1/11/11 Equals Raven’s Birthday

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Raven’s birthday was today. She turned 4 years old on 1/11/11.
She celebrated with a new pink rope tug toy.

She contemplated peace and love, but not necessarily in that order.

She threw her usual temper tantrum because the mama didn’t serve dinner fast enough.

Peek-a-boo!

After dinner, she looked at some stars from the comfort of her back door stoop.

And before all this celebrating, I stopped at Publix.
The holiday stuff was drastically cut back.  I couldn’t believe it!  I got a cake pan.

OK, that’s not true and you know it.  It’s the third bottle cap picture.  But the cashier and packer were men and they thought it was a cake pan, so I went with it.  It was only $2!  That’s a savings of $5 off retail.  The dogs need Christmas stockings – only a buck each regularly $4, and they are really nice, soft and fuzzy ones!  That box is a Christmas choo-choo candle holder set for tea light candles, which I always have plenty of.  I paid $3 for the set and that was $10 off the $13 price.  I am sure this is the last of the temptations for the end of the holiday season, 2010.


Oh, and the handsome Dobersnout is courtesy of Luigi, whose birthday today it is not.

Back to the birthday girl.
Raven’s Birthday Motto is written below.

Happy birthday, Raven!

Temptation

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As the old year turned over into the new, I had already spent a lot of my vacation tossing out useless items from my compact storage spaces around the house.  The longer I worked, the more I insisted I would not purchase one more thing that needed storing.  So it was so unfair of Publix to taunt me with some bottle cap art, which I’d eyed once during the holiday season.  But I was not going to pay full price for them, so that was that.

Seeing them on the 50 percent off shelf was extremely tempting.  You can’t miss this shelf.  It’s right in the way of entering the store.  And there is just one entrance.

The first time I saw them, I examined them and wanted them so much.  The whole time I shopped the store, I thought of reasons to buy them.  But I resisted.  Yet the temptation followed me home.  I thought about them till I revisited my reason for not buying more stuff.  I then felt relieved that I did not have to find any storage space for them.  Ahhhh.

So when I went back to Publix several days later, as in last night, I had to check if they were still there.  They were.  <sigh>  I picked them up, studied them, put them in my cart and went tooling around the store thinking about having to find a place to store them when I got home.  I laid enough guilt on myself that before I checked out, I returned them to the shelves in the front of the store.  Phew!

Today was the third time I went to Publix since seeing them.  The thing is, these Christmas items are still 50% off.  I am thinking by now they should be at least 75% off.  I was hoping to find that tonight, which would give me a good reason to buy them, yet they were still 50% off.  Yes, the bottle caps were still there, and they ended up in my cart again, and this time with a pair of really cute reindeer earrings.  They also made it through check-out.  There is a 3rd bottle cap left, and I hope someone buys it soon.  They are $3.50 half priced and the earrings were 49 cents.  Yesterday, I had some lovely red bows in my cart, which were gone today.  Shoot.  I mean, good!

I don’t know why it’s so hard to resist these things.  But when it’s something I really like, and I did resist two times, I can’t help it.  There is only so much temptation a person can resist!  And those bottle caps are unique and nostalgic.  I would love to hang them up now!  But I won’t.  They are atop the chest freezer packed in plastic bags with the earrings, waiting for me to find a place in storage for them.  I am still listening to Christmas music in my truck, though.  Love this time of the year!

New Year’s Eve Trial

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I didn’t get to do all 3 days of the 4 days of the Tailwagger’s agility trail that I entered.  I was still not feeling up to par, but we loaded up the truck and hauled ourselves over there for one day.  That would have been new year’s eve, my favorite day of the trial.  We arrived and set up just in time for the Nov JWW walk through, and Leissl was the first dog in the ring, so there was no time for me to think fast enough about getting someone to record our first run.  Darn it.  But I did get Leissl’s Standard run and both of Raven’s wild rides.

These runs certainly show off that they are two very different Dobermann personalities.  To say the least.  Love them both!

Here are my faithful companion Raven’s two runs.  Turn up the volume and get your sense of humor out.

What’s interesting to me on Raven’s runs is she nails the weave entries, but that’s it. She forgets to do the rest of the poles.

Here is my upbeat buddy Leissl’s run in standard.  She had a rough time on the dog walk.  She never liked that thing.  I guess I wouldn’t either if I were a dog.  But then again, I wouldn’t like the a-frame, but she does all right on that contraption.

No Q’s but a lot of fun for the last day of 2010.

Christmas Morning at Fort Doberdale

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God gave me a pretty good little inner voice.  The problem is sometimes it’s too little and I don’t listen to it.  Take this Christmas morning, for example.  I was outside enjoying absolutely gorgeous weather.  Still in my comfy pajamas and slippers, I was watering various plants as my dogs were romping around the backyard, and I noticed my little hunter, Annie, was preoccupied at the corner where the trash cans are stored.  My little voice noted, “Could be a bufo toad.”  Then my logical voice said, “No.  Winter is here.  No bufos.”

