Deja vu all over again...

Cory and I went to Zanesville OH this weekend for the Parkersburg Obedience Training Club's agility trials. It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL weekend to drive and the leaves were much more changed there than here. We had a great time although Cory was in "butthead" mode most of the weekend. We had no Qs, but he did try very hard for me on the standard course. We were 100% in all three classes for startline stays, contacts, and no knocked bars, so we are getting there...

The first video is of Cory's standard run this weekend and the second one is of his dad Andy almost 10 years ago when he was still a young green dog. It is amazing how little has changed! (including my hairstyle and my handling; you would have thought I'd have learned something in that time frame. And I think I still have that shirt in my closet). I HAVE apparently done a better job of training contacts as Cory doesn't creep down the contact like his dad (although I have no complaints because Andy was pretty reliable on his contacts, though he would push if I let him). When I watch video of them running though they are SO alike in so many ways. Not all of them good!

Sorry about the quality in Andy's video; I stopped taping our runs because I was tired of seeing my big butt and now I regret hardly having any video of him!

I am so lucky to have had two dogs with such drive and enthusiasm. They truly are a joy to train and live with. Even if I do gripe about Cory all the time :-). That's half the fun!

Off to the Smokies Part 2- agility trial!

My pictures finally came so I can finish telling you about our North Carolina trip! To pick up where I left off, we drove down to our cabins on a Tuesday night and spent Wednesday and Thursday relaxing with the dogs and doing just a little sightseeing. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were entered in the Blue Ridge Agility Club's trials. Prior to this, Cory has been entered in standard only 3 or 4 times primarily to practice his startline stays and contacts. The last time I ran him was last December at our club's trial in the FAST class, where he did come close to Qing. In fact, that was the last trial I had been to and the last time I ran Andy. I knew Cory still wasn't ready, but time was catching up with us and I had to get motivated to start really training again. Since we were there, and this club had absolutely the BEST entry fee package, I figured what the heck and gave it a shot. I didn't really expect to qualify but thought we could sort of see where we were and evaluate. I was a little worried about running him in jumpers as stringing together long jump sequences is where we start having problems (he is way too handler focused and doesn't send well yet, especially to jumps), but we needed to see how bad the issue would be on a full course with a full head of steam.

My roomates Kathy and Sharon did not have to be to the trial until later, so I was first up and on the road from my cabin. You guessed, it, more rain. Luckily this trial was held at a really nice, outdoor covered horse arena with near perfect footing for me. Driving through the mountains that morning was really beautiful, and I was zooming along in quite a good mood when suddenly it occurred to me that this was the first agility trial I had been to since Andy died. Not only that, but other than Levi's very first agility trial at the sheltie national way back in 1997, it was the first agility trial I had EVER gone to without Andy- he came along just a couple of months after Levi got that first leg and went with me to every trial from then until he died. I admit I got a little teary; I still miss my boy every single day and one of the reasons that I haven't really worked Cory in agility much is that I just get a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach running without Andy. As I was driving and sniffling a little bit, I noticed the song on the radio- it was an old country song by Ricky Van Shelton called "Wild Man". That was what I would always call my Andy at the agility trials- when we headed over to line up for our turn in the ring I would always tell him "Come on, wild man" and he knew that it was his turn to run. The words of the song kept repeating "I'm a wild man, that's what I am"...almost like Andy was letting me know a little piece of him would be with me at every trial for the rest of my life. I'm not really one to believe in "signs" so much....but I don't believe much in coincidence either and what are the odds that that particular seventeen year old song would be playing on the radio?

I miss you, my little wild man. I'm glad I have a piece of you in your son, but it still will never be the same.

But on to Cory! I have to say that, despite the LONG days this club's trial was very nice, the facility was great, the setting was beautiful (when we could see it through the pouring rain!), the food was EXCELLENT and the courses were without exception flowing and fun. Plus we had real indoor bathrooms! I wish I had pictures of the mountains surrounding all four sides of the arena to show you, but sadly the weather was just too icky to get any. We definitely could appreciate WHY they're called the Smokies, though! At times it was like something out of a Tolkien novel.



