I will no longer be updating Iron Guide (see below). Instead, I am now writing at my new, personal blog. Though that will be about some of the newer things I'm doing in life, if you want to see updates about Louie, Lester, and now Dusky, add me on Facebook -- there's enough ridiculously cute pictures to go around.

Little Lester Pester, the blog, will be going through some changes in the New Year. Lester, the dog, I imagine will be headed back to San Rafael or Boring in a couple months and, although I'm fairly certain I'm going to take another new puppy, I'm also fairly certain that the new puppy won't be named Lester.

Let's say she's named Vixen. If you were named Vixen and your beloved owner wrote about you in a blog named after another dog, wouldn't you get some sort of a complex? Some complex that, festering inside of you for months and months, would, oh, I don't know, make you lash out one day and tear the heads off cute little stuffed dogs? Oh wait. Hm.

So, the name is changing and we're moving.

To Iron Guide.

Iron Guide? Yup. So here's the other bit of news. On August 24th 2008, I'll be running the Ironman. Having done something like 6 marathons and triathlons this past year, I'm setting my sights on something a little bigger and more exciting. For those of you who haven't heard about it, the Ironman is basically a very, very long triathlon. (And if you don't know what a triathlon is, try Wikipedia.) You swim, bike, and run, just like a normal triathlon; unlike any standard triathlon, however, the Ironman is the longest, toughest triathlon in existence. Over the course of 17 hours, you traverse 140.6 miles: first a 2.4-mile swim in open water, then a 112-mile bike ride through climbs with names like "Heartbreak Hill" and "The Beast", with a final 26.2-mile run -- a full marathon -- to chase it all down. The pros take about 8 hours, the best amateurs take 10-11 hours, but, ultimately, if you survive and finish it all under 17 hours, you go to sleep that night an Ironman. The things that the human body and mind can accomplish are sometimes truly extraordinary.


As part of the Ironman, many athletes fund-raise for causes near and dear to their heart. As part of my Ironman, I will be raising for Guide Dogs for the Blind. I'm already raising dogs for them -- now, I'll also be raising dollars. There are incredible stories of people raising millions of dollars for their causes, and, although I don't expect to get anywhere near that, I'm hoping to be able to do something significant for Guide Dogs. It's an amazing organization: from the people who work and volunteer there, to the work they do in giving the gift of freedom, to how they do it without charging anyone a single penny, I've been absolutely blown away. So, I'm dedicating my Ironman to Guide Dogs.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting together something on Facebook and on this blog to begin spinning things up. I'm going to keep writing about Lester (and any puppy that follows him) but I'll also spend some time talking about the Ironman and my training since, ultimately, that'll also be closely intertwined with the work I'm doing for Guide Dogs. It'll be a tough journey, no doubt, but I think it'll be worth it. I'll definitely need your support and everything -- moral support after a bad training day, a donation to Guide Dogs, anything -- will be deeply appreciated. Wish me luck!

Appropriately enough, I'm off to run a few miles to loosen up for a 5K tomorrow to ring in the New Year! :) Afterwards, Lester and I are heading downtown to meet up with friends for some New Year's Eve partying.

I hope everyone has a fantastic night and a Happy New Year!

Labels: Ironman, Lester

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Lester has always been a little distracted around dogs, and so we've been working pretty hard at it for the last few months. We put him on food rewards a little while ago, and, combined with two weeks of intensive, 24-7 training with Koji in LA, he's been improving.

So, food rewards. Basically, it's exactly what it sounds like: be good, get food. Whenever Lester is around another dog and behaves, listens to my commands, doesn't cry or whine, or otherwise generally contains his excitement, he gets a bit of kibble. There are some tricks to timing it properly and making sure he doesn't figure out how to game the system, but, really that's it. Guide Dogs will approve food rewards for specific problems where strong, instinctual positive reinforcement -- stronger and more instinctual than the strongest praise -- is necessary to counteract an equally strong and instinctive tendency, e.g. fear of traffic, dog distractions. Lester loves his food, and saying food is rewarding is like saying Britney Spears has a flair for drama -- an understatement of the most ridiculous proportions. Put another way, as soon as the connection of "be good, get food" is made, it's very powerful motivation to be good.

But, for handlers, food rewards is a little annoying. You carry the food in a little pouch that bulges out of your back pocket and has a tendency to spill all over the place at the most inopportune moments. Dog slobber, while an understood occupational hazard in general, reaches entirely new levels when you're stuffing food into your dog's mouth every other minute. Random dogs come up sniffing to you in the park; you smell an awful lot like their dinner, after all. Yup, all sorts fun.

Still, we handlers selflessly and nobly -- ahem :) -- do everything we can for our dogs.

Sometimes, it works. Check out Lester and Koji -- or, more precisely, Koji's tail -- from a few days ago. Two weeks of having another dog in the house, food rewards, and 24-7 training made something click in Lester's energetic little head. I've never seen Lester so calm around another dog, certainly not so close and most certainly not with a tail repeatedly whacking him in the face. Blink, blink, blink.

Labels: Lester

Permalink | Written at 11:26 PM | Post a comment | 0 comments | Trackbacks

I've been traveling a lot these past few weeks. Although not quite as much as some jet-setting friends at Amazon and Microsoft, I think I've spent at least 5 out of the last 8 weeks out of town. I just landed back in Seattle earlier today after spending Christmas with family in Los Angeles, and it's nice to settle back in home after so much time away from home. Lester, quite the jet-setter for a little pooch, has gone pretty much everywhere with me and has been just fantastic. I joke that he's basically my carry-on... but, well, he sort of is. :) A lot of people have asked me to write about how it all works, so, today, I will.

