It's been a year

It’s a year today since I said good-bye to Connor. I still think about him every day, which probably sounds weird after a whole year has passed but he was such a presence in my life that I can’t help it. I know other people who feel the same way about dogs they have lost so maybe it’s not weird. Maybe I’m perfectly normal. Yeah. I'll go with that.

I’ve lost dogs before and each one of them broke my heart but Connor was different. I don’t know why exactly but I don’t think it had anything to do with being my first OTCh. or anything specifically connected to trials or obedience stuff. I think it was more his approach to life.

He never said never. If I wanted him to do it, he did it.

Finishing his MX, 2002, DMOTC trial at Indianola, IA
(Photo by Tien Tran)

Connor did not have very good structure. His front was very straight and he was a truly awful jumper. I’m sure my training methods back then didn’t help things any but in spite of ourselves he got his MX/MXJ and his OTCh. He was the dog who taught me that if you want something badly enough and believe you can do it, you can.

That was his biggest gift to me and that’s probably the reason I think about him so much. Whenever I need a mental dose of “you can do it” I think of Connor and his goofy Sheltie grin, the one he had before he started barking at something. And spinning. And barking.

First UD leg, Marshalltown, IA
April 1998

I thought maybe this summer I’d set out a new plant in one of my perennial flower beds in his memory. I Googled plants with “Black Diamond” in their name, since that was Connor’s registered name, OTCh., U-OTCh. Sunazie’s Black Diamond, UDX5, MX, MXJ. Apparently, there are black diamond varieties of ficus, watermelon, blackberry and helleborus. Can’t say any of those were what I was looking for.

Then it hit me, the perfect plant for Connor is a stargazer lily. Connor was my “shooting star” dog. The day he finished his OTCh., I got up in the middle of the night to drive to a one-day trial in the middle of nowhere in Illinois. I almost didn’t go. I thought about just going back to bed. I was loading the van and looked up at the sky and saw a shooting star. Just one. It was huge and silver and beautiful and I made a wish on it because I always wish on shooting stars. Seven hours later, we won a huge Utility B class for 24 points, exactly one more than we needed to finish.


I miss you, Skunk Dog.

Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard

There is one more thing I need to add to my “things I really hate doing” list. It might even surpass the number one entry, going to the dentist. It definitely trumps ob/gyn visits, mammograms and shopping for bras.

It’s moving furniture.

I don’t mean moving the kitchen chairs so I can mop the floor. I mean heavy lifting of large and unwieldy pieces of furniture that have sat in one place for 45 years and do not want to be moved.

Flashback: A couple of years ago, we got new carpet in our bedroom, living room and dining room. The Farmer and I moved all of the furniture from those three rooms into the downstairs spare bedroom, the kitchen and porch. As doG as my witness, I will not do that again. Ever. Never. Ever. No. Period. Do NOT even think about it.

But we’re still married. Nineteen years last week.

Smile.

Flash forward: Yesterday’s furniture moving escapade was worse. Not only did it involve moving stuff, it involved moving stuff up and down stairs and in and out of a trailer. Antique heirloom stuff. With a lot of glass.

My aunt is cleaning out her house and wanted me to have some things that belonged to her and my grandparents. This is very wonderful and I am happy to have them. She was happy. I was happy. The Farmer took one look at the list of things that needed to be carried out of her house and into ours. I don’t think he was very happy.

The list included a china cabinet (lots of glass), two dressers (with mirrors, more glass), a rocking chair, a chest of drawers, a book case with a glass front, a Hoosier-style kitchen cupboard and a partridge in a pear tree.

My mother and aunt recruited a neighbor to help with the heavy lifting. Now we had two farmers on the job. This was excellent. I planned to do a lot of directing and very little actual lifting. I was very happy.

The problem with antique furniture is that it’s solid. No flimsy veneers or compressed particle board crap. It’s real wood. Solid wood. Very freaking heavy wood. With very fragile, antique glass. Did I mention it was 90 degrees yesterday? And humid? What FUN!

The men lifted and hauled and calculated and measured and sweated. I wrapped things in quilts and said helpful things like “Be careful!” and “Don’t hurt yourself!” And if anything got bumped or banged or dropped, I gave them The Look.

