Aftermath

Well, the worst of it is over, but we still have yet to see the sun here. What a storm it wound up being! There are still traffic lights out all over the borough, downed trees still blocking roads, and areas that are still flooded and unusable.

Here is the tree that fell on to my grandmother's house on Saturday (photos taken by my sis). Imagine looking out your front window and seeing this! It has since been cleared, but there is some damage to the house that needs to be repaired.

It's still raining on and off, and the wind is still kicking up. Tree services are going around, cutting down the debris with chainsaws, and fire trucks are still blaring constantly. Though we did get out for three walks yesterday, we're taking it easy today. It just seems chaotic out there.

We played a few rounds of "Find-it" with Marge's old squeaky raccoon (that no longer squeaks, of course). It entertained her for a while. She put her thinking-cap on and sniffed all over the room when I gave her the release to find it. At the end of our game, she posed with her prize.

We were supposed to have a private lesson with Marisa today, but, due to damage in the training building from the storm, it was cancelled. Another week of no agility and another bummer. Oh well - we have no choice but to make the best of it!

The Perfect Storm

We're experiencing some of the worst wind I've ever seen in my life. The fence on one side of our house is starting to go, my father says the antenna on top of the house is about to blow off, and, to top it off, my grandmother's enormous pine tree came crashing onto her roof late this afternoon (she's OK, and there probably isn't much damage, but it's still a scare).

The weather normally does not faze Marge, but this storm is bothering her. The wind has been whipping at sustained speeds of 40 mph for the entire day. Potty breaks are NOT fun - she tried to pee before and witnessed a backyard chair get kicked up by the wind. Suffice to say, she is not taking kindly to going out right now, which might become a problem - she's due for a poop.

My family is coming and going from my house, going outside to collect things before they blow away, inspect damage, and the like. I don't like the commotion, and I don't think Marge does, either.

Here's a real-time photo - she's been hunkered down next to me in this corner for the majority of the day. Those are my fleece PJ pants you see there. Notice the ears back and big, sad eyes. I think she wants this to be over with!

For all of you experiencing this storm, be careful! There are road closings, trees down, and power outages all over my city. Stay inside and ride it out safely with your fuzzy friends.

Happy Face

Taken outside in my yard this week. Marge wasn't much into training with my makeshift backyard jumps under the mid-day sun, so, an obligatory photo shoot commenced. This pic is the best of the bunch. Isn't she just the cutest thing?

We've been doing lots more walking, and filling the gaps in our day with short training sessions. Over all, things have been more good than bad.

Tuesday Training 29

This post is going to be mostly bits 'n pieces of things. As many of you know, because of my school schedule and workload in conjunction with my newfound procrastination (I blame a certain someone's recent and numerous TV appearances for this -- and I NEVER watch TV), I am having some trouble getting stuff done.

Agility

Well, I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, but my instructor forgot to put it on her calendar. So, I was by myself during my practice time. It was a bummer, but hey, what can you do? Marge and I didn't do much, since I really don't trust myself to set up good courses alone - I either make them too easy or too hard. We mostly worked individual obstacles..

• Teeter - all of a sudden, Marge's teeter has gotten so much more iffy. It was at full height yesterday, and, in the middle of the plank, she decided to bail several times. So, I put the table under the end of it to make it lower, and she seemed better with that. Then, I removed the table and she was doing it full heigh once again. I can't really put my finger on why she's suddenly more unsure of it than ever before - she will literally run across the room to get to it (and then I have to keep my mouth shut and not correct her, even if she isn't listening to me), but then freezes up in the middle. Like I said, though, she seemed better at the end of the session, so I'll count that as progress.
• Table - did some table sends. She's sticking to the table a whole lot more than before, waiting for me to give her the release word before she gets up.
• A-Frame - we haven't worked it in a while. I dragged it out today, but it wasn't set up right and I was counting on Marisa to help me.. so, we didn't get to do it. Hopefully next week.

Once again, I find that I communicate so much better with Marge when we train in our backyard. I only have room for two (makeshift) jumps, but she pays so much more attention and my handling is so much more consistent. I still haven't figured out why this is.

