Mindlessness Matters

This time of year, everything slows down, including, sadly, my dog training. Between the heat, lack of rain, and the fire ants overrunning my tracking fields, my priorities change, there is no beating the summer in late July/August in North Carolina. So Mojo and I do short spurts of obedience with the reward being a floatie toy tossed into the pond, lather, rinse, repeat.

My goal becomes keeping him fit, happy, and keeping both of us sane.
This entire year, I’ve been struggling with insomnia. Headed into the 8th month of the year, with little improvement, despite over the counter remedies, prescription remedies ‘have a glass f wine before you go to bed’, work out before you go to bed, turn off the TV ½ hour before you go to bed, etc., and still no change, I’m resigned to getting comfortable being uncomfortably tired most of the time.

This morning, up far too early (again) I did something I’ve been doing a few times a week for the last 4 years. I got up, and went out to sit on the deck stairs with my first cup of coffee, and play a game of 2-ball fetch with Mojo. Not too long ago I read a discussion thread about how useless this game is. The speakers described the game as “mindless” and the human participant as no better than “a ball machine”. I remember feeling a little bad about doing it when I read the discussion. It’s one of the things I do all summer for sure, but honestly all the time for him. As I watched Mojo light up with joy when I came out the back door with two balls this morning, I decided (again and finally) that I really don’t care what those people think of this game. Dog training pros they might be, and many more may agree., but I know that 2 dozen tosses of a ball before 5 am on a day predicted to hit 100 degrees is Mojo’s equivalent to me sitting down and watching Survivor. It IS mindless. So what of it? I ask a lot of him. I ask him to track well, be quick and correct in obedience, be strong and convincing, and very under control in bite work. I ask him not to bite the neighbors, or my old dog, and overall, Mojo complies. Not always joyfully (okay, rarely joyfully), but he complies.

When I started running I used to go between 4 and 5 am. I started running in July of 2005, I told myself it was because of the heat, really, I just wanted the cover of darkness. Running is hard, and if I needed to stop and suck wind, I wanted as few witnesses as possible. Somewhere along the way I got over that. Maybe just as the running got harder, and I had to focus on it more, I stopped realizing anyone else existed during those “I’m sucking wind” moments. Entirely possible, running hurts.

Whatever the truth, when I watch Mojo racing across the lawn in the pre-dawn hours during our ‘mindless game’ what comes to mind is what his breeder told me when I pushed her about the fact that I hadn’t signed a contract. She said she wasn’t worried about it because she knew I would take care of him. That, in the end is what matters. Of course he needs a job, and mental stimulation, and he has that. But he also needs a bowl of popcorn and a sofa to cheer on idiots left in a jungle with a bag of rice 2 months.

This all may seem simplistic, and maybe it is. I’m not really sure what else someone who hasn’t slept more than 5 hours at a time for the last 8 months is capable of. I just know that the events of the last 8 months of made me re-evaluate a whole host of things in my life., not just dog training bits, some much more personal and hard to hear.

I’m not dumb enough to think I have it all figured out, I've made that mistake too often, but I do know that Mojo is out back, laying in his baby pool, drinking some of the same water, happy. That, coupled with leaning into being okay with the decisions I am making these days, get me a whole lot closer to happy as well.

What have I been doing? Let me show you....

Wanna guess who won this little show down?

Heh. That's MY Boy!

More to come.... did we have some fun..ohyeswedid

Homecoming

Five weeks ago, I went to Plant City, Florida to leave my young dog with this guy. If you go to the link you'll discover he's a multiple world champion competitor/dog trainer in my chosen dog sport.

One of my very favorite things about this sport, is how easy it is to "get to" the people you admire. Say, you or your child wants to be a professional baseball player. Can you just pick up the phone and call Barry Bonds, or Mark Maguire or Derek Jeter and say "hey can I come train/work with you?"

No? Well in my sport, you can, and I did. Just like that. Picked up the phone, said I wanted to come and bang. I was in. What's not to love about that?

So, I took Mojo to the seminar back in January, because even a novice handler like myself was seeing that at 10 months, Mojo was going to be a dog of the wholelotta variety. I worried that I was perhaps, in over my head.

If I tried to compare Mojo to my old, faithful (and first working german shepherd) Apache, I'd tell you they are night and day. Apache lives and loves 'the game', the dog will attempt to turn anything he can, a walk, a trip out to the mailbox, taking the trash out, into a game of some kind. He'll pick up bricks, logs, plastic bottles, and try to draw me into a game of fetch. He loves everyone and everything. He's weathered countless babysitting/visiting dogs, and somewhere around 2 dozen foster dogs traipsing through his home after Hurricane Katrina, he went to work with me when I worked in veterinary medicine, he was a blood donor, and a 'practice' dog for new techs learning to find pulses, veins, and muscles. He did every bit of it without complaint. He loves the sticky hands of the children in my neighborhood, and greets everyone with ears back and tail wagging, especially if he thinks you might be talked into a game of fetch. He is the very best sort of fellow.

Mojo, while no less affectionate or social, is a much more serious dog. He will be more of the stereotypical german shepherd dog. He is/will be more aloof with visitors and much more "my dog" not that he won't be nice, he just won't really care about other people. In work, Apache always looked for my approval, Mojo, on the other hand, barely knows that I'm still there when we're working. He is all business. It is not better or worse, really, it is just different. And different means, I will be learning a lot from this dog. He will make me a better dog trainer and he will likely make a fool of me on more than one occasion. There is nothing like dog sport to keep you humble.

I talked with Ivan last week, and after I processed everything he told me, I have reached the conclusion that I cannot wait.

I leave on Thursday, and will spend the weekend working with Ivan and my dog, and then I'll return home with my dog.

Over the last 5 weeks, I got my running program back on track, dropped 15 pounds, spent time with new friends (horseback riding - yay!), did yard work and organized closets.

It was time well spent, but now, I really do just want my dog back.

The schedule for training sessions will be one early, and then a long break during the hottest part of the day, and then an evening session. The hotel is nice, and I hope to spend some of that long break in the sun by the pool with a book a good friend (who was foolish enough to agree to come along). A mini vacation interrupted by dog training, and I won't even pretend that isn't my idea of perfect.

My time

is not my own these days..it belongs to this little guy.. who looks all sweet and innocent in the photos but - trust me - he's running me ragged.

Someone hit me with something simple, 'kay?

Drive-by blogging - Part II

Last Thursday I made the quick flight up to a little town in Pennsylvania to look at a puppies. An old friend of mine is very competitive in a dog sport I did several years ago and she occasionally breeds good quality German working line shepherds.. I always said I'd someday get a dog from her.

That time is in two weeks.

My new bundle of joy is a boy.

Meet MoJo.

More to come.....