Dog Days of Summer

It's been a long, hot, humid summer. In the 9 years we've lived here, this is definately the most miserable. We brought out the doggie pool for the pups to enjoy. Most of my Shelties are allergic to water, with the exception of Shiloh. He enjoys laying in it after a good game of ball and Daisy, being a BC, will lay in it all day if we let her. All enjoy a nice big cool drink from it. We introduced Pinch to water in the hopes he'd join Shiloh in liking it. He more than likes it, he loves the pool, the hose, and water more than any dog I've ever had. A dangerous new "trick" he's learning is taking the hose (while it's running) and running around with it, spraying all who get in his path. Clearly he loves the pandemonium of screaming and running.
All I can say is: Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it all.

Sometimes It's Just Hard

I apologize in advance as this is not going to be the happiest post. The header pretty much says it all. I find it harder and harder to put on a brave face, go out into my life and do normal life things while my brother-in-law Barry continues to decline. The emails from my sister are breaking my heart. I'm over 1,000 miles away and feeling helpless. Of course she can call any time and I've told her when she needs me I'll come...but still there is really nothing I can do to ease her pain or take Barry's cancer away. There is another clinical trial he is eligible for, but there are no spots available. Janice is frantically searching everywhere in the US to no avail. Meantime Barry continues to decline. He's only 54. It's not fair.
It's a sad, frightening time for my family. We have circled the wagons and surrounded them with love and support. Their church is bringing them meals and lending a hand with the household duties.
My stomach is in a continual knot and I have a permanent lump in my throat from holding back a good cry. I pray with every breath. All we can do is wait and hope that somehow this will all turn around and there will come a time we can look back on this and say "wow, that was a bad time. But we're all better now!" I am looking forward to sitting on the porch with my sister and saying that.
Until then, my family is in constant touch with each other, holding hands virtually, and walking through this long dark tunnel together looking for the light.
It's getting late and I must get ready for work. It's time to put that face back on. But sometimes it's just hard.

Conformation Boy

Here's a picture of Pinch at 12 weeks. This photo was taken by Gary Platt, a talented dog trainer & photographer, while we were at the St. Louis shows. He's changed a bit since then but it's such a lovely photo I had to share. Pinch continues to stay in size and develop a lovely structure and expression. His temperament is allowing him to make huge progress in his learning. At each puppy conformation class he improves by leaps and bounds. Whether or not he is competitive at six months, we are thinking of entering him in a local show Just For Fun to make his first ring experience an exciting and positive thing. Of his three littermates he will be the first to show as he will be able to handle it and enjoy strutting his stuff. He can come to a stop/stack and bait beautifully, great on the table and not a problem at all with the judge going over him and looking in his mouth. He's not rattled at all in the group go-around and gaits very very nicely. I'm just thrilled with him.
I would be delighted if he can get some points for a VC/VCX and would be over the moon if he could get a CH. Time of course will tell.
Of course he is loving his puppy obedience lessons. At class last week we learned how to back up through panels and are continuing that. It's a nice tool to have in your box and I've found it to be quite handy with Moto.
Speaking of Mr. Moto he is really enjoying his utility work. I'm glad. The way things are looking now, we'll probably have a lackluster Novice career, an OK Open showing, and I think he will really shine in Utility. Still needs lots of self-confidence in scent work so I'm just making it fun and ensure he thoroughly understands the exercise.
All five dogs have been bathed and groomed and look so lovely and smell great. Coat-blowing is in full bloom and the amount of hair everywhere is boggling.

A Northlight Family Reunion

Pictured are: Belle, Elizabeth, Dan, Collin (in his arms), 3 other Northlight pups, and Moto on the far right.
Dan came up from Alabama to pick up his newest Northlight pup from Elizabeth yesterday, so we all got together to play with puppies, catch up and show off Belle and Moto to Dan. It's been six years since I last saw him and boy a lot has happened since then. We both got a little older and we both collected some more dogs. Elizabeth and her family were the hostesses with the mostesses and laid out a table of food, drink and dessert that completely busted my diet. I ate with a gusto I haven't in years and we had sooo much fun watching the puppies, swapping dog stories and enjoying the day.
Moto was very reserved and didn't really warm up to anyone but then again he's just not an outgoing dog. He did enjoy himself and as always was extremely sweet and gentle with the puppies.
It's always so great to see old friends. I look forward to hearing wonderful reports from Dan's newest rising star Collin.

