Random thoughts throughout the day

#1
This country's creativity with names occasionally creates a problem for me to the point that I am scared to send an email until I check and double check the spelling of names of the recipients. Otherwise, people do get offended having their names misspelled or even worse - the email will go to the wrong person.

Endless number of times I was searching in my mail trying to find an address belonging to a certain person just to have google tell me that nothing was found, because I was looking for the wrong spelling of the name!
Who can possibly keep it straight?
Judy
Judie
Kris
Chris
Erik
Eric
Sarah
Sara
Kathy
Cathy
The list can go on and on and on...
The situation was much better in Russia where everyone has pretty much 5 names to choose from. When almost every other man named either Sergei or Dmitry even with my horrible memory on names the chances are - I will get it right. And the best part they are all spelled the same way!

#2
I finally decided to figure out what it is Belle is chewing on and what  is falling on my head every morning in the woods during our walk. There are trees that dropping some kind of nuts. Belle is the only dog that likes to chew on it. After the scare that someone posted on facebook about danger of sago palms to dogs, I figured that I'd better find out and make sure it is not toxic, although, honestly, if it was toxic she would be already dead by now. Secretly I was hoping that what ever nut it is - it is edible. I guess it's my Russian nature that makes me always scavenge in woods for something edible. Last month I discovered service berries around our office. They are so tasty! It must've been quite a picture - me in business casual attire jumping for branches with berries:-) Oh the looks I got! Silly people, they had no idea what  they were missing.

I have no idea how people managed to survive without internet in the past. Standing right there in the woods I was able to look up the list of local trees and to discover that the nut was "pignut hickory". Not really edible, but also no-toxic to dogs. I also was able to discover that the tree outside of our office is Sycamore tree and not a maple as my boss though. I made sure that I let him know that during our morning meeting. The expression on his face was totally worth it, although he did tell me that I obviously do not have enough work on my plate if I have time to look up the trees.

Gotta Love Mornings

5:30am alarm goes off.  I am pretending that I haven't heard it. Wet nose pokes me in the face.
Mozart, wagging his stub, I am sure of it although I can't see it:  "its time to get up!"
Me: " I know, but I am too tired"
Mozart, poking me with his big wet nose again: " It's time to get up!"
Me: " It's still dark outside. Leave me alone"
Mozart: "Ok, then I will join you". Hops onto the bed.
Me:  "Ok"
Mozart: "pet me!" Wet nose pokes under my arm.
Me: "Leave me alone"
Mozart: "Pet me , pet me" More wet nose under my arm.
I turn away.
Mozart: "Ok, grumpy, I'll just rest my head on your hip."
Few seconds later.
Mozart: "This is boring" 
Mozart exists the bed.
Me: "Fine!"
Brandy: "U-m-m-m, u-m-m-m-m. Did you forget about me?!"
Me:  "ok, you can come over and snuggle"
Brandy happily jumps on the bed. rolls around snorting then plumps her behind right under my nose.
In meantime, Belle in the kennel downstairs.
Belle:  "I know it's morning. Let me out!"
Me, under my breath: "Be quiet Belle"
Belle:  "OMG, I can't stand this anymore. LET ME OUT!"
Me, a little bit louder: "Shut up"
Mozart comes back into the bedroom.
Mozart: "What?! she is on the bed and I am not?!" Jumps onto the bed and trying to jam his big body into a narrow space between me and the husband, whacking him with his paws.
The Husband: "Get the F$$$ dogs off the bed!" 
Me: "Dogs! Off the bed!"
I guess it's time to get up.
you can't be mad at the husband, he had been struggling with a pinched nerve in his shoulder and Mozart gracefully whacked him right into the shoulder.

Weekend Fun

This past weekend we had a pleasure to attend a workshop presented by Amelia D. Compton, Ph.D.  Amy's workshop is always interesting whether we talk about dog behavior or human. This weekend we were learning about different personality types.
During brakes we goofed around a bit. What would bunch of people who train dogs do if you have a bouncy labradoodle and a mastiff?:-) Eric had decided to teach Murphy to jump over Sherpa the mastiff. Here is how he did it:
First, he taught Murphy how to jump over the jump-stick ( no pictures, sorry).
Then, he used the stick to show Murphy how to jump over Sherpa.

Then, the jump-stick goes away:

After Murphy was comfortable jumping over Sherpa without the stick present, Eric was able to do a breakaway:

After that we had some more fun teaching Murphy to jump over multiple dogs:

Mozart had fun of his own. He and Ben - two jolly-ball crazy boys were chasing the ball over the mulch pile.

