RV Show

This morning we headed off to the Spring RV show. There were a few new 5th wheels, but most of the innovation was scene in the little guys. Every year they are packing a lot of functionality into a little package. The only one I took photos of was the little pop-up with just two beds. It was so small it could be towed by a compact car and what a great way to get out camping and get up off the ground. You'd still have the tent experience, just none of the hard ground experience. There were a couple of huge 5th wheels that we liked, but we are still happy with what we've got so we passed up on the great deals.

After the RV show, and picking up all our fruit and vegetables for the next few days it was into the Brick to check out mattresses. As we walked in the door we said to each other that we were only looking... an hour later the deal was done and it will be delivered on Wednesday. We went all out and got a KING size - for Spike of course, and a nice headboard to go with it. Its a good thing we had more resolve at the RV show...

Today's word of the day is raffish (RAF-ish adjective - 1: marked by or suggestive of flashy vulgarity or crudeness ; 2: marked by a careless unconventionality : rakish). I find that many today's young women (girls) dress in a raffish fashion.

Spike was Pet of the Week on another blog (see here). Isn't he cute!

My pleasures today: making really cool vegan pita pockets for our picnic in the city today ; watching dogs play at the dog park while we ate our lunch ; getting through the long day with no diet cheats (this was a major accomplishment as I had a serious craving for hamburger and fries) ; running into Maureen, a lady who used to work the same place I did - she is one of the nicest people I know and in fact she would be anybody's amazing mentor, both on work topics and also on being a wonderful person.

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31 Day Challenge today is: An experience that made you who you are today.

Off the top of my head the only experiences that I can think of are bad and not to be talked about, but on further thought I remembered my first horse, Frey, and all the life experiences I gained while having him.

Frey was a "troubled" horse, not at all the right horse for a timid beginner rider and horse owner. He would bolt at the slightest provocation even when just standing together in the paddock, I can't even begin to count the number of times he bolted while being led - he was just so afraid - and not at all the Fjord temperament that I had expected. After he had been living at our house for just a week or two I could no longer even get near him. It was time for some professional help so off to the trainer he went. She had many of the same problems and he ended up living in a box stall for a while as no one could catch him. I was desperate to make this work so started reading up on various training techniques and came upon clicker training. This seemed like something I could do as it broke things down into tiny increments - easy enough for someone with no experience to do. Read "Don't Shoot the Dog" for a great overview of operant conditioning as it relates to both humans and other animals - I've given copies to more than a few people.

We made quite a bit of progress on the ground and were creating a good bond - each tiny success felt like a miracle. Then the place I had him closed down, so we had to move to another facility, this time with a trainer who used to train for the RCMP. Now was the time to move forward and get him going under saddle. Frey did well under saddle for Frank and it was only a month or two before he was ready to be ridden by me. All went well the first time, but the second time, a cat ran out from the hay and made him bolt. I came off onto a pile of jump standards and after a trip to the ER didn't have the confidence to go on with him. Many tears and sleepless nights later he went back to the breeder.

The breeder sent me Dora, a been there/done that older mare. Dora is the horse I should have had all along. She helped me to get (most) of my confidence back, especially while dealing with horses on the ground.

How does this experience relate to the person I am today? By reading and practicing clicker training/operant conditioning I got greater insight into how creatures (including us) work and learn. This helps me to deal with people on a daily basis in a more sympathetic and kind way, I can interact with Grace in a more positive and less reactive way, and I can train our dogs better. With this experience I was able to train Spike to be a service dog, which helped me to get though a tough time at work.

