Can I Bring the Dog?

New England Agility Team trial, Greenland, NH

Posted on May 20, 2014 by annieriecken

Saturday morning it was raining to beat the band, but the radar indicated that the worst of it would be through Greenland by 9 or 10 AM, so I put me, Chico, several pair of dry socks, extra rain gear, dog-towels aplenty, and a mug of tea in the car and headed out.

By the time we arrived at 8 AM the rain had reduced to a mist. By our first run, it wasn’t raining. The venue Sanderson Field, is a well-maintained, grass landing strip with just tons of room for doggies to run and play when they are not competing.

View from the back of the car, around 9:30 AM.

The clouds parted, the sun came out, and by the time we left at 3:30 that afternoon, it was 79 and sunny. Warm enough for Chico to take several dips in that pond on the left of the image. And he wasn’t the only dog who enjoyed the pond and the fields.

I asked a friend to record our Standard run. It’s absolutely awesome except the weave poles, where, I realize I was terrible to my partner. I drilled him, I grilled him, I darned near worked him until his head exploded. We did in the end get them done, but it wasn’t nice, it wasn’t fun, it probably didn’t do any good towards solving the problem of weave poles being fine at home and impossible at trials (in an outside the ring chat, the judge said she one had a dog like that, called him “a closet weaver”), and it took so long that our clean course wasn’t qualifying because we went over standard course time with all the time spent fooling around in the weave poles.

That said, take a look at the rest of it, at the spectacular setting, and at how it cleared right up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2z09lZ0MFI

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dog agility, Greenland NH, Sanderson Field, USDAA agility | Leave a comment

Dog art that makes me drool

Posted on May 19, 2014 by annieriecken

Look at this:

and this:

and this:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dog art, Tim Racer | Leave a comment

One last stop

Posted on May 18, 2014 by annieriecken

Somewhere in Ohio, or maybe it was western Pennsylvania, we stopped for a walk and were in the midst of a whole lot of patches of yellow trout lilies.

This was the first brush with the abundance of spring.

Now we’re home, have been for a couple weeks to tell the truth, and it feels good.

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Route 6, Iowa

Posted on May 16, 2014 by annieriecken

I used my tour book, Stay on Route 6, to find interesting activities to break up our road days. One worthwhile stop was the Maytag Dairy. In the early part of the 20th century a member of the famous appliance-making company started a dairy, and in the 1940s was lured by a new process created by scientists at the University of Iowa – blue cheese. In France, the cheese is aged in caves with a particular type of mold present. The U of I scientists figured out how to capture that strain of mold, reproduce it, and add it to milk curds, allowing the curds to mature into American-made blue cheese.

There is no longer a tour of the barns and cheese factory, production is so large (a million pounds a year) that the dairy no longer has its own herds, instead buying milk from Iowa farmers. And to have factory tours a lot of expensive infrastructure to separate food manufacturing areas from the public is needed, so I watched a nice, if out-dated, video of the company history and got a tour of the office, which included the packaging room where people still wrap at least some of the wedges by hand.

Just a few miles east on Route 6 is Grinnell, Iowa. Grinnell College is there, so I cruised downtown looking for a store with some interesting food that would get me down the road for the next couple days.

Kind of a neat town. Interesting stores, a couple bakeries, a nice park for a dog walk.

In the park I learned that Grinnell was on the underground railroad in slavery days.

It has a very distinguished building:

It was designed by Louis Sullivan.

Dang that car, even after we walked around for a while, it didn’t move.

These guardian creatures are pretty neato.

My tour ended at a deli with a good sandwich, healthy snacks, and some takeout soup that made for fine road-meals until I got across Ohio and Pennsylvania to Kathy and Ben’s. Home-raised and home-cooked food, familiar roads – that was sounding pretty good after so long away from home.

Posted in Field Trips, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Route 6 adventures, Nebraska

Posted on May 8, 2014 by annieriecken

The mountains one sees from Denver are called the Front Range. East of them it’s, more or less, flat until the Appalachians start to rise in central Pennsylvania. Sounds like a couple boring days driving, huh? Well, good old Route 6 did not fail me. A mere dozen miles from the interstate is Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village. Billed as the largest private collection of Americana anywhere, this is worth a stop. Maybe even a whole day. Maybe more.

Harold Warp apparently bought anything that he could. There are twenty-six buildings over twenty acres. Over 50,000 items, large and small, are displayed. Categorized. Displayed in chronological order. It was jaw dropping. The man was obsessed with collecting Americana.

Items are packed in.

Just packed.

And not just big things.

Oil lamps anyone?

Or perhaps a small history of the telephone interests you?

