HyperDog Ball Launcher Revelation

Jake has never been interested in chasing tennis balls and definitely had no intentions of every bringing one back. We'd given up any hope of wearing him out just tossing a ball. My husband decided to try one last thing -- the HyperDog Ball Launcher (NFI). Amazingly enough, Jake began taking a sudden interest in chasing that ball down and bringing it down just in time to have a second ball launched. He's even taking the time to search in the ivy in the backyard to find them. I've happily used the ball launcher to wear his little spotted butt out.

Sooo, a hour before agility class last night, I opted to use a half hour of chasing the tennis balls to take a little steam off the top of his normal tornado energy. I brought him in out of the 83-degree outdoors to cool off before we drove to class. We began with the teeter totter and a new addition to the class, a black poodle named Amelia. Jake was pretty distracted by the addition of something resembling a small black sheep. I was fairly certain that Jake was going to be a holy terror all night since one of our former obedience instructors came to watch the class. I knew he was going to do awful things that she could report back to the other obedience teachers. I was wrong. Jake did the tabled teeter with little trepidation, ran a series of four curved jumps with no detours, and accomplished a jump/chute combo without barreling out in front of me. Our last obstacle set of the evening was the dreaded jump/curved tunnel/jump. Because the last jump was in front of the A-frame a target was used to keep the dogs from continuing on. Jake did really well the first three times and then we had a brief zoomie moment. Brief, I say, because it only consisted of three rounds around the yard before he came back to me and one of the teachers. We discussed some brief home strategies for taking the zoom out of his reaction to the tunnel. We ended the class with each of us demonstrating on the contact boards for our classmates. Jake wanted to go visit with the poodles after he completed the exercise two or three times. The exercise had become boring compared to the other dogs. I was so proud of Jake, though, for his behavior that we stopped for a grape slushee for me and a cup of ice for Jake from Sonic (NFI). He happily flopped down in his seat with his cup of ice between his paws. Once again I felt bolstered by signs of Jake's improvements. His focus was a little better, he had more control than just speed, and the zoomie incident was short-lived.