OK, there was a cold spell for a couple weeks, and I hardly saw a lizard, which are usually out and about wherever I step. So Logical Voice won out. Made sense. I continued watering, and a little while later, I noticed Annie was still over there in that corner. Again, my little voice said, “Bufo?” Logical voice said, “No. Been too cold. And you don’t want to spend the morning chasing a toad that isn’t there.”

Shortly after that, Annie had moved from that area a couple yards away to where I pack my crates.  It’s quite a stack, but I have no room in my small house, so I manage with a spot under the awning of the house.

When I glanced over at her, I saw the dreaded Bufo mouth foam all over her little snout. “Eeegads!” I then went into emergency mode. It’s automatic now as I’ve gone through this many times before, but usually not with my Aussies. So this was troubling me. Would the Bufo poison be too much this time for her size?

Everyone, but Annie, went into the house, and I grabbed a leash to put around Annie and connected her to a fence while I turned her head down towards the ground and hosed her mouth out. The most important thing was to keep her head and snout facing straight down to the ground, so the water went down to the ground and not down her throat, which could easily choke her. I hosed with one one nozzle, then took a break and got a sprinkle nozzle to do the job. She didn’t like either, but took it. Only because I had her connected to a fence. She would not participate in this otherwise.  I just wish I could explain to her that I am helping her.

After minutes of hosing her mouth out, I got the foaming under control and took this picture of her. What a festive Christmas morning photo with the poinsettias, Christmas bones collar, and red and white leash, tongue and foam. The main thing was she was all right. So I left her at the fence while I undertook the next, step of emergency bufo mode. Search out and destroy the toad.

I had to look for clues, and didn’t have to go far to find them. At the base of the crate stash was plenty of drool. I was now facing having to unpack that load of crates to get under the board to catch the thing. At least, that’s where I thought it would be. Though I got on the ground to look beneath it and didn’t see the reptile, I knew it had to be there somewhere. I’d taken a quick look at the other location by the trash cans, and there was no evidence of it being there.

So to work I went.  I pulled each crate off the board, having my net ready for when I picked that bottom board up, I would snatch the thing right up and do it in.  Piece by piece, I pulled the massive structure apart, and when I was down to the last two wire crates, I got a big surprise!

Tangled in one of the wire crates was the reptilian beast!  The disgusting blob of Bufo Toad lodged itself into a no-way-out position.  I was relieved to find it and I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to pull up that big board and do a wild chasing game with the thing.  Even wounded, the toads are not always easy picking.

I was facing a dilemma, though.  How was I going to get the thing out of there?  I double checked that Annie was still secure to the fence, and she was, so I grabbed the net with one hand and turned the crate upside down.  Somehow, with all the shaking and praying I was doing, I dislodged the toad, and it took a leap.  I slapped the net over it and it hopped immediately through one of the holes of the net.  I realized I wasn’t prepared for the next step.  I needed plastic bags to get it into.  I had been thinking it would be close to mortally wounded, but evidently that was not the case.

The thing was really emitting poison.  Look closely at this picture and you’ll see around the head all the white poison coming from its glands.  Any predator that grabbed that bufo with its mouth now would get a mouth full of poison.  Insidious blobs!  (Click for a bigger picture.)

I grabbed a big plastic bag that was nearby.  There was a small hole in it, but if I could get it in there, I would maneuver the toad, so I could find another bag.  I just needed something to contain it.

The spare poop bucket!  Perfect!

Getting the Bufo toad into the first bag was again, no easy feat.  I

worked it backwards, and once it plopped into the bag, it hopped up.  I am proud of myself for not screaming.  In the beginning of these Bufo Toad wars, I was much more likely to yell at the jumps and movements of these gross creatures, but the more I live and think about the fact that this blob of fat is a deadly poison that could take the life of one of my beloved baby dogs, the madder and harder I get.  I had the upper hand.  It was in the first bag, so I quickly twisted the top and got another bag to put this one in.  My final feat was getting the thing in a big, tough black trash bag.  I tied it up and could finally celebrate the capture of the horrid creature that interrupted our peaceful Christmas morning.

From the great outdoors to the great chest freezer in the sky!  It will stay in the freezer for 3 days, which is the length of time to humanely kill a reptile – they don’t survive in freezing “weather.”

By the time I finished with the capture of the Bufo Toad, Annie was completely free of foam, and ready to enjoy the rest of Christmas Day.  I’m just thanking God for the good ending to this morning’s events, and am going to start listening to my inner voice the first time it speaks!

