"Because life and death are unfair." ~ Vampire Bill

If you don't know who Vampire Bill is, you are obviously not a big fan of porn. Well, HBO's version of porn anyway. True Blood is some of the best eye- and brain-candy available; order it on Netflix and pass the popcorn.

I've been on a True Blood marathon this week at the direction of my son, who is has been in caretaker mode most of the week. We have the first two seasons on DVD, and I have watched every one of them since Tuesday afternoon.

Because....? you are surely wondering.

Because I have a broken heart.

That's not entirely accurate. To say that my heart was ripped out of my chest would be more accurate. As if by a Maenad.

Tuesday morning, without preamble or fanfare, my sweet baby Keen died. He left this world as he entered it - in my hands. One in a moment of joy, the other in anguish.

We are still awaiting the full report from the necropsy; the preliminary exams have been unable to identify a cause of death. And while my imagination runs wild with possibilities, I will wait for the pathologist to finish his work before saying more.

Keen was - I still want to say "is", pass the kleenex - a treasure chest unopened. Biddable and cooperative, he earned his CGC at 21 weeks of age (the youngest borzoi known to ever do so), was excelling in training for Rally and Obedience, doing incredibly well with agility training (he tore through tunnels and over jumps, loved the A-Frame, was figuring out the teeter; I could do front-crosses with him already). Prey-drive personified, he would chase anything that moved; my 2011 calendar was organized for his budding career. And Keen had made a visit just before Christmas to the treatment center with his sire, taking a full flight of stairs in the dark and spending nearly 2 hours telling me he'd love to be a therapy dog when he grew up.

If I'd given Santa a fantasy wish-list for the perfect dog, I'd have found Keen in my stocking.

Instead... the things that will never be. I'd trade every potential ribbon to have him back. To have his ridiculously curly head shove under my hand, doing the happy-bounce every morning from the bedroom to the door to go outside. To see him sitting in "his spot" eagerly waiting for his breakfast, to see his black form streaking around the pasture, to yell at him just once more for pulling plastic bags out of the recycling and shredding them all over my bedroom...

It is not my nature to live a life filled with regret. But I find that I have countless regrets for Keen. I wish we'd taken more photographs. I wish I'd taken him free coursing to chase a jackrabbit. I wish I'd seen this coming, that I could have prevented it, that I could have saved him, that I was smarter or more skilled or had magical powers and could just undo this unbearable sorrow.

I wish I could stop lying in bed, night after night, reliving the last 30 seconds of his life. I wish I could stop crying. I wish I wish I wish...

Sleep softly, forever more, my little Keen-bean. I will look in the night sky see your inky black coat on moonless nights, your brindle stripes in the Milky Way's band, the twinkle of your eyes in the stars. Farewell.

Comparing Judging

“A good judge conceives quickly, judges slowly” ~ Unk.

The highlight of the weekend, other than the always enjoyable dinner with close friends, was serendipitous. I went to Colorado for a seminar (more on that later) and stumbled upon a pony inspection. I quickly introduced myself as a former Connemara breeder and asked if I could impose by tagging along. The Inspector graciously allowed me to do so.

From a distance.

On the left you see a cluster of people with clipboards; they are the Inspectors, and have a form for reviewing the physical points of the pony they are examining. They measured his height at the withers with an official measuring stick, and confirmed the measurement. Each Inspector put hands on the pony, feeling the coat and flesh - and the animal's response to being touched by strangers. Note the animal is on a flat halter with a loose lead rope at all times. The Inspectors watched the pony move out at a walk and at a trot, and talked amongst themselves while this was happening. Then, because this is a stallion (the inspection process is more onerous for stallions than for mares), everyone moved to the arena (to the right in the photo) and the stallion was turned loose. This enables not only his free movement to be observed, but also his behavior (and therefore temperament) in a foreign environment.

Throughout, the Inspectors stayed clustered together, heads tilted in, sharing thoughts and comparing opinions. After they were done observing the pony, they discussed the evaluation amongst themselves for several long minutes, wrote up their collective score and report, and then gave the stallion's owner detailed feedback on his pony's strong and weak points.

The Inspection lasted nearly 45 minutes. It was my great privilege to observe the process and this lovely animal.

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Many years ago, in a time zone far far away, I was a consulting rosarian. As an active member of my local rose society, I volunteered at our annual rose show, the primary public education activity of the organization. Being a pathologically competitive person, I avoided entering the rose show as I wanted rose gardening to be my private form of therapy. Sunday morning in my rose gardens - putting on a floppy straw hat, pink flip flops, green cloth gloves, and going on bended knee into dark and pungent soil, pruning shears in hand, to practice integrated pest management - provided the weekly antidote to my high-tech corporate pressure cooker career. Cutting a few blooms to grace my cubicle was a joy.

