Three Dogs Blog

Sundays with Nix: On the Deschutes with Odin

brenda — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:26:56 +0000

We’re back in Bend again….and thus have a little more time to do things like create posts. The day after Nix and I got here, my little brother Russy (who has cancer) had enough energy to go sit by the water and take the dogs out. I got a few great action shots of Nix with my dad throwing a water toy (and using an iphone — yeah for iphones).

Sunday’s with Nix

brenda — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:06:15 +0000

Well, the Nix and I have returned from Bend. Nix did a number of fabulous things:

She was in her first parade ever (see previous post)

She weathered the fourth of July fireworks with no fuss at all, even after my silly little brother let off a firecracker near here.

She snuggled up with Russ at night from time to time, which is very soothing. Good for her. Maybe she knows he needs soothing (he is mid-stream in chemotherapy).

She swam in the waters of Lake Cultus.

She saw her boyfriend Buddy on the way back.

Sometimes, being a dog seems attractive.

Sundays with Nix: Independence Day in Medium Town America

brenda — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:48:38 +0000

Well, here we are in Bend. The two goldens are together again (Nixie and Odin, my brother’s dog). Dad and mom and me and Russy and the dogs walking in the Pets on Parade parade through town. That’s Nix on the left with Dad, Russy with Odin, and Mom on the right. The streets were full both of dogs and other assorted and sundry examples of the animal kindgdom and of people lining the sides of the road. Now, we do a similar parade in Kirkland, WA, where I work, but there is a regular parade with officials and bands and fire trucks and all that afterward. In Bend? The pets were enough to draw out thousands of people.

It felt a lot like the fourth of July here. Like middle-America, un-bothered America, an America where there weren’t necessarily a lot of politics on parade with us. Just a quiet celebration of animals, community, and the America of all the cliche’s and dreams, of simple people getting along and having fun and celebrating together.

But still, ingenious America. One of the more interesting parade entries was the flying dog. Really. Here he is:

In Which Nixie Prepares to Return to Bend

brenda — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 06:07:02 +0000

Nixie is going to Bend, Oregon. Mind you, I’m going to. But it’s a moment of contemplation as we are, right now, all three dogs and all three people at home. That will only happen again one day before Nix heads to Bend with me to to see Odin and his boy Russell.

We promise at least two posts so the border collies will be able to look us up and see how it’s going.

Taking a Break…by Toni

toni — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:05:46 +0000

So – Brenda has been pushing to have me post something on the blog. This may be rambling, so have patience! By way of context, the last several months have been a swirl of stress. I work for a City and revenues have tanked, just like everywhere else, and we are in cut mode, big time. Laying off people and leading an organization in a high level of uncertainty for many months. Not done yet. Brenda and I both have family members struggling with cancer. Mine are 3000 miles away in Kansas, which presents its own set of logistical and emotional challenges and stress. So enter Susan Garrett coming to Auburn for a series of dog training workshops. YES!!!! Susan is one of a handful of folks who teach and compete and publish and make a successful living in canine sports. As a reward for myself, I signed Crickey and I up for four days. Yesterday was Day 1 – Foundations in Handling. These are my obersavations:
1. I will start with the furrowed brow. At some point early in the day, Susan pronouced that agility only has “Winners” and “Losers”. Which she even wrote in big letters on the white board. And announced that she was only about winning. That set me aback. I can understand that Susan is about winning – she needs to win to sustain her business and lifestyle and self-goals. But that is not my objective or even high on my list of goals. Which is not to say that I would choose losing over winning – do not misconstrue:>) My focus is on the relationship with my dog and the emotional connection and learning and fun exercise. She does not care or know if she has a title. She just knows if we’re having fun. Cricket was her usual flashy, fast self. I struggle to keep up. “Lovely dog – too bad about the handler” might capture this observation if you know Greg Darrett.
2. My goal for the day was to work on generalizing skills. Cricket actually has many foundation skills – in the backyard, at the local park, at MegaDogs. She can do Susan’s one jump exercises in her sleep. So this was a chance to get her out in a new environment with other dogs and people working. And it really turned out to be about me. I am a professionally compentent person and can wow a packed audience with a presentation. Like rows of hundreds or even thousands of people. I am not shy about being on stage. I can run the dogs on a team in flyball. But standing in the middle of a workshop with a row of spectators just left me nearly brainless. And of course, what do we all do under stress? Revert to patterned behaviors! Some of which I have worked hard to break training Cricket for agility and my new behaviors just flew out the arena. Lesson that I already knew: agility is more about me than Cricket. She will do what I ask if I am consistent and clear. When I get rattled, she goes off. Duh.
3. Criteria. I do absolutely agree that dogs are black and white. Flyball is not nearly as an exact a sport or nearly as complex. So I really don’t have the experience I need in creating and applying the level of detailed criteria that is necessary for successul agility. (Success = my partner understanding what I want and executing same). I am not very skilled at seeing or processing the level of detail I need to be at to help us be “successful”. Being shown is extremely helpful!
4. Cricket is actually a lovely jumper but chose to go over and under alternating jumps in the five-jump “go” exercise. She has done this rarely at home early on. So I was not shocked but have always wondered what triggers her going under vs. over. Susan’s question was – “Did you train her with gound level jump equipment as a puppy?” Yes. She went on to say that – “diverging from all the other professional trainers out there” – she does not let her pups train near agility equipment until they are ready to train. And that she has correlated dogs going under jumps with those who have trained with ground-level jumps as puppies. Cricket left every bar standing that she actually jumped. Almost all dogs knocked at least one bar going over the five. I think I have a workable plan to fix this. We’ll see.
5. The young border collie. People seem to have widely divergent views and expectations based upon the age of a dog. I find this perplexing but I guess not too different than society treats all of us “generically” based upon age. At 16 you can drive – whether mature and balanced or not. At 21 you can drink – whether mature and balanced or not. Etc. I was relieved to have Susan recognize, and refer to her, as “that young border collie”. Every dog has a different temperment and personality. Every momma has different objectives. I, personally, am interested in pushing her learning bubble but have no interest in short changing her puppihood. In fact, I mostly delight and encourage it. She is, after all, the Crickster:>) With a fabulous sense of humor and knack for finding the edge. Puppies are precious beings and should be cherished every day for who they are and what they bring to our lives.
6. I love my Crickster. I adore her:>) She is perfect for me!
7. Tomorrow and Friday are all about “advances in dog training”. I’m sure I will learn alot. We will have a great time. Susan is a very good presenter – highly skilled, very thoughtful, and definitely worth the time and money. I am going to be more structured and detailed about my training criteria as a result of yesterday. I do think, however, that what we need most right now is to get out in different venues and experiement. Cricket has the talent – I need some work!