Look at the beautiful Fort Doberdale Christmas morning sky!

Merry Christmas!

Baussies

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“Who does she think she is?
I mean, whose Christmas picture is this?
Mine!  I’m wearing the festive Christmas garb! “

“I want treats.”

They’re not called “Baussies” for nothing!

Random Thoughts

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I’ve been sick since the dog show last weekend.  I went to the doctor today.  After 9 days of  not getting any better, it was time.  I have bronchitis and a sinus infection.  So the doctor wired in 3 scripts and down I went to get them.  I came home afterward to let the dogs out before I went back to work.

These dogs, my friends, my little buddies, my children, have been really mean to me since I got sick.  The first night my Luigi demanded his dinner so loudly and pushy.  I was running out of steam and had wished I’d opted for scooping kibble instead of making them a combo of canned food and kibble.  Luigi, though, is special, and gets something cooked every night.  He’s got calcium oxalate stones, so I put him on the Fuzzer Diet and 4 years later, he’s still stone free.  Thank you Fuzzer!  Luigi, on the other hand, was just inconsiderate as can be when the chips were down for me.  I wasn’t strong, and he sensed it. I usually am because with Dobies, you have to be or they’ll walk all over you.  And they do take advantage of any opportunity to test.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re a wonderful breed, and you have to be a handler to keep the rules straight.  But when you’re sick, it’s a hard thing to stand up straight, let alone keep the dogs’ rules straight.

I fed them and let them out, and just wanted to go to bed.  So when I found pee on the big mat in the living room, I blew a fuse.  It was too cold outside for me.  I think I was running a fever then, but have been avoiding the outdoor chill factor unless I put the coat on to go clean the dog droppings.  But I had to drag that mat outside and hose it off with soapy water and wash the floor in the living room.   Then everyone went into their crates for the night, and no one, esp not Luigi, was allowed on my bed.  I reclaimed it.

Then I realized my Aussies were doing right by me, so I let the one that sticks by my side and sets the pack in line, sleep on the bed.  <sigh>  I needed a friend…an alliance and she was right there for me.   She’s been quite happy there since.  I only let Luigi back twice, and Leissl once.  But Bunny has been there since the Loud Mouth Luigi/Pee-On-The-Big-Mat incident.

The thing about Dobies in general is they get really hooked on schedules and rituals.  So when I don’t go out in the back yard with them, as they are used to, they stand and stare at the door unless they are bursting.  So I walk away and think they go pee, but I am sure that’s not always the case as I have had to clean pee 4 nights out of 9 in the house.  Mind you, I haven’t cleaned pee in the house for ages.  But the babies can’t seem to take care of business without my being there to supervise or it can’t be stored any longer.  And I do not like to leave them alone outside, and except for this reason of being sick, I don’t do it normally.

Whatever the case, I am bonding more with blue-eyed Bunny now.  I think 2011 will be the year of the Aussies at Fort Doberdale.  I need to work on their training and getting some titles.  The title part may not happen till 2012, but we’ll see.  Though Leissl still needs 2 more legs in Rally Exc to finish, and Luigi needs a CD.  And I don’t know what I will be doing about agility yet.  But I am starting to think of those 2011 resolutions.  I need goals, and esp to write them down.  And cut down the big goals to manageable and measurable parts.  Or else, I don’t do what I want to do, which really seems weird to me, but I guess a lot of us don’t always steer the ship to the right dock.  So odd.

Greater Miami Dog Club Rally and Agility Trials

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We went to the dog show last weekend.  December 11 and 12, 2010.

Leissl came home with ribbons for both of her Rally runs.

Raven had four agility runs.  Look at all her ribbons she didn’t win!

Here, first, are Leissl the angel’s runs in AKC Rally Advanced and Excellent:

Then Raven the anti-angel and her fun time in the Open Agility JWW and Standard rings.  But first, just to sum her runs up…well, she ignored me sometimes.  Sometimes she was really on and we were a team, then she pulled the blanket out from under me.  Sometimes she decided to sniff the ground or jump off the contacts or run around jumps.  But her #1 rule was to avoid doing weaves at all costs and for a while, I didn’t think I’d get her to take the a-frame!  The judge got a lot of arm exercise.  That’s all I have to say.

Here is Raven’s fourth run.  This is a reminder to all – Be careful who you give your FLIP to!  Not only was this the result of a less than stellar choice, my friend had a cold, and now I have it and it’s a doozie!  That’s what I get for passing a FLIP from one hand to the other.  I am usually more careful than that.  I let down my guard for some stupid reason, and am very mad at myself.  I do not take it well when I get sick.  It’s like that when you are the head of household, have dogs to take care of and the dogs don’t reciprocate that care part.  Though I did get a reprieve when I crated them for unbecoming behavior that irritated a sick person.  Yep.  Some of my pack takes rude advantage when I’m sick.