I was SO proud of Cory- all weekend, through 8 classes, he had intense focus and energy; he NEVER lost it and ran amuck, and he tried very hard 100% of the time to play by my rules. His startline stays were solid (well, ok, he blew one but it WAS partly my fault), his contacts were great, and he even hit both weave pole entries the first day on the first try! The rest of the weekend we had almost all right sided poles and I think he got them all on at least the second try. It took his dad a LONG time for me to be able to say that! He does need to learn to drop his head and drive through a little more- he still has a lot of wasted motion, but that will come with experience.

I was especially pleased with his jumpers runs. We have definite issues with stringing together more than 2 or 3 jumps- he gets very revved up and starts to spin back and bark at me. He is VERY sensitive to my body language which is not at all precise, and way too handler focused. He sends to the weaves or contacts much better than to jumps. The course the first day was really a good one for us with "bowtie" loops so I didn't have to run too hard to keep up and he did much better than I expected. Day two we had to sit on the startline for about an eon while some course adjustments were made; the course was not so good for me and I needed to do a long lead out pivot which he is not really solid on to keep myself in position. He held the startline stay for a lead out long enough that we didn't both fit in the frame of the video camera even zoomed out all the way, but missed the pivot and got stuck in a spin cycle we never recovered from. Day three he broke his only startline stay of the weekend; I broke my cardinal rule of NEVER allowing my dogs to continue (I can honestly say I don't think I have ever failed to carry my dogs off if they broke their stay). I hesitated long enough to pull him off his weave pole entry, but ultimately decided we needed practice running full courses more than startline stays. I think in this case it was a good decision- we worked the stays separately afterwards, he held both of them later in the day, and he actually had a MUCH better run than I expected with only two places we got sticky- one due to needing more training and one due to me just being too slow. The improvement from Saturday to Sunday was immense, and I was so pleased.


I was really happy with our standard runs; I think he will Q in standard soon. We came very close on Sunday. He had great runs on Friday and Sunday; on Sunday I forgot which dog I was running and didn't support his contact sends well enough and he ran by each one- very unusual for him. BUT we didn't have a single spin until we got to the very last jump- a tough for us sequence of tunnel-jump-chute- jump and out, so you can imagine how far behind I was when we got to the last jump. His contact performances were very solid. On Saturday I pushed it just a little too far; we had a dogwalk-tunnel-aframe sequence and when he came out of the tunnel he wanted to "buzz" by me once before hitting the aframe; I held him on the frame contact a LONG time thinking I would settle him down (and also to let me cross in front and get into position) and after a LONG time he did pop off before I released him and I carried him off. I really regretted that after I thought about it though, as he probably waited 10-15 seconds- an ETERNITY in agility time- on that contact while I strolled into position- that's a lot to ask of a green dog! I shouldn't have pushed it.

But the best part of the weekend was Cory actually Q'd and placed second in FAST on Friday! FAST is a "games" class; you have 30 seconds to accumulate points. Each obstacle is worth a certain point value. To qualify you have to accumulate a certain number of points AND successfully complete the "send", which is a sequence of obstacles where you "send" your dog across a line and handle the sequence from a distance without crossing the line. Once the 30 second whistle blows, you lose one point for every second it takes you to jump the "out" jump and stop the timers. It is great fun and nice for novice dogs as you can reattempt obstacles if you need to, or avoid obstacles your dog isn't ready for (as long as they aren't in the send).



He SHOULD have qualified in FAST on Saturday as well, if his dumb handler had paid more attention when she walked the course. FAST and standard ran in the same ring, and in standard both days before running fast the course started with jump-dogwalk. I set him up for the opening in FAST on Saturday with jump- teeter- not even thinking that he was pattern trained to expect the dogwalk, and being a greed dog, would have difficulty telling the teeter and dogwalk apart when approached straight on. You guessed it, he flew off the teeter quite spectacularly- I don't think it dropped at all and he ran right off the end; "yelled" at me by barking with teeth showing that it was all my fault but did a great job when we reattempted it; I think this may have been the reason we had the contact run bys the next day too- he wanted to get a good look at them. Sadly he knocked the bar on the double in the send or we would have had Q number two. Oh well, c'est la vie. I learned an important lesson about looking at things from my dog's perspective and in the context of the whole weekend.

Running Cory was like deja vu in many cases- he is SO like his father in so many ways, especially when Andy was young and first starting out. I guess that means I haven' t learned anything and have made the same training mistakes! He does care a lot more about playing by my rules and he tries REALLY hard to do things right though- Andy played by my rules only because I'd carry him off if he didn't, he always thought he had a new and improved way to do things! This weekend was a great bonding experience for Cory and I- we had just started to come together as a team when Andy died, and left alone together we kind of had to redefine our relationship. I think Cory had the best time of his life all week with the agility trial being the cherry on top of the sundae.

