Update on stella and coughing + running

An update on stella and andrew and that whole situation.  I met with a professional behaviorist and we agreed on a plan.  While i already had a plan in my mind and had talked to several dog friends that had agreed, I wanted a professional opinion.  Basically the gist of it is to create a positive association with andrew.  The biggest roadblock I think we will have is that the growling is random.  It's not always when he runs in the house or towards her.  It's not always when they are on the bed together.  It's not always when she is on a piece of furniture and he approaches.  We have been rewarding her for any and all interactions.  I have really been watching her body language and I am not seeing any tense body language, any stress signals like lip licking or whites of the eyes.  She does occasional get up and leave and i have been making sure he doesn't follow her so her desire to exit is respected.  I have also been really cracking down on andrew's behavior with deuce.  Deuce is great because he lets andrew do anything to him but just because he lets him, doesn't mean that I should let andrew do those things.  I know andrew can't generalize so i am trying to keep the behaviors around deuce and all the dogs the same.  So far so good so will keep you posted.  I know that we have been out of the house way more as when alot of the behaviors had happened, we had been stuck inside due to holidays and the weather.  This week we have been back at daycare and back on our normal schedule.  I think this has helped to give stella space and to give us time out of the house too.  We have also made a decision to not allow the dogs to sleep in our bedroom anymore.  This was a tough one for me because they have always slept with me or us so to eliminate this was probably tougher on me than them.  Now last night they snuck upstairs and slept with andrew and I when tony fell asleep downstairs but this whole week, they have been downstairs at night.  So far, it has worked out better than I thought.  I have slept better without them being in the bed (also known as lay on mom so she can't move all night time) and they have been getting peanut butter kongs as a compromise.

I was way to happy about running yesterday

Running has been pretty low key this week.  I had two speed work sessions and a 3 and 11 miler on the schedule.  I had started to feel sick saturday in San Diego and then it just progressed worse and worse.  Monday and Tuesday night I got very little sleep since i coughed all night.  I tried different combos of cough meds and pills and nothing was working.  I finally posted on FB and several people told me to try mucinex.  Well, mucinex is the miracle drug.  I still woke up whenever the drugs wore off and i started coughing again but 3.5 hour blocks of continuous sleep was wonderful.  I am still coughing today but did get a run in yesterday.  So I got my fartlek work in monday before the coughing got out of control and then tried running yesterday.  The plan was just an easy three miles but the dogs wanted to really stretch their legs and I felt obliged so i just ran as i felt good and ended up with a 9:20 overall pace!!!!!!  Today, the wind is gusting up to 50 miles an hour.  Driving into town meant both hands on the wheel and gritting of the teeth.  I am still holding out hope.  The weather man says the wind should die down around sundown so may be able to get a quick run in but we shall see.  We bought tickets to the women's basketball game so hoping I can run before we go.

My trip to San Diego. Lots of business, beaches and a tiny bit of running

Sitting here in our condo in La Jolla by myself, borrowing my boss's computer so I thought I would blog.  I left the snowy yucky weather in Kansas for sunny, cool, humid San Deigo on wednesday.  We had our first user's group meeting with the company that we are a service provider for on thursday and friday.  I am really glad that I got to come along because it has been hugely useful for me to be here and  get to know the in lab people.  Many ideas were thrown around and many misconceptions we had been given were clarified.  The first thing we did when we landed though was to go to the beach.  We hiked up Torrie Pines and back down and then walked the beach back to the car.  It was so good to stretch our legs after 5 hours of flying.   We also had to have some fish tacos, although I am not a lover of fish or anything seafood so I opted for some good carne asada tacos.  I also got to visit my first real whole foods!  Don't laugh, we don't have one anywhere near and I was impressed with the variety but not the prices.  No wonder people eat crap!  It is way cheaper!  I was SO tired that  night that I skipped dinner to go lay down and slept 12 whole hours that night.  It was GLORIOUS!

Doesn't everyone have their favorite toes in the sand pic?

