Nothing Is Happening Here

SUMMARY: Here we are. Yes. [Twiddles thumbs.]

There is a USDAA trial this weekend and it's within my limit of 2 hours from home, but we are not going. Part of my program to cut back on agility and reclaim my Real Life, which I can barely even remember preagility, it was so long ago. I am doing more hiking. I like it. I am doing crossword puzzle tourneys. Well--one, anyway. I liked it. I am even thinking about doing some yardwork this weekend. After all, I've been in this house 9 years this month and it's probably about time.

I will be home to celebrate my dad's birthday with the family. How weird is that, that I should be not at agility on a family celebration day?

Around me, the world is full of happiness and light, darkness and sorrow.

Just before the last trial, Knack the Border Collie, a really nice, fast Border Collie, who had been diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma--same thing that killed Remington--crossed the rainbow bridge. Knack was not that old. Maybe Remington's age, but I think younger? (Rem was 9 and a half.)

Radar the Rodent Pointer, who was in our class many years ago, suddenly became really ill last week. He went to the vet and they discovered a huge hemangiosarcoma tumor on his spleen, which ruptured catastrophically while he was at the animal hospital. Just like that, Radar is gone. He was 12 and a half, but the day before, he was a healthy and active dog.

Last week, Tika's Nationals DAM team teammate from last year, Apache the Terv, had found himself a totally awesome team, because among other reasons I am not going to Nationals this year. His Human Dad didn't really want to go last year, but I twisted his arm and they went and had a great time and Apache did so well that if we had all done that well, we'd have been in the finals. This year he had a team to make that happen.

A few days ago, Apache suddenly became really ill. He went to the vet and they discovered a huge hemangiosarcoma tumor on his spleen, which had ruptured but not quite catastrophically but has metastasized into other organs. I visited him Wednesday night and his Human Dad and I talked a lot about everything related to losing dogs and getting dogs and life with dogs and disappointments and successes, and we ate ribs and I took a bag of freeze-dried liver treats and fed most of them to Apache.

They are not going to the Nationals. Apache is ten and a half and was still running great Masters USDAA agility at 26".

We are all hugging our dogs tighter and tighter every day. I cannot lie that it is a downer, especially because it so strongly brings back Remington's illness.

But, OK, all is not despair. Apache's and Tika's classmate, Luka, is off in Austria at the FCI World Championships, with two other very local dogs, the amazing Bay Team border collie Icon and the steady-under-fire sheltie Wave. And our instructor is the coach and it's very exciting to have so many people we know out there.

Tika and Boost are healthy and happy. They both ran well in class this week. They are running well in the yard, but we're still doing a lot of simple things just to have fun, mostly running from one tunnel to the next and over some jumps in between. Because we don't have another trial until, oh, say, NEXT weekend.

The lawn is growing in a spurt of autumn enthusiasm. The local fresh fruit at the grocery seems particularly wonderful right now--nectarines, pears, strawberries. Yum. Eating lots of it.

I am going now to hug my nonhuggy dogs again and go to bed with them alongside.

We are here, with not much to report about our own lives.

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No Thanks, No Puppy for Me

SUMMARY: In which I continue to realize that I am content with my current dog population and that my current dog population has some agility issues.

There's a brand new border collie puppy at Power Paws, and it visited class last night. It was very cute. It was happy to see everyone. It had delightful puppy breath. It wiggled and ran and fell over and got up and wiggled some more. As astonishingly freshly cute as every puppy ever made. I snuggled it.

And I had absolutely zero, not one, not a whit of, desire for a puppy of my own. Puppies are hard work. Training is hard work. Taking care of dogs is hard work, and expensive, too. I like having two dogs. Me and my twos, we be a happy little family unit.

Someone in class suggested that, when I said, "I have no interest in a puppy," that I was trying to convince myself. Funny that that's the reaction--does everyone else want a new puppy so badly that they can't imagine someone NOT wanting one?

No thanks, no no no--I've got enough training and attention challenges with the dogs I've got!

But I do like having lots of friends in agility. I left my Wednesday night 8:15 class a while back, but I'm still an Honorary Member. So when certain members of the class promised human treats to celebrate his 3rd consecutive placement on the World Team, I invited myself along.



Then they invited my dogs to participate in class, so I got a bonus class this week (in exchange for giving up my Wednesday night sierra club hike).

As an additional bonus for going up to class on Wednesday, I had an opportunity at a stop light to capture the sunset.


Then, as yet another bonus, in Power Paws' driveway, Mr. Owl awaited me on the phone lines for a photo op in the twilight. No tripod, but not bad anyway. (Great Horned Owl.)


And so, with two nights in a row of class, I have established this: Tika runs well at 22", and Boost knocks a lot of bars.

