Juno is my Rally champ

We just had an awesome weekend in Carmel at the Del Monte Kennel Club Dog Show! Dad and Kaline accompanied me and Juno, though they weren't allowed to be around while we were prepping and competing (Juno will book it out of the ring to go to my dad).

After walks on Friday, we loaded up the dogs and all our crap in the car and headed to Carmel. We stayed in this really adorable dog-friendly hotel, which kindly didn't charge us pet fees for even one dog (which they totally could have, since only Kaline was working this weekend). It was Kaline's first time since babyhood sleeping out of the crate at night, and it was wonderful snuggling with him. If only I had a queen bed he'd sleep on in my room at home! Juno slept with Dad, although during the rest of the weekend it became clear she wasn't above sleeping on the same bed as Kaline, as long as he behaved himself. Much snuggly cuteness.

We got up ridiculously early Saturday to get to Carmel Middle School by 7:30 (Excellent check-in was at 8:00; I like to watch them). It was crazy cold and foggy, and the Rally ring, regular OB rings, and the Rottweiler ring were all on the grass within the school track. Literally everyone not only had a crate for their dog(s), but also these huge shade tents (i.e. not the kind of tent you camp in) to put them under. And big plastic tarps to protect everything from the damp grass. And here came Juno and I, with our one folding chair and roll-up mat.

The cold was actually good, because Juno is peppier in the cold. A nice lady set up a high jump and broad jump and said anyone could practice on them, so thank goodness, we were able to warm up jumping before going in the ring. Cause, yeah, we don't actually have a jump at home to practice on.

Right before we were set to do our Advanced B run, the sun came out and all of a sudden it was hot. Juno started panting, I was freaking out a little inside, etc. I tried to keep her shaded and did stationary practice to keep her amped in some kind of controlled way. The run went pretty well, though at the jump, I was so focused on not leaving Juno room to go around it that I actually clanged into it myself. There was no figure eight or broad jump, so hurrah! We ended up getting a 96, and earned a fourth-place ribbon! Not to mention our third leg and thus our title! It was super exciting, because I never thought that competing in B-level anything I'd ever get a ribbon.

Fourth-place ribbon!

Once our Rally stuff was done, Juno and I trundled over to conformation with our rollie to find Dad and Kaline. I was on the phone with Dad, about to tell him that oh my goodness, there was another Doberman SD at the show, when I realized it was my Doberman. Heehee. We ran into our Dobie friends and got to chat with them a bit; I had missed the Dobie breed judging, but oh well. I managed to resist the vendors, just got some gelato. Kaline did fairly well; he still looks at other dogs for too long, but it's not terribly hard to get his focus back. No one gave us crap about his prong collar either.

After a cuddly nap, we took the dogs to a baseball field that wasn't in use. Kaline got to have a blowout run and work a bit on recalls, while Juno and I practiced exercises for Excellent. I pulled up the regs on my phone and had Dad call out all the different exercises to us. Except for the jump, we practiced all of them until I was satisfied Juno was solid on them. 

For dinner, that was the one time Juno went vested; I worked both dogs for the first time in ever. We met one of my mom's friends at a place called the Forge, which was so dog-friendly it had a dog menu.

I was really glad we were inside, because outside were show people with their dogs including a Rhodesian Ridgeback bitch who was in heat. Yeah, don't need my intact teenage male around bitches in heat! Plus, even inside, Kay was cold. He was snuggled up as tight as possible to Juno. He was a bit overly antsy, but when I felt how cold his mat was when I was rolling it up, I couldn't blame him.

Hardly slept Saturday night, due to Tim Lincecum pitching a no-hitter for the Giants, and when I did sleep, I had nightmares. I woke up from a really terrifying one with Kaline curled up into a tight ball, pressed into my stomach. I love my puppy so much, even though he's going through a lot of teenage brattiness right now.

Today, we had our first run in Excellent, and that's just what Juno was. Everything worked in our favor: we went in the first group, so it stayed cold; the course was full of things Juno is good at, and lacked pretty much all our major weak points; and Juno was just freaking on. The practice jumps were out again, and I think our little run-throughs really helped—we not only practiced jumping but also all the turns that preceded and followed the two course jumps. In the ring, I kept both my hands up like I was holding a treat, and just tried not to rush and to do things right instead of fast. Juno was staring up at me all the time, which she doesn't usually do. She was freaking awesome, I was so proud of her! And we got a 98—ended up being good enough for first! There was a nice photographer ringside, and hopefully I can get a print of this one photo he got, where Juno is flying over the jump with her eyes locked on my face. I am so proud of my wonderful girl!

Blue ribbon girl!