On the second day, our meetings didn't start till one so I got to go for a nice run.  For whatever reason, I was having trouble breathing.  I think I am finally catching the chest cold that andrew has so my chest is super tight and now I am of course coughing.  I took it slow and tried not to get lost so I only did my three miler.  I was suppose to do my 10 miler with someone from the company but as i soon found out, everyone that was a runner within the company was sick so no one to long run with:(  We had our meeting and then the company took all of us out to dinner down in old town.  Would like to go back there when it is daylight.  It was dead at night.  We had happy hour at the company which was wine, then had multiple beers at dinner, then had wine at our condo we are renting.  Needless to say, I felt like pure crap friday ALL DAY.  I blame the 2 buck chuck wine we got from whole foods.

The View at Torrey Pines

The third day started early so no running.  All day meetings which lasted till late that night.   It was so good to have face time with all the people that I constantly call, harass, text, and email.  Many times I got the comment, Oh YOU are michelle.  Sigh.  Not sure if that was a good thing or not.  Turns out I have the most experience with the most variety of sample types so I had many people coming to me with questions, even lab staff at bionano.  I would love to have a couple of days of just sample prep with their staff but travel is expensive so we will have to see if that is possible.


Day four was all ours so we slept in, laid around and drank coffee (our condo had an expresso machine so my boss figured it out and made us expresso every morning) and then headed out to the beach.  We went to two beaches, the La Jolla cove to see some seals and tidal pools and then over to PB to walk/sit/sleep by the ocean.  We walked so much that I was really worried about doing my 10 miler when I got home that afternoon, which was my plan.  I had been given some routes and they sounded nice so as soon as we got back and the other part of our crew left to go to yet another meeting, I headed out.  This place is super hilly.  I knew it from driving but with the tightness in my chest, I was super worried about doing too much or getting lost.  Well, I got lost but I had heard UCSD had some running trails and I kind of knew where it was so I headed in that general direction.  Thank goodness for all the cross walks/lights because it gave me a chance to catch my breath and stretch.  I wanted to do at least 6 but was back at the condo by 5.3 and the sun was setting so decided to call it good.  No long run this week but I did get three runs in this week, my speed work, my 3 miler and my 5 miler.  I guess my body won't mind one break.

La Jolla Cove

I have had for the most part, a relaxing time but I sure am missing that red headed baby!  I need my baby fix!  He has learned a new word while I was gone so we had to face time so I could hear him say it.  I also did face time on the beach so he could see the waves and the surfers.  All the things and places I can't wait to go with him!  On a side note, flying out, I had two very small kids and their parents.  They immediately started crying and I thought, oh boy, this is going to be rough.  They stopped once we got in the air which was nice but I overheard the mom say there were flying to Tokyo.  Wow, can you imagine that long of a flight with two little ones?  They are some brave parents!

La Jolla Cove sea lions

I love my dogs and my kid. Now to find harmony.

Sometimes it is really hard to admit you don't know something and you need help.  I have been in the world of dog training since about 2000.  I have trained and learned with some of the best trainers in our area and i am very lucky for that.  But, I have hit an area I don't know much about and it is really tough. I am very emotional about this and reluctant to share but I feel like it will help me.

First of all, stella is a tough dog.  She has been a tough dog from the start and as I joke with the breeder, in all honesty if she would have been my first aussie, i probably wouldn't have gotten another one.  She was intended to be my hubby's dog for agility so I had wanted a tough little sassy bitch.  I got that and more.  She was easy to train for agility, smart as a whip but super high drive and needed her brain worked as much as possible.  She runs with me every single run unless I am running at work or out of town.  Within our pack, she very quickly moved herself into the top dog status.  Berry held that title for years and even shared it with miller.  As miller has gotten older, he has gotten less and less respect from the other dogs and stella has just stepped into his shoes.  She isn't insecure at all, she is very sure of herself.  We were fine with that, the pack respects her and all is well.

