Chapter Four: Serious Stuff

Monday March 29

Boring Boring Boring. That's what I think of adult obedience class. We went to the usual place Saturday afternoon. None of my buddies from the puppy class were there. There were six other dogs. Really big dogs. A husky and a bull mastiff and three golden retrievers and a boxer and me. I would have liked to make friends with them but there was no play session. We stood around against the walls and listened to Doug drone on while I tried to get at the dogs on either side of me and licked an imaginary crumb on the floor. Finally we got around to a bit of heeling and sit stay. Doug brought in his big stupid golden retriever who sort of looks like Winston Churchill with a blond beard and a case of terminal depression. If there was ever a dog who should be on Prozac this is it. He would tell her to sit, and she would think about it for a few seconds and then slowly settle on to her massive haunches and sit there with her ears hanging down until he gave her a release command and she would slowly stand up and take a step forward. I mean, really. When TBC tells me to sit, I sit (usually). It doesn't take me five minutes to do it. Oh, and another thing. There were no treats. No treats!

Rather more exciting is a skunk under our house. I smelled it yesterday when we were all in the basement. I wasn't sure what to do about it, so I peed on the basement floor outside the crawl space, but I don't know if skunks get territorial messages or not. TBC and Margi aren't sure what to do about it either. I could try digging it out if they want me to.

We are busy getting things ready for John and Nancy and Betty next weekend.. Nancy just called to wish TBC a Happy Birthday (his sixtieth!!) and said she is looking forward to seeing me. They will be arriving Friday morning.
 

Wednesday, April 1

Lot's of obedience training this week. TBC and I go out on the deck a couple of times a day and walk around in circles and sit and stay. Not really stimulating, but I suppose TBC needs the training in standing still. He has never been very good at that. We won't be having a Saturday morning session in London because of Easter and all. I don't really understand Easter. It seems to be a holiday when cairn terriers don't get to eat chocolate. Twisted thinking. There is also something about eggs which I don't understand, because cairn terriers don't get to eat eggs either. Oh well, I will just concentrate on being cute all weekend. The Unbearable Cuteness of Hamish Magruder. Speaking of which, isn't it time for some more pictures? I must be much bigger than I was at Christmas, and I am much blonder, except for the back of my ears. It will be fun to see Nancy again. I am not sure I really remember John and Betty. Christmas seems a long time ago.
 

Monday, April 5

Holiday weekends are great. John and Betty and Nancy arrived together at noon on Friday and all said what a big dog I am getting to be and how much lighter my coat is than it used to be. TBC got out the "breed standard" which says that a bit of black is desirable on the muzzle (check), the tip of the tail (check) and the back of the ears. Yes! Three out of three. Mind you, the tip of my tail barely qualifies. I have another 2 inches to grow in length, and am about the right height. We spent the afternoon playing with TBCs presents. Nancy brought him a book on designing proper web pages, so you can all expect some pretty fancy stuff. How about a cairn terrier coloured background for my web page? We took several photographs during the course of the weekend, so look for some long overdue pictures. We all went for a walk Friday afternoon so that they could see how well I heel and halt. They don't walk as fast as I do, and accused TBC of matching his pace to mine. When I halted, I always sat down facing backwards so I could keep an eye on everybody else. It made sense to me. Another birthday dinner for TBC Friday night. Dog, when my birthday come around next October I hope the celebration lasts for a week. Saturday morning people sat around in the sunroom and decorated Easter Eggs for a couple of hours. I don't understand that any better than I did before. Then John and Betty's friends Christie and Jerry came over, and we all went up to a big park in St. Thomas where they have a Frisbee Golf course, and we spent all afternoon running and throwing Frisbees. I zonked out after that and don't remember much more of Saturday. On Sunday, John and Betty left, but Nancy's boyfriend Rob arrived and I got a bunch more attention. This morning John and Nancy left for Kingston so TBC and Margi and I spent the afternoon working in the garden. Good fun, but tiring. A dog called Blue came over for awhile, so I romped with him, and did some digging, and helped chew out some of the plant stalks. There are a lot of crocuses coming up, which I am not supposed to step on, and a frozen gold fish in the pond, which I didn't get to play with.
 

Tuesday, April 7

The day started with a bang. Literally. I was sitting on the bed looking out the window waiting for TBC to finally get his socks on and get me some breakfast when all of a sudden there was a flash of light and this huge bang. I had no idea what it was, but thought I had better bark anyway. Then there were some more rumbly bangs. I went down stairs and looked around and couldn't see what was making the noise so I had breakfast. Then there was some more noise, which seemed to be coming from outside, but it was raining like crazy, so I decided not to pursue the problem. If it happens again when the sun is shining I will look into it some more.

