Beep, beep, beep, please GO AWAY!

You know when the folks on TV tell you it's time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors? That's because if you don't they might start beeping at 3:00 AM and three little dogs will be on your stomach shaking and panting and drooling on your face!!

That's what I woke up to at 3:00 in the morning, three little dogs shaking and drooling and pouncing on my stomach because I hadn't changed the batteries in my smoke detectors. Of course, since it's a fact that when Roscoe gets really worried, that makes him need to pee, so instead of smashing the smoke detector with a hammer I run downstairs to let the dogs out.

OK, so my hope was that the sound of the three little shaking, drooling dogs and me STOMPING down the stairs would wake up Rich and HE would smash the smoke detector with a hammer. Actually, I did hope that Rich would just figure out how to stop the damn thing and NOT smash it with a hammer. It just needed a new battery. I even stopped to stoke the woodstove, listening carefully to make sure he was fixing the smoke detector. Three shaking, drooling, panting little dogs huddled around me and the warmth of the woodstove after they peed in the wind chill of -10.

I'm tired, Roscoe shook and drooled for a while after it was all fixed and we were snuggled back in bed. What is it about beeps?

I am looking forward to this bitter cold, windy day walking dogs. I have a new pair of winter pants to try out. You know, the really cool looking, hip, fabu fashion type pants that make everyone go......."Wow, that Amy is really cool and knows how to dress!!" My only shame is they are not cargos, but I guess winter pants don't come in cargo? But, they do have back flap pockets. Does that count? Oh and they have "boot cut" bottoms. How cool is that??? Except for the fact that I will be wearing my ultra mod, super cool mint green Keen boots that usually make me tuck in pant bottoms. So, my ultra cool looking, hip fabu fashion type winter pants will balloon out at my knees and look REALLY awesome! That with my three quarter length down coat and fur lined hood.......I'll be hearing comments like......."Dude! Check out that babe!!! She's HOT!!!" ......or ......."Hey, who is the cute chick in the outfit??? Way cool, man, she rocks! I bet she wears skorts and flip flops in the summer!!"..........or......"Damn, wish I knew how to dress like that! HEY!! YOU ROCK, DOG WALKER WITH THE AWESOME OUTFIT!!!".....and, you know, other heckling that will make me smile and swish my hair!!

Ask DrYin.com

COOL website, Muffin Heads!! Check it out!! I found this really awesome video on there.



I am having so much fun with my little Leta, feral kitty. She is SUCH a hoot!! Easy as pie to clicker train. I hope to have her working for me pretty well soon, but I haven't had a lot of spare time, lately. Something people simply do not understand - Cats ARE trainable!! The girl in this video was an undergrad student and training her cat was her animal science project. How cool is THAT????

OK, are you wondering why I call you "Muffin Heads"? NO! You just accepted that name? The thing is, there is a story. When I first got Roscoe I worked on a farm where in the summer there were extra boys helping out. They thought Roscoe was a hoot and kind of "light in the loafers". They called him "The Muffin Man", after Darrell Martini, the Cosmic Muffin, or The Muffin Man. Remember him? From WBLM and Boston radio fame? Is Darrell Martini still around? With his bleach blond, spikey hair and crazy bangles and jewels. No idea.

So, you guys reading this blog are Muffin Heads. Like Dead Heads? Get it?

Muffin Heads, keep reading. Maybe some day I will have something of REAL value to write about. You never know.

????

Some day???...............

Horse agility, again!

I know, I already posted one video a while back, but this one was just sent to me. Same guy, same horse, different video. It's SO cool!!! This guy has spent some TIME and investment making this set up. It's just awesome!

Facebook!

My butt is sore, my arms ache, my eyes are blurry. I really, really do hate computers. No I don't, I love them, really. How easy my live would be without them? Um, actually maybe they would be really easy without them. I mean, I couldn't spend HOURS sitting at my desk making Facebook pages and linking to my website and putting links and stuff on my website and, it just makes my head spin and I feel like it's about to explode!!