Kaline and Dad came over to meet us after awards, and we watched Kristin and Ben run (perfect 100 to earn their Advanced title!) and also got to see Sue Korp run her fantastic Dobe bitch with All The Titles in Utility. What an amazing working Doberman! She was just unbelievable. Kaline was a bit less focused today, probably tired from the day before. But no big issues; I think it's really good for him to have this exposure to tons of dogs. We saw another service dog team, a big gorgeous Leonberger, which was pretty cool. And I gave in and ordered myself a beautiful leash I don't need, as my reward for the first place.

Juno's reward for first place? A hamburger and gelato and later, some french fries! She liked that a lot better than she would've liked a leash, haha.

We went to lunch at a burger place and had both dogs outside and off-duty. Juno flopped down in the shade, while Kaline switched back and forth between snuggling with his oddly permissive sister and coming next to me to be a solar panel. And then we drove home. We were very tired when we arrived, as you might imagine!

Which brings me to last weekend, which was also really fun. Dad and I took the pups to Crissy Field for a blowout run, intending to eat Let's Be Frank hot dogs there. No hot dogs, but the dogs had an absolute blast—even Juno ran around like a maniac!

We headed to Pier 39, with Juno on-duty because I needed the momentum pull pretty bad after Crissy Field.

We found a lovely Italian place, but they had just closed the outdoor seating. Nonetheless, the sweet hostess said that since Kay was a SDIT, it'd be fine to take both of them in. They were impeccably behaved (it helped that Kaline was exhausted) and we had a wonderful time. And then on Sunday Kaline did really good work in his morning PA, and then we met up with Marissa and Macro for a run at the grove, and a little PA at Stanford. I was really proud of my wee man, he was such a pro, for the day.

Lest this sound overly gleeful, let it be known that Kaline has definitely hit his Doberteens. Sometimes it's like his brain has fallen out. We're working through it, I'm not freaking out, but it does suck a little. I can't wait for his brain to come back, you know? Sometimes he will just look at me like, “Make me.” This too, however, shall pass. We're not having any huge behavior problems, just annoying stubbornness and hardheaded-ness. And of course my champ Juno provides a much-needed break from all that, whenever I need it. Grin.

May begins!

I am mostly enjoying May so far! We've had more good things happening than bad (though of course the bad things make more interesting stories, I suppose).

I've been working on Random Retrieving with Kaline. We use objects I know he'll like, but we do it in odd places. Due to allergy stuff, I've gone out multiple times to buy different pills. They come in boxes, so once I pick my box and commit to buying it (obviously), I start practicing with it. First, Kaline has to do eager, non-chewy take it & hold. The take it is the very important part—he has to reach for the object. The holding he knows, and will do even with objects he doesn't like. Once he's done several good take its, then I drop it and have him do retrieves. I'm working on getting him to paw it less, and just pick it up.

The small cardboard pill boxes are very fun and easy for him. Then I decided to buy shampoo, and that was pretty amusing. He clearly wanted to practice with it, so we did the same exercises, but it was more difficult for him because it was much heavier and the bottle was smooth plastic. He was so determined though! It was really cute.

Kaline accompanied me to a baby shower over the weekend, and that was pretty much a disaster. He was super whiny and fidgety, even though I was able to let him run in this big pasture behind the house in the middle of it. By pet standards, I guess he was a good boy, but certainly not by my standards! It drove me nuts when people were telling me he was being such a good boy, when he was whining all the time and breaking downs constantly. Of course, as soon as we got home he curled up like a little angel and cuddled all evening. Figures.

He was much better the following morning, when we did the usual Sunday public access work. One of the many things I did wrong on Saturday at the shower was to be really tight on the leash all the time (there was a ton of food right at Kaline face level). That, naturally, made him pull all the more. So on Sunday, I tried to be very conscious of the leash and tried to keep it loose as much as possible. Shocker, Kaline hardly pulled at all.

In the afternoon, I took Juno out to meet Marissa and Macro for a socialization outing. We had lunch at Max's and then walked around Stanford Shopping Center. Macro was such a good little boy! He's a very relaxed little puppy. We took him and Juno into Needless Markup, where he was totally unfazed by the tiles and the escalator. He curled up for a doze near the escalator, actually. Nobody could keep their hands off him! He's so damn cute. Teehee!

Something else cute happened on Friday. It was really hot by our fourth walk, so on that walk, all the dogs wore shoes. It was freaking adorable. Many compliments.

Then today. We had our usual four walks, which were mostly nice (mostly because I found out that the "brother" of one of my dogs died, sadly. He was old, though, and it was very fast). Then we finished up the car upholstery saga.

Without going into too much detail, let's just say the car upholstery people don't understand the concepts of: customer service; people not being able to drive two cars at once; people having jobs that last past 4:00 in the afternoon; people not having chauffeurs/people on call to drive them places. My friend agreed to drive me to this place, thankfully. I took Juno rather than Kaline.