Enter then andrew.  For the longest time, she was inseparable from him.  She constantly watched over him and wanted to be near him.  I really liked that, liked the fact that she loved him so much.  Now things have changed.  Big time.  It started with a growl one night.  We co-sleep and she was in the bed at the foot where she always sleeps.  We were having a bit of a tough night in which I felt like it was bed time and andrew did not.  He shot towards the end of the bed and startled stella.  She reacted very loudly and I just knew she had bitten him and it was totally my fault.  Luckily it was all noise, no bites but it scared me big time.  Fast forward, a few other growls here and there, mostly because he was in her space and she felt uncomfortable.  Kids can move at the speed of light sometimes and I try to be the most observant mom but I am not perfect by any means.  I still chalked it up to she had a right to tell him to back off, he can't read her signals so it is up to me and I need to be the best mom in the world and manage any and all interactions.  Fast forward again.  I had stella in my lap, on the couch.  Andrew approached the couch, doing his normal gibberish and I felt her growl.  I quickly told her to get off and picked up andrew and put him in my lap.  She seemed put off but nothing else.  Then she did it again the other night when she was on the couch with tony.  Again, we quickly told her to get off and put andrew in her position.

Last night was the final straw. She was laying by my feet and andrew came running up to me.  She not only growled but I saw teeth.  I was devastated.  I honestly don't know what to do.  I can't baby gate her away from him, my house has huge openings from one room to another.  I want her to feel positive feelings when he is around.  I want her to NOT resource guard me.  I want her to respect him and love him.  I have been so emotional last night and today.  I want harmony for my pack.  I now know how clients feel about their kids and their dogs.  I want to do what is right and what is safe but what is also successful for everyone in the long run.  I want my kid to not ever have to go through the fear of a dog bite, especially from one of our own dogs.  I have a few strategies to kick around.  It's been hard because this is not my area of expertise. I know I want to have a positive interaction with andrew and for her to know that he ranks above her.  We have learned so much about pack interactions now and also the power of clicker training and shaping and not using force or submission to teach our dogs.  I want to harness that, the power of the positive.  Will keep you posted.  I will get through this and create a safe environment for my child and my dog.

long run hangover

I had a big long run hang over that included not waiting to do anything for the rest of the day.   Luckily my kiddo wasn't feeling up to snuff so we sat around and cuddled all day and watched a star wars marathon on spike tv.  My legs have really been bothering me this week and I have no clue why.  I did some nice fartleks at the beginning of the week, actually seeing some 7s on my watch during the one minute hard interval, and then ran the very next day in the low 9s for my 4 miles.    I really need to go get a good work over by my massage guy, its been too long.  My hammies are super tight and sore after every run and my hip actually was bothering me today.

We again had to beat the snow forecast.  Lucky for us, we beat the snow but not the cold front.  Wow, when we started it was actually warmish.  We were comfortable in our base layer and jackets.  Actually got a tad sweaty.  I had my first in a long time, I have to go to the bathroom now time.  Funny because my tights wouldn't go back over my sweaty butt, so I am pretty sure I mooned all of casement road.  Yep, your welcome.  About 6 miles into our 8 mile planned run, the wind started howling and the temp dropped immediately.  We were not dressed for that at all so when we got back to the car, we ended it.  7.33 miles in the books instead of 8, and it was tough.  The temp was nice starting out but the ice randomly everywhere on the trail was not.  We had decided that the pace as not important, that the mileage was.  I had to run somewhere different today and risk some ice.  Three weekends in a row on the same long run route was not going to work for my mind, even if we had to only do 8.  The above scene was some cows we came across.  They followed us for a while but didn't run with us.  We were bummed but stella gave them the stink eye for at least a half a mile.

It's kind of funny, I don't even view 8 miles as a long run.  Anything over 10 is a long run now.  Maybe I am prepping my mind for marathon training?  If I can keep my body together, let's do this!

GOALS FOR 2014

This one may take me a while to write so bear with me.  My running goals are nailed down but my agility goals are still iffy.  Let's start with what I do know.

