vikingdobermans.com Blog

Her ortho vet feels she has severe arthritis and bone spurs.  If her ACL was torn, it was done a long time ago and her body has put scar tissue in place that has stabilized her joint.  He feels surgery would be counter-productive and perhaps physical therapy or alternative medicine like acupuncture might help.  I need time to research and decide what is best.  In the meantime, she will take it easy and continue her daily walks.  Her wonderful muscle condition has helped her tremendously, so we will continue with light exercise and walks.
 

For the most part, it does not affect Charlie Brown.  His walks consist of chasing rabbits, balls, kongs and noises in the woods.  We work on his obedience and besides learning new stuff, we are trying to fix a few issues that are popping up (like crooked sits and recalls that include running full speed at me and forgetting the front).  Hopefully Butch will find an evening to fit us in and help get me on the right track.
 

Time is escaping my sphere and somehow Monday is Friday is….  The DPCA National will be upon us and the 1^st ever AKC Working Dog Trial… 
 
I ask, “Charlie Brown are we ready????” 
 
I don’t think so!
 

Zelda stayed home after a leash walk in the yard while I took Charlie out for his obedience lesson—three hotdogs worth of training.  We worked on attention and having him follow my shoulder back in order to stay in the correct position, then forward.  We practiced heeling with right and left turns.  I can’t, for the life of me, get him to pivot in place.  Need Butch.  We worked on the moving sit and the moving down.  His moving down is excellent.  His moving sit is still shaky.  We will concentrate on the sit.  I’ve added a stand stay (which will include the judge going over him for his CD, but for this exercise, I went over him) and finally I went home and we worked the long sit and down in the front yard with Zelda being the sum total of his class.  So first I put Zelda on one side, then the other.  I walked away.  For distractions, I played ball with myself, throwing it up and catching it, throwing it past the guys, rolling it in all directions and I banged on the fence, then I banged two plastic bottles and finally I released Charlie to chase his kong.  All in all, we had a good training session.  I need help with precision and timing.  I also need help with the left about turn.  Eventually I would like to do a pivot about turn, but until I get some help, we will focus on the left about turn. 
 

If we train every day and the indoor ring does not do us in, or the group sit and down exercise go ok without more proofing, then we should get our CD at the National… I can taste the ROM!  Also, if all goes ok, we should get the AKC version of the BH at the National as well.
 

This morning found Charlie and Zellie-belle shaking the rain from their short coats every few steps and me wiping my face and wishing I had remembered my umbrella.  I wore sweats to keep warm and a rain coat to try and keep dry.  We walked through the Friends’ field and even the grass didn’t spring back with each step, but rather lay flattened and pathetic with mud covering its roots and my feet.  The dogs were brown with mud and wet as otters.  Pity my floors when we get home.
 

I did not consider laying a track this morning, instead leaving it to do during my lunch outing with the guys.  As it turned out, it was marginally better weather-wise than during our morning walk.  It drizzled, but didn’t drown us.  The sun was no where to be found. 
 

The track I laid was short with three soft curve turns and food in every footstep.  Charlie started with no concentration and I felt total despair.  Finally he put his nose to the ground and moved forward, hitting all the curves and only losing attention once when two kids went by on the trail nearby.  A quiet reminder from me and he put his nose back down and finished the track.  Not pretty.  Not his best, but at least we are doing it. 
 

Charlie went back to the crate in the car and Zellie came out to find the track and proceeded step by step, with slow determination.  She was intent on NOT missing one piece of food.  She was spectacular.  It is time to remove food from her track.  I think she can get a Tracking title and I may look for an AKC trial to see how she will do.
 

Charlie is the first Viking dog since my parents stopped breeding Dobermans in the late 60’s.  I dedicate Charlie’s championship and all he has done and will do to my parents who both passed away in 2003–hope they are keeping tabs and are proud of us. 

Thanks to all my friends for such great support.

In the south, and perhaps elsewhere, when time goes from the exact, it is 5:54pm, to the less precise, around 6ish, the idea of having to be somewhere at an exact time, loses its importance.
 
My vacation is entering its 4^th or 5^th day and my sister-in-law is planning dinner– what to have, when to have it ready and she wants input.  I’m on vacation, so when is not very important to me but what to have is, so I chime in with let’s BBQ ribs.  No dissenting voices, so ribs it is.  My brother is going fishing so he tells Sandy, plan dinner for dark-thirty. 
 

“Huh! Dark-thirty.  When the heck is that?”
 

Seems “_______-thirty” is reserved for times that have some specific and definitive characteristics, not nebulous time-frames.  For instance, naptime can and is anytime you feel the desire to nap.  No such thing as nap-thirty…  but dark-thirty is any time from thirty minutes before to thirty minutes after dark, same with dusk-thirty.  Leif planned to be home around dark.  Dinner was planned with that in mind.
 

