April 2008Monthly Archives

Making The Bed Is Hard

Sometimes making the bed is just a hard thing to do. Especially with these three helpers. They mean well… okay, they mean to play. But they are sweet and very much fun, they make bed making quite exciting!

With these three helpers I sure don’t need any alcohol rehab to get me through the day.. but I might need dog rehab. LOL.

Unfortunately Tatum now thinks that making the bed is a cue to play. But I can’t resist her, and then can’t resist the rest of the dogs joining in. Sometimes all six dogs are on the bed playing. I just have to scoot them all out into the hallway and close the door in order to actually do any bed making, but it’s fun, nonetheless!

Cynthia

April 30, 2008

Daily Posts

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Chase, Muffit, Play, Tatum

Wordless Wednesday – Collie Playing Fetch

This is Levi, he doesn’t usually play fetch, but he will for his Mum since he’s a big old goofy Mama’s boy! He’s a smooth collie, not sure if collies usually play fetch, but mine don’t!

Computer Forensics for Dogs?

As you know by my prior post about Loving another Species, you’ll know I hold the life of a dog in as high a regard as the life as a human. It’s pretty sad that most of the world does not… yet. When I watch cop shows, the ones that deal a lot with forensic science, and they have a dog they unearth or which has been killed, I tend to wonder why on earth the cops don’t pursue the death or murder of that dog as vehemently as they do they human? Perhaps someday they will. I can only hope.

Computer Forensics is very interesting to me. Not only because it’s computers, and not only because it’s forensics. I’m fascinated by forensics, and I love computers, so putting the two together is just pretty darn cool.

How computer forensic processes work really fascinates me… hrm, I wonder if I could get a part time job in the field when I retire? Would be fun. Though maybe I could apply it to dogs. Unfortunately dogs are not so highly regarded in life, yet. However, more and more torturing and killing a dog, or any pet, is becominning a felony across the US, and that is absolutely wonderful. It’s a start, anyway.

Loving Another Species

I’ve been thinking the last little while about loving my dogs… and how I love them just as much as any human I know. I had a hard time admitting that my dogs come first, until the girl who does my nails told me that she told her boyfriend, in no uncertain terms, that her dogs come first and always will, and if he can’t accept that then he can’t accept her. I respect her for that and it helped me to admit it to myself, too.

(oh and yup, this is Levi playing fetch.. lol, he does it for me, he’s such a sweet boy. Collies do play fetch!)

On another, related note, I’m vegetarian. I don’t feel like I can justify killing another living being in order to survive. There are so many options now that I can live quite happily and healthily without taking another creature’s life. If it came down to it and I was lost in the woods, and it was me or another animal, sure, I’d kill to survive. I would have not qualms about that. I can cut into a chicken and not worry about it, for my dogs, because it’s healthier for them. And I know the food chain is a natural part of life.

Anyway… being vegetarian for about 17 years has really helped me to see non-human animals as the same as human animals. Though I don’t think it’s necessary for humans to be vegetarian to realize this, it just helped me personally.

So I’ve been wondering if, and if so why, it’s socially unacceptable for humans to really love another species as much as we love other humans. I love my dogs as much as I would any human child. And I don’t understand why it may be considered a less valuable love than loving my own species.

Sure, back 100, 200 or 1500 years ago, humans loved other humans, and non-human animals were tools, food, or something else that was ‘other’ than human. But really, I want to be an animal. I believe in evolution. I believe that humans evolved alongside the other non-human animals and basically, fundamentally, we are all the same. As I lie in bed at night with my dogs around me, I want to be exactly the same as them… a living being who evolved on this planet with bone, blood, and breath. We are the same.

Humans are no better than other animals. We can just manipulate our environment more efficiently than other animals. And we understand the way we think, we don’t understand the other animals as well. But we are learning. And I’m so glad that, as time goes by, more and more humans are starting to understand that other life has value as well, and other animals not only feel physical pain, but an entire range of emotion, just as the human animal does.

Maybe it’s a religious thing, to be more human-centric. But since I have little history and almost no knowledge of religion, I really don’t know. I am not Christian, nor do I believe in a single god. I’m more pagan, and would like to learn more about paganism. But since I don’t know much about religion, I cannot form a good opinion of it.

Anyway, I love my dogs as much as any human animal. I am an animal, and I am very proud of it. I am a part of this earth, my bone is made of the same stuff as a tree’s trunk, and I am glad of it.

Better on Sunday

Well Sunday was a much better day. It brings new meaning to making life comfortable for one’s self. However, I didn’t really need to. The weather, which I have no control over, was better so I wasn’t freezing and wind blown. I’d gotten a good night sleep, and drugged up on Ibuprophin and so my back felt better, too.

