Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Bad Name

Alright, so I'm a nerd who spends hours on the internet everyday, and sometimes I find myself with nothing to do. And yes, I am the nerd who googles herself just to see what comes up. And I think people are giving my name a bad rep. Now, it is actually kind of funny, but the name Nicole should be a respectable name. After all, it does mean "Victory of the people," and I admit that I don't think that quite suits me, but it does more so than some people.

For example, there is a 25 year old massage therapist who allegedly found herself with nothing better to do than follow mourning people into a church, having a service for a complete stranger. Oddly, I think I know people who would do this, but this is a woman with my name, first and last. Besides, that's not the worst part. She danced, and I mean that literally, up to the casket in the middle of the service, and began chanting the words "I love you". Apparently, she danced around the casket, chanting, opened the casket, and touched the deceased. Ah, but that still isn't all. She pulled out a broken car antennae and tapped the deceased on the head multiple times, before grabbing a handful of flowers and throwing them onto the people sitting in the pews. And then she skipped out and drove away in her car, and was later caught by police.

Now, I think this woman thought she was a fairy for the duration of that funeral, and I believe there is only one explaination for this. She was either drunk or on drugs. Which further wounds the reputation of my name. And I'll let you take a wild guess at what she said to the police, but I guarantee you won't get it right(unless you've read the story already). She said "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time." I'm sure there are plenty of other people who have googled their names and found them bruised by someone with the same name. So, if you'd like to share, feel free.

Of course, there are also people who have the same name as me that aren't bad at all. For example, I have found that I am an ice skater, a roller blader, and a volleyball player, which I am most certainly not. So, I figured I had to post something for people to comment on, and what better topic than a nerd who found out someone with her name did something stupid and got arrested?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

My beautiful babies

Alright, so it's tomorrow, and I think I'll tell you about my pets. I'll tell you I have a lot compared to some people, so be prepared for a long post. Don't know if this will be, but just be prepared.

So, the first I'd like to tell you about is my girl Summer. The sweetest dog you will ever meet, I swear. She's my German Shepherd/Australian Cattle Dog mix. She is mainly black with tan points(paws and muzzle). She's about the size of an ACD. She is the truck dog, the barn dog, and one of the best companion dogs I can think of, including the rest of my dogs. ;-) She'll be ten years old in 2010. She is going blind and deaf, but that doesn't slow her down. She loves to go to the barn, but she also loves to lay by the couch, and on it whenever she can. I've had her since I was five, and I have pictures of her and I at my grandma's house. She is the classic grateful rescue dog. We picked her up on the side of the road near my grandparents' house. She was covered in ticks and fleas, and she had to stay at the barn until we got them all off her. But since then, she's been the best dog you could ask for. She doesn't know a lot of tricks, besides the basic sit, stay, and down, but she gives hugs and kisses and loves attention. My four year old cousin can lay on top of her, and Summer doesn't mind at all. And the image uploader isn't working, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Next in line are the horses. The first two I'd like to tell you about are Dee and Jesse. Dee is somewhere around eleven or twelve years, and Jesse is about the same age. I don't know how long we've had them, but we got Dee before Jesse. Dee is the dominant one of the two. She's a paint horse that goes back to some good thoroughbred race-horse. For you horse people out there, you'll know what I mean when I say she's breeding stock. That means she doesn't have big splotches of color, but she has paint horses in her bloodline. Dee likes to make me mad. I think it's a game to her. Whether it's not coming up to the barn at feeding time, or getting out of her stall when I forgot to latch it, but I was sure I closed it all the way, or just making me run in circles trying to get her in her stall. She really is frustrating, but I can deal with her. Jesse is a Quarter Horse that goes back to Jessie James, who was a famous reiner. She has really good bloodlines, but whoever had her before we did messed her up. She has been ridden, but she is very skittish and jumpy. She has thrown Mom before, and now she is just a brood mare. She has a lot of problems, but she's gotten better since we've had her. She is a very pretty sorrel with a dainty, high step. She's somewhat short, only about 14.2 hands. Dee is bigger and is a dark bay. She moves like a thoroughbred. We've had foals out of both of these mares, two of which have only recently been sold. That was Indy, a dark bay paint horse out of Dee, who went to a girl about my age to be a jumper. He looks good when he jumps, and he's a natural at it. Biscuit, a buckskin out of Jesse by big-time money earner Who Whiz It, was sold to a man in Wyoming. I don't know what he was going to do with her, but I'd assume it's reining, as that's what she was bred for. She is the full sister to Joker, who I will tell you about later.

