Baby at the Fort Lauderdale Dog Show

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Baby, aka Mr. T … OK, Prissy T and T stands for Temperamental,

She did NOT get her 3rd leg today at the Fort Lauderdale Dog Show and Trial extravaganza. OK, it was hot. Just look at her tongue. And that was just from getting out of the truck.

So what happened? During the last five seconds of the sit stay exercise, Baby stood, got that impish look in her eye, and ran acrosss the ring to me. It was a replay of Monday night practice!

She completed her down stay fine. As I walked around her, though, she started to get up, but thought better of it, and relaxed back into the down stay position until I told her to heel. For that, I was happy. I guess she threw me a bone.

But the judge didn’t. He even had me move Baby after I had lined her up for the recall, which Baby did do. But the judge gave me a hard time and told me to move to the left 6 inches. Ewwkay.

He did award my friend a good score, and she and her Sheltie, Ophelia, won the Novice B class with a 198.5 and HIT (High in Trial!). The next day, this team did the same thing with a 197 under another judge named Feathers.

Here is another club member with her Sheltie. They showed in Rally Novice and did a nice job as a team.

This is Heidi, who nearly passed Open A on Saturday, if not for a glitch on hearing her handler call out, “Heidi come!” She came on the second call, but that was an NQ. Otherwise, she did wonderfully. On Sunday, she did pass Open A, with a score in the 190s! You don’t get to see Wire Haired Fox Terriers in obedience too often.

This is a steward who befriended the Papillon of another steward. I love that!

This lovely Peekingese is owned by a vendor at the show. She is very diva-like, too…

like somebody else I know and love.

At home, while I unpacked and pouted, Baby ran onto the futon where she surrounded herself by pillows and admirers who watched her drift off into her favorite kind of sleep…the beauty kind.

Helen

Happy Birthday Lilian!

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Today, Lilian is two years old. She had a Birthday Hamburger.

She is so lovely. Lilian made a Birthday wish.

Then she ate.

Finally, she cleaned her plate.

Happy Birthday, Miss Lilian!

Thursday Night Practice

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Tonight, later than earlier, I took Baby out to practice. Our back light has been working regularly since the latest Mercury Retrograde has passed. She did very well on all the moving exercises, so after the recall, she got a big reward. I pan fried nine chicken tenderloins Wednesday night, cut them off, mixed them with some Kong Tots, and I fed her a nice handful of those pieces from the large baggie of them I had in my pocket. One by one, Baby got a jack pot.

I then brought out Leissl, Pippin, and Luigi. The two girls are trained in Novice, and Luigi’s on his way, but learning the stays, which is what we were practicing. So I put Pippin, Leissl, and Baby across the yard on stays, and Luigi was on a leash near me. Baby was the only one who did both stays flawlessly. I mean flawlessly! She was magnificent. Everyone got treats from the bag in my pocket, and we celebrated each other’s place on the learning ladder. Then I opened the back door and everyone else got to celebrate.

That’s when it happened. Somehow, and it’s not because I had had two beers, but somehow, the whole packet of chicken pieces I had lovingly cut into nice-sized training pieces and Kong Tots fell out of my pocket. It was right by the back door, so it happened as the indoor subset of the FDSP joined the outdoor subset to make the whole set. My packet had not been securely closed. There were treats all over the back door welcome mat, and dog snouts quickly realized what had transpired.

I started picking up little pieces as quickly as possible. I saw the packet sitting there on the faux grass welcome mat as I furiously picked like a chicken, but thought I needed to pick up the little pieces first then stash them in that packet. During that thought, I saw the black-and-tan snout swoop in, grab that packet up, and depart like a stealth Dober. That’s when I stood up, and said, “Luna! Luna Verte, you drop that right now!” It took another repetition of what I had said to get it done, but Luna did drop it. Several steps away. I told everyone just to leave that stuff on the mat alone till I got back. Did they? Well, mostly.

I got back there with the packet, and finished picking up what I could, but I was not as motivated to get the Kong Tots, as I was to get those chicken pieces. So once I got the chicken back in the packet, I called it a wrap, and let the foraging go full speed.

I had seen something like that happen in a clicker class once. I laughed my head off being it was someone else who clumsily competed with her dog to get to the treats that spilled out of her treat bag onto the floor. Their snouts are faster than our fingers when it comes to that, you know?

And this sort of thing is so much more entertaining when you are watching someone else in the throes of trying to out gather treats before their dogs.