I had four rose garden areas: along the front of the house; between the fence and the street on the east side; the fragrant cutting garden off the kitchen patio; and climbers behind the pool.

I did not want my roses to become a competitive endeavor; they were sacred.

Of course, it was not to be. In an effort to learn more about roses, and their spectacular blooms in particular (the entire plant is fascinating - did you know roses have prickles, not thorns?), I became a clerk at our annual show.

Clerking is the best job there is at a rose show. You get to spend hours on your feet, keeping your mouth shut, following around a pair or trio of judges, trying to keep up with their discussion and decisions, keeping your mouth shut, marking class winners and placements, flagging down runners to move winners to the head table, keeping your mouth shut, finding the table with the next class your group of judges is to judge even though it's on the other side of the hotel's ballroom and you can't leave your judges' side, deciphering the grunts and gestures common to some judges - and soaking up every morsel of conversation between the judges.

The best rose show judges, and almost all for whom I clerked were great, always took time share knowledge with their clerks. Their kind words made me a better gardener, a better rosarian. Eventually, I was persuaded to enter some of my roses in the local annual shows, where my exhibits occasionally placed.

An exhibit may be picked up (by the display vase) by a Judge, turned this way and that, viewed from above, foliage from below, the scent sampled - never touched, but as thorough an exam as the other senses can achieve. Disagreements between judges over scores and placements were always civilized, with comparisons between cultivars prompting persuasive arguments of one exhibit over another based on the scale of points:

OFFICIAL A.R.S. SCALE OF POINTS:

• FORM 25 points
• COLOR 20 points
• SUBSTANCE 15 points
• STEM AND FOLIAGE 20 points
• SIZE 10 points
• BALANCE AND PROPORTION 10 points

Needless to say, winning a class at a rose show is a tremendous honor. I was lucky enough to do so only once, at a huge District (regional) show. The trophy is to this day proudly displayed in my family room.

This is Love Potion, taken from my mauve cutting garden off the kitchen patio. It is staggeringly fragrant and just looking at the picture fills my head with its scent.

As each class is judged, the winner is taken to a head table. After every exhibit in each class has been judged, all the Judges gather (up to 10 judges) to select Queen (first), King (second), and the Court (remaining placements). Then the judges - ALL the judges - select the overall winners. Sometimes the decision is instant, sometimes discussion ensues, but it is always unanimous.

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Let us compare these two processes - evaluation by committee and discussion without overt time constraints - to the process of judging at a dog show:

A new breed judge is expected to judge a minimum of 20 dogs an hour, and experienced judges at least 25 dogs an hour (see Rules Ch. 7, Section 12).

Pp 10 - 11, Rules, Policies and Guidelines for Conformation Dog Show Judges

It is no small wonder to me that the quality of stallions is so very high, that the winning roses are of overwhelming magnificence: the collective wisdom and experience of many people have gone into making the selections.

It comes as no surprise that dog show judges so frequently get it wrong - each works alone and has scant time. The miracle is they ever get it right!

Perhaps, if we want to find the best dogs, we need a better process - lest we judge in haste and repent in leisure.

Back in the Saddle

After a lovely summer spent playing with puppies, cooking with my son, celebrating a milestone wedding anniversary, and teaching (and learning from!) a lot of new clients, it's time to get back in the proverbial saddle - which in fact is a keyboard - and release a slew of posts that have accumulated in my head.

Starting Monday. Probably.

Later today I'm off to Colorado for a seminar on structure and performance given by Helen King, renowned Connemara breeder and agility competitor. Maybe I can get her to sign my Rocky statue...

Anyway, planned topic is a long-ago started draft on unforgivable faults. Hoping for lots of discussion on this one....

Black holes

Going to Nationals was a great experience, but I was "off the radar" in more ways than one.

First, there was the two-day drive out. In near-constant gale-force winds and driving rain. Just me, seven borzoi, and Brown Betty (my van). Many thanks to Barb for the loan of a cargo platform, it was invaluable!! The sheer amount of stuff that went to Kentucky with me was, well, staggering. And other than too many t-shirts, none of it was unnecessary. Yikes.

The tubs contain: coursing/racing gear; dog food, bowls, buckets, etc.; people food/drinks; dog-washing and -grooming supplies, show leads, et al; people clothes, a change of shoes.

1,350 miles and four tanks of gas later, we arrived. Meeting on-line friends in person for dinner set the tone for the week - everyone was happy to see each other, fervent in their opinions, and filled with sportsmanship.