Since it is POURING rain, my windows are leaking, Roscoe is sitting in my lap shaking - he worries when it's windy - it seemed like a good day to get updated on this stuff. I did a newsletter yesterday. I should feel really good about all I have done to help promote my business and keep myself afloat. Do I? Do I feel good? Do I feel like I did yesterday after running crazy agility, then a long farm walk with the dogs on the snowmobile path without snowshoes, that good? I felt GOOD yesterday! My head felt clear, my legs ached just the right amount, the dogs were happy and tired and snuggled by the woodstove....good like that. Do I feel good like that today? Um, NO! My ass hurts, my eyes are blurry, my head aches, Roscoe's shaking in my lap. No I don't feel good. But, I should because I did all this stuff, right? ACK!!!! Maybe if I go eat something I'll feel better. Eating usually does that.

So, please........join me on Facebook!!! Please!! I don't want to be that person who has NO fans, and no one reads their blog or buys their roses or coffee from the rented vendor on the street corner. I want to have lots of FANS. Maybe I need to be famous to have lots of fans? Prolly......that's what my niece would say......prolly.........

Sylvia Trkman drives me!

She does, I admit it. I am hooked on her style, her theories, her incredible training methods, she ROCKS! I often go to her site and read stuff over and over. She gets it. She just does. I met her once. Did her seminar with Roscoe. She said he was a cool dog! My heart swelled that day!!

Taken from her site, just in case you have never read this...........

"Many people mail me to ask why I don’t write a book… Here is your answer: because I can tell everything that I think is important for success in agility in 10 paragraphs:

1. develop a firm and trusting relationships with your dog

2. properly condition your dog: my dogs’ minimum is 2 hours off of leash running in the woods per day + one all-day-long hike in the mountains per week

3. teach your dog tricks – as many as you can think of: tricks teach you how to teach, they teach your dog how to learn and they also teach the dog that learning is fun, that you’re fun. Side effect is total awareness of his body, tricks teach a dog how to use his body. I guarantee you that if you teach your dog 100 tricks, you won’t have jumping problems. Rear end and overall body awareness, balance, strength, power, flexibility and agility that my dogs excel in so much are all the side-effects of all the tricks they’ve learned. "Too much tricks" doesn't exist. If you don’t have any ideas, you can get some from our tricks videos.

4. teach your dog obedience, obedience in high-drive of course. It’s very easy to motivate a dog for those 30s on agility course. It’s much harder to motivate your dog for long minutes of just heeling. If you want to learn about motivation, obedience is a way to go. If you can make those long minutes of heeling fun to a dog, then making agility fun for your dog should be a piece of cake.

5. boost your dog’s confidence – only confident dog will dare to run at his maximal speed. Make sure your dog knows he is World Champion before you let him do his first jump.

6. don’t be afraid to do things your way. Books, videos and seminars are helpful, but no one knows your dog better as you do, especially after teaching him those 100 tricks and playing and walking with him every day, so… Trust your intuition and do what YOU think is best for your dog. Avoid those that think there is just one best way. Wary those that want to make you believe you need particular breed/method/handling tool/video in order to succeed. Were you told too that you MUST have a lead-out in order to win? Well, I win at least 90% of my runs with La. And she doesn’t stay.

7. if something goes wrong, always remember it’s your fault, caused either by your training or handling. That’s good news since it gives you a power to fix it yourself too. Things would be much harder if it was dog’s fault. Luckily, they, unlike people, come without mistakes.

8. never forget that results don’t count. Because of the speed of my dogs, I can have a very ugly run and still win. And I might go off-course sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the run wasn’t perfect. Who would care about that off course then anyway? I always say that every good dog goes off-course sometimes – that’s not the case only if handler is perfect too. But I don’t know any of those, so…

9. dogs work best when they work for themselves. Don’t ask them for a favour to work with you. Make them ask you for a favour to work with them.

10. you want agility training tips? If you follow the advise from above, agility gets so easy that you don’t need those. Just go out and have fun with your dog!


There is no big difference between training your dog for tricks, obedience or agility, it's all the mix of everything. "

Link to her site - http://www.silvia.trkman.net/
She's got it goin' on!

Learning to roll with the punches......

