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I haven't seen Tango and Lily for over a week! It's torture, I tell you, torture! I'm going to remedy that today. Nemo and I (poor Nemo, he's not a fan of car rides, and here I am putting him in the car again) are headed to my parent's place to reunite with the Labradors!

The gang's not all together, not even tonight. There's the issue of the new puppy we're raising: we're picking her up Friday on our way home. Her name is Caysun (or something like that) and she's a little black Labrador pup from Service Dogs of Virginia in Charlottesville. The only thing I know about her is that she's the "bolder one." Whohoo! A bold puppy! Sounds a lot like Ike. 

Speaking of Ike. He will come back into the fold tomorrow night after I get the other four dogs home from Lake Anna. He's due to return by 8p tomorrow night. All the dogs (except Nemo, of course) were farmed out because I went to K9 Nose Work Camp in the Poconos. 

Then – finally – we'll be whole again. 

Nemo and I are back from K9 Nose Work Camp. We're dry, we're clean, we're warm, we're ready to start training for our first Nose Work trial!

This was my first event, trip, outing, whatever you want to call it, with Nemo. He's my husband's dog. And I was more than a little worried that Nemo would miss my husband. 

Nemo DID miss my husband. He also missed the other three dogs, too. Nose Work camp threw him for a loop. There were so many new and different things: 

• a cabin, for one thing
• new and different dogs everywhere
• me leaving him in the crate in a strange place with strange dogs barking within earshot
• training in at least three different locations each day AND
• being left in a crate while I watched my classmates run their dogs

You can read about our highs and lows in this post. Overall, it was a good experience for Neems and me. We learned about each other, worked through some tough problems, and came through it no worse for wear. I had really wanted to bring Tango, my yellow Labrador. He's my main guy, my traveling companion, the dog I do everything with. But I hadn't acclimated Tango to crating in the months leading up to our trip. 

It's good to stretch our limits, both canine and human. Nemo and I learned a lot about searching. And each other. About Nemo, I found out that Nemo is more sensitive than I ever knew and he relies much more on the other dogs in our household than I realized. About myself, I found out that I am a whole lot more sensitive to Nemo's reactions than I knew (I need him to rely on me, and when he doesn't my feelings are hurt. Waaaah, poor me.)

I also found out how danged hard it is to schlep all the things a human and a dog need for camp! It's challenging enough to navigate between three sessions at three different camp locations each day with a dog at the end of the leash, and all the supplies (working harness, long lead, treats, blanket, chair) but add in some rain, mud, and a ripped up crate, and you've got yourself a real mess! 

Now that Nemo's passed his odor recognition test (ORT) for birch, I've got two new goals lined up: (1) get Tango ready for a December ORT and (2) get Nemo trial ready. I've got my work cut out for me, but I feel more confident after attending a great K9 Nose Work camp!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Yes, I know I’m plagiarizing, but it fits our situation perfectly. Nemo and I are at K9 Nose Work camp in the mountains of Pennsylvania. We’re here to take our Odor Recognition Test (ORT) – a requirement before we can start competing in Nose Work trials.

Nemo passed the ORT with flying colors. He did better than me, if we’re telling the truth here. (What else is new, right? The dog’s stellar performance props up handler.

I was as high as I could be – we did it! We’re now ready to start training for competition. We have a long way to go before we compete, but it was satisfying to accomplish that milestone.

Contrast that high with today, which was filled with some pretty low lows. Nemo, who has never had trouble crating, actually busted out of his soft crate during our working sessions today. A few rakes of his paw against the mesh opened the front hatch right up. A few teeth placed just right, accompanied by a few tugs, and that hole was just the right size for Nemo to fit through.

Thankfully, he didn’t actually escape, thanks to some of my alert teammates. But his crate is now worthless for the remaining three days of camp.

A ripped up crate and half-escaped dog doesn’t sound all that bad?

I’m not done with the rest of my story.

So we’re out searching for a hide on the exterior (fancy way of saying the hide is outside). Nemo, a dog who’s *never* peed on a search stops to pee. In the world of Nose Work, that’s one of the biggest no-no’s out there. If that happens in a competition, you will fail that part of the test (and therefore will not earn your title that day).

So Nemo’s peeing in the middle of a search. After he’s destroyed his crate. Still not bad enough for you? Wait, I’ve got more.

