First Night of Class

Our Kennel Club held the first night of beginner Agility classes tonight. Lindy Loo (lying on top) was in the first class, and her BFF Swede William (Lindy Loo's extra cushion in the photo above) was in the second class. They are both about a year and a half old. Sam I Am went too, as he is entered in a trial in a couple of weeks, and I thought maybe he'd learn by, I don't know, osmosis possibly.

I love watching animals learn. I loved it when I worked with young horses, and I love it with dogs. Our teacher is one of our Kennel Club members and she's patient and kind and explains things well, so neither the dogs nor the humans are having anything but fun. Lindy Loo and Swede William have gotten a little headstart; yet another Kennel Club member took pity on me this fall and graciously has given me some private lessons at her home. I could tell she has started us off on the right feet, because both of the puppies were thrilled tonight to see the equipment.

We think that humans are the only ones who learn by observation, but I don't believe it for a minute. Back when I trained young horses to accept a saddle and rider, I soon realized that it was exponentially easier and less traumatic when the horses had seen other horses be ridden. When youngsters came from broodmare farms where they never had seen a horse under tack, no matter how used to being handled they were, they were much harder to convince that this was a reasonable proposal!

I had messed up training poor Sam I Am the teeter. (In Agility, one of the obstacles is a seesaw. The dog runs up one side, hesitates slightly as he reaches the fulcrum point, and then runs down after the teeter tots.) Sam was afraid. So for two training sessions last year, I stood Sammy next to the teeter while the advanced dogs ran over it. And every time a dog banged the teeter, I gave Sammy a treat. Bang! Treat. Bang! Treat. After watching all those dogs and getting treats just for watching, he stopped being afraid. Now I have to work on slowing him down on the teeter!

In tonight's class there was a beautiful big Doberman. Just a gorgeous dog with a gleaming coat that a Pantene commercial would crave. His handler blatantly adores the dog and is justifiably proud. To introduce the dogs to the A-frame, a pause table that was set at about a foot off the ground was placed on the side almost at the bottom of the A-frame. The dogs were to jump up on the table, and then ease onto the A-frame and creep down to the bottom. Just a few steps. The Doberman thought this was not a clever thing to do with his Monday night. He climbed willingly onto the table, but was intimidated by the pitch of the A-frame. Our instructor wisely didn't want to frighten him, and when he placed just one paw on the obstacle, she had his handler give him a treat, and tell him he was brave, and that was it.

I looked at the Dobe as the other dogs climbed onto the table and down the A-frame. He'd watch, and then glance at his handler. And wag. I could see his brain working. When it was his turn again, he climbed right up on the table and then put one of his big, gentle paws on the A-frame. And with trepidation but without hesitation, there went the next foot and the next and the next and he had his courageous bulk on that steep ramp and there he was with his back feet on and front feet on terra firma and he was getting treats and whoops of praise and he fairly beamed and his human beamed right back and is there anything much cooler on Earth?

Nah.

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It's amazing what dogs will do to please us. Astonishing how much they trust us.

hug your hounds

Too old

Have you ever seen dog agility? Maybe on TV – it’s a super exciting dog sport where the dogs sail over jumps, and climb up and down obstacles, weave through upright poles, and zoom through tunnels, all at their handler’s signal, and at warp speed. It is a brilliantly fun event, and is ridiculously popular, in a bazillion countries.

It was dog agility, in fact, that led me to get my first purebred dog after years and years of shelter rescued mixed breeds. I was at an International horse trial and there was an agility trial going on up by the Trade Fair tents. Well, I had just never seen anything so cool in my life! Here I was, a grownup who used to train my childhood dog to jump lawn chairs, broomsticks, sideways ladders, et cetera, pretending poor Rex was a horse. And now, here was a whole sport with real dog stuff. I was getting a little old and brittle to be falling off a horse which was jumping a four foot fence, and here was a fun sport where if you fell, you “only” fell off your own two feet. (Remember that “only”, dear readers; it will come back to bite me in my ample butt.)

So fifteen years ago, I entered the world of purebred dogs, purely to do dog agility. Only that first purebred dog, Miss Gracious, Her Royal Highness Queen of All, had a different opinion. She felt that if I had this big desire for jumping and climbing and being so undignified, I could go right ahead and do it. She would watch. She would not, however, climb on a seesaw, wait for the thing to go bang on the ground and climb down off it. She would not leap over a twenty-inch, gaily striped jump just because it would please the Servant. She would fly over a four-foot barbed wire cattle fence to follow a disappearing deer, without thinking twice or batting a beautiful eye, but that was an entirely different matter, now, wasn’t it? She would agree to showing off her loveliness at a dog show, and field trials were her idea of a fine time, so there I went. Weekends were devoted to doing that which pleased the Queen.

Now, fifteen years later, I am doing agility with five-year-old Sam I Am. Never mind that I said I would start with him when he was six months old. We had the Big Move and I’m sure I could bore you with about a million other excuses. I’m great at finding excuses. But Sam I Am is entered in his first Agility Trial in six weeks. I could technically say that he has been in training for four years. But I don't think one practice session a year counts.





Thanks to the kindness of fellow Paducah Kennel Club members (especially Martha, wow!!) I am slowly learning. Sam I Am learns fast and is really awesome. He is handicapped by me. WE practiced today in Martha's excellent yard on her fantastic equipment. Here is club member Judy with her gorgeous Standard Poodle Tessa, showing how it's done.





Tessa waits to start as Judy goes over her strategy.

Tessa flies over a jump while Judy shows her with the subtlest of graceful hand signals what comes next.





Tessa zips through the weave poles as Judy claps her encouragement. "Weave Tess! Good Girl! Go, go, go!!"

Now, here is what poor Sam I Am has to contend with...

I don't know. I may be too old for this!

Have fun with your dog, no matter how old you are...