Jake’s agility run was a disaster of Olympian proportions. I don’t even know where to begin. We began the day early by getting there at 7:30 AM to get Jake measured and confirm that he is indeed that short of a cattle dog. We headed home since we don’t live that far away and I spent some time playing ball and practicing his contacts on his practice board at home. I did laundry, answered rescue e-mails, and knitted more on a baby blanket – anything to try NOT to be nervous. My hubby Joe and I headed back to the agility trial at 2 PM so I could watch some of the other folks run and in case the trial was running ahead of schedule. The trial was running ahead of schedule so I set up Jake’s crate, mapped out a game plan for the Novice A Fast course with my teacher Mary, and practiced on the warm-up jump. Jake was fairly calm with none of his usual goose-honking I’m-cuckoo-for-agility singing. I should have known he was just saving up for his public exhibition.
I walked the course with my teacher at my side and felt fairly confident that I could handle the route we chose (you can choose your own route in FAST to accumulate the most points).

I grabbed Jake and we stood in line to run. We were fifth, jumping in the 12” height. I took Jake out to his starting spot, placed him in a beautiful sit/stay, and walked out to past the second jump. Jake began looking over his shoulder at anyone but me. When I caught his eye I yelled “Jump” racing for the third and fourth jumps as fast as my little legs would carry me. Jake nailed those first two jumps, blew on by me and began zooming and zooming and zooming. I can normally get him into the tunnels and finally did get him in the yellow tunnel which is followed by the dogwalk. Jake chose to run beside me instead of taking the dogwalk. Halfway down the length of the dogwalk and at the portion that is as high as my shoulders, Jake thought, “Oh, bleep, Mom told me to get on the dogwalk” and he leaped straight up in the air. All I can say is thank goodness he didn’t make it because I wouldn’t have wanted to see that injury. About this time, the judge blows two whistles (code for Get your dog and get the heck off the course). I would have loved to have grabbed Jake but he was again zooming around the course AND out the gate to go buzz some other innocent canine bystanders. Nothing is better than hearing “Will someone grab that dog?” over the intercom and it’s YOUR dog behaving like you’ve never put a lick of training on him. I’m not really sure if I’m the one who caught him but I wasn’t breathing real well at that point so there wasn’t enough oxygen in my brain to recall that part of it with any certainty. My classmates and my teachers all came out to hug me and try to get some blood back in my face. I'd like to thank them immensely for not running and hiding and for being seen in public with me. Jake got some water and some crate time until my teacher was done running her dogs. She called me over to see Jake’s score of an 8. Wow. An 8. The only dogs that got lower than Jake were the dogs that didn’t show up.

My teacher Mary asked me to work with Jake on the practice jumps again so we could work together instead of it being the Jake Circus Hour. Our goal was to work some randomness into practicing the jump by my treating him with the hotdog pieces at random points in running and jumping. Random is right. Randomly, Jake takes off at a dead run straight for some Shelties playing frisbee. The owner of the two very well-trained Shelties called her dogs to her. Jake took a wide loop run around them and headed back to me. I had to hand Captain Insano over to my husband at this point because I knew the next intercom announcement was going to be “Will someone grab that lady and make HER leave the area?” After delivering some tugs to folks who had ordered them, I got in my car with my wet, muddy lunatic boy (did I mention he ran through the sprinkler and stopped, dropped and rolled?) and headed home. There are no pictures and no video of this historic occasion because everyone was too busy trying to catch Jake and he was too fast anyways. The only proof I have of the day is the armband and some red clay pawprints on my jeans. I’m not angry at Jake but I so was NOT expecting that thrilling of show for the audience since he’s been doing so well in class and rarely zooms anymore. I’ve gotta go give him a bath and get that red clay out before he rubs it all over the couch….