2011, here we come!

Time to put my training goals for the new year in writing. What fun! I love this time of year, everything is new and fresh and possible and wonderful and dreams are just around the corner. 

I tend to set goals in terms of earning titles because title goals create a wonderful sub-set of training goals, which for me are a whole lot more fun, motivating, etc. than just saying “I want to get a UD”or whatever.

In order to get that UD, I need to thoroughly train and proof each exercise, train with friends who can help me with the proofing, train in a number of different sites to make sure Phoenix is generalizing the exercises and constantly evaluate his performances and figure out how to improve our teamwork while balancing precision with the element of “more funner.” (That's 2011's theme, MORE FUNNER!)

So these are my title goals for the new year:

• UD. I’ve picked the DeWitt, Iowa, obedience trial the first weekend of April as Phoenix and my Utility debut. Thank doG, the date is April 2. There would be something very wrong with debuting your green Utility dog on April 1. I mean, really, that’s just asking for trouble.

• UDX. This is a lofty goal to complete in 2011 and I’m not obsessed with it. It took my previous boys about a year or so to finish their UDXs. Except Jesse, who was my FIRST UDX, and he did it in 4 months/14 trials. (Jess was the exception to a lot of rules. He was mental. I miss him.) I don’t show in obedience every single weekend of my life (in spite of what the Farmer thinks) so we’ll get there when we get there.

I remember showing back in the days before the UDX existed. (Wow, I’m THAT old.) When you finished your UD and didn’t care about pursuing an OTCh., you just kept showing in Open and Utility for kicks as long as you wanted to. That's still what I do.

• OTCh. Same as above. Whenever. The joy is in the doing, not in the completing. To me, an OTCh. is a lifetime achievement, not something I expect to achieve in the first couple of years of showing.

• MXJ. We need a couple of legs. A couple 3? Maybe a couple 2? Maybe I need to go count ribbons? Maybe I need to not think about it and just wait until I find a certificate from the AKC totally mangled by the USPS in our mailbox. I swear, the Postal Service has something against my AKC title certificates. Mine arrived through 2010 in incredible states of mangled-ness.

• MACH. Same as the OTCh. I’ve never MACH’d a dog before so this is a brand new journey toward a lifetime achievement. I suspect it’s very much like an OTCh. in the respect that once you set your mind to it and believe it can happen, it’s not a matter of “if” but of “when.” So this probably isn’t an actual title goal for this year because I realistically doubt we can get 18 DQs in the next 12 months. I just don’t trial that much. So my goal would be better stated as “continue pursuing the MACH.”

Other odds and ends for 2011:

I’m very much looking forward to Malinois nationals in April in Valparaiso, Ind. My obedience club is hosting Joanne (sp?) Brettschneider for an obedience seminar this spring. And then there all the wonderful obedience and agility trials I always look forward to being a part of.

Given that gas prices go up another nickel or dime every time I turn around (so quit turning around), I’ll be choosing activities carefully this spring. Maybe more quality, less quantity.

My other non-resolution is better meal planning and more organized grocery shopping so I'm not stopping at the grocery store every single night just because I drive right by it on the way home from work. I spend entirely too much time thinking about what's for supper, so there's no excuse for always being out of something and needing to stop at the store.

Wishing you all a very happy and safe New Year's Eve!

Quote of the week

Yesterday I took the Belgians to see their chiropractor.

Dr. Fred worked on Phoenix's neck for quite a while. Then he said, "There. I put his head back on straight."

That would certainly explain a lot.

Phoenix's neck is routinely "out." Dr. Fred thought it was due to the heads-up style of heeling I teach. I thought about that for awhile. Then I thought about Nix's tugging style. He grabs the tug and whips his head back and forth in the "maligator death roll" while I hold on for dear life.

I'm thinking THAT would be more conducive to putting one's neck and spine out of alignment than a few minutes of trotting around with one's head tipped up. It's not like I ask him to heel for hours without any breaks.

Goal for 2011: keep tug sessions focused on TUGGING instead of THRASHING.

P.S. Thanks, Kathy, for the promise to bring Phoenix a cat. You are his new best friend.

Dashing through the snow

This video is very cute when accompanied by an instrumental arrangement of Jingle Bells.

You'll have to trust me on this one.

Because YouTube does NOT want me to post it that way. I don't know why. There are many mysteries in life. This is one of them.

Happy birthday, Skinny Little Dog!

Today is Phoenix’s 4th birthday! He sends happy birthday air snaps to his bros and sisters: Cayenne, Seeker, Joker, Ryder and Ida, who all live on the West Coast, and Passion, in Ohio.

