Valentine's Day

This posting is coming from my cell phone. I am in Daytona Beach at the races. This is a trek I have made 33 times before. I love coming to the Daytona 500. This year is the 50th anniversary of the race and my last one here. You see, the races generally fall around Valentine's Day so I am not with my wife on Valentine's Day. She gets the cards, little gifts, flowers and of course a phone call but each year she is a little more depressed that I am here and she is somewhere else. She doesn't want to be here. She wants me to be where she is. So, I told her that this would be my last year here.

The races have been great. The weather has been interesting
I am staying in a tent in the infield at the track. First time that I've done this. I arrived on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon and evening it rained and there were tornado watches in effect until Wednesday morning. Rain and wind but no tornados. Thank goodness! Wednesday night the lows were to be in the mid 40's. When I woke at 5, the temperature was 35. Brrrrr! Tonight is suppose to be close to 50. We'll see.

Hooters wings and scenery are still part of the journey mandatory events. Sat with some guys who went to Georgia. Good conversation, good wings and a pleasant waitress.

We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

Bark Busters

Back in July, Marilyn and I attended an SPCA event at our friends Bob and Kim's home on the Severn River. Each year we have attended an Adopt a Pet event with them in Annapolis to raise money for the Annapolis SPCA to care for the animals that come to the facility. They do not euthanize any animals. They find good homes for all of their temporaty guests. At the event in July, approximately 100 or so people atended. It was a great day. Plenty of crabs and beer, barbeque ribs, corn on the cob and lots of adoptable young pets. When I took a break from helping with the serving of food, I went up to the Mobile SPCA unit to just look at what puppies and kittens they had brought to the event. That is where I met "Larry." Larry and two of his siblings (he was one of nine) were playing in a pen. They were the remaining three from the litter that had not yet been adopted. When I went into the pen, two of the dogs started jumping all over me. Larry was very calm. He was a beautiful color with a half white paw and other beautiful markings. I picked him up and he began to lick my face. Well, that was it. I took him down to the group and everyone just loved him. I knew that I was going to adopt him so I went and talked with Mar about it. She wasn't as thrilled but ultimately she let me go forward with the adoption. I named him Cooper. When we visited the BVI's earlier in the year, one of our island stops was Cooper Island. Mar commented that Cooper would be a great name for a dog, so now you know how he got his name.

Over the next several months, Cooper got into lots of things and Marilyn was not happy at all. Our other dog, Bailey (a black Lab) and Marilyn's pride and joy and Cooper would play aggressively, mostly started by Cooper. Marilyn didn't care for that behavior and some of the other little things that Cooper was doing. She told our friendss that "Cooper has anger issues."

So, several weeks ago she called Bark Busters to come and help teach and train Cooper on proper behavior. She contracted with them for one year. Anyway, yesterday they came for the first time. They were with us for THREE hours! Here is the bottom line, correcting some behaviors was easy. The play thing was "Normal dog behavior" and most of the time was spent helping Marilyn to learn how to command! It was a good day for Bailey, Cooper AND Marilyn.