The Internet Has Returned!

Or more appropriately, Sadie and I have returned to the internet.

After a long, trying time of lackluster employment for me, I now am back on track and everything is rosy.  This is just a perfunctory post to get back into the swing of it (honestly, I'm impressed I remembered my password!)

But so this post isn't boring, here's a couple of pictures I took of the Sadiedog about five minutes ago.  She may have had a slight haircut recently for summer... see if you can tell!  :)

"You don't really have a cookie, do you?"

"No, that's definitely not a cookie.  You had better go into the kitchen after this one."

Hope to be back posting again soon!  It's been nice catching up on all the puppies... some of you have gotten BIG!!

'Good Dog' and Competition Obedience

Lately, I've been watching the series Good Dog on Hulu.  Dr. Stanley Coren, who's the host of the show, has a lot of good advice about dogs... although there is some of it with which I don't agree.  Still, most of the advice is sound, and it's a good time waster on this three-day weekend.

One of the first things I noticed about his training methods was that they were very much in exact line with my first foray into training dogs.  When I was about 13 or 14 years old, two of the teachers at the middle school I was going to at the time were involved in competition obedience trials through the AKC.  Because of this, they decided to offer an after-school class to students and their dogs to help them learn basic obedience commands.  If it wasn't already obvious, from there it kind of snowballed for me in a big way.

But the core of the type of training that I learned then is still what I use today.  [Not particularly with Sadie -- I'll get to that in another post.]  I would still use those metal training collars, and I've never even clicked one 'clicker' in my life.

Not to say those training methods aren't great.  Just to say I've never had experience with them, and thus don't use them.

The Good Dog series I've been watching on Hulu, though, has made me really, really wish that I was back in competition obedience at the AKC shows.  One of the things I'd love to do most is take a group obedience class with Sadie.  Not only would it get us both out of the house (and hopefully help with her socialization ... and mine), but it would be a great refresher to maybe get back into dog shows again.

Here's an episode of Good Dog that has a great segment of a little bit of what competition obedience is like:



Pretty cool, no?

If you're thinking you can't compete in dog obedience at an AKC show because you don't have a purebred dog, you'd be wrong (fortunately!)  The AKC Canine Partners Program allows for registration of mixed breeds to compete in obedience, agility, rally and other events.  There are some stipulations, such as the fact that the dog must be spayed or neutered, but they're fairly minimal.  The fee for registration isn't that much, either.

Someday.  Someday, I'll be able to do all of that stuff.  But until I can, maybe one YOU can and then post about it so I can live vicariously through your actions.  :)

It's at least something neat to check out!

New/Old Sadie Videos!

I posted a couple of Sadie videos to YouTube last week!  One of them is from 2008, right after my then-boyfriend and I first got her, and the other is actually from last Wednesday.

I know I can see the difference in the way she was back then and the way she is now.  Can you tell the difference?

From 2008:

From 2012:

Hope you like 'em!

I Guess She Just Knows

So for the past few weeks, I've just been in kind of a slump emotionally.  The last few years, Sadie and I's lives have been improving, but I'm still not where I want to be.  And sometimes the hills I have to climb seem too damn steep, and I get tired and sad.

I'm sure it shows in my habits and the things that I do -- when I get into these slumps.  But Sadie just seems to know when I'm getting into one of those moods.  And she lets me know she knows.

Although she follows me around much of the time I'm home, when she knows I'm feeling down she's right at my heels.  In fact, she's right at my heels annoyingly so.  If I stop to do something around the house, I'll either have a cold nose in the back of my calf, or she'll actually lick my leg if I have on shorts.  When I turn around to look at her, she just sways her tail back and forth like, "Dude, yeah, I'm here.  What?"

Also, she pretty much has the run of the house and the furniture.  She can sleep on the bed, on the chairs ... wherever she's comfortable.  When I get into one of these slumps, though, most of the time she's right at my feet.  Sometimes, she's where my feet should be when I'm sitting in the chair, and I have to move my feet uncomfortably to the side.  And sometimes, she's where my feet should be, and I have to move my feet uncomfortably to the side, and she puts her head directly ON my feet.  And if I move my feet, she looks up at me like I've inconvenienced her greatly.

Also, when she feels she's being ignored, she will gather up one of her toys and start flinging it around.  If that doesn't garner my attention, she'll start barking at it.  And if that doesn't make me start laughing, then sooner or later I'll get a Sadietoy to the forehead.

So it seems I'm starting to come out of my slump here lately, and she is currently sleeping on the bed.  My feet are comfortably sitting in front of me at the moment.  There are no Sadietoys being flung unceremoniously at my head.

If [when] I do start feeling down again, then I'm sure to start getting leg cramps from having my feet to the side, and blinking seconds before some ragged stuffed animal comes flying at my face.  I guess she just knows.

Sadie the pooldog.

Blogville Olympics!

Sadie participated in the Blogville Olympics Marathon Chewing event!  It was pretty fun to enter, and there were a pretty good number of participants!

Click here to see the post over at Murphy & Stanley's blog with photos of all the participants!

In fact, she even won an award!  [So did everyone else, but don't tell her that...]

Here are a few more shots of Sadie's chewing marathon that weren't entered:

I actually bought this thing *expressly* for this event.

She loved it.  In fact, it was gone in about 15 minutes.

The least flattering picture, I think.  Yay chewing!

Can't wait until next year!  Congratulations to all the competitors!