Rain. And Phone Books.

SUMMARY: Boost does some surprising fetching and is surprised by water from the sky.

It last rained in San Jose on March 15. Yesterday's forecast called for rain last night and this morning. An agility friend posted on her web site, "I wonder what rain feels like?" Anticipation lay low, humming, in the background of all conversations in the valley. Rain. At last.

Every morning, Boost fetches the newspaper for me from the driveway. Today, she woke me at 5:30 demanding to go out (drat, are we not over this yet? And it was going so well--). The ground was dry. Another wet forecast turning out to be all wet?

Since I was getting up at 6:00 anyway to go for an early hiking adventure, I opened the front door to see whether the paper yet sat in its plastic rain-bag at the end of my driveway. Nothing was there. But Boost burst past me, down the sidewalk, and skidded to a halt next to a dark, hulking, plastic-wrapped shape near the roses, and began to work at grabbing it. --What on earth--?

I walked out to the sidewalk, and discovered that the Phonebook Fairy had left the new phonebook for me, carelessly wrapped in plastic so that one end was protected from potential rain but the other end lay completely exposed. And dry. Boost was wrestling enthusiastically, trying to find some pages to grab, as the whole thing was, shall i say, a wee bit larger than even the usual Sunday-supplemented Saturday paper. I hurriedly aligned the phone book with the spine towards her, to prevent having the entire M section ripped out with a too-effusive effort to Get That Newspaper.

I didn't think she could actually manage it, but with several bits of assistance and several drops and re-pick-ups, she managed to get that whole huge thing into the house and deliver it to where she always delivers the paper. Quite an entertainment for her mom early in the morning.

As I gave her some thanks-for-fetching treats, the sky opened. How grateful was I now for being wakened early and also having the dog run out the front door without permission? Had she done neither of those things, I'd now have a sopping wet gigantic blob of former phonebook.

A few minutes later, Tika put up a big racket about Something Dangerous In The Front Yard. I peered out the door, and sure enough, the paper itself had arrived. So I fetched Boost, lined her up, said, "Ready....Get The Paper!" and released her. She blasted down the steps to the sidewalk--and skidded to a halt. She jerked her head and body left and right. She ran to one side. She stepped back. She looked at the roses like she might be about to spook. She started to wuff a "Danger! Unknown danger!" wuff, when I realized what was happening: She hadn't been rained on in 7 and a half months.

So I had to run out into the rain to reassure her, run with her down to the paper at the end of the driveway, and then follow her as quickly as I could as she dashed back inside, plastic-bagged paper grasped firmly in her jaws. OK, so now **I'M** wet, but at least the phone book is dry.


(I'll try to get my hike photos up soon. No dogs this time, though.)

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A Fetching Story

SUMMARY: Dogs who provide a return on investment.

Is one never satisfied? Remington, a brilliant trick dog, wasn’t keen on “fetch.” I loved teaching him but ached for a fetcher. Then came Jake who, in his first hour with us, found each of the hundred balls abandoned by Rem. And—for the next 10 years—he dropped them at my feet, over and over. I wished for a dog less fanatical. Now there’s Tika, who chases but doesn’t pick up. And Boost, who picks up but requires a personal invitation to bring it. Oh, for Jake again! The fetch is always greener on the other side of the grass--

Ministory written in response to a challenge to write a story in exactly 99 words.

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Sad About Jake

SUMMARY: Fair warning, this is a being-sad-about-Jake post.

I've said that I have no regrets with Jake, that I did a lot with him and we had a good time. But it turns out, of course, that I do have regrets. Most are really very small.

• Last time I was at the pet store, I bought 3 lovely big bones for the dogs to gnaw on. But was waiting for a special occasion to give them to them.
• I've been spending all this time learning how to do better dog photography and taking posed photos of all kinds of other people's dogs but short of the adequate photo (shown in the sidebar to the right), I have no really beautiful photos of him.
• I wish I had played in the living room with him more when he refused to play outside, even though I still had to talk him into it lately.
• I should have taken him for a walk that last Sunday; it's what we've been doing for together-time without the young dogs lately. But at least I did so Saturday before I knew.
• If only I had gotten him his special bed for next to my desk sooner. I'd been thinking about it for almost two years, and only bought it a month and a half ago.
• I wish I had hugged and snuggled him more on Saturday.

Aside from regrets, there's simply the dismantling of my three-dog life. Every piece I change or tuck away adds a stone to the weight I've swallowed.

• Jake always gets fed first. Bowl is now washed and put away. At mealtime, need to stop coming to a stop where I always set his food bowl down. As I walk through that spot, I feel as if I'm trying to walk through a wall.
• Jake was my walking companion when I couldn't deal with Tika and/or the puppy. Which was often. Now it's walk by myself or deal.
• Take down, clean, and edit the Emergency signs in the windows to say that there are 2 dogs in the house. Not 3.
• The dog waking up next to me in bed isn't Jake, but I keep thinking it is when I first become conscious. It's still jarring.
• Absolutely no water splortches on the floor around the water bowl. Jake had a graduate degree in splortching everywhere after every drink. I cursed it for years, but now how lonely that clean, dry floor feels.
• In the car, no dog in the seat behind me. Put away the seatbelt harness and special mat.
• In fact, I don't even need to have that seat there any more. Will be much more convenient and spacious when I'm sleeping out in my van, as I will be for the next two weekends. And how many boulders grew in my stomach with every step of dismantling.
• No need for the old-dog steps going up to the passenger side of my bed. Don't know where I'm going to store them.
• Put away the 3rd leash and bags-on-board dispenser. I just bought those in November after his last leash disappeared on the way home from scottsdale.
• No need at the trial for 3 crates, 3 mats, 3 water buckets, three bags of food, three bowls, Jake's special toy, Jake's jacket for cold mornings for the little old guy. Guess I'm glad I didn't spend the money to fix that zipper on Jake's crate. I wonder if I could go back to just one x-pen for the merle girls?
• Jake was so much fun to play fetch with. He always chased it, he always brought it back, he always dropped it at your feet and looked up at you with the most delighted tail wag, and would pick it up and drop it repeatedly with the same wag and cheerful look if you didn't figure it out the first time. Tika doesn't always bring it back. She certainly doesn't let go of it without convincing. And even when she wants you to throw it, it's not the same cheeriness. Boost brings it back if she thinks Tika won't, but she doesn't always bring it right to you. And she stares at the toy or at Tika, not at you. No tail wag. It's an obsession, not a game.
• And I could exercise all three dogs by exercising Jake, because he'd run and run and run and the other dogs would go out and back with him, over and over.
• The bathmat is now always empty when I step out of the shower, no little red dog curled up asleep waiting for his mom.

