Last night Phoenix and I were working on heeling in the back yard. One thing I've been doing to reward for sustained effort on heeling is releasing to a toy that's laying on the ground or in a nearby lawn chair. He races to get the toy, brings it to me and we play. This is NOT a formal retrieve.
Then I drop the toy and we heel again, maybe for a few feet feet, maybe for a few minutes. Sometimes I release after a halt, sometimes during a successful speed change, sometimes after a turn, sometimes during a long straight stretch.
The first toy I used was his french linen tug. He loves his tug. I love his tug. It's very tough and finger friendly.
Then I decided to do an experiment. Since putting some food back into our training, I've been filling a little treat bag, the kind with the drawstring closure. As part of the reward, I throw the bag, Phoenix retrieves it, we tug briefly, then he gets his cookie. So it's not just shove a cookie in his mouth and done. I definitely want to keep play a big part of the picture.
I left the tug on the ground and put the treat bag next to it. Well, duh, that was a no-brainer. Of course he brought me the treat bag the next time I released him.
Then I added a tennis ball on a rope. The tug and the treat bag (which still had food in it) were still on the ground. The ball on a rope was next to them. I truly do not care which toy he brings - it's totally his choice.
On the next release, Phoenix raced to the pile and grabbed the ball on the rope. Well. Surprise. He chose a ball over food. We tugged and I put the ball on a rope back into the pile.
Next, I added a single tennis ball, the kind that squeaks. We heeled and I released. Phoenix didn't hesitate. He grabbed the ball and brought it to me, squeaking madly.
I thought maybe he was just picking the "new" toy each time but for the next 3 releases, he brought the squeaky ball. Then I put the squeaky ball on top of the patio table and covered it up. We heeled, I released, he ran to the pile . . . and stopped . . . and sniffed . . . and ran around the yard, sniffing and hunting for that squeaky ball even though two other toys and a bag of treats were available.
Finally, I grabbed one of the toys, he gave up his hunt and came to play with me. We played with the ball on a rope and the tug and I had him retrieve the treat bag a couple of times. Then I gave him the squeaky ball. It was obviously his toy of choice and it even outranked food.
I don't mind my dog having a "favorite" toy but I want him to engage with me, no matter what toy I have. It really surprised me he would ignore food in favor of a ball. Since the squeaky ball is clearly his favorite, I'll reward with it on a somewhat limited basis. I don't want him to become so obsessed with it that he doesn't think he can play with anything else. Whatever rewards you use, you "build." If you use only food, the dog's enjoyment of toy play will decrease and if you only use one particular toy, the dog may soon lose interest in other toys.
The Farmer, in his eternal wisdom, watched this whole thing and wanted to know "What's wrong with that dog!" that he would choose a ball over food. Obviously he wasn't raised by Shelties!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Know when to say when
On Thursday of this week, Phoenix and I are going to jump back into the Open/Utility rings after our summer off. We're entered in 3 days of a local 5 day cluster.
I honestly don't expect all of our training issues to have been miraculously resolved in the last two months but I do feel much better about the direction our training is going.
In keeping with my training goal of focusing on what we CAN do this week, not what we CAN'T, here's a list of how to know it's time to end a training session. Yes, I have ended a training session at one time or another because of every single one of these reasons. (Some are while training at home, others while training away from home or at a motel with friends during a trial weekend.)
I didn't say they were GOOD reasons. Well, at the time, they sounded like very good reasons. And some of them were. It's probably a wonder Phoenix has gotten as far as he has.
• Your fingers are bleeding and you need a band-aid(s).
• You have a split lip.
• You ran out of cheese because you ate too much of it yourself.
• Your dumbbell broke.
• The gloves are shredded.
• The toy got ripped in half.
• The toy got stuck in the limb of a tree (really, who threw it up there?)
• The neighbor was walking up the lane.
• The neighbor's dog was walking up the lane.
• A skunk was walking up the lane.
• The Farmer was yelling out the window "YOURMOTHERISONTHEPHONE."
• The wind keeps blowing the ring gates over.
• You were tired of listening to your older dog howling.