Life's Twists and Turns

This blog was created to track my training with Moto, but boy has a lot changed since he came into my life:
I had the car accident
My husband lost his job
My brother-in-law got cancer
and all the other Life Stuff that comes with all those really BIG changes. So, I find it hard staying on-track and just blogging about what Moto and I are doing. This entry will not be about dogs.
My brother-in-law's cancer has spread. He's had radiation treatment and was accepted into a clinical trial, both to no avail. My sister sounded amazingly good on the phone as she told me the awful news last night. I even spoke with Barry and he sounded even better. I don't know how they do it. Maybe because next is a clinical trial that specifically targets his particular type of cancer. This is the one we are all hanging our hopes onto.
Please if you feel so inclined pray for Barry. We all know how powerful prayer and positive thinking is, and we need every prayer and every good thought.
Standing in my shoes, I feel like I've been reborn as my life was almost taken away over a year ago and handed back to me. As I feel the humid summer days I rejoice that I "get" to feel the dampness on my skin and hear the crickets chirping. I'm sure on Barry's side he's doing the same thing, but for the reason that his time may be coming to a close. Of course we all never know when our time will come; but cancer is such an awful disease. I cannot imagine the emotional stress, let alone the stress of chemo, radiation and all the other drugs put into your body.
Life is always so full of surprises. Our family just hopes we get some good surprises soon.

He's a Pwah-di-jee!

I find myself talking baby talk to my puppy. The above is my latest statement to him after our fun training session this morning. Pinch really is getting the deeper concepts of our training games. This morning's big breakthrough was the "find it" game. This consists of manila folders set up randomly (thanks Renee!) with a treat underneath one of them. I'd been doing this already using tiny tupperware bowls but I think the folders are much cooler as it better hides the treat. We did the game in a new area (inside the basement) and I had about 10 folders up. Bless the little guy, he put his nose down and sniffed and sniffed until he found his treat. The biggest thrill was when a folder was knocked over. Unfortunately it was the one that had the treat, which was now underneath. Pinch realized this and used his problem-solving skills: he used his paws to move the folder, then stuck his head the rest of the way under and got the treat. GOOD BOY!
I've changed up the way I train Moto in the hopes of getting more out of him in the ring. It's exhausting but it's doing quick dynamic exercises in rapid succession. We're constantly in motion and maybe there's treats and maybe not until we're all done. A toy may be hidden under my arm and suddenly appear. Even setting up is fun (I hope) quick and dynamic, incorporating Rally moves as we go from one station to the next. We both have our tongues hanging out after these sessions. Everything is coming along but the danged broad jump exercise. I cannot figure out why sometimes he'll do the exercise beautifully, walk over the jump, or run around it. It's totally random. I thought if we did the BJ every day we'd get over this quirk but it's still there. Doesn't matter if it's at home or somewhere else, I still get this random behavior. Everything else is coming along nicely, thank you.
Today is my day off and it's a gorgeous summer day. I may make it a true summer day by bathing some Shelties. Nothing is more fun than five wet Shelties careening around the back yard. Yes, I'm being sarcastic! But it's high time they had a bath and Pinch needs to get used to it if he's going to be a conformation boy. Plus I could use the exercise.

