Linus and I walked the 1-mile Bay to Barkers walk today in Albany. We had a great time, and raised $250 to help homeless pets. The walk was a blast. Earl came to cheer us on (he’s still on crutches, so no walking for him for a few more months- uck), and we even met some fellow corgi owners during the walk.

As my computer is still broken (I’ve actually bit the bullet and decided to just get a new Mac in a few weeks once school starts), I am hogging Earl’s laptop right now to write a quick update while he takes a snooze. Here’s a quick Race Report:

We got a little lost on the way there, so were running late. We arrived and it was right to registration and the walk was starting right away!
Also, my phone was somehow set on “black and white” mode for a bit without me noticing… hope you don’t mind the lack of color:
OFF WE GO!

The walk went along the Bay and was a really gorgeous route. It was at Golden Gate Fields, which was a pretty cool park! Would be fun to come back and check it out solo. There were lots of people just enjoying the park not affiliated with the Humane Society walk. Runners, people walking dogs, hikers…

About a half mile in, lo and behold Linus met a new corgi friend. I swear, corgis flock to one another!

This little guy was Max. He is 2 years old. His momma and I walked together for the rest of the walk and chatted.

When we were done with the walk, they had lots of fun games and activities for Dogs and Humans. There were various stations set up where you could play games with your dogs. One of them was “nose hunting.” Basically, they would hide hot dogs under various boxes after the dog had a chance to get a good sniff in, and then gave him a “FIND IT” command and let him go to to work. Linus surprised me and displayed a really natural affinity for this! I never knew he was much of a scent hound. He found the hotdogs in three progressively harder set ups, all on his first try. The lady running the booth was so impressed she was trying to recruit him into a tracking class. I might try and look one up near us- seems like a fun, relatively low impact activity that he might really enjoy.

They also had a Rally setup where you could try out an obstacle course with your dog, although we skipped that one because it seemed a bit high-impact for our fragile woof. Linus, did, however, thoroughly enjoy playing “Bobbing for Hotdogs.” He hunted for a submerged hot dog bit a bunch of different depths of dog dishes. He loved it! He made it all the way to the deepest dish and got his whole head underwater to get the hotdog.

Finally, we did PAINTING!!!! This was super fun! Basically, you put your dog’s paws in the different colors of paint, and let him walk through a “canvas” poster to make a work of art. So cute

Linus wasn’t very excited about putting his paws in the paint (as soon as a sniff revealed the paint not to be edible, he wasn’t interested anymore), although with some treat utilization, we were able to create the following, which is now proudly hanging up on our fridge (so dorky, ha ha):

Check out those painted paws:

Some other dogs really got messy with the paint! A few of them we completely covered in paint head to toe. Some had it over their entire rear ends from sitting down in the paint trays. heh heh When we got home, I gave Linus a full bath and got most of the paint out, although one paw is still slightly pink.

Here’s Larry. He won the Dog/Owner Look-a-Like Contest. We’ll just say his owner… had hair like Larry. Hopefully she styled it specifically for the occasion

All in all, it was a wonderful event for a great cause. A very big, sincere thanks to our wonderful and generous donors who chipped in to sponsor our walk! The dogs and cats of the Berkeley Humane Society- as well as Linus and I- give you our deep gratitude and many tail wags of appreciation.

Cheers,
Courtney and Linus the Corgi

Anyways! Today linus and I found ourselves in the south bay between meetings with about 4 hours to kill. I brought homework and found a nice shady spot under a tree in a park to spread out in the blanket and get some studying done. However, why read boring egghead medical studies when you can get fast food and post photos of your dog eating it on your blog?? Priorities!

Actually, I didn’t even • know• in-n-out made things for dogs until i rolled through to grab a burger for myself and the nice lady taking our order suggested, “would your dog like a single plain patty for
himself?” Gee… Would he?! “people get them all the time for their dogs,” she added.
Well, then!
Hmm, something smells good all of a sudden!

Maybe its coming from in here?

I’ve been a good boy, ivebeenagoodboy, IM A GOOD BOY!

Gone in a single gulp

Oh Linus, we love you so much and you are such a spoiled woofer!

Talk about awesome!!

Yes, yes, super lame to take photos while working out, HOWEVER I was just so excited for and proud of Earl for getting er done despite his snowboarding accident.

It’s actually been awesome when we train together now, because he hasn’t been able to train for so long and is just getting back, we now are using all the same weight levels. Convenient! I’m sure that won’t last once he is able to come back with more frequency.

He has another surgery tomorrow to take some pins out. Then another cast put on for a few more weeks and lotsa rehab. But- hey- at least back in the gym a bit for some upper body stuff! woot, woot.

Last year in March, the Berkeley Humane Society suffered a pretty devastating fire. A large percentage of the main building burned to the ground overnight, and sadly- many pets perished. They’ve been working to rebuild and never missed a day of caring for lots of unwanted and needy pets. But there’s still a lot of work to do.

This walk also marks a really significant victory for my pooch, Linus. Last fall he had a spinal cord and neurological emergency. We either had to operate or put him down. He had surgery- 7 months, lotsa rehab, acupuncture, physical therapy and hydro-therapy later Linus can be a (kinda) normal dog again! He’s still pretty wobbly on his rear legs- he doesn’t have the best control of his rear feet- no feeling in his toes and lacks awareness of where his feet are exactly in space. But he gets around okay. And if he can’t make the whole mile, I’ll gladly carry him (or put him in a wagon). After all, he aint heavy, he’s my corgi.