After lunch we went up to St. Thomas to visit a lady who looks after dogs in her home while their owners are away. Do I sense a problem here? Actually, she was really nice, and had a nice home, and I played with two other dogs who were staying with her. She was training one of them to be a hearing ear (?) dog. There seem to be a bunch of communal toys lying around. She says that the dogs who stay with her are allowed to do anything they are allowed to do at home, and she has a dishwasher just like ours. So I guess if I had to stay someplace while TBC and Margi are away this would be a pretty good place.
 

Wednesday, April 7

Do you think this is a cairn terrier coloured background? TBC still hasn't figured out how to display HTML code. The 2 editors he uses (word perfect and netscape) want to insert the code for him, but don't display the actual code. He finally managed to get the cairn terrier background he wanted.[But he can't change it half way though the file, which makes this a dumb comment to anyone who is reading this from the archives. Look, believe me, forget it. You don't want to know] His next project is to find out how to do thumbnails to cut down the load time for the page, and then to change the page structure. Me, I would be happier mucking around in the garden, and lying down in the piles of leaves which he was raking out of the flower beds this afternoon and looking for sticks to gnaw on and interesting stuff like that. Anyway, if any of these things he is doing don't show up on your computer, be sure to let him know.

Saturday, April 10

Lots of news today. First of all, Halo (one of my litter mates) is going to be in her first dog show next weekend. What a go Halo. How have you learned not to climb all over the judge and try to lick his face? That would be my problem. Like this afternoon, we were at my obedience class, and I kept wanting to say hello to Doug and Linda, the two people who run the class, so that every time they came near me I would forget what I was supposed to be doing and try to run over to them. And then there were all the other dogs whose behaviour puzzles me. I mean, O.K., when you are told to sit you sit, but then in between exercises, when Doug is just talking, the other dogs go on sitting. Why don't they get up and make friends? And when we are all walking around the room in circles, wouldn't it be more fun to meet the people who are sitting at one end of the room watching? Doug and Linda just laugh at this and say, "Well, that's Hamish for you", but I could tell that TBC was getting annoyed. Anyway, that was a long digression. Linda K. is coming down to London in two weeks time and bringing Halo with her. I hope we have some time to play and that old Halo hasn't turned into one of these dogs who just sits there like a bloody zombie. So I act like a puppy. So what? I don't want to grow up.

In other news, we got a letter on Friday from a lady who lives in a condo in downtown Toronto with a Wheaten terrier. She and her dog would like to come to Port Stanley for a weekend in June while we go and stay at her place in Toronto. This is called home exchanging, and I guess TBC and Margi have done a lot of it. Their 35^th wedding anniversary is in June, and they think it would be fun to spend it (with me) in Toronto. What do dogs do in the big city? Maybe we could go over to the Toronto Island.

I was in to Dr. Yett for a heartworm test on Thursday. Her fat assistant had to stick me about 5 times with a needle to find a vein. I didn't like that much, but the test was negative. I weighed nine and a half pounds on her scale. She (Dr. Yett) says that I am all muscle, but terribly lethargic. That was a joke, because I get excited when I visit her too, and want to say hello to all the people and dogs I know in her office.

TBC says that he is going to spend tomorrow putting pictures of me on my web page, so be sure to take a look tomorrow night. Now he has to do it. Haha.

Monday, April 12

Down for a good run on our beach this afternoon. I tried wading into the creek, but it was COLD, even for a cairn terrier. TBC was encouraging me by tossing sticks into the water. Racing around on the warn sand to warm up afterwards felt good.

Saturday, April 17

We had our third obedience class today. It was good at first because there were only 4 of us there, and everybody was being quiet and well behaved and all, and then Scooby arrived. Scooby is a boxer, and she was really climbing the walls. I mean, I know I get excited, but she was something else. Do female dogs get this way, sometimes, do you think? And then Shadow and another dog whose name I don't know arrived, and things got crowded and exciting like they usually are. Then Doug tried to teach us stand stay. I hate to point this out, but isn't that a contradiction in terms? If you are standing, you are ready to go somewhere, and I'm always up for that. And just to make this totally ridiculous, we were supposed to stand there while Doug or Linda came over and patted us. No way. I mean that's just stupid. I'm a friendly dog, and I like Doug and Linda, and if they come near, I am going to behave in my usual affectionate fashion. Not like their stupid depressed golden labs. Wag...........Wag...........Wag. But don't get me started on that. Anyway, TBC figured he would leave this up to Linda, the hot shot animal training lady. After about five minutes she gave up laughing. I will say this for Doug and Linda, they don't take any of this too seriously. TBC would probably get out the electric cattle prod. To end on a more positive note, I was doing really well on heeling and sit stays and down stays.

There is a suitcase is on the floor of the bedroom tonight. Does that mean what I think it means?
 

