Food Lady Who??

I know, I know. I’m the worst blogger in the history of blogging. It’s been MONTHS since I posted anything. I have totally been phoning it in with cheap one offs on the FB page. You probably all think about me and feel like this:

But you probably don’t have grass seeds on your forehead while you do it. Or maybe you do, who am I to judge your life choices? After all, I live with NINE FREAKIN’ DOGS, which is in large part why the blogging is on the back burner…I’m sick to death of dogs at the moment. I feel like we all live in kinda roomy cardboard box together and everywhere I turn, there’s another damn dog underfoot. I’ve stepped on them, accidentally punted them down the stairs, slammed noses and tails in the STOP-SNEAKING-INTO-THE-BATHROOM-AND-EATING-THE-CATS’-FOOD babygate and one memorable time I yanked up my bed quilt in a fit of pique and sent Fae flying through the air. Those big, sad-kid eyeballs do NOT forgive.

They’re driving me a bit batshit right now, probably because I am with them 24/7 and don’t ever get a chance to miss them. Except, you know, when one of them squeezes out of the yard and goes walkabout (Addy in particular appears to be made of liquid and can ooze on out of anything bigger than a quarter) and then I have to go hunt them down. And when I do leave them at home, all I do is worry about what havoc they are wreaking on my home while I’m gone. Apparently being crammed into this tin can is as stressful for them as it is for me.

So naturally, I did the sensible thing, and brought in a foster dog to round out this insanity to an even ten.

Everyone is getting a puppy but me.

The Sadist’s wife got a puppy.

And my friend Dorothy got a puppy.

And Harold got a puppy.

(Although to be fair, his puppy might be an alligator)

And then random puppies keep popping up ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE at trials.

Even Auntie Fiona got a puppy! It would be more dramatic if I had a photo of her puppy for here, but I haven’t gotten around to taking any yet. But trust me – SHE’S REALLY FUCKING CUTE!!

So I got a foster puppy. Because even though I currently hate dogs, I have massive puppy envy. Yes, I am aware I have a problem.

But she only lasted a week with me, because she is so adorable and sweet that everybody wanted to adopt her and she went to her new home right away. I barely had a chance to take photos of her before she was gone again. It wasn’t very satisfying. Harumph.

Meanwhile, my stable/solid “puppy” has turned into a freaky idiot. Today’s phobia was banners flapping in the wind, even though yesterday was windier and those same banners went unnoticed. Also, submissive peeing is our new favourite activity in public, apparently.

The other reason I haven’t been blogging is because my yard is ugly – it does not inspire me to pick up the camera and document anything, as it’s just a bunch of gravel and dirt with three dogs chasing a ball, Wootie whining because he’s bored and Addy liquifying through livestock fencing to run around the parking lot and trying to get into the training building to beg for cookies.

We have to wait until the building is not in use and go use the off leash area, and that hardly ever happens. This weekend is Regionals though, so everybody is competing and nobody is using the property, so we got to enjoy some quiet time in the grass instead of loud time in the gravel. I think they were pretty happy about this.

Even Wootie played fetch with his obnoxious yellow frisbee, and he hardly ever plays fetch anymore, he just patrols the fenceline making pathetic whining sounds.

He also does this thing where when I try to get him to come inside and he shoots under the deck and won’t come back out. I think he’d be quite happy to spend all of the nice weather outside chilling – the WooTWoo definitely miss being farmdogs. But I don’t trust them to not find a way out of the yard if they tried hard enough, and also TWooie takes offense to EveryDog in the parking lot and I could do without the barking.

Whereas these idiots could care less about anything other than playing ball. Especially Maisie. I wish I had the same relationship with Maisie that Maisie has with her faded Chuck it ball that she squishes into a non ball shape. She’s got a set of chompers on her!

