Real Dogs. Real People. True Sport.

 This past weekend was my club's agility trial.  Skye was running, trying to qualify for Nationals in October in Colorado.  Skye is a 12 year old pomeranian, and at this age, every trial could be his last, but I'm hoping to keep him running long enough to go to Nationals one last time.  We had such fun last year in Louisville, and Colorado is actually where I would like to live some day, so it seems like a worthy goal for 2012.  Since I knew I would be gone all day Saturday and Sunday, I took little Lottie Moon with me, so she got to experience her first agility trial.  She came out during down times and got to "watch" all the activity, practice some of her new tricks, and meet some people and some dogs.   

Dolche is another austrialian shepherd puppy who is 5 months old, compared to Lottie's ten months, and they really hit it off.  A playdate for these two might be in order!

I was super-proud of my little girl, she was great.  I was afraid she might start her crazy digging and barking at the ground, so I had pleny of treats to distract her with, and it wasn't an issue, since Lottie is always all about the treats!  She practiced "sit" and "down" and "touch" and she got a lot of attention.  One woman stopped me to tell me what a beautiful dog I had.  The judge came over at one point to ask about Lottie, and several people stopped me to ask about her eyes, and if she could hear.  Most were suprised to hear that she is mostly blind, because she really does function quite well.  She is Miss Confidence.

I tried an experiment where Nancy and I set up a jump at 4", and then I walked Lottie over it.  She walked into it and knocked it down the first couple of times, then after that she would pick up her feet and hop over it.  Just like she could see.  Then I moved her back from the jump and our area where we had been working so that we were then about 6 feet away, and I walked her up to the jump and across it.  She walked right into it.  So I'm going to say that she could not see it, but simply memorized where it was, and when I moved her too far out, she lost track of it.  Jumping with a blind dog will be really hard, but I"m going to try it, anyway.  Who's to say that she can't somehow sense the jump and know to bound over it?  Now, I'm not talking full-out, 22" jumps here, I'm merely talking about me teaching her to follow my hand, and leading her around a course slowly, just manuvering the obstacles.  I have no doubt she would handle the contacts and tunnels just fine, but the jumps, even the 4" ones, present a special problem.  It would be fun for her to learn, I think, and anything I can do to build her confidence in her world is worthwhile.  I also want to try Rally Obedience and Freestyle.  We'll try them all, and see what she enjoys.  She's quite fun, I'm sure she will be up for anything.