How cliche! But, really it kind of explains what I am trying to do with little, worried Spur. He worries, it's who he is and I am SO demanding. I have a lot of practice being demanding. :P The Pin Heads allow it. They thrive on it. Roscoe needs it. But, Spur.......no. Demand from Spur and he goes into the corner and "does his rosary". He's thoughtful and concerned and when I ask too much of him he melts a bit. However, I make it sound like he is really a wimp, which he is, but he isn't THAT wimpy. He LOVES to train and in these videos the barking dog in the back ground is SPUR, barking his fool head off in the crate waiting for his turn to train.

I started with Colby and Roscoe to see how it might go teaching a dog to roll a bar. See, my thoughts here are to get Spur to understand that jump bars falling are not the sky falling. It's just a JUMP bar. In agility if he knocks a bar, he scurries off with his ears at half mast, his tail down, it frightens him. I tried classical conditioning - treats for me knocking the bar. Over and over, I did a ton of that. That stuff works sometimes, but this time, no. Not with Spur. So, I changed my plan. I decided to teach him to knock bars. Well, not really, but to take control and MOVE the bar. We are starting slow, just rolling the bar on the floor. It's that simple. It's that scary. You'll see............

Colby, she gets it. She figured it out in like......two minutes. Done. Roll the bar. "Got it MA!"

Roscoe - he's frantic!! He's offering everything he can think of. Roll it, yeah, somewhere in that crazy activity he rolls it. Yikes!!

Then we have Spur. Worry, worry. All the barking is simply worry. When Spur doesn't know what else to do or gets worried/frustrated he barks. However, I do not discourage that. He's trying.......notice his half mast ears when we get to the wood floor and how we have to go back to simple nose touches for a bit. Tomorrow I'll try to video an update. Today he was really rolling it all over the kitchen. This after just two sessions at home. We have done some in other settings, to try to generalize this work. Little Screamin' Monkey Pants is taking control of his jump bar!!

USP port, setting resolution, firewalls, connectivity. What the heck?

FINALLY, got myself a "new" system. I say that loosely. Our friend Michael did it, but here I am on a different keyboard, different monitor, different desk even! I am NOT comfortable. I am not comfortable with the key board, the chair, the desk, the location. I don't have a UPS port to load photos and videos. The HORROR!!!

I even have to go load up Adobe Reader, so I can finally read things like the MinPin rescue newsletter that I am supposed to write an article for. I have to go find a new photo editing program. Michael suggested picassa. Thank goodness I still have all my contacts, all my photos and files.

Do you know how scary it is thinking you might lose those things in the switch? Scary. Scary like when you try to snow shoe in low light and your eyes can't seem to adjust and you are in an open field that you walk EVERY day and you still find yourself lost in that field, looking at the horizon wondering which way to make your snowshoe path. That scary. Seriously, that did kind of freak me out today. My sense of direction is usually really good. Eerie good. Today, not so much. Today I was in the middle of the field not knowing I was WAY off the path. Plus, I was not too happy. The snow is thick, deep and heavy. I was tired. I shouldn't be tired. I think of myself in really good shape. Like I think of myself without any grey hair. Or that tic tacs are food. It said that in a book I read about Old Dogs. Cool book.

Which reminds me of a line in the current book I am ready. It's written as if in first person by the dog. The dog complains about how us humans never keep a subject for long. Our subjects just morph into new subjects and in no time at all we are no longer talking about the original subject started just five minutes before. See, that just happened here. I was talking about my snow shoe, no - I was talking about my computer which morphed into my snow shoe, which morphed into a dog book.

So, I am reading "The Art Of Racing In The Rain" by Garth Stein. A book I got for Christmas. I don't suggest reading it. I hate to say that, but I think there are better books to spend your time reading. Just my opinion, but it isn't that great. I'll finish it because I do want to know how it ends and it is really short, but I am disappointed. I can't wait to start on my next book.

The book about Old Dogs, however, is AWESOME and any dog lover should have. It's called "Old Dogs Are The Best Dogs" and is a wonderful compilation of short essays and stories about old dogs by a pulitzer prize winner. GREAT book!! Incredible writing!!