Since getting my new laptop moving pictures and video around in blogger is a pain- not sure why, same software and OS but that's Vista for you- so I'm not going to post any video here, but maybe I'll post one of Cory running and one of Andy when he first started for comparison later. Now I have the bug again, we are entered in Zanesville next weekend and at our club's trial next month and are back in class again. I have set up the longest send I can manage in my basement (about 50 feet- he bounces most of the jumps) and as of last night Cory can now send over 5 jumps to the table OR call off after 4 to the tunnel on the left, all while I am sitting on the couch in front of the TV. We haven't quite managed to direct him off to the side to the baby dog walk after the table without me getting up though. Maybe by next week!

Our fun was not dampened in the least by the weather nor the fact that I-75 was closed on the way home and it took the better part of an hour to detour around it (a few members of our group were stuck sitting there for FIVE OR SIX HOURS! YIKES!) . Nor by the amount of red dirt ground into Cory's white furnishings; we actually borrowed a hose at a gas station on the way home and blasted the worst of it off of him! We also really tried to take his picture in front of "Flealand" which has billboards all over down in southern KY, but their directions weren't very good and I couldn't find it! I really wanted that shot!

Thanks to VW Perry and Furry Fotography for the great pictures!

Happy Birthday

Today would have been Andy's 12th birthday. How I still miss my boy!

The pictures below were taken two years ago; five of the dogs who were "regulars" in our tuesday night agility/potluck group all turned 10 years old that summer and we had a party for them complete with cake. Of those five, three are gone now; Tux, the tri sheltie in the middle passed away just a few weeks after Andy and Riley, the Wire Fox Terrier left us last week. Just the girls, Trixie and Breeze, the bookends in the picture below, are left.




I'm so glad you boys got to have the chance to enjoy our Tuesdays at Mary Ann's; I know it was Andy's favorite place in the world and it was one of his greatest pleasures to be able to do agility as well as run and play with the other dogs in the fields. The cake was just an extra bonus!

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

A new generation

Saturday before last we went over to Kathy and Ron Rhoades' house to see "Fred". Fred is one of Andy's puppies from the second breeding and is almost three years old. He belongs to the Young family and especially to their daughter Kaylynn who has been showing him in 4H obedience and junior showmanship. Her mom Gayle was bringing Fred over to Kathy's (his breeder) to get some help grooming him for the Central OH kennel club shows in Columbus the next day, and since we hadn't seen him since last summer we wanted to come visit too. Fred is looking great! At just shy of three years old, he is really coating up. He is not quite as dark a red as Andy was, but is a very clear pretty dark orange. Both my Cory and Fred were sired by my Andy; Cory was the only pup in his litter. Their mothers, Annabelle and Libby, were full sisters, so they are about as close to full siblings as you can get and still have different mothers! Fred has always looked a little more like his mom's side and there is definitely a resemblance to Libby there, but I see little flashes of Andy's side as well.

Fred and Kaylynn have been doing really well in 4 H at the state level but had to take a hiatus last summer due to other family obligations. This was their first time back in the AKC junior showmanship ring in over a year. Kay has really grown up in that time! She is taller than me and now looks like a very poised young woman, not a little girl any longer!

Kathy and Gayle did a lot of fluffing, puffing and trimming (I watched; grooming is not my strong suite!) . I think Fred and Cory have about the same opinion of the grooming table- YUCK! Cory wouldn't go near Kathy as long as she had her grooming apron on!

Kathy and Ron left the next day (Sunday) to drive to the sheltie national in Perry GA, so weren't entered in Columbus. However, Cory and I had entered rally for our first time in excellent so we arrived first and showed just before Gayle, Kaylynn and Fred got there. It was not one of his better runs; we were running late, got there at the last minute, and both were a little frazzled. But it was good enough for 4th place and his first excellent leg.

Fred and Kaylynn looked great in a good sized Novice Intermediate (I think) class. Fred does have a tendency to pace a little bit like his dad and his brother so Kay has her work cut out for her! They ended up with a very respectable third place. We are so proud of this pair! After they were done they were checking out the novice obedience ring; they hope to make their debut in AKC obedience or rally this summer.

