Faith restored

My trust in my human companions has been restored (perhaps only briefly, but still baby steps are important steps). True to rumor, we DID go to a Border Collie Picnic on Saturday and we DID go to flyball practice today (and herding last Thursday WAS canceled). AND, best of all, the people DID enroll me in an advanced agility class and it starts tomorrow--wheeeeee.


The picnic was the annual Great Lakes BC Rescue picnic. We love GLBCR because that's how we got Tansy in Feb. 2005. And since Tansy came to our house, my people have also worked pretty hard to help other Border Collies who need new families.

Me and my gang let 11 other pups hang out at our house (not all at once--one at a time thank goodness) while my people looked for new homes for them. That's what people call "fostering". My friends at Dogs with Blogs, the ones who convinced me to keep on blogging, also help pupsters in need by giving all the "dogs with blogs" proceeds to a rescue organization in Australia. There's so many people who don't treat their dogs in ways befitting a dog that it's so nice for all of us to know that there are also lots of people who work really hard to help.

Anyway, the picnic was fun--50+ Border Collies and Border Collies mixes (and a few others who get to be honorary BCs on the day of the picnic--like Billy's awesome Rottie sister, Grace Anne) all running around off leash, doing border collie kinds of things at the Bluhm County dog park in LaPorte, IN.

Flyball was pretty fun too and I got lots of compliments on how I run like the wind. Hamish did pretty well, but he still needs to get a better sense of where his back legs are. He's been complaining that he doesn't have a blog of his own. Right now, he's laying on his back, wiggling around, "talking" and kicking his back legs like a human infant--he is such a goof. I had to take the computer back to my crate just to get away from the embarrassment of it all. I don't think he's quite ready for the big-time world of blogging.

In any case, it was a pretty good week-end and I'm happy that what my people said was going to happen did.

Today's vision from the Pippin puppy archive
Little me in the snow

On being a girl

It's come to my attention that some of my friends and admirers think that I am a boy. I have nothing against boys--I live with three of them (this is not my choice exactly, but the people haven't ever asked me before hauling another one of those scamps into my life)--but I am, decidedly, not one. (I mean really, do you see any evidence of testosterone in that picture of me up there?).

Not only am I not a boy, I am very much a girl--one might even call me a girly girl. A diva. A lady. I give very delicate kisses (unlike my goofy brother Hamish whose kisses can leave bruises on unsuspecting human skin); I watch my manners carefully around people and other dogs (unlike the oaf puppy Rafe who barrels through life as if the world is his oyster); I do not abide any humping and certainly would never dream of such myself (unlike my buddy Renzo who can be most embarrassing in his zeal). Even my gal pal Tansy is a little rough around the edges and barks much more and much more loudly than the mores of refined gentlepupdom really allow.

I think some of the confusion about my gender comes from my name. Thanks to the Broadway muscial and the character from Lord of the Rings, Pippin has been claimed mostly for boys. I myself was named for an apple, however (like my friend Pippin in N.Y., who left me a comment but has no blog for me to reciprocate on and also left no e-mail address). The person who "bred" me has an apple last name (McIntosh). My people had some different names picked out for me: Scout and Spy were at the top of the list, but didn't really fit once they met me. My goofy brother Hamish, who came from the same apple person, also has an apple in his name--Hamish Braeburn.

My people call me all kinds of other things, too. Here are a few of them: Pippy, Pip, Pipkin, Pippy-dip, Pippy-dippy-do, Pip-dip, Dipples, Dippykins, Pip-slip, Pippikins, Pippineaster, Pippin Noodle, Noodlehead, Dippiy-do and so forth (I agree, they do seem somewhat limited in their imagination....)

So, I just wanted to set the record straight about my girlishness since I know it can be embarrassing for anydog to suddenly discover that the pup you thought of as a possible beer-drinking, slap-on-the-butt kind of buddy turns out to be a delicate flower who would never dream of doing anything more than politely lick the top of the beer bottle before retiring to her bed. And definitely no derriere slapping.

Picture of the day from the Pippin Puppy Archive
My first puppy bone

Desperate times call for desperate measures

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last posted--I kept telling my person, but did she listen? No, of course not. New classes have started at the training kennel where my people take us and, would you believe it, of the five dogs in my house, I am the ONLY one the people didn't enroll in a class.

"We're taking you to another training place for agility since you're a little more advanced," they said. "You've had the most classes of any of the dogs," they said. "Your goofy little brother Hamish looks like a dunce since we haven't taught him much," they said. "Rafe needs some basic obedience," they said. "You still have herding on Thursdays and flyball on Sundays," they said.

