Moxie gets a new name, sort of

Our long, low little speedster is now known as the Moxerati. He's that quick! He's had two 6-wk sessions of beginning agility at Ace DogSports, and is ready to move up. He still has mental meltdowns occasionally, but he's way better than he was -- just thinks every turn should be his turn, and all the other dogs and their handlers should just get the hell outta his way.

Here's a link to some movie footage of last week's agility lesson.

Meanwhile, he would like it known that on occasion he makes Elsa a pretty good lapdog too!

Skunked again

Another slightly tweaked email...

So last Thursday night, or rather very early that morning, I'm deep in the land of zzzzzzzz's when all of a sudden the dogs started going crazy, and then somehow they were outside on the patio. It had been hot that day, and I had left the bedroom sliding door open, but the screen was supposed to be locked. Anyway. The screen was open and the dogs were outside. I got them back in, closed the screen, lay back down, and then realized that a dense, oily cloud of stink was rolling in thru the screen door and the windows. Not to mention that Miko was making this weird yurking noise and sort of scraping his tongue
with his front teeth, and part of the dense, oily cloud of stink in the room was rising up off of him. Uh-oh, thought I -- I'm not the sharpest tack in the wall when I've just woken up -- uh-oh, I think we just might have a Skunk Issue here. By this time, Miko was blowing frothy bubbles. Stinky frothy bubbles. He looked like he'd eaten a tube of skunk toothpaste! I guess he got sprayed in the face.

I don't know why he didn't just invite the critter into the house so it could stench up the last few corners that weren't already reeking. And I can't imagine how Moxie managed to avoid getting sprayed. I am grateful for favors, small and not-so!

Fortunately I had kept an old email from a friend with the Kansas State vet college recipe of peroxide and baking soda. This is the 2nd time I've had to use it on Miko, and it does work quite well. Unfortunately, the back of the house was full of Pepe le Pew's "perfume" so nothing to do but set our fans in the window facing out, and turn them to high. We slept in the living room. :-(

Friday there was a strong breeze, which helped to clear things out. So did the baths I gave both dogs. I threw away the old dog bed that Miko rolled and blew bubbles on, likewise his leather collar, which apparently received a direct hit. The house really doesn't smell too bad now (she said hopefully). I'm supposed to have an editorial meeting here on Sunday....

The thing about skunk stink is once it gets inside your nose it stays there -- takes up residence in your sinuses, or nose-hairs or something. I kept smelling it all day Friday, even at the gym. I even asked someone in the locker room if she smelled it too (what I meant, of course, was "do I smell like skunk?"). She said no. And then she launched into a story about the time her dog had gotten sprayed a few weeks ago.

Once was enough, i told Miko. "You're supposed to learn from your mistakes!"

He gave me a pained look. Didn't I realize that he had protected the house from a vicious predator?!?

At the dacha

Several times recently we've spent weekends at our friends' "dacha" (friends are Russian) in the wine country. This entry is a slightly-tweaked version of an email I sent to other friends after the first visit, with Moxie's misadventures on the 2nd tacked on at the end.

Our dogs and our friends' dog get along just fine, and ours pretty much ignored the 2 cats, tho I did catch Miko standing at the foot of the stairs a few times, looking up and wagging his tail at a grumpy little grey face scowling down at him from a ledge on the landing :-)

We had a thoroughly relaxing 2 days doing nothing much (I recommend it!). Elsa and her friend Helen drove out to a nearby fruit stand where the strawberries were in full season and came home with a flat of the most delicious berries I ever put in my mouth. They were minutes off the plant, still warm from the sun.

The dacha is a rambling, much-added-onto house that started out long ago as a little 2 story box and expanded to accommodate family and visiting friends. There are now about 5 bedrooms and at least 3 baths, on 5 fenced acres of fruit trees, scrub oak and garden. Helen is a serious Rose Person -- has about 40 different varieties, from pure white to deep purple, palest lemon yellow to rich orange and of course red, redder and reddest. I helped her for a couple of hours on Sunday, deadheading blossoms and cutting back suckers, and she sent us home with a wastebasket filled with blooms. No, not thrown away -- a plastic wastebasket was all we could find to put water in that would hold all those flowers!



Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most, other than having a chance to hang out in a relaxed setting away from home, was watching the dogs do their doggie thing. not surprisingly, Miko's and Moxie's doggie things turn out to be quite different. Of course they both had to tear around for awhile, after being cooped up in the car for nearly 2 hours, and they had to get sorted out with Reggie, Helen's dog. Then Miko went on patrol. He checked the fenceline. He checked the brushpile where the groundsquirrels live. He checked the fenceline some more and dug under a fallen tree to get at whatever was under there. Then he checked the fenceline yet again. Then he checked the entire orchard, nose down, "quartering" the field the way i've seen hounds and pointers do. Then he re-checked the brushpile. etc etc etc. Even when he came in the house, he sat or lay in the doorway, facing out, keeping an eye on things.

Moxie, meanwhile, did a lot of plain ol' running around. He found things to play with -- a pinecone, a big stick -- and when I wouldn't throw them for him he figured out how to do it himself. He followed Miko on some of his (Miko's) forays, but he seemed to be along more just to be in on the action than because he was really looking for anything. From time to time he'd approach Elsa or me, offering a toy or a paw, wanting human interaction. The difference between them was fascinating.





We had to bring the dogs in at dusk, because there are a lot of deer in the area and both Miko and Helen's dog are confirmed deer-chasers. Also, there are coyotes. That night we slept so soundly, dogs included, that we didn't hear the coyote chorus that Helen told us the next morning had gone on just under the windows for quite some time. I'm astonished the dogs didn't wake up, but they didn't.

Our 2nd visit was more of the same, except that poor Moxie got a foxtail up his nose and spent Sunday afternoon at the emergency vet clinic in Santa Rosa. Foxtail removal involves a general anesthetic and set us back $270, but those things are nasty! The vet showed me what he took out of Mox's nose -- 3 hard, sharp, barbed-shaft little spears, each close to 3/4 inch long. Good riddance.

Foxtails seem to be unusually bad this year. A friend's dog got one embedded between 2 toes; it worked its way in and then got infected. Several trips to the vet and many hundreds of dollars later, he's okay again. Our beloved park, Pt. Isabel, is undergoing serious renovation, a project that will take until the end of the year, at least. Meanwhile, big sections are fenced off and unavailable to the dogs while work is being done. The largest field that is still open is, unfortunately, overgrown with foxtails. It'll be great when the work is finished, but meanwhile some of the pleasure has gone out of the park. I took Miko and Mox there yesterday evening. It was lovely and warm; the water was high in the channel so they got to go swimming. But Miko prefers the gopher population on the far side of the bridge, AKA Foxtail City, and I had to keep calling him back.

Updates & brags...

.. but no pix.

Since my last post, Miko has been to his first 2 agility trials; Moxie has begun formal agility training AND passed his CGC (canine good citizen) test.

In late May, Miko and I made the 90 minute drive to Elk Grove, near Sacramento, for a DOCNA trial at WAG (DOCNA = Dogs on Course North America; WAG = Western Agility Group). I drove up by myself on Saturday, to scope things out -- I'd never been to an agility trial before and wanted to get a sense of things. I volunteered to set jump poles, and run leashes from the start line to the finish, which got me entered in the workers' raffle -- I went home with some very nice prizes! On Sunday, Miko and I left the house at the crack of dawn, because he had to be measured by the judge before the first class. He's 21 1/2", which is about an inch smaller than when I measured him myself but makes no difference in jump height.