Peddler's wagon. My mom said she could remember a man coming by with a wagon like this.

Peddler’s wagon. My mom said she could remember a man coming by her childhood home in northern Minnesota with a wagon like this.

Here’s an early car. Look, it has a tiller!

Many of the items told their original selling price. That was fun.

And there are whole buildings that Warp collected. A sod house. A church. This carousel.

One building was full of hobbies. Salt and pepper shaker collections. A ballpoint pen collection. Ships in bottles. Button collections. Button collections made into things.

Then there was a building full of old home appliances.

Thoughtfully, but archaically, signed.

It contained old stoves, carpet beaters to vacuums, washing machines, ice boxes to refrigerators.

Early ice boxes . . .

give way to more modern versions.

Note the waffle irons in the foreground left.

And then it starts again with heating stoves, which branch off into wood, then gas, fired cooking stoves.

There were buildings full of old cars. Others with farming and working equipment. There was a steam engine.

A building of home arts had displays of a typical kitchen, living room, and bedroom each in 1890, 1920, 1930, and 1940. There were rooms of furniture, displayed as on a showroom floor.

And old greeting cards, arranged by holiday.

And this crazy electric chair from the 1950s.

There’s not much that will get me to leave Chico in the car for a couple hours, but this place was entrancing. I felt like I was in the storehouses of the Smithsonian. Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village bills itself as Nebraska’s top tourist attraction, and I can see why. It was a winner in my book.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Field Trip, Harold Warp, Nebraska, Pioneer Village, US Route 6 | 1 Comment

Denver area

Posted on May 6, 2014 by annieriecken

That broken tail light happened on a Sunday afternoon, when I was heading towards the middle of nowhere. I figured that Denver was the closest Mazda dealer, and I have friends living there, so I decided to push on with the broken lens (all the lights still worked) and spend a few days there, getting the car patched up and visiting. As luck would have it, my friend Mila, from Amsterdam, was also in town for a Cannabis related event. We had fun visiting before she got too busy with work.

We ate some good food.

From a food truck called Cilantro. Outside a brewpub.

We saw some funny things:

And ran around town together for a couple days.

Mila was interviewed on the radio.

Chico and I were there and stayed quiet. Well, I might have piped up a couple times, but Chico was perfect.

Colorado, as many readers will know, recently legalized the production and sale (to adults) of recreational Cannabis. It seems that I arrived at the same time as tens of thousands of people coming to celebrate that at a couple different festivals. Mila’s business is in that industry (yes, the Netherlands has a Cannabusiness sector and I know people who work in it).

So Chico and I went with her the day she set up her stand, and the next day we dropped by with some sandwiches for Mila and her staff after the public showed up. It was like any other trade show, except for the products. And the crowd wasn’t wearing suits.

The crowd was diverse. Surprisingly so, really.

The range of products went from stereotypical,

Brownie mix with hash included for making controlled-dose "magic" brownies at home.

like brownie mix, hash included, for making controlled-dose “magic” brownies at home.

to high tech innovation.

Self-service kiosks for marijuana. A creditcard payment will trigger the release on a locker containing the items one purchases.

Self-service kiosks for marijuana. A credit card payment will trigger the release to access a locker containing the items one selects. Sort of like RedBox Movies at the supermarket.

Strange I tell you, strange.

And here’s an interesting development created by the legal Cannabis market:

This stand was *packed.* I wiggled my hand through the crowd to take this shot.

I spared Chico walking through the crowd, leaving him in the car. It started to get hot, so I got him out for a little bit. But he wasn’t too sure about the whole thing. So many people, so little space.

So we didn’t stick around. We headed out to a friend’s house south of town to visit her on 90 acres. Much more to the liking of both of us. Multiple dwellings, lots of workers building things, four dogs (a French terrier named Emma, two Chi-Weenies who’s names I never did get right, and Freddie, a Tibetan Terrier), lots of room for walks. It was a great couple day break from the road and the crowds of our city adventure. The little girl Chi-Weenie thought Chico was the coolest, she kept jumping up to lick his face. He just stood there and looked at her like she was weird until I caught up and shooed her away.

Chico went a lot of of places those days in Denver, and he was very well behaved. He let people come and go from places without announcing every move or challenging people’s right to exist. Such a good boy.

And what did he get for it? A bath.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cannabis Cup, Colorado Cannabis, Denver, Field Trip, Mazda dealer | Leave a comment

A detour from our cross-country journey

Posted on May 5, 2014 by annieriecken

We interrupt this recounting of the trip for a post about dog behavior.

