Smiling Bouchard
We entered a Bouchard smiling picture to the “I’m Tired of Animal Cruelty” organization. They sent us an email today, and Bouchard’s picture was one of the selected ones in their youtube video.
This is what Bouchard looked like the day I rescued him from a shelter in central Florida the week of Thanksgiving in 2003. I wasn’t expecting this. No one at the shelter mentioned how emaciated he was, and the Dobie rescue transport volunteer who picked him up even asked, “Are you sure this is the right dog?”
Can you believe it? The shelter neutered him in this condition. After all he went through, I cannot believe he made it through that. When I got him, there were physical issues that took some time to get through, and once that was taken care of, he had some personality conflicts that we also had to work through. He was rejected by two homes after a live-in period didn’t work out.
The second adoptive home I left him at, well, as the front door shut, I heard him body slam himself against it. That was hard to walk away from. But he has a bit of piss and vinegar in him, so it didn’t take long for him to be returned. He has made a fine place for himself at Fort Doberdale, is a special case and always has a place in my heart.
Here he is on bath day. He likes getting sudsed up and cleaned. He’s even smiling in this picture. He’s just glad he’s got a family and a home to call his own.
You can see Bouchard and a host of other pooches smiling in the youtube video below.
Helen
Adventures in Air Conditioning
I’ve been neglecting my favorite blog these days due to too many other things going on. August is a month where I will get very little agility training done due to a program I’ve enrolled on on-line, which is intensive, and takes all my spare time. So as I think about it, August is not a bad month for this to happen in due to the heat.
By the way, a shameless plug, but you can still vote for both Bunny and Dudley for “the cutest dog” at the links below. We’d appreciate your clicking on our behalf. Bunny, in particular, got Raven’s goat last night. Usually, she sleeps in her crate, but everyone was loose on that night, and she chose to sleep on Raven’s spot on the floor. This is why, several times somewhere in the night, Raven barked at her placeholder to move. That didn’t work, and Bunny wouldn’t move. I had to intercede, as the windows were opened, and Raven’s operatic voice is an acquired taste, especially in the wee hours of the night.
This brings me to why the windows were opened in August and no one was sleeping in their crate. On Sunday afternoon, somewhere around 1:30 pm, the air conditioning unit stopped working. Boink! I savored the last bit of coolness in the house, and prepared for what was coming. I ran over to Lowe’s first, after talking to the a/c repairman. There was still some cool in the house, so the dogs wouldn’t cook, especially with my speed racer driving. OK, it was more like a fast Sunday drive, but I didn’t hesitate.
At Lowe’s I got the fuses the repairman suggested may be the problem. I got home, switched them out, and nothing. Then I ran back out to Home Depot and looked for two oscillating fans, but they had none as the summer season is almost over. They only had box fans, and that wouldn’t work. Didn’t know there wasn’t a fan market in South Florida year round. So I went across the street to K-mart, where I found what I was looking for, hurried back home, where I remained for the rest of the day and horrid night.
Sunday night was one of the worst nights I’ve spent trying to sleep on this planet. It was hotter than during the day. There was a blanket of humidity smothering us all, and those couple of fans helped little. Raven had diarrhea, and it was just not a good night. The morning came, and I was not feeling well.
The a/c man did come out and thank God he fixed it. He pulled out a dead lizard with some tweezrs. Mind you, I found petrified lizard in the fuse box, and had to deal with that the day before, not to mention the dehydrated frog in the main fuse box. These reptiles are everywhere! This one who cost me some money had short circuited a part. By the way, I think it was this one. Luna missed catching it as she unsuccessfully played her role in the Fort Doberdale Lizard Posse early Sunday morning.
Tonight was the Run and Done run-throughs in Miami. I was just not feeling well tonight at all. I went thru the motions, got the map out and the more I thought of it, and felt the heat, the less I could go through with it. I wanted to go, but my body was ill from all that heat.
I am usually good with the heat, but it had been 89 degrees in the house for over 24 hours, and that wasn’t counting the humidity. All night…it was just awful. I’m still recuperating and so are my beloved kids. I don’t think any of them were feeling so wonderful today either.
