State of the Puppy Report March 28

I am eagerly anticipating the birth of a litter of Standards.. Due date is March 30, woo.

I haven't aquired very many more things, just a kennel because they were on sale. (I saved $38, woo) I think he will grow out of this size, because the sire is a very tall dog. If so I will get one of the Drs. Foster Smith ones because they have extra headroom compared to others of the same footprint.

I am trying to figure out how I want to set up my training logs this time around, I need something organized.

Thats the state of the puppy.. I'll update with pictures soon.

Puppy Stuff!

I've started buying things for Future. Partly because, while there's only a few things you absolutely desperately NEED for a puppy, the amount of things you see and go "OMG! I should buy that for my puppy!" is vast. Marley was a surprise, mostly. My mom was like "oh, hey, look at this puppy I saw on craigslist!" And he was in my lap the next morning.
Future has been anticipated, in various stages, for several years. So once I knew we were finally in the home stretch.. I started planning. Fast Forward. A few things have changed, and I may have a puppy coming home in June! And I've started acquiring things.
 
 First, for the winter holidays I got a Puppy Kong as a gift. Next, I bought a couple of Nylabones. One is for moderate chewers/teething puppies, and one is a durachew. Finally, I have a little squeaky, ball shaped mouse type critter. Its pink for valentines day. I'll probably acquire a million other toys between now and then.

I also have this thing. On one side there's a pocket to store like a rabies certificate or something. On the same side there is a note pad with a few sheets to write down your dogs information, your information, and vet contact. Has a few sheets, in case you move or change vets I guess. On the other is a "what we did today" notepad. Its small enough to fit in a purse or fanny pack, so conceivably, it could be used as a notepad to store training logs. I keep my final training logs in a flex notebinder, which is kind of a bear to carry around, but good for organization. I bought this organizer at a thrift store, so if I don't end up using it at all, no big loss.
There is also a bed, that will be good for a couple of weeks of use. It was originally bought for a very large cat, but he does not see the need to lower himself to the level of pet furniture. So it has never been used. I'm not sure how big Future will be, so I am waiting to buy his official bed until I have a clue!

Pagan Blog Prompts: A is for Altar

Perfect timing, I just finished the Altars class at the Magical Circle School. As part of this class I had to make several altars.
The first assignment for this class was a "permanent altar". As part of my research for this class, I found some good arguments for not leaving the altar up all the time. Not only do ritual tools left out start to acquire all the psychic garbage that builds up from ordinary life, but setting up the altar is part of preparing your mind for ritual. So, I do not have an altar sitting in a corner waiting for me to decide to cast a spell. I do have, I guess you could call it a focal point. On this I have a zen garden, a soapstone jewelry box that contains the spiritual jewelry I wear each day, a red candle, and an incense burner. I also have all of the components to a 7 day spell I am currently in the middle of.

Another assignment we did was a purposeful altar. I haven't decided if this idea does anything for me or not yet. Perhaps I'll do some experimentation, and update this later. I remember dutifully doing the assignment mostly thinking "this is really silly" so, probably, this won't be implemented into my spiritual path.

In the window I have a shrine to the goddess Brigid. On the shrine I have a jar candle with a picture of Brigid on it. A lot of tea lights, and a small pot that will hopefully grow into some flowers. The kitty is a plant murderer, so we shall see. Imbolc is one of my favorite Sabbats, because its a reminder that winter does not last forever. I have some pretty serious seasonal affective disorder, and about this time of year I want to go very dramatically mad.

There were a couple of other things in the class, but these I guess were the most interesting. 

The infuriating cycle

It seems most people, once they get diagnosed with EDS, are already on a permanent decline. Me.. I seem to be on a cycle. I feel good for a couple of days, so I do something ill advised, get injured, rest to get over the injury, then get hurt several times as soon as I am better. Eventually it levels out for a while, and then it repeats. Part of this is my fault, and why, even though its not a task, or work, or anything that falls in the category of service dog, I need a dog. Steadily getting just the right amount of easy exercise tends to keep me from feeling like a doll some kid pulled apart at the joints.

Now, I am worse than I have been before in my life, because I was on a bus that got rear ended. I screwed my back and neck up good. Plus, for even more fun I have a pretty severe case of the random faints. Not. Fun. At. All.