I like to say that Maisie is just Tweed visiting in a much bitchier body. She shares some of his same traits – her personal space bubble from other dogs is large, especially when she is sleeping. She likes to smell other dogs’ bathing suit areas, but they aren’t allowed to sniff hers as she snaps at them when they do. And she only plays with ONE ball and refuses to play with anything else, also a Tweed trick. She is also thinkie like he was, but she has less focus, which is mostly my fault as I haven’t really done anything of note with her, training wise. I’ve been a really lazy, unmotivated trainer/handler for a long time now. I feel like just getting through every day sucks up all my energy, and it’s impossible to do any training in this place because there’s nowhere to lock up all the other dogs and they’re all up in our business. And when we’re all out together, it’s a chore and a half just to keep track of them all, never mind work with them. Honestly, it’s just exhausting.

Maybe I’m just bummed because Facebook reminded me yesterday that it has been 4 years since Tweed went to the Big Naughty Dog Box in the great ether. I miss my good boy. But I also miss living in a house. Never thought I’d wax nostalgic for the tiny house with the mystery mini river running through the yard in coyote country.

Miss this face!

After Tweed died, I had an overwhelming desire to get another boy puppy, like immediately. Which made me feel instantly bad. And I never did … I got myself 4 more girl dogs instead. That’s so weird. I keep eyeballing BC/Aussie litters, but even if I did want to saddle myself with yet ANOTHER annoying, underfoot hairy family member, I am not convinced that I would find a good one. I meet so many of this cross that end up with a tiny BC head and a big fluffy Aussie butt, or they ended up being 65lbs, or they have a weird snarky temperament. I guess Mr Square was a once in a lifetime dog!

The OneMindSameDog terrier siblings spend all their time hunting mices. They generally are not successful, but they have incredible amounts of optimism that they one day will be. I wish I had their sunny outlook on life! I got Spring to play exactly ONE frisbee throw and then she was back to sticking her nose through the fence, smelling the invisible mices on the other side.

Meanwhile, crazy Miss Maisie will go until she drops. And when she drops, she will still have her beloved ball wedged firmly in her teefs.

Fae also wants the ball, but only because Deafter has it and won’t give it up. So her favourite activity is yelling in his face to make him drop it. Joke’s on her though, cuz he can’t hear her ear splitting barkshrieks.

Can you believe Dexter “Longstride” Morgan is going to be TEN this August? TEN! It blows my mind. I feel like he went right from being a crazy adolescent straight to being on the verge of being a senior. I don’t even know what happened to the time in between. Maybe it’s because he’s still as crazy and intense as ever.

He is so deaf now. And the funny thing about it is that he KNOWS he is deaf. I never know how to explain this in a way that makes sense, but … like, so he prefers to poop far far away, always has (it’s a trait of his litter. Such a weird genetic thing to pass down through generations). Whenever possible, he likes to leave the yard and go way over to the other side of the property to drop a log. Of course, he mostly can’t do that as he’s fenced in. When the buffalo aren’t on the property, we do play ball out in the field behind us (they’re back now, so we aren’t playing back there). And then when it’s time to go back inside, I give him the hand signal to come and heel … as we walk back to the yard, he slowly drops further and further back until he’s out of my peripheral vision, and then he turns and BOOKS as fast as he can in the other direction so he can go to his preferred toileting area. And I know he knows that calling him is ineffective, because as soon as I notice he’s gone I will turn around and see him glance back EVERSOQUICKLY to see if I’ve noticed, but not long enough to make eye contact because then I would give him his sign to come again, and he’s a good dog fundamentally and would ‘listen’ to me, but he’s figured out if he doesn’t make eye contact, he doesn’t have to listen. It’s actually kind of ingenius, if a little creepy.

He’s also super smart – if the training building is empty, he will take his time coming back, squeeze through the gate on the other side of the parking lot and meander through the parking area, marking various areas before ending up at my front gate. But if there are vehicles in the parking lot, he knows it’s off limits and he will come home around the back through the field and wait patiently at my back gate to be let back in. I love that he’s worked this out for himself. He’s another once in a lifetime dog.

