Dog Trainer's Log

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I had a different post planned for today, a happy celebration post. Madison did her very first 12 foot off-angle send to the weaves this morning! One command (go weave!), one signal to three poles stuck in eight inches of drifted powder snow, me standing a good 15 feet away on the other side of the patio, one little blue roan english cocker bitch running out to her poles and weaving them as if she’d *always* done exactly that.

But after my 11-hour day, after shoveling a back exercise area and a 100-foot path to the far sidewalk for the third time today, after feeding and skjoring/walking with the dogs, I came in, opened the personal email account I’d neglected all day and saw this subject line:

“Benefit for Terri and Bruce”

Wha . a . a. a. t?
WTH?!?
And there, following the explanation was this note from Terri Clingerman, an AKC obedience judge who lives, trains and instructs dog obedience in western central NY. Terri is also the AKC Gazette columnist for the Border Collie Society of America.

Terri’s note detailed a particularly UNhappy New Year. Just this week:

• her border collie Rhys had a second surgery to repair damage caused by eating a tug toy
• her training barn burned to the ground. No one human or animal was hurt, but the barn, all of her training equipment and more are a total loss.
• she had to put down her beloved training partner, labrador retriever Danny

I have certainly had a banner new year (to date) by comparison. In Terri’s own words:
———————
Hi everyone,
Just an update on some stuff that’s going on – some of you know some of it. I truly have had enough of 2010.

Rhys needed a 2nd surgery, because the internal stitches weren’t holding and he was seeping fluid. He had it on Jan. 2 and came home tonight. He actually looks better now than he did after I picked him up the first time. So anyway, cross your fingers but he should be ok. He’s on 2 different
antibiotics, 2 pain meds, and gets 2 tbsp of food 6x a day. [note from Pat: Rhys, a border collie, ate a tug toy, which is why he had surgery in the first (and second) place.]

Yesterday our big barn burned down – the one that was my training room, Bruce’s workshop, etc. Luckily I was home and called it in, and it didn’t spread. No people or animals were hurt, but it’s a complete loss. Tractors, my in-laws van, my new matting, lots of my equipment, countless tools and other items, and on and on. It’s a mess but the insurance people are being great about it. The cause was a faulty boiler/heater.

I think you all know that Danny showed some nerve damage about 6-8 months ago, that caused muscles in his head to atrophy and his right eye to sink in… we never figured out why although I assumed some kind of trauma. I’m not sure if it’s related to that or not, but about 3 days ago he started to show some unusual signs, like losing hearing and some vision. Last night he started walking in circles like Hootie was (before he died) and bumping into walls in the house, and not really recognizing us. Something neurological…

I wonder if maybe all along he did have a brain tumor. This all happened very fast. I made an appt. to have him checked tonight when I picked up Rhys, but when I got home, he could hardly walk and it was clear that the dying process had begun… I expect many of you have seen it. :*(( So we took him to the vet to have him put down. We’re really kind of numb right now, to be honest.

Feel free to let others know, I tried to include people who should know but I may have forgotten some.
Terri
———————————
Dog people are amazing group – there are already alternate training site offers on the table so that Terri can continue her classes, show-n-go fundraisers being put together, and other assistance efforts being organized.

But in situations like this, I’m not sure there can ever bee too many helping hands. So…
if you have an offer of help or support, please contact Terri directly.
You can also leave a comment here, and I’ll share it with her.

It’s time to do some paying it forward, people – how can you help?

———-

An update from Terri:

Terri has let everyone who has presented a fundraising idea know that both she and her husband Bruce, while “deeply touched by how many people have wanted to help us” are both a bit uncomfortable with the thought of accepting donations. In Terri’s own words, “The building and contents are insured and it’s not like we lost our house and need immediate replacement of clothing or necessities. Although it’s a major inconvenience (to say the least) we will rebuild and things will be fine.”

To respect Terri and Bruce’s wishes, I’m relaying her suggestion that “all the money raised be distributed among the fire departments that responded. They are all volunteer depts. And I know every donation helps. The towns that responded were, North Rose, Rose, Wolcott, Sodus & Clyde, NY.”