If I have it right, I ran 7 5 Ks last year, one 5K trail run and three 10 Ks.  My goal this year is to do the same and to improve upon my times.  I would like to run at least one race a month to see where I am at.  For my 5 Ks, I would like to get my times under 27, maybe into the 26s.  I think I can do it, I am seeing low 8s on some of my speedwork runs.  I have had some 8:30s in two 5 ks but could only sustain that pace for two miles so hoping I can increase that to 3.2 miles.  I am also signed up to do not one but four half marathons in a matter of three months.  Three are part of the heartland series and one is Hospital Hill.  I don't think I can PR on all three since the series is pretty close together so my goal is to PR on at least one of the three and finish in one piece for the Hospital Hill race.  June in KC and hills may not be the best race of my life so finishing is a good goal.  For the fall I haven't thought that far ahead.  Part of me wants to do a full marathon.  Part of me wants to do some more halfs and let this be the year of the halfs.  I would like to do the KC half and maybe go to Tulsa this year and do the Route 66 half but fall stuff will have to wait.  I really want to see how my body responds to doing 4 halfs in three months first and see if tony is still working in Topeka.  I really, really need to train in the morning in the summer thanks to the wonderful Kansas heat and humidity.  If I can't do that or if tony is working lots of weekends when I need to do long runs, a marathon might not be in the stars for me.    I would also like to find a destination race we could all do again this year.  Maybe even a race where we could take stella and she could run with since she trains with me.

Agility is still up in the air.  I haven't had any time to practice lately.  I do take deuce on my shorter runs 5 or less miles, but it isn't the same as doing obstacles.  I am working weekends right now so lots of weekends i could practice have been out.  Tony was working 12 hour days so monday night classes were also out of the question as I couldn't get to the class and take care of andrew.  I wish we had more of the weekend seminars that Lori use to do but she is on the road a ton now teaching elsewhere and I can't make her monday night seminars in KC.  Then there is the whole money thing.  I only got one session taught this year, partly due to weather and partly due to lack of childcare for my kiddo.  It doesn't make sense to pay more for my kiddo to have daycare so that i teach and barely break even after paying for sitters.  I did have some wonderful baby sitters the few times I had to have them and I am grateful to them for stepping up so I didn't have to cancel class.  I moved my classes to the weekends thinking that would be better for me and for my students but in doing this, I lost more than half of my normal crowd.  I had hoped to get back to week night classes but I am still not sure that will work for me even in the future.  I have a ton of responsibilities at home now so nights are pretty tough for me to be away.  I use to be able to use shows as practice but now that the money is tight and I am back to having to use money out of my pocket, I  don't think I will be able to continue to do so.  Basically I have a ton of thinking to do.  I haven't entered any of the january or february shows and need to decide about the march shows.  I would hope to be teaching again by march so maybe that would be a possibility.  So the two things I do know are no nationals and probably no regionals.  May just do USDAA this year and not do AKC at all.  Still thinking.  I do think that based on Deuce's age, this should be our year to really kick it in brain wise, if I can get practice in.  My other two aussies really got it at age 5 and Deuce seems to be heading in the same direction.  I must make agility a priority for practicing.  There are some small possibilities coming up to maybe rent a place in manhattan with some other trainers but it is very small possibility and footing would be a major concern for agility.

My personal goals are to blog more than just once a month.  I feel so much better when I blog a few times a week.  I also want to be a better example to andrew eating and drinking wise.  He already wants to drink our sodas and eat the crap we eat so I need to do some more clean living.  I want him to grow up healthy just as tony and I did, not addicted to the fast food lifestyle that we currently indulge in.  I want to foster my hubby's hobbies and help him to love the sport of running even if he never does a competitive race.  I also want to stay more in touch with my friends, especially my agility friends.  I love them all dearly and even if I can't or don't show, I want to keep in touch with them.  I also would love to get more involved and find a home church.  Just the few times we went this year really made me super happy and made my heart sing to see andrew having so much fun in the nursery.  I want him to have a church family and youth group just like I did growing up.  My youth group was probably the main reason why I was such a good kid and lived a christ centered life.   I need to get back to that.  I am second needs to be a personal statement that I say constantly.

I am really excited for this year.  I am in the BEST shape of my life and feel like I am ready to tackle some major goals running wise.  Hope and pray to stay injury free.  Hope to keep agility in my life in some shape or form even if I have to cut back on showing even more.  Deuce is just too awesome for me to just give up.  Looking forward to another year of growth and development of my little kiddo. Hope to continue to get better at this whole mommy thing and let go of worry/ guilt/stress that my job is bringing to my life.  Just live in the moment and not worry about the future so much.  Here we go!!!  Hello 2014!!!!!