My goal for this competition was to complete at least one course without getting lost and wandering off into the desert. I entertained no thought whatever of Q-ing (having a clean run w/in the allotted time). Miko was entered in 4 classes -- 2 "standard," with the full complement of jumps, weave poles and contact obstacles, and 2 "jumpers," with nothing but jumps. I decided against any of the games, figuring it would be hard enough to negotiate regular 16-jump courses when I could study the maps beforehand. Do you get the idea that mental lapses are a major concern for me? :-)

Anway ... brace yourself for a major brag! Miko Q'd and finished in 1st place in 3 of his 4 classes. In the 4th, I got momentarily confused and just stopped dead: where now? Miko stopped too and looked at me in confusion. Then he turned and jumped the nearest jump. The rest of the course then reappeared in my brain and on we went. He was clean but had .04 time fault. No Q, but still good enough for a blue ribbon, so we went home covered with glory.

I can't say enough about the WAG facility and the people who run it. Everyone is so friendly and helpful, it's just a pleasure to go there.

Miko's 2nd trial was another DOCNA at PDIA (Performance Dogs in Action) in Pleasant Grove, on the other side of Sacramento from WAG, on June 2nd. It was a hot day that probably seemed hotter to those of us from the Bay Area than to the "natives." Miko's a low-melting-point dog and I was worried about working him in the heat. Long story short, we entered 2 standards and 1 jumpers. Miko Q'd and placed 2nd in the jumpers and first standard run. By the time the 2nd standard rolled around it was 85 degrees and rising. Due to some start-line confusion, I wasn't ready when Miko's name was called, which meant he wasn't ready either. He was clean, but just loafing along, and picked up .5 time fault. Good enough for 3rd place, but no Q.

Our next outing will be the Bay Team's CPE trial in mid-July. (CPE = Canine Performance Events.) It will be in Petaluma, and probably HOT. After that, we ride out the heat until mid-August, when we head for the (hopefully) foggy, cool north coast for a CPE trial in Arcata. Elsa will go with me to that one -- we'll make a little mini-vacation out of it. I guess Moxie will go too, for socialization. Everyone bring ear-plugs!

Speaking of Moxie, to nobody's surprise he's taken to agility training like he was born to it -- and maybe he was! He did a foundation course with Sandy Rogers at ACE (Miko's teacher), and now is at about week 12 of an ongoing beginners class taught by Blancett Reynolds. He's wildly enthusiastic about everything, including the nasty weave poles. I have to be careful when I'm practicing not to get carried away and ask him for things he's not really prepared for, just because I think he'll probably do them. He gets really amped up, and he has a low frustration threshhold. If I'm not absolutely clear about what I ask him to do, or if I'm out of position on the course, he lets me know about it -- throws a barking fit. So I'm learning all about that fine line between high drive and hysterical melt-down.

Ah well. Keeps me off the street and outta trouble (except with my wallet!)

What a difference 8 months make!

We just found this picture taken of Moxie a day or 2 after we adopted him last September. Contrast this with the one below, taken in late March, while we were taking a few days' vacation on the Russian River.

Sheep, water sports & other fun stuff

Last week Moxie got to meet some sheep. We went with our friend Susan and her dogs out to a ranch near Pleasanton. Susan's dogs had worked sheep before; Moxie had come along for an instinct test. Not surprisingly, he knew just what to do. It really was amazing to see the genetics kick in. This probably isn't something I'll pursue, at least not in the near future, but it it was enormous fun, for me as well as the Mox.

After sitting on my hands for a couple of years, I finally broke down and bought a digital SLR camera -- a Canon Digital Rebel XTI. It was sitting right there on the front seat of the Forester while Moxie was in the pen with the sheep, but I forgot to tell Elsa, who was using her trusty, venerable Olympus point'n'shoot. No shutter lag, a longer zoom and way higher megapixels would have been nice! (I'm not dissing Olympus cameras, please understand; Elsa's is 7 years old and still does a good job, but it wasn't the tool for this particular activity!)



