I haven’t written to my weblog in a very long time. I’ve been busy. It’s not terribly entertaining to write about chores and manual labor and sweating and that sort of thing. Though I have found as I work that I play the stories out in my head and over time I’ll share them with you.

Bud Houston’s Country Dream is now officially a going concern. While I’ve already conducted three training camps here this year last night was the benchmark event… I held my first classes. This is actually new territory for me as I have no intention of having a full schedule of classes as I did at Dogwood. Classes will be only one night a week. While I’ll work for about five hours, that’ll be the extent of it.

What's delicious about this new arrangement is that I will design the curriculum around the immediate needs of the few students who come out to train with me. Designing a curriculum for 16 is quite a different thing than for 120. For 120 the lesson plan is typically built for the “greatest good”, meaning those core skills from which the overall community will benefit. With a scarce handful of students the exercises and objectives of the lesson plan are designed nearly as you might do a private lesson, by name, with very specific goals.

I find that the handling skills and dog training foundation in this part of Ohio are considerably weaker than preponderance of my students back at Dogwood. But then, I had ten years to work on that bunch and skills can be carefully cultivated rather as one might tend a bonsai tree.

Open House!

Ethernet Conundrum

I’m behind on work of all kinds. But the thing that really has me puzzled is a new website design. I suppose that most of the world likes slick sales stuff and frankly there are some pretty spiffy web sites going up these days for this agility franchise or that. For the life of me I’d really like to avoid the slick sales brochure kind of thing.

My website btw is www.dogagility.org. At least I’ve got my calendar up to date.

The whole reason we moved, sold the old training center, started over again—aside from the obvious notion that I’m getting older and don’t want to work as hard as I have for most of my life—is to acknowledge a changing and maturing agility market-place and provide for a product that really isn’t out there. I’d love some feedback from folks out there as I unfold my mad plan and curious vision. Email me at dogwoodbud1@earthlink.net if something equally mad pops into your mind.

So here’s the deal… Country Dream is intended as an agility resort. That means that in addition to the rather intense handling camps that are my usual offering, the property will be used to a variety of ends. For example a club might send their instructors for a long weekend for a retreat. They’d have access to the facilities, training building, equipment, lower field, cabins, pond, walking paths. The group might even avail themselves to some private lessons with me, or group training, or not. With two rustic (but civilized) cabins and a couple of bed & biscuit rooms in the main house, the property will be available to any agility people traveling cross country who might like to spend the night or more here while traveling through the area, rather than in a Red Roof.

The key word here seems to be vacation. I have this funny feeling about the maturity of the agility market-place that most of us are over the intense learning how to play the game part of our growth. And now what most of us would really like is simple catering to recreational needs. Recreation. Vacation. I like these words.

The 100 Mile Rule

I chatted with Judy Keller and Deb Jones a couple weekends past. I did a three day memorial weekend AKC trial up in Pittsburgh. I frankly had a blast, as I really like the people in this part of the world. Anyhow, Judy and Deb were pitching me to have them down for a seminar at the new facility. The conversation somehow rolled around to the brutal local politics that most of us in the dog training world feel at one time or another.

Judy advised me of the 100 Mile Rule. One is never an expert within 100 miles of home. One actually needs to be from out of town to be an expert. Well, I know this rule very well. My own case is further complicated by having moved at least twice now since I started my agility career. Forget that I should ever be considered an expert at the game by the folks down home (where I grew up) in Arizona. I don’t believe I could sell a seminar down that way.

The area around Columbus Ohio is problematic as well. Outside of Dogwood (formerly my own training center) I have generally been treated with some contempt. Well, that’s not entirely true. Susan Crank, for example, will be absolutely polite and even friendly to my face, but talk about me with scorn and vitriol behind my back. I’ve never really understood the phenomenon.

It occurs to me that the turf on the dog trainer is a bit of a zero-sum game. It is as though there is only so much respect and credibility to go around. If one does not have adequate stature in a community then it might only be attained by clawing down anyone owning any sort of stature whatsoever... as though the worn down stature can be assumed by the clawer.

Now moving into this new community I see the phenomenon spawning all the same kind of bullshit. We inquired after agility classes in the local club (Parkersburg Obedience Training Club). I’d very much like to get my girl on different equipment in a strange environment. Well, we were actually rebuffed!