On a positive note, I've basically quit worrying about our trial that's coming up in about a month and have decided to just take things as they come.

Walks

I touched on walks in the last post. It's gotten significantly busier outside since this weekend. Marge is doing okay. She hasn't shut down, but she's been doing a whole lot more lip licking and looking around at various things. Sometimes, she's better than others - for example, she was fine being out in the field among a group of people playing soccer Sunday evening, but was uneasy when she saw people walking around this morning. As usual, I'm trying to encourage her and find a balance between behavior modification on walks and let-Marge-do-whatever-the-hell-she-wants on walks. It's an ongoing process.

I plan on blogging about Marge's L-Theanine supplement and my thoughts on medications in the near future. I know several of you have asked about that.

I truly think that Marge's motivation walk - and therefore, to face her fears - goes out the window when the sun is out and the temperature is high. If two stressful situations are exactly identical except for the temperature, there is no doubt that Marge will do better behaviorally in the colder situation than in the hotter one. It's kind of an interesting problem to combat, because it's only in the 60s right now!

People

I feel as though Marge has gotten more aloof around people lately. We had a family friend over the house on Saturday for dinner. Marge hung out in her crate, since seven people in a tiny kitchen, in my opinion, would have been a lot for her (yet, she'd try to beg anyway). However, when she was actually around this family friend, she was neither scared nor particularly friendly - she just "was."

That's not to say she didn't wag her tail and sniff to say hello, but this is interesting, because Marge is usually more friendly than this to non-threatening people that are in her house. It might just be my imagination, though. She was in her crate a large part of the time this person was over - upwards of three hours, with breaks in between - so she simply might not have been around the person enough for me to draw reasonable conclusions on her behavior. The fact that she was able to settle in her crate with so many people in the house was definitely a positive.

One of her favorite people ever - my sister's math tutor - is coming over tonight, so we will see what the result of that is.

Other activities

• Now that it's warm outside and the ground has dried, I plan on starting to work with the dumbbell again. I tossed it around for her a couple of times over the weekend, and, despite the fact that she hasn't used it in weeks, she remembered exactly what to do with it. Strangely, she seemed to mouth and chew on it less than before. That's a good thing - but I wonder what caused the change!
• I'm still debating whether to enter two days of the April APDT Rally trial, or just one. We're supposed to be training with our Westie friend this weekend, but haven't really worked on Rally lately. Planning on renting the training hall to set up an APDT course one of these days.

And, that's about it for now. After these disorganized couple of weeks, I'm planning on getting back on track with just about everything - blogging, school work, training Marge, you name it!

Feel the Warmth

Well, based on the temperatures today, I simply cannot imagine we're going to have much more winter before spring finally hits us.

In one way, this is good - no more snow to complicate walks, travel, and anything else. No more cold nights with the wind howling. No more frozen nose, toes, ears, fingers and feet.

Yet, the warm weather means that we will be, once again, be faced with the warm weather challenges that go along with owning a fearful dog.

Even just in the span of this lone warm day, I've seen so many more people outside of my house and in my neighborhood than I have in the past few months. With that comes noise, too - and we've had a fair share of construction projects around us, and I can almost guarantee that we'll have more.

Marge is faring pretty well so far. The proximity of one of the construction sites to my house has caused a little bit of discomfort for her, and she has had some isolated incidents on walks where some things have made her feel uncomfortable. I'm trying to ensure that she is able to deal with these distractions and stressors now before they hit their peak in the summer. Lots of cookies have been doled out, and I've tried to vary our walking routes a lot so she gets comfortable with different things.

I know that our schedule is going to have to change - aside from the scary stuff, Marge is not a fan of the heat, so our walks are going to be shorter and take place earlier in the day and later in the evening. As long as there are no fireworks (which I'm hoping is at least another few months), our night walks will continue.

She is still getting her L-Theanine supplement, and I don't plan to take it away any time soon. I don't know how much it's helping - my gut tells me it's helping a teeny bit - but I know it's not hurting her. I did speak with the vet a few months ago about possibly medicating her this summer so that we don't have the same relapse that we had last summer.. I'm unsure if that's really necessary or not. Still, I WOULD like to have some alprazolam (Xanax) on hand for her for the really bad days, like July 4th. I am unsure how privy my vet will be to this idea, but I think it is something important to explore.