If you’d like contact or donation information for the volunteer fire departments Terri mentioned, and can’t find that from Google or other search methods, please contact me (gaelen2 AT yahoo DOT com) and I’ll happily email you any contact information I have.

Image via Wikipedia

I subscribe to a number of email dog-training newsletters. In yesterday’s inbox, this subject line stopped me in my tracks:

“Owning a Working Dog – Adam’s Thoughts”

A quick look at the article got even more interesting. Before I knew it I was reading and nodding along with the author, Adam Katz, who opened with:

“Deciding what breed of dog to own is an exciting endeavor. I love all dog breeds. And more than anything, I love studying the characteristics and attributes of each breed, and discovering what makes each one different and unique. For many years, I’ve been attracted to the working dog breeds.

“But I’m starting to reach greater clarity as to what type of dogs I want in my life right now. As I get older, I’m less willing to deal with the high maintenance that some of these extreme working breeds require.”

I know exactly what Katz means. And although he characterizes Belgian Malinois as a ‘working’ (dog sport) breed, it’s the herding characteristics of the Malinois that would likely drive me right ’round the bend.

From 1983 to 1987, I was the weekend and then daily manager at a boarding kennel. When I first started, the kennel had 6 outdoor runs and 17 indoor year-round kennels. All of the dogs were hand-exercised (read: walked on slip leads to the outdoor runs) four times every day. In summer, as soon as the hose from the house to the lower kennel wouldn’t freeze, they opened the lower kennel building which added another 20 indoor-outdoor runs to the party. During winter break, they’d often open the lower kennel for overflow dogs (and hand-carry water in jugs because outdoor hoses freeze in February in central New York.) Within 18 months, they started a new building addition to the upper kennel to handle their increased business. By the time I left, the kennel had over 50 indoor-outdoor runs, another 17 indoor-only kennels, and the lower kennel was in nearly year-round use (even though a hose from the house was still its main water supply.)

One of our kennel games was called “how many breeds have you had on your leash?” We each kept a mental chart of how many and which breeds were are most and least favorite. After four years of walking, hand-exercising, feeding, amusing and grooming 150 dogs (or more) a day, I could mark off 123 of the AKC‘s and FCI‘s recognized breeds, and name some very exotic random-bred dog combinations. What I learned about myself managing that kennel are the things that still affect my dog breed choices.

So I’m going to say these things, out loud. I admit in advance that some people will see these thoughts as a failing, but they are truth – the thing I and the dogs I train respect more than anything.

I don’t particularly like living with high maintenance, yippy dogs (herding dogs come to mind.) I love corgis – both Pembrokes and Cardigans. I love shelties. I love Belgian Malinois, and Belgian Tervuren. I love border collies. And I would kill most of them if I had to live with them 24/7.

I love grooming, but when I’m sick, it’s tough to keep up a dog in show coat and why own a coated dog if you’re going to cut the coat down? So I chose English cockers, rather than their more heavily coated American cocker cousins. And while I give my neutered dogs the illusion of coat by cleaning out their entire undersides, and clip down my old dogs to minimize their time standing for grooming, I always agonize over taking a dog’s coat down. No matter how much the clip makes them look and feel like puppies again, I hate doing it. Yes, somedays I fantasize about living with a greyhound or other short-coated breed. I am strongly attracted to whippets for just this reason – no coat to speak of, and they fit in a manageable size crate.

Manageable size in crate needs has always been important. I used to joke at the kennel that I would never own a dog who needed a crate that was taller than I am – and I’m 5′o”. Now that surgery has limited what I can lift, 100 and 200-size crates and folding nylon soft-crates look pretty good…so good that I own three soft crates for each dog, three for the cat, and one soft 300+ crate to kennel Casey and M. together if needed. Each time I remember what it was like to load, unload and reload at dog shows 200 pounds’ worth of suitcase-style folding metal crates (two 400s, four 300s, and two crates in sizes that don’t fit any numbering system but magically fit inside my 1980 Citation), I am amazed all over again. I look at my little $9.99 JC Penney’s luggage dolly and marvel that I used to be able to put ALL of my folding crates on it. It went so many places with so little help. But I am saner now – and never again will I tote that much of a load.