The local club has actually had a board meeting to discuss whether we should be welcomed. And apparently the consensus was… no. The local agility trainers are a young couple running American Eskies. He is a long-legged young man who runs with supple grace and is as near to what I might call a natural handler as can be imagined. Tho IMHO he could give a more energetic speed cue to his dog. She has the more fiery dog and has had aspirations of being on the World Team. She’s a bit of a mess when under pressure so it’s not likely that she’ll ever realize her immediate dream.

Neither of them could meet our eyes or give the slightest friendly acknowledgement on the weekend. Indeed she even went out of her way to be rude to Marsha during a walk-through. And I chalk this off to the emerging local rivalry thing.

I feel a bit sorry for Marsha because she feels pressure to perform when out in the agility world. She’s out there with her rescue dogs struggling mightily. Her young boy Dash, a rescue, was abused by a thoughtless woman using a Susan Garrett Rough Love protocol and will forever be a fearful backward boy, even though Marsha is getting the absolute best out of him. Her Aussie Red is a failed herding dog who has never learned to offer behavior in training.

The stupid thing about all of this local nonsense is that I’ve moved here as a bit of a step toward retirement. I’m not contemplating a full slate of evening classes or any of the things like that I did while running Dogwood. I intend to subsist on the occasional seminar and on my schedule of camps. I’m also pursuing a suite of nearly pro bono classes for 4-H because I’m a big believer in teaching 4-H that they can teach their dogs using positive methods.

OTOH I will support Marsha’s growing obedience classes. And at this point I fervently hope that she steals a lot of students from the pop & jerk POTC obedience program. I don’t believe this was our original intention. But as they don’t intend to be civil I think we might have a bit of fun at their expense.

Scottish Games

I must confess that I’ve been playing possible BLOG notes in my head as I’ve worked about the property. In something like 40 years the previous owners never had a garbage service. Why pay someone when you can dump your trash down in the stream bed? Okay, so you’ve got the picture. I’ve hauled something on the order of four tons down to the dump where, by now, they know me by my first name.

Among the garbage I have hauled away were ten porcelain toilet bowls left in the woods down below the lower training field. As I unloaded these at the dump I became convinced that this was surely one of the traditional Scottish Games.

The evil British Empire would not allow the Scots to own or bear arms. And so they would train for warfare by less overt exercise. This included the Toilet Toss. And with ten bowls and their tanks to toss I felt myself in that one small moment to be a great Scottish warrior training for the revolution to come giving each bowl a mighty heave whilst imagining it cracking over the head of some English swordsman or archer.

Judging & So Forth

It was my pleasure to judge a TDAA trial up near Youngstown Ohio this past weekend. It was held in Janet Kemmerer’s new facility. She’s built a tremendous training building and has about 128 acres on the site. I’m frankly quite jealous. You can check out her website at http://www.k9athletecenter.com.

I’m applying to become an ASCA judge. And frankly, I’m considering becoming a judge for DOCNA and for CPE. While judging doesn’t really pay very much I always manage to learn a great deal watching handlers and dogs solve the riddles that I put up. I don’t get nearly as many assignments in the USDAA (my first love) as I would like. So I’m seeking more outlets for my judging jones.

I’m especially interested in these other venues because the attitude is somewhat less elitist and there is more of a commitment to the recreational aspects of the agility game.

Fishie Fishie in the Brook

Tomorrow my fish arrive. I’ve ordered 6 white emir (crass carp) and several dozen each of crappie, catfish, mosquito fish, and large mouth bass. I’m so looking forward to this restocking!My pond actually has some pretty good fish in it. I’ve caught a number of bass (white and largemouth) measuring up to 18” in length. Mostly these need to be caught on minnows as about the only thing that bites worms is the sunfish. But the pond has no crappie and no catfish. The grass carp will help keep the floating algae away. The pond will be clear and beautiful by this time next year. I’ll show pics of the pond on my next post.

I’m heading out fishing right now. I need to go buy some minnows. While I’ve played catch and release so far, I believe I’m going to catch me about four big ones, cook and eat them. They actually aren’t poisonous (Mercury) like the ones in the Ohio River. Under Republican administration we’ve backed off the idea that we shouldn’t be poisoning our inland waters. So the condition of poisons is about twice as bad today as it was only five years ago. We are slow to learn. But I’ve always figured that people get exactly the government they deserve.

So I’m off to go fishing in my own pond.