New (renewed) Interests

Lil Fish Quilt


I really like this quilt.  I have many quilts ooozing to come out recently.  I feel the need to get back into quilting in a small way, one step at a time.

Over the years, I have learned a lot, (well, a little) about a lot of things.  Let's see:  Sheep, Spinning wool, Llamas, Dairy Goats, making cheese from goats milk, gardening, canning, and of course we had horses, but that was not a learning experience, as I have a pretty broad equine knowledge base.

I have also got a huge pull toward making quilts.  I technically, have only pieced one full quilt.  It is hand quilted by my mother (mostly) and myself (a little).  I have it hanging on the way in our living room, and I am extremely proud of that quilt.

I have made a few smaller quilts, and have some pieced blocks that clearly need to be made into a table runner or SOMETHING.

This quilt is calling me:  1) I need to start small
2) it is perfect for the drop down panel of Stevie's crate cover.  SO...I am left figuring out how it is made, since I can't find either a pattern to purchase or a tutorial.

Wish me luck!

Long time...no blog, and: Learning to train a Pansy

Oh MY.  I just saw that it has been well over a year since my last blog post.

There IS an explanation.

Right after my last blog post, we hit an internet frustration wall.  At the time, we were using a certain, not to be named satellite internet service.  It was well over $100 per month, it was slow, and....it was extremely limited.  There is this thing called a "Fair Access Policy".  I can't remember how many whatever-a-bytes you get, but once you exceed that...forget about it!  They slow you down to the point that email won't load.

Well, it had happened again.  In a fit of annoyance, we cancelled our service.  Ruh Roh.  We all used our phones as our only access for a while.  It is shocking how many FaceBook posts you can miss by just using your phone.  Not to mention, my phone screen is what....2' by 4"?  (iPhone 4).  Yeah...I can only read that when my eyes aren't dry from sleeping, tired from the day and the sun is high overhead.  Toooooooo tiny for old eyes!

Non-access period lasted until maybe March.  In Jan I started teaching Anesthesia to our Vet Tech students.  Sometime during that time I crisply informed my husband that I would NEVER teach another class without internet access (grades and assignments are posted online).  And since I will continue teaching...access must be found.

Enter HughesNet.  We tried everything that Verizon and US Cellular had to offer.  Our house is in a little valley, and apparently that is the kiss of death to county internet.  But I must say, HughesNet has far exceeded my expectation for speed.  And though we are still limited by a Fair Access Policy, we have only reached the limit once, and I could still read email when we were SLOWED.

In the meantime...I actually forgot that I had started a blog.  Seriously.  Sigh.  What an idiot.

But...I digress.  2013 has been full of ups and downs.  We had expected and lost our first grandchild.  It was a devastating experience for everyone, particularly my daughter and her husband.  I won't bore you with details, but suffice it to say, my heart is open to those that have been through it.

Stevie and I have been to classes on and off.  We went to obedience classes, and then started agility.  Stevie is what I term a PANSY.  Don't get me wrong, that Pansy has my heart inside and out.  That dog worries about EVERYTHING.  It can be a training challenge.  For both of us.

I can feel her stress by the way she takes treats.  In fact, in one obedience class, she snagged the cuticle on my thumb so hard that I yanked my hand away, TOWERED over my lil pansy and boomed...THAT HURT!

She hit the floor, groveled miserably while I fumbled for a way to help her recover and we both felt like so much poo poo.

Poor poor lil fish.

My thumb bled, and it took me six months to grow out the mark in the nail.  And yet, while my action may have felt justified, it was not a useful training technique for a Pansy.

Since the Thumb Incident, Stevie and I have been actively seeking out opportunities to happily face the world full of worrisome things.