It is a very hard thing to recuperate from, extreme heat. Even though I did what I could, including putting out our olympic colored pool. Dudley has a much higher water-baby comfort level than Raven. Both are seen here interacting with the pool.
So from this experience and the fact that I’ve been feeling guilty about not training, I’ve decided that I’m not able to do everything I want to do all the time, and it’s OK to take August off to finish up an intensive class I am enjoying. September will be here soon enough.
Helen
P.S. The bees finished off the blooms on that fan tail palm tree. By morning, the next day, there was hardly a bee or bud left! You can see some of the empty shells on the right of this picture. They fell in a cupped palm of the tree.
Tonight’s Buzz
This is what a blanket looks like after it’s spent some time with certain typical Dobies. No, I’m not throwing this out yet. It’s still got more material than holes, so it stays. This particular blanket is supposedly a sturdy brand made for commercial businesses like hotels. Believe it or not, a dog supply website sold them some years back, so I bought two or three. The others look the same as this one.
On the other hand, I happened upon an atypical swarmish type of bees in my backyard this evening. It wasn’t pleasant. This big fantail palm tree grows these dreadlocks types of shoots off its branches. Well, for some reason, one of these huge monstrosities is loaded with something brown and pod like. I certainly hope these are not bee eggs! There are tons of them, and bees are flying all around either going into them or hatching out of them.
As we stood out back this evening, we heard the shells of those pods/eggs falling down. It’s incredible, and that was enough to witness. I hope the bees leave soon. I shall work on getting a better picture, or perhaps a movie of this if they are out tomorrow morning when there is more light. Frankly, I’d rather they not be. This is because I have been able to protect my dogs, me and our house from a lot of wildlife, but a swarm of bees? I am not up to that task, especially if they are the Africanized type, which I’m hoping they are not. I certainly won’t have any blankets to roll into if need be, and I hope it won’t be! A lot of hoping’s going on tonight as we head off to tomorrow.
The picture of the fantail is very large. I left it that way so anyone who wants to, can click it to see the bees. There is one flying in the upper left-hand corner. Unless it’s the right-hand corner as I do have trouble telling left from right. There are also some in the dreadlocks.
On the training side of life, I wasn’t able to work my girls tonight. I’m feeling a little bit of a hangover still from last night’s let down. The bigger let down was Raven still running off in the beginning of things. I don’t like this habit she’s gotten into, and I’m trying to work through it, but I think I should write it with capitals – IT – because that’s what it feels like. Raven’s a good worker bee, and also hard headed. I suppose I could say the same about myself. So this shall be interesting. But I needed a break from the seriousness of that because recalls are serious to me. A dog should come when called. And she does EXCEPT at those certain times in the ring.
So I took Dudley out tonight, as he is such a character, and we two had fun together. He is learning to weave nicely. He’s gotten on the teeter as well, at the 14-inch height I set it at, and he jumped the bar, and is learning to follow my hand. All this for bits of food so small, I have to double check I am holding it. I’m used to big mouths, not little ones, so this is unique. But having a little character is rather fun. And that’s what Dudley is. This morning, he was rolled in the dirt out back, and loved it. He loves to be chased and to roll over and be poked by his cohorts here at Fort Doberdale. He’s the next best thing to a Jack Benny Show episode on the radio. Funny guys, the both of them.
Helen
Bait and Switch
Agility class tonight was rather dull. The exercises were monotonous and not challenging. They were similar to those we had completed months ago. I don’t understand this, but the teacher I had signed up for has been doling out the leadership role to someone else, an assistant, who is a fine and upstanding human being, but not someone I would chose to take classes from, and didn’t. Is this not bait and switch? I need to shake this off, and figure out my next step. There is one more class, but next week we have a free run-through, so no class then. We will be working the RAD concept into reality. From there, I will figure out my next steps, but I really like the teacher I started with in June and am disappointed about these recent goings on.
Before I left for class tonight, I rushed to eat a chicken breast I’d grilled and chilled from the weekend. I was not in the mood for begging and told everyone so, but in walked the DoberDiva. She looked at me as I stood bold and told her to back away from the human, and she chopped me! She got sassier the more I told her “no!” She is 12 years old and is so able to push my buttons her way. Of course, I shared the chicken with her. Some of us just have panache, and know how to work it.