Tuesday April 20

Well!!! How do you like that? Sunday morning we did the usual trip thing, getting the suitcases loaded in the car, and packing my sleeping crate and my dogfood, and I figured we were off again. We didn't get far. We stopped at Mrs Eveland's in St. Thomas. I didn't really realize what was going on, and greeted Mrs Eveland enthusiastically, and then went out to explore the kitchen and say Hello to Chiclet (the dog she is training to be a hearing ear dog), and the next thing I knew, TBC and Margi had left. I would have liked to go with them, but I had a pretty good time. Chiclet is just a little bigger than I am, and he and I get along really well together. We spent a lot of time in her garden, which is about 5 times the size of my chicken coop at home. At one point Mrs. E put a dog biscuit in my sleeping crate, and Chiclet and I both crawled inside to get it. So it was O.K. but I was glad to see TBC and Margi when they got home late this afternoon, and glad to check out the house and find that everything was where I left it. They said they had missed me. Spent the evening zonked out on the sofa. Glad your exams are going well Nancy, and it is great news that we may be seeing you for a few days afterwards. I will show you "Stand", which I am beginning to get the hang of.
 

Wednesday, April 21

Hey, guess what? Mrs. K and Janine Jansoo and, I think, Halo are coming down for lunch on Saturday. Won't that be great? Did I tell you that Halo won best of breed in the puppy class at the dog show she was in last week? She must be all grown up. I hope she hasn't gotten too snotty and standoffish. Well, I will just have to try and remember restraint. Nancy asked the other night if I had "licked" my problem yet. HaHa Nancy. I bet there are lots of people I don't like. I just haven't met any of them yet.

A nasty thing happened to me last night. I was going outside to pee and caught one of my claws in the groove of the patio door. It twisted it sideways, and bled like crazy. I was brave, and didn't yelp at all, but TBC and Margi were really concerned. They probably just didn't want me to get blood on the carpet. It feels O.K. this morning. If you check my web site this morning Nancy, good luck on English and Astronomy.

Friday April 23

My paw was more seriously injured than I thought. It started hurting this morning and I limped around and kept holding it up piteously until TBC finally took notice and rushed me into Dr. Yett's office. Well, no, actually, we went shopping for groceries and did a bunch of other stuff first, but we did end up at Dr. Yetts. Of course, by that time I wasn't limping anymore but she said the nail was cracked and put me on antibiotics so it wouldn't get infected. John won't approve of that. TBC isn't sure whether he approves or not. She also suggested Epsom salt compresses. This is sort of embarrassing, but I have to remember not to lick my paw afterwards because Epsom salts is a strong laxative. After Dr. Yett had seen me, I got to play with Blue, and another 8 week old Labrador puppy. And would have liked to play with her cats, but they just sat and stared at me.

TBC doesn't know how to tell a good medical disaster story. Let me tell it my way without the editorializing by you know who.

"This morning I suddenly developed agonizing pain in my injured paw. Realizing that I needed medical help, I slowly and painfully struggled up the stairs to TBC's study and held up my paw for inspection. Realizing that this was a medical emergency, he rushed me into the Vet. She examined my paw, immediately placed me on potent antibiotics, and prescribed a strict regimen of Magnesium Sulphate compresses twice a day. It is possible that my toe is broken, and I may completely lose the nail on that foot." There. That's the way you should tell these stories.

Saturday, April 24

Yes! Yes! Guess what Dad, I'm going to be a show dog, just like you.

This has been a great day. Mrs. K and Halo and Janine arrived down for lunch. I wouldn't want to say it to her, her being my sister and all, but Halo is one good looking dog. There is going to be some lucky dog out there one of these days. I wouldn't mind having a bit of a go at her myself, if you know what I mean, but I was restrained. We had about an hour and a half to play together and it was really great. TBC got some pictures of us chewing on the same stick in the chicken coop. I probably shouldn't say this, but Halo peed on the floor in the hall. I was sort of shocked, but maybe that's what girls are like. Halo really seemed to like the chairs and the sofa in the living room, and TBC got some more pictures of us rolling around together. So that was all good. Then Mrs K and Janine examined my teeth and said that my bite was just fine and they agreed to enter me in a dog show in Toronto at the end of May.

Next we all went up to my obedience class and Halo had to just sit on the side and watch. It was as boring as usual. I don't know why Halo and I couldn't continue playing during the boring bits in between. TBC kept getting chewed out for not bending over far enough during the heeling exercises, but I know him. If he tries to bend over that far and walk at the same time as he tugs on my lead he will fall over. That would be pretty funny. I'm going to watch, and if he tries bending over that far I will turn a somersault or something. One time this afternoon Doug was talking just to the two of us while I was supposed to be doing stand. Doug said "Return around your dog", so I walked around TBC. HaHaHa..