Good bye 2013

Wow, what a year!  I started the year with a 6 month old baby and ended the year with a year and a half old toddler.

I went from going to at least 2 if not three shows a month to just one if I was lucky:(  No nationals or regionals or any traveling really.  No goals, successes here and there but our first QQ and some really nice runs and time with my agility friends.

I started running.  I have been a runner for years but this was my year for some serious goals.  I started working out hardcore in January and then started my four day a week running schedule in May.  I ran numerous 5 Ks, three 10 Ks and one half marathon.  I logged over 600 miles in just 8 months and made  some new running friends including my new BRF robin.  

We traveled to Tennessee with an almost one year old to spend a whole week celebrating.  We made it one piece going and coming even though I came back sick.  It was so good to see family and for andrew to get to see so much of his Tennessee clan.  

And this happened.  14 years since I last saw him and he walked out of my life, my brother walked back in.  God I love him.  Maybe I should write a blog about him.  Think the movie the Blind Side and you will know our story.

Lots of change happened with my job as well.  We went from just doing research on grants to a full fledged service center for a company called Bionano Genomics.  I have had lots of ups and downs with my job but I feel like we are heading in the right direction and will be able to remain open with a full line of clients.  

What does 2014 bring?  I am sure more changes.  We will hit the terrible twos although I am pretty sure we are already there.  Probably even more cutting back on showing.  I am still making peace with that.  More racing and more fun runs.  More PRs and a heck of alot more half marathons (hello heartland series).  Will write about goals in another post, but here is to another great year full of change and fun, dogs and running!

From the Red Aussie Crew, have an awesome New year!

What do you do?

I get alot of questions about what i do and how I got to do what I do.  I do lots of tours through my lab and love telling the students that come through my story.  It's kind of a weird journey so here goes.

When I was in high school, I loved history.  I had the best high school history teacher ever and she really turned me on to that subject.  Plus, I had a photographic memory so I could memorize dates and facts fairly easy.  I wasn't as fond of writing about it, but i loved teaching others about something I was so passionate about.  My senior year, I decided to do academic decathalon because my high school teacher was the coach and because it was basically memorize lots and lots of facts and regurgitate them at competitions.  We had a class much like a practice for a sport at the end of the day and i LOVED it.  Until i got to the math part of the decathalon. I have never been good with numbers and absolutely hated the math portion.  It kicked my butt in a super bad way.  It really turned me off to think I couldn't be successful just because of one subject.  Also, about this time, I had something else going on in my life as well that was pulling me in a totally different direction. I had gotten a horse after years and years of wanting and begging and pleading. I had saved up my money and bought him and I was boarding him south of town.  I went out every day to see him and ride him and love on him and I was head over heels about him.  I was also big into FFA my senior year, competing in prepared public speaking and horse judging.  I was starting to uncover another love of mine, agriculture.  My senior year in the summer, I  worked out on the experiment station in Jackson for a horticulture scientist which uncovered another love of mine, research.  I knew I wanted to go to a local college and I was deciding between Union U, the local baptist college and UT martin.  UTM was about an hour away and I wasn't sure I wanted to be that far away from my mom ( i was big time mommy's girl), but it had an animal science program so I could actually study horses and agriculture!  Union U was in town but I would have to live at home and I needed to get out and be on my own, plus my love of history was waning.