ADBC: (im)Perfect

Assistance Dog Blog Carnival

Past Perfect
My first assistance dog retired before his third birthday. I learned so much during the almost four years of our training and working life together. The first lesson I learned was never name a dog after a famous pot head. Marley had way more "wait.... what?" moments than I can count. He just regularly forgot he had a brain. Not everything I learned was positive. For example, Marley was a classic "bad" breed. And I got constantly harassed on the internet for it. Repeatedly told my dog was a ticking time bomb waiting to eat children. When he lost his vision, and I had to retire him, I was given no support. I gave up on connecting with other assistance dog partners.

This kitten demonstrates a stoner moment.

This Time Imperfect

Every time the assistance dog carnival rolled around, I wished I could participate. Yet, I did not want to bring the drama I experienced on assistance dog forums into my blog. Finally, this topic came up. I couldn't resist. Its okay to strive for perfection and not reach it. Its okay to not be the perfect handler, to not know every little thing. Sure, its not okay to work an untrained dog, or a dog who poses a direct threat.. I think most of us know the real big nono's. Most people who are trying to take this road *are* trying to do this right. Being told that you have to look and be perfect 100% of the time is not okay.  Nobody is perfect, and that's what makes us human. That's what makes our dogs, dogs. Its okay to be imperfect. 

Future Perfect.

About a year ago I began planning for Marley's successor. I started with nothing, but my requirements for the breeder I wanted my puppy to come from. You know, the usual things us owner trainers sometimes obsess over. Health tested parents, early neuro stimulation, early socialization, etc. Finally, the "perfect" breeder was found. Future, as I've taken to calling him in my head, will be a standard Poodle. In a lot of people's eyes, that's wrong, I guess. But I've decided, I'm not going to obsess over someone else's idea of Perfect. Its enough stress to obsess over mine.

FlyLady (Days 3-5)

Day three: Doing what we have already done

• Getting Dressed to Lace up Shoes: Okay, I'm kind of failing on this one. I got dressed, but I haven't showered or done my hair. I'm kind of resistant to actually getting dressed, because I really, really, really need to go buy clothes. I don't know what happened to my clothes, but I can find about one pair of pants and 3 shirts, excluding my work uniform. I hate spending money on clothes, but I am gonna suck it up and buy some on sunday I guess. (its entirely possible that the creepy old man who I SAW steal my underwear out of the dryer has escalated to stealing my clothing, I guess. Sometimes apartment living is weird.)
• Shining the sink.
  Well, I made Troy (my partner if I haven't clarified that yet on this blog) do the dishes last night. Does that count? :P And did them this morning. Troy and I do not live alone, so after we go to bed dishes pile up.

Day Four
Basically, sign up for the newsletter. Theres enough crap in my inbox to make me reluctant about doing this, haha.

Day Five
Your supposed to like, write down some negative thoughts and make them happy. Ugh, See, this is where I resist the FlyLady. Doing this sort of thing reminds me of this class I was forced to take in 9th grade because the school decided I was at risk of dropping out. Essentially some really annoying guy screamed at us for an hour telling us to unlock our potential or some shit.

Day six is Hot Spots, so, at least it will be interesting again.

FlyLady (two days in)

I don't know why I always try to do this thing, but here goes again. I know a messy house is bad for magic, but now that I'm with Troy, we aren't really messy, just very disorganized. Now that I have a job,  am going to school, and doing Magical Circle School.. I really need to stop chasing myself around every time I try to do something. So, maybe the whole flylady thing will help with that, at least the house keeping aspect.

Day one is Shine your Sink.
I don't really see the point in actually shining the sink.. clean it out, yeah, but make it all pretty? When five minutes after I am done somebody will pour coffee in it, or put some dirty crap in it? Nah. Oh, I have a sink peeve. Seems to be a thing old people do, mostly, but anyway, when people put the dishrag over the faucet of the sink. Gives me the germ willies just seeing that!

Day two is Get Dressed to Lace Up Shoes.
 Okay, I'll do this today. (Yes, I am posting this blog in my PJ's.) Tomorrow, I work, so I don't know. I am not wearing my work clothes all day, because they smell like wet dog and other unsavory things. But, I don't really want to take the time to change before I leave. Yeah, lazy lazy.