Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Category Archives: Katie


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Dog rally…and it's snowing agin.

Katie and I went back out to where we used to go to obedience and met with our agility instructor who also teaches rally. That’s where dogs (and us humans) go through a series of dog obedience drills on a course. Each station has a sign with instructions like: Sit, Down, right turn, 360 degree turn, and lots of other stuff. I almost didn’t go because it’s been so long since we’ve done any obedience, and crazy Katie is pretty much out of control lately. I figured we’d just embarrass ourselves. But here’s a lesson: “Do what you fear most.” Katie did GREAT! We got all sorts of compliments from both instructors and some of the other students. Isn’t it funny how you always think someone else’s dog is beautiful and well behaved but you don’t notice your own is the same?

Katie loved being back at school. In the parking lot, once I had attached her lead, she leaped out of the back of the SUV and trotted toward the door. Once inside she was a different sort of girl than the one I’ve been dealing with these last few snow filled weeks. She was attentive and alert and obedient (mostly). She only barked once and that was when we were in the back and one of the instructors was explaining something and Katie wanted to stop sitting and listening and go Go GO! It was a little “yip” that reminded us that it was time to MOVE!

So we had fun, and I’m hoping to be able to drop into rally class whenever I’m not working. Maybe even do a “fun” trial with her in March. They had one yesterday but I didn’t know about it. I think we can do this, it’s stuff we can practice here at home, and she’s loving the showing off part of it. I can tell.

Meanwhile…it’s snowing again here. Yesterday the total back yard was grass, turning green even. Today? Well, it’s snow covered and slippery, just like the back roads we took on our way to and from school! Guess all that spring stuff was just a teaser.   Darn.

Time for a nap now.

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Snow snow go away

katie-12601 Yesterday we had a day of weather almost like spring. 59 degrees and sun! And it’s been several days since we’ve been below zero. Though I know it’s foolish to think this is the beginning of spring, I can’t help myself from hoping. I do this every year. You’d think I’d learn. But we really deserve this to be an early spring. It’s been snowing and cold since mid-November, steadily getting worse and worse. We are so tired of cold, snow, bad roads, shoveling driveways. We so much want to believe all that is over.

katie-12631 We still have snow in the yard, though with today’s rain most of it should be gone by the end of the day. Katie tried to get her last licks of fresh snow.
It was windy but sunny out.  She just wanted to be outside, and I finally put her out in her kennel, the first time she’s been out there this year.  The yard was wet, and I didn’t think she’d like getting her feet wet, but she sat out there quite happily for quite a long time, barking at trucks on the road, and birds at the feeder.

Today almost all the snow is gone, and look, just peaking up through the ground are the tips of tulips, yellow green with youth, pushing hopefully up toward the sun.  I can’t wait for spring, looks like my tulips can’t wait either!

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Questions for dog moms (and dads)

It’s Friday again, and a new session of dog agility starts tomorrow. I have been wavering on whether or not to sign us up. The biggest issue is paying for a four week session when I know at least one of those weeks I have to work. I’ve been working a set schedule that gave me my weekends off, but that changes the week after next and I’m back on the “don’t know when or where I’ll work” schedule again. The other reason not to register is that my knee still isn’t better from last week when I twisted it while stopping abruptly at the chute. Of course the knee thing is also aggravated by the extra pounds I’m carrying, and I think it’s stressed in general, not just at agility.

The reasons to go back to school tomorrow? Well, Katie LOVES school! And I would miss the other dog moms and the instructor as well. It’s a great time for both of us, we get to work on stuff together and bond (though she’s already attached to me at the hip so I don’t know that we need more bonding!). She just loves the treats, and to RUN RUN RUN!  The park is still covered in snow and closed, so no running there.  She’s a crazy girl with no real outlet except to run around and around the sofa.  Which of course makes this mom and dad crazy too!

So what do you think? Go..or sleep in tomorrow?

My second question revolves around someone’s blog that talked about a product to put in the dog’s food that helps with teeth cleaning. But I can’t remember who talked about it. So if you know, could you give me the name of the product and any positives or negatives about it?

Thanks! That’s all the dog questions for today!

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Agility…but we're not that agile! Either of us.

So it’s Saturday again, and this morning Katie and I went to the last agility class of this session. We worked on chute quite a bit, and after about 4 runs through it I thought maybe Katie would run it without someone holding up the end..but when we tried again toward the end of the class she still refused unless her favorite instructor was peeking  in and calling her.  Sigh.  And she hates hates HATES the teeter.  After many attempts I picked her up and put her at the pivot point where she would sort of walk off it if she was forced too.  The hatred of the teeter transferred to the dog walk too.  So once again all through the class I had to pick her up and put her on the dog walk.  She won’t approach it or even attempt to walk it.  Double sigh.  On the good side we had the tire again for the first time in three weeks, and she jumped right through it each time, and she still loves the tunnel.  So, after 7 weeks of agility she still won’t do chute, dogwalk or teeter.  But she has fun with jumps of all sorts, tunnel and table.  We didn’t do weaves today, so I don’t know how that would have gone.  Not good I think.