We got there, and inside the office was an enormous Labrador or Lab mix, barking its head off. Obviously I wasn't taking Juno into that tiny office with the dog acting that way, so I just waited awkwardly outside. Finally, someone came over to ask why I was there. I explained I was there to pick up the car. The guy goes into the office and leashes the dog, I assume to take it away somewhere while I conduct my business. Nope! He comes out, dog at the end of the leash and straining and bouncing, clearly intending to let the dog just run up into Juno's face.

I kept backing Juno up, asking the guy to keep the dog away from her. He responded by questioning whether she was really a service dog. I replied that all dogs value their personal space, and the majority of dogs really don't appreciate other dogs lunging into their faces. That only got me: “Oh, so she's an attack service dog?” At that point I just gave up, clearly a lost cause. The guy basically blocked the doorway with the dog, and luckily Juno remembered how to heel on the right, so I could be between her and the dog.

In the tiny office, the guy let the dog come over and sniff Juno, who showed admirable restraint and moved so that she was between me and my friend. It was just a metric ton of NOT OKAY. I am debating whether to post a scathing review on Yelp, haha.

Tonight we're going to a reading at Kepler's by one of my favorite authors, the hilarious science writer Mary Roach! It would probably be a good education experience for Kay ... But I want to just enjoy the hilarity! So Juno's going, hehe. We need our quality girl time anyhow.

A non-guilty McDonald's trip

The parents are gone for two weeks in Holland, so I may be posting more due to there being no one around to tell me to get off my computer! Kaline and Juno don't really care.

Today was mostly a Kaline day, because Juno has been a little bit off, physically, and the vet said to rest her this weekend and see how she is Monday. She's not precisely limping, just not moving quite normally. I had wanted to take her to obedience class and then to meet my friend Marissa and her new SD prospect, Macro, but instead she stayed home and Kaline came.

He did really well at class, and even got a compliment from Anne on his hold & out skills! Woohoo! She wants me to start working him more on weird textures and objects, like Coke cans. At the end of class, he got a little over-affectionate with Lynn, who used to babysit him on the sidelines when he was little. She was kneeling down to him and he went for a hug, and tipped her over! Yikes.

On the way home, Kay and I stopped at McDonald's to grab some lunch to-go. Right as we walked in, this little girl barely taller than Kaline came up to pet him, and I asked her not to because he was working. A few minutes later, I heard her and her mom behind us, the mom explaining to the little girl that Kaline is a working dog. They were on their way out, and our stuff was almost ready, so I told them if they wanted to wait a minute, I'd take Kaline's vest off outside and the little girl could pet him.

Kaline was so good with this tiny little human! He could have knocked her over by just leaning on her shoulders, but he was exceedingly gentle, calm, and contained. No fast movements, no paws coming off the ground, just awesomeness. After confirming that the little girl was okay with kisses, I let Kaline go over and he immediately began washing her face all over. She totally loved it and petted him everywhere. He stood so still, except for moving his head to lick different parts of her face. Meanwhile, the mom prompted questions about service dogs in general and I tried to answer them in kid-speak. (I worry about walking the line between speaking in a way they can understand and being a condescending asshole.) At the end Kaline folded himself into a down and happily kissed the little girl's toes. It was absolutely precious and assuaged my usual McDonald's guilt. (Yeah, I know, I really shouldn't eat that stuff, but it's so YUMMY.)

We came home to a very happy Juno—“I thought you were DEAD!!!!”—and watched a bunch of baseball until it was time to go meet Marissa downtown. Her new little guy, Macro, is so freaking cute. He has the most charming, scruffy little face. He's a mix of Black Russian Terrier and Belgian Malinois, and just a sweet, confident, friendly little pup. He's about twelve weeks old and though he was very interested in everything going on downtown—he needed to be carried sometimes so we could walk faster than a crawl, haha—he absolutely wasn't fazed by anything. Kaline was mostly good (only dabbed a paw at the puppy a couple times), except for being distracted by dogs going by several times and pulling. Freaking pulling, I know someday it'll end but it is driving me nuts right now. It was fantastic to catch up with Marissa and meet her new boy! My ego got a bit of a stroke too cause Marissa, being the wonderfully kind person she is, said that Juno is one of her favorite SDs. Heehee. Totally made up for this guy at McDonald's asking if Kaline was very short for his breed (he is PERFECTLY WITHIN THE MALE STANDARD, dammit!!!!).

Anyway! Juno did get to go out once today, a quick in and out to Draeger's. I figured it was less walking than an average pee break, so why not. She was understandably pissed at being left home twice, and was bursting with glee when I put Kaline in the crate and told her it was her turn now. Put on the vest and suddenly she was walking and trotting normally (we did NO pulling of any kind, just walked in, did a block at the counter, got our stuff and headed out again). Very weird. I would really like to know what is up with her right now.