Tonight, Leissl did fabulously! She jumped, she weaved even. Everything was on target for my girl. She was the model student and agility partner. My dear Raven, on the other hand, ran out of the ring again. The horns were up and out of her head. She took her time about coming back, and when she did, she took a second outing. Later, she stayed and did nice work. Raven has this issue, and therefore, so do I. She runs off till she is ready to stay there. Perhaps my working her in obedience may help. All I have to do on that note, is find the time to do it. That should be my goal. Notice I said, “should.” I can’t guarantee it’s going to be an immediate goal, but it’s out there. So is a big beautiful nearly full moon.
Helen
Balancing Act
This is a section of the Fort Doberdale Peripheral Garden. I keep a 3-foot or so fence around it to keep the dogs out. Most of the time, that fence works. This is my Allspice tree. It’s the one in the middle of the picture. I’d had it in a pot for some time, and a few months ago, I planted it in the ground. I had hoped to take it with me when I move onto greener pastures, but being the housing market is as it is, well, that is on hold for now. So I figured it needed the ground, and in it went.
This is the Allspice bean. I don’t know what it will look like when it’s ripe, and if I can grind it or what. That’s on my list of things to look up. When the nursery salesman showed me the tree, he broke a leaf and had me smell it. Sure enough, it smelled like Allspice. I am sure a bird or something else wild and crazy will be my competition for this too. As it seems anything I grow, the wildlife gets to it first. I guess they’re hungry too.
I didn’t train today. I was up to my eye balls in chores, but I did manage to finish tweaking the teeter base. I am not in love with this teeter base. I made it from looking at a similar one on a website. It is adjustable, and therein lies the problem. It adjusts horizontally, but I’ve seen others that adjust vertically, and I would bet they are more stable. That’s a guess, though, but I won’t be building another one like this one in the future. I’m on the lookout for a new model to emulate down the line, as I do hope this one lasts long enough to get me through a few months of training.
It’s astonishing to me when a day goes by and I don’t have the time or energy left to fit training into. Summer is here, so the heat limits when I can do that training. Everyday is a balancing act. My day-to-day lists are much like a teeter. Usually, my have-tos weigh down one side where my like-tos are up in the air.
Helen
Will Work For Food
It’s August 1st, and the only picture I took today was one of a postcard from All State soliciting business from me. I took it because that was the first piece of junk mail I’ve gotten in years that caught my attention. So much so, I turned it over and read what they wanted me to read. The rates they quoted me looked good, so I might give them a call.
I’d seen All State’s plain white envelopes with slogans on the front aimed at getting my attention. I’ve thrown them in the trash over and over. This was really nifty. How long till other companies do the same thing, and it won’t be original and nifty anymore?
This reminds me of the first time I saw a man holding up a “Will work for food” sign. It was in my hometown in Southern California at a strip mall close by my house. I was leaving the mall, and there he was, looking dirty and tired, holding the sign up. I rushed home and yelled to my mom. I told her all about what I’d just seen, and how I needed to get some canned food for the hungry man. I did, and got back to that mall as fast as I could, but he was already gone. I felt bad.
Shortly after that, I saw someone else with the same message on a sign. All sorts of feelings flushed through me, most of all was that gullible feeling. Many years have gone by since, and people on off-ramps across the country are doing the same thing with the same or similar messages. It must be like that 100th monkey phenomenon with a sort of stinging quality to it.
On second thought, before I call All State, I’m going to check if it is one of the insurers who decidedly pulled out of the home owners insurance business in Florida, and dropped loads of my Floridian friends in the swamp. There are some insurers who’ve done that, yet are being allowed to sell auto insurance in the state. I won’t go there, if All State is in that group. I’m not going to step into the gullible trap to support a company like that. We’ll see.
Tonight Raven did a fabulous job on everything. She would barely stop to let me congratulate her with more than clicks and treats before she was off to do whatever she could do to get more treats. She had a hungry stomach and a one-track mind, which was to get thoses clicks and treats. I trained her before dinner, which doesn’t always prove this beneficial. Must be the moon as it blooms closer and closer to her full beauty. Or it could be the steak in my treat bag.
