Farewell, 2013. Onward to 2014!

2013 was a Pretty Good Year.

Pongu, my crazy fearful little pound puppy, finally became a Real Competition Dog (kinda-sorta). In 2013, he finished his RL2 and RL3 titles, both with Awards of Excellence for high scores (making him three for three on those). He earned his ARCH, ARCHX, and ARCHEX, along with a couple of variations on the RL1X/RL2X/RL3X level championships, making him one of the 50 most accomplished mixed-breed dogs in the history of our dorky little sport. We ended the year with 1188 Championship points (or something reasonably close to that, I hope...), which should be sufficient for a pretty solid divisional ranking and possibly a break into the Top 20 Overall.

On top of that, Pongu finished all the titles in the Trick Dog progression, from Novice to Champion, over the course of 13 days in March. He earned his Novice title in CDSP obedience with all three qualifying scores of 190 or better.

Less formally, Dog Mob put together a couple of goofy tricks this year:

...and they took a couple of nice vacations: Lake Placid (winter), Nantucket (summer), Nantucket (fall), and assorted day trips.

 And we hit our goal of fostering and placing five dogs this year, with considerable help from Crookytail in his role as Guidance Counselor to Homeless Mutts:

Foster Dog 18: Penny Lane (later renamed Skunky Mushmellon)

A St. Bernard/Golden Retriever mix, Skunky was a stray on the streets of North Carolina. A kind-hearted woman in the neighborhood had been feeding her for several months, but when the woman was faced with undergoing a medical procedure that would likely require lengthy hospitalization, she reached out to a local rescue to take Skunky. That rescue in turn sent her to Wags, and I agreed to foster her for the group.

Skunky was adopted by an art gallery manager who met her in our neighborhood dog park while dog-sitting her employer's poodle. A couple of months later, in one of life's minor coincidences, she moved back to North Carolina when her owner relocated to that state.

Foster Dog 19: Foozie (later renamed Lolly)

This little dog wound up in Robeson County Animal Shelter after an area woman spotted her trying to get into the backyard trash cans and called Animal Control to take the "fox" out of her yard. I pulled Foozie and brought her up here, where her cute looks, sparkling personality, and small size drew a lot of attention immediately. Foozie had a number of great homes to choose from; because she seemed to enjoy and do well with children, I placed her with a nice professional couple that had two young sons and had trained their previous dog at my old club.

Foster Dog 20: Serenity

Another pull from Robeson County, Serenity (whose shelter name was Serendipity) was a sweet little mystery mix who ended up going farther afield than any other foster dog of ours this year. She was adopted sight unseen by a friend-of-friends: the couple who adopted our foster dog April had a friend who was looking for a dog of her own, and she clicked with Serenity from afar.

And so we packed this little dog up in an airline crate and mailed her to Minneapolis, where she lives happily ever after.

Foster Dog 21: Florence (later renamed Dori)

Found scavenging on an illegal garbage dump in Robeson County, Florence was a clever, affectionate dog who had only been here for two days before she got an adoption offer from a young professional couple who happened to see her walking around town wearing the Homeless Dog Vest of Shame. I kept her for another couple of weeks to do a complete evaluation and get started on some basic training (where she showed some real potential), and then she went on to her wonderful forever home.

Foster Dog 22: Ashling

This little Yorkie/Wheaten Terrier mix was confiscated along with three siblings from an unfit owner. Because of their history of neglect, all the dogs quickly became sick in the shelter. Ashling pulled through, but not all of her brothers were as fortunate.

Miraculously, her unlucky history left no scars on her personality. Ashling was a happy, bubbly, gentle dog who loved children, and that combined with her small size and (above all) low-shedding coat made her a very high-demand dog. This little Cinderella dog had her choice of fairy tale endings, and went home to one just before Christmas.


So much for 2013! We'll see what 2014 brings.

Christmas with Cousin Chilton

This year, Dog Mob spent their Christmas with the in-laws and their Cousin Chilton, a purebred Standard Poodle, in Delaware.