Nix’s top 10 birthday present list, would be, in order:

1) a cat

2) a cat

3) a cat

4) a cat wearing a bitesuit

5) the Farmer wearing a bitesuit

6) for our UPS guy to stay and visit and quit running away so fast

7) dried and smoked ears from any variety of farm animals, including but not limited to pigs and cows

8) a pig in a bitesuit (oh dear, someone has drunk too many post-Christmas margaritas)

9) for my nephew Chase to stay longer and THROW THE BALL AGAIN

10) the elimination of group exercises from obedience trials

Where the heck did 4 years go? Seems like I just brought him home before the Ice Storm of the Century and he slept in bed with me and the Farmer because it was about 40 degrees in the house because the power was out for a week.

Here are some pictures of the Skinny Little Dog.

7 weeks old
(Photo by Catherine Shields)

10 weeks old
(Photo by Sheryl McCormick)

2 years old
(Photo by Marsha Kingsley)

3 1/2 years old
Summer of 2010
(Photo by me)

Christmas delayed

Thanks to the weather, my mom and I decided to postpone our family Christmas until tomorrow. She and her sister are coming up to our place and since it's a 100 mile drive, we decided to give the road crews one more day to clean up the Christmas Eve snow. We ended up with 7-8 inches, which made a nice mess of our hilly roads.

The Farmer and I have had a quiet Christmas Day. I decided to bake myself a present -  a pecan pie. That is my absolute favorite-est pie. French silk comes in a close second.

You can't go wrong with a pecan pie: butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, corn syrup and pecans. What's not to love?

I'd been planning this pie for a while. The crust posed an ethical question. Homemade or store bought? I learned how to bake pies when I was in 4-H and I made an awesome pie crust. I also hated every every frickin' minute of it. Nothing raises your blood pressure like mixing and rolling out a crust that is so tender and flaky it disintegrates when you try to transfer it from the pastry cloth to the pie pan. So it really wasn't that much of a dilemma.

Although my mother might disown me. She takes great pride in her pie crusts. Of course, she learned to make them back in the day when lard was the main ingredient. I stood in the grocery store and thought about buying lard so I could make a homemade crust. I thought about it for exactly three seconds. I already have a heart condition. Buying a big ol' chunk of lard for a pie crust I didn't want to make in the first place sounded like a really unhealthy idea.

So I went to the freezer section and bought a two-pack of frozen pie crusts. As far as I'm concerned, the crust is just there to keep the filling from getting away. As long as it does that, who cares about anything else.

I felt vindicated when we were at the Farmer's folks' house last night for Christmas and while I was putting food away in their fridge, I spotted a box of store-bought pie crusts. Since the Farmer's mom is an absolutely wonderful cook, I decided anything that was good enough for her was good enough for me.

Ahh, pecan nirvana. Ignore the broken chunk of crust. It was so delicate and flaky it crumbled when I put my big fat thumb on it. Yeah. Something like that.

Let it snow!

We're having a very snowy Christmas Eve day. The initial prediction of 1 to 3 inches quickly mushroomed to 6 to 9 inches. The Belgians thought it was great fun.

An invitation to play.

Much running amuck ensued.

What are you lookin' at?

Never seen an abominable snow Tervuren before?

I'm worried Santa won't be able 

to bring my Christmas cat.

(Phoenix, darling, sweetheart, baby dog, 

you are so NOT getting a Christmas cat.)

Jamie settled down for a long winter's nap.

At 11:30 a.m.

But who's counting.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Evil psycho killer bunny

One evening last winter, Phoenix was looking out the living room window and pitching a fit. He was bouncing up and down with his front paws on the sill. His hackles were up. His tail was stiff. His ears were crossing (that’s never good). He was making snarly little yodeling noises. He was having an absolute Malinois meltdown.

I was afeared to look out the window. The way he was carrying on, Freddy Kruger, Jason and any number of Steven King’s demons might be staring back at me.

I put a hand on Phoenix’s withers. He was vibrating. Between snarly yodels, he smashed his nose to the window glass and showed his teeth. The next step was spontaneous combustion.

I looked out the window.

The snow had drifted almost up to the base of the window. There, perched atop the drift, sitting silently in the winter moonlight was . . .

. . . a furry little bunny. Just sitting there. Wiggling its nose. Not knowing it was separated from Malinois doom by only inches.

Thus began Phoenix’s rabbit obsession.

It’s worse than his cat obsession. Which is saying quite a lot.

The cat obsession is getting somewhat better due to Winnie The Cat’s move into the machine shed by the house for the winter and Phoenix’s near daily cat therapy sessions. More on that later.

So here comes Christmas and Liz gives Phoenix one of those Skineez toys, the kind without any stuffing. It's a rabbit.


Darling. Or not.

It looks kind of stoned.

I suppose if you spent a lot of time dangling out of Malinois jaws you might look so good either.

Phoenix loves his bunny. The bunny is an excellent indoor exercise program since simply the sight of it causes spinning, bouncing, leaping and tooth clacking. Humans should wear protective gear when Phoenix and bunny are united. It might be safer just to leave the house.

The Squeaky Ball From Hell is in the box next to the bunny. The box is atop the fridge.

It's all good.