My paw is feeling a lot better. I wasn't limping at all today. And I've saved the best news to last. Mrs. K says to increase my kibble to a cup and a half a day. Wow! Like Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter and everything else every day.

Monday April 26

Two days of hard work installing gabion baskets on the lake bank. Digging and hauling stone. Just the sort of thing that cairn terriers are good at. Mind you, I have been having a bit of trouble persuading TBC and Margi of my potential usefulness.

Hey Halo, remember all the fun we had in the living room on Saturday? Last night I moved all my toys in there so that we could play with them together if you come back. The last thing I had to get in there was my sheep. TBC was reading in the sunroom and wondered what all the noise was, but it was just me dragging my sheep. He doesn't heel very well.

Tuesday, April 27

TBC has been diddling around with my web page again. You never should have given him that book for his birthday Nancy. What he is trying to do is arrange things so that if people want to read back chapters in my life story all they have to do is click on a button and the relevant chapter will appear. Sounds neat, but if it actually works it will be a cat flipping miracle.

I got a new sleeping crate this morning. It feels huge. Like going from a crib to a king size bed. But I guess if I am going to be a show dog I have to have as big a crate as the rest of the dogs. While we were in the pet store we bought a BIG bag of dogfood.

Spent the afternoon moving stones. They let me sit on the deck and supervise, since I AM a cairn terrier, and TBC came over after every load of stone to ask me if they were doing OK. They weren't, but I didn't want to mention it. Who ever heard of a gabion basket terrier?

Looking forward to seeing you in a couple of days Nancy. What do you wanna do? Do you want to come up to my obedience lesson on Saturday? Margi is serving roast chicken Thursday night. That's Pollo I think. Good luck on the Spanish exam.

Thursday April29

Nancy's Home!! She arrived just in time for dinner tonight and we had a great evening.

Sunday May2

A great weekend with Nancy. She has gone back to Kingston this week to do a field biology course where she goes out in the woods at 4:30 every morning to record bird song. I would be so great at that! I bet I could learn to point warblers. And then would bark back at them to encourage them to sing more. But she didn't take me. I kept looking out the front window hoping she would realize her oversight and return. At least she taught me a new maneuver. If I really wiggle, I can squeeze under the front seat of the car which gives me a new access route from the back to the front. Is that neat or what?

She came up to my obedience class on Saturday and witnessed TBC getting chewed out for treating me like a Frisbee. He did an about turn while I was looking in the other direction, and whipped me off my feet. I thought it was sort of fun, but Doug didn't think the maneuver would get points in an obedience trial.

Monday, May 3

You don't think they are fattening me up for something unspeakable do you? I was out with TBC for our usual obedience practice, and after we came in he gave me my dinner. Margi was outside working in the garden and she came in half an hour later and gave me my dinner again. Hoo boy! I am so stuffed I can barely waddle.

Wednesday May 5

I disemboweled the sheep this evening. It had stuff sort of like cotton batten inside it, and Margi was letting me play with it but TBC got real uppity and said, "No" Margi said, "But it's his sheep" TBC replied, "It's a dead sheep. Dead Dead Dead. That is a dead sheep. We have to take it away from him.." Sometimes TBC gets carried away and thinks he is in a Monty Python sketch. Anyway, they took it away.

Uh-h-h. Couldn't we sew it up?

At least I still have my favourite stick. The one I shared with Halo when she was here. I spend a lot of time chewing on it when TBC and Margi are working in the garden. And I still have all my plastic bottles. The ones which make so much noise when I drag them around and pounce on them. And my powder puff, which TBC doesn't think is a very macho toy.

I am going to my first dog show on Sunday. We are going to meet Janine in Dorchester, and she is going to take me in and show me around so that I will know what to expect at the Toronto show. She is being really nice and says not to worry if I get carried away and try to lick the judge at the Toronto show.

Friday, May 7

A sort of fun day. Right after my supper Margi got all dressed up in her kilt and stuff and we all got into the car. It was the first time I had ever really been able to crawl all over her when she was dressed up like this. There is really a lot of interesting stuff to chew on if someone is wearing full Highland regalia. For any puppies who might be reading this page, let me offer a few words of advice. There are 4 very important words that you have to learn very early in life. NEVER ADMIT YOU KNOW WHAT ANY OF THESE WORDS MEAN. The words are:

1. Off

2. Leave it

3. No

4. Quiet

There are all sorts of other words like sit, down, heel, come, and stand that you might want to add to this list, but some of them are sort of fun, so I will leave that up to your own judgement. I said earlier, Nancy, that the only game TBC knew was "sit" which was a little bit unfair. He came up with a new game this afternoon which involved he and Margi hiding in opposite ends of the house and then calling me and I race back and forth between them and sit in front of them and they give me a treat and that was fun. Anyway, I'm losing the thread of what I was talking about here. We drove up to London and let Margi out in a big shopping mall. Then TBC went and parked in the corner of the mall, and we started to walk around. I was supposed to heel, but I kept seeing people who I thought might want to pat me. The trouble is that my tail starts wagging and then pretty soon my back end is wagging too and before I know it I am wagging all over, and how can you heel when that is happening? So TBC did a lot of growling. Eventually I heard the bagpipes, so I knew we were getting near to where Margi was playing and started wagging my tail like mad. Sure enough, we found Margi and a whole bunch of other pipers and sat and listened to them for awhile and then practiced heeling some more. Another obedience class tomorrow.