Pinch Makes Progress

Having a puppy is sooooo much fun. Don't know why, but I'm enjoying Pinch's puppyhood and savoring every moment. Didn't get to enjoy Blitz's as he was ill, and Moto's puppyhood got pushed aside because of the car accident.
This pup loves to learn and I'm looking forward to our second puppy class this Wednesday. Tonight is his second conformation class. At this point he still is of conformation quality. Sheltie pups change so much it's almost impossible to tell for several months if they will make it into the conformation ring. To me he's the most beautiful puppy and a judge would be a fool to give a blue ribbon to anyone other than him, but I'm prejudiced.
He has no problem running 'round the conformation ring with other dogs, can stack and stand and pose very nicely. No problem on the table and loves the judge's going over.
My next hope is that he has herding instincg. He didn't show much interest his first exposure but heck I'd only had him 24 hours at that point. We were going to see sheep yesterday but a silly thunderstorm got in the way. Maybe next weekend.
Meantime I've been working on heeling with Moto. He's going to need a lot more work in this department. I found an interesting trial in August that we'll try our hand at Novice again in one of those nonregular classes. Once again I'll assess how he's coming along before entering him in "real" classes.
The weather has been so bad this year - bitter cold and lots of snow and spring/summer has been hot, extremely humid with lots of rain. This makes training outdoors difficult.
Puppy training is easy as Pinch doesn't neeed a lot of room....yet. But keeping Mr. Moto tuned up has been challenging.

I Was In A Car Accident...

...and it was really scary.
So interesting that those words popped into my head last night as I drove home from puppy class. It was dark and I was very proud of myself, driving on the highway at night. Then that statement popped into my head. I know what's happening, it's time for me to say it to someone, somewhere so that I can let it all go. Just like you say I'm An Alcoholic at an AA meeting.
My left side has been giving me terrible pain and I was losing mobility in my left arm, so went to Marla, the talented massage therapist to get that worked on. She does cranial sacral work and some kind of a muscle release that works very well with me. As she held my left arm (it just moves on its own as it needs to move) I felt tremendous energy racing through my body. I told her about the saying that popped into my head last night. She encouraged me to say it. I felt my body yelling at me to quit hanging onto the terror of that night. It was practically screaming for me to say it. So I did, out loud, to Marla.
I was in a car accident.
And it was really scary.
Then the rivers were released. Not crying really, just tears of relief and release. Marla said as I was speaking she felt shocks like lightning bolts coming from my body.
Fascinating.
Even more fascinating, while I still have scar tissue that is inhibiting full mobility, the pain is gone. So is the big goose egg of pain in my left hip.
After the session, I sat down with Dr. Julie (chiropractor) and we laughed at silly stuff like I haven't laughed in a long time.
I think it's over. Or, at least the worst of it is over. All I feel is huge relief and boy am I tired. Time to play with puppy one more time, watch the fireflies, potty dogs and look forward to a beautiful night's sleep.
Soooo grateful for the talent here in this town.

Puppy Class, Part I

Pinch got to go to his first puppy class last night. What an absolute blast. A Golden puppy about the same age as Pinch was the other student. There's nothing like a puppy and a nice blank slate. I always vow not to make the same mistakes, and I typically don't - I make a slew of new ones, sheesh. Right now Pinch has the capability of being that OTCH/200 I've always dreamed of, and I sure hope not to screw it up. I've already got some valuable pointers of things I need to improve on and new training ideas. What's so great at this point is everything is FUN and EXCITING and the time just flies by. We'll have a good time incorporating these new methods into our training routine.
Moto did well at class last night also. I've decided not to give him any room for error when it comes to heeling and he is tied to me as we heel. This worked well at class and I need to do this in strange places. Even though we had near-perfect ring conditions for our Wildcard runs, Moto was distracted at times and other times simply chose not to care which led to wide turns and extremely bad (by bad I mean 1 or more feet away from me) sits. I don't want him to EVER get away with that again, so for now, that option is removed by tying him to me.
Once home - at it was late for me (late is 10:00 at night) when I got a phone call from my cousin. We chatted for a bit and she came up with an interesting insight as I talked about Moto: she said for the first time since she's known me, it seems that Moto is a pet first, and an obedience dog second. All my other dogs have been the reverse. Huh. You know, I think she is right. While I'm not pleased with that priority, I think that is what is best for Moto. I'll train him and we'll work hard. OTCH is still a goal but the reality is, it just may not happen with him. I'm OK with that. Moto has a very important "job" at our house. He acts like the mama dog to Pinch and is always by my side when the chips are down. There's nothing better than hugging that big furry body and receiving those long-tomgued kisses as comfort. We have 2 sick dogs and one very elderly dog and it can be tough sometimes. I am very grateful to have a dog like Moto in my life right now.