It’s that time of year — to reflect. A friend sent me this video and it made me pause to think about all the beings in my life. The Nix with her heart of gold and growing brains (yes, indeed, she is coming into herself!). The border collies with their toddler intellects and drive to please. My daughter and her affinity for language and culture and science. Brenda the writer. Not a one of them who thinks about taking out the trash! But we each do our own things. And come together as family. Loved and beloved. And I truly love each and every one. I wish everyone a happy end of the year – whatever that means to you. The dogs have no time table – it’s all about this moment. With wind in the ears and snow flurries in the forecast and the angst of needing to stretch muscles and minds. We love you all!
Posts Tagged ‘Cricket’
Living Connections by Toni
Friday, December 11th, 2009Rituals by Toni
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Every family has rituals. Holiday rituals. Coming and going rituals. We have a host of them that revolve around the dogs. That’s because the dog’s created them – or embellished those that already existed to make them their own. In this case, it is the shower ritual. Now it used to be the case that I could decide to take a shower – climb the stairs without hazard – turn on the water and undress in peace. Climb into the glorious stream of hot and steamy water and stand with it beating on my head and shoulders. Make up little tunes – either silent or aloud. Think my own thoughts without interruption. Showers used to be my time. And I think I can safely speak for the other humans in the household that the same was true for them. History. Sasha introduced a whole set of new shower rituals. It started when she learned the word. Thereafter, mention of the word “shower” resulted in a black and white streak up the stairs, poised in anticipation and barking at the shower door. Humans learned to quickly follow so that she didn’t break through the doors, to quickly turn on the water and crack the back door open wide enough for her head and shoulders to enter and snap at the water while undressing occured. Now the ritual is compounded by a second border collie who is no less insistent. And of course, the border collies will “get” more out of some humans than others. The previous description happens to reflect my behavior. Brenda, on the other hand, throws the door open so that the border collies can walk into the shower entirely. And the goddess only knows what Katie does with them. But as you can see, they emerge properly and well drenched. In my ritual, I enter the shower, close the door, and the border collies wait patiently for me to emerge and assist my towel in the drying process. Katie’s ritual results in five wet towels per shower. What do you think is happening there? LOL
Summertime! by Toni
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
Summertime in the NW – and a month early! Can’t beat that with a stick:>) We are on countdown here. Five and a half more days of school! WhooHoo!!! Katie has been working double time to finish up year end projects, meet her committments in track and the school musical, and just stay alive. This collage is a web page from a personal website she’s building as her tech project at school. There’s a home page, a number of tabs (hobbies, pets, rice, forest ridge, Three Dogs Blog, etc) and this is the entry to the Pets tab. I think she did a really nice job with it, especially the way that Cricket’s ears fit into the star!
Otherwise, it is HOT. I mean like 90 degrees and melting hot. The dogs are panting with no exertion. All the fans are out and busy moving around hot air. The plants in the yard and in baskets have just exploded over the last week what with regular watering and the heat. One has to walk carefully around the house to avoid the bodies sprawled across the cool tile and wood floors.
We’re having the house painted in a couple of weeks which means moving plants and “stuff” away from the house. We broke down the dog run this weekend but there remains much to shift around. I am hoping it cools down a bit this weekend so we can muddle through the rest. And then Katie and I will be off to Kansas for a week. Brenda to Tennesee to speak at a conference. And the dogs go to the doggy spa, Cascade Kennel, in Woodinville. Where they will be wined and dined and played with, have some basic training reinforced, get groomed, and generally have some down time. Not sure what the Crickster will think about that. New experience for the pup!