Sunday, May 9

Holy caterwauling cats! This life of a show dog is going to be a lot more complicated than I thought. I may have to abandon my cute little puppy persona. Oh well, I was outgrowing it anyway.

The big event Saturday was my regular obedience lesson. TBC had been teaching me to stay even when there was a treat 8 inches in front of my nose, but Doug decided to introduce other distractions. We were supposed to sit and stay, which is hard enough for a terrier to do without distractions, but now we are supposed to do this while he bounces balls in the centre of the room, and makes squeaky sounds in front of you with a mouse toy, and you are have to just sit there and look the other way. And you have to learn to keep sitting while your handler walks away from you, and then to come when he calls you from 25 feet away and sit in front of him. All tough stuff, I'm sure you will agree, but possible to learn, I think.

Then today we went up to a dog show in Dorchester. Janine was there and I met a couple of her dogs, Devil and Ceilah, who were in the show. Janine was showing me how to behave in the show ring. Instead of heeling properly, I am supposed to trot gaily beside her, and instead of sitting when she stops, which I have spent the last 3 months learning to do, I am supposed to stand. Janine is an incredibly good cook. She had made these great treats of chicken fried in garlic, but to get them, instead of using my obedience training, I have to do things like jump up and look excited when I hear a squeaky toy. Instead of listening all the time to what my handler is telling me to do and then doing it, I have to get used to her fussing with me. TBC has been trying to explain this all to me as a matter of situational ethics. When I am working with Janine, I have to develop one set of moral imperatives, loosely based on a hypermanic terrier personality and when I am working with him there will be another set of rules, based on a depressed Golden retriever personality. Presumably when I am by myself I can act like a normal dog, with good days and bad days and normal mood swings As Nancy might say, "Why can't somebody in this family just be a normal dog all the time?" and TBC would reply, "Because we aren't normal."

So that's all pretty heavy stuff. Lucky cairns are incredibly intelligent. At the show, Devil placed second in the terrier group, and we were all really pleased about that. He got an impressive red rosette, which would be good for chewing on. Janine put me up on her grooming table at the show, and took about an inch of hair off the end of my tail, and tidied up my face a lot, but thought my coat was generally well stripped. She says she is looking forward to showing me in Toronto at the end of the month.

Wednesday, May 12

Three quiet days after my busy weekend. Spent most of Monday sleeping and playing with a wine bottle cork. Corks are great fun, but they don't last long. TBC says the same thing applies to a bottle of wine. Anyway, it lasted for most of the day. There are now little bits of cork all over the house. Hey, is it my fault if corks are so flimsy?

Tuesday I helped TBC rebuild the woodbox beside the house. That was fun until I tried to put my paw on his circular saw. After that I had to watch him from a distance.

Today was a rainy day, and we just did the usual; get up, have breakfast, drive to the village with TBC to get the paper, hang around in the kitchen with Margi, walk to the mailbox with TBC, have lunch, go for a walk in the village ("heeling with distractions"), hang around, obedience training, supper, snooze, evening walk, go to bed.

TBC has a new addiction. I know you are supposed to break these habits when they first appear, but I am not sure how to do it. He has started reading something on the web called the Cairn List. This week he is involved in a huge discussion about breeding. I am not sure exactly what this means, but I think it boils down to who you can screw. Anyone you can, of course. Duh. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. The way I look at it, the more dogs we have out there like Hamish Magruder, the better the world would be. Come to think of it, the more people we had like Hamish Magruder the better the world would be. Mind you, it might get a bit messy with them all licking each other like mad. Anyway, if TBC would spend less time sitting in front of the computer, he would have more time for playing with his cairn terrier. Priorities, TBC, you have to establish priorities!

Friday, May 14

The only real excitement in the last couple of days was the monster getting TBC.

It was one of those big orange monsters which makes a lot of noise, but seems pretty stupid. It started making its noise right outside my chicken coop, so naturally I started barking at it. The next thing I knew it had grabbed TBC, and was forcing him to heel as it roared back and forth on the lawn. TBC has some bad habits, but I hate to see that sort of thing happen to anyone, so I really went into serious barking mode. After about 5 minutes it turned TBC loose, and stopped making its noise. I would like to think I had something to do with the rescue, and TBC seems none the worse for his experience.