We continued agility classes at CACM in Muscatine until recently no more classes at our level are being offered.  We also have taken agility classes from Laura Knoll at QCDC, and I will say, Stevie seems more comfortable there.  May be that the ambient noise level is lower, who knows.  However, there she can hold stays and we made pretty solid progress on her obstacle performance and basic handling.  YAY! Laura is a fine teacher, and I am sure that helps us in no small way as well.  (insert smiley face)

Last May I also tore a meniscus in my left knee.  It happened at work, so is a workman's comp case, which I guess isn't the tragedy I thought it was (I hate to be a recordable injury, since I am married to the guy who was a safety director for like...20 years!) but is a nightmare from an attempt to get things resolved in a timely manner.  For a variety of reasons, surgery is now scheduled for November 21.  ARGH!

I have missed a LOT of classes babying this dumb knee.  But I do what I can, and feel pretty darn bad for myself when I can't do what I want.  I know that Stevie and I would be closer to ready for trialing if not for the injury.  But onward we go.  She is my shadow and my constant companion, and she loves me in spite of myself.  How can I not have that lil fish face in my heart?

Today, we hopped in the care with our friend Mary and her corgi pup Roxanne.  We went to a pretty busy farmers market and trained.

It was a certified blast.  Stevie was an amazing girl, including accepting treats from total strangers, doing some lovely stays (did not break ONE!) and generally had a glorious time.

Hopefully, it will translate into a little longer lead out in agility, and a little bit more distance on stays in obedience.  Regardless, I am reveling in the successes of this morning.  And planning on repeating the exercise next Saturday!  What a great training opportunity!

Oh...and she got a new collar.  How could anything be better than that?  :D  And yes, life is good even if one is a Pansy.

Country Bumpkin Visits the Big City

 

I returned somewhat late last evening from the Central Veterinary Conference in Kansas City.  I was gone for 4 days, which isn't really very long.  It felt like forever! And...it went really fast!  :D

I have never been to any other type of conference, although this is my third trip to the CVC.  It is FULL of continuing education, which is required for technicians and veterinarians to maintain their licenses.  I adore CE.  I am a CE addict!  CVC is a little slice of heaven for me.  (as an aside, I am also addicted to office supplies. Office Max and Staples are my stores of choice, unless there is an Agility Store somewhere I have never been to!  I hear there the a "box store" somewhere.  I would love that as well)  I'm odd.  I know.  

Oops.  I got lost there for a sec.  But seriously, there are 22 (I counted) options of classes for each session of each day to choose from.  Doing the math...that means I had over 600 classes to choose from.  Of course time limits that, as well as conflicts when there is more than one session I want to attend offered at one time.  It required a great deal of thought to organize my schedule each day.  All in all, I was very pleased with nearly all the sessions I attended, I learned a lot, and I brought home a lot of ideas to put in place in the practice.  All very exciting!
 
CVC is in the city.  Kansas City, which as far as cities go, is pretty nice, and not nearly as large as say...Chicago. LA or New York.  Huge culture shock for a country bumpkin such as myself.  It's not that it surprises me. I am a born and raised Chicagoan (ahem...suburbs, but we visited a lot).  I look for things now. Things I never looked for before I traveled as a DogNut.  Such as, if I had managed to bring a dog with me...where would I take it to potty?  Those grass opportunities are very limited.  And, I wonder how one house-trains a puppy when they have to take an elevator to get them outside!  YIKES!  Yet, my impression is that there are a large number of apartment dwelling dogs in cities.

Driving in the city, definitely a whole 'nother world!  I drove in, let the valet park my car, took the shuttles from the motel to the conference, and when we were ready to come home, I took my keys from the valet and we drove away.  Nice.  Still, getting out of Kansas City was fraught with hazards such as, needing to turn left, when my backwards head thought right was left....and merging onto 35N.  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Can you say...3 lanes in just a couple of seconds?  Cody congratulated me on my bravery.  I think his knees were shaking.   We needed to get on, and get left 3 lanes to follow the road.  Yikes.  I know my knees were shaking! And we only almost hit that red car that was coming right 3 lanes.  

And so....

It is SO good to be home.  My wonderful hubby greeted me with a delicious plate of crackers, my favorite peppered turkey, incredible merlot cheese paired with a red wine. Lovely snack.  A bit of that and I was more than ready to sleep in my own bed on our quiet little farm.

