An amazing-to-me number of people are all bent out of shape at the news that their zodiac signs have changed with the addition of a 13th constellation, Ophiuchus. I guess if I believed in astrology and actually thought that my personality would or should change to that of another sign, I would be upset, too.
I haven’t acknowledged the Western zodiac in years. If anyone starts talking about horoscopes or wants to know my sign, I tell them I am an Earth Dog and that is where it ends. I do acknowledge the Eastern zodiac (so proud to be Asian, our zodiac did not change) even though I don’t actually believe in it much more than I do the Western version. I find it completely amusing and appropriate that I was born in the Year of the Dog. I’ll let you do the math and guess what year that would be.
Interestingly enough, three of the six past and present resident Rottweilers are also Dogs. Well, of course they are dogs. I am still talking about the Eastern zodiac. Heidi and Oscar were Wood Dogs, and Axel is a Fire Dog.
I found a Chinese zodiac site describing each of the Five Types of Dog and I had to laugh at the Fire Dog writeup. It is so Axel!
“A highly dramatic and attractive type of Dog who will be thrown into the limelight by his alluring yet friendly personality.” — Well, he’s not really that friendly, but he’s very dramatic and attractive enough to be an AKC Champion. He was definitely thrown into the limelight as he chased his my championship dreams.
“He will be defiant and rebellious when forced to do something against his will…” — This pretty much describes every Rottweiler, I think.
“…but he will be very popular with the opposite sex.” — That gives me some hope for his success as a stud dog!
I mentioned earlier this week that I’m doing a Project 365 (photo-a-day) this year. Since not all of the photos will be about Rottweilers, computers, or even world domination, I’ve started a separate photoblog as well as a Flickr set for the project.
So far, I’ve been using my familiar point-and-shoot Nikon S51 and the camera on my BlackBerry Curve 8330 for the daily shots. But one of my goals for Project 365 is to learn to use my Canon Rebel XS DSLR to best advantage, so that camera will be added to the rotation starting next week.
I cross-posted my first Rottweiler-related photo earlier in the week. Here are the other pet-related project photos:
Yes, I’m late with this since we’re almost a week into 2011 at this point. But I still wanted to take a look back at 2010. I won’t call this a “top 10″ list as many other pet bloggers are. I’ll just ask you to revisit some of 2010′s moments with me:
The best achievements of 2010 went to the dogs.
New champion!! Axel’s AKC championship was one of the highlights of my year. A week after this, he would earn his CGC (Canine Good Citizen) and the following week his RN (Rally Novice) title, making January 2010 a hugely successful month for him. I was more of a happy cheerleader than anything else. The credit goes to his handler Julia Foster and his breeder Denise Pluta.
Just a few more Freya title thoughts Later in the year we would have some training setbacks and I’m still not sure whether Freya is retired or just on hiatus from rally obedience training and competition. But in March 2010, we kept things together long enough for her to earn her UKC Rally Obedience Level 2 title. This is an off-leash title and given that I am the worst handler in the world, a huge accomplishment for both of us.
If I were a real pet blogger, I’d have more posts like these.
Freya: class notes 1/16/10: I have a few other “class notes” posts where I take some raw video from a training session, class, or practice session, and break it down into what went right and what still needs work. It was helpful to me to review Freya’s progress and decide what to work on. I hope it was interesting to at least a few of you as well.
Some Freya video and my iMovie learning curve: I used one of the “class notes” videos to learn how to use iMovie ’09 and also create an “intro to Rally Obedience” type video. It did not end up being that effective as an overview, but I learned a lot about iMovie while creating it. Thanks to our obedience trainer Allan Ross for all of the class videos.
Total recall: We experimented with taking an online class as well, with some surprisingly good results. I don’t think online dog training can ever totally replace working one-on-one or in a small group with a good trainer, but I found this recall class to be an effective supplement to our training. Susan Garrett’s blog is a great read even if you are not doing one of her online classes and even if you have very little interest in agility.
Review: Pet Botanics Healthy Omega Treats: If I were a real pet blogger, I’d probably get more opportunities like this one to review pet products. I was happy to give these treats a good review. The dogs loved them and the healthy ingredients and low calorie count were a bonus.
These very disturbing news stories accounted for quite a bit of last year’s traffic, sad to say.
Update: Mary Wild sentencing: Dog handler Mary Wild got off with an unbelievably light sentence for the actions that caused the heat-related deaths of seven show dogs due to her negligence. She was convicted on eight counts of animal abuse and the light sentence was a horrible letdown considering what the penalties could have been.
Update: Lora Hunt sentencing: Lora Hunt was painting her fingernails as she drove, and rear-ended motorcyclist Anita Zaffke, killing her. For this, Ms. Hunt got only 18 months in jail. Another unbelievably light sentence and a big letdown for all of us who really do want to believe that justice can be served.
I’ve gone off-topic to non-Rottweiler, non-technology items quite often in the past. I’m trying not to do that going forward, but sometimes it’s hard not to write about food and entertainment!
Snack break: teriyaki meatballs: If 2009 was the year of kal bi, 2010 was the year of these retro teriyaki meatballs, taken from a ’60s cookbook put together by my aunt’s service club in Honolulu.