Tomorrow I will work with Leissl. She went on a space cadet ride tonight, and after months and months of working on weave poles, she still isn’t getting it. It was as if she’d never seen them and had no idea what I was asking her to do. Weave? <sigh> It’s a lot more fun working a Raven dog than a Leissl dog. Though Leissl does what she likes to do magnificently. Raven will do whatever she needs to do to get treats, and she also has a daredevil spirit and a locomotive drive.
My goal is to be patient and cherish who Leissl is, and realize she is going to get where she’s going at her own speed. This diversity of personalities will make me a better dog trainer.
Helen
P.S. My dogs really do work for food.
Poop Happens
Oh yay, Friday night is finally here and I came home to a poopy crate and a poopy Aussie named Bunny Butt. I washed her crate. I washed her, and she is now a walking static electric frizz ball. I have to admit that makes me giggle. I cleaned poopy air in house. That was the worst being I had to breathe it as I cleaned it. Then I cleaned poop off my weave pole base. Can you believe that? Someone pooped on one of the PVC braces. That takes aim! All I can say is what nerve! I said that as – squish – and guess what I had to clean off the bottom of my camo green Crocs. Yeppers. Poop! I do hope this is not the start of a poopy weekend! I’ve the lawn to mow and my teeter base to tweak. So please, no more poop in the wrong places!
Speaking of, I am too pooped to train tonight, and tonight is almost gone. But the jumps do not go un-used, not one day at Fort Doberdale. The resident reptiles take care of that. Our PVC jumps seem to make good sunning and hunting perches.
My goal tonight is to get some sleep.
Helen
The Dominance Controversy
I ran across this article: The Dominance Controversy and Cesar Milan by Dr. Sophia Yin. It’s very good, and so are the links at the bottom of her page under “What Others are Saying about Cesar Millan”. It’s worth stopping by for a read.
Helen
Tracking Tugs and Toads
Yesterday evening I found that the Tug It! works the way the manufacturer’s website states when using it with my Aussies. The Dobies still aren’t into it. After this evening’s go-rounds, I finally removed the hot dogs and put them in dinner bowls. I washed the Tug It! and will figure out the next step with it tomorrow.
Beautiful Annie used the Tug It! in textbook fashion. She is a very bright girl, and is always ready to offer behaviors for clicks and treats. She’s waiting to get her All American PAL from the AKC, so she can compete in agility, too.
Bunny, well, she’s a gnawing machine. As soon as she got the Tug It! into her mouth, she did her chewing routine, much like she did here:
On the other side of things, Baby caught another Bufo last night. This is number five in July. I’m disenchanted with this. Frustrated. Done. My senior girl is mouthing way too many of them. Those toads are toxic and she seems to be hooked on them.
Take a look.
Luna, seen above inspecting Baby’s foamy beak, was also in on this most recent toad caper. Baby’s mouth took a lot of rinsing because the toad slime was particularly hard to wash off the tongue. Baby got a good bite of the creature this time, and she was not cooperating with me. She knew what was coming. I had to chase her to catch her for the first rinse out with hose. I had Crocks on my feet, and when they get wet, talk about an uncomfortable feeling and a slippery surface! I skated around for fear I’d fall on my arse.
I don’t get it. Are Bufos raining from the sky? And what about the Iguanas suddenly in my backyard? Is South Florida soon to be a reptilian jungle? I had two lizards invade my house last night as well. I thought I only had one. I found it in the shower. I had a clip on top of my head to keep my hair up, and when I stepped into the shower to catch the thing, my clip caught onto the rope on the plastic shower scrunchie, and I thought something had grabbed me by the top of the head. I screamed and flailed till I recognized the teal ball bouncing up and down off my forehead. I calmed myself, the dogs, who were now riled up, and still caught that lizard. I released the thing to the wilds of my backyard.
This morning, I found the other lizard. At least I hope it’s the other and not one of others. I was rushing out to work, and pulled down the blockade to my room, and boink and bounce! It fell off the blockade and onto the floor. No time to catch it. Well, it may give Baby something to do while I’m gone though I’m doubting she digs anything but Bufo Toads at this point.
My goal is to run out back with Baby when I let her out to survey her Bufo-Toad-catching spot, and beat her to the catch. Keeping up with this wobbling senior isn’t as easy as one would think! Good luck to me!