Down, Stay, Eat!

To get his twice-a-day meals, Henry's always had to do a trick, even if it's only sit.

Around the beginning of May – to work on his stays and waiting for the release command – I started putting his food in the bowl and then asking for a down-stay before he was allowed to eat. Since gobbling down his food is his #1 hobby, I honestly didn't think there was much chance he would ever master the fine art of waiting, especially not with the food right there next to him.

Well, he surprised me. It took only a short time for him to get the routine. Gradually we worked up to longer stays and a sit-stay for variation. I'm now able to walk out of the room for several seconds and he won't move.

Outside of feeding time, his stays have gotten much more reliable and he's much quicker to drop to the down position.

Fun with PVC -- Bar Jumps

Using the bar jump instructions provided at Instant Agility, I was able to make 2 jumps. They're crazy easy to make once you get the hang of using the PVC cutter, which is, by the way, the most expensive part of the project. I suppose you could use a hacksaw instead, but for me the cutter was easier, as my use of a hacksaw usually leads to bloodshed.

So far, I've only glued the feet because I want to be able to transport the jumps in my car trunk. I'm having trouble with the cups that hold the top bar. Right now I'm using a 1 1/4" tee hacksawed in half (see below) and rubber bands. I'm toying with gluing the cups to the poles since Henry is full-grown and shouldn't need a bar height adjustment.

And here's Henry trying out the jumps. As you can see, he has no problem clearing the 16 inch bar.

Peace & Harmony, if only for a minute

While revelers on the other side of the globe gathered at Stonehenge to watch the summer solstice sunrise, I was marveling at this miracle alignment on my couch: all three animals together! I've been waiting six, long, chase-filled months to see something like this. OK, so maybe the elder cat (left) isn't totally convinced, but at least we're heading in the right direction.

Run, Henry -- oops, not that way...

The last night of agility obedience class wasn't exactly the blaze of glory I'd hoped for.

Up to that point, we'd only worked on jumps, weave poles, wobble board, plank, and pause table individually, so, for a grand finale, the instructors set up a short course of jump-pause table-jump-tunnel-jump-jump.

The interesting – no, frustrating – part was that we had the most trouble with Henry's strength – jumping. It was really difficult to get him to jump while I was beside him (instead of on the other side of the bar telling him to come over). That was really maddening because he used to do that without hesitation.

Of course, it was maddening and terribly embarrassing when I knocked down one of the jump bars!

He also wouldn't go through the tunnel unless someone held him and I stood at the other end calling him through. That didn't bother me because he had only been introduced to the tunnel that night. He will get that eventually.

The pleasant surprise was his pause table performance. After working every day on down/stay and sit/stay, he's much improved since the class started 6 weeks ago. He didn't have any trouble holding his stay for 5 seconds.

Most importantly, he loved running the course, even if he did run outside the tunnel, around a jump, and nearly trip me on the second run.