Do you think I believe any of it? I *love* training classes and I *love* the training kennel. I'm sure this means my people don't *love* me. Plus, Rafe keeps looking at me and goofy Hamish keeps barking loudly which prompts the people to say "Quiet, Quiet" (I don't know why they think that command means anything to any of us).

So, today, I'm once again distressed and distraught at the people. Last night, just to show my feelings, I rooted around in one of their studies and came up with a paltry Priority Mail box to chew. It's like something Hamish would think of and really pretty far below my normal fare--hardly even worth the bother. (Dear Maximillian the Valiant, my people have been thwarting my every attempt at delectables from the counters. I almost had a muffin this morning, but alas, I was caught before I could make off with it).

Although not my usual challenge, I had resigned myself to the priority mail box when suddenly Rafe appeared from around the corner. In my utter distraction, I lost hold of the box and away it tumbled.















My people didn't even try to make amends by taking down that embarrassing baby gate and getting it back for me.

Honestly, friends, I don't know where this is all leading. I heard a rumor last night that our herding lessons have been canceled this week because the instructor is "breeding" one of her dogs and has to go somewhere to meet the boy dog. They didn't take us to flyball practice on Sunday either--something about needing to clean the house.

On a positive note, I also heard my people talking about a "Border Collie picnic" this coming Saturday, so I'm hoping that will turn out to be something good. They also agreed with each other that if we missed flyball last Sunday, we'd go this coming Sunday.

On flyball, I'm still just working on improving my turn on the right. It's coming along and I have to admit, I have fun doing it. Plus, who can knock the treats and the one-on-one attention?

Today's picture from the Pippin Puppy Archive
The first picture of my ear standing up.

From the Pippin puppy archives

Since I couldn't post pictures yesterday, I thought I'd post some of my favorites from my puppy days.






This first one is from my very first day with my people on Jan. 1, 2004. I was exactly 7 weeks old. I was born in Canada and I howled like a seagull the whole way from Canada to Michigan (about 6 hours).







This one was when I was about 14 weeks old. My ear stood up about 2 weeks before this and it never went back down (and the other one never stood up). Yes, I was truly this adorable.








This is me with my good buddy Fritz the cat. When he first came to live with my people, he was really afraid of dogs, but now he loves us and even calls us to come play with him.







And this is me playing with a squash. I have always been very resourceful at getting my needs met.

Flyball Sunday

Hi friends,

Before I had to run off to play tag, I was intending to tell you about flyball (my person tried to do it on Sunday, but the computer ate my post before it got loaded--or so she says). Flyball in the fall goes right along with football (American football that is) and since both fall and football are nearly upon us, it's time to talk about flyball as football.

We are in the "two a day" practice stage on the flyball front, and working hard on the fundamentals. Since my position shift from left side to right side (on the turn that is), I'm having to really work hard to master the swimmer's turn on the right. I did pretty great at practice, as I have for the last two times. Yay me. My goofy brother Hamish also made some important strides and my buddy Renzo continues to refine his box and run-back. Rafe also joined us (and only looked at me once!) but he was just doing something called "socialization". My people said he did pretty good. We are feeling good for our up-coming match mid-September. Renzo will be a starter, but Hamish and I are still working the bench for now. Tansy and Rafe remain spectators to this great sport.

Rather than posting lessons, I thought I'd post a few pictures from the puppy archives (since I was my people's first puppy, you can imagine the breadth and depth of those archives, too); however, blogger is not cooperating at the moment and my person can't find my flickr information, so I'll post from the puppy archives next time

Tag!!! You're it

I got tagged by Hershey, Charlie Kelley-Church, Boomer and the beagles at Beagledom. I've been dancing back and forth to get my person to finally respond. I never knew there was tag!!

Here's the game:

The player of this game starts with "5 weird things/habits about yourself." Then the player tags 5 friends and list their names. The furries who get tagged need to write on their blogs about their 5 weird things/habits, as well as state this rule clearly, then tag 5 more victims. Don't forget to leave your victim a comment that says "you're tagged!" in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

5 weird things about me...

1. I sometimes don't like to come in the back door

2. I wipe my face after my meals on either the couch or my people's bed

3. I sometimes don't want to go in the car and hide in my crate so they people have to come find me. It's not that I don't like the car--I'm just a homebody.

4. I don't like to eat the "meaty" heartworm pills like all the other dogs and have to have mine coated with peanut butter.

5. I like to herd ants and other small bugs when I can find them.

I tagged Billy, Ayatollah Mugsy, Minou, Sunshade and Moonshadow

Lazy summer day

Well, not much to report from Michigan today. My person has been working on my box training this week, so that's pretty much what I've been doing. Get the ball from the box over and over and over. Cool thing is, I'm actually getting better. My person has gone off to pick blueberries, so I had to hurry and get on the computer so I could write this up. She'll be back soon, so I have to run back to look like I'm napping--then she'll feel bad and do something with me.

