Sometimes......

.....I'm such a jackass. Ug! Specifically on two accounts. #1) Getting frustrated with Heffner during out ball session this morning. #2) Dropping a bomb on ya'll at the end of an otherwise boring post.;o) Lets tackle them separately because I've got some 'splaning to do on both accounts.

Right now, the two days a week that I'm for sure working the dogs in our ball studio (I really think I need to come up with some other name for it, but nothing else really springs to mind) are Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Then depending on what all we have going on, I try to throw in a weekend day somewhere. This morning was only Heffner's third session back working with the balls and other objects. I have made a mental note to take it slow with him. While he acts like he's totally fine and dandy to go back to business as usual, his fitness just isn't there and he's definitely lost some muscle tone over his recuperation period. I'm pretty sure that I pushed him a little too far on Tuesday morning. He was very willing and I have to admit that I'm a little over eager to strengthen up that rear again and get some better muscle tone. As usual, he was more than willing and all the exercises were ones that I've done with him before. The only difference is that I'm not going to have him get up onto the giant ball for another few weeks. I want him a lot more solid before that happens. At any rate, I think I pushed him a little further than I should have and did more repetitions than was wise. I kind of think that he may have been a little sore. Overall, this morning he was more hesitant on all of the exercises than he normally was. And he just wasn't really catching on as fast as I would have liked with some new smaller moves that I just started working both dogs on. The end result was that I was getting frustrated with my. The actual problem was that I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have and I most likely wasn't as effectively communicating to him what I wanted. So yeah, I generally felt like an ass afterwards. Thank goodness he's a forgiving dog!

On the flip side, Bess did excellent! She just loves training! She's catching on to the pivots that I'm starting to train in order to eventually link it to getting in close for obedience. With her this morning, I was NOT a jackass.

Now for #2, the puppy. Which I'm sure just a few of you are a slight bit curious about since I think that this is the first time in the blog that I've mentioned it.:) We've actually been sort of planning for dane #3 for a little while. For things like this, it takes my hubby a WHILE to get used to the idea. His initial response is ALWAYS no. And he admittedly does have good reason to sort of try and keep me in check so to speak. During college I worked at Petco (are you shocked?). I am a HUGE softy for unwanted animals. And I also happened to really want a dog at that time, but it was REALLY not a good idea considering that I was living in an apartment, going to school full time and working part time. Somehow, I managed to be the recipient of every unwanted critter that people would drop off at the store. And living in a college town where people buy animals on a whim and then quickly get bored with them, it happens a lot. And since they also get bored with the cages and aquariums that usually go along with and are more than happy to just drop things off and get them quickly off their hands for no fee at all, I also "conveniently" ended up with lots of cages and aquariums. And unfortunately, when you have empty cages, it's easy to have a reason to put things in them. I had rats, mice, a plethora of reptiles (I was BIG into reptiles and really do need to post some of the pictures of my menagerie sometime), birds, and a few fish tanks going. Oh yes, and the reptiles at least all had exercise regimens. That I kept track of using an Excel spreadsheet.:o) ( I TOLD you I have an unhealthy obsession with Excel) Feeding, cleaning, and taking care of all of those critters ended up taking up a whole lot of my time. Adam wasn't necessarily thrilled with so much of my free time getting monopolized by this large assortment of critters. Hence why his automatic no response any time I mention getting an animal of ANY sort!

Due to this, I've been slowly chipping away at him. He's slowly started not being outright no about it. If that sentence even made any sense.:oP Then, much to my surprise, last weekend while we were on our way out to see Avatar, we were talking about the dog show that morning and I was just sort of venting some frustrations that I've had. And much to my amazement he voluntarily started talking about our next puppy and who the parents were going to be and such things like that. I've wanted him to give his input and actually be part of the whole process, but that's difficult when he gets all puckered up when I start talking about these things. Granted, I do tend to talk very enthusiastically about them, which can lead him to feel overwhelmed and feel like things are going to happen immediately. However, he really understands where I'm coming from and that I really do understand the work that will be entailed with three great danes in the house. Finally, we were actually on the same page!

There are still a lot of things that are up in the air and nothing is set in stone until that puppy is at our house. At the earliest, we could have a puppy possibly sometime in September. At the latest, we could have a puppy sometime in the spring of 2011. I don't necessarily want to say too much right now until we know more and have kind of settled on who the parents are going to be. Either way, the puppy will be of Daynakin breeding (Bess' breeder), will be a female, and will hopefully be a brindle, though I am willing to go with another fawn as long as it's the right puppy.:o)

Knowing that the third dane is coming at some point has also sort of been the undertone of many of the things that I've been either sort of obsessing about or just outright stressing about. When I'm trying to fit in more training time with my dogs, I'm also planning ahead for the amount of time that I will need to allot for three dogs. While the puppy will not be able to do a lot of the things Heff and Bess are doing right now, there are modifications that can be made and there's still plenty of puppy training that will be necessary. So while the exercises will be different, the need for training time is the same. And all my thoughts on competing have the underlying tone of how to not just do this with the current two that I have, but how will I juggle it when there are three.

And ultimately, the amount of food that I will have to plan for. Ug! As my darling husband likes to point out, the freezer space that we have maxes out at a three months supply for our two dogs. Which means that for three dogs, I will be going to the butchers more like every two months versus three months. And he KNOWS how much I dread the whole meat packaging process. Usually when he comments on this, he says it with a sly little smile because of this very fact. And as awesome as it would be to get yet another stand alone freezer, we have no where to put it. And that's a LOT more food to package to fill an additional freezer. Even more imposing than the task is already! Speak of the devil, I just picked up a load of meat today and will be "happily" chipping away at that over the weekend. Yes, THAT'S apparently what I get to do with my "off" weekend. Shall we say that's reason #3 as to why I'm a jackass today? he he he he

As a side note, please believe that I will be posting more than enough puppy information once the decision is final! It will probably be an obsessive topic of this blog for a while. Thankfully once we have the puppy there will be pictures that will accompany her. But be prepared!