Mozart also enjoyed splashing in the baby pool:

Great training day

At least a couple times a week I am trying to train in the place other than the training facility or near my home. One of our favorite training places is the school yard.  Depending on the day and time it can be either totally empty that provides us with a lot of quiet training space or it can be buzzing with kids running, screaming, playing soccer, football and tennis, not to mention all the dogs that walk by!
So this Wednesday I loaded the dogs in the car and headed there.  I love training all three dogs at the same time, because it allows me to rotate between dogs, that accomplishes two things: dogs don't get overworked and they get jealous watching you work with another dog while they are tied up to the tree. Jealous dog is an awesome to work dog:-)
Belle was first to go. We worked on all the open exercises. She is such a blast to train! I took some videos of her jumping, but unfortunately my daughter forgot my camera at the camp so I cannot upload anything. Belle took to jumping as if she was born to do just that. All those endless repetitions of the broad jump that I had to do with her mother and Moz.. nope, not here. Just a couple of times and she was flying over the jump!

Moz is pretty good on his retrieves over high jump and on the flat, although I am not quite happy with his speed, I don't think he is challenged enough and hence he doesn't think he has to commit 100% of his attention to that. The BJ is the worst. I know for the fact that he can jump double that distance with ease, but he is not really interested. I tried and experiment. I took the white field bumper and would  throw it as Moz starts on his jump, that really caused him to fly over the jump with such an ease! Oh the constant question of want vs must. After some thinking I had decided that I will worry about his speed, after he gets it through his head that he has to jump just because I said so. When he is jumping reliably I will try to use the bumper to build some speed into the jump.
Heeling still needs a lot of work. need to figure out how to put the end to the constant bumping of me on heeling. DJ is coming along. Love watching him jump when he is committed!

Brandy had an awesome attitude as well. We worked on signals and heeling whenever I saw somebody walking their dogs by. Never can have too many dogs walking by, as long as they are on leash:-) Unfortunately the go outs are still a problem. As soon as I put the gloves out there her go outs start going right into the corner. This is so infuriating! But this deserves the post of it's own.

At  some point I did have a bit of a scare. As I was working Brandy bunch of kids came out of the school about 30 of them. all at once, running and screaming and heading right towards the tree where Belle and Moz were tied up. Moz as expected freaked out a bit and Belle is never shy to bark just for the hell of it. I had to run there yelling the kids and the dogs. Dogs - "down, stay" . Kids - stay away form the dogs:-) I need to work more on stays with both of the youngsters as they broke that  down-stay way too many times as the kids were going by.  I guess I do have my work cut out for me.:-)

Our first hike, well sort off:-)

I can be very stubborn, as those who know me can attest to. If I had decided that I really want something - hell and high water, but 99% I will do it. The hiking idea had been  occupying me since the day I had found that trail I mentioned earlier. This past Saturday I had finally decided that this will be the day when I go and have a look at it.

After I had finished bunch of things I had  on my list, including washing all of the dogs and grooming Brandy it was just after 7 pm. I checked the calendar, found out that sunset is at 8:30 and figured I should have enough time to go and have a look at that trail. My husband, who knows me pretty well, didn't even try to talk me out of it. He, however, insisted that I take a pocket knife, a GPS that I got for him to take on the hunting trips and his cell phone, as I was unable to find mine:-) I think if this state would allow for a concealed carry he would insist that I would take a handgun as well:-) Well, I can't really blame him for wanting to keep me safe.

By the time I reached the trail it was almost 8 o'clock. Even though the sunset was 30 min away, under the trees it was pretty dark, but stubbornly I kept on walking. The trail was following a creek and originally I was hoping that I will find a remote spot that would allow me to let my dogs take a swim in it, but to my huge disappointment a trail and the creek was separated by ivy and other vegetation making the  creek practically inaccessible. Brandy was happy as pie, I switched from a 6 ft leash to 15 ft line and that gave her plenty of room to  explore. As we were walking I started to hear some grumbling noises. As they were pretty remote I had convinced myself that it must be sounds of traffic. On the way back the sounds got louder and much closer together, that made it pretty clear the storm is coming.  Brandy who cannot handle a storm in the middle of the night didn't seem to be to concern this time though:-)

I started getting worried that my cell phone will get soaked wet, so Brandy and I jogged out way back. We had just enough time to get tot he car and drink some water before the rain hit.