I headed out to UTM to major in animal science. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with the degree.  I didn't really want to go to vet school but i wanted to study agriculture and animals.  I worked full time at the school's rodeo facility that had a 52 stall barn and bulls, steers, calves and bucking horses as well as boarding horses.  They also had an on farm house that i could live in and get out of the dorms which was a huge bonus for me.  Dorm life was too loud and hectic and I think I went a whole semester with no sleep. I got my degree done in 3 years thanks to having a full time job that kept me in town during the summer too.  I had met a wonderful professor who was doing lots of research in the swine industry and got involved with helping with several of his projects.  This re awoke the love I had for research.  I had been looking at grad schools throughout my stay in martin and was narrowing it down between repro science which was my favorite class and food science/food safety which was a very hot research area and very well funded.  I chose food science/food safety and narrowed it down to two schools, KSU and UK.  In the end, the town of manhattan won me over with it's rural-ness that was very similar to martin.  I had really grown to love martin and would have stayed if I could have found a job but in a little town, jobs are hard to come by and UTM didn't have a master's program.   So off I went to manhattan KS, the little apple to start a new chapter in my life.

To say that living in manhattan and getting my master's degree in food safety was easy was an understatement.  For purposes I don't want to get into in this blog, it was the hardest 5 years of my life.  I had the worse and best experiences of my life and it almost cost me my life, but we aren't going to get into that today.  At the same time, I learned so much and really loved the research we did.  My masters focused on pre-harvest food safety and I LOVED this area.  Working with animals and microbiology really took both of my favorite areas and married them together.  In a nutshell, I was trying to find a diet using dried distiller's grains to reduce acid resistant bacteria.  We looked at general coliforms and e. coli and not specific pathogens but the work I did helped to open the door for more pathogen specific work and started KSU into being one of the leaders in pre-harvest food safety.  My project was more than just cattle work and lab work.  I also did meat studies including a professional taste panel, a retail color study, a study of the CLA and LA in the ribeyes and also ruminant nutrition studies to look at the effect of the diets we used on finishing the cattle.

Loved living in Colorado

Fast forward to the end of my grad career, I took a job in industry traveling for a small start up company  in Golden CO that had a novel instrumentation for pathogen detection.  While i got to travel all over the US and the world and see some pretty cool stuff, I didn't enjoy traveling 5 days a week and my dogs and boyfriend (now hubby) were still in manhattan.  I decided that i would give it a year and if I still wasn't happy, I would go back to KS.  Well, I knew that even before the year was up that I wasn't cut out for this job.  I started applying for jobs back in KS and KSU.  Because of my experiences during my grad career, I was limited to jobs not in my field if I moved back home.  I remember applying to my current lab position as I had been applying to any and all lab positions.  I remember my boss asking why I wanted to take a pay cut and come back to manhattan.  I had a pic of my dogs and tony and she understood.  She didn't mind that my degrees and experience were elsewhere.  She wanted someone to train and i was a blank slate.

in newmarket England at the National Horse Museum

Now my current job.  I am a developmental biologist who practices some genetics, some molecular biology and is an expert in RNAi interference.  I work with a genetic model organism, Tribolium castaneum or the red flour beetle.  Unfortunately, we ran out of funding about the time i was due to have andrew.  We let go of a tech, stop taking grad students and paired down our undergrads.  The opportunity to be a service center for a genome sequencing company that had a novel genome sequencer arose and we took it.  So I had a baby, got back from maternity leave and had to learn a whole new job.  There have been many ups and downs but I can say now that I am also an expert in retrieval of high molecular weight DNA.  What is that?  Well, old sequencers use small pieces of DNA, on the base pair level (bp).  We extract DNA that is in the mega base (mb) range and read pieces that are 200 to 500 kilo base pairs (kb), so the biggest pieces you can keep intact.  It is an art form that is incredible hard and there are no kits available to help so everything must be done by hand the old fashion way.  We have had many failures but are starting to have successes and I am glad to be a part of it.  I won't lie, it has been hard on my scientific soul to have so many failures but I remember all the great scientist before me that had many years of failures before they had great success.

So the moral of the story is, don't think you have to be defined by what you want to do even as early as high school.  Back home now you have to pick a track and stick to it or go to a magnet school for what you want to do.  I hate this!!! I hated science as a kid and now i love it.  I would have hated to have not had the opportunity to dabble in all the areas I dabbled in as early as high school.  I have taken mainly ag and food science courses yet my job is in genetics and molecular biology.  I am a true testament to being well rounded and diversified.  I hope that kids these days get the same experience and dont' feel the pressures to grow up to be a certain predetermined job.