Another Day, a Little More Hope

Okay, I'm less whiney today.

We are starting agility class today. It's beginning agility. The instructor couldn't talk the owner of the facility into advanced or intermediate. We're a little beyond beginning, but any chance to hit the equipment helps. Besides, I am a clutzy idiot, so any work with basic "don't trip over yourself while signalling the dog backwards with the wrong hand way to late for her to make the obstical" helps.

There was the standard problem of Weasel's obsession with the instructor's dog. The instructor's dog is also known as "the Idol dog" because of Weasel's obsession. The instructor leaves the dog running loose in the field we are working in, and Weasel spends the entire lesson staring at the dog and bouncing up and down, while the idol dog finds tennis balls and lures people into throwing them for her. It wasn't at all helped by the little girl who spent the entire class playing with the Idol dog, throwing balls, running around with her and making squealy noises. I kind of wanted to bite her myself. It wasn't the child's fault, though. I was at the point where I was trying to think of a way to quietly sneak out of class because it was such an impossible situation.

However, the instructor realized the problem and eventually caught the dog and kept her on leash, so I was able to get a little work out of Weasel. She did the teeter beautifully, kept missing somewhere in the middle of the weaves, did the tunnel fine, did the table fine, did the jumps fine (when I managed to give her a decipherable signal, that is.) Honestly, I was expecting a lot less after months and months of no agility work at all.

However, I was most happy with the way she was beginning to respond to my focus exercises when the other dog was out. I was doing "Look at me" and the standard doggie torture of putting them in a down, placing a treat on one of the feet, and making them wait before they take it.

So, it was good, after all. Hopefully, next week will be better.

Working Like a Dog

Flyball practice wears me out. I'm sick of the stress - where will we practice? Where will we get the money? Will the new people hang in there, or bail?

And, then, physically, it's just tiring. I'm in wretched shape. It's difficult to run back and fourth for recalls. It's hard to manage my 60 lb, very drivey dog. I'm getting a fairly constant pain and pressure in my chest that I'm pretending is indigestion, but is probably anxiety.

And money is so tight. Everything takes money, and I don't have any.

And I spend so much time working on flyball designs and trying to figure out how to market them. I hate marketing. I Twitter, and Blog (3 different blogs) and post on forums, Facebook, and make lenses and websites and do all this social networking and, well, I'm not very social.

The life has gone out of me and I fantisize about just walking away. I just need a little time and sunshine for my leaves to unfurl. Please, let something good happen.

Practice was practice. Z-Dog got all of his lumbering tootsies over the prop at boxwork. Weasel did good turns with the prop and shash and grab without it. Sorry for the whine.

Spoiled One Offered a Box Turn!

This picture shows Spoiled One's typical smash and grab. Horrible, isn't it? Tonight, I was dinging around with the practice box, a tug and a jump in the hallway and Spoiled One OFFERED a real box turn. I'm not talking lure him over and lure him back. No step in and back. I was standing halfway down the hall and made a vague gesture with the tug and he zipped down the hall, planted all of those tootsies on the box and zipped back.

WOW

I thought it was a fluke, and tried again. He did it again. And again. And again.

OoooOOOOooooo

I'm excited. Even though I doubt I will ever get a repitition of this momentus event, it shows he can, physically, do it. It also kinda shows that he knows what I've been asking for all along. But, the idea that he is a PITA, obedience is optional, make up his own rules type of dog shouldn't really surprise me.

Anyway, I just had to share this brief flash of joy. It's hard to resist making him do it over and over and over, just to relish the moment, but I know better than to drive him into the ground.

At least for this brief instant of time, he is a Good Dog.

Jinxed

Poor little Weasel. I noticed something going on with her foot before the tournament, but I thought it was just a dirt clot in the hair between her toes that had irritated it. It turns out she had cracked a toenail, and every heat she ran made it worse, until I noticed the bleeding. We did the best we could with Quickstop, trimming, and nail glue, and I pulled her, but a lot of damage had been done. She was running at 4.9, nearly a second slow.

The vet saw her on Wednesday, trimmed things up as best as possible, and now Weasel's on Epsom salt soaks and antibiotics. I'm not happy about the antibiotics because I believe they are over perscribed. The reason we have all these antibiotic resistant supergerms is because of unnecessary antibiotics. The vet thinks I should wait several weeks before I let her hit the box again.

The most frustrating part is that I know it's my fault she was hurt. I didn't trim her nails enough. I didn't investigate more thoroughly why she kept messing with her foot.

Well, now I know, I guess. Poor puppy.