My in-laws don't want dogs along at their lake house ... so I'm looking for a dog-minder from Tues 30th to Sun 5th.  My mom is watching Kizzy, but Gromit is a bit much for her.  I know it's a long shot, but I thought I'd ask here ... is anyone interested in taking care of Gromit for that period?  He is an excellent ball-returner :).

... yet still irresistible!

I'm off to a three-day trial in Maine!  The host is Wag-It, and the location is the Union Fairgrounds.  We're coming off that great weekend at Act-Up, so I have some (likely unwarranted) high hopes.  This trial is quite a ways away, so I will be staying over.  There is on-site camping, but I'm taking advantage of an old friend who lives about an hour from the site in Hampden, ME.  She was a trainer at Canine U, until her husband's career took their family to Maine.  I miss her a lot, and I'm excited for the chance to hang out with her.

I'm under no delusions that my Boston friends will drive to Maine to watch, so this list is only for reference. Close readers will notice that we are running level 2 or 3 in everything except Standard.   ( details )

We had a great weekend!!



Eli came along both days. He was well-behaved, sweet, and helpful. He worked as leash-runner, score-runner, and ring crew, and won three prizes in the volunteer raffle! He get a solar blanket, a soft cooler with dog toys and cookies, and a metal food bowl full of tennis balls. Score! (He also ate a bucketload of the free candy -- and was nearly sick on the car ride home today. Sort of like going to the fair...?)

Gromit was fantastic. I went to Act-Up's trial prepared to leave if the ring was too low to adequately contain Gromit, or if he bolted on the first run. I was not going to let him get reinforced for running, like at Bo-Gee two weeks ago. I'm pleased to say that he did not escape the ring a single time. Depending on the course layout, I sometimes had ring guards, and sometimes not. I only needed them the first run and the last run of the weekend! I successfully ended 8 runs with Gromit voluntarily returning his attention and self to me! Hooray!

Given that keeping him in the ring was my main goal for the weekend, it is just that more marvelous that we also did really, really well. He is running more slowly that he was at first, but he's thinking more and doing much better on hitting contacts, staying on course, etc. I asked a couple people if he looked happy, and they replied that he looked like he was concentrating really hard.

Standard -- no Q either day (boo hoo, I have exactly ZERO standard Qs)
Colors -- Q'd both days, including our first Level 3 Colors Q on a very twisty course
Wildcard -- Q'd Level 2 (now I'm only 1 Wildcard Q away from a level 2 "handler" title)
Snooker -- my first level 3 Q, with 44 points! (51 is the max possible, so this is very good)
Jackpot -- my first Q EVER EVER in this class (earned us the level 1 "strategy" title)
FullHouse -- zippo, oh well (first run of the weekend was a little crazy for Gromit)
Jumpers -- Q! (earned our level 2 "fun" title)

If only I can crack standard, we can finish our Level 1 all-around title and get a giant pretty ribbon :).

Our next trial is in two weeks in Union, ME. It's a three-day trial with 15 classes total -- fun fun fun! I'm staying with a friend from Canine U who moved up to Maine a few years ago -- I still miss her, so I'm extra glad for the excuse to visit.

Today went great!  Gromit did not go crazy, did not leave the ring.  He tried twice -- stopped once physically by my gate guard, and once I verbally brought him back before he had to be physically stopped. The other three runs, he didn't even try!!  We had an NT (no time) for the first one, and a NQ for the 2nd (due to a handling error on my part), but we Q'd the last three runs, including our first level 3 snooker Q, and the Colors Q we needed in order to move up to level 3.  Woot!  Good dog.  I can hardly wait to go back tomorrow, right after sleeping as much as possible.  (It's a long day when you wake up at 5 am ...)

(I actually had a huge compliment from the person who ran the Bo-Gee trial where Gromit was so wild -- she said, "So, what did you do to Gromit??" -- and I got to tell her all about how hard I worked with him to change his end-of-run behavior.)

