Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Pet blessings

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The feast day of the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi, is today, October 4. Though several churches in our immediate area, and this year also one of our usual dog training schools as well, do a Pet Blessing ceremony every year, we’ve never taken any of our pets to one. I’ve often enjoyed seeing the news video clips or photos following the ceremonies, although I do wonder if it is absolutely necessary to sprinkle the cats with holy water (many of them don’t act very blessed about that). If that seems like a stupid observation, please remember that I wasn’t brought up Christian!

I know Rottweilers are not inherently evil, but after The Omen I cannot easily picture my crew standing inside any of the churches in our neighborhood. Plus it would set back the cause of anti-breed specific legislation a good dozen years when the holy water hits them and the smoke starts rising off their fur. Okay, just kidding. I think. Anyway, it is we humans that are truly blessed by sharing our lives with our dogs, cats and other animal and avian companions.

Random observations to round out the day:

  • We went to see the property that Dan’s sister Linda and her husband Casey are in the process of purchasing. The house needs some work, but not an overwhelming amount; it’s basically in good shape. It’s on five acres of land. Five acres is a LOT of land, and looks like even more if you have lived in the city all of your life and are used to postage-stamp sized lots where you are thisClose to people you would often not even want on the same planet with you, let alone thisClose to you.
  • If you are planning to buy a Suncast 7.5′ x 5.5′ Garden Shed, it will not fit in your Dodge Grand Caravan unless you have a roof rack for a couple of the panels. Even if you take it out of the really giant packing boxes. Just saying.
  • Linda will be at the Border Collie National Specialty this coming week; made me start thinking and you know, I have never been to my own breed’s national specialty? And I’m not even sure when the last time our specialty was in the Midwest. I have been to Medallion Rottweiler Club’s specialty (the one most local to us) many times and I will be there this year, but mostly just to drop off Axel for his hopeful championship road trip. I actually have until Wednesday morning to decide if I’m going to do one or more of the specialty’s rally trials with Freya, but right now I think we’re going to pass. She’s not really at her best at Rottweiler-only events, plus we’ve been concentrating on UKC rules rather than AKC rules.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 4 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 226 of 274)

Friday… I mean, Saturday… Freya

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When Freya was a puppy, we used to do a “Friday Freya” which was a photo of her with Dan and sometimes Oscar, too. I have sometimes wanted to find a Friday obedience class for her so I could have a weekly Friday Freya update post. But that would be a lot of inconvenience to play upon the fact that Friday is the day named for the Norse goddess Freya, if not the Rottweiler Freya, and of course the alliteration.

But I digress seriously from my real topic. So, anyway!

Saturday is group obedience class day. Since we’ve had a few big (read well-paying) projects at work that required working the weekend, we missed a couple of classes. Plus we had a week off due to Rosh Hashanah. So Freya and I were both eager to get back to class. Freya seems to work especially well after missing a class or two, and I’m not really sure why. If I could somehow use that fact for trials, I’d love it. But I would be very nervous about missing the extra practice close to a trial day, especially the practice in ignoring the distraction of other dogs in close quarters.

We also got the good news that our current instructor will be offering a class specifically for rally obedience soon. He incorporates quite a few rally exercises, such as the 360° and 270° circles, into the regular group obedience classes already to help improve heeling position and body awareness. Plus we learn and practice both left and right finishes. That actually helped us a lot for our first rally trial in July.

It probably won’t start in time to help us for Freya’s next trial (either later this month or in mid-November, or perhaps both of those dates) but definitely in time to help where we will need it most: for Rally Advanced and RO2 which are done off-leash.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 3 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 225 of 274)

And we’re outta there

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I never did talk here about Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. For the record, I was very much against Chicago hosting the Olympics. The city, and for that matter the state of Illinois, has far too many pressing problems to solve to reasonably take on the additional burdens of hosting a major international event. These problems are of the sort that negatively affect those who live here either by choice or necessity on a daily basis, and while not all of them are as horrendous as the recent beating death of a Fenger High School student, all of them are more important to people who actually live and work here than hosting the Olympics.

So it was with a great sigh of relief, as well as a small degree of shock that the “fix” wasn’t in, that I heard the news of Chicago getting knocked out of contention in the first round of voting this morning.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the promises of a bright and shiny Chicago could still be kept over the next few years for those of us who live here? Yeah, right… what am I thinking.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 2 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 224 of 274)

Wake me up when September ends

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Huh? What’s that? September’s ended? Where did September go, anyway?

I had originally planned to take a few days off from blogging at the beginning of the month, but those days stretched out all through September. Not my original intention! I’ll blame it mostly on work, which is actually a good thing. As slow as business was earlier this year, it was good to see a heavy workload again for a few weeks. Of course, since we are running about as lean as is humanly possible, we all put in long hours. The last thing I wanted to do after sitting all day and then some at a computer, was to come home to sit at a computer to write.

Not only that, I would probably have had nothing to write about except complaints about the long hours, eyestrain, and being chained to the computer. Just guessing, but even my most creative complaining won’t hold your attention for a full month.

So I didn’t write.

But now I’m back. Work is still pretty busy, but I’ve signed up for October NaBloPoMo to prod me into writing at least a little bit every day.

So! How have you all been? I’m sure my feed reader will let me know what at least some of you have been up to, so I’m going to go check it out now. See you tomorrow!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 1 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 223 of 274)

News updates: show dog deaths, nail polish killer

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Updates on the case of Mary Wild, the dog handler whose neglectful actions caused the death by heat stroke of seven show dogs in June, have not appeared in any mainstream media sources in quite some time, but dog forums and news sources are still keeping an eye out. A reader’s letter to The Dog Press reports that the case has been continued until October 13, 2009 and a jury trial has been requested. Maximum possible sentence would be 8 years in jail plus $8,000 (1 year + $1,000 fine for each of 8 counts of animal abuse).

I’ve served on a jury twice (one criminal case and one civil case) and I came back with serious misgivings about the phrase “jury of one’s peers” and for that matter, the entire trial-by-jury process. I wonder whether a jury trial will result in the maximum sentence for Ms. Wild, or will a jury feel sorry for her, perhaps because of her youth or because to so many people, a dog is just a dog and a show dog is just an object?

There was also news last week on another case that shocked and angered me earlier this year. Lora Hunt was painting her fingernails as she drove, and struck and killed motorcyclist Anita Zaffke who was stopped at a traffic signal. On September 16, Ms. Hunt was indicted on 6 counts of reckless homicide. Arraignment is October 8.

If you’ve been here before, you know my thoughts on distracted driving. This case is the one I point at when people try to demonize technology as the root of all distracted driving evil. Ban texting while driving, by all means. But make sure that distractions like this, total low-tech distractions, can also be considered dangerous and punishable when the results are as horrible as this.

(NaBloPoMo | 75% Challenge: 222 of 274)