The hardest part of this particular trip was missing four days of my puppy's life.  I missed everyone, John, Elizabeth, and Ethan (who is home, which is a story of it's own...grrr...to HCC) and Crystal, Pi, Buddy, Alice and Indy.  And....Stevie. 

I missed Stevie the most, and I think I have figured out why. I have very mixed feelings about admitting that.  In part, because I adore all my dogs.  The little girls (as I call the group of 3, Allie, Indy and Stevie) are my hope for the future of my agility fun, and it's odd knowing that one seems more special than the other two.  They are all (all 6) integral to my heart, and all 6 are deeply loved, cared for, and live wonderful lives.

But.....

Stevie has wormed her darling little self into the part of my heart where Jane lives.  That is a feat.  Who knew there was room in there?  Certainly not me.  More than that however, is that I have had her a relatively short time.  I dunno...6, 7 weeks?  She is so young. She is learning so fast and  she is so much fun to train.  I just missed the daily clicker training sessions, and the time I spend teaching her it is okay to tug. I missed all that, and the snugly time she gives me. 

As a special gift for my homecoming, Stevie's ears are both up!  (HA HA...for today! Rather, for this moment)  I am going to try to capture them and post a pic.  

Wish me luck. 

Words I admire

Some of you may have noticed, I am not a person lacking in words.

Here are my two all time favorite quotes.  Does everyone have some favorite quotes? I am sure you can appreciate their irony.

Fave quote 1.

Eschew Obfuscation

Fave quote 2.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

                              ~Wm. Shakespeare

 

 Someday, I am going to get them on t-shirts.  I can't wait to wear them  :D

Changing Habits

A Time to Change: empty nest

Habits

They say it takes 21 days to create a habit.

I'm banking on being able to change several habits concurrently, because I just don't want to have to do it consecutively.  Guess it all boils down to a lack of patience.  Imagine that.

Exercise

My daughter and I have signed up to run a Color 5K in Des Moines on October 6.  I am so excited about this!  First off, if you watch the video, it looks like an incredibly uplifting experience of pure joy.  (shocking to type that, since running is FRAUGHT WITH PAIN for me!)  HA HA.  I will likely run/walk.  Well, no,  walk/run.  Well...probably walk a lot and jog a little.  But look at this!!!  How FUN does it look? WOOO HOOOO!  I actually cannot wait to do this...and it is exercise!

In the mean time, I have to build a few good habits.  Gotta get out and walk/jog a little.  No, more than a little. 

Habit 1: regular exercise

Diet

I also have to improve my consumption habits.  We all know the drill.  More veggies and fruits.  Fewer carbs, fewer and healthier fats, healthy protein choices.  Anyone that knows my husband knows that he is the cook in the family.  Cooking is a huge chore for me, and generally a delight to him.  Win, win!  Except that John is one stubborn guy, and he cooks what he wants to.  I will ask nicely for healthier food, and he will sweetly cook it for me.  When he feels like it.  :D  This makes it my job to a) be nice and b) pick through what he offers.

Habit 2: eat healthier


I believe I will break that one down into more specific  choices, such as 3 servings of  fruit and 3 servings of non-starchy veggies daily etc.  Then I can get credit for good more often for eating things like peaches that I LOVE, and specific goals are incredibly important to me.  I love checking off boxes, and I actually draw them on my lists so I can check them off.  

Record keeping

Then I get down to my pups.  Pi is now my new running...I mean walking/jogging-a-little buddy. I find the prospect of taking him to trials entirely too stressful.  I do agility for fun.  Pi is a blast to train, and a blast to run.  But I just cannot depend on him to be sensible with other dogs.  He has made some stellar choices in the recent past.  Every once in a while, however, he just makes a choice bad enough to ruin all my confidence that I can enjoy being at a trial with him.  Sigh.  Of course I would make that decision just as he is ready to trial.  But I suppose that is to be expected.  I didn't have to decide earlier.

