anything formal. It would be a great time of year for that because I’ll be busy with the holidays and we won’t have any upcoming trials until late January. I’ll let ya know how that works out.