This morning, we had oatmeal and vanilla ice cream for breakfast. Raven went through the same loud ritual in her crate and was so far last in line to get fed that the other family members were running outside before I got to her. The louder she gets, the longer it takes me to get her meal to her. This time, I put a stool in front of her crate, opened the door, and sat on the stool with her bowl of food. I put her on a sit stay in the crate and there she sat, quietly. OK, sobbing a bit, but fairly quiet for Raven standards. Drool was hanging off her canines and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the little twit, BUT I didn’t let that interfere with our conditioning progress. I told her what a good girl she was and we sat together for a good 15 seconds, then I let her eat.

OK, I finally got a moment to revisit the progress on my high jump after that. First thing that happened was I pulled out a couple panels and as they were aligned together between a foot of space against the fence, it seems that that made a fine environment for WASPS to build their nests there. At least one wasp, and she was busily working on a new nest when I pulled the things out.

Uh uh uh! I told her there was no way that she could do that, and I asked her to leave. Then I went to hose off that nest from my high jump panel. She followed me across the yard and was on the ground hanging on the grass blades drinking water while I watered the panel. I hope she doesn’t pick that thing up and put it back on that panel. I’ll not leave them in that space again, but it’s a darn shame because that was a perfect spot to store them. The wasps used to build nests in the travelers palms, which are now gone, so I suppose this is my comeuppance for taking away their nesting places. I know they built them there because one year, I reached in to pull one of the palms forward so I could cut its dying leaf off, and boink! I got stung, but good!

I took all the posts off the ground for the frame of the high jump.  I hosed them off then I checked out the directions. It says to put a hole 7.5″ off the post for the first board. No way! When you put the post into the T that will hold it up, if the hole is at 7.5″, then the first board will be off the ground by 10 inches! AKC regulations say first board from ground to top should be at 8 inches. I know. I just checked their pdf file here. The pole does not go into the T leaving a 1/2-inch of space to the ground. It leaves more inches. Now that I figured that out, I have to figure out how to drill an even hole on one side of the 1-1/2″ post through the other. It’s too hot outside to do any figuring now, though.

So instead the FDSP and I are inside chilling out. A few of the more serious Kong eating members are quietly working on theirs in crates. Lilith and Raven. I gave a little one to Baby, and she’s in a room alone. Bet she hasn’t done much with it. She’s not into working hard for her food.  No Queen Mother is. And Bouchard has one in a crate, and I’m not sure he’s liking being crated with a frozen Kong. He likes his Kongs full of thawed stuff. But the frozen parts were meant to keep the youngsters and hypers mentally stimulated with working on destuffing, so they use some brain cells while I’m at work. When I come home, a bit tired at the end of the day, they are all ready to start their days otherwise. Woohoo!

Eek!