Ten Months Old. We have plans. They involve the running dogwalk. And not going apeshit during the agilities of others. And not jumping up on people when they give her luvvies. Those are the big plans this month. They are unwieldy. Running dogwalks when you don’t have a dogwalk or a place to put one! A great amount of apeshit to undo! And the luvvies. Everyone loves Banksy, except for people that don’t like big fluffy muddy paws jumping up to express her manic and insane love for them.

Impulse control is a thing that we are not excellent at here. I should have done 100 more hours of crate games. So much fluffiness, and so little time. I can clip and dremel her nails though, with her laying upside down in a flippy flop, and brush that tail with a mind of it’s own. She can go into the vet’s office and have happy fits to visit there now. So minor victories and everything is a constant work in progress.

Banksy is the most happy about the weather. She’s a rain dog. Flash flood warnings are her thing. So rain jacket on and off we go. Every day there is a forest or a field or a beach. If you have a border collie, I think every day at least once there needs to be some running and jumping and climbing up hills and into creeks and splashing in waves. Border collies need trees and grasses and mud and slopey hills with rocks and stumps that look like one armed slashers in the dark. They need drainage ditches that plug up and rise up waist high, they need flocks of birds flying off into the breeze, they need high winds that blow the ball higher and further and faster. Border collies want some weather.

Today was a rain that wouldn’t stop, just like the old days, when decoupage was a thing and people wore suede a lot. She’s not allowed to run loose at the ranch, ever since the truck chasing incident, which is very much a Thing, but she stays in her dry pen in the hayroom. The rain pounds loud on the ceiling there and then she came out for a while to help me deal with some flooding. Rain is just a big pond everywhere for her and she’s happiest when she’s wet and muddy and running, add a tennis ball and that’s a happy dog. I have tall green rain boots and a new rain coat. Me and Otterpop, we go out with Banksy.

How did we not have a border collie before this? Everyone here loves Banksy, even though she can drive us all crazy sometimes. She wants to stare at dust and eat sofa pillows and 16×20 black and white gelatin silver prints and she can make Otterpop VERY mad with her big fluffy love face. She stayed loose in the house with Gustavo and Ruby the other night while we were out. Otterpop comes with me, she’s like the meanest little tote bag dog now and has lost a lot of privileges such as staying home with everybody else. We came home to nothing eaten and quiet dogs laying around. This is a big deal of ten months old.

We’re very structured agility practicers these days. I’m lucky to have friends to practice with, our puppies are all at about the same level and we are all mad for Silvia. We cik and tap and serp, and we have just started pushing and threadling. We are teetering and 2o2offing, we are running thru wide open channels and coming to hand. We are staying everywhere and on everything. We could do this all day. We wish we could do this all day. Every little practice is a gift, so much to do and so hardly any time to do it in. The running dogwalk part of practicing, of the future, commuting to a dogwalk, with all the slow-mo video and obsessing over feet, that part is coming next, and it’s a little bit exciting.

I sure am lucky to have a Banksy. Not sure what did did without one, before.