I went to interrupt Nemo, and got my shoe right in the way of the pee. You got it: I also got pee all over my shoe (and my sock) today.

Thank goodness yesterday was a good day. That’s what’s keeping me up and running.

How does the song go? Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. Today I was the bug. No matter, we’re still having fun, still learning a ton. And I now have a camp story that will make people laugh.

We spent the last week on vacation at Lake Anna (Virginia). We vacation here every year. We like to vacation with our dogs (what fun is a vacation if you're not with the dogs, we say!)

This was one of our better vacations: the weather was fabulous (sometimes the middle of August can be blazing hot, go figure), the swimming was good, and the food was even better. 

Which makes Monday — specifically the Monday immediately following vacation — really tough. It's double-tough because the dogs give me the look. You know the look – it's the "when are we going swimming" look. It's killing me. 

So now, not only am I grumpy because I'm not at the lake, I'm grumpy because my dogs are sad that they aren't at the lake. It's double-grump day here. 

This picture of Tango, my yellow Labrador, is perfect. A wet dog, cradling his oh-so-precious bumper, laying on a wet dock. Does it get any better than this, from a dog's perspective? 

And below, he's taking a quick nap on the boat before we hit land again. Land = more swimming, more jumping, more retrieving! 

In a nutshell, we all wish we were back at the lake!

My parents have a dog named Copper. She's a good girl, but she gets over-excited very quickly. When we want to take our four dogs down to the lake, it's mayhem. All four of ours are ready to rock out the door, and Copper is too, but she's not allowed down at the lake with my dogs. She chases Tango, bites him, and generally makes a nuisance of herself. 

My parents are old-school: yell at the dog, grab her by the collar and MAKE her stay. Yeah, that works. [Not.] And I'm just the daughter. I'm not a professional dog trainer — to them. 

After about four days of enduring the same process (with the same, predictable results — Copper continued to bark and thrash about — it was escalating in fact. Surprised? Not me…but I digress), I decided to just step in and do things my way. 

I got a Kong, put a little peanut butter in it and gave it to Copper as we were walking out the door. If you'd not witnessed the chaos the way my parents were handling things, you'd never have believed it. Instead of anticipating our leaving with barks, whines, and jumps, Copper laid on the floor and worked that Kong like she'd been doing it her whole life. 

If we'd have stuck with the old way, it was very clear that Copper's behavior would escalate. All that collar-grabbing and excited state was going to lead to some unfortunate teeth-on-skin action, I can almost guarantee it. Then it would have been "Bad dog! Rotties are so aggressive! We need to heavy hand her even more now." Ugh, the thought of it just turns my stomach.

So. There's an easy answer (give the dog something else to do) and there's a hard answer (MAKE the dog obey you no matter what). I'll take the easy way any old day. 

By choosing the easy way, we're not just solving the problem. We're actually changing Copper's expectations. Instead of getting more ramped up, frustrated, and frantic, she's now calm — but eagerly anticipating — getting that little smear of PB out of the Kong. Voila. 

It's not rocket science. It's just good training. 

Quick, anyone know the movie? (Answer's at the bottom.)

It's been a rough week here. I've had more troubles and snafu's this week than I care to remember: There have been brand new video camera malfunctions (and subsequent returns to the store), adventures with Comcast (our local phone, internet and cable company) that has included (so far): a trip to the facility (about an hour round-trip), 2 modems, a gateway, and countless hours on the phone. I've restarted my computer a million kajillion times. And I still don't have wi-fi.

We've lost cable channels. Our dial tone randomly disappears. Tonight, we had no cable whatsoever. Which left us with no tv, no internet. Lovely.

Today, I had a 4.5 hour car trip in front of me. The good news: Tango was along for the ride! What could go wrong? (Never ever ask that question!) Well, the 4.5 hour trip turned out to be 6 hours. I was late to my event. 

So to cap of the stellar (not!) week I'd had, it was only fitting that when I picked up Tango's poo, my finger found the only hole in the entire stupid pickup bag. 

Lovely.

The movie I quoted tonight, when my finger got the poo on it: Joe Dirt with David Spade. (One of my all time favorites.) 

Let's hope next week brings me clean fingers, a consistent dial tone, all the wi-fi I could ever want, and our full cable lineup (with HD)!