• You can't stand getting one more hole in your shirt.
• A lightning strike.
• It started to rain.
• It started to snow.
• There was a tornado on the ground.
• The pizza came.
• Your dog is so obsessed with a nearby cat that he is basically dysfunctional.
• You are so hungry you are basically dysfunctional.
• Friends with margaritas arrived.
• The Farmer is yelling out the window "MICHELEISONTHEPHONE!"
• "NCIS" starts in 3 minutes.
• A new Harry Potter book arrived that afternoon.
• The wind is blowing the jumps across the yard.
• Things were going so well you decided to quit while you were ahead.
• Things were going so badly you decided to quit while you were ahead.
Happy training, everyone!
I honestly don't expect all of our training issues to have been miraculously resolved in the last two months but I do feel much better about the direction our training is going.
In keeping with my training goal of focusing on what we CAN do this week, not what we CAN'T, here's a list of how to know it's time to end a training session. Yes, I have ended a training session at one time or another because of every single one of these reasons. (Some are while training at home, others while training away from home or at a motel with friends during a trial weekend.)
I didn't say they were GOOD reasons. Well, at the time, they sounded like very good reasons. And some of them were. It's probably a wonder Phoenix has gotten as far as he has.
• Your fingers are bleeding and you need a band-aid(s).
• You have a split lip.
• You ran out of cheese because you ate too much of it yourself.
• Your dumbbell broke.
• The gloves are shredded.
• The toy got ripped in half.
• The toy got stuck in the limb of a tree (really, who threw it up there?)
• The neighbor was walking up the lane.
• The neighbor's dog was walking up the lane.
• A skunk was walking up the lane.
• The Farmer was yelling out the window "YOURMOTHERISONTHEPHONE."
• The wind keeps blowing the ring gates over.
• You were tired of listening to your older dog howling.
• You can't stand getting one more hole in your shirt.
• A lightning strike.
• It started to rain.
• It started to snow.
• There was a tornado on the ground.
• The pizza came.
• Your dog is so obsessed with a nearby cat that he is basically dysfunctional.
• You are so hungry you are basically dysfunctional.
• Friends with margaritas arrived.
• The Farmer is yelling out the window "MICHELEISONTHEPHONE!"
• "NCIS" starts in 3 minutes.
• A new Harry Potter book arrived that afternoon.
• The wind is blowing the jumps across the yard.
• Things were going so well you decided to quit while you were ahead.
• Things were going so badly you decided to quit while you were ahead.
Happy training, everyone!
Friday, August 26, 2011
I can't drive 55 . . . seriously
Between the first Coralville exit coming from the west off Interstate 80 and the building where I teach classes, about 6 miles to the north, the speed limit changes 327 times.
Maybe that's an exaggeration.
But it changes a lot. From 65 mph on I-80 (yeah right, like anybody does THAT), to 35 through all the lights by the mall to 55 mph on Hwy. 965 north of Coralville (good luck with that at the 5:30 p.m. rush hour, more like 15 mph), then you hit the speed limit nightmare of North Liberty. Or the policeman's paradise. I guess it depends which end of the radar gun you're behind.
Last spring, I was behind the wrong end and made an $80 donation to the City of North Liberty. I hope they spent it wisely.
"Ma'm, do you know what the speed limit is here?" the officer asked.
Well, I think it's pretty obvious I either didn't know or didn't care. You'd think policemen would get really tired of asking rhetorical questions.
I was out in the middle of the country, north of town. I was surrounded by cornfields.
"Um? 55?"
It was 35. He clocked me at 48. I thought that was pretty good, given that I thought it was 55. I thought I was safely 7 miles under the limit.
He didn't see it that way and wrote me a ticket.
Sigh. I bitched and moaned and wrote a check that would have paid entries for an agility or obedience weekend.
I am now officially the World Most Paranoid Driver when it comes to that stretch between the north city limits of North Liberty and SueAnn's building. The speed limit changes at least 36 times in that stretch of a couple of miles. It makes me crazy. It's really hard to drive 35 mph when you're going through the middle of nowhere. And the North Liberty police know this.