I set a rather humble fundraising goal of $50. Maybe you could find it in your heart to kick in $5 or so for the Humane Society? That would be stupendous! Linus and I- and many, many homeless and needy pets- would be deeply appreciative. Donations of any amount are tax deductible. Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society is a registered 501(c)3 organization. The tax id # is: 94-1347069

Thank you for the consideration!
Love,
Courtney and Linus the corgi

Here’s the link to the website where you can donate to support our walk.

Despite a some downtime in the middle of the day, we were out running calls ’till after 3am last night. *yawn*

I have to say, it was harder than you’d think! Teaching how to give compressions to kids… not as straight forward as you’d imagine, but everyone gave it a shot and got the hang of it.

Funniest quote of the day:
Me: “Okay guys, this is an AED. [holds up AED] Can anyone tell me what AED stands for?”
Kid: “ANTIBIOTICS!!”

The firehouse itself was the biggest hit. Everyone wanted to see the trucks, the PA and dispatch system, and of course the poles!
There was a Q&A session which mostly consisted of “How do you become a firefighter?” and “What’s the biggest fire you’ve ever put out?” Note: no one was really interested in how to work on an ambulance haha….

Everyone watched in awe as two firefighters did a pole demo:

Here’s all the kids at the end of the day. What a fantastic group!

It’s tough, because I want to let Linus run and play and romp and chase with other dogs, but I stand there watching and inwardly cringe each time he jumps up or takes a tumble. I guess we’re just destined to live out the rest of his life in fear that he’ll have another back problem! It’s hard to strike a balance between letting him have fun playing and get some exercise while still being conservative and taking it easy on his back.

One adjustment I thought of this morning was to replace our tennis ball thrower with a small Linus-sized soccer ball. I figured it wouldn’t bounce as much as a tennis ball, so less chance of him jumping up to catch it. I was happy to kick it around for him and let him chase it (herd it… heh heh). He seemed to really like it. Also, he stayed parallel to the ground a lot more and didn’t take any real tumbles, which was the goal.

He did bark a lot, I guess it’s from the excitement of “herding” the ball. He would bark when I kicked it and he would bark when he chased it. We’ll have to work on that, although I don’t really know how to train him not to bark.

Some photos:
The soccer ball. Picked it up at a soccer store on Mission Street. It’s a nice tough leather, so I don’t think he can chew through it. He has been carrying it around in his mouth sometimes.

OH BOY IMMA GONNA GO GET IT!! COME BACK HERE BALL I’M GONNA GET YA!!!!

Welp, I’m off to the pool for a swim in the sunshine! Gorgeous day here in SF…

Kind of bad lighting, but here are a bunch of us at the bar afterwards:

GO GIANTS!

I thoroughly enjoyed my hot dog and a beer!

This is how my bruises are looking these days:

I *HATE* the log!!! The first time I ever did it at strongman training, I ended up with massive forearm bruises coloring my arms up for weeks. People actually would stop me to ask if I was a domestic violence victim.

Normally, we lift the log in group, so I was surprised when Ricky had me set it up today for me to work on alone. I kind of need the camaraderie and team-cheer-you-on spirit of the group workouts to get the log up.

Ricky is convinced my aversion to lifting the log is all mental. He thinks I’m scared of it.

I AM SCARED OF IT! Look at this thing- just sitting there taunting you to lift it up:

What makes lifting the log harder than lifting a regular bar with weights are the perpendicular grips. Also, the fact that if you aren’t using enough grip strength to hold it away from your body entirely (which I wasn’t/can’t) the entire weight of the 145lb log presses against your forearms just in that one spot- right against the steel “cage” around your hands:

So here’s me cleaning it and almost about to jump into a press:

Horrible form, but the last last one of the day and it was strictly for the photo-op, as I asked Ricky to take a picture so I could show Earl what the log was.

Man, the log kicked my butt today! We started with regular dumbbell overhead presses to warm up, and then the entire workout was just one thing: THE LOG.

We were going for 20 “perfect form” clean and presses. If I messed up, or paused too much between squatting and cleaning, or before my press, or didn’t successfully get it up over my head, we wouldn’t count that one and I would have to start all over. Somewhere around rep #7 I started to feel dizzy between reps when I would let it crash down to the ground. Somewhere around rep #14 the log whacked my face on the clean and I dropped it and actually STARTED CRYING. 145lbs to the face. I’ve never cried at the gym before! I think I was stunned from it hitting me, and hurt. I faked like I needed to go get some water, kinda washed my face off and came back. I got over the tears almost immediately, but I think Ricky was onto me. He says more often he finds that people cry from deadlifting… heh.

Anyways- stupid log. I can’t say I love it now, although it’s growing on me. This is about our fourth session with it and I’m getting better each time. At first I couldn’t even deadlift the log. Then the next time I could just deadlift it and squat. Then I mastered the clean, and now the press. Hopefully soon I’ll get good enough to hold it right and not let it rest against my forearms, so I don’t look like this immediately after (apologies for the wet messy hair and mirror):

And that is just tonight, not even 5 hours after lifting the damn thing! I bet these babies are going to be all kinds of purple and blue tomorrow!

Ricky told me today that the more often you lift the log, the tougher your forearms become and then you won’t bruise up anymore. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I look forward to that day!