In dog parlance, Agility is a canine sport in which a dog, with the guidance of a human handler, runs through an obstacle course. The objective is to do all the obstacles, in the correct order, under a certain time limit.
Obstacles typically include different types of jumps, climbing equipment, a teeter-totter, weave poles, tunnels and chutes. Before an event, the humans often spend a lot of time studying a course map, with numbers and icons of the obstacles:
For more information, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_agility
With the help of our teacher, Natalie, my Mommy trained me to handle the obstacles. I learned not just how to go over jumps but also how to tell which direction to go in next (way harder!). Weave poles were very hard to learn, but once I figured it out, it was a blast! I also discovered that tunnels aren’t scary, they are FUN!
The teeter-totter took a long time, because I started out scared; learned it by being lured up and over with a trail of treats laid out on its surface; got scared of it again (it moves under me while I’m standing on it!!!) and had to relearn it; and did that one more time.
Mommy and I had a blast learning the obstacles together. She got excellent at reading my body language, figuring out how to tell me what she wanted me to do, and understanding how to motivate me. I got very good at listening to her and trying different approaches until I got the one she wanted.
It turns out I’m a super athlete, strong and fearless and most of all FAST! Mommy…not so much. She’s short and fat, she never played sports as a kid, she is so uncoordinated she is a menace to other gym clients in aerobics classes, and…well, let’s just say the grizzly bear is definitely going to catch her, not me or Daddy, if it ever comes down to a race.
Fortunately Daddy got laid off from his job right around the time Natalie was despairing of us ever getting into an actual Agility trial. He started coming to class with us to observe, and quickly picked up the commands.
More importantly, he got the subtleties of handler body language; I take my cues from the position of my handler’s shoulders and the angle of my handler’s feet at least as much as from hand signals, and Mommy’s shoulders and feet were frequently telling me conflicting things!
When he started giving Mommy advice, she realized that Daddy actually was an athlete like me — he did track and soccer in high school, and still plays old-man-level volleyball and softball. So she said, “Why don’t you try running with Boomer?”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