Stevie is doing wonderfully and a total joy to train.  Clearly, God has created me another heart dog and I feel incredibly fortunate.  Alice is coming along, as is Indy in many ways.  I still have to separate them due to Indy's focus on Allie.  This is a challenge to manage, and I fail in that more often than I succeed.

Habit 3: Keep a training journal.

I have one.  I love it.  I don't use it as often as I train, which is silly.  In 21 days it will just be second nature to me and I won't have to remind myself to do it.  That's how it is supposed to work anyway.  

I think that all these resolutions are something akin to a New Year for me, and it is simply because my son left for college this morning.  He is my youngest, and a sophomore, so this isn't exactly a new experience.  History has taught me I have to keep busy when my kids leave the nest.  

When Emilie my oldest, left for college, I taught Jane to weave in three weeks and took her to Border Collie Nationals for her first trial.  That was a great decision and opened an entire new life for me.  

All of these things play together.  A more fit trainer is a more energetic trainer, and more fun to learn from.  (please don't call the grammar police on me..yikes).  A more fit handler is a better handler.  

Thus:  Fix me, eh?   So excited!!!

LOL  

To rant, or not to rant

A soliloquy on the evils of misinformation

The dog-peeve

It should be a pet peeve.  But I am a DogNut, and this is a dog blog (isn't that cute? and I am sure it is completely original HA HA) so it is a dog-peeve today.  I have truly debated today, blog a rant, or not? Right, wrong...here goes. 

For some inexplicable reason, there are people in the world that get an idea (about which they are sadly misinformed) and feel obliged to misinform a whole mess of other gullible people.  

This could easily be applied to many disciplines from politics to religion to...wait for it...dum, dum, dum......animal health care!!!  It's true, I consider myself reasonably well educated in this area, and while I am comfortable with people holding opposing viewpoints, I am hugely opposed to people trying to misinform others, potentially putting others' pets at risk.  This is where I start the slow boil.  Nope.   It is a rolling boil!!!

Let me start with a little background.  I am a Registered Veterinary Technician in the state of Iowa.  What does that mean? It means I have an AAS in Veterinary Technology from an AVMA accredited program, and that I have taken and passed both the state and national board exams. (as an aside, I also have a BS in Equine Science....critters are in my blood)  I have had 15 years experience in the field.  I have taught in the veterinary technician program at Muscatine Community College.  I have (and still do) work for the practice that was literally the FIRST practice in Iowa to adopt the minimal vaccine protocol for dogs and cats, even prior to it being adopted by the AVMA and AAHA.  I have an intense interest in animal health and immunology/ vaccinology and our practice stays on top of current thinking in veterinary medicine. I am proud of the practice where I work for those reasons, and more.

There are those in the world that will believe whatever dramatic thing they read on the net. They are choosing to not educate themselves. I worry something fierce about their pets. 

I have concluded that there are myth spreaders, sad souls that  need attention.  To that end, they will find a little piece of truth and exploit it.  They dramatize it, and make it more that it is, and get a lot of Oooooos and Ahhhhhhs from folks that love their pets SO much the gullible among us choose to believe what they hear and take risks with their pets, with their very best intentions!!! 

Having said that, I want to be very clear that I respect the right of each pet owner to choose how to care for  their animals.  All I wish, is that the clients make choices from a place of good education.  There is a lot of bad information on the web.  Be careful, be clear, and understand what decision you are actually making. There are seldom single right answers in veterinary medicine.  There are personal choices and each choice should be made by the owner with his/her specific circumstance in mind. And each choice is to be respected and not to be judged.

Let me finally get to the point of my rant. In the past month  I have seen instructions from a well-intentioned breeder regarding the vaccine protocol that was expected the puppy owners to follow.  Reasoning:  I have seen too many puppies crippled from distemper vaccine.

I could point out the incidence of crippling vaccine reactions (and the bad pseudoscience blaming the vaccine) vs the incidence of other reactions vs no reactions.  But you get the point.