So here we are again.

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Tiring Out the Dogs--Ha!

SUMMARY: OK, an 8-mile hike is good for half a day.

For those familiar with Palo Alto and Stanford, here's the route we took Wednesday evening (thanks, Karin, for mapping it and for these photos):

Here we are before the hike.

Agility friend Karey joined us with her three Border Collies.

We of course enjoyed the questions about our dogs, and were entertained both by those who thought that Karey's three dogs must be related because they look so much alike (for Border Collieists--not!) and by those, conversely, who looked at the three of them and Boost and said that the four of them looked so different that it was hard to believe that they were all the same breed.

As for wearing out the dogs--by 2:00 yesterday, my beasts were inquiring why we weren't out doing something active and exciting, and they had no problem at all running full tilt at toys or Evil Squirrels. (Tika caught one earlier this week. Sigh.)

Class started out on a high note, as our instructor (World Team Coach) was just back from Helsinki with multiple golds and some other excellent performances for the USA team. Woo Team USA!

In class, Tika seemed on the slow side, but Boost exulted in being on an agility course for the first time in two weeks, and had some lovely runs. We had lots of rear-cross opportunities last night, though, and we found some of our weak areas. In particular, if I have to bring Boost towards me before making a rear cross, I push her off the jump just about every time.



We worked on that quite a bit, with assistance, and succeeded easily the last time I tried it at the very end of the evening. I just need to set up similar things, as she just might have been patterned on that one set-up by then.

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FCI World Cup Videos

SUMMARY: Pay-for-view FCI videos.

Our local agility videographer, Eric, is at the FCI World agility championships and is posting vidoes directly from there:

http://fci2007.agilityvideoservice.com/

However, he experienced a very heavy site load (gee, ya think there's a market for people watching FCI videos as the event happens? ;-) ) and has changed it today to be a pay-to-register site. Some videos you can watch for free, but to see everything through the event, you have to pay a $19 one-time registration fee. If you're hungry for that sort of video, and if you want to support his effort in providing the free stuff, too, you can register. (Disclaimer: I barely know Eric and have no financial interest in this. I did register.)

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AKC Statement on FCI and Docking

SUMMARY: US News and World Report (or something--)

Another blogger (Team Fernandezlopez) has posted a statement from AKC: Read it here.

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FCI Bans Docked Dogs from World Cup

SUMMARY: A new (?) ruling that I know next to nothing about.

The docking and cropping of dogs' ears and tails has been controversial for many years. Many people feel that it is cruel--no matter how or when it is done, it must cause pain and is unnecessary for today's dogs who don't work in the environments for which the hacking was originally done. Others say that it's painless if performed on very young puppies; that it prevents a variety of injuries, infections, or illnesses in dogs even today; or that some breeds have been bred with the assumption of cropping so that the uncropped tails or ears are ugly (e.g., half size) or unwieldy or whatever.

None-the-less, the practice has been more and more outlawed around the world. The U.S. has so far not dared to step into the fray legally; the AKC leaves it up to the individual breed clubs; and the breed clubs all have their reasons why cropping and docking makes sense for their breeds.

You can read more about the history of, arguments for and against, and where it is outlawed, on Wikipedia.

Luka, who won the 16" AKC National Champion, like most Pyrenean Shepherds (at least here in the states) has a docked tail. The AKC chooses who represents the U.S. at the FCI's World Cup competition, currently the largest and most prestigious of international agility championships. (This is why (AKC) you'll never see mixed breeds at the world cup. Unless AKC starts allowing mixed breeds to compete.) This year the World Cup will be in Norway in September. Normally a dog who wins as consistently as Luka would be a shoo-in for the AKC's world cup team. But apparently effective this year, the FCI has banned all dogs with docking or cropping.

Ashley, like most dog owners, didn't have a choice in the docking or cropping. More experienced dog people who have paid attention to the issue over the years know that they can opt for a dog or breeder who doesn't crop--but in the states, this tremendously limits your choices of breeders. Since most chopping is done shortly after birth, by the time a buyer chooses a member of the litter, the work has already been done. And since AKC breed clubs still require docking and cropping of many breeds for the show ring, there is tremendous motivation for breeders with show-quality dogs to perform the operation.

Part of the controversy with the FCI appears to be that they didn't provide, say, a cutoff birth date for dogs who are ineligible to compete, which would seem to make more sense. And apparently they didn't announce a phase-in period or multiple years notice or whatever.

Mind you--I'm not in favor of docking or cropping. But I'm also not in favor of abrupt or arbitrary rule changes, which this seems to be. I don't know the details; this is hearsay. And I'm not finding the info on the web with searching. If anyone can provide me with links to more info on this subject, I'd be glad to post them.

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