We are debating whether to spend more money on the next agility session.  I know she has mostly fun.  So do I.  And it’s good to get some exercise in during the winter when we can’t go play in the park.  But I twisted my knee today, stopping suddenly when she refused the chute (again).  And tonight I feel like I ran a marathon, complete with shin splints.  But she had fun.  I think.  Maybe.

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Contemplative Friday

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I have today off. From work, not from thoughts. It’s good to have some quiet time, though Katie girl is making it difficult; she’s all rambunctious wanting to play, or eat or something. It’s snowing again. No surprise there, but I’m so tired of snow. When I get like this I appease myself by looking online at real estate in the southwest. Where it’s warmer and dryer.

But I’m also sitting in my reading chair in the corner of my living room watching the birds at the feeder and the snow coming down as if I lived inside a snow globe, reading a book entitled “Fresh Water; Women Writing on the Great Lakes.” It reminds me how much I love the Great Lakes and I wonder if I could be happy living further away from the water than I already do.

So I put the book down and contemplate. The lakes are alive and make me feel the same way. The desert is alive in another small, hard to see way. In all the little crevices there is life in the desert…but the desert truly comes alive when it rains. Water makes it bloom. Water makes my soul bloom too.

As I sit and wonder what the future will bring Katie calms down, then jumps up in the chair with me. This is unprecedented. As she tucks herself down between me and the arm of the chair I realize this moment won’t last long, she’s an impatient dog, so I stroke her lovely back and study the beautiful colors of her fur and enjoy the heat from her doggie body. She turns and begins to lick my face and neck and I have to laugh out loud. “Sure Mom,” she says “Sure, think about the warm southwest. You know you can’t leave your lakes! And it’s too hot out there for a Sheltie!”

My contemplation is over; she jumps to the floor and tells me it’s time to go outside to play ‘grab the glove off Mom’s hand.’ Life is so simple when you’re a Sheltie.

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The letter "D"

We were tagged by Reilly to find 5 things that Katie either likes, doesn’t like or can think of that start with the letter “D”. We will list those five words, and then tag one blogger from our list to continue the game. So here goes, Katie’s five “D” words – – in no particular order:

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1. Doggie; the pink dog squeaky toy that Katie loves to play with. It’s soft and bumpy and has TWO squeaky parts. It’s fun to retrieve…and it’s PINK, perfect for a princess.

2. Dinner! Maybe Katie’s most favorite word. According to her, it’s dinner time all the time, and she asks for it all the time too. If she could she’d con my husband AND me into getting her dinner for her.

3. Dunking for ice cubes in her water dish. Such a fun game! She will get soaked getting the ice out of the bowl, carry it over to the carpet and let it melt, waiting innocently for barefoot parents to wander into the danger icy zone.

4. Distractable, which Katie is not. (is that a word?) If she wants her dinner she wants it…and she wants it now. Playing won’t distract her. Going out for a walk won’t distract her. It’s dinner she wants and that…is…absolutely…that.

5. Devouring, as in devouring Mom’s shoes. Never Daddy’s shoes, just Mom’s. Mom has to hide all her shoes, or put them up high. Any shoes of Mom that are within reach are fair game.

6. Driving either to the PARK!! (YEA!!) or to the groomer for a bath (OH NOOO!) Katie loves to go for a ride in the car.  Especially to school.

WAIT that’s SIX “D” words! ah well, there are more…but we will stop!

Now…to find one person to continue the game….that hasn’t already done a letter? Hmmm…hey Diana, have you played yet?  Does Miley want to think up words that start with M?

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Sleeping?

The challenge from Josh and Jess is to find a picture of our Sheltie sleeping. After reviewing over 1000 pictures of Katie I have to say there are very few with her eyes actually closed! She hears the sound of the camera turning on and she’s AWAKE! But here is one that shows her true self, as Sara says, she’s a “pillow dog.”
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A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

It seemed like a lot going on this weekend, and yet not so much.  Katie and I did agility on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon I drove through snow to Ann Arbor to attend a concert at the University of Michigan, Sunday morning I drove back home, again in snow, so that I could work at the library Sunday afternoon, and now Monday  I’m enjoying a day off thanks to Martin Luther King, watching inauguration doings on television and cooking stew.

During agility Katie and I practiced a lot on all the different equipment.   She got over her fear of the dogwalk, and loved leaping up and over the A-frame.  She still had problems with the chute, and had to have it held open for her to run through, but she ran through the tunnel no problem and even went over a very high jump that had been left high after a German Shepard had jumped before her.  No problem!  Then we got to the teeter totter which she decided she hated.   The instructor and I worked with her for quite a long time, but only succeeded in making her afraid of the dogwalk and the A-frame again!  Just doesn’t like that yellow paint.  Oh well, we’ll try again next Saturday.

