Four Short Stories

1. Organic Gardening
Five of these giant mushroom colonies grew up around my seedless mulberry. I pulled them all up and put them in my compost bin.





2. Co-lateral Squirrel Damage
I live in a fairly densely wooded area. Most of the trees are 20+ years old and support a prolific squirrel population. I also keep a bird feeder, a Squirrel Buster, which I can say truly does work as advertised, but the birds are picky and thus messy and the squirrels (and the doves and other ground feeders) eat the seeds that get tossed onto the ground. I'd have squirrels running around anyway, but the free food does tend to attract them. Imagine my horror last weekend when I discovered a piece of siding that had been either pulled out or that had fallen from under one of my roof eaves. It could only mean squirrels were now romping and procreating in my attic! Oh my god. I called a wildlife removal service that offers humane solutions, not traps or poisons. Two guys showed up this morning, one a new trainee. They poked around my roof for a while, then asked to get into the attic. The primary access is from the garage. The trainee proceeded to step off the staircase right through the ceiling of my garage.


At least it was the garage and not the living room or my bedroom so clean up was easy. This is a fixable problem and I didn't get terribly wound up about it. And thankfully, there was no evidence that squirrels, or god forbid, raccoons et al., had taken up residence inside my attic. The hole under the eave is now fixed. The hole in my garage ceiling will be fixed in a couple of days (paid for of course by the wildlife removal company).


3. Who Needs Throw Pillows?
I don't have cable or satellite TV. I don't watch enough TV to justify the expense. But I do watch TV sometimes. And when I sit down on the couch, I am immediately surrounded by dogs and cats all vying for the prime position of my lap. As a result, none of them actually get to sit in my lap. So Gracie and Lola have come up with the best compromise by taking spots on the back of the couch. Lola tucks in behind my neck (a warm, furry, purring pillow) and Gracie likes to drape her front paws and head over my shoulder.



4. Amazing Gracie
In class on Monday night, Gracie got introduced to an Aframe contact. Debbie is having us backchain contact performance. That is, they didn't do the entire Aframe, only the last few feet of it. We either lifted them up and put them on the down side of the Aframe or we lured them up. There was a target on the ground at the bottom of the contact. Because my own Aframe is currently being rehabbed (details to come), I've only worked Gracie at home on a 12" wide plank on the ground. So she'd not seen a slanted contact before. She happily jumped up on it, turned around, and raced down to the target, dropping into the most beautiful down with her front paws on the target, lined up perfectly straight on the obstacle, and repeatedly offered a nose touch for multiple click/treats. I released her with my command "okay!" and she came running off towards me. I turned and stepped into her with the intent of slipping her collar/leash back on, but I've been doing a lot of flat work with her and she interpreted my movement differently. She turned when I turned, ran back up the contact, spun around, ran to the bottom, and dropped into a down, paws on the target. It happened so quickly that I could hardly get treats out fast enough. How can I characterize this sort of learning? It happened in a single session. Gracie is apparently just as scary smart as her sister Mimi but WAAAAY more focused on me from the outset.

So tonight, I decided to test what she actually did learn. I propped one end of my 12" wide training plank up--a terribly shaky set up to be sure. Nothing was tied down or particularly solid. This plank is a 1/2" by 12" board that I nailed some slats to and then painted with primer and sand. Nothing fancy. But it's a versatile training tool to work contacts.

Gracie wasn't sure that a wobbly 12" board was at all the same as a nice, wide, stable Aframe. So I lured her up the board twice, then had her turn on the board--make a 180degree turn on that 12" wide wobbly board, not a trivial move by any means--and when she saw the target on the ground at the end, she SHOT to the end of the board and dropped into a down, paws on the target. Amazing. I didn't get any pics of her on the board but here's my little set up.


I'm going to have to get a personal exercise trainer to keep up with these sisters if they both proceed to make all this potential the real deal.