Lesson for today
Some days there just aren't many lessons

Woolies

My people surprised me yesterday by loading all the border collies up in the van and driving us to our herding instructor's house. Normally, we go herding on Thursdays, but last Thursday it was storming, so we couldn't go.

When we got there, I got to do an obstacle course. The first picture is me moving the sheep around the "handler's pole". In real herding trials, the dog has to bring the flock to the handler and then take the sheep around the pole. I'm doing a pretty good job of staying back off the sheep so they don't run the instructor over--she doesn't like that very much and often yells "time!!" if the sheep are coming in. The people don't like it if the sheep step on them.

Sheep herding takes quite a bit of concentration--it's not for every dog, that's for sure. The commands involved are "Come bye" (move the sheep clockwise); "away to me" (move the sheep counter clock-wise); "lie down" (stop and if you can remember, lie down); "walk up" (walk toward the sheep); "time" (sometimes also "easy", means slow down); "get out" (don't cut in on the sheep) and, of course, "that'll do" (work's done). If you've seen the movie "Babe", you've seen all these commands in action but with a pig of course. Lots of border collie web sites and paraphenalia also makes goofy use of some of the commands (like "Thanks for coming bye"). I don't really approve of that. This is serious work after all.

In this second picture, I've put the sheep in the pen and am lying down awaiting the next command (which it turns out is "that'll do").

Just like in flyball, there's lots to learn with sheep herding. One thing I have to learn (just like I did in flyball) is to have more confidence. I get a little nervous if the instructor asks me to run too far away to get the sheep and I often just come running back. I think once my person is out there with me, I might feel a little better. When I'm feeling especially worried, I start nosing around for some sheep poop. That usually makes me feel better.

Anyway, back on the homefront, my work with Rafe-oaf continues. I don't know what it's going to take to teach him to stop staring at me. The newest indignity that has befallen me because of him is that he actually thinks he can pounce at me to make me give up a bone I'm chewing. If I'm chewing it, of course, that means it's MINE. I made him crouch on the ground and say uncle twice, but he still thought he could take it away. Then, to test him, I left it on the floor in front of me, but I kept my eyes on it. He came over, but I didn't budge and I showed him all of my teeth. Luckily, he left. Tansy cheered loudly.

Lesson for today
You never know when you might get to see the woolies

Wow--9 comments

I got NINE comments on my blog yesterday--that's more than in the whole previous two years combined. Being a dog and all, what that says to me is that I should quit every day (e.g. some behavior got a particular desired response). My person said I couldn't, though. Human rules really are far too illogical, but since I don't have the opposable thumbs, I'm somewhat at their mercy for some of my creative endeavors (others I am quite good at all by myself, like skillfully removing cat food from the kitchen counter. My people don't appreciate my creative talents nearly enough, however.)

Here's a picture of me with my gal pal, Tansy, just for those of you who love speckle faces (I'm in back)


Anyway, I realize I've gotten a little far from my original flyball focus, so I wanted to explain my training exercise from yesterday. Like I posted previously, since I let the people know that I like to turn right, not left, I have to re-learn my turn. So, my person had me catching the ball off the wall. That means she threw it so it bounced once on the floor, hit the wall and the bounced off and I was supposed to catch it off the wall. That simulates it coming out of the box. She was laughing and having fun, so I did too. My catch off the real box improved some, so that was good.

My other activities yesterday included continuing work on Rafe's education about doggy manners. That boy has one thick skull. Here's a picture of him. My people really like him because he looks so a-typical.

Even the people in the Border Collie rescue group where Tansy came from weren't sure he was a border collie. My people have some papers, though, with a lot of funny names like "Snip" and "Wisp", places like "Isle of Man" and "Ireland", and some marks that mean "International Champion" on them and they say that means he is BC through and through. They have papers like that for all four of us BCs in the family. Like I said, humans are kind of hard to figure sometimes. Does it really matter that much?

BC or not, he is one rude youngster. Just this morning, he laid down right in front of me and just stared. Then, when I showed him my ferocious teeth, he laid over on his side, still staring and actually touched my paw with his nose. Well, you can understand how appalled I was, I'm sure. Tansy was saying "move away, move away, move away" as only she can, but it took a low growl from me to finally get the big oaf to move back to his side of the room. Trying, trying times at my house. Thank goodness for flyball and sheep.

