NEIGHBORS : Age Catching Up to Frisbee Competitor : Kilo, an 11-year-old dog, placed second in a field of canines half her age. She’s not just a dumb jock, says her owner.

By the age of 10, most dogs would rather spend the day lying in the sun, but Kilo, an 11-year-old Australian shepherd/golden retriever mix from Oxnard, nearly snapped up top honors at the Ventura canine Frisbee disc competition.

“She’s getting heavy in the midriff and the hips. We don’t do a lot of the tricks we used to,” said owner James Barron, explaining why his canine athlete finished second in a field of dogs half her age.

Last summer at Sepulveda Basin, a slightly younger, slimmer Kilo was featured shagging flying discs for a television commercial that aired outside California.

She’s not just a dumb jock either. Barron said his somewhat lazy roommate tied a towel to the refrigerator handle and taught Kilo to open the door and fetch beers like the dog in Stroh’s beer ads a few years ago.

“My roommate also taught her how to take the phone off the hook when it rings, but we’re trying to break her of that. She always answers the phone when nobody’s home and it stays off the hook for hours.”

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Kate Maher of Thousand Oaks was chosen this month to participate in a relief effort at a Romanian orphanage. Maher, 20, was picked for the assignment by her employer, The Body Shop, a cosmetics chain that sponsors charitable works.

“I’m thrilled with the opportunity. I want to keep the awareness up so that Romanian orphans aren’t just the charity of the moment.”

Maher is the assistant manger of The Body Shop store in Thousand Oaks.

Her primary duties will be to comfort and play with children who have lived much of their lives without substantive human contact. She was one of only 10 Americans selected from more than 200 applicants. Volunteers spend two weeks at a Body Shop-sponsored orphanage. The volunteers are responsible for their own expenses, which Maher said run about $2,000.

“I don’t mind working for it. We had a raffle in the shop to raise the money that I need to go over there. I had a yard sale and that raised some more, but I’m still $1,200 short of the goal.”

She will make the trip at the end of the summer.

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Celebrated artist and designer Tony Duquette had another honor to add to his resume recently as the state Legislature passed a resolution recognizing his accomplishments in the arts.

Duquette was formally presented with the resolution earlier this month at his 79th birthday party, held on his Ventura County ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Duquette, the first American honored with a one-person show at the Louvre, also won a Tony for his costume design in “Camelot.”

The 175-acre ranch in West Malibu is named Sortilegium, Latin for enchantment. It has been visited by many famous people, including Mary Pickford, Man Ray, Greta Garbo, Vincente Minnelli and Christopher Isherwood.

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Say it isn’t so. Mother’s cookies will provide free samples at the Circus Vargas show beginning June 28 at the Earl Warren Showgrounds. But there will be no animal crackers among the chocolate chip and fudge cookies.

Instead of shortbread lions and tigers in the familiar circus wagon box, Circus Vargas said the goodies are individually wrapped so the clowns can hand them out safely and hygienically.

“I’ll tell you what else we give away,” Circus Vargas marketing director Joan Hart said. “Elephant manure, half a pickup every day. Free.”

Thanks, but . . .