Back to the video.  If you’d gotten to see this standard run in full color, you would have seen Raven run up the ramp on the dog walk, stop to sniff the top, and turn her nose in the air at some putrid smell she sucked in which made her jump off the dog walk all together.  She is supposed to be going at such lightning speed as not to notice smells!  There were so many more special moments lost forever to “Barky!  Oh barky Barker…”  It was funny, but I would have preferred my run.

We did have the most festive crates on the campus, if I do say so myself.

We had fun.  🙂

Fun Match at Sunview Park

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Leissl, Luigi and I went to Sunview Park on Saturday for a fun match.  There was obedience, which Luigi was in, and there was rally, which Leissl was in.  It was a good venue to use for practicing in a ring that mirrors a real trial.  Being we have a real trial this weekend, Leissl and Raven and I do, this match was a very good thing.  The day was enjoyable, chilly to start at 9 am, but by 1 o’clock we were heading toward home in warmer weather.

Here is Leissl’s run in Rally Advanced.

Here is Luigi’s run in Novice Obedience.

Leissl’s Tunnel

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We got a new tunnel in the mail on Wednesday. When I opened it up, Leissl was the first to take it, and the second. She really loves tunnels! We used to have a long straight one anchored against a fence and the dogs would play games with it similar to what Leissl was doing with Annie here. One would go inside, and Leissl, and sometimes another accomplice, would be the one/s to try to get the dog out. Leissl would get so excited, she would stomp on the thing with her front paws, the little beastie! That was not my intention here, but I’d forgotten about that game as I hadn’t had tunnels out for a couple years. She got right into it, and Annie got caught up in the game, maybe a little more than she wanted to be. Leissl looks a little like a bully in this piece, which is surprising being she’s usually more of the loner dog than the others. She’s not anti-social, but she’ll be the one more likely to go in another room to chill out in a crate than push herself onto a crowded futon. I suppose if I put the tunnel on the futon, it may be a different story!

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Saturday Stuff

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Today I tried out my idea and used unscented shampoo to make my own Christmas scents shampoo.  I used clove and orange essential oils in one and rose in another.  I just took small amounts from the gallon jug of shampoo to use.  The problem is that the unscented shampoo wasn’t unscented.  It had an ugly odor of whatever it was made of.  The label said no alcohol, yet I smelled something resembling alcohol.  So the essential oils did not win out over the smell of that “unscented” shampoo.  Instead, it mixed with it to create an unpleasant scent.  I have asked the company to refund my money.  I should get an answer on Monday.

I decided to mix the essential oils with water in a squirt bottle to spritz the dogs with instead.  I do that for air freshener, so why not dog freshener?  Clove and water make a very nice air freshener.  I love the smell of cloves.  This summer I read some articles on the Internet that orange essential oils would kill weeds.  Well, it didn’t.  At least not with the recipes I followed.  But it is a nice fragrance, so I use that to freshen the air, too.  Peppermint is one of my favorite invigorating scents, so I mixed some essential peppermint oil with some lotion and rubbed my feet with it after a particularly hard day on my feet last summer.  Then I had a systemic allergic reaction.  I won’t be doing that again.  Essential oils are potent, and they need to be handled with care.

After I gave dog baths, I sprinkled some grooming glitter on Raven (black glitter) and Leissl (gold).

I decided not to grace Luigi with sparkles, at least not this time.  He was so cute this morning.  He leaned his head on my shoulder as I worked on the computer.  He did that totally out of love for me and not because he wanted the rest of my cream cheese and bagel.

OK, so Luigi did work hard making sure I knew he wanted that bagel.  And yes, he got the thing, but I know that he loves me more than bagels and he did not get that one for free.  He had to show me he knew where heel position is while the plate and its pieces were nearby.  It took a lot of concentration for Luigi to get into the heel position when we were facing away from that plate.  That was the point where he could have sworn he was supposed to stand off to my side facing me (and the plate).  Silly boy.  But eventually, his memory returned as he realized it was to his benefit to recollect where the traditional heel position was, and the whole process got less painful for him to follow.  Bagel parts arrived faster when he quickly did what was asked.

Now for a bit of a vent.  I did some grocery shopping around 6 pm tonight.  I was in line and saw that the man in front of me had one gallon of Publix iced tea.  I mentioned to him that it was on sale as a buy one get one free deal.  He asked the cashier and she confirmed it, so he went back and got a second one.  Do you think he would have offered two measly words to me such as “thank you?”  Nope.  Nothing.  It’s the way of this place.  Rude and ruder.  There are hardly any manners here and when I do run across someone who is at least as civilized as my dogs – who do have manners – well, I just want to give them a piece of bagel and cream cheese!