Today's lesson?
Don't try to understand people rules unless they affect you directly. They affect you if the human is holding a toy or food or making a clicky sound or calling your name or giving another dog attention

Big woofs to my new friends

Since I posted in despair about not having anyone to read my blog, I've gotten e-mails from some new friends.

First I heard from Ninja, a very handsome German Shepherd. You can read about him at German Shepherds and Bunnies.

Then, I heard from a very cute dachshund, Copper. He writes about his thoughts on things at JustMeCopper.

Then, just this morning, I heard from a labrador retriever named Opy, who is the original gruff puppy.

You can read about all kinds of dogs who keep blogs at the Dogs With Blogs site.

After all the heat of the last couple days, today is a rainy day. I've been working hard to teach our new friend, Rafe, to stop looking at me. He's kind of dense about it, though.

One of my people has a birthday today--Happy Birthday, Duck-mom.

Lesson for the day
Youngsters take a long time to learn not to stare, so a good snarl is always an important part of any dog's toolbox

Hot day today

It's been blistering hot in our fair neck of the woods and that usually means less activities for us. My silly little brother Hamish overheats very easily and my person is something of a wimp too. Neither of them seem to understand the "under a shady tree" principle for dealing with heat, silly creatures.

I have been working on my flyball box this week. Here's the dilemma: I was trained to turn to the left (the "fast" side) and I have an AWESOME box--tight turn, good spring, all four feet up. But, I forgot to tell them when they were training me that I prefer to turn to the right. They figured it out once they added in the ball, but the dilemma is that my box when I turn to the right is less than stellar--it's more like a stroll and I only go up with my front feet, which, besides being slow and meaning I drop the ball a lot, also means more pounding on my shoulders.

The solution, you ask? More training. My people aren't very smart about doing it either, but I'm reminding myself to be patient and maybe they'll figure it out one of these days. In the meantime, I've decided to revive last year's "lesson of the day" (more like "lesson of the post", but you get the idea).

Lesson for today
Upward pressure on a buckle collar is not really the same thing as a choke chain (yeah right)

I've reconsidered

Well, in addition to the two comments I got from Ninja and JustMeCopper (thanks loads guys), some others have persuaded me that my words are not just disappearing into the cyber-nether.

I went to a training seminar this week-end. Boy did I have some things to learn. Me and my person learned it'd probably be good to go back and do some basics like "watch" and "sit". Kind of embarrassing for her, but it's all tricks to me.

Here's a picture of all the dogs that live at my house. Can you find me? There are four of us Border Collies (and we all look a little different) and my buddy, Renzo. There are also still those three cats, but we don't like to talk about them. Especially not the mean old one.

Not enough fans

Well, I've gotten pretty discouraged about my blog lately. I post my various missives and have been doing so off and on for almost two years; however, I get so little fan mail that I've decided that it might be time to close the blog down for a while. It's been a great run for me and I've enjoyed sharing my various triumphs with everyone (even though I don't know who you are).

I've gotten very busy with things other than flyball, too--herding, agility, running after my brother, keeping up with the foster dogs and now, to top it all off, my people added a new friend to the household and I've got a lot of work just making sure he understands what the rules are.

Since I started my blog, my people have added three more Border Collies to our house (I was the first one and they love me so much that they just keep adding more of us) and have fostered 11. I"m glad they are taking a break on that since it was hard on me, but it was also pretty cool to teach 11 new kidz the ropes.

Anyway, I might revive the blog at some point in the future if enough fans tell me they miss me, but until then

Today's lesson
You have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them.

Bye Bye!!

My favorite things, part II

Hi Everyone,

Now that the opposable thumbs person I have to rely on to type these missives has gotten over her astonishment at my flyball and agility prowess, she's agreed to continue with what I consider to be a much more important mission--namely, my list of favorite things. When I left off last, I'd mentioned some things I like to eat, including wooden spoons. I was lucky to get a taste of one of those last night. Here's what my people found when they got home:


I was bummed because really, I was just taking a little break and intended to get right back to it. Oh well. Here's me doing something I like to do--watch for interlopers while sitting on the couch

You can hardly see me for all the books and magazines, I know--I don't know why the people like that stuff so much and they don't even try to eat it.

So, on to the important list of my favorite things. I'll stick with edibles for now:

sheep poop
pens with plastic lids
pants' pockets, preferably those that once held doggie treats
raw hamburger
carrots
ice cubes
kitty poop

And today's important lesson??

Best to sleep under a tree when it's hot

I still rock

So, after my big day on Sunday with flyball, I had just as big a time at agility on Tuesday. I was really rocking through all the obstacles--paid attention to my person and all that stuff. It's like I'm a different dog. Or that's what my person says, but I've been trying to tell her for months that I was just not ready yet and to be patient--I mean, you don't push a 10 y.o. human child to do what an 18 y.o. can do. At least I hope not. If you do, you really shouldn't.

