Aberrant Prose

Imagine!

I never imagined I would ever, ever put Dakota in a horse show. Last night, after countless practice sessions (one at the horse stables in American Canyon) to learn a dance number along with nine other teams of owners and their dogs, I did!

Considering Dakota is basically a timid dog she did quite well! True, when we ran into the arena last night to a crowd of over 700 people and the smell of horses and music blaring, she wasn’t sure what was going on and could have balked on me. Instead, when we all entered the arena, she started running full speed toward the audience (thankfully not the opposite way) so fast I almost tripped over her as I held her snug against my side trying to keep her in heel position. Happily when we stopped to wait for the music for our number to start she clicked into dance mode and followed most of the dance steps.

The crowd loved us. They clapped in time to the music and applauded with loud cheers when we finished and as we exited through the curtain at the back of the arena.

When Vange Leonis, the organizer of our line dance, announced over a month ago she was looking for dog teams to perform for the horse show in Auburn I decided it would be good for both Dakota and I. Dakota needs more exposure to help with her shyness. Although Paris is the one actually enrolled in dog dancing classes, Dakota is much more calm. Paris may well have fallen apart if asked to perform in a horse arena. Plus Dakota will at least listen and obey commands and not sniff the ground like Paris does.

The name of the horse show event was “Imagine…Dancing Horses.” (www.imaginedancinghorses.com) Our number was the second to last of the entire show of about twenty different numbers. While our group waited for our turn to perform, we had the opportunity to watch the show from the sidelines and what a show it was! The costuming and glitz was astounding, watching the horses prancing and dancing to music was awesome.

It turned out to be a very late night (home at 12:15 a.m.). I was so worn out this morning I slept an hour and a half later than usual. Dakota is quite tuckered this morning too! She is sleeping on the sofa next to me as I write. Normally she is out in the field chasing chickens.

There were so many great images I wanted to capture in full detail but didn’t take my good camera since I knew I would have my hands full carrying a crate, water, food, a folding chair and handling a dog. However I had my iPhone with me so did capture the few low quality images below of my exciting horse show experience.

All in all I had a good time. I enjoyed the beautiful, grassy countryside of the horse ranches where the show was held. I enjoyed the fair atmosphere of the event, the food courts with their homemade ice cream sandwiches, Polish dogs, ices, and hamburgers, and seeing all the beautiful show horses as they stomped in their stalls and stood in the grass waiting for their turn to perform. This is definitely an event I want to attend again!

Paris turned 5 today

Not only did Paris turn five today, so did Chris’ dog, Seven.

Having a five-year-old dog is very nice—so settled, so obedient—no wild and crazy, no getting into stuff all the time. When we leave shoes on the floor she totally ignores them. This is so different than her younger days—grabbing stray shoes and running around the house egging us on with her “catch me if you can” look.

I really discovered how nice it is to have a mature, obedient dog when I signed Paris up for rally class. I had to take her out of agility (temporarily) because my physical therapist told me not to do any running for at least two months. So, I decided to put her in rally this session. Turns out all that agility training (3 years’ worth) has made her an excellent rally dog. The very first course we ran the teacher said, “Oh my goodness! Paris is ready for competition!” Paris made it look so easy; she even did better than the one advanced dog in the class! Of course it helped I have had Dakota in rally (three sessions now) so I am pretty familiar with rally stations.

Up until Paris’ debut, I thought Dakota was doing really well considering she is only two (and the teacher agreed). Now after seeing how Paris has taken to rally Dakota seems very newbie to me.

I plan to enter Paris in a trial in Petaluma in March. By then I should be physically ready. By then I should be able to remember to follow the rally signs correctly i.e., to NOT turn left when directed to turn right. One thing for sure, if we don’t qualify it won’t be because Paris didn’t do it right!

Really? A good citizen?

Yes. Our puppy is actually growing up and according to AKC and our local dog-training club, Dakota is now a Canine Good Citizen. This week she received her CGC certification! She sure surprised me since we missed last week’s class and the week before she was bouncing off the walls not paying any attention to the teacher because she knew we were getting ready to go somewhere. Not only that I didn’t work with her since arriving home from Oregon (like I ever do).

CGC certification means accepting a friendly stranger, sitting politely for petting, good behavior while being groomed and examined, walking nicely on a loose lead, walking nicely through a crowd, doing a sit and down and a stay in place on command, coming when called, not overreacting to distractions, behaving politely around another dog, and being left with a trusted person for three minutes without over stressing.

Did she finally mature enough to settle down to do everything right or since I figured there was no way she was going to get her CGC certification this week anyway, I relaxed enough to make her more calm than usual?

I don’t know what happened but I am sure pleased whatever it was it did. I wasn’t looking forward to putting her through another CGC class.

This is the 2nd seven-week CGC class she and I have attended. The first time through she failed two tests out of the required ten that must be passed: walking on a loose lead, and reacting to another dog. This time she passed all ten tests!

Now I can sign her up for rally classes.