Here's a brief video of Fred and Kaylynn in the ring- my battery was about to die so I only got a few minutes.

Dealing with the loss of a pet

I have not been posting much lately...

Today is the one month anniversary of the death of my sheltie Andy. I did post a video I made about him, but have not had the heart to blog too much since. It has been a very tough winter for us...I lost my Hoppy cat in December; one week later we lost Grouch; and then on Feb 12 Andy passed away very unexpectedly. So many losses so close together have been difficult to bear, particularly since Andy was probably my "once in a lifetime dog", and Grouch was my favorite cat I have ever owned.

Andy was approaching his twelfth birthday, but was still very active and energetic. He was still competing in obedience and needed just one more qualifying score towards his UD. We had hoped to enter some tracking tests this spring. He was to have his retirement run in agility the weekend after he died...he was still fast and loved to run, but had developed a heart murmur and I was worried that he would run faster than his heart could handle.

On that Thursday night, he was active and up all day, wrestling with Cory; he jumped into the van and spun and bit the door just like always. When we reached home 15 minutes later, he collapsed in the driveway. I rushed him back to the clinic and attempted to stablize him, but we lost him before we could even consider surgery...he had bled out into his abdomen from a cancerous mass on his liver. In retrospect, it was lucky that he went so fast and that I did not know, as even had we operated there was not much we could have done, and the type of cancer he had would not likely have responded to chemo even if I had known it was there (he had normal bloodwork and x-rays just days before he died). It has been so hard to accept that he is gone, though, because i had no time to prepare. I did have just a little time to say goodbye; when I knew his leaving was inevitable I chose to spend those last few moments holding him rather than trying one more useless procedure.

I am so lucky in that I am surrounded by good friends who understand just how special the relationship can be with a pet. My friends that I train with and my clients have been so supportive and helpful; I have gotten more cards than I can count, and my waiting room was full of flowers. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be if I had to go to a "regular" job everyday where people just didn't understand that grieving for a pet does not make you weird or unbalanced- it just means that you are human.

In many ways, losing a pet can be harder to deal with than losing a member of our human family. Grieving for other people is to some extent formalized and expected; going through the motions of funerals, memorial services, flowers, sympathy cards etc can be hard but at the same time they help us to pass through the stages of grief. Most of us have a support network which kicks in and others EXPECT us to need help in dealing with things for a while. But when a pet dies, we are often left to deal with our emotions on our own. In some instances we are expected to "buck up" and act as if nothing has happened- after all, it was just a dog.

I lost my grandfather and my much loved old sheltie Levi within a few months of each other in 2004. My grandpa had been my hero since I was a little girl; our family is pretty close and I saw him frequently and grieved for him terribly after his death. And yet, the death of my dog affected me more on a day to day basis and was harder to get over. It had nothing to do with loving one or the other of them more- I'm not sure just how you prioritize one love as more important than another anyway. I loved them both. But Levi had been my 24/7 companion for nearly 17 years, represented a link to my vet school days and friends, and was an important part of my social network which revolved around training and showing. On a day to day basis, I missed him more than my grandpa who I saw or talked to every week or so. When my grandpa died, I had a large circle of family who came together and supported each other and a formalized process for processing his death. With a pet, even with the best of support from family and friends, you are still much more on your own.

One thing that struck me in losing Andy was the importance of the different stages of grief. Anger is a stage that is often seen in my business; it is natural to feel anger that your loved one is gone, and unfortunately that often is directed at the veterinarian whether or not it is justified. When Andy died, I felt terribly numb...I could not be angry, even at myself, because I knew that he absolutely had no symptoms that any reasonable person would have followed up even as much as I had, much less more. He had a quick death and a wonderful life, he got to do all the things he loved most right up until the day he died, and I was lucky to have him. But when his pathology results came back and confirmed, as I had suspected, that it was hemangiosarcoma that caused his death, I finally felt angry. I was angry at the cancer...that was a cancer that Goldens or shepherds got, darn it, not shelties! I had tested him for every genetic disease I could in his breed, I had done every most paranoid wellness test on him and had monitered his diet and his every move to the nth degree. He had been stuck for bloodwork so many times in his very healthy life that it's a wonder he didn't leak through all the holes when he took a drink. How DARE this cancer take my dog. Especially without giving me a chance to fight it. And I discovered that anger is a much easier, more cleansing emotion than sadness. It serves its own purpose in helping us heal. It really didn't matter that it makes no sense to be angry at a disease process. I have a new understanding and sympathy for clients who need to be angry with me now.