HIT

Being left without a personal computer ( but this is a story for another day) I was stuck with a phone full of pictures and videos and no place to dump them. It shouldn't have come to me as a surprise that I finally ran out of disk space on my phone. As I was going over the pictures, looking at what can be deleted, I came across this one:

This is a photo I took of Brandy when we got a High in Trials out of open B last August while earning our second open leg.  I think our score was something like 197.  This was our first HIT and we got it as a small GSD specialty. Non the less, I think it's an accomplishment not to mention the fact that a terrier stole a HIT from the German shepherds:-)

Rats

Afina and Artemis the day we brought them home.

As I was thinking about events of the last year, I have to say that sadly both of our rats are no longer with us. According to Husband he came home and found Afina dead from what seems like an internal explosion. I was very happy that I didn't get to see it, seeing the blood spatter all over the walls was enough for me. Poor girl. Artemis lived for another 6 months, but the tumors started to overtake her, watching her rid with tumors and practically unable to move was heartbreaking, so we had to let her go. We both agreed that although the rats are very cute little critters they just do not live long enough, and we swore that we will not bring another rat into our house.

Running on autopilot

Every year I am looking forward to summer thinking that I will have time to do a lot of training and spend the time with the kids and every year I am surprised that I still cannot find any time to do anything. As soon as school ends, life becomes very hectic. Last two weeks of June were actually grate - one week both girls were at gymnastics camp, the next week kid#1 went to visit her grandmother so I only had to deal with kid#2, but then the hell began. Kid#1 started volunteer work at the elementary school, helping first graders that go to summer school, kid#2 is alternating between gymnastic camp one week and then Russian camp the next one. This means that my schedule is not only changes every single week, but it differ every single day. All I know that I need to leave work and run somewhere. The hard part is making sure that I remember what time I need to leave that day. If I manage to leave on time then while running to the car I, hopefully, can figure out who I am picking up right now and map out the directions to the destination in my head.

The next complex task is actually to stay on target route. This evening, for example, I thought I was going home. Luckily, I woke up just in time to have a chance to cut across two lanes and take the needed exit. Considering that in order for me to get the kid#1 from a friends house and then deliver her to gymnastics by 5pm I have no room for error, I would have been livid were I to miss the exit and have to spend precious minutes U-turning and dealing with additional traffic.

I find myself quite often driving somewhere on the auto pilot just to realize that I do not need to go to my office or the gym, but somewhere else. Gymnastics schedule is brutal - during the school year girls start practice at 4pm. Yes, there are some parents who can deliver their daughters to the gym by that time, but not me. Even that I work only 15 min away from home, I simply cannot leave office run home, then run to the gym and go back to work, so I don;t think the gymnastic practices could continue without out friend Sarah who is a college professor and hence comes home just in time to take her and my girls to practice.

As a payback I am trying, whenever I can, to bring her girl home from practice especially that the their house is right on the way home, but here comes the embarrassing part - consistently I forget that I do have O in my car. Running on autopilot as usually, I happily miss the turn to their house not blinking even once. Honestly, how hard can it be to keep the fact that I need to drop O at her house in my head for just 10 min. I think I remember it for about 5.  As usual, last night I was taking girls home, thinking about what ever I was thinking when the sudden smirk coming from the back seat brought me back to reality - sure enough I missed that damn turn again! In my defense, it doesn't help that there was a dead silence behind me. What 13 year old girls can ride quietly in the car? Apparently these two can, at least after 3 hours of gymnastic practice. I am thinking that maybe next time I should ask them to be loud so I can remember who is in the car with me.

On completely unrelated subject - there is something to say in support of the pocket camera, even if I am having a hard time taking the shots I want - I can carry it around everywhere. I sure would not bring my cannon to the quick trip to the creek, but I seem to take my small Olympus sz-10 everywhere I go for the last two days. On the bad side I spend more time playing with the camera and hence our walk lasts much longer than was planned - good for the dogs, not so good for me as it cuts into our training time.

Belle fishing

exploring the cave

Testing a new camera

I had been dreaming about taking the dogs on hikes for as long as I had Brandy ( 7 years). Brandy and I used to go to a local park occasionally but it didn't last long. It seems that the only time I truly own is from 5-7 am while everyone is still sleeping. Driving to the park at that hour doesn't seem sensible, if the park was withing the walking distance, I would have probably done it, but driving 20 min each way seems too long especially when it's not daylight until 6am even when the days are at it longest.