They had a lot of fun ruining the landscaping in the pool yard (where they had to do most of their playing because neither Chilton nor Crookytail is entirely reliable on their recalls, so the big unfenced yard is off-limits to everyone but Pongu, who gleefully lords his nerd superiority over the other two every time he alone gets to go out there with me).

Chilton, who doesn't often get a chance to goof around with other dogs, looooved playing with Crookytail (and pretty much only with Crookytail, since Pongu made it clear early and often that he was not interested in making friends). Crooky was also thrilled to play with Chilty... at first. By the second day, and definitely by the third day, he was plainly getting tired of Chilty's endless puppy exuberance and frequently obnoxious pestering. Still, being a good sport, Crooky did his best to humor Chilton whenever he could.

The rest of the time, poor Chilty lay outside the closed door of the basement room where Dog Mob was staying and complained about not getting to play with them.

Snow falling outside the windows on Christmas Eve:

It took me seriously over ten minutes to get that picture, and that's the best version I ever managed. Putting Dog Mob in a Down-Stay was no problem, but Chilton wasn't accustomed to posing for pictures, so luring him into frame and then persuading him to sit still long enough for me to hit the camera button took a LOT of doing.

On Christmas morning, the dogs each got their own dollar store stocking (there was a dollar store in the same strip mall that housed the facility for Pongu's last Rally trial, so between runs I stopped over and grabbed three stockings for the furballs). Their presents were wrapped in plain brown paper and stuffed inside for them to tear open.

(That time I gave up on getting Chilton in the picture after about 5 to 10 minutes. It just wasn't happening. So I did it with the other two and called it a day.)

He had fun opening his presents along with Dog Mob, though.

THE END.

Final Rally Trial of 2013 - Let's Speak Dog, 12/21

Yesterday we went up to Nazareth PA for our last Rally trial of 2013. This was originally scheduled for Dec. 14th, but due to a severe ice storm in the area, it was postponed for a week.

I dressed pretty lightly for this trial, because it's been an unseasonably warm weekend in Philly and I figured my usual winter getup would be major overkill. What I forgot (because we had only trialed at this venue once previously) was that Nazareth is both north of Philly and at a considerably higher elevation.

So we got to the venue and it looked like this:



...oops.

Anyhow, the trial itself was pretty uneventful. Pongu was a stressy shaking mess for the first few hours, which is about what I expected since he was a mess the last time we were at this venue, too. It's a perfectly nice facility, but it's on the small side (single ring with the crating area only separated by about 5' to 10' of floor space depending on how crowded it is) and it's relatively unfamiliar, and Pongu doesn't exactly need a lot of prodding to have stress issues.

This trial marked the beginning of our quest for ARCHMX triple Qs. To earn the ARCHMX, which is the final and most difficult championship title in World Cynosport Rally, you must (a) have earned all prior combined championships; and then (b) earn 10 separate QQQs with scores of 195 or better in Levels 1B, 2B, and 3B, all at the same trial.

So it's a lot like the RAE and UDX in that you need to get multiple Qs in separate runs, but it's three Qs and you have to score high in all three, whereas for RAE and UDX you just need to Q, it doesn't matter what your score is. (That said, getting a Q at all in Open and Utility is plenty challenging already!)

Our scores were 207, 200, NQ for the first set (sadface), and 207, 207, 203 for the second set (first ARCHMX leg! yay! nine more to go! less yay!).

The only run I got on tape was our Level 3 NQ in the first trial. For the last few trials, whenever I've asked somebody to tape us, we've gotten a really crappy score and/or NQ. I think it's a sign from above that I should give up my hopes of getting a good run on tape and just accept that we're always gonna look terrible when I try to record things for posterity.

But in the interest of failing massively in public (and demonstrating just how hard it is to get the ARCHMX), here is our crappy NQ run and a breakdown of why it sucked. Even if I hadn't NQ'ed us, we would have gotten a terrible score and no triple Q on this one anyhow.