Okay, new subject:

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area are lucky enough to have access to a number of nice dog parks where our critters can play off-leash. I like Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley and the Alameda dog park. But Point Isabel, in Richmond, may just be the best dog park in the country -- 21 acres of grassy fields bordered on one side by the San Francisco Bay (killer views!) and bisected by a tidal channel. There's a café that serves good espresso, pastries, homemade soups and sandwiches, and Mudpuppy's Tub & Scrub, where you can bathe your dog or buy treats and toys. If you don't feel like paying for a clean dog, there's a rinse-off hose where you can get the salt and mud off for free. The park is about 16 miles from where I live, but Miko, Moxie and I find our way out there 3 or 4 times a week -- there's a Costco right next door, with the cheapest gas in the area; I use that as a partial justification. But mainly, I love Pt. Isabel and so do the dogs. Moxie only wants me to throw the ball for him, but Miko, rennaissance boy that he is, not only chases the ball, he also hunts gophers, digs holes, climbs trees and swims. Yes, that's right. I said he climbs trees. The proof is below.



Depending on the tide, there may or may not be stretches of rocky beach on the Bay side of the park. (One of the little beaches gained notoriety a few years back because that's where Lacy Peterson's body washed up!) At low tide, even non-swimming dogs can venture quite a ways from shore without having to paddle, or they can play in the thick black muck in the channel. When the tide comes in, though, the swimming is great. Moxie is only beginning to enjoy swimming; the one time he won't fetch a ball is out of the water. He kind of paddles around in circles -- maybe he's herding fish and I just can't see them! Miko, on the other hand, is a swimming fool. The one place he absolutely reliably will retrieve the ball from is out of the water.

Did I mention that he dives?

You've seen those bumperstickers that say "A bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office" -- that's how I feel about Pt. Isabel. I've been out there in the pouring rain, and when the wind off the bay just about knocked me flat. Doesn't matter. It's beautiful. Even when it's crowded it's peaceful. (Dogfights are really rare, and nearly all the people who come to the park are pleasant.) I used to listen to music or podcasts, but rarely do anymore. I go there and walk a couple of miles and just ... be. And the dogs have a blast and get a good workout at the same time.

Next week Moxie starts beginning agility classes at ACE, and Miko and I go to PowerPaws agility camp. I dreamed I was sent home from camp in disgrace, for being such a klutzy handler. Miko got to stay, of course. In my dream he was sitting on a table wearing a gold cardboard crown, like for a kids' birthday party. I woke up sweating! Miko swears he'll take good care of me, though ... and I expect he will!

Uh-oh, this is getting serious!

Miko has been in school, of one sort or another, pretty steadily since we got him in Sept. '04. He had basic and intermediate obedience, several sessions of rally obedience (a fun and interesting sport) and a class in tricks and utility skills at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, where we got him. He started agility classes offered through the city of Albany's rec department. This served to introduce him to the equipment, and me to the idea that this could be a lot of fun. We moved on to classes with Kathryn Horn, and then to Sandra Rogers at Ace DogSports, across the bay in Brisbane (indoor facility) or Pacifica (outdoors), depending on the weather. Sandy is very successful with her own dogs, and she's a terrific teacher. Miko has flourished under her tutelage ... even I, world's klutziest handler, am improving!


Next month (April), we'll be going to PowerPaws Agility Camp! I never went away to camp as a kid -- too busy with horse shows every weekend -- and this isn't sleep-over camp, but it'll be 3 days of intense activity, plus I'll get a Power Paws T-shirt!

Meanwhile, Moxie has had basic obedience and a trick class at the Oakland SPCA. He has recently started foundation work with Sandy. Foundation work is the training you do to get a dog ready to start actual agility training -- a lot of heel-work, stays, getting the dog to stand on different things (box, teeter-board, etc). Moxie was born to do this stuff. He literally drags me from one obstacle to the next so he can try them all. If he had his way, he'd get to climb on the "real" obstacles -- the dogwalk and A-frame -- that are shoved out of the way against the wall. His attitude is ME! LET ME!!! EVERYBODY GET OUTTA MY WAY!!!!!

So here's what my life looks like: 3 times a week I'm driving across the bay bridge, either to lessons or practice. Let's see -- the toll recently went up to $4, so that's $12/wk, plus about 2.5 gallons of gas per round trip in my Subie ... premium gas is now back up to $3.25/gallon AT COSTCO! Somebody else do the math; it makes my head hurt!