My aunt provided a bunch of old quilts for wrapping around things in the trailer. They were old and definitely worn but they were made of pretty colorful fabrics. She said she didn’t want them back and I could burn them when we got home. Then she said my grandmother made them out of old feed sacks in the 1930s. I don’t think I’ll be burning them.

When we got home, the Farmer called his bro-in-law who lives down the road to see if he could help unload the trailer. Why didn’t you call him earlier, I asked, what if he has plans and can’t help and we have to unload all this by ourselves and I have a heart attack?

The Farmer gave me The Look. The brother-in-law wasn’t doing anything and was happy to help. He’s a great guy.

The dressers went upstairs. The rocking chair went upstairs. The bookcase went upstairs. The china cabinet went into the dining room. The chest of drawers went into our bedroom, although it may come right back out because I plan to strip and refinish it. It’s been awhile since my 4-H furniture refinishing days but I think it will come back to me. The kitchen cabinet went on the back porch. It is a perfect fit and will be home to all the miscellaneous gardening and dog stuff that seems to collect on the porch and is always in the way.

I think this might be Old Mother Hubbard's original cupboard. My grandma and grandpa used it throughout their marriage. It has always been painted so I'm not feeling ambitious enough to strip it because I'm not sure the quality of wood underneath would be worth it. I'm very happy with the primitive look.

This is the flour canister inside the kitchen cupboard. You put the flour in at the top, then turned the handle at the bottom and voilá - all the sifted flour you could ask for. Important when you're baking all your bread, biscuits, cakes, etc. from scratch.

When my grandma was expecting her first child, she told my grandpa she needed something to put "baby things" in, so my grandpa bought this chest of drawers at a farm sale. So it was second-hand already in the 1930s. It's going to be my first major stripping and refinishing project later this fall.

The crystal knobs were on it when Grandpa Mills bought it but they're not original. There are double holes for handle-type drawer pulls so I'll probably end up buying some reproductions and taking the crystal knobs off. They are kind of delicate. I've had them on other pieces of furniture and if you have one break in your hand once, well, you won't want to do it again.

After they got married, my grandparents bought this china cupboard brand new. That was almost unheard of for them. It was during the Great Depression and they didn't have any money. Nobody had any money. But this was the one new thing they bought as they started out together. It has been moved from Colorado to Missouri and now to our house. And it's still in one piece. Thank doG!

Feed sack quilts. Still pretty after 80 years.

Closeup of the feed sack prints.

Back to school

I love teaching.

That is a really odd statement, coming from someone who grew up as a teacher’s daughter and swore she would NEVER become a teacher.

You still could not pay me enough to spend eight hours a day teaching other people’s children nine months of the year but I love teaching people and dogs one night a week. I taught my first obedience class 15 years ago and I was scared to death. What if people thought I was an idiot? Well, if so I was an idiot with their money in my pocket so figure that one out.

My favorite classes to teach are Open and Utility and an occasional attention and heeling class. Tonight I’m starting a new session of Utility. Most of the dogs are pretty much beginners at this level (not ring-ready or showing yet) and for many of the handlers, this will be their first UD.

I’m really looking forward to it. Working with other people’s dogs gives me a new perspective on my own training. Of course, it’s always easier to solve other people’s problems and sometimes in the process I realize, DUH, I should be doing that with Phoenix, too!

This teaching business isn’t easy. It’s a fine balance between what the students want to learn and what I want the students to learn. It isn’t always the same thing.

Each person in a class has different dreams and goals for their dog. They range from “just want to qualify” to “want scores above 190” to “want to win in the B classes.” With all those different levels of ambition under one roof, I think it must be like teaching in a one room country school house.

I love to see people succeed and even surpass their expectations with their dogs, but too much pressure from an instructor can unfortunately alienate students who love training and showing but have zero interest in extreme levels of achievement. If someone wants to solid working, happy dog who can qualify in Open and Utility but I keep pestering them to clean up their fronts and finishes and correct every tiny heeling fault, they’re going to get discouraged because those things just aren’t important in their world view. Chances are, my time with them could be better spent helping them create a confident, animated dog who loves playing obedience games. You never know where that might lead.

I enjoy watching students in the ring and being a little part of the successes they achieve. I will cajole, encourage, nudge, support, problem-solve and brainstorm so students can grow as trainers and have a better relationship with their dogs but it’s up to them to actually do the training.

