The Final Class Chapter, otherwise known as The Day Mom Looked Stupid in Front of the Class

I spent over twenty years of my life being a graceful ballerina and another handful of those years pretending to be an aggressive soccer player. I can spin a lovely pirouette on my tippy toes and kick the hell out of a soccer ball. None of the sporting activities in all my thirty years prepared me for the extreme sport of Handling. Your dog does Agility -- you just happen to do the Handling at the same time. Handling is not for the faint of heart or feelings. The simple truth is that you are going to look like an idiot. Your dog looks cute when he does the wrong thing (i.e., running around the jumps, turning around halfway in the tunnel, and jumping off the walkway too soon) which even prompts some laughter from other doggy parents. You, on the other hand, are supposed to coordinate all of your gangly limbs, the dog leash, and verbal and hand signals without tripping, accidentally guiding your dog smackdab into an obstacle or smashing headfirst into a bystanding instructor. Luckily, I was not the only human taking this class on Halloween Night. The first set of classes is largely focused on the dogs but I have been assured that future classes will give me a crash course on how to look as talented as my dog. And how talented are our dogs? Every single dog there has come through amazing leaps and bounds (no pun intended) in behavior and confidence levels. Our dogs are having the time of their lives! Despite all of our human humiliation, all the doggy parents are signing up for the next round. So more cheese sticks lie in Jake's near future and hopefully his mom can rediscover her grace and balance in enough time to audition as Jake's Agility Sidekick. P.S. Agility does nothing really for wearing out Jake on the long-term scale. Not long after getting home, Jake was hit by a sudden attack of the zoomies, which ended with him stealing Halloween socks out of the new "doggy-proof" clothes hamper. He actually freezes when I yell, "Stop, thief!" since we go through the sock routine several times a day. Now I didn't saw he looked sorry, he just freezes and waits to see what I will do next. Maybe a padlock on the hamper...