I don’t particularly like living with old dogs.

Sure, all dogs get old. But some dogs get old at a relatively young age, and then *stay* old, gradually deteriorating and fumbling through life for another five or seven years. Airedales and Wire Fox Terriers (many terriers, come to that) tend to do this – so as strikingly beautiful as I find them, I know I couldn’t live with one long-term. My first breed, English Springer Spaniels, have one bad year and (usually) die between 12 and 14. I lost both of my ESS bitches early, around 10. Jazz outlived all expectations, making it to a hearty 14+ before suddenly developing a gastric torsion for which he had to be euthanized. But for each of my ESS, there was a brief amount of bad times, and then they passed.

Gordon Setters are similar – one bad year, and then they die between 12 and 14. Bard lived to be 12+. Reuben is still going strong at 10+.

Speaking of going strong – Reuben was the first dog who made me realize that I was living with more dog than I could handle. Not at first – he and I struggled through four years of his tumultuous adolescence and finally had reached a turning point of peaceful coherence in our relationship. But my second major illness of his young life smacked me down – a stage IV cancer diagnosis which at the time (2004) was expected to kill me long before Reu would be an old dog – I knew I had to do the responsible thing. I placed him with Bruce and Monica B. to live out his active years training and competing in agility – and I know that Reu and Bruce are happy together.

But it really was a wake-up call to recognize that maybe the best working dog I’d ever owned – my dream dog – was not going to work out for me. It felt wonderful to watch him successfully transition to his new home (I’d taught him those skills, so maybe I really was that good…) But I’d chosen this hard-driving puppy for exactly the qualities that now meant I needed to give him up, so that he could succeed. I felt like a complete failure as a trainer.

After some of the same personal realiztions, Katz placed his recently adopted Belgian malinois in a home more suited to the dog’s activity level and temperament. The need to place the dog with someone else wasn’t an easy thing for him to recognize – that was the point of his article. He closed with this comment:

“The best way I can describe it is that: It’s the difference between owning a Ferrari and a Rolls Royce. One is built for high performance racing, the other for smooth cruising. This last experience with “The Dude” has reminded me (again) that I’m at the Rolls Royce stage of my life.”

Now, as I sit on the couch with two dogs from the third breed I’ve lived with long-term in my adult life – English Cocker spaniels, senior citizen (Casey, 15) and young girl (Madi, 7) – I know in my head and my heart that these guys are exactly the right dogs for me at this time in my life. They are not from a breed that every trainer would consider the best working dogs. They are not perfect dogs in any way – as Casey reminds me every time he eats inappropriate things and M. reminds me when she forgets her words. But each dog fits my temperament, adapts to my inconsistent energy levels, and responds to my mad training skills. I fit their cuddling and their attention and their working needs. And all three of us fit together like a complex interconnected triplet of puzzle pieces when we doze off on the couch at the end of the day.

I guess that means we’re really perfect for each other.

What’s your perfect breed? Has that changed as you’ve gotten more experience, or gotten older?

UPDATE 5 January 2010:
The snow continues. Syracuse just made the Today show’s first five minutes…because in the last 11 days we’ve accumulated FOUR FEET OF SNOW.
I don’t have four feet of snow in the back yard – closer to two feet – but when Madison forgets that she’s a princess and dives head-first into the fluffy white powder, she is buried right up to the tip of her little black tail. And Casey, ever the snow bunny, is gleeful as he plows almost effortlessly through the drifts. Sunday I shoveled three times. Monday, and today – only twice – because I spent most of the day at work.
Welcome to my winter in central New York!

Casey’s been having a good stretch since his 15th birthday on November 25 (hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying *that* in my out-loud voice!) But since solstice, when dark started coming a lot earlier and the nights started living under 15 deg. F., he’s been cuddling harder, sleeping deeper and he’s seemed just a bit more out of it each morning than usual.