We're off to another trial -- our sixth.  This one is put on by Act-Up Agility Club at Canine Mastery in Seekonk, MA.  It's a little further away than some of the other trials I've been to ... which will mean I'm leaving the house at 5:30 AM.  That's right, 5:30 AM.  I'm a little worried about the lack of communications from the trial secretary -- usually by now, I have already received a mass mailing with run orders and volunteer work schedules for the weekend. 

I've spent the last two weeks working very hard on Gromit's attention during agility.  In particular, I've taught him a the three-part "finish up" behavior and put it on cue. He offers it as a default behavior, which is great.  I have a tent, I have a plan, and I'm hoping the fence at Canine Mastery is more than two feet high.  Wish us luck!

Runs start at 8 AM and go until they're over, usually 4-ish (on the off chance that anyone wants to come watch).   ( details )

Overall ... darn good, considering. Three Q's, including our first in Wildcard, which earns us out CL1-H title (H is for Handler). As expected, I did have a lot of trouble with Gromit leaving the ring, but I did get some improvement over the course of the weekend, and I have a plan to fix it.

( details )

Look who's on two wheels!

( pic )

He looks all serious and stuff, but he's having a great time -- I swear!

( video )

Well, Gromit seems to be "back to normal" just a few days after having a 2-inch stick extracted from his soft palette, so we are off to agility!  This weekend's trial is our first outdoor trial -- at the Deerfield Fairgrounds in Deerfield, NH (host club is Bo-Gee).  It's also our first trial since Gromit's neutering, so there are a lot of new things to factor in.

Runs start at 8 AM and go until they're over, usually 4-ish (on the off chance that anyone wants to come watch).   ( details )

First we went to visit the Great Gate in Lowell. (It's a protective measure for the canals, to prevent flooding of the entire city.) It's cool to climb around on, although there are a few too many places where small humans can get heart-stoppingly close to falling into water. I let Gromit go in the water twice, but the current was strong so that was plenty.

( great gate pix )The next day, we went letterboxing with some friends. It was their first time, and we haven't been out boxing since Halloween last year! We went back to the Goldsmith Woodlands to pick up some new boxes, and show our friends "The Wheel" (which is a very pretty stamp). After boxing, the boys wanted to "play army" in the woods, so we dropped by Zach's House and Hop Pit (stone foundations of long-gone buildings) and had a snack there:

( pix )On our way back to the car, we were (as usual) throwing sticks for Gromit. A particularly skinny one hit him in a particularly bad angle. I could see that it had stuck in his mouth -- he coughed and a bit of stick fell out. He showed no other ill effects, but when I opened his mouth, I could see the end of a stick coming out throw a slightly bloody hole in the far back of his mouth. I tried to grab it, but it was too slippery and too far back. He showed no signs of being bothered, so I decided to go home and try again there. At home, I was able to get a better look, and I could feel that there was a stick the size of my pinky finger embedded in the back of his mouth. I tried several times to get it out, but he pulled away too much. Given that I had both my hands in his mouth and was mucking around with something that surely hurt, he was very, very good. (All that mouth-handling work paid off!)

So ... I decided I had to go to the vet. My usual vet was closed, and they referred me to an ER vet in Nashua. I decided to gamble that the neighborhood vet was a good gamble -- they were still open, and I felt like all we needed was an extra hand and maybe some tongs to get the stick out. We had to wait for a turn with the doctor, but Gromit was SO good -- without any sedation, she was able to get several big chunks of stick out. But, the stick was coming apart, and the X-ray made it look like there was as much as 4-5 inches of stick lying between his esophagus and trachea, so the the vet sent us to an ER vet in Woburn. (She said the Nashua one was good too, but the Woburn one was much closer.)