The concert in Ann Arbor was lovely.  It was called a Collage concert, all the departments in the University’s music, dance and drama departments participated.  The stage had either the band or the orchestra in the center, and smaller groups along the edge, the chorus on risers along the back.  What was really cool is that while the spotlight was on a particular group and they were preforming, other groups were coming and going, and as one group ended, the next began, the spotlight moving to them.  It was snippets of music, dance and drama, one right after the other, each piece totally different from the one before.  It moved really fast and was fascinating and wonderful.  At one point lights reflected off the cymbals and threw patterns of moving light on the wall.  For an instant I panicked thinking Katie would start barking at the moving light!  And later I noted that concerts are sort of like agility, except it’s the musicians and dancers all taking cues from the conductor rather than dogs taking cues from their handlers.  This particular concert probably felt more like that because there was such a sense of quick movement between the groups of performers.  It just felt so similar to what I had been doing with Katie earlier in the day, in an odd sort of way. I have to say I loved the four cellos playing Fandango by Jeremy Crosmer, and the group of five saxophones who played The Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Claude Debussy, the dozen or so drummers doing Samba Batucada arranged by Sissauyhoat; but my favorite turned out to be the full orchestra playing Nimrod from Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar.  It just made my heart swell and float away it was so beautiful.

Working at the library Sunday was fun as well, I was at a different location than I had ever worked before, so there was the usual questions from me as to where stuff was.  But this particular library had patrons that checked out books!  Real books!  Of course there were also the movies and music going out the door, but a big percentage of the stuff heading out were books!  I was elated and the time flew by.  Once home I realized I was tired, I’d been on my feet nearly the whole time because it was such a busy branch.

And today, Katie is wound up, needing attention as I try to watch news from Washington.  We went outside a bunch of times, but Katie wasn’t happy to be in her plowed out walkway.  The snow is up to her shoulders now, we got 5 or 6 more inches of snow over the weekend.  She wanted to go PLAY in the snow.

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So we did.  I put the long leash on her and the high boots on me and we went out in the back yard to play.  She loved running and leaping in the snow, and we only came in because my fingers were freezing.  Hard to try taking pictures of her while running and trying not to fall in the knee deep snow yourself!

It’s a wonderful, optimistic time for all of us.  Katie is grateful for the run.  I’m grateful for the hope I see coming from Washington.  Maybe we’ve hit the bottom; the bottom of the winter, the bottom of the economic downturn…maybe we’re headed back up into the light.

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Winter can be over now. For sure.

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It’s record breaking cold around here, and a lot of other places too.  This morning I layered up with sweaters, scarves, hat, coat, gloves and boots, and picked Katie up to carry her out to her favorite place.  I thought the -6 was too cold for her to be walking on the snow.  As soon as I put her down she turned and hightailed it back to the front door.  Mission not accomplished.  She didn’t ask to go out again until much later in the day, when I again carried her out, she did her stuff and we trotted back to the house at high speed.  At least by then it was merely zero degrees, a definite improvement.

There are several good things about today though, even with the cold temperatures.  I have the entire day off!  And there is very little wind, so we are appreciating the bright blue sky, the sunshine and the pretty white snow. Of course we’re enjoying it mostly from inside the warmth of our house.  I’m experimenting with a new recipe for soup, with carrots and peanut butter plus a touch of lime juice… and later on I’m trying a new chicken dish for dinner.  There are gentle, softly aromatic smells coming from the kitchen.   It’s been a good day, even with the chill.

Here’s a photo I took of Katie today, as she watched me from inside the house, through the frosty storm door.  Shelties are SOOOO smart!

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She and I hope you are enjoying your day too!  Even if it’s darn cold out.  Remember, we’re halfway through January…and February is a short month, so we’re not so far away from spring!  Right?  And more proof of that are the seed catalogs I’ve been receiving in the mail.  Seed catalogs in mail = hope for spring.  At least where I come from!

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What's the definition of "cold?"

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It’s been cold here. A couple of nights ago as I was driving home from work, a trip of about 40 miles, the temperature dropped from 5 degrees when we left the library to -5 when I pulled into my driveway. This morning as Katie and I ventured out for our morning walk it was zero degrees out; the kind of cold that makes your fingers ache even in their heavy gloves. The sun was just coming up, and everything was lit with that special rosy early morning glow.

We could see where the deer had crossed our yard, looking for food, digging in the snow to find even the tiniest bits of grass.

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Now, a bit over an hour later our temperature is -6 degrees, the sun shining on the brilliant white snow.  I went outside to put more birdseed on the feeder, and it was so cold that the snow didn’t even stick to my boots.  I think it’s the kind of cold that is best experienced from inside.  Perhaps on our comfy and warm blanket!

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Hope all of you are warm and safe!

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