If you are grieving the loss of a pet, I think it is important to allow yourself time to deal with all the emotions. Don't let well meaning friends tell you when you should be feeling better- love is love, grief is grief, and whether the loss is a pet or a human really doesn't matter much when you are hurting. Find one person who understands and take advantage of their support. If you don't have an "in person" support network, there are a number of online pet loss support websites and email lists. It was very healing for me to make Andy's video. He never would have watched it, and although I posted it to this blog I made it primarily for me, not for anyone else. I am finally reaching a point where I can make it most of the way through without crying, and I can smile when I look at some of the pictures. I have his scrapbook out ready to put his last few pages in of titles he finished that I hadn't gotten to yet, but I think it will be a little while before I am ready to do that project. In the spring I will plant something in the garden that will bloom every year, and make a special place to remember him.

Please know that you are not alone, and that there are people who understand what you are going through. And thank you to my wonderful friends- you know who you are- who have helped me through this tough time. I am so lucky to have you.

Rest in peace, my beautiful boy...I know you have thundered over the rainbow bridge and are holding your contact at the end waiting for me.

Broken heart...

Obedience explained...Utility

Ah, we are back to obedience! Yesterday we went to another show n go and I was able to tape Andy's utility routine successfully this time.

Utility includes the most fun exercises of all of the obedience classes. Unfortunately, they also are the most difficult to get a dog to perform consistently and well under varying conditions. While many dogs learn to become extremely consistent in open and qualify the majority of the time, far fewer ever become quite as reliable in utility. Even in the "B" classes on any given day it often ends up being "survival of the fittest" and about a 50% qualifying rate is typical. In "A", with green dogs and handlers who have not finished an OTCh, the Q rate is closer to 5-10%. It's not unusual to have a class of 15-20 A dogs and not have a single qualifier.

It was about 10 years between retiring Levi, my first dog who finished his UDX, from obedience, and starting to seriously think about competing in utility with Andy. I forgot just how darn HARD it is! Teaching the exercises for the most part is not that difficult and Andy had known almost all of them to one degree or another for quite a long time. But the utility exercises require the dog to work away from the handler and to think through situations and make some decisions, and getting them to pull it all together in a strange place on any given day is tough.

The utility exercises are:

-Signal exercise (a heel off leash pattern at the end of which you stand/stay your dog and go to the other end of the ring, then ask him to down, sit, come, and finish. All commands in this exercise are hand signals and a verbal will result in an NQ, although you MIGHT be able to get by with a verbal command to heel if you lose the dog during the pattern- you'll take a big hit though).
-Scent articles- you provide a set of five metal and five leather dumbells; you will keep one of each and handle it to put your scent on it while the steward places the rest across the ring. The dog is sent to the pile twice, once for the leather article you have scented and once for the metal (only one scented article at a time is in the pile). He must correctly identify and retrieve the scented article.
-Directed Retrieve- three gloves are put out at the end of the ring as you and your dog stand with your back to them. There is one in the middle and one in each corner. The judge will instruct you which number glove to retrieve and you must pivot and send the dog to retrieve the correct glove.
-Moving stand- You begin heeling at one end of the ring and on the judge's command, without stopping, ask your dog to stay in a standing position and continue another 8 feet or so. The judge will then examine your dog (run his hands over him) and the dog is expected to stand without moving his feet. You then call the dog directly to heel position.
-Directed jumping- a bar jump and a high jump are placed about midway down the ring, one on either side. The dog is asked to go out between the jumps to a point at least 8 feet beyond them, stop on the handler's command, turn and sit. The handler, on the judge's instruction, then directs the dog to take the appropriate jump and come to front. This is then repeated for the second jump.