Ah yes, the pup that Cricket is kissing on the top left of the picture is Velo, a Hob Nob cousin:>)
Spring Evenings by Toni
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009The three dogs spent their post-dinner evening cavorting in the backyard. Much chasing and racing as if they could beat the sun in setting. I seized one moment and stepped out with the camera to take a shot or two. Burst mode. 30 seconds later I returned to the house with 66 pictures to sort through. Sigh. In the process of downloading the photos, IE crashed again. Sigh. I seized the moment and downloaded the 64-bit version of IE 8.0. All seemed well until I went to adjust my mouse to scroll better as I tried to edit the photos. The computer would no longer recognize my mouse. Didn’t see bluetooth. I was physically pushing the mouse across the pad to try and get it to move. I seized the moment when Brenda appeared and whined. She helped. Downloaded 64-bit drivers for the keyboard and mouse. At least usable again. But no scroll. Two hours ago everything was basically fine if not as stable as I would wish. Now the environment is marginally fine and feels tenuous at best. And IE is still crashing. I hope you like these photos!
I, of course, think they are adorable!
HOB NOB Steeple wins AKC Agility Nationals this Weekend by Toni
Monday, March 30th, 2009The Crickster and I want to do this so bad we can taste it! Kim took first place out of, I believe, 250 dogs. The run has to be “clean” – no missed contacts or knocked down bars – and the fastest. A ton of the dogs could not distinguish between the tunnel entrance and the dogwalk and ended up racing through the tunnel instead of racing across the dogwalk. Disqualified. Off course. At any rate, Steeple is a Harley/Scheme son and the Cricket is from Surge/Scheme – so that makes them? AWESOME DOGS!
Border Collie Amusements
Monday, February 9th, 2009A break in the weather created a jolly ball opportunity for the border collies. And a “learn that new software” opportunity for me!
Uh-Oh by Cricket
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
I got to go to Flyball today!!! It’s always a blaaaaaast:>) But I only got one set of runs and then I got taken away to the Puppy Garden to play chase with Katie and Toni and THEN I went to jail and THEN we went home early. NO FAIR NO FAIR NO FAIR
When we got home I snitched a piece of bread off the counter! Whoo Hoo! Two firsts in one day – I’m brilliant! First I completely blow off mom in practice and then I stole food! I’ve been thinking about the food stealing for a long time but I never had the nerve before. I don’t know what got into me at practice, tho. I just decided to do what I want for a change. Mom walked in on me in the middle of gulping the food thievery evidence so I had to hurry and inhale the rest of it. Back to Jail – this time my own house. Mom says I need a nap and I need for my brain to reconnect itself around all the new hormones running around it. 
Mom is muttering about my hormoneees alot these days. I don’t know what they look like so I can’t help her find them:>(
She’s also wondering if maybe I’m over training. NO WAY She says she’s going to refocus me! Is that gonna hurt?
I just think I’m having a grand time and to heck with everybody else. Let them figure out their own fun. She’s worried about that too. She’s thinking really hard about me these days. I can feel it. Somethin’s gonna happen! I hope it’s fun!!!
Training Mom by Cricket
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
Mom and me went to train in agility privates yesterday at Dog’s World. Mmmm. Maybe that’s private agility lesson? Whatever it was, it was just me and mom and our teacher and it was a lot of fun! I got to learn new games and mostly mom learned how much she doesn’t know:>) She says she was unconsciously incompetent and knew she didn’t know enough but didn’t really appreciate how much there was she didn’t know. And now she is consciously incompetent and appreciates how much she doesn’t know. It all sounds very compleecated to me.
She wants to work on being consciously competent and that means desensitising all the triggers she has unconsciously trained into me. But first she has to undo all her own unconscious little habits that created them. She splained it to me like, if I had to teach my tail how to wag in a different way! Wow. I don’t even think about how I wag my tail – it just sort goes around on it’s own back there. Just like she just gives me treats in a certain way or moves her hand or her body. And all those things tell me what’s going to happen next. I guess she doesn’t want me to know? Mmmm No that’s not it. She wants me to know but to do something different. So she has to do something different.
Like I said, it’s very compleecated for her. But for me it’s a great game and I’m sure she’ll get it figured out, ‘cuz she’s pretty smart for a mom. Good thing she has me around to keep her motivated!