Script Frenzy

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Dear NaNoWriMo author,

Hey there! Many items to share…

LOVE MOVIES? WRITE ONE!
Some of you may not know that we run two ginormous, free writing events: NaNoWriMo in November, and Script Frenzy in April. For Script Frenzy, the goal is to write a movie, play, graphic novel script, comic book script, or a collection of TV shows or shorts in 30 days. You can even do a screenplay adaptation of your NaNoWriMo novel!

Script Frenzy’s finish line is 100 pages, and it has the same raucous energy and unpretentious atmosphere as NaNoWriMo. ScriptFrenzy.org is also home to the legendary Plot Machine, which issues all visitors a free, guaranteed Oscar-winning plot for their scripts. I took part in the Frenzy last year and writing a screenplay was the biggest creative shot in the arm I’ve had since first doing NaNoWriMo in 1999. Give it a try; you’ll see what I mean. www.ScriptFrenzy.org.

Also, a shout-out to teachers and parents: Script Frenzy has a separate Young Writers Program created with budding scriptwriters in mind. We spend March getting young authors up to speed on movie, play, and TV scriptwriting basics before unleashing them on their own projects in April. Come on by! http://ywp.scriptfrenzy.org.

GROUND BROKEN ON NEW NANOWRIMO YWP SITE
Speaking of kids…We’ve broken virtual ground on the brand-new NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program site. It’ll be launching this fall, and we’re excited to see it underway. I was hoping the site would consist entirely of a Flash animation of a largemouth bass singing Elvis Costello’s “Everyday I Write The Book.” Because if there’s one thing that gets students and educators excited about writing, it’s mid-period Elvis Costello.

But Tavia insists we clutter up the new site with inspiring content, interactive writing chal lenges, and downloadable workbooks for kids, teens, and teachers. Whatever. We’ll keep you posted.

THE END OF MUGS AS WE KNOW THEM
We love our ceramic NaNo mugs, but the truth about ceramic mugs is that they get very nervous when confined to small, bubble-wrapped spaces. When mugs get nervous, they tend to slough off their handles. It’s taken us four years of mailing out replacement mugs to finally convince us to move to the more durable (yet less timeless) travel mugs. This means the 104 beautiful, black ceramic bistro mugs we have in stock now will be the last of their kind we sell. To send them off on a suitably ceremonial note, we dropped their price to $12, and encased them in acres of bubble wrap to keep them safe en route to you. http://store.lettersandlight.org/home.php?cat=6

NANO PEP TALKERS: WHO WILL LIGHT YOUR NOVELIST FIRE?
Last year we had professional novelists pen ou r November pep talks. Neil Gaiman, Sue Grafton, Tom Robbins, and heaps of other generous souls delivered sermons that dried our tears, lifted our crumpled bodies off the floor, and set us lovingly back at our writing stations. On the NaNoWriMo blog, we’re discussing who we should ask to write pep talks this year. Come by and offer your thoughts! http://blog.nanowrimo.org/node/105

Hope you’re having a great noveling off-season!

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Practicing with Baby

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Last night, I hauled Baby and me over to the arena for another bit of work.  Being she had the lapse on staying on Monday night, I thought it appropriate and necessary.

The group who practices on Tuesday night is not the group who practices on Monday night.  It’s very interesting that such a divisive set of dog people exist in the same community.  The Monday night folks are mostly obedience and agility.  The Tuesday night people are mostly agility and confirmation.  The three people there who were practicing obedience were one other person from Monday night, her friend, and me.  We were in our own little squared-off areas practicing different things.  It was isolating, but fine.  We were there for a purpose, so we got to it.

I took Baby on a run-through.  I was the judge and the handler.  OK, it wasn’t as strict as the ring being I gave Baby a few treats while doing the routine, but she did fine.  Even the recall, which we did four times, was beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful!  (I hope we didn’t use them all up.)

Then came the stays.  These were perfecto, too.  Eegads!  It was as if Baby transformed into an OTCH dog.  OK, I shouldn’t go that far.  She did sniff a little on the down-stays.  (We did two sets of each.)  And on the sit-stay, Baby’s ears perked up in such a lovely fashion, but it was out of interest due to the confirmation dogs were playing a game and Baby Social Butterfly wanted to join them.  However, she maintained herself, and sat there.  I did not treat her on either set of stays until the completion of the down-stay being if I don’t treat her after the sit-stay on Saturday, she may hold a grudge, and get up on the down-stay to come over to me to ask, “What gives?’

After our one-dog run-through and stays, Baby won the blue ribbon and HIP – High in Practice.  No picture was taking being the camera had declined to come to practice night.

Yeah Baby! My beautiful 10-year-old rescue buddy!  You go, girl!

Helen