When I got Andy, I had intended for him to primarily be an obedience dog but when he was pretty young we got sidetracked into agility. He LOVED it and I was hooked. Up until he was about a year old, we worked on heeling and focused attention but I didn't think he was ready to show quite yet (now I see those old tapes and wish like heck I'd had him in the ring then!). Eventually I thought asking for that extreme focused attention might be causing us some issues in agility so we stopped working it for a while, although we still worked off and on on teaching the rest of the obedience exercises. Our Q rate in agility is awful since there is a big discrepancy between his speed and mine, but we were having fun regardless. Finally when he turned 7 it hit me that I had better get my act in gear and get his CD. He did that pretty quickly with reasonable scores although we didn't put the work in to do as well as my original goal had been (he did blow an all breed HIT on his second or third try, can't remember which, at a horrible muddy outdoor show when I had to call him twice on the recall.. AAAGH! He was easily 3 points ahead of the dog who ended up getting it...). A few months later he was back in the ring in open and earned his CDX (waiting for second commands became my nemesis with this dog...he wanted SO much to make sure he was right!). When it came to utility though we got hung up for a long time because I could not get him to do the signal stand. When I stopped, he insisted on sitting. I worked on that problem for almost two years and FINALLY got it fixed (I'm not really even sure how, it just seemed to "click" for him one day). I started showing him in utility only at my two home clubs' shows, knowing he wasn't really ready but hoping I would "luck" into a leg. Right. When he was almost ready to turn 10, it suddenly hit me that I had better get my act together or he was going to be too old. At that point, he was qualifying consistently on all the exercises except the directed retrieve (gloves), usually not that difficult an exercise but tough for Andy as he never REALLY learned to "mark" the glove you were sending him to. We got some help with that at a Laura Romanik seminar and did several shows where we had such near misses and missed qualifying by the skin of our teeth. We were almost there...and then suddenly he fell apart. In retrospect, I believe that around this time his hearing started to fail. At any rate, his barking became a big issue (previously he only barked once on each go out) and he got to be REALLY bad about barking when he got to the article pile before settling down to work.

At this point, Andy will be 12 in June and I would estimate only has about 10% of his hearing left (the AKC rules state that a dog cannot be "without useful hearing" and still be shown; I figure he still hears his clicker, his squeakies, and some of the things I say to him so he still falls under the legal category). His barking not only got worse in obedience when his hearing started to go, but also around the house, so I don't think we are likely to be able to fix it in the time frame we have left. He has two utility legs and only needs one more qualifying score so we are crossing our fingers he can do it when the spring shows start back up! He has started to have some heart and kidney issues as well, so our time left for him to be able to compete may be getting short.


You can see him below at a local show and go yesterday; this is what we call Andy's "freestyle" utility interpretation! He is going to loose BIG points for barking, and along with the aging and hearing loss he now has a tendency to anticipate (so you will not see him do an actual moving stand, in practice we always keep heeling instead. As you can see, he still knows where he is supposed to stop and getting him NOT to until I give the command is tough!). But he still has tons of attitude and enthusiasm and he is so much fun to train, even if he is an old man!

BRRRRRRR!

It is DARN cold here in Northern Kentucky; I woke up this morning to a temperature of five below zero with windchill factor of sixteen below. Pretty cold for our part of the world.

It's a good time of year to be cognizant of how the weather affects your pets, particularly if they spend a lot of time outside. Make sure plenty of fresh water is available, and that it does not freeze. Wipe your pets feet when they come in from outside if you use salt or chemicals on your driveway so that the residue doesn't cause irritation (I keep baby wipes for wiping feet and messy rear ends- works great). Be on the lookout for antifreeze leaks; just a small amount of antifreeze will kill a dog or a cat. And it's a good idea if you park outside, to bang on the hood of your car or honk the horn before starting it up just in case a cat has taken up residence under the hood on the warm engine (I've had at least two cats that I adopted after they were injured by fanbelts- a common scenario).

As far as pets who live outside, it is an individual call as to when to bring them in especially for the night. If they are out, a dry, windproof, insulated area is essential to keep them safe. Most dogs can tolerate some pretty cold temperatures if you protect them from wind and wet. I recommend a doghouse with an offset door so that the wind and rain doesn't blow in. Straw makes great bedding as long as it is kept dry- much better than blankets or newspaper. A common scenario is the stray kitty outside; often the "good samaritan" can't bring it inside due to other pets who may not get along, but feels bad for the stray. A cheap, quick and easy shelter is one of those inexpensive styrofoam coolers. Fill it with straw, tape the lid on, and turn it upside down. Cut a small hole in the side, and voila! Instant cat shelter. If you want to REALLY insulate it, line a rubbermaid storage container or larger styrofoam cooler with straw or crumpled newspaper, turn it upside down and place it over the original cooler shelter. Cut a corresponding hole and now you have an insulated, better water-proofed house. (It actually works better to turn the original shelter upside down and put it inside the larger one; cut the opening, tape the lid on the bottom one, and then turn it all rightside up again. But I thought it was easier to picture the end product with the first description).