That might be the best part - spending an evening helping people enjoy their dogs, then sending them home to do all the work.

Another good part is that someone is always bringing treats to class to celebrate something!

Armed and dangerous

There's never a dull moment at our house.

Last night, the Farmer and I were getting ready for bed when the Farmer's brother called and said there was a fugitive (not Harrison Ford, darn it) on the loose in our area and the police said he was armed and dangerous.

Apparently, earlier in the day, police in Cedar Rapids had attempted to arrest a guy for armed robbery. He got away. To make a long story short, he stole a mini van, then a pickup truck and they found the pickup truck wrecked in a ditch just a few miles away from our house, so they figured the guy was still running around in the area.

Thank doG I'd already taken the dogs out for their bedtime pee. I didn't want to go outside in the dark again!

We locked up the house and went to bed. Of course, it was the first night in what seems like six months that it was cool enough to have the AC off and all the windows open. Phoenix and Jamie were patrolling the windows and growling at every little thing that moved — cats, raccoons, skunks, possums, owls . . . good grief, do you know how many nocturnal critters go parading around our house at night?

But no armed and dangerous fugitive presented himself.

Unless he's hiding in the hay loft of the barn.

Dealing with stress

I noticed Phoenix doing some things at the state fair dog show last weekend that made me realize I need to work on his “stress-proofing” more. The mistakes he was making were due, in part, to distraction but there was an element of stress there as well.

What’s the difference? A distracted dog is one who works happily, then a shiny object catches his eye and he forgets what he’s doing. A stressed dog is one who may be working adequately but his performance is littered with stress yawns, sniffing, slow responses, etc., or possibly stressing “up” with behaviors that are nearly out of control.

As trainers we may try to avoid deliberately causing stress during training because we don’t want our dogs “to hate obedience.” I’ve learned that exposing your dog to stress in the course of training BEFORE you go in the ring and learning how to work through it positively will pay off big time. Of course I learned this the hard way. That seems to be how I usually do things.

Deliberately adding stress is different from proofing the exercises. Instead, you're proofing the dog's attitude, his ability to focus and be a bright, happy worker under conditions that he may find less than ideal.

Instead of always going to train in a "comfortable" place, occasionally make it a point to take your dog to a slightly stressful environment, ask for some basic behaviors and see how he reacts. You, as the brains of the team, need to address this before you get into the ring and your dog has a meltdown.

When stress-proofing, forget about making corrections and don’t expect a perfect performance. That's not the point of the exercise. If your dog is truly coming unglued about something (a new smell, a real or imagined threat, etc.), corrections are only going to make things worse. Move a distance away from the stressor, find a marginally stressful zone and build from there, even if you end up just standing still and feeding your dog for giving you eye contact or performing something basic like a sit.

When your dog shows signs of relaxing and working comfortably, you can end the session or move closer and start again. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you won’t overcome environmental stress in one or two training sessions. This needs to be a regular part of training, as much as teaching any specific skill.

For Phoenix, training around our farm buildings is incredibly stressful. I can tell because his ears go flat, his tail goes down and he gets a frantic look in his eyes. Sure, we’re still training at home but the problem is cats. There are cats around the buildings. (For Phoenix, cats are Evil Incarnate.) He doesn’t know when a cat might appear. Maybe a cat is looking at him. Maybe two cats are looking at him. Being asked to focus on me and work heeling around invisible cats creates a great deal of stress in his mind. For him, I think cat stress might trump the noisiest, most congested show site we’ve ever been in.

I’ve been lax in working this "stress-proofing" and it showed at the state fair. Granted, the show pavilion wasn’t awash in cats but the mental muscles that allow him to shrug off stressors were out of shape and his performances did not sparkle like I want them to.

So last night we went out for a brief training session around the farm buildings. After a bit of gentle insistence, he would fetch a toy, tug, touch, bounce and give me short heeling sequences with happy attitude, even though I frequently had to call him back from attempted cat pursuit (of invisible cats, nonetheless, I swear this dog is going to make me insane). His body language gradually relaxed and I could see him start to mentally shift from obsessing about cats to thinking about how to get more steak. (Yep, last week’s leftovers were last night’s treats.)