I just re-read an article showing the flaws in the alpha-dog theory. It’s from the December 2011 issue of the Whole Dog Journal, written by Patricia Miller, one of my favorite writers on the relationship between people and dogs. And it’s so concise, I want everyone interested in dogs to read it. If you do think this way, it will give you words to describe why you do what you do. If you subscribe to the alpha-dog theory, I ask you to read the article with an open mind.

“De-bunking the Alpha-Dog Theory” is a short, clear explanation of why positive reinforcement training is more appropriate and effective than the alpha-dog approach. I present to you the summary paragraph:

“Today, educated trainers are aware that canine-human interactions are not driven by social rank, but rather by reinforcement. Behaviors that are reinforced repeat and strengthen. If your dog repeats an inappropriate behavior such as counter surfing or getting on the sofa, it’s not because he’s trying to take over the world; it’s just because he’s been reinforced by finding food on the counter, or by being comfortable on the sofa. He’s a scavenger and an opportunist, and the goods are there for the taking. Figure out how to prevent him from being reinforced for the behaviors you don’t want, and reinforce him liberally for the ones you do, and you’re well on your way to having the relationship of mutual love, respect, communication, and communion that we all want to have with our dogs.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alpha, alpha-dog theory, human-dog interaction, positive reinforcement | Leave a comment

Route 6 adventures in Nevada and Utah

Posted on May 3, 2014 by annieriecken

On this trip I took a lot of pictures on multiple devices (I see room for improvement in my image recording and filing protocols) and I am finding whole sections of the trip that got missed when I posted about Ely to Grand Junction. I present some more highlights of my drive.

Nevada had the coolest “cows on the open range” road signs. In all the other states we visited, the cow on the sign resembled a dairy cow. Not in Nevada:

Is it “Ferdinand the Bull” or what?

We crossed and re-crossed the route of the Pony Express.

The enterprise only existed for a year and a half yet it is such an American cultural icon.

The enterprise only existed for a year and a half yet it became such an American cultural icon.

The old way station was across the highway, the rest stop was a nice place for a stroll and some de-watering on both our parts.

We came across some salt flats in Utah:

And this place was out there somewhere on 6/50 on Nevada:

Custom butchering.

And so much more.

Artistic metal and antler work.

And this amazing antler gate:

There’s so much to see in this nation. The least interesting bits are almost always the closest to the interstate highway system. The slightly weird and, to me at least, most interesting stuff is in the middle of nowhere, on the side of a smaller highway. I’m quite happy to see interesting things and have the trip be a day or two longer. And lucky enough to have the time to do it that way.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Field Trip, Nevada, off the interstate, signs, US Route 6, Utah | Leave a comment

Walk in the Sierras

Posted on May 1, 2014 by annieriecken

Leaving Jimbo and Buddy’s house, we passed through the high Sierra Mountains, through Donner Pass.

The pass is up there somewhere in the snowy part of those mountains.

We stopped for a walk because…well, because it was so nice.

Lots of trees to see, and lots to sniff, depending on which of us you’re talking about.

I got Chico to stand still long enough for this nice picture.

But it really didn’t last very long.

After a few minutes we came upon what looked like someone’s semi permanent campsite/house, so we went back to the car and, after I backed into a tree and broke my tail light cover (Oooops. Making more use of that back-up camera that came with the car – perhaps I could work on that.) got on the way again, headed for Ely, NV and the Bristlecone Pine Inn. Which was not quite as set-in-the-trees as its name would indicate, but provided a clean bed, shower, and microwave for my supper can of soup.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Donner Pass, Ely Nevada, Field Trip | Leave a comment

Walks along the way

Posted on April 28, 2014 by annieriecken

Driving along mostly-two-lane Route 6 gave me a chance to spot good places to walk Chico.

This is the entrance to the many-acre fenced field that is the dog park in

This is the entrance to the many-acre dog park in Hastings, Nebraska. It goes all the way to the far edge of that dead grass in the background.

It might be an old landfill, I wasn’t sure, but I bet it was twenty-five acres of fenced field. Lots of poop bags by the gate, trash cans and chairs every few hundred feet along the fence line, lots of room, and only one other person and dog making use of the space. We walked the perimeter. Actually, I walked the perimeter and Chico ran back and forth in the field near me.

[UPDATE: Just found a few pictures of that big dog park on another device (oh, modern problems), so here they are.]

The empty, grassy, parking lot of the Warren County (Pennsylvania) Fair also provided a nice thirty or forty minute walk. Cemeteries also prove to be a good place to walk. There’s usually no one around, lots of trees surrounding, grass, interesting things for me to look at and for Chico to sniff.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dog parks, off-leash walks | Leave a comment