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Just Some Photos

SUMMARY: Have camera, will shoot.

Jake returns from a fetch with his Tug'N'Treat. This is two days in a row he asked to play. But this morning we went for a walk first, which was ALWAYS how we did it all the years I've had him until the knee really acted up last year, so the walks dribbled away. So now, all is right with the world and it's fitting a proper to Fetch.

Usually, however, Tika has abandoned her own toy for the joy of proving that she can always get to Jake's toy before he does (then either scooping it up and carrying it 5 to 10 feet then dropping, or simply barking twice, "Beat you!"). In this case, Jake almost always returns with an escort tender as seen here. Boost would never get away with any of this with Jake.

Boost's idea of playing fetch while Jake and/or Tika go after their toys: Doing an outrun full speed across the yard to be ahead of them as I start to throw the toy, then racing back to me to watch them fixedly in the likely chance that either of them will move rapidly again. I'm realizing that this is probably why she never wanted to go around front of the goats in her herding test--she was expecting them to take off full speed after a tennis ball.

Meanwhile--It's a pencil eraser! It's a shoe polisher! These nifty slip-on shoes that have become so popular are wonderful for me. I can pull them on and off in an instant to, say, wash off mud, they're comfortable, I can do moderate agility in the yard or yard work in them. I knew that my first pair, these ash-gray ones, had become gradually more soiled and discolored ("ash gray," she says? Hmmm--), but I didn't realize how much so until I just bought a second pair (not shown). Then I went looking for ways to clean suede shoes. Found this on ehow.com, used a large pencil eraser (the pointed kind that you push on the end) for about 15 minutes on one of these--what a difference!

Here's a funny lemon from my tree next to a regular (but smallish) one like all the others on my tree. Have been told it's a worm of some kind. There's actually a type of citrus that does this all the time but even more so, the Buddha's hand citron. What's really funny, though, is how my camera interpreted the bright yellow against my greenish teal dogwalk. Bright blue?!

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Notes

SUMMARY: Just thinking.

• It's been SO dry here this winter. Not just in terms of rain (which we're quite low on), but the air. My fingers have been cracking since December. I use moisturizing hand lotion all the time. But I wash my hands so often, too, with being out with the dogs and (the last week or so) a cold and doing stuff in the yard, it's hard to keep up. Now my lips are chapping, my whole face is flaking. I think I'm starting to go hoarse--cold/cough or dry air? Ack.
• The lilac bush is going going...hopefully soon gone! Blog commenters are good at making me put my money where my mouth is. I offered it on Freecycle.org, thinking that no one could really possibly want an 8' tall/wide shrub, but I was swamped with replies. This is apparently the ideal time to remove it. So after 5 years in this house, it's finally going^*. But this means I'm having to dig up all the plants around it that I want to keep and move elsehwere. This is why I found/bought/stole/created dozens of pots and potting soil all summer, to do this, and then it just seemed like SO much work. But with shovels impending, I've made good progress today (yessss---less billable work again) and hopefully can finish tomorrow.
• Tip for the brain dead: When you're lifting something really heavy and you're out of condition and you want to set it on a platform (read "agility table") that's next to you, turn, don't twist at the waist. Owwwies. I knew that. OK, now I have a sore back muscle on one side. Hope it doesn't stiffen up before the weekend.
• For 2 days straight, Jake wouldn't play fetch no matter what I tried. Would finally go and get the toy and then skirt around me at the edges of the yard to dart back into the house. Yesterday he was coaxable, but I had to coax a lot. Then he fetched forever. Today I wasn't in the mood for coaxing, and he lay on the deck watching me toss a toy for the others for about 20 minutes between uprooting irises and narcissi, then he came down and asked me to to play fetch! I was thrilled. Did it a long time, too, like yesterday. Sucks getting old.
• My mom's closest cousin--my clever, funny, "aunt"--has been writing incoherent letters from her home in New York. Senility/alzheimers/whatever is setting in big time. I think that's the curse & the fear of the woodward family women: Live a long life with your body and a shorter one with your mind. It's scary. My mom's doing good so far but we all know from her stories of her grandmother and from the way her mom deteriorated that we all could be next in line...and now the cousin... Argh even more. I'll just assume that doing agility will preserve my mind forever. Or, the way I sometimes run courses, no one will know the difference anyway. That's probably a better strategy--just be incomprehensible all the time so you and everyone else just get used to it.

^*Oops, that would be an unclear pronoun reference. The lilac shrub has not, in fact, EVER been in this house to my knowledge, but *I* have been.

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