Marley and NOT Me

The Whole Family

Good Thing There's Work So I Can Recover From the Holidays

Disneyland!
SUMMARY: We've been here two full days now--One more full day to go, then a few hours Sunday morning, then home again, home again, jiggity jog.I love being at Disneyland! So much to see and do, and even if I come every couple of years (which I've been doing for a long time), it's still a wonderfantabulous experience. I like just walking around and looking and being there.Plus taking photos. Unfortunately I've discovered that my old laptop's software doesn't recognize my new camera's raw format, so I've got nothing to upload here at the moment.And we've done so much, it's hard to shrink it to a quick post. We've done several things more th

Disneyland Versus The World Championships
SUMMARY: Me to Disneyland. Everyone else to Scottsdale. Musings.Today's Facebook status: Ellen Finch wishes the very best of luck to all of her friends who are heading out soon for the Nationals aka world championships in Scottsdale--while *she* bags out this year and goes to Disneyland! Woohoo! Maybe not tons less expensive than Nationals, but not nearly as stressful! Such as I don't have to get up at 5 a.m. to walk and memorize 6 different courses. Enjoy!It feels so odd not to be going, after all those years of attending. Tika is completely qualified for everything this year, and in fact has done extremely well in all the Perfor

USDAA in Turlock
SUMMARY: An oddball weekend.The weather was just about perfect for agility: Sunny but not hot, just warm enough that by midafternoon for a brief while I didn't need my fleece in the shade of the score table. No rain, just a tiny breeze to keep the air moving. Plenty cool for the dogs. Couldn't ask for better weather.Which of course is unusual for agility trials--usually they're very hot or they're rainy or they're windy or you're huddled around one of those portable propane heaters trying to defrost the icicles from your nose.Here's one weird thing: Boost. Got more Qs. Than Tika. Can you believe it? My little baby dog is almost hitting her stri

Easy Come, Easy $180 Go
SUMMARY: Boost's toenail = vet visit.Boost ran fine in class last night with vet wrap around her toenail, but when I unwrapped it, it was bleeding again. Wrapped it for play this morning, and again it was bleeding.I looked more closely at it. The broken part that I didn't want to cut off because it's below the skin line is basically pinching the quick and continuing to injure it. So--off to the vet we go.Vet won't cut into the skin without sedating the dog. I guess that makes sense, but it's very expensive: sedation and 3 hours under observation afterward. Plus they want her on antibiotics because the injured skin will be making contact with the ground. H

Do Those Dewclaws That You Do So Well
SUMMARY: Poor Booster's little toeie has an owie.Dinnertime last night, and Boost is lying in the corner lick lick licking her paw. I check it out: Dew claw toenail is broken in half at the quick and it's bleed bleed bleeding. Gotta hurt, too.I don't trim them often enough, and it was pretty long, so I blame myself for this one. Thing is, Tika's dew claws (and back in the day, Amber's and Sheba's) kept themselves trimmed down--proof positive that some dogs indeed get traction from their dewclaws when running. Jake's *never* wore down at all; Boost's wear down a bit but not enough. So with one dog who doesn't need it at all and one dog who needs it seldom, I just forge