Next is Duke, the big bad guard dog who whines when we come up from the barn. It is quite entertaining to watch the trash men come, though, because we have a wooden box as opposed to a dumpster and it sits right up agains the leaning and already short 4 foot fence. He jumps five feet straight up, but has never had the will to actually jump over the fence(I think he just likes to see their faces too). Duke is a Rottweiler/Border Collie mix(or so we assume) with a build somewhere between the two and a face like a Rott. He has the classic 'tuxedo' look, mostly black with tan and white points. He's territorial, like most Rotties, but that's alright. He has broken the skin of two people, but not bad, and since then we've taken measures to make sure nobody gets hurt when they come in the yard. If he knows you, he's just fine, and he might actually whine when you come to the fence, because he's a big baby. :-) He's somewhere around 21" and weighs about 55-60 lbs. He's somewhat uncomfortable in the house, because he's been an outside dog since he was young. We actually got him in a Brookshire's(grocery store) parking lot. The people said that the mom looked like a border collie, and that the pups all looked like rottweilers. I'm not sure if I believe them about the border collie, but who knows. There were two left when we got there, both males, and Mom tested them out, holding them on their backs and all for temperament, and Duke came home with us. That was after Yellow Lab Shadow was shot and killed. He's been here ever since.

Now then, we're on to my favorite of the horses, who would be Joker, of course. She's just a yearling, but she already has the mindset of a well-trained 9-year old. She's very gentle and loves people. She is probably the only one of the horses who will walk up to you and not push you over to get attention. She's a real sweet-heart, and, while she is on the market to be sold, I will miss her if she does leave. She was born a few weeks premature, while we were in Houston visiting relatives(imagine the surprise we got when our friend Mary called and said there's a baby on the ground). Naturally, Mom left immediately to go back home. She's a small girl, but nobody seems to mind. She's always been independent with the other horses. Even when she was still nursing she would wander farther away from her mom than I've ever seen a foal go. She's curious and absolutely unphazed by anything. She has a very calm demeanor. Nothing much can get her excited, which is the way it's always been with her. We recently had a scare about a genetic hoof problem with the Topsail Whiz line(Who Whiz It's dad) but found out on Saturday that it was just a bad trim job. Her feet grow really fast and they've always been narrow and cone-shaped, so we're taking her to a new farrier to try to help her hooves splay. Joker is my favorite. She's just a really good horse, and I honestly hope, even though we really need the money, that she doesn't get sold. But I guess we'll see.

Now we move on to more dogs. Pearl is my baby girl. She's a blue merle Aussie that we got from the Humane Society, and I got so lucky with her. She is exactly what I needed and wanted when I was looking for an agility dog. She still has a few quirks we have to work through, but we're getting there. Hopefully we'll get into lots of shows and get some titles on her. She has a natural bob, which is a naturally docked tail. You can barely tell she has a tail, and she is a classic Aussie wiggle-butt. Instead of wagging her tail(because she has none) she turns her booty toward you to show she's excited. She kind of bends herself in half, and she is the only dog I've ever seen do that. She also has prick ears, like a German Shepherds, which is(according to AKC) not standard for Aussies. She has two brown eyes, but in her left eye she has a little spot of blue. I don't know what causes that, but it doesn't mess with her eyesight or anything. It's in the iris, as if her eye started to go blue and then turned brown. I think she's five years old now, so I have roughly five more years to get as many titles on her as I can before she retires. She's about 18.5 inches tall, and weighs abut 32 lbs. She doesn't like little kids, I guess because the get in her face all the time and all. They don't understand that she's not like Summer, and she snaps at them when they get too close. She usually stays in my room when they come over.

C.J. is the newest addition to the house, although we got him a couple of years ago. He is also a blue merle Aussie. He weighs about somewhere around 40 lbs, and he's probably 20 inches or so. He has one brown and one blue eye, although his brown eye has a spot of blue, just like Pearl. He was, originally Dad's agility dog, but since Dad got his old job back and doesn't have time to train him, guess who gets to fix him up? You guessed it, me. Dad didn't really put a good foundation on him, because he was trying to catch up to me in the levels at training, and he is now actually a couple of levels down from Pearl and I. So I have to fix him up. He is a very excitable dog, and oh my god he loves to bark. He is pushy when he gets excited, so he has to stay in his kennel when the cousins come over until he calms down. He is extremely food motivated, and during training that is about the only thing he can concentrate on. He looks up instead of where he's going. Quite a few weave poles have been broken because of this habit. So I have to figure out how to get him to focus on the course instead of my hand. He really is a good dog, very loving and eager to please, but he just gets so excited and it's hard to focus on anything else. He's very close to Dad, and they make a very good pair, just not at Agility. ;-) But I'm working with him, and hopefully I will be able to bring out his full potential. I'm sure if he could focus on what I'm asking of him, he would be a very fast Agility dog. Time will tell, I guess.

