Chelsea, the yellow lab pictured, passed away from liver cancer on March 3, 2013.  She was a wonderful companion and friend and will be missed by the many people and dogs who knew her.

Cool Dog Video

Doggie Daycare

It's been a loooong time since I've posted on this blog. It's a Wednesday, so the pups are at daycare, playing with their friends and with each other. On daycare days we announce, "It's puppy play day!" Things I love about our dog daycare are: they don't allow rough play, they have a great interview process to assess a dog's ability to get along well with other dogs, they are very helpful with concerns and willing to change days when needed, and they notice when Chelsea, who's now had surgery on both knees, seems off and they let me know. It gives me peace of mind to know that the two dogs love their daycare and are having fun while I'm at work. The daycare staff (there are many of them) really seem to know and enjoy our dogs, and they report back when good things happen. Apparently, Chelsea is good at welcoming new dogs, especially labs, into the daycare and helping them to feel good about being there by playing with them very appropriately. She is also good at sensing when any two dogs are getting a bit too wound up, and she does a walk-between move to break them up and calm them down. She gets to practice her social skills at daycare quite a bit and I like that, since I've had to use clicker training to help her calm down when we see other dogs on leash walks.

Too Hot...

It's 9:30 p.m. and still 80 degrees in our house. Fans are on, and temps should go down overnight tonight, but the dogs are plastered to our wood floors, soaking up as much cool as possible. Chelsea still hasn't shed off all of her winter coat, so she's really feeling it, and leaving hair everywhere!

First attempt at adding video

Okay, here's my first try to add the video of Chelsea swimming.

Been A While

Well it's been a while since I've posted, so here's what's going on in our world with dogs. Chelsea and I are taking a freestyle class - and it's been fun, and I'll say very challenging. She knows some moves, but we're working on more. She can face me and walk backward, she can heel on both sides and also back a few steps on both sides of me. She's learing to step sideways as I step into her. I'm hoping to be able to post my own YouTube (45 sec. to a full min.) of a routine we're working on. In the meantime I'll soon add a very short vid of Chelsea's pool time last winter while she was rehabbing from her knee surgery.

Project Play lives on

I just got the go-ahead to create a blog for this summer's Teen's Choice book awards program. At the top I'm hoping to make a mashup with all of the Teen's Choice review book covers for this year - made with One True Media - it can include music, so I'll also look for music in public domain that would work. I'm also envisioning one post per book with links on the sidebar to each book's post. Each post will include the book summary, the book cover as a live link to the catalog for holds placing purposes, and then some audio or video content - I found an amazing video of Tamora Pierce talking about writing and about her book "Terrier" on YouTube, for example, so one of the TCA review book's authors speaking or promoting the particular book would be cool, as well as some podcasts of booktalks by teens. Oh yeah, posts will invite comments and voting. By the way, my assignment re: curiosity is two posts below - but don't miss the YouTube just below of Canine Freestyle.

What's the big "to-do?"

Here's my favorite video of a high-ranking competetive canine freestyle team. By the way, scroll down to see my comments re: weeks 11/12 assignment - curiosity.

Curiosity

I like to think that librarians are a pretty curious bunch. After all, it's not so much what we know, but what we are able to discover and create that makes us so valuable to the community. I have to admit, though, my risk-taking threshold is very low. So, in some ways I have to push myself to stay curious. I do like the quote from Albert Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." I tend to pick and choose my areas of intense interest or exploration, which border on obsession,like my curiosity about dogs and dog behaviors. So if obsessive exploration counts as curiosity then I must have some - though I doubt it's going to make me rich in anything other than experience.

Thanks so much for the project play curriculum, for all of the web links - I now have photos posted to flickr and built my own radio station on Pandora and have created slide shows and wikis and am looking forward to creating widgets for potential use on Teen Topix book blog. It's been an incredible course!!

More Mashups

I've added two sites - both mashups - to Chelsea's Favorites in the sidebar. For those of us who like to travel with our dogs, one is a dog park locator and the other is a dog-friendly hotel finder.