Hi,

This is a story that I already had on the old blog address, but read it again, it is good.

I almost forgot to write about this, I can’t believe it!

I know this is not exactly a place for you and your dog, but it fits better in this section than the main page I think.  DOG AGILITY, my favorite thing ever, well, other than cheeseburgers.

In December of last year I got to help out with the two local dog clubs, Paws in Motion and Miami Obedience Club. I volunteered with the club that I go to, Paws in Motion, to help with the agility trials that were held at Tropical Park. Students from the Vet Tech program at Felix Varela high school were there also. They helped with the equipment in the arena and I got to help the adult volunteers do the scoring when the dogs were running the course.

At the same time, a Conformation show was going on in the other ring next to the agility ring. SO MANY DOGS! My mom said that it was what my Nirvana would be like.

The scoring was pretty easy to do, a judge is in the ring and raises his hand in different ways to let the score keeper, me, know what to write down. To do the timing, the dogs jump over an IN hurdle and and OUT hurdle that has an electronic eye to read the dog jumping over it.

There are four hand signals: R for refuse – raises one fist, F for failure to perform – raises two hands palms open, W for wrong course – one open palm hand, and T for time out – two hands in T shape.

They also blow a whistle and that means the dog is eliminated. You don’t ever want to hear that.

They have trials all the time, there are some this month starting on the 22nd, at Tropical Park and again in March.

Many dog people come to these events, they bring big RVs and travel all over the country with their dogs. There were even breeders. One brought a whole litter of golden retriever puppies. They were so cute.

We took some pictures for you to see.