Sunday, August 26, 2007

Happy Birthday Mike





Cards, present, cake, balloon and general hoopla....notice how politely Mike feigns delight to discover that I followed his instructions perfectly when getting his present! I suspect his favorite part was the German Chocolate Cake.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Alien invaders; solving problems

ALIEN INVADERS STRIKE!! Or...as some would prefer...."undocumented workers." We found a trail of ants busily making their way through our kitchen and mud room. Ants have recently been seen in Carol's offices - and often will come inside buildings here during times of severe drought. After poisoning our house with insecticide spray, we found their goal (the dog training bag) and moved it outside. The training bag, contents, and Mike's hat collection are airing out on the deck. The house was sickening for days afterward. Thank goodness for zoned heating and air! Carol pretty much lived upstairs with a sinus headache while we aired out the first floor. The dogs didn't seem to care which floor they were on and Mike is tough.

We put out ant bait on the deck, and secured the area from the Aussies. Still - knowing how clever Aussies can be at defeating barriers of all kinds, we will have to accompany them outside for the duration. The towel is there so Tillie will remember the ExPen is set up there before she runs into it. Rowdy is obsessed with his tennis balls and favorite toys, which were in the bag. Rowdy is going outside regularly to stand and stare at his toys longingly. We go out and night and gain some satisfaction watching the ants crowding around the baits.

We WILL enforce our border and will not tolerate intrusion by these alien workers!

Then...there's the matter of the broken step from the deck to the yard:


Mike is replacing two of the three steps this weekend, and will do the third step soon.


He is using a composite decking material. We're eager to see how it works, since we will eventually have to replace our deck.

Hard at work. Stay tuned for the finished photos. The memory card filled up at this point.

Chores, chores, chores

Today the agenda is: a day of chores. We began by grooming Tillie. It's always best to do this early in the morning, when she feels at her best. If Tillie could see and hear, she would be a formidable working ranch dog because she has a will that is stronger than any bull. She is beyond bull-headed! She doesn't fight us, she tries to out-manuever us. She wiggles, she squirms, she pushes, she pulls. She wedges her head between your arm and chest, and tries to push through - and off the table. Mike was involved, which always helps a lot. But she does not see the point in having her feet groomed, or her butt trimmed. Mike keeps her butt trimmed so she can stay clean. I do her feet. It's a double-whammy. This seemed helpful this morning as she just couldn't keep track of two people to plot her course to freedom. Treats follow, naturally. Rowdy spent some time up on the grooming table, just hanging out. I guess we should have bought a bigger table to hold TWO Aussies!

There is a Tshirt sold to obedience competitors - it says "She who MUST be obeyed." We need to get one in a smaller size and put it on Tillie. This is her personal credo.

Mike is replacing two steps on the deck - we're going to try out the new composite decking material and see how it works during bad weather and how it weathers. We heard the redwood-look composite fades to a violent orange. We'll have to replace the deck eventually, and this will help us decide if we want to use pressure-treated lumber or the composite material.

I still have not recovered from the depletion of the dog food reserve and am totally sick of cooking day-to-day for them. Without taking a couple of days off work to either do chores or cook dog food, it's going to take me about 6-8 weeks to re-establish my reserve of 6-8 weeks of food. Not to mention the freezer space that we don't have at the moment. I could really use a 2nd freezer for dog food (homecooked and kibble w/o chemical preservatives) in the garage. Obviously, maintaining the reserve is the whole key to successfully homecooking for medium-sized dogs. A week of food for Rowdy is a month's worth of food for a Shi-Tzu.

Well, break time is over! Back to work!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

What's up, Saturday?



This is a new (to us) butterfly on the lantana bush. We will identify it and add it to our lifetime butterfly list. Isn't it pretty? Mike caught a number of great pictures of it.






In case you've ever wondered what goes on in an obedience lesson, today we had a little serendipity in the form of a couple of folks who were watching our lesson. Their dogs were crated next to them as they watched. The two students agreeably took a few pictures, then my teacher (in the green shirt) took a couple of pictures of us heeling.