The field trials occupied Sunday and Monday, and there were some nice borzoi. By nice I mean: sane and functional. Well muscled. Lots of prey drive. A few impressed me, a few were disappointing, and most were in that ho-hum middle-ground of decent runners that left my socks on my ankles. But there were no slackers, and that is always a good thing. I didn't enter the ASFA trial, but did have skin in the game: Gin's sire, grand-sire, and great-grand-dam were all running. (I helped slip.) Gin ran in the LGRA trial that afternoon, but was pulled after P2 following a nasty collision at the finish. (She was fine.) I ran three dogs in the AKC trial on Monday: Rumor finished her MC title from the Veterans class; Py (Specials) and Gin (Open) both placed.

That afternoon I handed off one adult and two puppies and I headed up to the host hotel with a fist-full of ribbons and bling, ready for the next stage of the event. By Monday night I had shed another adult, so was down to a mere three borzoi for the rest of the week. After coordinating 50 meals (and at least four-times that many potty trips) in three-and-a-half days, I was finally feeling like a lady of leisure.

Except for unloading all that stuff from the van to the hotel room - plus two crates, an x-pen, several dog blankets, my cooler, camera, and other front-seat sundries... which sent me to bed with an aching back.

Tuesday was Obedience and Rally, and I will say - hands down - this was the most supportive competitive environment I've ever been in. Pick a sport, any sport; any time zone, any level. THIS was a great place to be: heartfelt cheers, good-natured laughter, sympathetic groans, supportive classmates. Clear front-runners for the Triathalon emerged, titles were finished, first legs were earned, and the judge's indulgence was much appreciated.

Wednesday the entire tone of the event changed. Perhaps it was the quantity of dogs, the endless drone of blow dryers in the grooming room, the wet and shivering dogs walking from the bathing area to the building. Perhaps it was the event type changing, perhaps it was something else. But once the conformation events started, there was a subtle shift. Around the ring, people seemed to fragment into groups, there was less camaraderie. There was a lot of clumping around the results board, muttering and lowered voices. Aside glances, fingers pointing in catalogues, and pursed lips.

In the grooming room itself, sportsmanship abounded. Grooming tables, supplies, dryers, and extension cords were shared as readily as a super-sized bag of M&M's. Two of my own dogs were groomed for nearly six hours by someone else (six!!) and - I will be honest - looked utterly magnificent when she was done. Paula is a master groomer, and a finer example of a Southern lady would be hard to find. Kindness and generosity, endless gossip and tales of other dogs and long-ago shows filled the air - along with mousse, mist, and whips of dog fur. Scissors sang and brushes flourished and virtually all the dogs stood for endless hours with looks ranging from profound boredom to resignation to quiet contentment.

The health seminar Wednesday night was great; the speaker was funny, articulate, thoughtful, and very informative. An excellent use of time and money.

Thursday "regular" conformation classes began. Hallways were progressively more crowded, exercise areas in constant use, and a sense of "I'm late! I'm late! for a very important date!" gave urgency to footfalls in the hallway.

Heaven help you if you took a dog of color into the ring (and few people did), or one without a lot of bone, or a moderate rear... with few exceptions, you might as well have been standing on a distant planet. Serious rumblings of discontent from the ring-side observers was evident.

Thursday night I attended the member education seminar on how to judge Sweepstakes. Focused principally on procedure and administrivia, it provided insights into the realities for judges. More interesting than informative, I thought, other than a suggestion to find the dogs of best type first, then select soundness from among those. Not quite chicken and egg... but perhaps soundness first and type second?

Things weren't quite so bad in the bitch classes on Friday, as there were more colored hounds entered and quality, overall, seemed better than in dogs. I was terribly disappointed, however, when in one class a bitch that the judge had great difficulty in touching was put up over others that were of superior temperament.

After a quick trip to visit a friend's kennel and see some lovely puppies, I attended the judge's education seminar. This is presented several times a year to prospective and current borzoi judges so they know what makes a "correct" borzoi. There were numerous photographs, including two of hounds that had been shaved down (so their coat didn't disguise appearance). In retrospect, I think I would have preferred that photos of outstanding running dogs, rather than highly successful show dogs, had been used. If BCOA is going to tell judges this is a running breed, then let's focus on field performance phenotype, yes? Return of upper arm and croup angle are two items where information presented was inconsistent with experience. Points around tail -set and -usage and sidegait (a trotting breed moves very differently from a galloping breed) also made me frown.

Saturday morning I was up and loading and on the road as soon as possible. Another 1,350 miles and four tanks of gas, I was home late Sunday afternoon. Despite the grueling hours - most days approached 18 hours in length - it was a very worthwhile week. My head filled with possibilities and good memories, I'm already looking forward to next year.