Cutting over to I-380 on the way home isn't any better. That street (Penn St.?) is under construction. It was under construction last spring. It's still under construction. It looks like it may be under construction until the end of time. It has signs for speed limit 35 mph immediately followed by signs that say construction zone speed limit 25 mph.
None of that matters because you're swerving back and forth between orange cones so much and switching from one side of the road to the other that you can't accelerate past 10 mph. Then suddenly - it ends and you're faced with a wide open road. I have absolutely no idea what the speed limit is there.
Maybe that's an exaggeration.
But it changes a lot. From 65 mph on I-80 (yeah right, like anybody does THAT), to 35 through all the lights by the mall to 55 mph on Hwy. 965 north of Coralville (good luck with that at the 5:30 p.m. rush hour, more like 15 mph), then you hit the speed limit nightmare of North Liberty. Or the policeman's paradise. I guess it depends which end of the radar gun you're behind.
Last spring, I was behind the wrong end and made an $80 donation to the City of North Liberty. I hope they spent it wisely.
"Ma'm, do you know what the speed limit is here?" the officer asked.
Well, I think it's pretty obvious I either didn't know or didn't care. You'd think policemen would get really tired of asking rhetorical questions.
I was out in the middle of the country, north of town. I was surrounded by cornfields.
"Um? 55?"
It was 35. He clocked me at 48. I thought that was pretty good, given that I thought it was 55. I thought I was safely 7 miles under the limit.
He didn't see it that way and wrote me a ticket.
Sigh. I bitched and moaned and wrote a check that would have paid entries for an agility or obedience weekend.
I am now officially the World Most Paranoid Driver when it comes to that stretch between the north city limits of North Liberty and SueAnn's building. The speed limit changes at least 36 times in that stretch of a couple of miles. It makes me crazy. It's really hard to drive 35 mph when you're going through the middle of nowhere. And the North Liberty police know this.
Cutting over to I-380 on the way home isn't any better. That street (Penn St.?) is under construction. It was under construction last spring. It's still under construction. It looks like it may be under construction until the end of time. It has signs for speed limit 35 mph immediately followed by signs that say construction zone speed limit 25 mph.
None of that matters because you're swerving back and forth between orange cones so much and switching from one side of the road to the other that you can't accelerate past 10 mph. Then suddenly - it ends and you're faced with a wide open road. I have absolutely no idea what the speed limit is there.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Happily ever after
Twenty years ago today, the Farmer and I got married. I meant to scan a picture from our wedding album to post today but like so many other things, it didn't get done. Phoenix got worked last night, though. You have to have your priorities.
We're not having a big celebration or anything. In fact, I'm working late tonight and will probably get carry-out pizza for supper. We might get away this weekend for a nice dinner out. Maybe. If the Farmer isn't baling hay.
I drug our wedding video out last night. Wow. We were SKINNY back then! The Farmer asked if I would still fit in my wedding dress. Maybe . . . if you didn't try to button up the back. We both had more hair back then, too. Mine was long, over-the-shoulder and very blonde. The Farmer's was . . . there.
In the last two decades, we've survived the straightline windstorm that trashed our farm in 1998 and the day in 2007 when the Farmer left baby Phoenix loose in the house all afternoon. We've had calves in the basement, bats in the bedroom and dogs everywhere. We know each other well enough to know any sentence that starts with "Honey? Can you . . .?" is going to elicit The Hairy Eyeball, followed by doing whatever is requested. This includes pulling my van out of the mud, pulling my van out of the snow and explaining (with limited patience) that the tire BLEW OUT and no, I can't just air it up and drive home. We've buried a parent together, put up with each other's eccentric relatives and lived through multiple home improvement projects. He's learned that letting the dogs out needs to be followed by letting the dogs back in. I've learned how to help back the cornplanter into the machine shed without putting a dent in the back wall. More or less.
No wonder his hair is falling out.
We're not having a big celebration or anything. In fact, I'm working late tonight and will probably get carry-out pizza for supper. We might get away this weekend for a nice dinner out. Maybe. If the Farmer isn't baling hay.
