Our Girl Cedar

Cedar, I’ve decided, is a smooth-coat Sheltie. Her coloring is certainly a mahogany. The Sheltie “mask” is evident on her face. The white tips and chest blaze finish up the coloration. But there’s no undercoat and, frankly, no overcoat either. And those big bat ears are never going to tip. She’ll be 20 weeks old tomorrow.

Cedar will not be rushed into competition. We intend to take it all slow and easy. Most likely she’ll see her first competition in the TDAA where dogs are small and friendly. The important thing about TDAA agility is that it will make her sharp in a way that’s not possible in big dog agility play.

Her training foundation will be as complete as we are capable. We’re obviously putting a high premium on independent performance. She’ll be a free spirit in a Velcro world.

Right now the emphasis is teaching directional… “Left” and “Right” and “Go On!”  We’re also making basic obstacle introductions. Pretty soon I’m going to add the Back Pass to the mix. Though I think I really need to blog up how to teach this skill and why I think it’s going to be an important handling/dog skill over the next decade.

40 Hour Work Week

You know the old joke that goes “How can you tell when a politician is lying?” Well, these days it’s a bit more complicated than watching to see if their lips move. They’re all getting real clever with language. Do you remember when they foisted the “Patriot Act” on us? That was the legislation that committed us to 12 years of a ridiculous war that cannot be won. There’s never been anything patriotic about the Patriot Act. It’s just a clever bit of language crafted to shame and pressure.

Today however we have the unique opportunity to see who is lying to us and, frankly, who is betraying the middle class. Every one of them who is spouting some sound-bite about “We need to restore the 40 hour work week!” … is a liar and a rat fink.

Here’s the deal, what they’d like to do is redefine a “part time” employee, who doesn’t get any of the perks of a full time employee as somebody who works less than 40 hours a week. That means if you work 38 hours a week, then you’re a temp. That really works out for the American corporation! They get to save a whole bunch of money (while screwing a whole bunch of working people.)

You don’t have to go far to see who wants to lie to you and betray you. Flip over to Fox Network. They are fond of liars and promote them at every opportunity.

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Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston Houston.Bud@gmail.com. The web store is up and running. www.dogagility.org/newstore. I have five volumes (over 100 pp each) of The Joker’s Notebook available on my web-store at an inexpensive price. These are lesson plans suitable for individual or group classes for teaching dog to work at a distance.

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Tags: Cedar Shakes the Woof, Patriot Act