Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Update: Mary Wild – show dog heat stroke deaths

by

Last June, dog handler Mary Wild left eight show dogs, including her teenaged assistant’s dog and the #1 Akita bitch in the country at that time, in a poorly ventilated cargo van overnight after returning home from a show. Seven of the dogs, including those two, died of heat stroke. This afternoon, Ms. Wild was convicted on eight counts of misdemeanor animal abuse. Sentencing will be in July. The maximum penalty for this type of offense is up to one year in jail and a fine up to $1,000. I sincerely hope that the maximum penalties are applied in this case.

Links to coverage from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Judge convicts dog handler on all counts – June 4, 2010
Trial opens in deaths of 7 show dogs – June 3, 2010
(this link also contains the original news story from June 24, 2009)

(NaBloPoMo | June ’10: 4 of 30)

My old school

by

My high school years were not the best years of my life. Oh, sure, I have a few good and even excellent memories from those three years (back in those days in my sector, intermediate school was grades 7-9 and high school was grades 10-12). Along with those few moments in time is a surprising amount of bitterness about stupid crap that I thought was long buried, until I start talking about it. So I’ll try not to go there, because that wasn’t the point of this post when I started typing.

I went to McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii. Since I am easily amused, I get a big kick out of the fact that two favorite TV shows of mine, much like my young life, take place at a McKinley High School. And to add to the amusement, the fictional schools are both somewhere in the vast midwestern wasteland, where I am trapped for now.

The obvious and current one, of course, is Glee. The one that I relate to more because it was set closer in time to my own high school years, is Freaks and Geeks. Lindsay Weir in Freaks and Geeks is pretty much who I was in high school.

Back to my McKinley High School. If you do a Google search, we come up first. We are the Tigers. I spent an embarrassingly long time today researching the sports team nicknames of the fictional McKinley High Schools (thanks, @jenroack, for the help with Glee’s McKinley). Is that sad or what? What’s that? Vikings for Freaks and Geeks, and Titans for Glee. You’re welcome.

The school newspaper was still a daily when I was there. Yup, that’s right, we were one of five high school dailies in the nation. I’m not sure when the paper ceased daily publication. I wonder if there are any high school dailies left? With the creeping demise of print publications in general, I’m guessing the answer is “no.” Even though my aspirations for a career in journalism and any illusions that I can in fact write crumbled to dust long ago, I am still proud of being part of the Daily Pinion.

(NaBloPoMo | June ’10: 3 of 30)

Sports break but still with Rottweilers

by

Tonight, instead of concentrating on blog writing, magazine editing, or website updating like I was supposed to be doing, I got distracted by the hockey game. While I am obviously disappointed by the Blackhawks’ loss in overtime, it does mean that the series comes back to Chicago and hopefully a Stanley Cup win can happen here at home at the United Center.

Speaking of the Blackhawks, and since we always speak of Rottweilers here, check out this article and video from CSNChicago.com:

Passion for Winning Runs in Bowman Family

Go Blackhawks! Go Rottweilers!

(NaBloPoMo | June ’10: 2 of 30)

Hitting a rough stretch of road

by

The last couple of months of our adventures in rally obedience have been like riding a motorcycle on a loose gravel road: rough, bumpy, and not very enjoyable. Although we did manage to get a few qualifying scores, Freya’s overall performance has been well below what she’s capable of. Obvious physical problems have been ruled out by her vet, and she usually enjoys her training classes.

Despite some good suggestions from trainers and friends, it still seems like we’re not making much progress. She doesn’t have specific exercises that she’s having trouble with; sometimes it’s an exercise she usually does well that has NQ’d us.

I’m debating whether to take a break and just let Freya be a plain old dog for a few weeks, or suck it up and work through it. I could really use one of those translator collars like in “Up” — it would make it a lot easier for Freya to tell me what’s really going on with her.

(NaBloPoMo | June ’10: 1 of 30)

April showers bring May flowers

by

I don’t know if this April has been more or less rainy than normal, but I do know that right at this moment, there is thunder and lightning close by, and the rain is coming down quite hard. It’s been raining on and off since about an hour after I got home from work. So there better be a huge load of happy shiny May flowers on the way!

I’m guessing that the yard will be too soggy tomorrow morning to do our usual pre-trial warmup, so it’s good we got in a little practice tonight before the rain. Unfortunately, it was pretty windy, so that meant leaving out the jump and cones since ours are lightweight practice stuff that would have definitely gotten blown around.

Hoping the rain will stop soon for long enough to get the dogs out and in, and let us all get some sleep already!

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 30 of 30)