Zoomie-Free Zone

Taken a few weeks ago, this picture is of Saki, the Sheltie, in Jake's agility class who is demonstrating running the dog walk.

We missed agility class last week because we were out of town and Jake was at my in-laws. It made us very nervous to leave Jake for so long. Jake loves my in-laws and their two dogs, a miniature dachschund named Stymie and a German Shorthair Pointer named Sadie. Still, we had never left Jake for that long loose in someone else's house and yard. Fortunately for all of us, Jake's report card came back with lots of gold stars -- he was well-behaved, "fit right in", and quietly crawled into his kennel every night. Small sidebar discussions later revealed that Jake routinely stole socks and took up residence under the beds with his contraband, shot out the front door of their office but returned when called, and abused his riding privileges in the car when he discovered himself seatbelt-harness free. He wouldn't be a cattle dog if he didn't try!

Jake greeted us with wiggling, wiggling, and more wiggling -- an action only interrupted by sloppy wet kisses. Jake stayed on my feet throughout dinner. I found myself with an audience during my shower because he refused to take his eyes off me and kept his head in the shower but as far away from the evil bathwater as possible. He finally relaxed a little at bedtime when he flopped down on my legs. Every once in a while he would get up to give me a nose bonk and then lay back down.

Then last night, just two days after picking Jake back up, we headed to agility. I had no idea what to expect and kept my hopes of Jake behaving well to myself. Jake proved me wrong! We began class using a traveling plank, a training device designed to help dogs learn the "two-on, two-off" positioning of the feet for safety purposes. Jake was a little confused by the first use of a clicker but quickly learned that the clicker signaled treats. It took me longer than him to coordinate my body and my brain to the new exercises but I wasn't alone. Luckily, this is something we can and will work on at home and anywhere else we can imagine. Our first sequence of obstacles was the tire, one jump and the chute. All of the dogs charged into this sequence with gusto, including Jake. We repeated our gameplan of starting with the last obstacle first and then backing into the next obstacle. Once we had gone through the entire sequence twice, we stopped while we were ahead and I still had Jake's focus. The teeter totter was next on the menu. The teeter is currently positioned just a hair above two tables so that it only moves an inch or two up and down on each end. Jake got to be the guinea pig for the class and no amount of bang or bump seemed to bother him with buffalo jerky and string cheese waiting on the other side. Last but not least was the weave poles. Jake did them so well the first two times that it was hard to be disappointed by all the total cheating he used for the next four turns. To end on a positive note, we opened the weave poles a little more and sent him through the last two sets. It was nice to have a zoomie-free class without all the total-gym experience I normally get from wrestling with Crazy Dog on a Leash.