My long-term goal is to eventually be able to take Phoenix into ground zero of the “cat zone” and have him work through several exercises with joy and focus without food or toys. He gets a little better each time we train around the farm buildings. My short-term goal is to show him he can overcome mental stress and be rewarded for behaviors I want (versus getting nothing for attempted pursuit of cats that might or might not even be there.) I am hoping this “cat therapy” will transfer to obedience trials where I am asking for higher levels of performance in more demanding classes.

Happy training!

Iowa State Fair

Phoenix and I went to the open show at the Iowa State Fair today. It was held in the show pavilion, which looks like this:

This is where they hold all the cattle shows at the state fair. Did I mention it was air conditioned? Awesome! I was pretty much the first person there. Imagine that. That's Earl and Shirlee at the table. They were the second and third people there. They were in charge, helped by a lot of members of the Des Moines OTC.

Phoenix actually did better in his Utility run than he did in Open. He found his go-out spot although he was a little tentative. We need to do about 10,000 more go-outs in different places to build that confidence. Directed jumping was solid. His articles and gloves were lovely, the moving stand for exam was great (the stand and exam were great, the return, well, not so much) and the flies got the better of him on signals. Apparently it's not possible to do signals if you have a fly on your paw. The farm dog has never seen a fly before.

Our Open run was just OK. We were both a little hot and grumpy by then and I had a chance to work through a couple of heeling and attitude things. The 4-H dog show was going on in the same arena and getting into the ring was a little hairy since 4-H kids are not known for paying attention to their dogs (not all of them, just the ones whose dogs want to eat/party with a malinois). So it was a lot like a real trial in that respect.

Renee and her husband Steve came all the way from KC for the dog show. When we were done, we all walked around and looked at a few things. It was too stinkin' hot to really "do" the fair. We gave up after checking out a few exhibit buildings. Did I mention they were not air conditioned? Only in Iowa will you find the livestock exhibition buildings that have AC but "cultural" buildings that don't.

Here's some of the culture, a sand sculpture with the theme "Star Boars." I thought it was hysterical - Obi Wan, Luke, Vader and Chewie as little pigs.

And you can't have Star Boars without Jabba the Hutt. He's piggy enough when he's the authentic version.

The state fair is a photographer's paradise. Unfortunately, today it was a crowded, steaming tropical paradise. Emphasis on tropical. I would have loved to take pictures of the butter cow and the biggest pumpkin (over 1,500 pounds, holy buckets, we have steers that weigh less!) but it was just too dang hot and crowded.

Preachin' to the choir

Who knew so many of you felt the same way about bra shopping?!

What a relief to know that I'm not the only woman at obedience and agility trials running around in a worn, tattered, gnawed bra that may have been a tug toy at some point, because we all A) HATE shopping for the darn things B) HATE paying good money for something that's rarely seen and C) HATE trying to find a new style because our old favorites have been clearanced out.

Amen, sister!

In other news, I spent yesterday helping my aunt clean out her house. Another house purge! She's downsizing and wanted me to have some things. I came home with boxes of Depression glass and antique kitchenware, all with a story - like the beautiful cream-colored china plates with a floral pattern my grandmother bought at the "dime store" because the (grain) threshing crew was coming and she wanted the men to have "big" plates to eat from. And the many, many, many Depression glass cups, bowls and saucers that came free in bags of "cereal." I asked if she meant Cheerios or Frosted Flakes. My aunt said, no, oatmeal. They must have eaten a lot of oatmeal. I hope I can remember all the stories.

Oh, one more story. My aunt gave me a small blue salt-glazed crock and said it's what my grandmother used to "color" their margarine in. Huh? I guess when margarine was first "invented" it was pure white and looked like lard. Who wanted to put lard on your biscuits? So when you bought it, you got a little package of orange coloring. You came home and pounded the coloring into the margarine until it turned yellow and looked like butter. Who knew?

(Phoenix just brought me a flip-flop. I have no idea why.)

Soon I'm off to Wally-world (is that the 2010 version of going to the dime store during the 1930s?) to get mulch for all the places in my flowerbeds I've torn up when transplanting things. The transplanting is going well, although I haven't ventured into the "telephone cable bed of doom" yet. 

Then cleaning out the van and getting ready for tomorrow, when Phoenix and I are going to the open dog show at the Iowa State Fair. It's really just a glorified fun match but how often can you get funnel cakes, cotton candy, corn dogs and all that wonderful stuff at a match!

(And here's the other flip-flop. What a good boy.)