working from home…

sitting on my comfy corduroy couch with my laptop and wireless internet; coffee on the table next to me, gas fireplace blazing a few feet away; both dogs curled up on the couch beside me.

me too, me too…

i was inspired by recent changes in others’ templates…and i was bored. that’s why they have multiple templates anyway, right? now to work on the top banner…

yeah, that’s right.

i am wearing a long-sleeved tshirt AND a hooded sweatshirt AND I’m drinking coffee AND I just turned on our gas fireplace. yeah, that’s right.

amazing weekend

on friday at the Minnesota Labrador Specialty (a dog show only for labrador retrievers, as opposed to all breeds), Harley finished the requirements for her “CDX” (Companion Dog Excellent) obedience title, given by the American Kennel Club. even better — she won her class that day! the show continued on saturday and sunday, but was open to all breeds for competition. harley also won her class on both of those two days! she is just amazing — she has won 4 out of 5 times — most dogs do not even pass the test 5 times in a row, let alone win! she is doing great. I got many compliments from fellow competitors and judges — someone even asked me if I could help her train her dog, and another said she was planning on coming to the place that i train because it looked like my dog was doing well, so she wanted to train there too.

we’ll continue to show this fall, and if things keep going this way there is a high probability that harley will be ranked nationally! we wouldn’t win a prize or anything for that, but it is quite an honor.

BEWARE

Google has done us all the nice favor of making our blogs searchable by the masses. My blog purposefully doesn’t have my name associated with it…but this still ticks me off. I went to Blogger specifically because you couldn’t just search my name on google and find my blog!!

So please – friendly linkers — take my name off of your link list and refer to me as I am….The Dog Lady.

i am…an inventor?

IBM will pay you big bucks to sign over your intellectual property to them. Although you have to sign over your idea…the good thing is that they go ahead and use their lawyers to do the whole patent process for you. I mean come on, how many people have great patentable ideas, but don’t really want to spend the time & money to see the idea through. I know I don’t.

So…I am working on submitting my first application…I would tell you all about it, but then I’d have to kill you.

CDX

last weekend we went to Des Moines, where Harley and I competed in the Open level of obedience for the second time. she won her class on Saturday, and got 3rd place on Sunday (by a very close margin). it’s really exciting that she has had this success so early — and two days in a row — most times it takes dogs a looooong time to be successful at this level (perhaps as many as 10 shows in some cases!). she is doing so well that it’s possible she could get nationally ranked this year. we won’t win a prize or anything like that, but you get your picture in a popular magazine and gain good reputation & prestige.

after she successfully completes one more competition, she will earn the AKC designation of CDX (stands for Companion Dog Excellent), and those letters will be added at the end of her registered name. we are doing a 3-day show this weekend, so hopefully we’ll have some more success. i always tell her, though, that I already think that she is an excellent companion dog, even if the AKC doesn’t know that yet.

son of a…

having a laptop for work is wonderful, except when you repeatedly forget the power cord at the office (which i have now done twice). luckily i have a few things installed on my home desktop, so i can still work on a few things, but it is really crappy. i think i need to get a spare. dammit!

This is important to me

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