Ravelry and puppies

I got my invitation to join Ravelry yesterday. This is a hot new thing among knitters, a kind of community with chat boards and reviews of patterns and yarn and so on, and also you can keep a record of your own projects, your stash, your library of knitting books, etc. At the moment it's free--though of course you're encouraged to donate if you want to--and it's in beta, and everyone wants to be on it. I got on the waiting list out of curiosity, but had fun with it last night, setting up an identity and entering projects. For instance, if you enter a pattern they have in their database, a box comes up where you can rate it for how much you like it and how easy or difficult you think it is, and it shows how many other Ravelistas are working on it or "have it in their queue." I suspect you may be able to click on them to look at the other projects underway, but didn't try it.

You can add pictures, too, but you've got to have a Flickr account, and damn it, I've got accounts all over the net, and don't really want to have another one. You've got to have one with Picassa to post pictures here on Blogger. How many picture accounts does one person need, anyway? So for now in the notes section I'm noting that people can see photos of a particular project here. I'll have to think about the Flickr account a bit more.

Anyhow, it looks like Ravelry will be a source of innocent amusement for some time to come. I'll have to try some of the community stuff.

I tried to get a picture of Timber sitting up to add to yesterday's post, but none of them turned out. I have to be too close to him. I'm going to have to work on getting him to respond to the cue at more of a distance.

Yesterday a friend brought her little long-haired chihuahua in for a visit. She's a very pretty little thing, chocolate and cream with hazel eyes. She's not used to visiting, so she was pretty unhappy. I put her on my desk and she faced her mom with her back to me. So I just gently stroked her and talked to her very softly. Every once in a while she'd cast a glance over her shoulder at me and I noticed that she was throwing me calming signals like crazy--blinking and licking her lips--so I started copying her, and also turned my head so I wasn't facing directly toward her. (I could have yawned, too, but I forgot.) What was really cool was that it really seemed to help her, and several times she started to turn toward me with her ears up and an interested look in her eyes, but darn it, every time she did someone would walk into the office and she'd stiffen up again. She did not, I'm happy to say, pee on my desk. :)

It was funny, too, how quickly the old reflexes from Stella kicked in--she was a shy puppy, and when I had her out and people approached her, I'd tell them that she was shy and they had to approach her carefully, and sometimes I'd tell them exactly what I wanted them to do. I'm a shy person myself, but knowing how much Stella trusted me made me a lot more assertive. People on the shy-k9s list are always having trouble with people rushing their dogs ("Oh, dogs LOVE me"). I think it was easier for me with Stella because people aren't so inclined to rush up to GSDs and coo over them. But yesterday people would see little tiny Dolly and their faced would light up and they'd start to charge into my office and I'd say (with both hands over her--an unconscious blocking movement, I now realize), "She's a little shy. Be gentle." Everybody toned it down a couple of notches, even two of our more, um, outgoing faculty members. But it was funny how the old reflex kicked right in. I think I even suggested to my friend that it might be time to take her home before she got too stressed. Socializing a shy or undersocialized dog needs good timing and reflexes and you have to be able to read your dog and protect her from well-meaning people and situations she's not ready to handle.

It was a nice day out yesterday, so I took the Ts straight out when I got home, and they were so excited they didn't even notice I'd been touching another dog. Goofballs.