Today I worked Pat in Dianne's field. We worked on Pat slowing down and me not standing around looking like I'm anally impaled on a fake post constructed by the sheer idiocy of all that is Me and Not Learning By Example.  

"Do you ever see me just standing there?" Dianne asked.  I don't know why she does this rhetoric thing with me.  I think our relationship has progressed far enough for her to just punch me in the face, followed by an exaggerated walking gesture made with her two fingers across my bleeding horizon. Some pointing. 

"You have to walk with him….be in the right place so you can HELP HIM…."

"But you have to stand in one place at a trial."

"This isn't a trial. You have to help him be right enough here so that he trusts you at a trial."

Anyway. It went well, I think.  Pat is pretty responsive and I walked and walked. I did not stand still. Not even at the end, when I started dropping things out of my pocket and Pat was peeing on them as fast as they hit the earth.

Pat.

Then I asked Dianne if Pat could stay the night with me, because I wanted to "run" in the "desert" with "dogs"…but really Pat and I went out for ice cream and to have our Christmas Card pictures taken in matching red sweaters with Santa hats….Now we're sitting together on my couch in the light of the roaring propane fire and digesting chicken.  Watching the House Dogs of Hayseed County. 

Not really.  Pat won't get on the couch. I've tried.  I'm on the floor with him.

No. What Really Happened:

The first part.  I worked Pat, I was corrected for standing still. I'm often corrected more than the dogs out here, but that is good. Dianne set sheep for Jody R. using Scout and that surprised everyone by going well.

THEN I took Pat and Scout to the desert for a run and I yelled my lungs out and flung myself to the earth not ONCE but TWICE when Scout chased cattle.

"YOU FUCKING SPAYED WHORE WHY DO YOU NOT LISTEN TO ME!! STOP STOP STOP CHASING CATTLE RIGHT NOW STOP OR I WILL KEEP YELLING UNTIL SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING HAPPENS TO ONE OR BOTH OF US….SOB….I HATE THIS….SOB…Pat? Good boy, it's okay..You are a Good Boy….No, really! You're okay!"

Pat waited about 1/4 mile back during these episodes and it took some coaxing to get him out of his Definite Down position. 

Scout seemed sorry at the end of the second round. Or she finally felt a little pity seep through the cracks in her cold black heart. Hard to say. She did NOT, however, chase any of the cattle completely surrounding my car.  She just looked at them, and at me, as if to say, "You are so fucking smart. NOW WHAT?"

Indeed.  I showed her how *I* do it by shooing the beasts away with the bumper of my Subaru and a stereo on bad Caldwell music top volume.   Her face in the rearview mirror will haunt me for a very long time.

Then I came home and fed the dogs chicken and pork…and I went to dinner with Dianne….and I told her that, when I got home,  I planned to take pictures of Pat and I in matching robes watching TV and holding hands/paws.  But I haven't and I won't because I'm also full of chicken and I'm far too lazy. AND PAT WON'T GET ON THE COUCH.