I drug our wedding video out last night. Wow. We were SKINNY back then! The Farmer asked if I would still fit in my wedding dress. Maybe . . . if you didn't try to button up the back. We both had more hair back then, too. Mine was long, over-the-shoulder and very blonde. The Farmer's was . . . there.
In the last two decades, we've survived the straightline windstorm that trashed our farm in 1998 and the day in 2007 when the Farmer left baby Phoenix loose in the house all afternoon. We've had calves in the basement, bats in the bedroom and dogs everywhere. We know each other well enough to know any sentence that starts with "Honey? Can you . . .?" is going to elicit The Hairy Eyeball, followed by doing whatever is requested. This includes pulling my van out of the mud, pulling my van out of the snow and explaining (with limited patience) that the tire BLEW OUT and no, I can't just air it up and drive home. We've buried a parent together, put up with each other's eccentric relatives and lived through multiple home improvement projects. He's learned that letting the dogs out needs to be followed by letting the dogs back in. I've learned how to help back the cornplanter into the machine shed without putting a dent in the back wall. More or less.
No wonder his hair is falling out.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
More things I learned this summer
School started here today. Does this mean summer is officially over? Autumn doesn't start, technically, until Sept. 23. I guess it's summer until Labor Day, THEN it's autumn, no matter what the calendar says.
Here are a few more random thought about things Phoenix and I have learned this summer.
• There’s nothing wrong with using food in training, but there are frequently a LOT of things wrong in the WAY people use it and I was a prime example. I used it as a crutch for too long and when it was gone, my dog was dysfunctional through no fault of his own. I need to use it in such a way that my dog does not learn to expect food for every single thing he does. I had unintentionally created this unrealistic expectation. No wonder my poor dog was disillusioned in the ring. I want him to understand sometimes he might get cookies and sometimes he might not get cookies but my expectations for, and enforcement of, his behavior never changes.
• One of the biggest problems with food training is that it’s so DAMNED easy to keep plugging food in your dog for every little thing, even when he’s done nothing in particular to earn it. Or you’re giving the same reward for a slow sloppy sit as you did for a fast, tight sit. The dog probably has NO idea why he’s getting the food half the time. I know because I’ve done this! OMG! Make me stop! Imagine that food is a gold nugget. It’s going to be given ONLY in exchange for something of extremely high value that the dog delivers.
• Letting go of the cookies can be as big a deal for the trainer as it is for the dog. It’s been a whole new experience for me to train using little to no food during a session. Yes, I have put some food back into our training but no where near the previous level. Oddly enough, I think Phoenix finds it MORE rewarding now, since it's become somewhat of a precious commodity for him.
• The dog has to produce the effort before you produce the reward. Leave the food in your bag. Go out on the training floor. Do whatever. Did the dog make a genuine effort to be right? (“Effort” is going to be defined differently for different dogs.) Was it worth a gold nugget? Then by all means, go and have one!
• It’s easy to let performance criteria slide when the food leaves the picture and the behavior slips a little. Does my dog need a mild correction or does he need more training to understand how to do his job? “Good enough” is only good enough if you won’t be upset by the same behavior in the ring after you’ve paid a $25 entry fee, put $3.50/gallon gas in your car and driven for 3 hours. Having a clear picture in my head of how I want things to look makes it easier to stay focused and not settle for less.
• Exercises can be fun without any food at all. Have you ever goosed your dog in the butt as he runs away from you on a retrieve exercise? Not to grab or pinch, just an open handed goose that comes from directly behind as the dog is leaving. This drives Phoenix insane! He bunny-tucks his butt underneath him, his tail goes straight up and he drives out harder for his dumbbell or glove. He thinks the butt-gooser is going to get him. Actually, I think he kind of LIKES it. He's getting faster though, and I can't always goose him quick enough. Which is actually the whole point.
• Silence needs to be a GOOD thing. It’s an easy habit to chatter happily at your dog when he’s doing well, then lapse into stony silence when something goes wrong. If your dog believes silence = oh-crap-I’m-wrong, can you imagine what he thinks during exercises in the ring when you’re only speaking to give commands? This is something I really, really, really need to get better at.