Then I received a post on Facebook containing an article on the evils of Lyme vaccine.  The post was followed by a pitiful response of owners grateful for the warning of the poison their veterinarian was forcing on them for monetary gain.  I had to point out that the information in the article was from 2001.  Much had changed and the article contained no relevant information.

Today it is an article of the vast veterinary conspiracy that the veterinary community is trying to pull on the dog owning public in an effort to sell heart-worm prevention and tests.  No comment.

Sigh.  

The non-rant  or .... the good news

And then I realized the real truth.  I don't personally know any of these people.  The people I know, are well informed themselves.  The people I know, seek veterinary professionals that they trust, and they know is not scheming to cause ill-health to their pets for profit.  That is my best advise, and no one I know even needs it!!! 

So my conclusion?  Stop reading the garbage Judi!  Recognize the sensible and wonderful dog friends that you know, and be happy that they aren't the sad and gullible folks that prefer to take lay-advise from the internet over the advise of their veterinarian.  Quit fretting about things you can not control.  And for pity's sake...block the posts from those that post them!

Time to go play with my puppies, who by the way, if you didn't know?  Are the light of my life. :D

Puppy Love

My life is full of it right now.  Full of puppy love I mean. Puppies are enchanting and amazing.  They are also busy, and into everything!.  Stevie is, in fact, busier and into more stuff than any toddler I have encountered.  She especially likes to chew.  I remember a recent facebook post I wrote because I caught myself telling Stevie that No, she may not, in fact, chew on the house.  It made me laugh at myself, and then at Stevie.  (the very same day I had to tell her not to chew on the car!  Seriously!  Hilarious!)

She does not limit herself to just the car, or even just the house.  Anything is fair game!  Stevie will chew on the concrete pavers that make up the patio, the patio chairs, anything green and growing (salad anyone?  I believe she prefers ranch dressing).  Nothing is safe from the teething puppy!

Sometimes, she is just naughty about it.  She has a particular affinity for a sweet little stool I picked up at an antique store.  I recovered the stool with fabric that matches my favorite rocker and it is now full of little puppy tooth scrapes.  She can be very quiet about it, but even when I catch her, and tell her NO,  Stevie just lifts her head for a moment.  Then with a glint of pure puppy evil, opens her mouth to see what I do.  If all I do is say NO again, she,  steadily keeping her eyes on mine, puts those teeth on that stool, and with another NO, she is off chewing. She never takes her eyes off my face.  That girl knows what she is doing!!!

OK.  I confess, it does make me laugh. Of course, I get up and stop the chewing, but the routine of naughty puppy  taking one step after another, asking so very clearly, How about this?  Can I get away with this?  Gotten away with it she has!  Enough to require that at some point in the future, I will have to refinish my sweet little stool.  

I fear I am not a very good dog trainer.  There are some naughty things that a dog can do that are just darn cute, and because Stevie is so very good at charming her mom with those sparkling little eyes, I end up laughing at her.  The only good thing I do in a situation like that is redirect her.  I like to tell myself that redirection keeps me from being a complete failure as a trainer.  It's the little things that keep me sane.  =D

In spite of me being a pushover, that little stinker is making decent progress in puppy class.  She is (in my ever so humble opinion) the super-star of puppy class.  Her sits and downs are conscious decisions and getting quicker each time we practice.  She is doing nice loose leash walking and some heeling with automatic sits. I do it on both sides, since she is destined for agility if I have anything to say about it!  She does lovely nose touches and come to sides, and is spinning both directions even while heeling.  Did I tell you she was a superstar?  Oh, and she is starting to sit pretty.  It is sooooo precious!

Last but not least, this little puppy apparently pouted all day while I was at work. Elizabeth was afraid she was actually sick, but the minute I walked in the door, Stevie sparkled and shined and we played.  She ate with gusto and tortured the big dogs.  Stevie is fine, but I wonder if the rest of us will ever recover?  

 I hope not!

PS  I took a picture of the stool and the naughty chewing puppy to post, but instant upload can't seem to find them.  I am so techno challenged.  Sigh.