Speaking of TBC's bad habits, one of his really annoying ones is picking me up backwards. Like when we are going out in the car, half the time he picks me up and carries me into the garage with my rear end forwards. Not only does this look stupid to anyone who might see us, it means I can't see where we are going. This really bugs me, but if I struggle too much I might not get to go in the car. I think its demeaning.

Sunday, May 16

Rations seem a bit slim around here. You don't think they would cut back on my food without telling me do you? Maybe it's just my imagination. On the other hand, now that I think of it, they made me stand still on the kitchen scale Saturday morning and said that I weighed 12 pounds. Just another reason not to do stand stay.

Speaking of which, our obedience class on Saturday was really small. Only 4 of us. I do fine if Doug stays in the other half of the room, but lose it when he comes over to talk to us. He says I am doing really well at heeling and with sit and down and sit stay and down stay, but just cannot stay still when he comes over to pretend he is examining me. This is true, but what do you want, a friendly cairn or a robot dog? Doug admits that we will have to give up for the time being on stand stay. I really like Doug.

Met one of TBC's distant cousins this afternoon. TBC didn't know she was a cousin. Both she and TBC are really interested in genealogy, and she discovered him through someone's web site. I won't go into more detail because it is really boring, but Wendy (that's her name) has a one year old Black lab. She didn't bring him over, which wasn't very friendly, but maybe she will the next time she comes over. She seems nice anyway, and I am sure her Lab would be too.

Thursday, May 20

Hi Nancy, I'm still here. Getting ready for the big show in Toronto, and TBC has been busy organizing his historical walking tours for the summer. I persuaded him to put "dogs welcome" on the information sheet, but I'm not sure if that will include HM or not. Tickets for the walks are $5:00, and they take place every Satur.. TBC! Stop that! You're trying to advertise your bloody walking tours on my web site. Jeez! "Pat the cairn terrier 50 cents".

There are 45 cairns entered in the Toronto show. Wow. I didn't know there were that many of us. TBC had to get Janine to explain the entry confirmation form to him. Dumb old TBC. I'm just glad Janine knows what is going on. Anyway, of the 45 dogs, 9 are males and 17 are females none of whom have received their championship, and the rest are "Veterans". That is what you call dogs who have made a lot of trips to the Vet (I think). In the puppy sweepstakes there are only 4 dogs entered and 8 bitches, so I might have a chance there. Especially since the show is going to be opened by a piper. Maybe the other puppies will poop on the floor when they hear the piper. A piper plodding through puppy poop. Ha Ha Ha.

Still in an escatalogical vein, a bunch of sign have suddenly appeared on people's lawns. Apparently I am allowed to pee on the red ones but not the blue ones. Humans are weird.

Monday May 24

Oh all right. So I can't spell big words like eschatological. At least I know what they mean. It is all TBC's fault, since he is the one who does the typing for me. Why don't they make keyboards for cairn terrier paws? Or bigger mice?

It is the Queen's Birthday today. I think that is the same Queen that Nancy's university is named after, and since it is also Victoria day, we must be talking about Queen Victoria. How about that? Another of life's mysteries solved.

Apparently what you do on Victoria day weekend is drive around the country looking for plants to plant in your garden and then you come home and plant them in the rain. Sort of fun. I am better at deplanting than I am at planting.

Thursday, May 27

I have a new training program. It is called teaching your humans how to play with their cairn terrier. The best time to start your training is in the evening, between 10:00 and 11:30 when they are sitting down on the chesterfield reading. The first thing to do is to get their attention. One way of doing this is by licking their hands and faces, but you want their complete attention so I find that chewing on them works better. Remember to be gentle. They are only humans and they don't know how to engage in proper chewing behaviour. Another method of getting their attention is to stare at them intently, while giving intermittent piercing yelps. It is important that these be very loud.

Eventually they will probably say something like, "Oh alright, get your ball/mouse/bone" It is important at this point to look totally blank. The idea is to make then get up off the chesterfield and fetch whatever it is you want to play with.

After they have brought it back, they will probably throw it for you. This is fine, but be sure when you bring it back that you stop at least 8 feet away. The idea is to make them chase you (Don't worry, this is good for them). If they don't chase you or refuse to play tug of war, nudge the item in question under a chair or table and repeat step one. Don't worry if this takes several training sessions for them to learn. Remember when you were a little puppy how long it took you to learn how to sit and heel and stay. The secret of training is patience and persistence. Once they have mastered this exercise, you can go on to more advanced behaviour modification, which I will cover in future entries.

We are off to the big Toronto dog show tomorrow.