• Hindsight being what it is, I can now look back at the problems Phoenix and I had in the obedience ring during the spring and early summer and understand them better. There was no single “This is what you’re doing wrong” solution. It was a combination of things - lack of understanding, lack of confidence, lack of understanding “have to,” lack of drive for “want to” and lack of ability to see ME as the primary reinforcer.
• Things have improved over the summer but I know we haven’t “fixed” everything in two months. I’m looking forward to fall — my absolute favorite season — and continued training and limited trialing to see what’s working and what’s not.
Here are a few more random thought about things Phoenix and I have learned this summer.
• There’s nothing wrong with using food in training, but there are frequently a LOT of things wrong in the WAY people use it and I was a prime example. I used it as a crutch for too long and when it was gone, my dog was dysfunctional through no fault of his own. I need to use it in such a way that my dog does not learn to expect food for every single thing he does. I had unintentionally created this unrealistic expectation. No wonder my poor dog was disillusioned in the ring. I want him to understand sometimes he might get cookies and sometimes he might not get cookies but my expectations for, and enforcement of, his behavior never changes.
• One of the biggest problems with food training is that it’s so DAMNED easy to keep plugging food in your dog for every little thing, even when he’s done nothing in particular to earn it. Or you’re giving the same reward for a slow sloppy sit as you did for a fast, tight sit. The dog probably has NO idea why he’s getting the food half the time. I know because I’ve done this! OMG! Make me stop! Imagine that food is a gold nugget. It’s going to be given ONLY in exchange for something of extremely high value that the dog delivers.
• Letting go of the cookies can be as big a deal for the trainer as it is for the dog. It’s been a whole new experience for me to train using little to no food during a session. Yes, I have put some food back into our training but no where near the previous level. Oddly enough, I think Phoenix finds it MORE rewarding now, since it's become somewhat of a precious commodity for him.
• The dog has to produce the effort before you produce the reward. Leave the food in your bag. Go out on the training floor. Do whatever. Did the dog make a genuine effort to be right? (“Effort” is going to be defined differently for different dogs.) Was it worth a gold nugget? Then by all means, go and have one!
• It’s easy to let performance criteria slide when the food leaves the picture and the behavior slips a little. Does my dog need a mild correction or does he need more training to understand how to do his job? “Good enough” is only good enough if you won’t be upset by the same behavior in the ring after you’ve paid a $25 entry fee, put $3.50/gallon gas in your car and driven for 3 hours. Having a clear picture in my head of how I want things to look makes it easier to stay focused and not settle for less.
• Exercises can be fun without any food at all. Have you ever goosed your dog in the butt as he runs away from you on a retrieve exercise? Not to grab or pinch, just an open handed goose that comes from directly behind as the dog is leaving. This drives Phoenix insane! He bunny-tucks his butt underneath him, his tail goes straight up and he drives out harder for his dumbbell or glove. He thinks the butt-gooser is going to get him. Actually, I think he kind of LIKES it. He's getting faster though, and I can't always goose him quick enough. Which is actually the whole point.
• Silence needs to be a GOOD thing. It’s an easy habit to chatter happily at your dog when he’s doing well, then lapse into stony silence when something goes wrong. If your dog believes silence = oh-crap-I’m-wrong, can you imagine what he thinks during exercises in the ring when you’re only speaking to give commands? This is something I really, really, really need to get better at.
• Hindsight being what it is, I can now look back at the problems Phoenix and I had in the obedience ring during the spring and early summer and understand them better. There was no single “This is what you’re doing wrong” solution. It was a combination of things - lack of understanding, lack of confidence, lack of understanding “have to,” lack of drive for “want to” and lack of ability to see ME as the primary reinforcer.
• Things have improved over the summer but I know we haven’t “fixed” everything in two months. I’m looking forward to fall — my absolute favorite season — and continued training and limited trialing to see what’s working and what’s not.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Moo - the rest of the story
I stand corrected. The Farmer informs me it was not a 1,300 pound steer. It was not quite market ready so more like 1,000 or 1,100 pounds. Silly me.
