First night at AGILITY! (by Luna)

I just had the BEST NIGHT EVER!!!

Mum and Dad had been talking about taking me to "Agility" for a while now, but I always assumed it was like the place where I get stuck with sharp things by strange people and end up feeling very sleepy with lots of strange people around and wake up in a cage feeling very woooosy….

Anyway, turns out it was nothing like that at all!

When I got over the shock and disappointment of Kaya not coming with us (I have to say that just in case she reads this), I realised we were stopping at a park! With lots of other dogs, and some super fun looking big toys to play with!

The humans stood around talking for a while and I thought we would never get to play, but finally we did! The first thing we played with was this piece of board that wobbled around. I had to stay on the board while turning and moving all over it, keeping my balance and eating treats. Soooo easy.

I didn’t find it hard at all!

Next I had to walk over some little poles which were a bit off the ground. I heard them talking about ‘building rear end awareness’, but sounds like common sense to me. I know what my rear end is doing at all times thank you very much.

The next thing we did was going through the hoop! There was another doggy doing all this stuff with me, it was her first night too, so we had to wait our turn. I spotted Dad so thought I better pose (see I do learn some things from Kaya).

I think Mum was falling asleep waiting…

Finally it was our turn to go through the hoop. Easy! (specially when there is cheese involved)

Next was the tunnel. I’ll admit at first I didn’t really understand what I was supposed to do. Mum stood at one end, and the lady held me at the other end – I could see Mum right over the top of the tunnel (apparently most dogs can’t see over the top). When Mum called ‘come!’ I did the logical thing and went around it! I’ve learned that this agility business isn’t always logical though, not before Mum and the lady had to show me the ‘right’ way to do it.

Ok, so it took a couple of goes.

After they threw about 10 pieces of cheese PLUS my favourite squeaky toy in there, I was onto it! Inside the tunnel is a GREAT place to be! Coming out the other end to lots of hugs and claps and more cheese is even better!

In between playing on the big toys we got to run around a bit and play! MUCH more fun than at dog shows where we just stand around – BORING.

Mum brought along the favourite toy of the moment – my (ok, ok, OUR – sorry Kaya) little blue dinosaur Cuz! We have about 3 Cuzes now and we LOVE them (thanks again Ahliah!).

After the play session it was time for more big toys. The next one was kinda like the first tunnel but it had a big long soft kinda tube on the end. We weren’t up to that bit yet though so the lady took it off, which meant it was just like the tunnel we had already done. Easy!

That was the last tunnel for the night – the next big toys were jumps! I LOVE jumping!

Right at the end we did some tricks stuff. We do lots of tricks training at home so I kinda already knew what I was supposed to do here.

Sit, easy!

Stay, easy.

Sitting and staying on the OTHER side of Mum – hmmm not so easy. When we practice things and go for walks, I always have to stay on the same side of Mum or Dad. This is the ‘left’ side. In agility, I have to be able to do everything on the other side too! Including walking, running, sitting, staying and all that kind of stuff.

I did it properly here the first time…

But after that I just wanted to duck around to the other side of Mum. It just didn’t feel ‘right’ on the ‘right’ side of her! We are going to work on it at home though and hopefully next time it won’t feel so weird!

We are going next week and then the week after that, but after that there will be a big break until the ‘new year’ – whatever that means. Mum and Dad have been talking about using that time to get me ‘desexed’ which I am pretty sure means a visit to that awful place mentioned above. There was another really long, confusing and slightly alarming sounding word – ‘gastroplexy’ – yikes!

Anyway there’s another couple of sessions at agility before all that, I can’t wait! Maybe next time we will get Dad to make a video!

P.S. Mum said to say a big SORRY for the quality of the piccies. She said that it was quite dark and she set Dad up with the wrong lens and no flash or tripod and blah blah blah…… [insert camera geek stuff here]. I did try telling her that you guys won’t mind at all but she’s what Dad calls a ‘perfectionist’. Humans are so petty. I think they should just concentrate on the fun things like me getting to play on big toys – WOOOOOOO!!!

Ok bye for now, love and licks, LUNA xxxooo