Agility Quin

New Year's Day 2010

I loaded up my daughter, two dogs, various assortments of crates, chairs, food, dog treats and blankets, and my brand new electric heater and headed to the Rendon Arena at 7:30am. The car temp gauge said it was 30 degrees, and inside that breezy metal arena the temps never got above 45 all day long.

It was cold.

And it was a long, long day. We were there for nine hours to compete in 6 runs: 2 Jumpers Elite and 2 Regular Elite with my agility star Elliot, and 2 Jumpers Novice runs with my new boy Quin.

Aka Big Goofy Boy Dog.

His first run was a blast. For him.

I spent most of those 40+ seconds in the ring trying (not successfully I might add) to get his attention. He took the first two jumps perfectly. It was downhill from there.

He got distracted by the pole setter, sitting quietly in the corner. He went to see her. She ignored him. He in turn ignored my pleas to get back on course. The pole setter continued to ignore him. He lost interest and came back to see what I was hollering about.

Something about a tunnel... Nope, he didn't see any tunnels, as he galloped joyfully beside it, rather than through it.

Several times he got ahead of me and turned to bark at me because I was slowing him down. I admit, I was having some trouble following Quin's course design, which seemed to twist and turn based upon interesting sights and smells obvious only to him.

At the tire jump, he barked at me every time I said "Hoop!". "Quinny, HOOP!" Bark. "Hoop!" Bark-bark.

I gave up and went to the next jump-tunnel-jump series, which he obediently completed before running off to sniff the ground. We were eliminated.

Fortunately, his next run was much better. He was focused and seemed to remember at least a little of his training.

He twirled too many times and wasted some time barking at me again, but I was so pleased he followed me through the course, I wasn't even upset about the knocked pole, which knocked us out of a qualifying score.


In the end, he had fun and every one thought he was adorable.

Agility is about fun, and bonding, and it was created for and meant to be - for all intents and purposes - a spectator sport.

So, for that, I guess we did a good job.

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