Puppy Update

Six weeks old? The time has FLOWN by!!

The camera is giving me fits again (guess that will go on the wish list for Christmas) which is a shame as they are wicked cute. This morning they "helped" me take the garbage out, and I do wish there's been an extra set of hands with a video camera. Imagine four puppies racing me down a 400' driveway while I drag two 80-gallon cans. The garbage cans make quite a racket and have big wheels, which is exactly what Kay Laurence says they need exposure to. (Kay has a reputation as the person on puppy learning, and is a wonderful seminarian.)

The puppies wove in and out of my legs, got in front of the moving cans, and generally made total pills of themselves then entire way to the gate - excellent reactions! Then I pulled out the BIG can we keep by the gate, a 120-gallon container that gets emptied by the collection service. I made as much noise as possible (not difficult to do, these are hard plastic jobbers), banging lids, lifting and dumping and dropping and tossing. The puppies looked at me like I was a rock star... oooooh, how cool! Do it again! Then I opened the gate, scooted out, and left the puppies behind while I positioned huge container at the property line. Cries of protest followed me - for the big container or me, I could not say.

I scooted back in the gate and locked it, picked up the recycling bins, loudly dropped one in each garbage can, and started back up the driveway. The 80-gallon cans, now considerably lighter, banged merrily along the gravel, making a terrible racket. The puppies were everywhere in the way, so I found a clear path and started jogging, hoping to stay in front of them. The cans were making a horrific noise at this point, bouncing madly along the gravel, the recycling bins clanging inside them. The puppies then raced me, trying to keep up, eyes bright and faces gleeful at this game. Interestingly, the biggest puppy was the fastest, the smallest was the slowest. Clearly, all the racket was a non-issue for them.

Later this morning they get their longest car-ride yet: to the vet's office for their first vaccinations. I hope they think that is fun, too!

Volcanoes

The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland got me thinking about a book I recently finished: Krakatoa. A fascinating trip through history and geology (as most of his books are), making many a road trip quite pleasurable.

Actually, I've enjoyed everything I've by Simon Winchester that I've read, though there are a few I haven't devoured yet. Guess I better hit the library...

Friends, Family, and Freedom

There's an old saying: never discuss religion or politics. This advice is routinely given to children, but sometimes forgotten by adults.

I have an uncle, my favorite uncle in fact, who's politics I agree with about 50%. This uncle, a former judge and big-shot in his religious organization of choice, is a card-carrying member of the John Birch Society. (Yes Virginia, there really is a JBS.) Then there's my mother; in 1972 she campaigned door-to-door for George McGovern (sometimes taking me and my sister with her). I learned a lot about commitment and activism that summer. But I agree with my mother only about 50% of the time.

My uncle and my mother are able to sit at a table and share a meal and love each other and have mutual respect - and keep politics off the menu. Religion (broadly speaking), is fair game as a topic, however. But not politics.

My in-laws are Roman Catholic, very Catholic. I am... not. My husband was an altar boy. He went to just about the most Catholic university in the country - twice. With my in-laws, we don't discuss religion, ever. Politics, broadly speaking, is a hot topic (it is California, after all).

Think you know what political party I belong to? Ten will get me $20, you're wrong.

It's a choice, getting along or not. To respect ourselves, each other, and the First Amendment, or not. Sadly, most of the time, the loudest people seem to be choosing not. We can't hear each other over the shouting, the raised angry voices screaming We're right and they're wrong and there is no middle ground. How on earth could healthy or constructive dialogue ever take place with that vitriol in the air?

I think the truth is: we all just need to STFU. By which I mean, we all need to stop becoming hysterical when somebody says something with which we don't agree. On the big issues - especially on the biggest issues, the third rail stuff - nobody is changing anybody else's mind. And hasn't in a very very long time, and any semblance of movement toward agreement is closer to impossible than difficult.

My uncle, who's smart and thoughtful and considerate and sometimes infuriatingly articulate, once told me (as we prepared Christmas dinner together, sharing a kitchen full of knives and boiling pots and glassware) that abortion is like slavery: the issue is that divisive. I didn't agree with him, at the time, but have come around to the opinion that he's probably right. Nobody is changing anybody's mind about anything, and sometimes it does look like a Civil War on the front lines of the issue.

As for me, I'm a big fan of Milton Friedman. A brilliant thinker and writer, proponent of personal freedoms and free markets. And responsibility in both. His death was a terrible loss for the world.

So think, believe, say what you want. I will, too. And I'll defend to the end your right to think, believe, and say what you want, even if I don't agree with you. And I expect you to do the same for me.

Because that's what freedom really means, and that's what friends (and family) do.

Even when there are certain things we don't talk about.