Network's Legacy - Three Years Later

Three years ago today, I said good-bye to my first Lab, Network. Writing about my second Lab had helped me after losing her, so I tried to do the same for Network. It didn't come easily like it had with Lily, until I realized that Network's story is really my story, a story about all the wonderful things that came into my life because of him.

Getting to know dogs, especially Labs and Goldens (he was part both), and the joy they bring to our lives, led me to spend most of my free time volunteering. Through my work with Healdsburg Animal Shelter, Canine Angels Service Teams, Safe Harbor Lab Rescue and Pawsitive Works, I have been touched hundreds of times by seeing the improvement in the lives of dogs and people when wonderful matches are made. This is something that Network gave to me.

He also gave me pet photography, one of the great joys of my life. Also very important, most of the friends that I have made over the past 15 years, especially the lifelong type, came to me because of him.

In our early years, I became intrigued by pet assisted therapy and by the sport of agility. We never got around to trying agility, and he was a little too easily frightened to be a good therapy dog, so I poured my energy into photography instead. But those two ideas that were planted in my mind with him have both come to be now with my third and fourth Labs - Sunny is a reading assistance dog working with elementary school students, and Star and I train and compete in AKC agility.

I will never forget you, my faithful friend. Thank you for making me who I am today.

Adapted from the original post: So-long-ol-pal

Sunny Is Still Going to School

I just realized I left my audience hanging after the February 12 post about Sunny Bunny, so now on Easter Sunday let me bring us all up to date.

Sunny did recover from his flare-up and was happy to go back to school.

Then about 6 weeks later he got up one morning and was obviously in some kind of pain. For a week he was in a lot of pain. The vet eventually identified his hips as the area of concern. Might have been the weather. Dunno. Sure was tough to watch - he cried when he had to walk, so mostly he just laid on his bed. I added more piles of soft stuff on his bed till he looked like the Prince and the Pea. Poor little baby.

Then after a week of that, his eyes flared again. Sheesh. I know the vet doesn't believe it, but I gotta go with stress as the trigger. After about 10 days from the start of it all, he had turned the corner, and now 16 days later, he's tapering back off the meds and holding his own. He missed school one week and then it was spring break. He should be good to go back this week.

While he was in the midst of that, I got to stay home all weekend. I was supposed to be working on my audit research project but I never really got around to it. Completely blew off the whole weekend watching my agility coach at Nationals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7jcevStf1A. How inspiring is that?

The following weekend was much more productive on the report front, and when I finished my work on that for the day, Star and I got to play a little bit. We call it Rockin' the Weave Poles:

Yup, there's 12 of them there. Competing at the novice level, we're only running 6 in competition right now, but she knows how to do all of them. And at the 9 Mile Trial coming up in 5 weeks we'll be playing the new Time 2 Beat game, where we have to do all 12 and do 'em fast.

Next challenge - being as aggressive in competition as we are at home.

Moses Lake AKC Trial 3/25/2012

Good thing we threw that Ridgefield trial in at the last minute in February. Little did we know that our life of leisure was quickly coming to an end. I added a 3rd class at Gonzaga during the 3rd week of the semester and then a week later I took a new temp job. They wanted 55-60 hours a week but were satisfied with 38, which was pushing the limits for me, but having just written the big check for tuition, income was good.

I immediately decided that Moses Lake wasn't going to happen (for me anyway - they weren't gonna cancel the whole event just 'cause I couldn't be there), which made me very sad, because I had been looking forward to it for a year. But then a couple weeks later I realized that I could go for one day, and that made me very happy, because I had been looking forward to it for a year.

I had a cooking frenzy on Friday night as I prepared my food for the weekend, spent a leisurely Saturday morning getting everything all packed up, and then made the short 2 hour drive over, arriving in time to watch the end of the FAST novice runs, which was perfect as I was going to attempt it for the first time the next day. I also got to join the Spokane/MT BBQ, thanks to Carolyn and Betty and Chuck**2. (That's Chuck Squared in English.)

And then on Sunday we had our 3 runs.

Novice JWW

Novice STD


Novice FAST


No ribbons, but nicer runs than the first event where we got all those silly ribbons. Well, maybe not that STD one, although we did fix the broad jump and A-frame problems that we had at the last event.

Thank you to Dave and Heather for the great videos. I hope to return the favor at future trials.

Sunny Bunny Spending All My Money

Oh Darling Sunny. I really do love you too. But you will land us in the poor house yet. I've always said I'd rather be homeless with my dogs than give them up to stay in a lonely home, but please don't test me on that one, ok?

I was so proud of you last week when you went to school to help those little kids learn to read. I loved it when your handler Micky said that you are already a favorite with the teachers and the kids after just one week, and when the program administrator put you through the paces and said you were perfect for the job. And when I left you with Micky and Suki for the weekend and Star and I went away to do our agility, I was so happy because what I had envisioned for all of us for 2 years had finally come to fruition, all the way down to the 2nd mom to take care of you on weekends sometimes.