One of the few things I really miss from Russia is long summer days, I don't really miss long winter nights ( I know they do have to come together, unfortunately), but the fact that it can be still daylight at almost 11pm is wonderful when you have to train dogs and you have no training building and a tiny house:-) I could have trained them after kids are in bed and the temps had dropped.

The one of the reasons, I think, why I never really went hiking is lack of time. The kids were too small  and even if I took them with me, then I would have to leave the dog at home. Between my dog classes and kids gymnastics , which is pretty much every day, the only time we have to do any other things are Sundays. Leaving the house for two hours during that time seems very selfish, not to mention that at least occasionally the laundry needs to be done and cleaning bathrooms once in a blue moon wouldn't be a bad idea either.

This year I was starting to revive thoughts about hiking, but now I have to take 3 dogs on a hike. I dont' really fond of the idea walking all three dogs in the woods. I would have done it if I knew I will be all alone:-), but now days I have a constant fear of running into some people with loose and out of control dogs, so I really do not want to be put in this situation. I do not mind when people have their dogs off leash, even that it's against the law, as long as they understand that not all dogs appreciate being jumped on by some strangers so they keep their dogs away form other dogs. Unfortunately it seems that the mentality of majority of the population is that dogs need to make other doggy friends and people don't even bother asking if the owner of another dog is ok with it. Oh well, off the soap box.

Now that kids are older I am thinking that I want to start taking them and my husband hiking. Not to mention the fact that this way we can take all three dogs with us without any worry and I don't have to feel guilty leaving someone at home:-)

I like taking pictures, so having a camera on hikes is a must. I love my Canon D20 but it needs it's own backpack. If the kids are coming with us, I will need to have a backpack full of water and snacks and maybe even towel or two if we go to a creek. Taking yet another backpack for a camera doesn't seem exciting. Then I remembered that my husband got me a point and shoot camera for my birthday two years ago.

He really made a mistake with that camera. That Christmas he got me my Canon 20D and an awesome lens, that got me really excited. Then the next month he got me a small point and shoot camera. He really should have done it the other way around.:-) Needless to say this small camera was laying in the closet - never touched. I pulled it out and took it with me on the dog walk last night. To my huge disappointment I couldn't take a single decent shot.  After almost two hours of trying different settings I was ready to throw it in the trash. It was infuriating. I guess no one should really transition from DSLR to a point and shoot camera:-) I am sure this camera takes acceptable photos in the bright sunlight, the problem is that it cannot take pictures of the things I want to take pictures of - my dogs in the woods:-) The light is too low and it slows down the shutter speed to the point that everything is very blurry.
After playing with it for two days this is the best I manage to do:

Belle exploring the creek. In case a little bit of sunlight in just this spot helped.

This week had been crazy hot 94F+ with high humidity. Mozart seem to have found a solution to this problem - as soon as we come to the creek he plumps himself into it and doesn't move for a few min. Of course it's helpful that he can lay in the puddle and chew on the sticks at the same time. The thing he seems to like the most in this world:-)

we are back .. maybe....

Things had been crazy busy.  Last summer I spent preparing Brandy for our utility debut as well as finishing our CDX. By the time we had finished the UD (in  5 attempts) I was so burned out that I didn't really want to train at all, plus it was November, the days were short and even if I really wanted, training wouldn't have been really possible in the evening.
Mozart had finished his retrieve class and we had started working on articles in the fall.
Poor Belle was kind of abandoned outside of our usual Thursday night classes where Kid#1 was working her.
Come spring of 2013 and I had started trying to bring myself back into training and exploring past UD opportunities although not very successfully. We've been in the ring maybe 4 times and NQed all 4 times.  Brandy needs lots more work around barking and out of control dogs. Yeah, like that's easy to find in a control environment:-)

I was looking forward to summer in hopes that I would have more time, when I realized that it's already July and I am still hoping, so I went to a book store and got myself a famous "moleskin" notebook. I didn't really know it was famous until I bought it though. It came with a story telling how some of the famous writers and artists favored it in the past. For 2 weeks I had been pretty good about keeping my training log. I tried keeping my training log on my phone, found a couple of useful applications, but I realized that I really miss the pen and paper. It's amazing how much more productive I get when I actually creating a training plan for the day the night before, even if I do not manage to work on all of the exercises I planned on, it's still pushes me to try hard to stick with the plan.  When you have a three dogs that have to be actively trained I can't imaging doing it any other way.

Here is a video of one of Brandy's open runs. Unfortunately I have no videos of our Utility runs.