He buried the head and hide. The guts went out in a field for enjoyment by the local coyotes.
The knife thing puzzled me, too, since we have a number of fairly decent sized kitchen knives that surely would have been more useful. All he had to do was come back in the house to get one. However, they ARE kitchen knives with thin blades and not really meant for dealing with food "on the hoof," so to speak. Having dealt with the Farmer's pocket knife before — nearly running it through the washer when he forgets to take it out of his jeans — he was probably better off using it as it's a pretty sturdy item.
We frequently have beef custom butchered for people who want to buy a half or quarter of a steer to stock their freezers. On our end, this means loading the steer into a trailer and driving it to the locker, where it is humanely killed and then processed into roasts, steaks, hamburger, etc. according to the buyers wants and wishes.
In this case, given the untimely demise of the steer and the slightly questionable hygienic practices under which it was dressed, we'll be keeping the meat for ourselves. Although it only hung outdoors for a couple of hours, if the quality has been reduced, like the Farmer told Phoenix, "You might get a lot of hamburger for supper." This would be the ultimate break for a raw-feeder!
Okay, the weekend's matches and the state fair report.
Overall, things were improved. Not perfect. Not totally brilliant. But better. And that's what I wanted - to do our runs with no food and no toys and see that he understood his job better than he did last May and June. Both Saturday and Sunday's matches brought better attention and, to my great delight, he was trying to work his fronts, didn't give me any walk-ins and did lovely go-outs in spite of people hanging over the railing above the Utility ring at the state fair.
I noticed a couple of things - the sound of silence is a problem. I have worked (obviously not hard enough) to help Phoenix understand that me being quiet is GOOD thing and it means he's right. We need more work on that and I need to shut up already.
The eternal quest for balance between formal and informal training continues. I do not want to drill my dog through exercise after exercise day after day, complete with formal set ups, fronts and finishes on every exercise. This may produce qualifying results but it will not produce a happy attitude. IT'S BORING.
On the other paw, Phoenix occasionally NEEDS to see these exercises from start to finish in training as I expect him to do them in the ring. Informal training is fun and good and you won't ruin your dog by using treats and toys. That keeps obedience work from disentegrating into a pit of boredom and monotony . . . but . . . at least now and then, I feel I need to put everything together and ask for it several times in a row so he understands he has to perform ALL the behaviors, not just bits and pieces of them here and there. Train like you show, show like you train. Some trainers claim they never do formal run-throughs except at trials. Wow. Okay. Glad that works for you. Know your dog.
When the match was over Sunday, I walked around the state fair for a little bit. Went to the Varied Industries Building and got a 2011 Iowa State Cyclones football poster to annoy my co-workers. We are located just 30 minutes from the University of Iowa so right in the heart of Hawkeye country where Iowa State's cardinal and gold are not the predominant colors. It looks wonderful on my cubicle wall.
Then I checked out the new Jacobsen exhibit center, which is a fabulous indoor horse show arena where the Des Moines club will be holding its agility trials beginning this fall. It's amazingly fabulous. Did I mention that? Can't wait to show there.
I wandered through the 4-H exhibits building and relived my glory days as a Louisa County 4-H'er, did some people watching (always hysterical - you truly see EVERYTHING at a state fair). Would liked to have spent more time wandering around, there is SO MUCH to see, but I'd been up since 4 a.m., not to mention loosing several hours of sleep before that.
So I ate a deep fried Twinkie and headed home. Now before you start rolling your eyes and wretching in disgust, remember, the Iowa State Fair is ALL ABOUT food on a stick. I could have got deep fried butter on a stick! A Twinkie was practically health food by comparison! My cardiologist would be so proud.
It was actually pretty good, providing you like Twinkies to start with. I do. They're a guilty pleasure. My grandma used to have them at her house and we'd eat them together when I was a little girl. The fried version is dipped in a sweet batter, kind of like pancake batter, and fried, then served with powdered sugar. It ends up tasting like a extra doughy version of the original spongecake.
He buried the head and hide. The guts went out in a field for enjoyment by the local coyotes.