But then we woke up yesterday morning and your uveitis had flared up again and you couldn't open your eyes. When neither the vet nor I could identify the cause, I had to consider that it's a stress-induced condition and the activities of the past week might have triggered it. Coincidentally it also happened when I brought Star home 2 years ago, as it happened to Network 15 years ago when I brought that little BC mix, Yule, home from the shelter to foster. You "momma's boys" just don't deal well with sharing, do you?

Well, you got used to Star, so maybe you'll get used to going to school too. But if you don't, then we will stop doing it, because it's no fun watching you when your eyes hurt so bad you can't open them. Never mind those vet bills - I still love you.

February 17th, 2012

I had a realization in the past week that was pretty special for me and I can't BELIEVE it took me 2 YEARS to figure it out.

My first Lab was a big ol' guy (Network) who was born on Feb 17. I let him go in Aug 2009 at 13 1/2 yrs old. Six months later, Feb 17, 2010, on what would have been his 14th birthday, I very innocently volunteered to transport for Safe Harbor a darling yellow girl from the vet to her foster. She of course was my future agility Star and this is the very first photo I took of her, with my cell phone, as we sat in the car in front of the foster's home, before I got out to let him know we were there. I love her alertness as she watched a kid go by on his way home from school.

In retrospect, I am sure that she picked me that day - it took 30 min to drag her out of the car at the foster. If I had realized what day it was, I would probably have known that my big ol' Network was sending her to me on his birthday, and I would never have left her with the foster. It was about 3 days before I decided I wanted to give her a try, a week before I got to bring her home, and another week before we overcame a potty issue and I agreed to keep her forever. I can't believe it has been 2 years already and that in some ways I love her more than my first Lab, my "heart" dog. We really have that special something. (Hmmm, is that "special something" something I'm supposed to have with another human being, and not a canine? Well, when they make a human more worthy than my canines, I'll reconsider.)

I was really floored when I realized all this last week and looked back in my transport log to confirm those dates. I was sobered by the realization of just how "meant to be" this was. What a special gift she was, and a special Valentine too.

And I just love how she curls up into such a compact little Lab ball. I just wanna wrap my arms around that little ball and make her last forever.

AKC Debut Day 2

Preparing for our 4th run, after 3 straight Qs in our AKC debut, I was almost hoping that we wouldn't get another one. Not that I was planning to turn it down if it was earned, but think of the pressure to continue that trend if we did go 4 for 4 at our first AKC trial! I had all day to think about that as our 1st run was early and our 2nd run was late.

But first, we started off Sunday morning with high hopes, having scored the Big Double Q on Saturday. There's a lot I don't like about this run, but I LOVE the excitement of my friends behind the camera as we approach the last jump and after we complete the run. I also like my 2 front crosses, probably the only handling that I did as planned all weekend. So the bar is pretty low for the Big Q in Novice but I guess that's how they get you hooked.

And here's our 4th run. Commentary afterwards.

So I got my wish - we broke our streak. And after a brief moment of "ah shucks" I really was ok with it, and a week later as I write this, I still am. Now I can focus on improving our speed and my handling skills instead of worrying about our Q ratio.

It's hard to see what went wrong in the video, but without enough momentum off the dog walk she stepped on the broad jump (we now have one in our backyard, a discarded shipping palette rescued from the field behind the apartments, and will work on making sure that doesn't happen again) and then she jumped off the A-Frame. The judge also called 2 refusals. We might have gotten 0 Qs for the weekend if she had been our judge the whole time. Then again, she was our judge for our first run but I find I have no memory of that run.

What I am most proud of is our Saturday standard run, our very first standard run in competition. The 2 big things that went wrong on our Sunday standard run were exactly what I expected to go wrong on Saturday. I was much more conscious of that going into the Saturday run and supported her speed heading into the broad jump and was very vigilant on her A-Frame. Resting on my laurels on Sunday, I was too relaxed and it was exactly those 2 things where we blew it. Lesson learned.

But enough flogging - back to the celebrating!

Double Q!

I wouldn't call it pretty by any means, but we got the job done. This was our first AKC trial, after 3 non-AKC trials in Oct and Nov. Over those 3 trials, we had 5 runs and finally got a Q on the last one of the 5.

This weekend we drove to Ridgefield, WA, for our first AKC trial. Far enough away from home that not very people would know us in case it was a disaster - new location, etc. Also, this was our first Standard run in competition - the one with all the big apparatus, for those in my audience that don't know about that stuff. Our competition runs up to this point only included jumps, tunnels, hoops and weave poles. As you'll see in this video, this run had a huge variety of toys to play on.

She got away from me once and had a little romp, but for novice level, it was forgiven. She also went in the wrong end of the tunnel the first time (my fault of course). We were allowed 2 oops and we used them. As much as I hate the opening shot, I love the ending shot.

We ended up with 2 qualifying runs on day 1 of our first AKC trial. A Q on the Jumpers course and Q on the Standard course = Double Q!

Enjoy!