Match amiss

Our first fun agility match with Paris yesterday turned out to be quite the debacle. Sure enough she decided she would much rather run out of the ring and sniff the grounds than run the course. The worse part was, once she left the ring, she would not come back immediately when I called her. I had to yell, “come” several times before she decided she was ready to return. The whole being outdoors in an area she had never seen before was just too stimulating. Her nose got the better of her (and me).

I did enter her in all six runs I signed on for and even one game. Before the runs opened, there was a musical warm up. Up to one hundred dogs and their handlers gathered in a grassy area to walk dogs left, right, forward, back and about-turns all to music. I didn’t keep Paris in the group long. I could see right away it was stressing her when other dogs and handlers kept bumping into us.

After the warm up we did the tunnel challenge, one of three games. I had tickets for the other two games but they were send to table and send to weave pole challenges, which I knew for sure Paris wouldn’t do. I decided the tunnel challenge would be a nice intro for her to get into a running mode. It proved to be a preview of how she was going to handle the rest of the day: she ran away a number of times before finally figuring out she was suppose to keep running in a circle. The goal of the game was to run through a tunnel, over a jump, through a second tunnel, over a second jump and repeat this going around in a circle until the steward blew a whistle. If the steward had been scoring, Paris would have received a score of 3 out of 10—that is how poorly she did.

I then ran her in the jumpers ring, which consisted of a variety of jumps and included two tunnels. Out of all the runs we entered, she actually did this one the best even though she ran off course several times. Again it wasn’t until the very end she figured out what was expected of her.

The next ring, “touch and go,” was a total disaster. This one consisted of tunnels, one walk and one A-Frame, all favorite obstacles for her. I really thought she would do well. Wrong! She just had no interest in anything and kept running out of the ring. The steward yelled at me over and over telling us we were done. I just ignored him and coaxed Paris back on course until about the fifth time she ran off. That is when I decided she and I were done. I was so frustrated I was ready to call it quits for the day.

Instead Robert and I decided a break would help. We put Paris in her soft crate. She was pretty worn out both from running and from stress and easily took a nap. We then ate the sandwiches we brought.

After the break I was ready to try Paris in the jumpers ring again. I decided to run her with her leash on this time. That worked to keep her from running off and she cooperated quite well. The problem was the tunnels. She lost her momentum because her leash dragged behind her through the tunnel. She didn’t like that at all! We also knocked one jump over because the leash got caught on an edge.

So much for the leash—the next time I ran her I tried using treats, something I didn’t realize was allowed until I saw other people using them. Turns out the treats, even though they were a favorite, didn’t make any difference anyway. Running off to smell the grass was much more interesting than the special treats I brought.

Still having tickets for two more runs I decided I would run her in the touch and go ring one more time. This time I grabbed her as she came out or off of each obstacle and guided her to the next obstacle. She only had the opportunity to run off at the very end and of course she did.

By the time we finished this fifth run stewards had run in and changed the jumpers ring to an excellent level ring. I had one ticket left and decided what the heck, even if she only does a few obstacles the experience would be good for both of us. After I walked it I decided it was probably too hard to expect her to do it. When I told Robert this he said he had already signed us up!

So off we were again. The first thing she does is to refuse to go over the first jump and runs out of the ring! I retrieve her and get her to go over the first jump. She then goes over three obstacles, skips the fourth, goes over another and is on her way to the weave poles. I really hoped she would actually weave. Nope. She ran right around them. I knew that was the end of trying to get her to run the entire course so I brought her around and got her to do the second to last obstacle, the A-Frame, which she did enthusiastically. When she came down the other side for the contact she smelled leftover scent from treats someone had thrown on the ground. She had to stop and sniff. So much for going over the final jump for a nice finish! Earlier I had seen the handler who had thrown those treats on the ground and thought, “How inconsiderate is that? Why doesn’t she feed the treats directly to her dog like everyone else?”

I was exhausted after that final run, a lot of my tiredness came from dealing with such a stinker. Even though I expected Paris to wander I did not expect her to be so defiant. On the positive side, when we were walking around, she did walk in heel position most of the time and waited patiently by sitting or laying down when we were in line waiting our turn. She was also very sweet to people and behaved well around other dogs.

On another note, we enjoyed seeing and talking to Debbie, (wife of Robert’s cousin, David)! She was in charge of the raffle. When we first arrived I spotted her and immediately headed her way to say hello. She was totally caught off guard and did not know who we were at first because, like she said, we were out of our element. It was fun to see her in her element and how much fun she was having running the raffle.

On yet another note, while I was waiting in line or running in a ring, Robert was busy shooting pictures. Not just of Paris and I—one of the event organizers saw him with a camera and asked him to help out by taking pictures of the event!

All in all our day was quite the experience for Robert, Paris and I. It is obvious Paris and I are still a long ways from entering a real competition. After arriving home, all three of us took a nap even though Dakota, who didn’t get to go this time, wanted to play.

Showtime!

