A dramatic re-enactment of a typical running dowalk training session, brought to you by Otterpop and the Magic Number 5.

I was emailing with someone the other day, moaning and groaning about how we don't have room to practice at home. The backyard is the size of a stamp and full of succulents with prickly spikes. We have a short driveway the exact size of a set of weave poles, which means you have to send your dog to the poles from the street. After you moved the car into the street and found a parking place for it halfway down the street. Where all the cats are. And evil robot postmen walk around. And fast cars drive away from the market across the street because they probably just robbed it for beer or bought a winning lottery ticket that was supposed to be mine. Gangsters having a smoke outside the market's graffiti wall very much enjoy dog agility driveway training at my house.

Especially when someone chases the cat into the neighbor's yard.

We rarely train in the driveway.

For training things that need a lot of repetition, like running dogwalks, ok, like everything, it means we need to rely on our friends to let us borrow their stuff and their spacious parcels of land. Because I may be crazy, but I'm not going to drive around with a dogwalk stuffed in my Honda to set up at the beach. This has been suggested to me. It's a Honda. It's full of dogs already. There is a limit to the insanity.

A typical training session means we're late for work, but we still stop at a friend's field on the way and we have time for 5 dogwalks for Gustavo, 5 for Otterpop. We threw in 5 teeters for Gustavo yesterday too. For good luck.

The luck worked and all 15 total were perfect and we frisbeed for a couple minutes then off we flew, down the road, to work.

Otterpop's dramatic re-enactment:


She gets me out of the car and is all HURRY HURRY HURRY LET'S GO PLAY HURRY COME ON OTTERPOP WE HAVE TO GO TO WORK. Luckily Otterpop noticed she did bring Otterpop's frisbee and also Otterpop is allowed to yell here so Otterpop consents to hit some yellow feet paint. Zoom.


Otterpop sometimes decides Otterpop will jump over the yellow feet paint with gusto but Otterpop today was in a festive mood and perhaps thinking about nachos as well as FRISBEE and consented once again to run zooming and step all feet into yellow feet paint.


Otterpop might as well put feet in yellow feet paint again. What the hell. Whatever it frickin takes to get Her to throw that frisbee. She is so obsessed with that stupid yellow feet paint.


Decided once again might as well just blah blah blah blah blah FRISBEE.


Otterpop decides a novel approach would be yellow paint again, for one more time. Just because Otterpop likes to mix it up for her. Otterpop does not guarantee she would do it again this many times in a row with no gusto leap over yellow paint but Otterpop woke up on a good side of the dog bed.

Me, I took 5 times in a row on top of Gustavo's 5 perfect teeters and his 5 perfect dog walks as a miracle sign from the heavens that 5 was the magic number of the day and so then we played frisbee for a little while and then I hurryed Otterpop back up and threw her in the car and off to work we went and I forgot to get a lottery ticket that night, heavy on the 5's.