Sasha’s Day in the Park

brenda — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:32:36 +0000

Iphone pics — these should be better with the new iphone when it comes out.

I believe the dog had fun.

Lovely day with Nix

brenda — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:18:16 +0000

We had three walks today.

The first one was while waiting for our hotel room. It’s was one of those windy spring days when the pink ornamental flowering-trees shed leaves in great gouts, and Nix looked quiet petit and pretty surrounded by pink flowers.

The second walk was longer – when we went out with two work friends of mine (one from Bellingham and Bellevue) and wandered around. No pictures from then – I was busy talking.

Later, Nix and I went out alone again after the big social dinner. I can only be so social after all. I took her out on the dock, which she was quiet unsure about.

Here she is creeping along the dock. In pure golden fashion, she went. She smiled, but she crept. We will go out on the dock again tomorrow and try to get her more used to it.

That’s the Columbia River behind her (we are in Richland, WA).

And after all that walking (plus a few shorter walks on breaks), the Nix was quite glad when it turned out that I was going to stay in the room. Here she is looking exactly like she looks at this moment:

There really is almost nothing better than hanging with your dog.

The end of a two-dog week

brenda — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:18:40 +0000

Cricket was off in training and Toni was off with family, leaving just me, the Sasha, and the Nix. That meant walking two at a time (for who can leave one dog home alone? Oh – the faces!). This should be easy enough. We’ve even been to class on walking two dogs at once. But no – Sasha is afraid of a lot, and she seems to be more afraid when she’s yoked to Nix. So after two long walks when I thought I might get my arm pulled from my socket, we settled for trips to the dog park.

They developed a new trick. Sasha focuses on the ball. Of course she does – she’s a border collie. So when I say focus, I mean FOCUS. Well, it’s a dog park. It’s acres and acres, but there are literally hundreds of dogs some times. Dogs like balls. So this week, whenever a dog dove for Sasha, Nixie blocked them. Every time. It was hysterical. Nixie – of note – does not care about the ball. But she does care about Sasha.

But now Cricket is back (as of yesterday) and Toni is back (as of today) so Nix and I snuck out and walked all the way to Redmond Town Center and Toni picked us up so we didn’t have to walk back.

Pretty good life, all in all.

Dogs, Sunshine, and Happiness

brenda — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:49:33 +0000

There’s something quite special about walking with a dog. Nix needs to go out, so that gets me out of the house whether I think I need it or not (I do need to be outside, of course). She’s always happy to be out. In fact she’s always happy, no matter what. But she’s definitely always happy to be outside, walking by my side, tail up and swinging side to side gently, head up. She doesn’t want much. Just my company. I’m her person and she’s my dog and the relationship is simple and easy and happy. For her, almost all things are interesting. Of course – she lives inside the walls of the house almost all the time. That’s 23 hours day inside of about a 500 square foot place (with occasional access to the rest of the house when we’re home), with occasional visits to the back yard all day, but seldom for long. Unlike me, the busy and harassed and needed and questioned and dead-lined and worried and hurried. So me the walk is a chance to relax, for her it may be a chance to get some stimulation. However it works, it’s magic.
Today, we walked up part of Bridle Crest Trial and along 140th to Grass Lawn Park and back up 148th – this picture is along the gravel trail in Grass Lawn Park.

Sunday’s with Nix: Juanita Beach and Juanita Bay

brenda — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:21:40 +0000

In spite of the gray clouds, we decided to have an adventure walk today to celebrate getting a bunch of housework down and to challenge the new toy – the fitbit. So we went down to Kirkland and parked at Juanita Bay park (which you can see behind Nixie’s head) and walked through Juanita Bay and then then over to Juanita Beach. This is a picture taken from the walkway that surrounds the swimming area at Juanita Beach.

Nix had a blast.

The fitbit said we walked almost two hours. It agreed with my watch. Good fitbit. Good Nixie. Good Brenda. Bad clouds.