On April 11th I discovered four eggs in a nest built in one of our ivy ball plants. Before this discovery Robert and I had been watching two House Finches build the nest for over a couple of weeks all the time wondering, “What the heck are these birds thinking?” There are dogs and a cat living here after all and all three of them, and us as well, are constantly walking (running) through the patio close to the ivy plants. The cat’s feeding station is just a few feet away.


To keep the dogs away from the nest, I surrounded the ivy plants with our deck chairs. This slowed them down. A little. At first, Dakota, having been confined to the inside yard because she had been spayed, was most interested. She wasn’t allowed to go in the field to stalk the chickens (her absolute most favorite activity) so she decided to stalk the nest. With all the Dakota disturbance plus Robert, Paris and I walking past the nest all the time I was sure the Finches would abandon their nest. Instead they, undaunted, day after day, faithfully returned to the nest the minute the coast was clear and yesterday their eggs hatched!

As it was Dakota and Paris pretty much had forgotten about the nest since they had gotten their field privileges back. Until yesterday, that is. With baby birds chirping for food they both are taking notice again. In two weeks the baby birds will leave the nest and fly far way—if they are lucky. In actuality, between now and then, their lives are in peril. This might be a good time to take a little vacation, send the dogs to Chris’ house, and tell the cat to stay in the barn.

Dogs’ day encore

On Tuesday Robert and I played hooky to enjoy another day hike at Sunol Regional Wilderness Park. Paris, Dakota, and Ceili were the stars of the day because this many-acre park is an off-leash park! Five hours and close to five miles of hiking did not phase any of the dogs; all three of them rarely took time to rest, even when Robert, Kim and I did (many times).



On our way to pick up Kim and Ceili, Paris and Dakota were very confused. They couldn't figure out why we were going in the Mazda (the dog car) and NOT to the park so early in the day. Especially Paris; she stood between the two front seats looking and looking around at all the unfamiliar neighborhoods, completely perplexed.

We arrived at Sunol around ten and left around three and the entire time Dakota never laid down. Paris did lie down while we had lunch, but not for long.

We came across quite a few cows and several ponds. Paris decided the cows were hers to chase. For every group of cows we passed, she had to be relegated to a lead. Dakota didn't need to be on lead, she was too afraid to chase the cows. She did her best to walk as far around them as she could. Ceili didn’t need to go on lead either. She pretty much wouldn’t chase the cows. She would just growl and bark at them to make sure they knew she was boss.

One of the ponds we came upon had several geese in it. When Dakota saw a couple of them take off from the water, she instantly dived in thinking she was going to catch one! We were totally surprised since she pretty much won’t go into a large body of water let alone step into a mud puddle. As soon as she realized her feet weren't touching bottom, she turned right around and came out lickity split. I have never seen her move so fast!

It would have been good if she had gone in again given at the beginning of our walk the first thing she decided to do was roll in several cow piles. Paris had done the very same thing the last time we went to Sunol two years ago. Thank goodness Paris didn't repeat that yucky diversion! Maybe it is something she outgrew or she was just too excited to see what was around the next bend.

As soon as we arrived home after a wonderful day of hiking and enjoying the great outdoors, yet one sure to yield ticks and poison oak exposure, I took the dogs into the shower with me. Robert then showered too, announcing he found one tick crawling on him. We also threw all our clothes into the washing machine.

Of course the dogs totally left us alone the rest of the night by crashing on the sofa and falling into a deep, deep sleep. Thank goodness because Robert and I were both exhausted.

I took dozens of pictures. I HAD to capture the day after all. Click on our photo link at top right to view.

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Dakota turned one today!

One more dog bed

You’d think we had enough beds around the house for Dakota and Paris. There are two cots in the office, two large round bean-bag-like beds in the living room, the entire sofa in our bedroom, a little round furry green one, a hard crate, a soft crate, and with the arrival of Dakota, one of our sofas and one of our recliners in the living room are now essentially dog beds.

Yet today we bought another bed for them. Why? Because our dogs make us mentally unbalanced when we are out in the office, they pretty much ignore the cots and argue over who gets to sleep in the smallest (and coziest) bed of all: the little green one.



For the last few weeks, we have been looking for a second little one to even the playing field. Looking in pet stores, in catalogs and online, all we could find were ones with white or light linings, something I didn’t want because of dirt.

Then this morning, while at Pet Food Express buying dog food, we found a dark green one just like the one we already have. It was a little a lot larger than I wanted. Robert decided it was perfect enough. He told me; “If they decide to both sleep in this one at least they can fit inside it together.”

This afternoon, when they were ready for a nap after an exhilarating walk in the park, they happily each chose one to sleep in. However the new round one is much softer than the old round one so I am betting Robert is right and we will soon find both of them curled up together in the new one.

Jingle bells

I enjoyed a little late Christmas today. PetExpress had jingle bell collars on sale for half price. I couldn’t resist. It was so much fun to hear Dakota and Paris run through the house with them on. However, since Dakota tried to eat Paris’ collar while she was wearing it, I didn't leave them on for long. Hopefully, by next Christmas, Dakota will have outgrown that behavior!