Maisie and I did some agility training last weekend with The Sadist … I had forgotten (blocked out/had PTSD) how much yelling and belitting is involved training under that Mad Man! I am still hearing “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” and “WHY AREN’T YOU RUNNING FAAAAAAASTERRRRRRR???” was involved. My calves ache just thinking about it. But I brought DeMo in to try a gamble and damn if he didn’t just figure it out first try, even if he can’t hear my verbals.

He’s also still super duper handsome.

Spring had a go too and did a marvelous job at it. She is also awesome when we do club practice. I went ’round Regionals on Friday to cheer on my friends who were entered in the steeplechases and had a momentary pang of regret that I hadn’t entered her … then I went back to my van to get something and she was curled up in a teeny little ball way in the back of her crate, because she KNEW we were at Thunderbird. She really hates that venue so very much. Poor sensitive little mices hunter.

Pants remains eternally adorable and equally as annoying. She spends her time figuring out new and creative ways to escape the yard, or off leash area, and doesn’t care if I notice or not. (She also is a killing machine – yesterday I heard her eating something on a dog bed and looked over my screen to see what contraband she’d scored this time, and it was a baby chicken. Because her current life goal is to eat all of them. So far we are Baby chickens-14, Addy-2)

Periodically I scream “PANTS! PANTS! PANTSPANTPANTS!” and she comes flying over for a cookie.

Then she resumes her flagrant disregard for my wishes and continues looking for a way to be bad, until eventually she grows tired of arguing with me and turns into a cat-in-a-sunbeam.

She had her sorta-annual epileptic seizure last week. I hate seeing those :( She is so confused when it happens. Fortunately, she bounces back very quickly and then goes about her business of being naughty like nothing ever happened. As awful as it is, I am just glad she doesn’t have it worse.

I also haven’t been blogging as much because I was pretty busy with sessions for other people, and the more of those I have, the less time I have to take and edit photos of my own beasts. I did sunrise tulip sessions in April and May and they were a big hit. The results were fantastic, even though it was freakin’ hard to drag my ass and all my gear out at 4:30 in the morning.

I even snuck mine in one evening for a couple of quick shots :)

I’ve stopped shooting general agility trials, and have myself available only for big or major events, like the annual ASCofBC trial, and UKI cups. It’s just so much work for so little return otherwise, and a lot of wear and tear on my gear. But I’ve been asked to do a rally and conformation event next weekend … I don’t know from conformation, so I’m a bit worried about how well that’ll turn out. I tried my hand at it on Cruz in the tulips and think it turned out pretty okay though!

And I’m still working on perfecting my sunset shots, mostly because I just love them so much!

I just love my strobe so much, it’s the best thing I’ve bought in a long time. It’s totally changed my photo game. My next goals are to get a full frame camera, and a wider lens as well. So many toys, so little money!

I’ve also got some pretty exciting news that I can’t share yet (no it’s not the WooTWoo’s DNA results; we got TWooie’s back, but the Woo’s sample – much like Woo himself – was naughty and had to be re-processed. But I will definitely blog those when they come in!) but check back for that in a month or so.

In the meantime, I will be working on putting up my new solid wood fence. My goal this summer is to make the yard secure enough that I can leave the dogs out in it without worrying they will plot a get away. I am hoping having the freedom of the yard will ease up the close-quarters stress. The solid fence will go across the front of the yard so they can’t see the parking lot, which will cut down on that trigger, as they still have never really gotten over seeing tons of people and dogs in “their” territory. And also it will be nice to be out in my yard without people looking at me all the time. I have lived in the stix for far too long to be comfortable being sociable with people before my coffee. My stepdad replaced a fence for a client and gave me the old fencing … it’s worn and needs a sand and a stain, but it will do the trick.

Now I am going to go run some errands and then pop into Regionals and hopefully catch some of the awards ceremonies. Would you like to play some frisbee with Mr. Woo while I’m gone?