Thursday, June 3

Well, O.K., maybe I shouldn't have taken on the Toronto Police Force. But somebody had to do it, and I was the nearest Cairn Terrier. You see I was standing there with Janine and TBC waiting to go into the ring, and this police officer came up to us, and was playing with me and stuff, and he held out his walkie talkie and all of a sudden it started squawking. So I went into attack bark mode. You know, tail between my legs so the enemy can't get it, deep loud fierce barking. Boy, did that police officer ever get out of there fast. Then it was pretty funny with TBC and Janine trying to get me to calm down before we went into the ring. But I did fine, I won a whole basket full of balls. Isn't that appropriate? Maybe I should start at the first and tell you about the whole week. We left for Toronto Friday about noon, and arrived at this neat motel and they had more cairn terriers staying there than I have ever seen in my whole life. At least, I thought the motel was neat, but the lock on the bathroom door was broken, and TBC and Margi kept either locking themselves in or locking them selves out of the bathroom. That was pretty funny. One night about midnight TBC had to go down to the desk to get a screwdriver to get the door open. He could have just gone in the field beside the motel. That's what I did, and so did all the other cairn terriers.Janine was staying at the motel, and she did a lot of fussing with me Friday afternoon. That's the worst part of dog shows, but actually it isn't that bad. The good part is that there are all these other dogs there, and you don't really get to play with them, but at least you can say Hello. We met old Halo the first afternoon. and Devil and Ceilidh, who I sort of know, and a bunch of other dogs that I hadn't met before. Friday evening I got left in the car while TBC and Margi went to smell around the other c.t. owners, and then we went out for dinner, except I had to wait in the car again. Speaking of dinner, TBC kept asking Janine and Linda if they thought I was getting fat. I don't ask people if they think he's getting fat. But Janine and Linda both said "No", so let's not have any more of this idea of cutting back on the old kibble ration. Actually, Janine kept feeding me that garlic fried chicken stuff that she does, so that by Sunday morning I actually couldn't finish my breakfast. A world first. Saturday was the show, and everything went fine. I kept telling TBC if he would just let me make friends with the judge everything would be O.K., and it was. As if TBC knows more about dog shows than I do. It's all in the genes, for cats sake. Of course, spending 20 minutes playing with the judge's granddaughter between trips to the ring didn't hurt either. After the show Linda came over to our motel room to admire all my ribbons and trophies and stuff, and we gave her one of my balls to take home to Halo so that Halo wouldn't feel bad about my beating her. Saturday evening I got stuck in the car again while TBC and Margi went out to the banquet and listened to the judge talking about how I was the type of ct who was going to carry the breed into the next millennium. I thought that was a bit much. Sunday morning we were up pretty early because some of the other dogs were making a racket, and I thought if I had to carry the breed into the next millennium I had better join in. So we went back to the show and I got my picture taken with Janine and Margi and TBC and all the silverware. Then we got back in the car and drove for a long time. I was sleeping pretty soundly and wasn't paying that much attention to where we were, but eventually we got to this house that I had never been to before, and went for a bit of a walk, and there were John and Betty and Nancy and Rob sitting on a dock in the Gatineau River. I was REALLY surprised to see them, and climbed all over them, and almost fell off the dock and it was all great. So then we went back to the house, and told everybody all about the show, and had a big dinner to celebrate Margi's birthday. John and Betty's house, because that's where we were, is really neat, with great smells and a bunch of woods all around it, and a steam train which goes by their deck every so often that you can go out and bark at. After Margi had opened all her birthday presents, Rob had to leave and the rest of us all went to bed early and I slept like a log. The next day, Monday was a good day too. We went for a long hike to the top of a real mountain so that I could practice my rock climbing, and took a bunch of pictures. From the top of the mountain we could look straight down for hundreds and hundreds of feet. I would have liked to get right to the edge, but they kept hauling me back. But that was O.K. because I still got to climb to the top of a lot of rocks and pose looking out at the world. If the pictures turn out I will put them on the web site. In the evening TBC and I invented a new game with the balls I won at the show. We haven't quite worked out all the rules yet, but TBC sits about 8 feet from a wall and bounces the balls against the wall while I try to intercept them. That sure was a good win. Now TBCsays we have to get back to the serious stuff. He and I spent quite a while on John and Betty's deck doing come and finish.

Tuesday it pretty well rained all day. We took Nancy to the train station to catch a train back to Kingston since she had to work, and then drove to a cave and I had to wait in the car again. Before bed time, when TBC took me out for my evening walk, it was so dark I couldn't see my paw in front of my nose. I mean really dark, and there we were in the middle of the woods. There was no way I was going to get more than 12 inches away from TBC, even if he did keep saying, "Come on Hamish. Hurry Up. The most dangerous thing out here is the mosquitoes". Well, let's face it. I'm an urban dog.