Sandy was a-ok with that answer and told my brother that drink-thirty would be when he docked.
 

“Drink-thirty!,” I exclaim.
 

Sandy is amused by my befuddlement.
 

Drink-thirty, she explains, can never occur before 5pm and usually takes place or starts before 7ish.   These southern retired folks have their standards and rules.  Most evenings a neighbor or two will show up, riding an elaborately decorated golf cart, the usual mode of land transport in the lake front community where my brother and his wife live, and declare it is drink-thirty.  This is not to say they won’t and don’t often arrive in their boat for that is also a standard mode of transport, albeit, by water.  They arrive carrying a drink or drink-makings in hand and descend on the neighbor of choice, often my brother and his wife.  Drinks appear within the half-hour and often dinner follows, totally unplanned.  Just plain ol’southern hospitality.  I love it!
 

My vacation is over and I’m back in my more regimented northern neighborhood.  Tonight I plan to implement drink-thirty into my schedule.  I won’t be arriving at my neighbors on a golf cart, however I will be arriving with a drink and drink-makings in hand.  Tonight drink-thirty on Deepdene Road will be sometime around dark-thirty.
 

I awake each morning, not to the cock-a-do-da-do of a roster, but rather to the quiet whining of my guys as they beg me to open an eye and acknowledge them.  I know better.  The first real indication of life by me seems to be the key to kicking them from a soft whine to a full-blown symphony of whines with an accompanying side of paw thrusts to the face and body.  When that happens, I get up.  About the only thing more effective than Zelda and Charlie in getting my butt outta bed in a hurry, is a radio blaring country music… something I haven’t had to listen to in the morning since I shared my bed with a country music loving man. 
 

This vacation began with three days of dog shows in Greenville.  Suffice to say, we didn’t win and Charlie still needs one point to finish.  From Greenville, I hightailed it to Prosperity, SC.  At one point, I passed a sign showing Prosperity going in one direction and a sign to Clinton going in the other.  Not political commentary, just by chance Prosperity and Clinton were in opposite directions.  I’m sure someone could and does have a field day with that one!
 

My parents built a house on the lake over 30 years ago and now my brother, Leif, and his wife, Sandy, live in the house with their dog, Winnie and their cat, Tessa.  Tessa has not been home since we arrived.  I think Charlie has that kind of effect on cats!  My bro said not to worry, she is coming home after we go to bed each night and leaving with the first morning whine.
 

I WANT TO RETIRE!  This is truly the life.  Each morning Zelda and Charlie go out the back door by my city standards and the front door by my brother’s lake-side standards and run around chasing every smell left from dusk to dawn.  Doggie nirvana.  I make coffee and walk to the dock.  A beaver is swimming by–really, a beaver.  He gets rattled and dives with a mighty whack of his tail that could be heard a county away, no lie.  Seems beavers whack their tails on the water to warn all the other beavers of danger.  He is a big sucker—40 plus pounds.  My brother said the beavers are pests and they not only eat the wood from right under your dock, but they come up to the house and eat trees, felling them without regard to house, car or boat and damage from these guys can be staggering.  He talks of solutions and my bleeding-heart sixties mentality jumps to the forefront and I sit aghast.  Charlie and Zelda are more than willing to help eradicate the beaver from this neck of the woods, however, I’ve heard a beaver in the water can take a dog and I am not willing to find out if that rumor is fact or fiction.  The dogs are called back to shore when I know Mr. Beaver is around.  Frogs are abundant and I’m doing my best to keep the dogs frog-free.  Frogs can cause your dogs to froth at the mouth and I really don’t want them bubbling.
 

We’ve been to Wally-World (Wal-Mart), the local Piggy Wiggly and the RV repair shop.  We’ve BBQ’ed each night and as the sky darkens we sit on the porch and listen to the sounds of the lake.  Last night it rained and the breeze was delicious.  We slept with windows open, the attic fan blasting and the crickets doing their thing.   
 

I’m serious.  This is great.  Fishing for large-mouth bass… that’s tomorrow’s agenda! 
 

Yesterday I went to the trailer to begin prepping it for the trip to S.C..  I wanted to get my clothes put away, turn on the frig to get it cold and perhaps even get to the local grocery store to get my food stuff purchased and stored.  I haven’t used the trailer this season, so I wanted to get everything inventoried and ship-shape… alas, I found the building where I keep my trailer and where it is plugged in before a trip had been “zapped” by lightening and my refrigerator circuit board, my water level indicator board, my radio/CD player were all fried.  Luckily, my AC works.
 