Today, for the first time in what feels like forever, we made our way down to the beach, just for a few minutes. I remember talking earlier about how glorious the off-season at the beach was going to be for us, and it was. Now, I can't believe that the off-season is almost over, and soon Marge won't be allowed on most of this sand.

So far, the transition from cold to warm is going alright - and I'm going to cross my fingers that it stays that way.

My Leading Man

The first non-animal related post in MargeBlog history comes today.

I am a huge Tom Hanks fan. Huge. My fandom is not limited to Forrest Gump and Big and the other very famous movies. I have seen Tom Hanks movies that some people don't even know exist. It's a far cry from the typical it-guys of the past few years, but that's ok. I have my fun. I really enjoy his stuff, and he was super cute in the 80s. Yeah, that's before I was even born. Weird, huh?

When I found he was coming to NYC, I really wanted to go wait outside one of the studios he was filming at (he did three shows today) to see if I could catch a glimpse of him or get an autograph. The latter did not happen, thanks to the stupidity of people who tried to cross the barricade, but the former did:

(photo courtesy of my awesome boyfriend, who manned my camera while I was reduced to a pile of putty..)

I haven't done something so exciting and spontaneous in a long time. He did hang around for a few minutes when he arrived, signing autographs, but I couldn't get one because I wasn't really in a good spot. But, it was super cool to be just feet from the guy who I've watched in so many of my favorite movies. I'm going to try again next time he's in town - I'd assume in just a couple of months to promote Toy Story 3!

In addition to how happy I was to see him, I had such a fun time getting out of the house with my awesome boyfriend. It was a picture perfect time. Louie has jokingly dubbed Tom my "leading man," but in reality it is he himself who is my leading man. Seriously - I wouldn't have ridden in a taxi cab and stood in a crowd of people by myself, nor would I have gone to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp (yes, that's right!) in solitude! I think I really needed a day like this to break up the monotony of the daily grind and put a big ol' silly grin on my face.

I was originally going to write this post from Marge's perspective, because, surely, she would find a human going to see a fellow human to be a complete waste of time. Not to worry - Marge was not at all neglected today. She got a nice afternoon walk before I left for NYC, where she socialized with a Shih Tzu boy friend of hers, and then a night walk where she literally wagged her tail the whole time. I guess she was happy to see me after my little excursion.

Tuesday Training 28

We had an great and productive lesson with Marisa yesterday.


This was the bulk of our work. In the black sequence, Marge had to "go out," and in the white sequence, she had to come in to my hand. We handled the go outs much, much better than the come ins, but the handling did start to click towards the end.

We also did some work on front crosses. I am very, very late with my fronts, and that problem is exacerbated by the fact that Marge's stride over the jump is pretty big and she isn't reading the fronts that well yet. To counter this, Marisa put a gate alongside one of the jumps so that Marge had to adjust herself as I front crossed.

We're going to have another lesson next week. I think we're going to put out more standard course equipment and less jumps. It's been a couple of weeks since Marge has seen contact equipment.

We're roughly a month away from the trial now. The plan is to keep training with Marisa privately, and drop into class one or two times. I might have the opportunity to go back out to train in New Jersey, but I'm not holding my breath.

Our first APDT Rally trial of the year will be on April 24 and/or 25, indoors at my club's training building. It will be a small trial, probably less than 100 entries per day, and Level 1 (Marge's class) will most likely run first. I'm unsure if I want to do both days with her. I probably will send in my entry for both, and then play it by ear the weekend of the trial. To prepare for that, I'm going to keep training with my friend and her Westie on AKC courses, and also train privately a couple of times to run APDT style courses, too. After that, we'll possibly have another Rally trial in July. By then, I'd like to be ready to run her in Level 2 - we're starting to work on the exercises now for that class.

I'm sorry I've neglected the blog this week. My absence will probably continue for another couple of days, or maybe until the weekend. For a couple of reasons, I am physically and emotionally tired.