February 22nd, 2004

Two years ago today, an earth-changing thing occurred....I WAS BORN!!! That's right, today is my birthday. (I petitioned for it to be a national holiday, but it looks like some guy named "Washington" beat me to it...)

It's been quite a ride so far, but I've enjoyed every minute of it...

Much love to my mom, Caana & Jasper & Wishes of many wonderful years to come for all...

Shells Of What Once Were Dogs...

Seeing as my birthday is one week from today and all, I figured I would post a pic of me in my early days...exhausted from training!

Jasper, Caana & I watched the Westminster Dog Show finale last night. There were times that I had to hide my eyes...those poor dogs. It was hard to see any life or drive in them at all behind the exquisitely groomed facades. I think they have entirely forgotten how to be DOGS. The picture of the GSD that they showed "working" (herding sheep) was a dog from 1971!!! I guess that's because these sloped, angled & crippled shepherds of today have no stamina for herding in the real world. They've just been bred to perform a 'flying-trot' around the show ring, all the while having their heads cranked upright by a taut lead. How sad. What a disgrace to Von Stephanitz's vision for my breed. We were, after all, supposed to be bred for working ability, not looks.

I'm so glad to have a life where I get to run and romp and play and track & bite when neccessary. I couldn't imagine being run around in circles in a ring all day long. Heck, I can't even imagine having a leash and collar on all the time. I much prefer the unrestrained life...the trade off is that I do whatever my mom asks me to do, whenever she needs me to do it, no exceptions. In my mind, that's a small price to pay for my dignity, free will, fresh air & life as a dog.

End of the Dog-opoly

OK, so I give props to Summit for creating his own website and all, but he can be SUCH an attention hog. So I hacked his blog and made some changes. Ha.

Let me introduce myself, I am Caana the 'Wusky', recently crowned 'Agility Queen'. Yesterday at training, two new agility obstacles were unveiled. The first of which is called 'Walk The Plank'. It's a 12' 4x4 running about 3' in the air (basically, a balance beam). Summit went first with the rest of the class and uhm, well, he made it across and all...but let's face it, the guy's got some clodhoppers! When it was my turn, I cruised across...no worries, folks, I've got serious SKILLS.

The second obstacle is a 6' vertical wall jump. No real problems for either of us there, we just bounded on over. Even the short-legged dogs managed to power over it!

Yesterday was a FUN day of training all around. I think we may have nearly worn out our protection decoy, though...we were all cheering on Thor during the send-outs! What fun...

My newly-honed agility skills should come in quite handy when Summit sees what I've done to his blog...heh, heh, heh...

Snow Day

Well, some snow finally fell here, just in time for training on Saturday. It was cold and wet and only the hard-core dogs came out. Agility was pretty crazy with ice-covered obstacles. Caana certainly managed to make it look easy, though.

The highlight of my day was tracking. I love snow and being able to tow my mom through the woods like that...what fun! I seriously think she should consider the sport of skijoring, 'cause she is certainly more agile on a snow-covered incline in skis than she is with me dragging her around on foot! Hee hee...I'm still pulling thorns out of my face and legs one by one, but crashing through the brush is my specialty, and the snow just made it that much more enjoyable. Finding lost people was never so much fun!

We did finally manage to successfully defrost Jasper, so that would be a negative on the jazz-sicles.

*Sigh* All in a day's work...

"Working" Dog

Sometimes presiding over an all-human office is not everything it's cracked up to be...! *Yawn*...is it time for bitework yet?