No matter how much you wish they were normal at the beginning, every next day and every next year, you love them more for what they are.

Silvia Trkman, talking about her dog Bu (“News” page).

Explaining that last, somewhat incoherent post:

Hat is one of the trio of outdoor cats I’ve been caring for over the last several years. He’s very friendly and had become quite the homebody, following the sun from my front to my back porch and back during the day and sleeping in an old cat carrier on my front porch at night. On a typical day he would leave to do his business, stretch his legs or hang out with his friends for a while, otherwise he was always here.

Last night when I went out to “tuck him in” and give him a bedtime snack he was in his “bed”. I reached in and he shied away from me – VERY unlike him. Then he came out, but instead of going to me, he went under my car. He was limping!

I freaked out. At first I thought he’d been hit by a car, but I couldn’t examine him while he was under MY car. I was really afraid he’d do the typical injured cat thing – run away and hide.

So I ran inside and got food. All kinds of food. He still wouldn’t come to me, but I wasn’t going to leave him so there I was: middle of the night, about 20 degrees out, in my PJ’s, sitting in my driveway, fingers covered in smelly cat food, trying to coax a frightened cat out from underneath my car!

Finally I put some in a dish and stepped away. If there’s one thing Hat likes it’s food and the temptation was finally too much for him to resist – he came out to eat.

I grabbed him, carried him into my house and shut the door. By this time he seemed to have stopped limping, but it looked like he’d been attacked by something – there were spikey areas in his fur, a cut on his ear and under his eye, maybe more. The eye was tearing a lot. He also cried when I picked him up, which isn’t typical of him. I sat there pondering the situation for a while, then I picked him up again and carried him up the stairs to my spare room – simple as that.

He spent most of the night meowing. I tried sleeping on the floor with him – that idea worked out better for him (he was all too happy to snuggle up with me and my blanket) than for me (Ouch! – Apparently I’ve reached the age where I’m Too Old to Sleep On Floors). Went downstairs. Heard noise – went up, he’d knocked some books off a bookshelf. Sat with him again for a while then went back to bed. That was around 2AM. Bryce got me up again around 5:30.

Called my vet first thing in the AM and sleepwalked brought him over to be boostered, antibiotic-ed, have his ears cleaned, his nails trimmed, get checked for FELV/FIV (negative !) and have some icky stuff squeezed out of the cut under his eye. He was such a good cat at the vet – I wish my other cats were half that good! Fortunately my vet has a “deal” for treating stray cats so the damage wasn’t as bad as it otherwise might have been!

So he’s upstairs now, closing in on his first 24 hrs. He’s eating, he’s sleeping, he isn’t quite himself and he seems pretty tired, but that’s to be expected – so am I!

“‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”
(“Shelter from the Storm” – Bob Dylan)

I can’t save them all, but I can save this one – I got a “wake up call” last night and realized it was high time I did.

Don’t know if this will ultimately simplify my life or complicate it – probably a little bit of both. Smart move or stupid move? Yep – probably a little bit of both. Life’s funny like that.

For better or for worse, it’s a boy! Welcome home, Hat!

(More after a trip to the vet about his eye, a trip to the store for another litter pan, and maybe some sleep!)

The other weekend may have been All About Bryce, but the girls deserve a mention too

Jayda qualified in 9 out of 10 runs and finished her CL4-S title – now she’s completely out of Level 4! The best thing is she was really HAPPY this weekend, especially on Sunday! She had that big Jayda grin that I know and love on her face all day long and was eager to come out and run every run. I’ve NEVER seen her that happy or that confident at a trial before but I hope I see more of it!

Jayda’s not all that far from a C-ATCH of her very own. She’s a lot closer than Bryce was at this time last year!

Raven had a great day Saturday, going 4 for 4 – she was wonderful and all-in-all looking pretty mature! Sunday? Uh – not so much. There was a very “baby-dog” run in Jackpot, 2 really good runs (Colors and Wildcard) …and then there was Standard…

(Don’t laugh at her bad hair day – she was rolling around on the sofa before I took this and got a bad case of static cling! She also needs to take posing lessons from Jayda.)

Where was I? Oh yes – Sunday. After years of “drop and run”, I’ve been TRYING to get back into doing an occasional leadout with Raven. We do them in class, the course was perfect for a leadout, I decided to go for it.

Set her up and led out. She stayed in place and was watching me attentively. Released her … and she took off BEHIND me like a shot to make up her very own 5 obstacle wrong-course!

Leadouts – bah! WA-A-A-AY overrated, if you ask me !

Cute as it was, after that start we were pretty much toast, though the rest of the run was not without moments of brilliance. Overall, I was very pleased with her. Most of her qualifying runs she was working close to 4YPS and I think that number will go up as she gains confidence and experience. (Among other things, she has a very “bouncy” running style which eats up time – but she’s starting to flatten it out a little). She’s only 2 years old – not all that mature for her age, and only been trialing for a few months. She’s already come a long way.