Until today.
Last night, we got four inches of snow – that fine powder that means fast cross-country skiing, that he can easily leap in and out of and snowplow through with his nose. So although it was tough to convince him to de-tangle from his soft nest of blankets this morning, once outside I could hardly slow him down.

Even Madison, a southern belle to her core, danced in the new snow. She plowed a few paths with her nose, made herself some snow angels, and then sat pretty for a holiday portrait.

Now, what I need is a new snow shovel

Happy holidays from Casey, Madison and Pat at Dog Trainer’s Log!

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been slammed at work for the last couple weeks – twelve hour days do not let me be a good dog (or cat) trainer. Some days, the cuddle time I get with Casey, Madison and Churro is all the interaction we share. I feed them, they eat. We go for walks. We cuddle for a few minutes before I go off to work, and they moan (M.) or groan (Casey) or purr and head-butt (Churro) with me until it’s time for them to go back to crates to nap the day away. I come home, and we repeat the process – except that cuddle time usually melts into falling asleep together. Then Casey wakes us all up in the middle of the night. I ex them all again, and they go into crates for a couple of hours until daylight, when the alarm goes off and we do it all again.

I’ve been so slammed that for a couple days this week, I didn’t keep up with my blog reading, or my Twitter stream. And then I saw a tweet from my friend @azahar – missing her Sunny, her 16 y.o. cat who earlier in the week hadn’t been doing well and had needed a quick trip to the vet.

Sunny died while I was off trying to coax a validation test script out of some co-workers and do role reviews in my application and help plan a retirement party. And my friend, a day ahead and thousands of miles away in Spain was deep in the agony that follows when a circle closes, and the realization that our lives are longer than the pets who enrich our days hits us, hard.

I can’t make Az’s pain less. I’m not sure anything can, except time. As I shift softly here on the couch, so that I don’t wake up my own old man Casey, reading about her pain reminded me how close that minute can be for all of us with pets, but especially for those whose pets are celebrating senior birthdays.

Casey will be 15 this week. No, to those who’ve wondered, he’s not dead – just living the slightly befuddled life of a senior dog who some days doesn’t remember who he is or where he is, but is otherwise physically healthy. This weekend, I’ve been slowly working at getting him trimmed up, to take a 15th birthday photo. He can only tolerate a few minutes of grooming at a time, so routine maintenance is a process – but I should be able to give you all a picture of my old man looking his best sometime before the week is over.

I vividly remember the day I went to meet Casey. We drove 3 1/2 hours through a blizzard to come home together. He rode in the #100 crate on my front seat. We stopped twice so that he could pee. He was so small, easily the smallest non-cat creature I’d ever had in my house, and as he sat at the top of the stairs to the side door, looking down, I could hear him thinking “It’s very far, Pat.” He played ball almost from the moment I brought him home. He adored my Gordon setter Bard and my English Springer spaniel Jazz (who were 8 and 12 1/2, respectively, when I brought Casey home.) He learned everything at light-speed. He was the little red speed demon that ran the fastest course of the trial on the day that he earned his NA…and the reason that agility hot-shots like Diane Bauman lined up the next day to watch *us* run.

Casey became the head cuddler as I worked my way through first the recovery from a hemorrhagic stroke, and then five+ years of cancer treatment – if you’d like more of that story, you’ll find it at Life Out Loud. He adjusted as his show career abruptly stopped, shifted gears, restarted after the stroke, downshifted again during cancer treatments, and then took on new directions when I grew stronger. In ’96 he lost his mentor Jazz; a few years later, his friend Bard. He outlived all of his cats: Aslyn, Rocket, and Rani. He saw me re-home the upstart Gordon setter Reuben – I found for Reu the active performance home he deserved, so that he didn’t have to spend his young life as my cancer therapy dog. Casey welcomed into our home his new BFF, Princess M., and a new cat, Churro. His circle is smaller now than it used to be, and I can see that it’s nearing the point where it will close – but not just yet.

I’m dreading that day. And Az’s week has reminded me that I must not let the other things in my world interfere with enjoying the days I have with the creatures around me whose lives are too short.