0:00 -- good attention while waiting for the timer to get started; no stress scratching! yay!
0:27 -- my shoulder tilt pushes Pongu back and out of position (at least 1 point off there if it was just scored as a crooked Sit, or 5 points off if it was scored as a double Sit. Either way, that was my fault for bad handling. Hnnnrrrgggghh)
0:37 - 0:40 -- good backup, I'm happy with this. Liiiittle close to an auto-Sit at the end there. His butt doesn't touch the ground so we're okay, but I need to fix that for later runs, because I don't need to be losing 5 points on a dumb mistake like that
0:47 -- slightly out of position Sit, borderline scoreable; it would depend on the judge whether we got a point off on that or not
0:48 - 0:50 -- good pivot, I'm happy with this
0:53 -- front paw movement on the Sit-Stay, probably not scoreable but I'm not thrilled with it
1:04 - 1:07 -- we were getting a bunch of sloooowww Downs this whole day. Pongu's position is correct and there's only one cue, so it's not scoreable, but the slow time would hurt our placements on a tie and I'm not happy with that
1:14 -- what even IS that way-leaned-back Front position? I think that's a weird stress manifestation. A really tough judge might hit us for a point on that -- most judges wouldn't, because his feet are close even if his body isn't -- but even if it's not scoreable, blegh, that is not something I want to see for multiple reasons

1:20 -- Pongu notices the person filming him, stops to stare. No serious lag in positioning (because I caught him doing it and stopped moving) so not scoreable, but that's another time hit
1:31 -- another spider brain moment. I was actually surprised Pongu gave me a good Front after this (even with me helping him out a little with my hands) because usually he will pull out of position to keep an eye on whatever imaginary threat caused him to stare, but nope, that one's straight and close. Progress or a fluke of luck? Who knows, but I'm happy to see it!
1:34 -- smooth movement into Heel position, I'm happy with this too
1:50 -- I was super nervous about Pongu breaking his Stay on this one because that was a Major Issue for us the last time we trialed. We had been working on this, but it had only been two weeks since our last set of trials and he was clearly nervous in this venue, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But he was good!
1:58 - 2:03 -- distraction from the puppy squealing in the waiting area. Pongu self-corrected for missing his Front, kinda, but that's still massively crooked. 1 to 3 points off there.
2:10 -- this is where we NQ. Sign #17 was an About Turn away from the jump, while Sign #19 was right next to it and was a re-take of the jump. So I did #19 instead of #17 and skipping a sign (let alone two!) is an instant NQ. OOPS. I registered the correct sign and had a "dur" moment at like 2:11, right after I sent him.

2:13 -- from this point on we already NQ'ed and I knew it so whatever, we're doing the rest of this run just for practice.
2:31 -- that's what we were SUPPOSED to do. lol/sigh, oh well
2:36 -- wide on the turn, a persistent issue for us. A little bit of lagging coming off of it. This would probably have been 1 point off, maybe 2.
2:47 -- spider brain moment. Pongu did not hear my first cue to "Down." It wasn't that he heard me and ignored me; he is so stressed that the sound just does not register in his crazed little brain.
2:50 -- so we will make this a Teachable Moment since we already NQ'ed. Pongu does a MUCH faster Down with a finger point to help him along, which was what I had hoped for. Look! You CAN do a Down in the ring at something more closely approximating a reasonable speed! Wowww!! This would have been 3 points off for a re-cue if we were still counting.

2:59 to 3:00 -- I have no idea what is happening here. You can see Pongu start to go into a nice straight Front and then he makes a split-second decision to veer into Heel position instead. Why? Who knows. I'm not giving any mixed signals that I can see. This is a straight-up Crazy Dog Is Crazy moment.
3:02 -- I tried to reset him but he thought it was a sidestep so, welp, I guess we're done here. Pongu was so stressy at this point that he was just not thinking, so that was the end for us.

Because of various point losses, that complete disaster of a bonus exercise, and the re-cued Down, our final score would have been below 195. Therefore this would not have counted toward our ARCHMX triple Q anyway and it doesn't matter that I NQ'ed us. Personally, I'd rather have the NQ than a crappy score.

Then we went back to the car and Pongu took a nap and cleared out some of his brain spiders.



All the gray that's starting to show on his muzzle makes me feel a little sad. I spend a lot of time thinking: He's not even four yet! Why is he starting to look old!

Life is unfair.

Anyway, after that we went back in and our second set of runs was much better, so we did get one triple Q to kick off our Grand Final Championship Quest of 2014.