First, we talk about what Rowdy and I have been doing in our training since our last lesson a month ago and decided what we needed to work on today. I learned more about how to walk and stop. Heeling is tremendously difficult - if you want to do it well. I spend a lot of time learning to walk in a VERY straight line, learning to move my feet, body and eyes in a way that gives Rowdy the information he needs, and then learning to make this contrived form of walking look very natural. And Rowdy spends a lot of time being fascinated by this cool and complicated system of teamwork. He has his own set of complexities to think about and manage in this dance of precision heeling. Think of it as a competitive Tango with your dog.

Where's the leash? Well, we train off-leash. Don't need it; it just gets in the way.


Next we worked on perfecting Rowdy's understanding of where to put his fuzzy butt when he sits in heel position. He tends to swing it out enough to cost us a small deduction in points.








Then we practiced our heeling in an informal Figure 8 pattern. Rowdy heels in a very nice, head-up style. You can see he is interested in what we're doing. When I get the pace right, he prances along, matching my pace, keeping his body perfectly parallel to my direction of travel - even through changes of direction and speed, and his shoulder-to-nose aligned with my left pants seam. Like I said, a Tango. Before too much longer, we'll do this in a show ring.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

More games

When this picture was taken, the official temperature was 105, a record high for all time for our town. We doubt the accuracy of this thermometer, but it was high noon under the full sun on our deck, and 110+ was certainly a plausible temperature. It's really hot!





In these pictures, from last weekend, Mike and Rowdy are playing another one of their games. Mike is telling Rowdy to stay, and Rowdy will not move one whit until Mike releases him - AFTER Mike has thrown the ball. heh heh heh. Rowdy stands there and watches the ball fly, eager to get it. Then Rowdy brings it right back to Mike, eager to play again...and again...and again. This is extremely exciting to a ball-crazed dog, and Rowdy loves to launch himself after the ball as soon as Mike gives him the release word. They both enjoy their game of teamwork and suspense.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Itchy Tillie

Tillie has been itchy recently. We're not sure what's going on - a thorough bath was given today. But yesterday, she decided to work at a spot on her leg and she was pretty determined to work it into a hot spot. We've been down this road before...so we got out our favorite solution for skin irritations, and some corn starch, and the Elizabethan collar. We have an E-collar collection. This one is heavy-duty plastic, a little weighty but very clear - so Tillie doesn't have to suffer more sensory loss. The pipe insulation around the edges prevents them from using the collar to scratch/abrade themselves further, and from using the edge to work the collar off (Tillie views this as an obvious problem to be remedied).


She has been surprisingly cooperative with the collar. We've been able to take it off for long periods - all last night while she slept, and most of today. She was VERY good for her bath today - most likely because Mike was involved from start to finish. She is a total Daddy's Girl. We haven't have to replace the pipe insulation on the edges. We will all be glad when Tillie isn't itching any more.


Saturday, August 4, 2007

Dogzilla


This toy is Dogzilla. Mike picked it out on our last sweep of the PetsMart. We go to PetsMart a few times a year and pretty much fill up a cart with assorted treats. First, we have to stand there and critically review the labels - this eliminates 90% of the treats and leaves me totally blown away by the fact that we're going to spend some money on treats that are very similar to what I would make at home for about 1/100th the cost. It's just proof that time does equal money. After we fill up the cart, we do an efficient browsing of the store for toys and equipment that we haven't heard of in the dog equipment vendors who send us catalogs and email ads.
Mike spotted Dogzilla, which meets two of Rowdy's three major requirements: 1. It's a medium- or light-weight ball; 2. It's waterproof and indestructible; 3. The weight balance is off-center. Rowdy likes to hold things (like an obedience dumbbell) by the ends, so he can feel the weight hanging off one end. Dogzilla meets criteria 2 & 3. We also like it because it's NOT a tug toy; tug toys frighten Tillie when Rowdy starts swinging them around her to try to entice her to grab on. Rowdy dearly loved playing tug with Maria Glinski's tugging Lab during our visit in Aiken.
Dogzilla is the Toy Du Jour for about 36 hours out of every 48. In fact, for weeks he was Dogzilla-obsessed. He carried Dogzilla everywhere. Mike teaches Rowdy names for each toys, then they play a game where Mike tells Rowdy to go find a particular toy, and Rowdy will bring that particular toy to Mike and they will play with it. They love this game. We are amazed by the size of Rowdy's receptive vocabulary. Rowdy learned the name of Dogzilla in about 3 repetitions, and Dogzilla has been his nearly constant companion ever since. As you can see, he even fell asleep with it in his mouth.