Both of the barn cats have disappeared, but I'll tell you about them anyway. Mufasa was an orange tabby, very handsome when we first got him. But he was the normal tom cat, and he always got into fights. So one ear was folded over and infected, and we tried to fix it, but he just kept getting into fights, so we gave up. In his later years, he was very skinny and his fur looked terrible, and his ear was probably affecting his brain by then. He still seemed to get around ok, but he just didn't look good. I figured he would have disappeared a long time ago, but somehow he held out until this year. He disappeared a couple of weeks ago.

Sunny was my buddy, even though he shed white hair every day of the year. He was an awesome cat, fat and healthy. He was mostly white, with orange ears and an orange tail. Mom thought he was neutered, but I wasn't so sure. The neighbor's cat had kittens one year, and one of them looked strangely like Sunny. But oh well. Sunny loved attention. He really was a good cat. Best hunter I've ever seen. Mom saved a baby rabbit from him once. He was the main gopher hunter on our property, and it was very rarely that he ever left the barn. He didn't take any crap from the dogs, either. He would come and sit on the back deck and the dogs were just fine with it. Mufasa was a different story. The dogs didn't like Mufasa, even when he came too close to the fence. And on the occasion that I let Sunny in the house when it was really hot or really cold outside, he made himself at home. He got white hair all over the place, but the dogs leave hair everywhere too, so it wasn't a big deal. Nobody ever got away from petting Sunny without white hair sticking to them. He just had a lot of freaking hair. He disappeared a few weeks ago, and we haven't seen him since. He's never left the house for more than a week, so I'm guessing he's not coming back.

And those are my pets, minus the several fish in the water troughs. I love them all, but some more than others. I know I shouldn't admit that, but it's true. They all have their own personalities, and some of them like to frustrate me a lot(Dee). So, there you go. I knew it was a good idea to make a whole different topic about my pets.

Monday, August 17, 2009

About the Author

Right, because I'm an author. I wish. Anyway, this is the first post in my revamped blog. So, naturally, I'm going to tell you some things about me.

We'll start at the basics. I'm about to be 15 (September 21st) and I'm going to be that much closer to 16, when I can be considered a little more of an adult. I really do hate being 14 going on 15. My name is Nicole. Some people call me Nikki, mostly friends from my early childhood, but my best friend now calls me Nicole. Honestly, it sounds weird when somebody calls me Nikki. But I'm rambling now. Anyway, I'm a serious dog lover. I like the big furry lapdogs, not the little yippy devils. Yes, I know it's all in the way they're raised, but I still can't stand Chihuahuas. My personal favorites are Aussies(Australian Shepherds). They have wonderful temperaments and all of the ones I've met are very sweet.

And, I'm very excited to tell you all, I am now 5' 3/4" tall! At the end of the school year I was 5' 1/4". So yay! I'm a natural brunette, although I put highlights in it last year, so it is no longer 'virgin'. I don't know if I'll ever put highlights in it again. I have brown eyes and weigh somewhere around 120 lbs. I have to say I'm a jeans-and-t-shirt kinda girl, and I'm not very popular. Honestly, I'm not the most social person on the planet. I have problems with that, and it might just have something to do with the fact that I'm an only child? You can make up your own mind on that.

So, for hobbies, I like to do Agility. Now, for those of you who don't know, that's basically me running around and directing a dog through obstacles(jumps, tunnels, A-frames, etc.). I have a passion for training dogs, and eventually I'd like to pursue it as a career, but I've been advised to take the Vet career. Not sure which I'll go with, but I guess I have time to decide. Something you should understand about me, is that I don't spot a dog in a pet store and run up and go "OMG look a doggie, how cutee!" No. That's not my style. I don't go up to the dog, the dog comes to me, and then I pet it. That's the way I believe all dogs should be greeted, because they don't feel crowded or startled. Seriously, how would you feel if someone suddenly ran up and started touching your face, talking in a really high voice and giving you kisses?

I'm very passionate about animals, although shelters don't make me cry(glance at best friend). I despise puppy mills and pet shops(most puppies in pet shops come from puppy mills, if you didn't know). I have a really bad grudge against anyone who neglets or abuses an animal, and I can go into a raving mood when I see such things. I just don't like it, and I'm not going to stay neutral about it.

Ok, this is all stuff I might get to later in my blogs, so I'll skip to some more basics and you won't have to hear me ramble anymore. I live in Texas, where it gets hot and humid(which is worse than dry and hot, btw), and really cold and dry in winter. Aren't I lucky? I wish we got more snow, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. Perhaps tomorrow I'll make a topic about my pets, but right now I think I'm going to get off the internet.