Here's a great chart from Tufts Animal Care and Condition Scores recommendations; it helps you to determine when your pet may be in danger:

If your score is a 1 or 2, you are minimal to no risk. A 3 means no immediate threat but watch for changing conditions and be sure to take special circumstances into consideration; there is potential for problems without supervision. A 4 means you have a potentiallydangerous situation and prompt action should be taken to avoid problems. A 5 or higher means your pet's life is in immediate danger. I like this chart because it takes variables such as breed, size, and protection from the elements into consideration.

I read an article on "winterizing your pet" in the Enquirer's online edition today. One of the things they cautioned about was that pets were more likely to get lost when there was snow on the ground, as they could "lose their scent" due to the snow and not be able to find their way home. I don't know who came up with this old wive's tale....not anyone who tracks with dogs! I have been training my dogs in tracking off and on for the past couple of years. I was hoping to have them both ready to certify in time for the winter/spring tests in our area (they have to pass a certification track before they can enter an "official" test). I've been lazy this fall though and haven't had them out in a while. I can tell you though, one reason tracking tests entrants pray for snow the day of a test is it makes tracking so easy! Not only can you often SEE where the track goes (you can't make the dog go that way, but it sure makes it a lot easier to know when to believe your dog or not if he tells you there's a turn!), but the dogs find tracking in the snow incredibly easy in most cases. I try NOT to track them in the snow too much while we are training, for fear they will get used to that all winter and then make it into a test the weekend of a spring thaw and not be acclimated to tracking without the snow holding all that scent.

I laid a short track for my younger dog Cory on Wednesday (decided it was too darn cold for Andy the old man, although he thought otherwise). We've only been out once since we stopped tracking for the summer (tracking is not a hot weather activity!). That time I ran a fairly fresh track, about 30 minutes old. When we stopped for the summer he was tracking really well for me, mostly doing 1 1/2 to 3 hour old tracks, with multiple turns and articles and starting to add obstacles like parking lot and sidewalk crossings. When I took him out on the fresh track in mid October, he did a lot of running and circling; I had some trouble with this when we first started and he seems to do better with older tracks. I'm guessing the fresh tracks have a lot of hot scent swirling around whereas on the older tracks it has had time to settle back down. At any rate, Wednesday I decided to stick close to home since it was so cold and laid our track in the empty lots across the street. This meant that it was sparse cover, mostly mud with scant grass and lots of gravel and rock, and our available area was long and narrow. I ran the track at about an hour and 15 minutes old. This seemed to suit Cory much better; I downed him at the start article, waited until he indicated the direction of the track, then ok'd him to get up and start down the track. He did most of the track at a run (or at least, trying to run with me not moving nearly so fast at the end of the line). We had a few minor issues with wanting to cut corners and go directly to the gloves I had dropped since the area was so narrow and our legs* were not very far apart, but he worked through it very quickly and we were back inside eating chili in record time. Now I am motivated to get out and work again, but with sub-zero weather not only is it too miserable for me, but the dogs don't tend to scent as well when their mucous membranes dry up and freeze; my guys also tend to have their feet freeze up. I do have boots for them to wear in training (not legal in a test, although jackets are), but haven't really tried them yet as the dogs are very offended when asked to wear them.

Here's a picture of Andy (the older dog) tracking in warmer weather. These were taken at a seminar in Bardstown 11/07. Also pictured is my tracking partner Sharon and her Welsh Springer Baylin. Baylin earned her TD (Tracking Dog title) last spring and is now working on TDX (Tracking Dog Excellent). Andy unfortunately ran into a few bobbles in his tests and did not pass; we are having a few age related health issues with him but hope to be able to try again this spring.

Those pictures make me long for nice fall "jacket" days to track in! Oh well, we'll hang in there and wait for it to warm up just a little and then we'll get out there again!

Stay warm!

*By "legs" I mean each particular segment of the track, not the dog's or my legs! Ideally you would like it if no part of the track passed closer than about 50 yards to another. In this case, because it was such a narrow strip of land we had to use, in some cases the track was only 40-50 FEET from another segment; not ideal and not something I'd do everyday in training as the dogs want to cut directly across and head to the glove (which usually has a treat in it).