Milk Bone in the Printer

Bad news! Mom may be on the verge of discovering that I’ve been keeping this blog. At any rate, she at least suspects that I’ve been online.

True story:
She was getting ready for our classes the other day, and had to print out a lot of copies of some documents. I don’t know why, really. When she teaches me things, I just learn them, but I guess humans need to have things written down to remember them.

Anyway, for some reason, the printer kept jamming up as she printed. She would clear the paper jams, then resume printing and it would just jam again after a couple of pages. She spent close to an hour taking the printer apart and putting it together again. She even went online and downloaded more information about how to take the printer apart completely. Well, she was pretty frustrated, until she figured out why it had continuously jammed up: there was a piece of milkbone stuck inside the printer!! Needless to say, she was pretty upset about all the time she’d wasted.

The next day, she commented to her friends that this is the kind of thing that would only happen to a dog trainer. I overheard one of them ask her if she was sure that I hadn’t been online and printing some kind of doggy stuff while she was out! She laughed it off, as if this was just silly, but I’m nervous that she might actually start to suspect me!

So, what’s the lesson in all of this? I need to be more careful with my snacks when I’m in here blogging. And make sure that my brothers don’t mess things up for me by spilling their treats, too. From now on, I won’t let them in when I come inside to write. Come to think of it, I need to figure out a way to sneak off when they aren't paying attention, just to be sure.

Cat and Butterfly (or "Herding Cats")

We had a nice day at the home office today. I heard Mom say something about a couple of afternoon appointments cancelling, so we spent the afternoon lounging in the office before going for an early evening run. Well, actually Buzz, Flash and I were lounging and chewing our favorite bones – Mom was at the computer all afternoon, as usual.

While we were there, a lovely butterfly flew into the office through the open side door. It went directly in front of the computer monitor and seemed to mesmerize Mom for a moment. Then, my brother cat, KittyHawk, saw it. That was fun! He came up from behind Mom and jumped right onto the desk – which he’s never allowed to do – knocking a bunch of papers to the ground. Mom caught him and put him back down, and he got right back up again. So she picked him up and put him outside the office, and proceeded to chase the butterfly herself. It appears she wanted the joy of butterfly chasing for herself. She did eventually catch it and then walked it to the door and let it fly away. KittyHawk was wondering what the point is of catching a butterfly – or any critter, for that matter – if you’re not going to continue to play with it? Personally, I like larger critters, like sheep or even cats like KittyHawk himself, to herd around.

Yes, herding cats – I have occasionally been tasked with this. KittyHawk happens to be a bit of an escape artist sometimes. When he does bolt outside, Mom sends me out with the usual “go by” and “away to me” and then some “walk up” to bring him back into the house. The odd thing is that when I do walk up, he doesn’t move away from me the way that sheep do. He just sits there and hunkers down. I wasn’t sure what to do with that the first time that we practiced it, so Mom told me to “get the kitty”, and I just held him there until Mom came up the hill to fetch him. I’m still not sure why he’s not allowed outside, but it makes for good practice, since I haven’t seen sheep in a while. Hmm… sheep… I love herding sheep… sure hope we could do that again soon.

They call me a "cougar"

I finally got to go back to my agility class this afternoon after having to take 3 weeks off for my torn toenail. What fun! I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it, and my mom and I were truly in sync today. Really fun courses.

At class, my favorite boyfriend was there. Let's call him "Zip" (not his real name). He's just 14 months old, but intact and completely adorable. He invited me to play, as usual, and since I was off-leash this time, I accepted his invitation and we romped for a moment, until Mom called me off and I had to go back to work. -sigh- He's absolutely dreamy! He's a gorgeous black tri-color border collie with a mostly white face and the most amazing bedroom eyes I've ever seen. (meow!) And his coat is simply luxurious!

After my course run, I was put on a down-stay just 10 feet away from where he was laying, and I had to turn away so as not to tempt myself further. I overheard my mom and the other ladies chatting about us, and one of the gals, the mom of a young Malamute in the class(he's also kind of cute) mentioned that she didn't approve, and that I was just *much* too old to be with "Zip". I have to say that I couldn't disagree more, and if I wasn't spayed, I think we'd make the most perfect couple.

We have SO much in common: we both love agility, love to work, adore our moms, enjoy romping together now and then, and we're both in households with multiple sports dogs in our families. We'd have a lot to relate to each other about. Ah well, but it will never be. Like Romeo and Juliet, our parents won't ever let us actually be together, so I guess I'll just have to dream about him and his fluffy tail and smiling eyes. -sigh-