The knife thing puzzled me, too, since we have a number of fairly decent sized kitchen knives that surely would have been more useful. All he had to do was come back in the house to get one. However, they ARE kitchen knives with thin blades and not really meant for dealing with food "on the hoof," so to speak. Having dealt with the Farmer's pocket knife before — nearly running it through the washer when he forgets to take it out of his jeans — he was probably better off using it as it's a pretty sturdy item.
We frequently have beef custom butchered for people who want to buy a half or quarter of a steer to stock their freezers. On our end, this means loading the steer into a trailer and driving it to the locker, where it is humanely killed and then processed into roasts, steaks, hamburger, etc. according to the buyers wants and wishes.
In this case, given the untimely demise of the steer and the slightly questionable hygienic practices under which it was dressed, we'll be keeping the meat for ourselves. Although it only hung outdoors for a couple of hours, if the quality has been reduced, like the Farmer told Phoenix, "You might get a lot of hamburger for supper." This would be the ultimate break for a raw-feeder!
Okay, the weekend's matches and the state fair report.
Overall, things were improved. Not perfect. Not totally brilliant. But better. And that's what I wanted - to do our runs with no food and no toys and see that he understood his job better than he did last May and June. Both Saturday and Sunday's matches brought better attention and, to my great delight, he was trying to work his fronts, didn't give me any walk-ins and did lovely go-outs in spite of people hanging over the railing above the Utility ring at the state fair.
I noticed a couple of things - the sound of silence is a problem. I have worked (obviously not hard enough) to help Phoenix understand that me being quiet is GOOD thing and it means he's right. We need more work on that and I need to shut up already.
The eternal quest for balance between formal and informal training continues. I do not want to drill my dog through exercise after exercise day after day, complete with formal set ups, fronts and finishes on every exercise. This may produce qualifying results but it will not produce a happy attitude. IT'S BORING.
On the other paw, Phoenix occasionally NEEDS to see these exercises from start to finish in training as I expect him to do them in the ring. Informal training is fun and good and you won't ruin your dog by using treats and toys. That keeps obedience work from disentegrating into a pit of boredom and monotony . . . but . . . at least now and then, I feel I need to put everything together and ask for it several times in a row so he understands he has to perform ALL the behaviors, not just bits and pieces of them here and there. Train like you show, show like you train. Some trainers claim they never do formal run-throughs except at trials. Wow. Okay. Glad that works for you. Know your dog.
When the match was over Sunday, I walked around the state fair for a little bit. Went to the Varied Industries Building and got a 2011 Iowa State Cyclones football poster to annoy my co-workers. We are located just 30 minutes from the University of Iowa so right in the heart of Hawkeye country where Iowa State's cardinal and gold are not the predominant colors. It looks wonderful on my cubicle wall.
Then I checked out the new Jacobsen exhibit center, which is a fabulous indoor horse show arena where the Des Moines club will be holding its agility trials beginning this fall. It's amazingly fabulous. Did I mention that? Can't wait to show there.
I wandered through the 4-H exhibits building and relived my glory days as a Louisa County 4-H'er, did some people watching (always hysterical - you truly see EVERYTHING at a state fair). Would liked to have spent more time wandering around, there is SO MUCH to see, but I'd been up since 4 a.m., not to mention loosing several hours of sleep before that.
So I ate a deep fried Twinkie and headed home. Now before you start rolling your eyes and wretching in disgust, remember, the Iowa State Fair is ALL ABOUT food on a stick. I could have got deep fried butter on a stick! A Twinkie was practically health food by comparison! My cardiologist would be so proud.
It was actually pretty good, providing you like Twinkies to start with. I do. They're a guilty pleasure. My grandma used to have them at her house and we'd eat them together when I was a little girl. The fried version is dipped in a sweet batter, kind of like pancake batter, and fried, then served with powdered sugar. It ends up tasting like a extra doughy version of the original spongecake.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
You might be a redneck if . . .
. . . you married a man who can field dress a 1,300 pound steer with a pocket knife.
At 3 a.m.
By pickup headlights.
Seriously.
