tell me something I don't already know

back to school

It's registration time again over at Daisy Peel's online classroom. Favor and I are waiting til next semester to start the Foundation class, but in the meantime we might audit the Manners Minder course...

video interlude

Missy Favor Flav's Vermont vacay vid. Seven months old. It is also posted on Vimeo because youtube won't let it play on mobile devices.

Happy new year, now give me that dinosaur!

And so into 2012, the year in which I get my digital life in order -- maybe just one blog (one that I say things on?) and a tidy little photo space somewhere. Pictures keep going on Facebook because it is so easy (plus instant feedback, like!) but it feels weirdly insular -- not that anybody outside of my little circle looks at my pictures, but then, some of the people in my little circle are people who only know me because they have seen pictures of Favor! 

I just feel digitally scattered, what with the blogs and blips and flicks and posts and tweets and tumbles. Not to mention Favor's own FB page. And I have been taking some online dog training courses -- great but more to keep track of. Plus there is the videotaping to be done of the training that is taking place. At least I can say that the training is taking place -- Favor is wicked fast learner (must tape!).

My laptop died so this is my first attempt at iPad blogging (hello, Blogsy, I think I like you). Also, I lost my pocket camera in September and I don't haul my DSLR everywhere, but I just got a snazzy Coolpix so maybe I'll take more than just iPhone photos.

Oh, and in the next eight weeks I am getting our house in Illinois onto the market and packing up my stuff. And I'm selling some land in Vermont. Good thing I have mellow dogs...

Waiting for Christmas dinner

Yes, she is sleeping on the coffee table.

grey christmas but full of joy

Feliz Navidad

Check out our Christmas Card!(click this link) Happy Holidays to all.


Favor wonders what the tree is doing in her x-pen.

back in vermont

See the full gallery on Posterous

action (belated)

Favor is six months old today and I was going to get video of her running around trees and riding skateboard and generally showing off her awesome smarty-pants-ness. But it is raining. So instead a re-run from a month ago.

And a picture of the aftermath of her half-birthday party...

very 1970s vogue, no?

In the 1970s I had a golden retriever named Naomi. We would walk from our house to Battery Kemble Park, now officially a 'dog park' but back then just a park where we ran around with our dogs. (Back when kids and dogs were allowed to wander D.C.) I can still feel through my Keds the steep scrabbly hill down from Foxhall Road into the park, and the mud paths and roots and random patches of mulch along the trails. I spent a lot of time alone in the park with Naomi, wandering along the little creek while she dragged sticks around. Vivid memory of hiding from her behind a large grey rock, and then when she found me taking off in a race through the woods. The day she got a small stick wedged in the roof of her mouth and started freaking out, and I had to take another stick and thrust it under the first one to pry it out. Coaxing her on to the sled to slide down the big hill, which always ended in a tangle of bodies. Endless heart-to-hearts. Even into my teens, Naomi would tag along. Thank god she couldn't tell my parents what she saw me doing...

Naomi stayed behind when I went off to college and then she died the year after graduation while I was living in Spain. She would have been about 12; I got her for my tenth birthday. She spent the last couple years mulching under the azalea bush, watching the world go by, a happy dotty golden. She wasn't our first dog -- Patience the basset came before -- but Naomi was my first dog.

I never worried then about teaching recall, heeling, attention, fetching, dropping on demand, lying down, doing tricks, shaping and capturing, operant and classical conditioning, contact performances, foundation training, and so forth. We just did them -- haphazardly, on the run, while watching tv -- and even though she never did agility or obedience or rally or tracking or skijoring or any other dog 'sport,' she was probably the best trained and most versatile dog that I'll ever have. She just understood me. Isn't that what every girl wants in a dog?

