I started bringing a friend with me to Dirt Nite. She's only 8. And she's Ruby's new agility pal.
Even though the 8 year old has never done agility, except to set up brooms and patio furniture in her backyard for her dogs, she can run all the sequences I dish out for my advanced beginner class at Dirt Nite. Some of the other ladies in the class watch in disbelief. I know. Not a nice feeling to have your ass kicked by an 8 year old. Tried to explain, Ruby a little bit of a ringer. And her handler, a very fast runner.
Ruby puts up with a little bit of unusual handling, but pretty much I have them set up a nice long leadout, and then just yell, "RUN RUN RUN RUN" at them and off they go, around the course. It's pretty cute. So far, Ruby holds all her running contacts just fine, we set the jumps teensy tiny at 8", and that team is the new envy of the new to agility set. I wish every new agility handler could have a school master dog to start out with. Boy would their dogs be happier.
Does Ruby care if some of the handling wavers somewhat from GD? Naw. There's a stick of string cheese in her handler's pocket. Ruby gets it. She knows what the course is. You just run fast and point and she's there. Her handler doesn't know left from right exactly, so front and rear crosses can be a little expressive and freeform if she forgets mid course. Ruby's running contacts a little bit of a liability, because the beginning class then would like to also have running contacts and you know what? We're not even going there. I got enough gray hairs.
Once school starts, Ruby's new agility pal may have to retire for a while. We'll see. I think 8 year olds do spelling homework and then go to bed instead of going out to dirty old horse arenas at night. Ruby's always happy to run with anyone that'll have her. And runs fast. Her classmates, while they enjoy the cuteness factor of the Ruby team, may breathe a sigh of relief. I mean really. That just ain't fair, that little squirt and her ringer of a dog.
Did you ever dream that you were a dog agility super champ except then it switched and you were at some germy, grungy, derelict seaside park in the dark and the carnies were actually drug addled zombies that were shambling after you with hammers and their big teeth? And then as you're trying to escape your way out from under their oily, horrible claws by clambering up a rat infested palm tree, you're all, this is about dog agility like, how?
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