Wednesday we packed everything back in the car and drove on to Kingston and checked into a motel called the Peachtree Inn. I spent my usual 30 minutes checking out the room, and then someone knocked on the door, and guess who it was? Nancy! Hugs and kisses all around. So we went over to Nancy's house, except there is a cat who lives there. I have nothing against cats, but they do seem sort of, well, catatonic. They just want to sit there and look at you. TBC and Margi and Nancy went out for dinner (NOT very nice) and left me in my exercise crate in Nancy's bedroom. The dumb cat (Cuckoo is it's name) came and sat outside the door the whole time they were gone. I could smell it. Eventually TBC and Margi and I went back to the motel, and there was another cat wandering up and down the corridors. Kingston must be cat city.

Today we drove home to Port Stanley. It has been a great week, and I really love traveling, but it is good to be home. Do you think I did O.K. Dad?

Friday, June 4

Yeah, it's good to be home. Just doing the usual stuff. Over to the village in the car in the morning to get the paper. Then a bit later a walk to the mailbox with TBC. Hanging around in my chicken coop watching TBC and Margi garden. Lying on the chersterfield watching TV. It's the familiar things that define a home. The traveling life is great, but a dog needs a home to come back to once in a while.

Saturday, June 5

Back to the old obedience grind. I remembered all my stuff pretty well, and still flatly refuse to do stand stay when Doug or Linda come over to pat me. They were pretty impressed by my performance in Toronto, and Doug suggested that I could be a double threat. I think that means doing well in both conformation shows and obedience trials. My final examination for beginner's obedience is next week. I don't know if I will fail to graduate because I can't do stand stay or not. There is going to be a mini competition to see who is the best behaved dog in the class. Probably not yours truly, but I might change my mind. In any case, TBC has decided to enter me in 4 conformation shows in July, and leave advanced obedience training until later. I feel that this shows excellent judgement on his part.

Wednesday, June 8

Today Mr. Fraser came back to put a permanent cap on the chimney. Remember Mr. Fraser? He was my colleague who helped me get the racoon out of the chimney last winter. Usually I get pretty protective when anyone is outside, but I figured that if I was ever going to start a racoon clearing business with this guy, I had better just sit and watch him, so I did. Some pretty fancy ladder work that I might have difficulty with. TBC was changing a lightbulb in the kitchen yesterday, and left a step ladder in place. I though it would be good climbing practise, and got up to the third step before TBC saw me and realized I was stuck. In typical TBC heroic fashion, he stood there and laughed at me. I solved the problem by falling off.

After Mr. Fraser left, they shut me in the laundry room while they went out to get groceries. This is sort of a nasty new development. I much prefer going along and waiting in the car, but it has been a pretty hot week. Anyway, the door wasn't completely closed, and I managed to get it open. So there I was alone in the house. There is this sort of racoon in a basket that sits beside the fireplace, and I figured it would be a good idea to get it down and teach it a thing or two, just in case the cap on the chimney doesn't work. I couldn't quite reach it, but I did get a library book off the same shelf, and sort of chewed the cover off it. Well, I mean, that's the sort of traditional thing a cairn terrier does when he finds himself home alone, isn't it? So I guess the laundry room door is going to be pretty tightly shut in the future.

Saturday, June 12

So there we are! My graduation certificate! Ten hard weeks of work. I probably should have won. The boxer who did win came over to the chair that TBC and I were sitting in half way through the final examination and peed on it. Now really! I ask you! This was the most obedient dog in the class? Doesn't say much for the rest of us, does it ?

I finished third in the class, with a score of 127 out of 155. Actually, TBC has just realized now, when it is too late to do anything about it, that Linda made a mistake in addition on the score sheet, and I should have had 129. Really sharp, TBC. And then there were the deductions for handler errors, which they deducted from MY score. Once when TBC stepped on my paw, and once when he turned the wrong way. Dumb old TBC. I probably should stop complaining but this is what being a show dog is all about. And the lab who came second. Let me tell you about her. We were doing the long sit stay, and all the other dogs, except me and the lab got up and walked away after about 15 seconds. Then the lab lay down and rolled over and started chewing on her ass. I mean, right in the middle of the ring when everyone was watching? I ignored this unladylike behaviour for as long as I could, which was about 30 seconds and then got up and walked over to see what the hell she was doing.

So all in all I would have won if I had been able to stand still when Linda came over to pat me in the stand for examination. TBC says we could have worked on this more, but he didn't want to break my spirit. HaHaHa. TBC does have his humorous moments.

Anyway, I am glad that obedience training is over with, and we can get on to fun things like garlic fried chicken in the show ring. TBC says that we are going to go on to advanced obedience training, but not until I am grown up. Probably he will be too senile by then to find the obedience school, so I won't worry about it.