Lunch today was a trip to Recreation World, near Annapolis, not the usual dog walk and training.  Sadly, Recreation World was not able to help, at least not right now.  I’ll be using ice or maybe dry ice in the refrig to keep food cold.  The water levels are starting with fresh full and gray and black empty, so monitoring them for the three days I’ll be using the trailer should not be an issue.  After the shows are over, I’ll high tail it to my bro’s place where I won’t need to use the refrigerator or the water…
 

I laid the track before I went to the house so Charlie and Zelda wouldn’t go bonkers waiting while I was out in the field.  The automatic sprinklers had just finished soaking the ground and the grass was green, wet, thick and carpet-like.  Quite hard to find grass this nice in July in Baltimore!  I put two pieces of turkey hotdog in each footstep with all three legs about 30 paces each and two right turns.  Better planning would have allowed me to have a right and left turn—next time!
 

I crated Zelda in my car with the back wide open and Charlie and I headed to the field.  Charlie had his e-collar (he always wears it) and his tracking leash attached to the dead ring of his fur saver. 
 

I always bait five or so steps before the scent box and Charlie had his nose down even before getting to the baited footsteps.  I stopped him at one point to fix the leash between his legs and that was a distraction he didn’t need, although he put his nose back down as soon as I told him to track.
 

He was slow, almost footstep to footstep, but his nose wasn’t what I would call deep and every so often, although his nose was to the ground, he seemed to skim over a footstep or two.  Twice he was distracted by something—a bug perhaps—in the grass next to the footprint.  Ears pricked, sniffing his “it’s a varmint” sniff.  A light tug on the leash and a command to track was enough both times to restart him.  He is definitely not a fast or intense tracker and I see where he may need some help to stay focused. 
 

He hit both turns nicely.  He didn’t veer off the track at any point.  His head stayed down.  My biggest “complaint” would be the feeling that he wasn’t committing to any intensity in his attitude, if you understand what I’m saying.
 

Earlier in the week when I tracked Charlie, he was much more distracted.  He did it, but it wasn’t pretty and didn’t feel right or great, so this track was MUCH better.  I know we need to add length and we need to begin removing some of the food.  Butch will need to help with the changes, because I predict a lack of intensity and focus and I don’t know how to handle that.  Once he is finished his breed championship, I’m guessing I can feed him his meals on the track and it will be sink or swim… starve or track…
 

Charlie, Zelda and I made our way out the front door, down the street to the slight hill that leads to the path through the woods and down the path to the first of the Gilman fields.  We said our hellos to the young archery teacher who was waiting for his charges and while waiting, playing Frisbee.   Charlie was quite taken with the Frisbee, but it was obvious the Frisbee should not have teeth marks to mar its shine, so we continued on to the upper Gilman field.  Zelda, as always, carried her ball and ignored all other objects.  For her, a ball dropped between my feet, is the ultimate request to play. 
 

“Pick it up Mom.”
“Throw it.”
“Wait. I’ll dash madly to get it and return to drop it at your feet.”  
 

And so on…
 

The field, devoid of trees and cover, was hot.  The sun beat down.  The ground was dusty, the grass brown.  Zelda continued her game and my back groaned as I bent repeatedly in an attempt to pacify her and comply with her wishes.  Charlie disappeared in the trees and brush by the stream, right below the field.  We could hear him trashing around.  I figured he was bunny hunting.  His bunny count is zip.  He can find them, but to my relief he can’t catch them.  On occasion, when a bunny is flushed and makes a wild dash from one area of cover to another, you might hear me lift my voice in a cheer for the bunny,
 

“Run bunny, run!”
 

And dash it does, zigging and zagging and often totally confusing Charlie who runs from one clump of brush to another, sure he will find the little sucker.
 

But this time, no bunny appeared and I could hear Charlie crashing through the underbrush, first this way, then that… then quiet.  Mmmm, where was the Little Man and what was he doing?
 

From the opposite side of the field, a red fox, bushy tailed with a white tip, exploded from the woods, ran the fence line and disappeared in the trees at the end of the field.  Compared to my guys, this fella was cool and collected and his movement poetry.  No wasted effort, just a floating gait that moved him from here to there. 
 

Zelda was beside herself.  All thought of her ball gone, she barreled down the field and disappeared through the fence where the fox was last seen.  I heard what sounded like a galloping herd of wild horses and turned to see Charlie running as if he had the football and was making a dash for the end zone with the entire opposing team’s defense on his tail.  Whoosh, he flies by and disappears through the same hole in the fence Zelda had used. 
 

Zelda returns with nothing to show for her efforts except a tongue hanging and lips curled into a smile.  Charlie flies back and crisscrosses the field and the surrounding tree line repeatedly… his tongue longer than a foot-long hotdog and like Zelda, lips curled into a big, wide grin.
 

I never did see that fox again.