So there you have it – the recap of a pretty exciting weekend!

Long ago I made a promise to Bryce that we would finish at least one agility championship together. At one time, I had my eye on several, but that wasn’t to be. I’m happy with this one and I’ll just have to save those other goals for the next generation!

A quick shout out to “Team Brycey” – all our friends and supporters in the agility community, his doctors, David at Advanced Canine for putting his BACK back together, and his “Aunties” and “Granny” – Tracey, Pat, Bernadette and Toni – for being a shoulder to cry on when things weren’t going so well and for helping ME keep it together the last couple of years! And to CPE – for providing a venue with something for everyone and for giving me the opportunity to keep a promise to a friend.

Bryce just would NOT look at the camera!

If you’re wondering about the light object in the foreground, that’s his beloved duckie. He’s taken it everywhere since he was about 4 yrs old, I thought it was only right that it got to share his special moment .

We don’t have our “official” pix yet, but here’s one I snapped of Bryce with his C-ATCH ribbon … and his friend Hat, who thought it was actually a CAT-CH . An honest mistake. (Bryce wasn’t in a posing kind of mood and he’s horribly out of coat besides so it’s a pretty crappy picture, but for now it will have to do.)

I went into last weekend feeling pretty good. I’d managed to get an appointment with Bryce’s physical therapist the Monday before and he had cleared him to run. We’d been doing our walks twice a day, and Bryce seemed to be feeling pretty good. The bonus was that the weather was supposed to be decent (for January in the tri-state area). We had two chances to get that remaining Jackpot Q.

When there are 2 Jackpot runs in a CPE trial, I think one of them HAS to be a “non-traditional” Jackpot, which is *usually* (depends on the judge) easier than the “traditional” kind. My plan was to avoid contacts as much as possible for the sake of Bryce’s back and stick to “safer” obstacles like jumps, tunnels and weaves.

Saturday was the “traditional” variety. A traditional CPE Jackpot is similar to USDAA Gamblers – there’s an opening “point accumulation” period, then a buzzer sounds and you have a few seconds to complete a distance challenge. There were plenty of point accumulation opportunities that didn’t involve contacts, however there was an A-frame in the distance part.

I was more nervous about Bryce reinjuring himself or having any weird “episodes” than I was about him qualifying. As long as he stayed sound, it knew it was just a waiting game.

Time came for us to run. He dropped the first bar, which totally unnerved me because I can’t REMEMBER the last time he dropped a bar! Then I sent him into a tunnel and he popped back out! He seemed very tentative – like he wasn’t sure he was “allowed” to be doing agility. Either that or he’d forgotten a LOT in the last 3 months!

We got enough points in the opening but he didn’t have the impulsion to go out and complete the distance challenge, so we didn’t qualify, but the sky didn’t fall either. He seemed none the worse for wear and didn’t drop any bars after that first. Game on for Sunday!

Which brings us to the non-traditional. In a non-traditional Jackpot, pretty much anything goes, as defined by the judge. For this one, you had the standard point accumulation period, then when the buzzer sounded you had to do 2 different jumps and a tunnel (in any order) and go to the table without doing anything else. The tricky part was that there were a lot of straight lines heading towards that table, designed to tempt Certain Dogs into throwing in an extra obstacle or two before (or in lieu of) the table!

They were using the same course for all levels, and Bryce was after both Raven and Jayda in the run order, so I had 2 chances to practice.

Raven turned out to be one of those “Certain Dogs” mentioned above, and got sucked into an extra tunnel (and then some!).

With Jayda I did exactly what I planned to do with Bryce and, being Jayda, she did it perfectly, finishing her last Level 4 title.

Finally (after a LONG, nerve-wracking wait after Jayda’s run) it was Bryce’s turn. I *shouldn’t* have been nervous about this run, given the course, but running a dog with serious health issues really ups the bar on the mental game! I was counting on two 5-point jump combos for 10 of his opening points so I had my fingers crossed that the bar-dropping incident of the previous day wouldn’t repeat itself!

He started out really well – a bit faster than the day before. No tunnel popouts, no dropped bars. Got through the 5 point combos, I only needed 3 more points to have enough for the opening. I went to turn him towards a 3 point double …

…and he turned the OTHER way and stuck his NOSE to the mats!! There was a collective gasp from everyone and some (er … MANY) humiliating moments from his youthful days flashed before my eyes!

Fortunately, I got his attention back quickly enough to do the double and a few single jumps for good measure before the buzzer sounded. Then he did his jump-jump-tunnel-table as perfectly as Jayda had .

In retrospect, it wouldn’t have been a true “Brycey moment” if his evil twin “Bubba” hadn’t put in a cameo appearance!

There was a lot of cheering and a lot of crying. I hugged him for a long time, crying in his fur a little bit, then we did our victory lap. He was obviously happy and faster on his victory lap than on his run – he knew that applause was for him and he was lovin’ every minute of it !