And that's it for us this year. 55(-ish) NQs! Some slightly larger number of Qs! 1188 Championship points! (...according to my extremely sophisticated "scribbled on the back of a course map" recording method, that is; actual official results may vary.) Three combined championship titles! Some other number of little ones that I'm not counting anymore!

WOOOOOOOOOOO

Onward and upward. I'm hoping we accomplish some good things in 2014.

Foster Hunting

Now that Ashling's gone home (and her new family hasn't called me in tears to say the adoption was a terrible mistake, so hopefully she'll stay gone...), I'm on the hunt for one last foster dog to finish out the year.

There's a sweet-looking Golden Retriever mix in Georgia that I'm considering, although it would mean reaching out to a new shelter where I don't have any contacts, so I'm not sure it'll work out. I've sent a message to a volunteer there, though. It remains to be seen whether that dog needs help and, if so, whether the power of social networking will reach that far.

And there's another shy-but-sweet Lab mix in North Carolina who might be a possible candidate if the Golden doesn't work out. That's in Sampson County, where I haven't pulled a dog since the previous shelter manager was forced out. I don't know anyone on staff there anymore, although I do know a local resident who's been a huge help in the past.

And there's a pretty red Beagle at Robeson County whose time is slowly trickling down...

Flipping through all these faces -- just pictures on a computer screen for me, connected only tenuously to a real dog shivering in a chain-link kennel somewhere tonight -- is always a little bit of an exercise in masochism. I know what the save rates are at these facilities. I know that there is a huge, unfathomable gulf between the possible fates that lie ahead for these dogs. Not just who lives and who dies, but how they live, and where, and with whom.

Over time I have grown ruthless in weeding out prospective candidates. There are many dogs I don't even consider: too big to fit in my crate, too small to avoid being bullied by Crookytail, too old to make it up and down our three flights of stairs constantly, too young to hold their bladders in the crate. I won't take puppies anymore. I seldom take dogs that come up through the rescue network. I avoid behavioral cases.

I still find way too many dogs.

The Little Ash Girl Goes Home

In old fairy tales and folklore, Cinderella's original name is "Ash Girl" or "the little Ash Girl." Folklorists often refer to the archetypal Cinderella protagonist as "European Ash Girl." Even her Disney princess name, Cinderella, means "little cinder girl."

She lived in the ashes and cinders of the hearth, seeking warmth in a house that offered none. The Ash Girl was thin and dirty, forgotten by her father and mistreated by her stepmother. But she had a good heart, and in all of the stories -- sometimes with the help of magical birds, sometimes by the love and guidance of her departed mother's spirit, sometimes with the gifts of a benevolent fairy -- she found her way out of the ashes into a new life where she was safe and warm and beloved.

"Ashling" was not this little dog's original name. Her first owner called her something else. I don't know what it was, and I don't want to know, because knowing would taint whatever name it was.

When she came to the shelter, she was given the new name of Ashling, because the hope was that, like Cinderella the Ash Girl, she would find her way from a loveless home to a new, safe place where she could have her own Happily Ever After.

Today she did.

This morning Ashling went to her new home (and, as she did the first time, immediately ran straight to her people upon spotting them at the park). She'll be there, waiting, when her kids come home from school.

Hopefully it'll be the first of many, many such joyous greetings. Hopefully it'll be Happily Ever After.

Another Day in the Snow

Tomorrow Ashling will go on to her forever home. In the meantime, a picture dump of dogs in the snow:

And a video of assorted dimwits playing the winter version of "Find It":

So much for Ashling's adventures here! In the morning she will go on to her real home, and hopefully live Happily Ever After.

We didn't get as far with training as I usually try for. Ashling will go home without knowing a single formal cue, not even Sit. She has a basic familiarity with clicker training and the beginnings of focus work, including attention in moderately distracting environments (city sidewalks, a half-empty dog park, etc.). She is well on her way to being fully potty trained and is pretty good on leash (still working on ignoring a few things, but clicker marking and rewarding for attention and a loose leash has proven highly successful with Ashling and she's about 90% of the way there). She knows her name and has a better-than-average untrained recall.

