Canine Chaos

I drove up to Anne's in Portland yesterday afternoon for dinner (reluctantly dragging myself away from a palate fistula repair in an elderly dachshund's mouth at the clinic). I took my three dogs. Anne has three dogs. A friend from Utah was visiting her who had three dogs. Another friend from Portland joined us with one of her dogs. Lost count?

The role call:

• Azza, 2 yr old desert dog
• Mimi and Harry, 8 yr old and 15 yr old smooth fox terriers
• Forrest, 10 yr old parson russell terrier
• Skeeter, 4 yr old parson russell terrier (since she is matter and Mimi is anti-matter, their meeting would annihilate the universe so Skeeter isn't in the video below)
• Rumble, 1.5 yr old aussi
• Bender and Tolt, 6 mo old B&W BC pups
• their dad, 10-ish yr old, and older brother, unknown age, also B&W BCs

Another way of looking at this chaos: four border collies, three terriers (four counting Skeeter), an aussie, and the desert dog. It was a seething mass of dogs.

It was a little bit rough with Azza at first because she was overwhelmed by all those dogs. Lots of cringing, whining vocalizations, teeth baring and snapping, and generally not very nice behavior on her part. She's also not had the best experiences with black dogs so that might have played into her fear. Thankfully, the BCs and the Aussie were all well adjusted and simply turned away from her instead of engaging or escalating.

We ended up dumping Azza and Skeeter, who get along very well, in a side yard. That turned out to be a Very Good Idea as those sorts of random decisions can be. While watching everything for 20 minutes or so, Azza was able to calm down and work out that none of those dogs had any interest in harming her and might in fact have some play potential.

After behaving badly in the intro, it took Azza quite some time to convince the other dogs to play with her. They'd look at her and think "you crazy, bitch" and walk away. She kept trying though, and she can be pretty persuasive. She avoided the older dogs and eventually had great success with the younger ones.

I can only say this about the video, which I unfortunately shot late in the evening: Harry seems to at last be doing great on the Adequan (he's the only one who's barking, too), and that's a lot of dogs!

Portland: Mountain, Ocean, and Agility

As part of my long leave that spanned nearly all of August, I spent six days in Portland catching up with an old friend. She was quite the host, cramming non-stop fun into my visit.

One of the many highlights was a hike that A, I, and her two terriers made to Burnt Lake located near the foot of Mount Hood. It was a rather warm sunny day even by Portland standards and even though I was just a bit disappointed by the weather (I can get hot and sunny any time here), the blue sky and the bright sun made for a great walk in the woods.

Too bad those terriers couldn't pack their own poop bags back to the trail head!

We saw this little guy on our way down: a flying squirrel perched on the side of a dead (burned) tree.

Ironically, we almost missed the stupendous view of Mount Hood! We didn’t even realize it was looming over us the entire time until we stopped on our way back down above a small group of hikers on the trail in front of us taking pictures. What were they looking at? Oh, at that gigantic snow-covered volcano up there! The fabulous view was over our shoulders the entire way up, and even though we stopped in that very same clearing to admire some dead trees, we never looked behind us! We stopped at the lake and didn't go all the way up to the saddle at "Zigzag Mountain" from which the view of Mount Hood would have been a lot more obvious. 

Mount Hood.

The next day we headed the other direction to the ocean for a leisurely stroll in the surf. The fog and mist and surf (the tide was low when we arrived then coming in so the waves got bigger with time) combined with the nearly empty beach and sunny, clear sky made it an extremely restful morning. And of course, for a couple of terriers, a beach is an endless source of things to sniff, put in one’s mouth, or pee on.

A and Skeeter in the surf and Forrest with me attached at the other end.

Forrest with real treasure: a deliciously crunchy but very dead starfish.

Mist. Wet sand. Reflections of the trees. And a clear blue sky over it all.

Me with Skeeter and Forrest.

A generously indulged my pork and wine needs. We managed to eat brats (first boiled in beer with sweet Walla Walla onions then grilled with more of those fab onions; apparently a northern/midwestern recipe) three nights in a row (although the middle night was leftovers from the first night but it still counts)! And homemade berry jam on very good, locally made, whole grain bread. Decent bread is nearly impossible to find here in KSA. I refuse to eat that soft, mushy, sugary stuff they call bread and do without until I head to some place that isn't KSA. 

A is rather crafty. She knits and crochets and felts and makes dog tugs and leashes from fleece. I had no idea she had such skills. I don't do those sorts of things. Oh, sure, I can make jumps and pause tables and such but that's more engineering and less crafting. A makes cute purses and totes and even small bowls out of felted wool. We were in a pet store and I pointed out these catnip-laced body pillows for cats made of fleece. They look fun, I said, but not for 7 bucks each. Oh, A said, we can make those in no time at all! And so later that week we did just that using fleece scraps and some catnip that I bought for the purpose. I left one of the body pillows with Bhumi, the Siamese mix that I rehomed with my mother, and brought three home for my two feline beasts. I can't leave them out all the time since fleece equals dog toy in Azza's head and all she wants to do is eat them.

My mother's ancient cat Freckles (he may be 18 or 19 years old) curled up with Bhumi. They became BFF nearly upon sight. I always suspected that Bhumi was gay. Sorry, A, no pics of Bhumi slobbering on his catnip body pillow! I owe you a pic of Kinky and Tsingy slobbering on theirs.