Chase would have Q’d in Jumpers but I lost my way after about 8 jumps, and he took an off course. The run felt really good, though, which is very nice. I had a friend run him in Standard, which was fun to watch. And then he did Q in Snooker! Yay. Our only Q this weekend. But you know, Saturday doesn’t even count as an agility day, it was so darn miserable. Some people told me they thought I wasn’t going to come back Sunday! But I got right back up on that horse and was better.

I brought my collie boy Levi with, too. And he cheers me up as well. He got to run in the fields with Tatum, Chase, and our friends dogs. I hope to get some more pictures up. This is Wyatt, he’s a corgi that I took a picture of! Was fun to sit by the ring and snap some pics on Sunday. I ran out of memory for my camera on Sunday, dangit! I even had both cards with me. But I hadn’t deleted the pics on one… next time I’ll remember to do so.

What to Wear to Agility

Saturday to agility I wore every darn piece of clothing I’d brought which, apparently, was not enough. T-Shirt, Sweatshirt, and two coats. But not my winter coat, just a rain coat. Plus my baseball cap. And as I was sitting trying to keep warm, I had a towel over me too that I had brought to cover the dogs’ crates so they wouldn’t see so much and keep them from barking.

Anyway… I love to wear comfortable clothes when I do agility. usually I just wear jeans, but they can be a bit uncomfortable. So maybe I should wear some dickies scrubs instead!

Scrubs are comfortable and they can be so pretty now, lol. I wonder if they have any with dog patterns, I’ll go and check it out. They also have cherokee medical scrubs. Some of the scrubs are quite pretty and colorful, and short sleeved, and loose fitting so would be every so comfortable!

So these cherokee medical scrubs would be nice to wear, too… seriously, I think I’m going to check them out!

The Worst Agility Day Ever

Oh my gosh, yesterday at the USDAA trial, was the worst agility day ever. It was windy.. and I hate wind. It was one of those cold biting winds that feels like winter, which sucked. And dust was kicked up all over and so my gas permeable contacts hurt and my eyes got nice and red.

My back was also killing me. At one point in the Pairs run right before the A-Frame, I felt the left side of my lower back go all weak and my pace slowed and I kinda caved in… and Chase, of course, left me in the dust and I was much too far behind him to direct him, so he took the wrong end of the tunnel, and the rest of the course was just a mess after that.

I guess I really do have to do something about this back pain. If it’s affecting my agility, then it’s time to fix it! Ugh! I hate pain! Today I’m going to have a jar of Ibuprophin with me, so hopefully it won’t hurt so bad. I took some last night and I think it helped me to sleep, though today I can still feel my back hurting.

And to top it all off, on the first run of the day, Chase kept going into a tunnel and not listening to me. I know it’s a training issue and we have to work it. But I used my angry voice on him. I wasn’t even mad at him, just frustrated. And the judge had to have a talk with me after to tell me how mean I sounded! Geez.. me? It’s actually kinda funny, if you think about it. I’m the most mild mannered person. LOL. But it really put a bad taste on my entre day. So that with the cold, the wind, and my back pain, it was just a rotten day.

Oh, and… it took 11 hours to run this freakin’ USDAA trial. 11 hours for 83 dogs? I thought that was awful. So at 6pm last night I’m sitting there, my back hurting, cold as snot, wind and dirt in my eyes, trying to cover myself with a towel to stay warm, and just being pissed as hell that it was so late at night.

Of course we had no Qualifying runs.

So let’s hope today is better. Oh yesterday I also took Muffit, and it is finally sinking in to my brain, with the help of my friend Astrid’s clicker knowledge, that Muffit is being too overwhelmed at dog events and I need to help him learn to calm down. So he was another thorn in my side. I love that boy, I want him to succeed, so we are going to work on his issues.

Tatum came with yesterday, she managed to lift my spirits like she always does. I’m going to bring Levi today too, even though I’m not running him, as I missed my boy and he also lifts my spirits. I’m only running Chase, to see if I can do better just concentrating on him, the border collie. Not running the collies. Well, so far, I’m doing worse, not better!

I’m off for today, making my coffee, gonna shower, taking some Ibuprophin and hopefelly setting myself up for a better day!

Verve Earth

I found a fun new blog thing to do! Yeah I know.. I’m finding a lot. But this one looks pretty neat. It’s called Verve Earth.

You can go in and map your blog location, put in a little description of your blog, and find other blogs nearby you. Or in other places of the world you may be interested in. I put this blog in.. and I just might put Luna Tail in there, too. Though we are, of course, in the same location. I wonder if I can list more than one blog… that would be nice. Or maybe there’s not really a point to that!

If you click on the image in this post… it will take you right to my own page. And I have the same image in my sidebar, a bit down on the right side. I didn’t put up a picture of myself.. I used Tatum, she doesn’t need any acne treatment… she looks so pretty!