And she's pretty eager to teach herself to go up the stairs backwards, so there's that.

But mostly she's still a blank canvas. A primed one, ready to start work, but largely untouched beyond that.

I expect that she'll do okay despite this. She's a sweet, friendly, stable little dog by nature, and that's the most important thing for a future family pet.

Her suitcase is packed. She's ready to go.

Pongu Gets His ARCHEX, Ashling Gets a Snow Day

After a crazy three-day marathon of Rally trials (Harrisburg on Friday --> NYC on Saturday --> Exton PA on Sunday), Pongu finished his ARCHEX championship this past weekend.

He is the 47th mixed-breed dog to earn this particular title, the 341st dog overall in the history of the world, and the sixth or seventh to get it this year.

We also broke a thousand Championship points, which means we have a chance -- by no means a sure thing, but a chance -- at not only being nationally ranked within our division, but cracking the Top 20 Overall standings.

This would be pretty nifty if it happens, because Pongu was only eligible for 1/3 of the possible Championship points at each trial for the first third of the year, and only 2/3 of them until October (this is why there are divisional standings -- the dogs in the lower divisions are rarely eligible to earn all possible points). Plus he's insanely fearful and a lifelong rehab case and this is his first full year in competition in any sport. So if my little crazy dog actually manages to weasel his way into the combined standings, well... that would be something.

And if not, we might aim for it next year. I was planning to make that one of my big goals for 2014, but while I do still intend to finish Pongu's ARCHMX, I'm having second thoughts about doing an all-out chase for national rankings that year. We might end up shifting focus a little to do more AKC Rally and CDSP obedience. Pongu might benefit from doing other stuff for a year or two before we make a hardcore run for WCRL points. I dunno.

I was actually pretty demoralized about Pongu's performance this weekend because his scores were not very good and by the last day they were outright crappy, so I was feeling frustrated about how Crazy Dog Is Crazy and melts down all the time at the smallest provocation. Pongu's come a long way in many respects, but he's just a genetic trainwreck of a dog temperamentally, and as such, he crashes and burns because of teeny tiny things that more confident dogs don't even notice.

But then we had a great practice session tonight and so I am feeling stupidly optimistic once again. NEXT YEAR. Next year will be the year we do Great Things.

Another thing that helped me feel better was, perversely, the blizzard that came down upon us yesterday afternoon. True, it made the drive home into a miserable three-and-a-half-hour slog through 2 mph traffic on 76... but once we actually got home, there were six or seven inches of snow on the ground, and deep fluffy snow + dogs = instant magical happiness. You just can't be sad when there's fresh snow and a playful dog around. It's impossible.

I don't think Ashling had ever seen snow before. I took her out with Crookytail (Pongu was so exhausted that he just needed a nap, so he stayed home), and at first she was tentative about plunging her feet into the cold slushy stuff. But when she saw how much fun Crooky was having with it -- prancing along and shoveling up mouthfuls of fresh-fallen snow every few steps -- she decided that she wanted to have fun too.

So off to the dog park we went.

In this one you can see Ashling doing her favorite Bad Thing (jumping on people) and Crooky doing his (peeing on stuff he's not supposed to pee on).

They had a good time.

Then, still not tired out, they went home and played biteyface.

Later I took all three of the dogs back out to the park to romp around in the snow one last time before it got ruined (which it was, by today). Pongu and Crookytail played a variation of the "find it" game where the treats were buried in deep snowdrifts (this was around 11 pm so we had the whole park to ourselves, no worries about other dogs getting possessive over the treats), and Ashling joined in as soon as she figured out what they were up to. She is very quick to learn by watching other dogs.

This evening, Ashling met Prospective Family #2. The first family withdrew their application over the weekend because one of the parents had earned a new work opportunity that made it impossible for them to adopt a dog this winter, so that was a gracious resolution to my dilemma.

And I was glad for it, because Ashling really seemed to like this family and particularly the kids, so I am grateful to the whims of fate for making everything work out so neatly. I don't have to disappoint anyone and Ashling gets a great family and maybe someday when their schedule allows, the other adopters will be able to give another needy dog a home.