A particularly memorable part of my visit was the Saturday we spent at a local agility trial. When I was corresponding with A to arrange the trip, she casually mentioned this local trial was going to be held the weekend I was there, and said, oh, would you like to run Forrest at the trial?

I know I have some non-dog-sport readers so let me take a moment to elaborate on this. Very few dog sport people are willing to let someone else run their dog. The reasons usually come down to “you might break my dog” and “you might make me look stupid.” Yeah, I know, not logical or even particularly sporting but that’s how it is.

But I guess I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got some amazing dog friends who don’t let that kind of thing get in the way of a good time. For example, there’s DW who let me run his beautiful red BC Eris last year for the entire weekend of a flyball tournament. And now A offered me her PRT for a full day of agility!

The second point to be made explicit here is that I am blessed with amazing dog friends who say, hmm, what would make CircusK9 happy? Oh, I know, how about having her run my dog! Friends like that are treasures indeed.

The amusing part of the agility affair is how many hours A and I spent trying to get into Forrest’s fuzzy little brain. We set up a course in her backyard and during the week I ran him through it several times as well as working tricky sequences such as dogwalk/tunnel discrimination and sending to the back side of a jump. He worked fairly well for me in her yard, and whenever we went out and about, A handed me his leash and said, you’re in charge of him! She coached me on her routines at the crate and at the start line, at contacts and even for the end of the run (she taught Forrest to jump into her arms). I practiced them all.

The trial was held outdoors in a covered horse barn. It was hot and dusty...just like most other horse barns that I've done agility in. When it came time to actually do agility in the ring, Forrest wasn’t particularly sure he liked his new handler. For the first run, he did six obstacles before leaving the ring. On the second run, we managed to get to the 10th obstacle before he shut down. A said that he had ring nerves and used to do the same with her so this wasn't new behavior. Before the second run, I bought him super special treats (dried lamb lung, mm!) in a shameless attempt to bribe him, but even that wasn't enough to convince him that I was worth the trouble. 

The time for our third run was approaching and we had tried just about everything we could think of. That left only the unexpected. I asked her if she had ever done a “drop and run” with him. Yes, she said, when he was very green she did that a few times. Drop and run is when the handler holds the dog in her arms at the start line, then drops the dog to the ground and both take off at the same time. It is often used by handlers when their dog doesn't have any control at the start line. It can also be hugely motivating for some dogs--it's really just a chase game. She also felt that I was being too soft with him. Me, a soft handler? "But, but, but," I sputtered, "he’s not my dog!" It’s really hard to get tough with someone else's dog! In the end, though, that is exactly what I did, drop and run at the start and became the drill sergeant handler. I badgered him all the way, staying in his face, clapping annoyingly, doing front crosses way, way late, but by god, we completed that third course. In the video, which I present with no editing, you’ll see that I bailed on the weave poles. Forrest has lovely, fast weave poles but he simply wasn’t prepared to do them with me that day. Pfft, no matter, it was all for fun. And at the end, he jumped into my arms like he'd been running with me for years.

A note on this video: because I am now using a wireless internet connection instead of fatter, faster DSL, I couldn't push the original video through. I had to cut way back on the resolution to get it to load. Still, I think that you'll get the idea. 

What's the message here? Well, Forrest is a fast, happy dog who enjoys agility (especially at his new jump height of only 12") and while he wasn't too thrilled to be out there with me, he's still gave it a decent try. And A generously allowed me to fumble my way around the ring all day long with her dog...because she thought I'd enjoy it. And I did.

Coming here to KSA has been a lesson in what is truly important in life. I lost many things...and in the end discovered that I could live pretty well without them. They were just things after all. I instead gained some perspective on what you can't live without. Pork, good wine, good friends, and happy dogs all go on that list (perhaps not quite in that order). It's a good holiday when I can combine all of those things together.

A tired dog is a good dog

Ever since I got my first smooth fox terrier (Harry Houdini), that phrase has been one of my mantras. These dogs may be small but they have incredible amounts of energy. Some people might describe them with pejorative terms such as "hyper." I prefer "high energy" or "really really active." But semantics aside, I will admit that it takes a lot of effort to get these dogs tired.

I spend at least an hour every evening trying to make my dogs tired and thus good. One of the best ways to do this is to play a very vigorous game of ball. But there's a slight catch. Isn't there always a catch?

For dogs bred to be kept in working pairs and packs, smooth fox terriers are insanely pack aggressive. I can only play with one at a time. Hey, I'm a pretty good dog trainer. I do agility and flyball with terriers. That alone should speak for itself. But I haven't had a lot of success in getting them to "honor" their pack members during play. People with more than one terrier know this as the "terrier code":

1) If I like it, it's mine.
2) If it's in my mouth, it's mine.
3) If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4) If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5) If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6) If I'm chewing something up, all the pieces are mine.
7) If I saw it first, it's mine.
8) If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.

It is so much simpler to just pull them out one by one.

It doesn't matter if we play ball inside or out (it's really hot in north central Texas during the summer so we play in the house fairly often), the other dogs howl and scream in their crates the entire time. You'd think I was sticking them all with hot pokers or some other medieval torture device. No, it's much worse. I'm playing with a dog that isn't them. I get each dog out and throw the ball until they end up stretched out on the tile floor and refuse bring it back to me. Then it's in the crate and out comes the next one. It's a wonderful way to spend an hour with my pups.

Oh, and a tired dog is a happy dog.