In Woburn, we had to wait again ... by now Gromit was getting uncomfortable. He couldn't swallow, and started to drool blood-tinged gummy drool. The vet there didn't want to try anything without sedation, but on the upside, her interpretation of the X-ray was that the stick was much shorter and nowhere near the throat -- it turned out she was right. It was about 2 inches long and embedded in the soft palette. They were able to get out all the pieces and flush the wound, and stitch it up with just two stitches. I took home a sore and groggy Gromit, but at least he is now on the mend.

The stick bits from the ER vet:

( stick pix )

Today, I had to figure out how to give pills to a dog whose mouth was hurting (answer: wrap them in provolone cheese, and have him do tricks first). He licked up some soft sweet potato, but rejected kibble as un-swallow-able. He's moping around, looking mournful. The vet claims he'll be back to normal in a day or two -- and she gave me the go-ahead to compete with him this upcoming weekend, though I'm not sure if I think that's a good idea.

For some reason, this reminds me of Octopus Wars.

(Borrowed from Picture is Unrelated)

Today I finished my last "Christmas Gift" knitting project. I gave several people "Knit4UxMe" gift certificates, and Dave chose a hat. When I asked him for colors and special requests, he asked for a black and red hat with the kanji for "Bushido" (his men's group) on it. Here is the result:



For kicks, I'm making the pattern available for free on Ravelry. Here's the pattern itself!

( pattern notes )

This has been floating around on FB for a while -- Eli refused to answer any questions, but Julian was more cooperative. Sort of.

 

( Julian's answers )

 

Over the last decade or so, I've learned to economize with regards to books. I use the library, borrow from friends, ask for books I must have for Christmas and birthdays. I do buy books as gifts, but I can't remember the last time I bought a book for me.

My cousin recently left her job at a publishing company. Before she left, she offered us all any books we wanted, and told us not to be shy ... so I wasn't. I felt a wee bit greedy after mailing her my wishlist, but today when the books came -- I just had to squeee and be happy:

( books books books )

First dream: one of those in which I have taken on greater responsibility than I should.  This one had a small-dependent-animal theme.  I was taking care of ...
-- chickens
-- two puppies (a Golden and  Shiba Inu -- wha??)
-- four rescue dogs
-- another baby

It was so shocking, that I followed up by dreaming about telling a bunch of people how ridiculous the first dream was!

I made a teeny video of some of Gromit's many tricks:

For the last year or two, I've been listening to my podcasts on a iPod Shuffle.  For the most part, this works fine.

After the last iTunes update, for reasons I don't quite understand, the iPod began playing everything in reverse chronological order.  It was annoying at first.  I tried everything I could think of, plus all the "solutions" I could find online, with absolutely zero success.  It was only really a problem if I had a backlog of podcasts, because it made me listen to the newer one first.  I could skip around (pain, with no screen on the Shuffle), but my real workaround was to only ever put one episode of a given podcast on the Shuffle at a time.  When syncing up, the Shuffle would tell iTunes which podcasts had been listened to.  When I hit refresh on iTunes, it would delete listened-to podcasts and automatically delete them from the Shuffle as well (thank you!).

So, it was not without some trepidation that I updated iTunes this week.  Imagine my surprise (and outright confusion) when my podcasts began playing in correct chronological order!  What a nice treat!  At least, a nice treat once I figured out what was happening.  But, to balance this, iTunes no longer automatically deletes podcasts from the Shuffle when they are deleted from iTunes.  This adds one manual step to my Shuffle update process, but I think it's worth the tradeoff.

(Still, I wish these changes were an  "option" instead of randomly changed!!)

I've jumped on the Baby Surprise Jacket bandwagon -- surely 6776 ravelry users can't be wrong! :) I loved knitting it up, and it was fun to use some brightly-colored self-striping Maxime yarn in blue/green/spotty/yellow/orange. But, as I was knitting ... I kept vacillating back and forth between thinking it was Gor (wait for it) geous, and thinking it was ugly-ugly (not even ugly-cute).

( pictures: you be the judge )