Wordless Wednesday
March 10th, 2010Katie’s tiny teeter totter
March 8th, 2010Here’s a photo of Katie on her handmade tiny teeter totter. Tonight she was persuaded to run across it a couple times, bounced around on it and didn’t seem too upset by the gentle banging of the board against the towels underneath. She started out jumping off before the end of the board, as it banged on the driveway, but by the end of our short session she would go all the way to the end if I kept my hand with the treat by her nose. I think I should try a plate with a target on it tomorrow.
This tiny totter was made using her dog walk board. Husband screwed a couple of 1×2’s under it so that I can place a 2 inch pipe under, slightly off center, so it always tips back to the right. It makes a nice banging noise, similar to a real teeter, especially when I take the towel out from under it. Though when I did that tonight she got freaky, so we stopped.
Hope…maybe
March 6th, 2010A short update. Today I set up the homemade tiny teeter in the driveway for Katie. She wasn’t happy about it. But I had treats (really nothing more than dog food out of her dish that she hadn’t finished, but it’s oh so much more special when handed out piece by piece by her mama than piled in her bowl.) and I was gentle with her, giving her a treat if she’d touch the board, if she’d put her front feet on the board, if she’d walk toward the center.
She still needs me to put all four of her feet on the board, and there’s a towel under each side to soften the banging noise, but she DID sort of run across it on her own twice, over the space of about 3 separate short sessions. It’s just a board and a 2 inch plastic pipe, but it moves and makes a bit of noise, and she’s not totally freaked out.
Progress.
Katie’s last agility class – disaster!
March 5th, 2010Last week would have been the last of our 7 week beginning agility class. But the club had an obedience fun match that night, so no class. Instead we went this week. So Katie had a two week span of no agility (though we did fit the rally match in during this lull) and I was worried that she had forgotten how much she loved to run and jump. I was pretty much right.
We started out with teeter, the one obstacle she hates. Of course the instructors were very careful with her, but still she didn’t want to walk up on that teeter, and that feeling transferred to the A-frame and the dogwalk for awhile. Once I helped her up the other two she got over the fear, but she never did want to approach the teeter.
The other problem was in the other two rings. It was week one of puppy socialization and obedience. There were 10 puppies in the ring just across from us and 10 or more large dogs in the obedience ring separated from us only by a low fence. The barking and whining and growling was really loud. Once we did teeter we were trying to do a pinwheel jump set that was set up right next to the fence. Just as it was our turn a bloodhound inches away across the low fence decided he didn’t like the dog next to him and lunched, growled and barked. And kept barking and barking and howling as only a bloodhound can. At the top of his lungs. His owner didn’t try to control him at all, and Katie, sitting pressed up against my leg was freaked out. She’s very sound sensitive as it is, and this sound had everyone in the building stopped. Finally the obedience instructor got the bloodhound under control. But Katie was inconsolable. I took her over to the other side of our ring, and the rest of the class did the pinwheel jumps.
The whole evening was like that. When we tried to do teeter again, a rottweiler was sitting just outside the ring, staring at us and growling. Katie didn’t like that either and jumped off the teeter and ran around the ring. I didn’t appreciate that that dog’s owner didn’t try to control their dog either. What’s up with people watching other classes that allow their dog to interfere? If my dog didn’t behave himself while I was waiting for my class to start my dog and I would go outside and have a heart-to-heart. I wouldn’t just stand there. Anyway, Katie was totally overwhelmed.
Finally the instructor set up a couple of relay courses, jump, tunnel, jump, table. We split up into two teams, 3 on each, and were supposed to run this course, sit or down on the table then run it back. Katie wouldn’t jump over the last jump, because people (our teammates) were standing nearby. On another time she wouldn’t come off the table after she sat successfully for the count of 5. Nothing was getting her off the table! NOTHING. Two instructors finally came over and sat on the table and leaned her way, and then she came off of it and did the rest just fine.
At one time she decided she wasn’t participating anymore and ran across the room and up the dogwalk. Once she even accidentally ran up the teeter when she was trying to get away from me. I think she thought it was the dogwalk. I spent most of the evening trying to get her to come back. I finally put her on the leash so that I had some control, but even so she wasn’t going to do anything. At all.
So this was a disappointing last class. She was totally freaked and I’m not sure all the work we did getting her happy on most of the obstacles will stick. In a couple weeks I’m going north to house sit for a few weeks and so I haven’t registered Katie for any doggie school this semester. We’ll go to drop in obedience classes while I’m home, and the semester after next we’ll try again.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it Katie-girl!
Wordless Wednesday
March 3rd, 2010
Define “art”
March 2nd, 2010
I have to politely and respectfully disagree with those of you that say you aren’t artists, can’t draw, and leave the art to other members of your family or friends. You say you’re just “not artistic,” or “can’t draw a straight line.” My mother used to teach art, to members of Girl Scout troops, or people that came into her ceramic store to work on projects. Most of these people didn’t think they had any talent. She’d show them that they all had talent, each in their own unique way. There aren’t very many straight lines in nature, or for that matter, anywhere. And art isn’t about straight lines anyway.
I was taking notes while I was reading “Trust the Process” by McNiff; I ended up with 3 or 4 pages of the author’s thoughts. I’ll share some with you, in an effort to change your mind, or at least sway it a bit toward realizing the art each of you has inside.
- “The empty space is the great horror and stimulant of creation.”
- “One creative act is the stimulus for another. The painting stimulates a story and the story shifts to body movement and vocal improvisation. Which inspires another series of paintings.”
- “The best way to quickly expand the scope of creative expression is to actively experiement with different roles.”
- “A writer friend used to tell me that single-octave living is boring and unproductive.”
- “The creative imagination requires a certain abandonment and disregard for results, which often paradoxically generate the most useful outcomes.”