That’s the difference between the high temperature on December 26 and the high on December 31. I’m still not entirely convinced about global warming, but there have been a lot of strange things going on with the weather in recent years. We did have local warming in a big way last week, with a high of 55°F on December 31. That is pretty unnatural for the Chicago area.
Just a few days earlier on the day after Christmas, the high for the day was 31°F and a few inches of snow had fallen overnight. The dogs loved it because it was deep enough to wrestle in and roll around in. Please note that these are Rottweilers at play, not war. They may appear to be killing each other, but trust me. They tell me this is big Rottweiler fun.
Temperatures were warm enough on the 29th and 30th for the snow to start melting. The unseasonably warm temperatures on the 31st killed it off almost completely. I don’t have photos of the in-between swamplike stage featuring freezing cold mud, but here’s that same yard on New Year’s Eve day, after rain overnight and through the early morning.
We’re back to a more typical 20something°F today. No more local warming here.
On an unrelated note, I’m starting a Project 365 and attempting to take and post a photo every day this year. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll be adding a link to my photoblog in the right sidebar soon, but I’ll repost only the dog- and computer-related photos here. Like today’s:
The long-awaited photos from the ARV 2010 National Sieger Show arrived this week. As you know, Axel traveled to Kentucky in September for the show with his breeder Denise and her husband Gary. After the long wait, I would have been quite disappointed if the photos hadn’t turned out well. And fortunately, they did. Here he is with his friend Scott Allen:
Click on the photo to see the rest of the pictures from the show.
As you know from my previousposts on sieger shows, the judge gives a critique to each dog. The critique is done for all to hear at the show, and you also receive a printed copy.
3 year old male, correct size, attentive, correct coat, correct markings, forehead should be wider for age, highly set away carried ears, correct shaped med. brown eyes, correct muzzle, more fill under eye and more pronounced cheek, exc. mouth pigmentation, strong neck a bit wrinkled, correct top and bottom line, bone could be a bit stronger, good front and rear ang, movement correct action in front, not enough in the rear, correct top line
I disagree with some of it: I like his head, I think his mouth pigmentation could be darker, and I don’t think his rear movement and drive is insufficient. It could have been so on that day. And although he was third out of the three dogs in the Champion Males class that showed, I’m still satisfied with his critique, his V (excellent) rating, and the reports that he traveled, behaved and showed well all weekend.
For comparison, here is his youth critique from the USRC 2008 National Sieger Show. He was 18 months old then and placed second with a V rating out of a large (20+) class.
strong boned maled nice outer lines excellent chest
proportion correctly set eyes good head shape
scissor bite lively temperment excellent coat correct
gate with good drive from the rear
Both critiques appear as typed: errors, strange translations and all. As a show typist many times myself, I don’t fault a few typos, and some things do get lost in translation. When you look at the show photos, do you see what the judges saw?
Last year, Axel was on the road chasing his championship dreams (ok, fine… my championship dreams). Freya and I were getting ready for her second UKC Rally Obedience trial, hoping to finish the first level and wondering if we could make it as far as the advanced titles.
This year, I’m wondering how to keep Axel busy and happy at home, now that he’s chased and caught that championship dream. Sometimes I think he misses showing. He’s a very “look at MEEEEEEEE” kind of dog. I don’t want to send him out to chase a grand championship, though.
This year, instead of working towards advanced titles with Freya, I’m wondering how to fix whatever went wrong over the spring, or whether to just let her retire. I wish she could tell me what she really wants, because I think it might not be the same as what I want.
Somehow I managed to completely miss talking about Axel’s sieger show in September. We had a few bad technology moments right around the show date, so there wasn’t much blogging in early September in general. I also wanted to post a photo from the show, as well as talk about his critique. But I still haven’t seen any show photos, and I really wanted to post the photo along with the critique so everything makes more sense.
So what does Axel’s show have to do with the pumpkin shortage? If you have a dog like Axel that is prone to occasional dietary indiscretions, or one like Freya with a mild case of IBS, the pumpkin shortage was a bad thing indeed. Canned pumpkin is one of the best remedies for either diarrhea or constipation in dogs. I know that sounds strange, but it has to do with the fiber in pumpkin helping to regulate things in either direction. And it should go without saying that if you are unsure of the cause, a visit or at least a call to the vet is still the best course of action. If, like us, you can attribute any unpleasant output to overindulgence or a known condition, canned pumpkin is your dog’s good friend.
Even though it was apparently well-covered in the media, I somehow missed the fact that there was a canned pumpkin shortage. So a few days before Axel was to leave for his show, he was suffering from a minor digestive upset, and I went to buy some pumpkin. I went to three different stores and at the last one there was a sign mentioning the shortage and that they expected to have pumpkin back in stock in about a month. Whoa. That would be an eternity when your dog is exploding. Fortunately it was a very mild upset, and one skipped meal and one bland meal got things back on track in time for trouble-free traveling.
So when canned pumpkin returned to the stores last month, I got a couple of big cans. And by most accounts, the shortage is now over. Then I saw yet another source, where CNN was reporting as late as October 24 that the pumpkin shortage was not in fact over.
I don’t really care about pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving or any other time. But I do want to make sure my dogs’ butts are covered. Today, it was Freya’s turn to need some pumpkin love, so there goes some of our stock! What’s the real story… shortage or not… anyone know?
