A classic dog agility weekend, the seminar.

Well, and also eclipse viewing. This was kind of cool. We made fancy viewing rigs since we all forgot our welding masks. It was cooler later when the sun became more obscured and light outside looked like the world was being swallowed up by a giant volcano.


Perhaps you know my friend Ashley. He is also known as World Champion Agility Guy Ashley Deacon. Probably you hire him to come and teach you in seminars on the weekends somewhere that requires an airplane ride which means no agility practicing for us.


So this weekend, Ashley taught a seminar here. It was kind of like an all day agility practice except with loads of our friends and also Ashley got money. Perhaps more peanut gallery from the sidelines suggestions by the participants. Do many other agility handlers usually reward other handlers with beer between obstacles for not forgetting the courses at your seminars?


Some handlers listened so that they did not make the same mistakes as everyone else. This Laura was a good listener and did this. There are a lot of Lauras around here. Most of the Lauras are very good handlers. I am the Laura who screws up a lot, although I did try to listen but I am not always successful in executing what I thought I just heard. Actually, rarely.


Look at this peanut gallery. Sue is an old skool rear crosser. She is looking skeptical here about something that probably involves a tight decel turn or a backside serpy bit.


Squid did everything the more experienced dogs were doing, no problem.


Don't tell Sue you saw her on the internet.


This is Blancette and Patch. How cute is Patch?


It was kind of a weird day. There was the iphone fiasco. Mary forgot her course. Gustavo had a bad morning. People had to leave early because, I guess the eclipse? Where was everybody going? It just meant that by the afternoon, we ran a lot of courses. We are pretty hard core around here. We have Kathleen's amazing agility backyard, Heart Dog Agility. We are pretty lucky.


Ashley is an excellent agility teacher. He is very patient and doesn't yell at anybody.


Except sometimes Mary. But not today. And we gave her beer.


We had a good day at the end of the day. Gustavo could not run at all in the morning. Whether it was too many other dogs, he felt bad, he was waiting for the eclipse, he missed Otterpop, he saw ghosts, he is poorly trained, I do not know. He wouldn't play, tug, fetch or eat any kind of treat I had to offer at the start of the day. I get all, Oh, boo hoo poor me and my sad little dog.

Yes. I am the irritating lady.

But as the day wore on, as the other dogs got more tired, agility Gustavo started to come back and we had a nice afternoon. I didn't really mean to run Otterpop, but I found if I got her out, ran a quick course, that revved him up and he could hold it together enough for a course and eat some cheese for rewards. He finished the day successfully and happily.

Otterpop was all, whatever. Frisbee.


Here's Otterpop doing a bit of a run. You can probably hear Ashley doing some teaching in there if you turn up the sound. Also some comments from the peanut gallery in the background. Maybe you would like to hire Ashley to teach you a seminar. Just please try to do it on a weekend we were not going to practice.