Find It!

you can see the declension in both the hay field
and the rougher creek area
(Oh how I miss the lovely ponies)

Today's word of the day is declension (dih-KLEN-shun noun - 1a : noun, adjective, or pronoun inflection especially in some prescribed order of the forms b : a class of nouns or adjectives having the same type of inflectional forms ; 2: a falling off or away : deterioration ; 3: descent, slope). The hay field has a gradual declension on two sides which in effect causes a bowl near the middle. This makes the top parts of the field very well drained, but does cause a watery bit near the middle. The water does drain away from here eventually as when we were building the house our builder, Nick, had the shovel guy sculpt a gentle wale to move the water. All of these land contours have ensured that our basement has stayed dry as a bone without the need for a sump pump. This was much appreciated during the ice storm of 1998 when we were out of power for 9 nights. Some of our friends went crazy trying to keep water out of their basements without power.

at school last winter

The last few days Spike and I have been playing the "find it" game where he has to use his nose to find something that I've hidden. We haven't played this for months but he hasn't lost a step and in fact may even be a bit better at it. The other day, instead of asking him to "find Carm" I showed him an object (and let him sniff it) then hid it in another room. Off he went sniffing and snuffling around till he actually found the object. We tried it a few times since I was actually hoping he'd find the matching object that I'd misplaced, but no such luck. As it turned out he had zero chance as it was in the freezer where it belongs. But he found the one I hid each time.

Today we practiced with another object that we hadn't played with before. Again I let him sniff it first, then I hid it. Away he went and you could see his nose working - he found it quickly. When I hide the object I go into every room to make sure it's not just my scent that he is following - I suppose that might still be the case, but he does figure out which object to pickup when he finds it (and believe me there are lots of objects on the floor for him to choose from). Maybe that will be our next training exercise, picking out the object from a group of others. Hummmm. I think a class is in order - maybe he could be a Search and Rescue dog - the first SAR Miniature Poodle ever!

My pleasures today: watching Spike find the hidden object - he just loves this game and prances around happily on his search ; the melon we had for dessert at lunch - it was the juiciest, sweetest honeydew melon you could dream of ; staying on the treadmill for a whole 45 minutes - still a ways to go but one step at a time :-) ;

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Today I'm going to give a shot at the "The 31 Day Photo & Prompt Challenge" that I read about over at 2takinga5th blog. She picked it up from itsgravybaby blog. It looks fun so I'll give it a shot, even though I'm a few days late.

Today's 31 day challenge is: What is Your favorite show?

This required a bit of thought as I'm not a big TV watcher and I don't have any "Must See" programs. So here are a few of my favorites these days:

      Diners, Drive-In's and Dives (not helping the diet at all)

      the Office

      shows about dogs like Top Dogs, Dog Whisperer

      Jeopardy (I get to find out how narrow my range of knowledge is)

      2 1/2 Men (there - I admitted it, its a funny show)

Glistening Glass

The trees were made of glass this morning, or at least it looked that way with the sun shining through the ice left by an overnight coating of freezing rain.

Today's word of the day is acceptation (ak-sep-TAY-shun noun - 1: acceptance; especially : favorable reception or approval ; 2: a generally accepted meaning of a word or understanding of a concept). Every year there are so many new words created, such as Google, textative, and snowpocalypse. How do these words come about and who is in charge of the acceptation of them? Does one person use a word, say snowpoccalypse, and his friends use it, and their friends, and their friends (kind of like the Faberge shampoo commercial from the 70's - she told two friends, and she told two friends, and so on... )? And suddenly its a new word used throughout Canada and/or the US. Years ago I created the word floushy to describe things that swish around like palm leaves and skirts. It never caught on - I just checked mirriam webster to make sure it hadn't silently gone viral - it didn't.

My pleasures today: waking up to the sparkling light of the icy tree. The lilac just outside the spare bedroom window (where we are sleeping until we decide what to do about the waterbed's demise) pushes up against the house and the sun dancing off its icy limbs was my first sight of the morning. ; cooking curry and other spices until they are fragrant - what a divine aroma ; chatting with a friend while she cut up yummy to dogs cow bits, partially from spending some time with a friend ; also from knowing the dogs will have some delicious dinners for the next few nights ; and also because I can work with all these bits that still look like what they are without getting grossed out.