Az discovered some truths about herself while she lived within Sunny’s circle, and she shared them here in this post from Casa Az: “Learning to Love.” As I read it, hugging my own creatures, I realized how much I’ve learned from all of mine – Taryn, Jazz, Nola, Muni, Bard, Reuben, Ashlyn, Silkyn, Rocket, Rani – and now the ones who draw the current circles in the knots of my time: Casey, Madison and Churro.

But circles close – it’s their nature. It’s our gift to learn from the pets who author our circles, and realize how much they enrich our days.

What have you learned from your pets today?

36" folding fabric expen (mine is camouflage)

If admitting the problem is the first step, then let’s go:

My name is Pat, and I’m addicted to crates.

Two weekends ago I moved my Sun Spot vintage trailer to its winter home in my rented garage. I packed some other things to winter over in the garage – my two larger coolers, a lounge chair from my patio, and crates. Four crates. I have so many crates I no longer need them on a daily or even weekly basis.

Five years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer, I did take stock and gave away many of my ‘extra’ dog things. As my dance with cancer has had its ups and downs, I’ve gotten a good feeling from seeing my former stuff in active use at shows and trials and in the SOTC training building. I had this green Sharpie that truly did have indelible ink - the fading but still readable STEER printed on my former crates always surprises me when I see it in someone else’s setup.

But it’s been five years since I scaled down my dog equipment, and slowly, my crate addiction has resurfaced. Once again I find myself harboring (or maybe it’s hoarding?) extras. I have two english cocker spaniels (easy keepers in 200-size crates) and a pretty large orange tiger cat who fits in a 100-size crate but is much happier in a 200. My oldest functional but damaged crates are the house crates – at this moment that includes a 25-year-old 400 side-door wire, a 10-year-old 200 Deluxe VariKennel (Casey and M.’s houses, respectively), a 200 plastic PetMate (Churro’s ‘cat house’), and a 100 Varikennel and smaller than 100 cat crate which are cat-transports to the vet or kennel. That’s actually a sort of controlled chaos – it’s the car that reminds me, daily, that I may be taking ‘Be Prepared’ a step too far.

Two plastic 200 Varikennels are secured in the car all the time. Stored around them are a medium Guardian Gear soft crate (big enough to hold a gordon setter, it’s now my hotel crate that holds both Casey and M.), a 200-size Noz2Noz soft crate with a strong aluminum framework (for venues where I need crates that stack), three 200-size off-label Petmate soft crates, and my brand new folding 36″ soft ex-pen. That gives me one crate for the car, one crate for the show site and one crate for the hotel for each of the three in my current entourage – and an extra in case space is a problem.

The fabric ex-pen is an upgrade/replacement for my 25+ year-old folding metal 36″ covered ex-pen – how could I *not* want to reduce my weight and load from 25 pounds to 4? You heard me – a 4-pound ex-pen. I love it! Although the website recommends the 36″ size for ‘Shelties and Mini-Schnauzers,’ it’s just fine for larger breeds who respect a soft crate – and the solid bottom and zip-off screened top make it more escape-proof than the average wire ex-pen.

But I have to admit, today was a one-day-at-a-time crate day. The email came in the digest of the SOTC mail-list: MidWest Metal is clearancing its 30″ black-expoxy-coated wire expens for $37 and change with free shipping. I caught my breath, I clicked the link – and then I closed the ad. In the car-port, waiting for their own trip to the garage, are a 300 Deluxe Varikennel, a 300 folding wire, two 200 folding wire crates, and two uniquely sized tall and narrow wire crates that often fit into tight spaces and are no longer manufactured. I need to move them to enclosed storage before winter really hits.

If you’ve been keeping count, I own 20 crates for two medium-sized dogs and a cat. Full disclosure: Casey will turn 15 in a couple weeks - his crating requirements are much lower than when he was actively traveling, showing and going to classes two or three times every week. But once a crate comes into my home, it always stays years after the dog who first lived in it has passed on.

I’ve rented crates to students, and never bothered to get them back. I gave away the partner to my metal expen, and I’ve given away at least as many crates as I currently own.

Okay, my name is Pat, and I’m addicted to crates. But at least I’m always prepared.