Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Did I foolishly declare that my time was my own in the last entry??

After spending a luxuriously lazy Thursday accomplishing exactly nothing at all except making it to agility class in real pants, not pajamas, I got a phone call at 10PM that evening that said “Your call time tomorrow is 11AM.”  Call time?  But I thought I was done with the movie?  “HA HA HA, fool!” said the voice on the other end of the telephone (it belonged to my friend Dove, one of the animal wranglers on the set, who got me the job), “Welcome to the movie business!”

So Friday I was back on set for another 12 long hours, freezing my buns off whilst waiting for them to utilize me in my fancy satin (oh yes!) outfit, and trying not to get my hair wet in the rain as I fear the wrath of the lady who does my hair on set.  “Use an umbrella” she glowered at me, and even though I didn’t have an umbrella, I think I could have conjured one up out of thin air, cuz I was afraid.

I crawled into bed around midnight and what felt like 10 minutes later my alarm clock went off and I had to get up and go to the shelter for my real life job.  Saturdays at the shelter is “Traffic Light” so I left the dogs at home rather than crate them in the van for 10 hours.  doG knows they’ve been crated enough on set for long days.  I figured since the commute takes no time at all on weekends, I’d be home in plenty of time to spend some quality canine time with them.  Of course there was not only a vehicle fire on the bridge on the way home, but a multi-car pile up directly after, and I ran straight into all of it.  I was the walking dead by the time I made it out of that traffic snarl so my poor dogs once again saw me for like half an hour before we all crawled into bed.

I awoke this morning in a sweaty panic, for today was Roguey ATCh day!  TDBCR Rogue just needed one Masters Snooker to get her ATCh at the trial (which I did not enter) and it was second run of the day.  I threw a coat on over my pajamas, basically, and flew down to the trial site just in time to catch her Snooker run, which she nailed with style.  Congratulations Roguey Poguey, on your ATCh!!!

(I did not have the presence of mind to bring my camera with me, so you’ll have to settle for this older photo of the Angry Coho)

We celebrated by forcing (read: trying to keep the entire bottle from her!) Rogue’s mum to drink a shot of my precious, hoarded tequila, which I brought with me.  Said a few more congratulatory words and then sleep-drove my way back home, fully intending to crawl back into bed.

Alas, I could not, for my poor understimulated dogs were by this point bouncing off the walls.  They all looked kind of like this.

*vibrate vibrate vibrate somethinganythingohdogpleasedosomethingwithusnownownow vibrate vibrate vibrate*

Naturally, it’s been a torrential downpour all morning, but what choice did I have?  I bundled up against the weather and we went out to play some Dumbball.  When I could get Dexter to give it up, that is.  My poor puppy is so in need of exercise that he was grasping the ball like a talisman, hoping he could wish two hours of running into existence.

Monsoon or no monsoon, the dogs were determined to make the most of their outing.

So we three border collies played some Dumbball

while the WooTWoo did some synchronized hunting

and then the rain started pounding down in earnest, so we’re now back at home and everyone is fast asleep.  I’m ten minutes away from joining them, as I have a 10AM call time tomorrow (oh yes I do!  This movie will NEVER EVER END.  However, I got my first paycheque and the total was gratifying enough to make me even consider going to out to buy an umbrella!) and I am extremely bone weary.

But first, I should say that I have mostly forgiven TWoo for his murderous attack upon my chickens a week ago.  Not because he has redeemed himself in any significant way, but rather because it’s just too difficult to stay mad at this face:

It’s kind of hard to tell since he’s wet, but TWoo is finally growing his coat back for me.  When he first arrived, he had copious amounts of Northern BC haircoat, but it was of shitty quality, very wiry and rough.  Then sometime this summer he lost it all and it was so short and thin I thought he might be going bald.  He practically had a crew cut!  In the last month or so it has started growing back and it’s coming in super soft, so cuddling him is all kinds of wonderful.  It resembles Mr. Woo’s coat: soft, thick and with a little bit of a wave.  I’m kind of jealous, actually.

The chickens are not so forgiving.  They will finally come out of their house now, but only when they know the dogs are locked up.  As soon as they hear my front door open, they vanish into the house and peek out into their coop.  I think they are really enjoying my time on the movie, as they know that when the car drives away, so does The TWoo, so they can putter around unmolested (and un-murdered!)

I also was amused by all your suggestions for rattie names, but I decided in the end to go with Snackies! (with the exclamation point and everything – when you say it in your head, say it like Barbara Woodhouse used to say “walkies!” and you’ll get the idea).  One of these days, I will actually have the time to work with her.  I am told this is definitely, without a doubt, absolutely, the last week of shooting for the movie.

I need to take a nap before Dexter has rested enough to start looking at me like this again:

because then I’ll have to yell something like “screw you Dexter!  I’m tired and you can just go suck goats!” at him, which will earn me this face:

(he is, after all, a moody teenager now).

But before I do, I just wanted to show you something super cool.

We had this dog in rescue a little while ago named Stormy, who was a very nice young dog.

He was adopted by what we thought were very nice people – they wanted a dog to do hobby herding with, and had lots of dog experience and were very enthusiastic about Stormy and his potential on sheep (Storm comes from working lines and was being fostered by a sheepdog trainer, so it really felt like serendipity).  Within about 6 weeks or so, the folks who adopted Storm also went out and adopted something ridiculous like 2 or 3 more dogs (not border collies) and then felt they had too many dogs, and since Stormy, being a border collie, was the most work, they returned him.  WTF?  Who DOES stuff like that?  And also, what rescue(s) adopted them 2 or 3 more dogs knowing that they had *just* adopted a dog or dogs within a matter of weeks?  If I had been the rescue they approached 2 or 3 dogs in, I would have told them to spend some time getting to know the dogs they had just gotten before acquiring any more.  Dogs are not party dresses people – you don’t buy a whole bunch of them and then return the ones you decide not to wear to the ball!

Harumph.

Anyway, Stormy came back but he never even made it onto the website before he was adopted again.  A super nice lady with a goose control business found Storm to be the perfect blend of companion and working birdstrike dog. She’s renamed him Murphy, and Stormy/Murphy is now training to be a goose control dog.  That’s pretty cool in and of itself, but the *coolest* part of the whole thing is that his new co-worker is an eagle.

That’s right, I said an EAGLE.

The woman who adopted Stormy/Murphy has a degree in Falconry and has a trained eagle as part of her bird control business.  ZOMG, how jealous am I?  And here I thought getting a rat and some chickens was awesome.  I WANT AN EAGLE!!

(I’d like to see TWooie try and eat an eagle, the bastid!)

I could at an eagle!!

Well sure you could Dexter.  doG knows you can jump high enough to catch one! (you should see this dog float over 26″ jumps.  He’s 14 months old now, and next month we start training 2X2s … he’ll be competing in no time!).

Happy nappies, my friends!  Later this week, when I can get online again, I will have something really cool to show you!!