I've pretty much got it down to a routine. Here's the morning drill.

Flight at 6:45am.

5:00: Alarm goes off. It's all about the snooze button, baby!

5:10: Grumble, wake up, grumble grumble. Take Koji and Lester out to the dog run. Keep grumbling about freezing, waking up too early, and the fifteen million rounds Lester needs to circle around before actually doing anything. (It was more like 5, but it was cold!) Push Koji away when he tries to pee on Lester. Sibling rivalry gone awry. They're still at it. :P Sigh.

5:16am: Feed Lester. (Koji only eats only once a day.)

5:16am + 15 seconds: After Lester has finished snarfing down his food and water, brush (my) teeth, change clothes, finish packing. Wallet, check. Cell, check. Keys, che -- CRAP. Where are my keys? Keys keys keys keys, oh, where art thou?

5:35: Oh right. In my duffel bag. Note to self: catch up on sleep on plane. Lester, check. Lester's guide dog training jacket, check. OK, let's roll.

5:40: Leave for airport. It's still dark out! People aren't meant to be awake at this hour. Bats and raccoons, maybe. Humans, no.

6:05: Arrive at airport. Make sure that seat is either aisle or window and that -- very, very important -- that we're far away from the engines. Try to check in at self-serve Alaska electronic check-in booth but instead get print-out saying "Please see agent. Multiple requests." Hm. This is a first.

6:10: What's the deal? Still not quite sure why, but Alaska flagged my itinerary this time. I've flown both out of this airport and with Alaska multiple times with Lester and they've always been the best and most understanding of airlines. In either case, the gate agent took one look at Lester, let me get about a sentence into the usual "He's a guide dog in training" spiel, smiled and handed me the boarding pass. No checked luggage, just one duffel bag carry-on, one Lester carry-on and we're good to go.

6:14: Relieve Lester. We specifically train our dogs to be able to hold their potty and it technically isn't his next scheduled relieving time, but, trust me, you want to relieve your dog before getting into the airport. Just trust me.

6:15: Security. Oh, what fun. It doesn't get much more fun than this: technology-geeking, guide-dog-training, Indian-food-loving Internet entrepreneur. Let's see: the usual one laptop and sometimes two, my favorite, mouth-watering lamb curry home food packed lovingly by parents into suspiciously taped and wrapped yogurt container, butt-sniffing guide dog in training, and said butt-sniffing guide dog in training with enough metal to set off twenty metal detectors. Yippee.

6:19: Explain to grumpy -- and who wouldn't be grumpy at 6:19am? -- TSA agent the procedure. Yes, I'm the one explaining. I go first through the metal detector, the dog stays behind. I won't set off the metal detector, my shoes are off, my belt's off, and I'm not wearing jeans (they have metal rivets), so you won't need to pat me down. But, between the leash, the chain collar, the normal collar, the dog's got enough metal to set off all metal detectors here. You're going to need to call for a puppy patdown. Cool. You've got a lady who's not afraid of dogs? All right, here we go.

6:30: A sit-stay, a puppy pat-down, and some bribing licks later, the two TSA agents doing my security waved us through. Put on shoes, put on belt, pack up laptop again, find boarding pass, keep Lester away from baby-talking lady who should know better, give thirty-second elevator pitch about guide dogs, and get to gate.

6:35: Board. Fifth to last passenger. Perfect timing. Sweet! :) Joke with crew about their four-legged passenger. They like dogs. This should be a breeze.

6:45: As plane pushes back from jetway, re-assure neighbors that Lester does this all the time and, minus his adorable cuteness, they won't even know he's there. When Lester plops down, tucks himself under the front seat and curls up on my feet, I think they finally believe me. You thought I was kidding? He really is my carry-on! :) Compare my living, breathing carry-on to that my less adorable but battle-proven duffel bag carry-on. If you ignore the fact that, you know, one of them has a head, two floppy ears, and snores on occasion, you couldn't tell the difference.

6:46: Pass out. Lester's already beat me to it.

The plane touched down in Seattle at 9:52. It seemed like they were having trouble getting the jetway hooked up -- this is why you always, always relieve just before entering security -- and, between the packed flight and the holiday rush outside, I didn't get out into the terminal until 10:30 or so. The Seattle airport has a little urban sprawl going on and has a train connecting four different terminals, so we had to catch that and get to the main terminal. Although Lester has never had an accident, I always worry a little about one. After being cooped up for four hours, the stress of landing -- despite his many flights, Lester always seems to have a mini-heart attack every time the reverse thrusters come on -- the excitement of the airport, etc., I'm not one to take chances. As soon as I get my bearings, we make a beeline for the nearest exit and Lester gets a chance to take care of his business outside.

All in all, I haven't ever had a bad experience flying with my dogs. Everyone is very understanding, my seat's been upgraded more than once, and it always makes for some great conversations. At restaurants, the best compliment a waiter can give me is to exclaim, "OH! I didn't even know there was a dog here!" when Lester pokes his nose out after a meal, and the same applies to flying. Today, I had a stewardess come up to me afterwards and tell me just that. It made my day. :) I'm not sure if Lester and I will be flying again since it won't be long before he has to go back to San Rafael, so it was a nice way to round out our travels for the year.

Wishing you had a very merry Christmas!

Labels: Lester

Permalink | Written at 11:30 PM | Post a comment | 1 comments | Trackbacks