Favor's a completely different beast, but I still feel a bit of that silly glee of being ten years old and having a puppy to go on adventures with. Sure, I felt puppy-drunk with Po and Rumor, and even Hemi though he came to the party late. (And before them, Truman and Willie.) But I didn't know then, when they were still puppies, what kind of adventures an adult could get into with a dog. Or I'd just forgotten. I was getting a dog to love, to play and take walks with, just because I need a dog to live with. But then while Rumor was growing up I discovered this subculture of dog training and performance sports, and got hooked. And then overwhelmed, discouraged, excited, triumphant, intimidated, challenged, disastrous, all of the things, including insecure. Now with the Squink, I feel confident enough in what I want to do, what kind of goals I might have, that it really is an adventure again. I don't worry about getting it right or whether I know what I'm doing. I probably don't. But I didn't with Naomi either.

The irony is that this nostalgic-in-a-good-way feeling carries over to the other dogs. I'm not going to lie, last summer, competing the boys was...a bummer. For various reasons. I still had fun, but it took a few beats sometimes for 'fun' to be the word I came up with. But under whatever weird algorithm that makes bringing a puppy into a house give you a fresh start on all things dog-related, I'm really looking forward to next year's adventures with all four of them. Po is still in awesomely good shape at 12 and I want to get in as many farm hikes as we can. And the boys are ready to re-boot. A word we didn't know in the 70s.

As to the photo, it looked like old fashion spread to me, which led me to this fun blog of vintage pics, We Heart Vintage. I heart random discoveries on the internet. 

rainy day dress up

One of my favorite new blogs is The Local Dog, and recently Alison posted a picture of one Aussie pup in an outfit. So I couldn't resist, and as I had this little dress around for a while (had picked it up in thrift store for the fabric), tried it on the girlie.

Okay, if you are offended by this, please check out the link to the blog above!

She finds dresses empowering.















A little bit of background, wherein I visit a Furry Baby store and have a minor freak out. 

football sunday

Ready for bed

more mantras

My mantra these days seems to be: More Later.

Will write more, exercise more, research more, deal with more, reply more, finish more, organize more, explain more, photograph more, clean more, train more, think more, process more ... later.

In the meantime it's pretty much all I can do to (a) wear puppy out; (b) start organizing things to sell the house; (c) um...what was the third one?

p.s. In the double meantime made a quick video for the recallers course. Those who do get free tuition into Recallers 3 (technically I was already 'in' but felt like playing with video).

learnin'

Speaking of classes, Susan Garrett is launching another Recallers course. I've been collecting links and lessons from her for the puppy-e blog (no copyright violations, I swear! because she will set evil puppy voodoo on me!). I took the Recallers and am all-in for the year with Inner Circle and Puppy Peaks. More on that to come, but I know the online courses (as well as auditing her camp last year) have changed and improved my dog training skills tremendously! So...I recommend Recallers 3.0. I guess this is my week of recommendations.

More info over at Susan Garrett Agility Training or you can friend her page on Facebook to get immediate links to training videos.

getting our game on

I am just wrapping up a great online course in mental management with Daisy Peel. More later, but registration is happening now for next semester's courses. Click on the image below to find out more.



A little about Daisy from her website:

Daisy Peel is a 20+ Time National Finalist, four-time National Champion, three-time FCI World Team Member, and a 3-time Americas & Caribbean International Champion. Daisy won the National Championships with Jester in 2007 (AKC) and Solar in 2009 (USDAA) and 2010 (AKC and USDAA). Daisy is well-known for her intense running style, positive attitude and focus, attention to both technical and mental aspects of the game, and exceptional running contacts.


I'm not even competing the dogs right now but the class was super helpful for thinking through training and preparation and ultimately the mental management of competing that I would like to have with Favor, as well as ongoing training and competition with the boys. One of the more useful exercises for me was defining what is within one's control (and not) at an agility trial, and how your mental game can mediate the impact of those. I know that I'm too aware of factors that I can't control: the shrieking dog that runs before us, the rabbit in the hedgerow, etc. And also can get tripped up by handling to avoid possibilities. Lots to work on. Click on picture of Solar or below to get to her online classroom. Registration closes Friday November 25th.


Daisy Peel Online Classroom