Another Rained-out Agility Class

I always take Jake outside to play fifteen minutes of ball before agility class just to take that little bit of energy off the top. Armed with Hyperball Dog Launcher (NFI) and two squeaky tennis balls, I entered the mosquito-infested backyard with Jake who was doing his best impression of a Jack Russell Terrier, bouncing at my side. Jake immediately sits when we are in side the backyard gate because he knows the leash will not come off until he does. Then we practice our WAIT command -- Jake remains seated and I walk off. Theoretically Jake waits until I use my hand signal and "Jake, WITH ME" and he races with me to the normal ball launching site. The wonderful side benefit of Jake being able to smell again is that he can find his own tennis balls when they get lost in the woods or weeds. No more spiderwebs or snakes for Mommy (for which I will be forever indebted to Canine GP)! Jake used to give up searching for the ball even if I could see the ball from where I'm standing across the yard. Now he slaps that black, wet nose to the ground and doggedly (no pun intended) looks for that ball. Once he finds it, he comes bouncing back to me with his head held high, squeaking that tennis ball as often as his jaws can manage. So I launch the ball once, twice, three times and BOOM! Jake slapped his whole body to the ground and I wasn't far from doing the same myself. We raced for the house just in time for the lightening, thunder and pouring rain to hit the yard. The minute I hit the front door my cell phone was ringing to let me know classs was cancelled. Jake was terribly confused as I put away his agility class backpack. I couldn't leave my little man looking so downhearted so I pulled out his traveling contact board and we practiced using the steak pieces I had saved for class. I never would have thought that I could use steak to tempt Jake into showing me just how smart he is without facing the dire consequences of feeding him meat. I am happy to report that the steak test went very well -- no gas, no vomiting, no diarrhea, just one happy dog! And one happy Mom because Jake made sure to nail his "HIT IT" every single time I asked. Now if he'll just do that is class next week and show Miss Mary how hard he's been working to earn that steak and chicken.