- “The process of creation is a force moving through us, and only through practice do we learn how to cooperate with it.”
- “The process is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised in order to function effortlessly.”
I think we all wish we could paint or sing or dance or write effortlessly. But it’s not like that. Even professional artists practice. They practice every day. And if any of us decide we want to do something creative we must expect to work at it too. Nothing comes free.
Art is everywhere. To prove it, I have interspersed photos I took today at the mall during my walk. Think of it as creative expression filling in the blank spaces. 
Look around you. You’ll see your touches of art, peeking out of the oven when you’re making a special family dinner, oozing out of that warm family room you just repainted, that office you just organized. Sitting quietly in the photo album of last summer’s vacation, or in the box of family photos sitting on the shelf. It’s right there in the blog entries you write when you share bits of your lives with the rest of us. When you sing in church, or alone in the car at the red light, that’s art. Dancing with your loved one at a wedding or on your anniversary, that’s art too.
Don’t ever think you aren’t artistic. As a child you painted and danced and sang. It’s all still in there, we’ve just let ourself be told that we’re not “good enough” at painting and dancing and singing. That’s foolishness. If you want to let that creative energy out, let it out! And let it out a lot! Practice practice practice, ignore what you think are mistakes, move along. Just do it.
There. I think I’ve convinced myself.
Sunshine and shadows
March 1st, 2010
We woke to sunshine today! It’s amazing how a little sun can change an attitude almost instantly!
Every time we’d had bits of sun since the last couple of snowfalls I’ve been fascinated by the shadows of trees on the flat white snow. I’d be out with Katie, waiting for her to do her thing and the sun would pop out. I’d notice the beautiful crisp blue gray shadows and think that I’d like to try to paint them. I’d hope she’d hurry up so I could go get the camera and capture the image for later. Inevitably the sun would slide back behind a cloud by the time we made it to the house.
I have a photo from last winter that I’ve been meaning to paint…or try to paint…with water color. I can see it in my mind…but water colors are so free spirited, you just never know what they will decide to do. So I’ve been sort of stuck; afraid that I can’t make it work the way I want it to I haven’t tried.
Then another blogger suggested we each try to draw something, even though few of us are artists. She suggested that we try something that was outside our comfort zone. And I had a box of oil pastels that another person had given me years ago, and a small sketch book with white sheets of paper just waiting. So I tried.
I wasn’t that pleased with the result. Yet it wasn’t terrible either. A quick slash of colors across the white paper, more thought about the shadow. After all, this composition is supposed to be about the shadow. But then I was stuck again.
Until another blogger mentioned that she was reading “Trust the Process” by Shaun McNiff. He talks about just getting on with it, letting yourself make mistakes, moving from one art form to another, try something new…all good advice. So today with the sun shining brightly I was out with my camera, capturing those illusive shadows, making an image that I will play with later once the sun goes down. Trying to convey the transparency combined with sharpness of shadows lying low across my snow covered lawn.
We’ll see. I’m trying to trust the process.
Katie got a little lamb!
February 26th, 2010
Today was Katie’s first ever Rally trial…Novice A, which means we don’t know what we’re doing! Seriously! This morning started out with snow, and it was still snowing when we left for the one hour trip down to the trial venue. We left early because we figured the roads would slow us up, but we arrived right around 11:00 when the trial began. They were doing Excellent A & B, then Advanced A & B and finally Novice A & B. So getting there at 11 when they were just starting Excellent wasn’t such a good idea. It meant LOTS of waiting for Katie and me. Lucky thing I bought her a little crate, so we didn’t have to walk around for the entire 5 hours!
I was curious how she’d do waiting around for that long. She’s never done that before. Usually we go to school and we get right to work! Go go go is Katie’s mantra. But she seemed fine with it, wasn’t nervous about the building or the other dogs. Even did bathroom without balking, so I knew we were good to go. If we ever got to actually go.
Finally about 3:30 it was time for the Novice walk through. I was anxious because by this time, after waiting around for 4 1/2 hours, she had begun shutting down emotionally and wasn’t taking any treats anymore so I was somewhat worried about her attitude in the ring. But nothing could be done about that now. So I walked the course three times and thought I had a pretty good handle on it, and where she might have issues.
We were the last of the nine Novice A’s so I got to watch everyone before me, and that was mostly helpful. And I got Katie a bit more excited by bringing out the EXTRA SPECIAL treats as we were waiting in line. Way better than cheese apparently. So when we finally got in the ring she was looking expectantly at me and we set off. She was slow on a couple of sits, and I had to ask her to go DOWN! twice at one station. She just didn’t feel like it I guess. Then just three stations before the finish we had to do an about turn heading into a wall, and she decided she needed to smell (for what seemed like a really long time) something on the wall before she’d about turn with me. GEEZE. That wasn’t even one of my expected problem places!
All in all though the judge was lenient and we got 98 out of 100 points! And fourth place because there were 3 people that got 100 points. So Katie actually placed, and won a stuffed lamb. When we got home I gave it to her before I took the tag off and she took off running with it. She’s very excited about having a new toy.
I’m happy with her and excited for her too. But I hope she takes a nap soon. I’m exhausted!
Hope they wear flip-flops
February 25th, 2010While driving to a job interview yesterday I heard some interview “advice” on the radio. How relevant! Turns out someone had surveyed a bunch of hiring employers and 50% of them said that many people were not dressing professionally when they came in for interviews. You’d think in these times of high unemployment and few job openings people would try to do their best to impress, yet some people were actually going to the interview wearing flip-flops with their business suits! As I was laughing at the visual I sent up a quick prayer that anyone else interviewing for the Librarian position I am trying to get shows up inappropriately dressed. Even in flip-flops.
A girl can hope!
Wordless Wednesday
February 24th, 2010