Lesson for the year

Be patient--this means people too!

I rock

It is true, I do. Really.

As many of my fans know, I've taken a bit of a break from flyball. Really almost a year. I mentioned we were going to start up again. So we did. My person brought her trainer friend over and they worked with me a little bit. They even made a plan. They decided that I was missing some piece of flyball, but they couldn't figure out what.

My person decided to bring me to practice one day and to video tape me while I just ran the course. Mind you, I've never just run the course before, but everyone thought it would be a good idea to see what I'd do and then see if we--or I mean they-- could figure out what was missing.

We did that on Sunday. Here are the video results. I fooled them, didn't I, hee hee.

I guess my secret is out. I've known how to do it for a while, but they never set it up so that I could show them that. Who knows what will happen next. But in the meantime, I rock. Really, I do.

My favorite things, part I

I have some musings on things I like to eat that aren't good for me. They include (in no particular order):

waffles and other fine baked goods
cat food
cat food cans
dog food cans
paper
wooden spoons and spatulas

My goofy little brother Hamish likes to eat shoes and socks. My buddy Renzo and my friend Tansy are perfect and only eat what is handed to them (suckers). The cats, well, who really cares about them?

I'm back

Here is a picture of me doing my newest activity. It's not flyball, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

It's called "sheepherding" and it's what I was made to do. In fact, flyball and agility and games like that were invented to give Border Collies like me something to do in case we didn't have sheep to play with.

I've been having a break from flyball and we're not sure where I'm headed with that. My person started working with me again today and I had a REALLY good time. I also heard her talking to a trainer friend of ours and I heard them say that our trainer friend was going to come to our house to see if she could help my person help me learn to like flyball. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I know that I get to go see the sheep (some people call them the "woolies") almost every week and that's really fun for me right now. I'm pretty good at it, too, but mostly, I just love having fun and seeing my people so happy to see me work.

Oh yeah, there's two other things that happened since I was last posting regularly. First, my people started doing this thing called "fostering" which means that a Border Collie who needs a new home comes and hangs out at our house for a little while--kind of like an in-between place. My person said I should tell you that this is one of the reasons she couldn't keep my blog updated, but she's going to work harder at it now.


The other thing that happened is that my people brought a new friend to our house. He's actually my little brother (we have the same mom, but he has a different dad) and the people call him "Hamish" which is much more Scottish than Pippin. He's pretty fun and he's learning sheep herding and flyball, too.

My people haven't worked as much with him as they did with me, but he doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear.



He's what's called a "red tri", which means he's tri-colored and the dominant color is a reddish brown (in Australia and New Zealand, this color is called "chocolate"). Like me, he has some speckles on his face and legs, but unlike me, both his ears do the same thing. I'll tell you more about him as I continue to post.

Glad to be back. I hope I hear from some of my fans....

Hi Everybody,

I'm back--it's been almost a year, but my person has been very busy.  I'm still working on flyball, but in the meantime, I've started to learn about SHEEP

Only three weeks have past this time

Well, it's me again, writing from cloudy Ann Arbor. My person has been pretty busy these last couple of weeks (that's what she *always* says, but who knows) and I'm sure I"m losing fans because I'm not able to pen my thoughts as easily. Maybe things will look up in the near future--we'll see.

Big news on the flyball front is that my buddy Renzo had a real-live, regular running spot on a team at Spring-Loaded's tournament last week-end. He had a little trouble (but it wasn't really his fault), but I think things are really going to fly for him.

For me, well, I realized that the box is really pretty scary when there is a ball in it and I don't much like it when the ball pops out. I had a perfectly good solution, which was to just pull the ball out of the hole rather than hit the box--kills two birds as it were. I don't have to hear that loud sound and the ball doesn't pop out at me.

But for some reason, all the people seem kind of unhappy with this solution. So, my person and I are working on something she calls "desensitization". I"m not sure what it means, but I know that she carries me (yes, physically, since I won't go to the box on my own) to the box and then when it makes that awful loud sound, I get a cookie. I still don't want to stand too close, but who am I to turn down cookies (especially because they are "dehydrated lamb lung" from Solid Gold).

My person is feeling a little dejected because she thinks I've regressed. But the thing I keep trying to show her is that I've got all the pieces, but I'm still mulling over how to put them together. I'm not as fast to get it as some dogs, but I have no worries that it'll come together.

So, the lesson for today
It all comes together in the end, and that's what matters the most