Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Shameless self-promotion, spring 2010 version

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My original plan for advertising in the first 2010 issue of The Total Rottweiler Magazine was to celebrate the titles that Axel finished in January, particularly his AKC Championship.

Well.

Since my new AKC Champion is like one of those children who, while nice-looking in person, always has a goofy expression, closed eyes, head turned to the side, or what have you when it comes to photographs, I did not have the variety of shots, nor a decent head shot, for a nice elegant new champion ad.

So here is what is running instead. Behold the beauty… and the goofiness… that is Freya and Axel.

click image for full-sized PDF version

We also took the opportunity to promote Axel’s niece, Chassis (Precious Gems European Cut). I predict a successful career ahead for this young lady!

click image for full-sized PDF version

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 20 of 31)

Life goes on

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Two of our dearly departed dogs have been at the back of my mind all week. They were full siblings from two different litters, and two dates this week are significant.

Yesterday, March 18, would have been Heidi’s “sweet 16.” For the most part, it is unusual for a Rottweiler to get very far into the ‘teen years, but we lost Heidi slightly before her time at age nine years, nine months. She was my “heart” dog and even though she has been gone for over six years now, I still think of her often, especially when training my others. My husband had many dogs throughout his life, but Heidi was my very first dog. She was my “experimental” dog and I probably made my worst training missteps with her. She bounced back from it all, and we finally found her calling as a therapy dog well into her middle years. She was extremely people-friendly, almost to a fault. Or at least I thought it was a fault because she even liked jagoffs that I hated. But it made her the perfect candidate for therapy work. Her career was not long, but we both enjoyed visiting mentally and physically challenged young adults at some of Little City’s group homes. It was perhaps the most rewarding thing I have ever done, with or without a dog.

And Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the sad day that Oscar went to join his siblings at the Rainbow Bridge. Through our tears, we said that it was because he didn’t want to miss Heidi’s birthday there, and smiled at the thought of the “twins” being together again. We always called them the “twins” even though they were not twins at all. They were full siblings, one from a planned litter and one from an “oops” litter from the same parents. Oscar was the very last one of our original four-member Rottweiler wrecking crew to leave us at age eleven years, five months. He was a big dog, at the top end of the standard for male Rottweilers, so I never felt really comfortable doing much training and competing with him. He always felt that his job was just to watch over me. The others always wanted to be doing something, even when they got a bit older. Oscar was happy just to hang out with me.

I miss them both to this day, and always will.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 19 of 31)

Overscheduled

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With the Total Rottweiler Magazine deadline a week or so tighter than expected this quarter, I’m a little overscheduled for the next few days. And I don’t like it one bit.

Since there are not that many APDT trials close by, I’ll almost always enter a trial that is less than two hours away. Unfortunately, the trial this weekend means three straight trial weekends right in the thick of getting the magazine finished.

To add to the fun, despite the beautiful weather we’ve had all week, it’s supposed to snow this weekend.

We weren’t able to get to class, so Freya is a bit under-prepared. Not a crisis yet but it may be for next week’s trial because jumping and backwards heeling are still not pretty.

I’m sure we’ll get through it. The magazine will make it to the printer and Freya and I will get through March’s trials. We will NOT be doing any trials in April!

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 18 of 31)

I’m not wearing green

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It’s St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not wearing green. I didn’t forget, it was intentional to not wear green. But if you even think about trying to pinch me, I will kick your ass. That is all.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 17 of 31)

Life really is too short

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Did I say something yesterday about life being too short? Well, it’s definitely too short to waste very much of it on doing things that have become more of a self-inflicted obligation than an interesting diversion. Definitely too short to waste any of it on people who simply take up time and space without making life more interesting or better in any way. Oh, and remind me that if I am ever lucky enough to live next door to a vacant house again, that I should not complain as long as the grass doesn’t get over about knee-high. Not having neighbors was actually something good that I just didn’t appreciate at the time. I know better now.

Life is definitely way, way, way too short to waste it on the freaking spammers who have been a little too active on the blog lately with their fake enthusiastic generic comments that don’t relate to the posts at all. The ones for self-proclaimed dog training blogs that are just scraping content from others, or worse yet, spreading misinformation poorly written by someone for whom English is apparently not a first language, annoy me the most. I might not be a dog training expert, but at least I am not spreading outdated and flat-out wrong information.

Life’s probably too short to complain this much. I’m sure I’ll be able to find the positive again after a good night’s sleep.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 16 of 31)