Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Yes I'm Back At Work

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I complained to Hubby yesterday after Sampson, Delilah and I got back from our walk.

Maybe it was because I walk in long pants, with a long-sleeved shirt, socks, sneakers and a ball cap and it’s hot as freakin’ hell.  Really, within five minutes (or just as soon as I’ve reached the top of the hill) I’m sweating like a 500 pound man in a 500 degree oven.

Maybe it was because I can’t walk in the summer without  the bugs…well bugging me.  I swear to God a big sucker flew past my ear and was so stinkin loud the other day that the hair on my body stood on end.

Maybe it was because the bugs keep bugging Delilah and I’m constantly asking my dog to stop or wait while I swat at her.

Maybe it was because the dogs get hot and tired too and stop in the middle of the path and block my progress.

Maybe it was because those stupid spiders build their stupid webs across the trail and I’m constantly flailing and screaming like a little girl, and basically look like a lunatic swatting at nothing.

Or maybe, just maybe it was because it was my last day of vacation and I knew how much 1) I didn’t accomplish while I was home, 2) I’ll miss walking the dogs first thing in the morning and 3)  I’d hate going back to work.

Maybe it was all of the above.

Do you have a hard time adjusting after vacation?

Drifting….

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Hubby and I have been on vacation all week.  We were also on vacation two weeks ago.  Don’t ask, he chose the weeks.

I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish while we were on vacation.

  • Shampoo my carpets.
  • Paint the outside of the french doors.
  • Clean up my office/scrapbook room.
  • Take my grandson and do something fun for a day.
  • Get a couple of blog posts ready to go, to help take the stress off me when I’m writing.
  • Move the blog to self-hosted.
  • Design the new website.
  • Clean out the garage.
  • Give the house a good douching.

I managed to take my grandson for the day and we went to The Dinosaur Place.

I also started writing the daily blog the night before, so I can tweak it first thing in the morning and get it up earlier.

And that’s it.

Oh, I spent almost every waking minute on the computer, the problem was I found myself drifting.  I’d drift to my gooogle reader to see what you all were up to, or I’d drift over to facebook and check my words with friends games.

I first heard about drifting from the other awesome Jodi, over at Kol’s Notes.  Jodi wrote a post Things I Learned At #BlogPaws: Time May Change Me, But I Can’t Change Time.

Ah, suddenly I have a name for what I’m doing, I just don’t know how to stop myself.  Jodi says there’s a tool you can download to block the social media sites when you need to be working.

That won’t stop me.  I’ll just shut it off.

I need motivation.

Where do you find your motivation when you just don’t have any?  Have you ever suffered from Drifting?  What steps did you take to help keep yourself on task?

Rally Thursday

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Rally is an AKC dog sport, it is basically an obedience sport, but the ‘commands’ are located at little stations throughout the Rally ring.   It  is also the sport I stewarded at last November.

There are three Rally divisions, Novice, Advanced and Excellent.  It is possible for a dog to title in all three divisions and your dog does NOT have to be a pure-bred in order to compete.

Ribbons are awarded to the top three dogs.  The highest score is 100, but the dogs are also timed.  In case of two dogs achieving the same score, the time is factored in to determine the winner.  Any dog who achieves a score of 70 or better  achieves a ‘leg’ once the dog has three ‘legs’ the dog has titled in that particular Rally division.

At an AKC Rally match, there is only one dog in the ring at a time, unless there is an ‘honor’ dog.

In the advanced Rally ring,  a ‘Honor Dog’ is expected to lie at the edge of the ring and not move until the dog working the course has finished and the Steward in charge advises it is safe to release the dog.   Normally the honor dog, is the dog who was in the ring before the current dog.  If a dog is honoring, their score is not complete until the steward advises the scorekeeper that the dog passed or failed.  The dog working the course is ‘scored’ based upon their performance in the ring.

Stewarding an advanced AKC Rally match is one of the more difficult rings to run, especially if there is an honor dog.  Not only are the Stewards required to insure all jumps are the correct height for each dog, the Stewards are also responsible for making sure each competitor is up and ready to go when their number is called.

When I Stewarded there were three of us. Besides the official scorekeeper, there was my friend Ann who made sure competitors were up and ready to go, and held their leash while they were in the ring.  I ran the stop watch and monitored the Honor Dog.   In between dogs we had to check that the jumps were the correct height and in some instances we had to make adjustments.

I can tell you it was a lot of work, and you see some crazy people with their dogs. 🙂

I like the idea of the Rally and have actually considered working Delilah toward a title.

If you would like to learn more about Rally, you can check out the AKC  link here.

Hubby and I have been on vacation all week.  Even though I’ve been walking the dogs every morning I couldn’t help but perk my ears up when Sara mentioned she was going to have a drop-in Rally class on Thursday evening.

Normally on a night that Delilah and I have training class I force gently encourage Hubby to take Sampson for a walk.  Thursday night I asked if he and Sampson would like to check out the Rally Class.

Not quite as sophisticated as the AKC commands, but it got the job done!

Sampson doesn’t really care for obedience or agility classes but I think it’s good to keep him on his ‘game.’  Of course Hubby didn’t want a little baggy full of treats, so someone kept going right back to mommy when he was done.

There was eight dogs in the class, Sara had one person start at station one, then once they were at station three, the next person started.  In this manner we got all dogs thru fairly quickly.  After two runs thru, Sara changed the course.

Sampson and his dad.

Sampson kept looking over to me as if to say,  please help me mom, you know I don’t like these classes.

I want to say we did about four different courses, it was a nice way to work on our obedience without being in a traditional classroom setting.

After class was over, Sara cut Sampson and Delilah’s nails.

Stop fighting it Sampson. 🙂

Both Sampson and Delilah are so laid back when they get their nails clipped that Hubby joked, take it easy Sampson don’t get so stressed out.

Delilah is not so fond of lying down and leaving herself vulnerable.

Have you ever tried a competitive sport with your dog?  Would you?

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