I woke up about 2 a.m. this morning to the sound of the Farmer going outside. This in itself is not alarming. Life in the country means a certain amount of nocturnal prowling. The Farmer and I have gotten up at odd and sundry hours to check on cows having calves, to double check gates and to hastily secure barn and machine shed doors when wild weather blows in.
I rolled over and went back to sleep. Within minutes, the Farmer was back. I could hear him banging around in the basement, then the sound of the basement door slamming as he left again. Whatever.
After a brief interlude, the pickup went roaring down the lane. Hmm. Curious. But I was getting up in 2 1/2 hours to go to the state fair and since the night before had been interrupted by a 4 a.m. calving, I really didn't think it was necessary to loose two good nights' sleep in a row. Whatever the crisis was, unless I got a personal invitation, he could keep it to himself.
Pretty soon, I could hear a tractor in high gear coming down the road. It had to be the Farmer, returning from another farm, having traded pickup for tractor. Really, who else would be driving a tractor in road gear at 2:30 a.m. Sure enough, it throttled down at the end of the lane, turned in, then opened up again, coming up the lane and past the house to the barn.
Another pickup roared in behind it. Okay. NOW I got out of bed. Oddly enough, Jamie slept through the whole thing, confirming my suspicion that his hearing really IS gone and he's not just faking it. Phoenix accompanied me from window to window, as I watched the Farmer's brother jump out of his pickup, climb the fence and disappear into the darkness of the steer yard.
Enough cloak and dagger. I was tired. I was getting up in 2 hours. I went back to bed and tried not to listen to the sounds of a tractor and occasional disjointed yelling.
Then I went outside this morning and in the misty light of pre-dawn, saw the loader tractor parked in front of the machine shed, bucked raised, with an approximately 1,300 pound steer, neatly field dressed, hanging by its hind hooves from a chain looped around the bucket.
WTF?
The Farmer was AWOL. (It turned out, he'd been sleeping in his pickup, being not exactly clean enough to come back to bed after the night's adventure, and completely missed me leaving for the state fair at 5 a.m.) I went to the state fair (a post in itself) and didn't get the whole story until I got home this afternoon to find the barn yard returned to a state of normalcy that did not look like something out of a Steven King novel.
Having been a cattleman's wife for 20 years, the two things that strike terror into their hearts are A) cattle running en masse through fences and B) cattle "getting over on their back."
This was a case of the latter.
The steer in question had "gotten over on its back," meaning it had laid down and due to a slight slope in the ground, literally hadn't been able to get up. Unfortunately, due to the way cattle are constructed, that leaves a lot of weight pressing on their lungs, they can't breathe and it's slow death by suffocation.
The Farmer — who only hears about 50 percent of the things I say to him — heard, from our bedroom, which is maybe 75-100 yards away from the steer yard, the sound of bovine distress in the middle of the night. I heard nothing. Maybe I need MY hearing checked.
He ran out to investigate and sure enough, a steer had gotten over on its back. Its fate was sealed. You can't just smack them on the butt and they get up and all is well. The Farmer ran back to the house, got his pocket knife and cut the animal's throat to end its suffering. Then he called his brother, who lives about 10 minutes away, and the two of them hung it by its heels from the loader bucket and field dressed the beast with their pocket knives. In the dark.
I feel compelled to insert a Crocodile Dundee quote here, at the risk of dating myself. All you children of the '80s will remember "That's not a knife, THIS is a knife!" Okay. Back to the story.
This morning, they called the local locker who always processes our meat to come and get it, but the folks who run the locker were out of town on vacation. So then they called the local grocery store (the Brother is conveniently married to a part owner of said grocery store) to see if they could temporarily store the meat in the grocery store's coolers. Yes, but it was still going to have to be roughly butchered since a dressed out steer is really not much smaller than a steer on the hoof. About the only thing missing was the head, hide and guts.
The Farmer and his brother, with their pocket knives, and a fellow from the meat department of the grocery store, with a bone cutter, finished butchering the carcass, wrapped it in plastic and hauled it to town where it is now resting in peace. Err . . . pieces.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)