Helter Skelter Thoughts

Remington: Made it through the weekend. Saturday morning I thought about him a lot. Today I cried quietly as I was walking the dogs around in the big, open, overgrown field and started thinking about the first day that we took Remington home and turned him loose in our big, overgrown field of a back yard.

Sprinkler Dog: On our morning walk a couple of days ago, it was quite a nice sunny day. Walked almost 2 miles. (Tika, as usual, probably walked quite a bit more with all the backing & forthing and having to turn and come back next to me.) As we neared home, we walked past all the new houses, and the little pop-up spray sprinklers were running. Tika ducked deliberately into the spray on each one. This for a dog who hates to be sprayed with a hose on a hot day.

Agility Tika: Tika stayed at the start line *all 8 runs* this weekend--didn't even stand up and have to be reminded to sit on any! And that after we fought it constantly (as usual) in class last week. Rachel came up with a different strategy near the end of class--she had someone sit in a chair next to Tika at the start line (while I led out) and pretend to be the timer, saying "go when ready," and then when Tika stood up, the person walked over and put her back into a sit. I wonder whether that's what did it--she saw people sitting there close to her in chairs like in class? Tika got *all* her contacts all weekend. On one run, she left the Aframe when I stepped in close to her and then stepped away again, so I put her back on it, whereupon she did the same thing--third time, she stuck it until I said OK. But that was the only contact glitch. And she did them all pretty fast! Knocked a lot of bars, though. Did get 2 Open-level gambles, to finish her title. Got 1.5 Standard legs, too. And she is *soooo* wired and excited about doing Jumpers runs! What a kick.

Agility Jake: Jake almost made it through the weekend without doing any of the weird inexplicable turns away from me that he's been doing lately, but in the final run, Jumpers, he managed to do it *twice*. I am just mightily puzzled. He was pretty fast most of the weekend, though--no signs of real slowing down or arthritis. Got 3 Standard legs and nothing else. His Mom mucked up his gamble entrances both times, and he was off course in Jumpers both times (quite unusual for him, actually).

Funniest animal video: I think I actually have a candidate to send in to the TV show. (Which, incidentally, I watched occasionally while on disability because of my back but not more than once or twice since then.) Involves Jake seeing his toy in a mirror. We'll see if I remember to package it up and send it along.

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