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Dog Agility Training

I had a Cairn Terrier who was very agile. She was able to run down and kill rabbits. I was shocked the first time she did it. When she did it a second time I was even more shocked. You would not have thought those little short legs could move that quickly.

Cairns were bred to catch rats, mice and other vermin but mine would not harm rats, mice, chipmunks and other vermin. I know this for a fact. When we went for right before bedtime constitutional and encounter a frog she would bump them on their rear end to get them hopping. Then she would follow them and bump again. Poor frogs couldn't get any rest in my neighborhood.

One night after my wife had gone to bed and the lights were low I was in my chair watching TV and the dog was doing her best work...sleeping on the couch. I noticed a furtive movement near the furniture upon which sat my TV. It was a mouse. It came out from behind the cabinet and scooted over behind my son's toy basket. Then it scurried over to the hearth, jumped up on it and hid behind the fireplace tools. After a while it must have felt comfortable as it moved to the front of the hearth where I could see its beady little eyes glistening in the light.

I thought to myself, mouse, your days are about to come to an end. I had trained that murderous little shop dog of mine to alert whenever I said, "Look!". She would immediately determine where I was pointing and take off like a rocket to chase down the squirrel, rabbit, frog, turtle or whatever we would see on our walks. So I said "LOOK!". She immediately awoke and began to scope out the den to see where I was pointing. Off the couch she jumped and over to the hearth she sped.

The little mouse must have been aware of her reputation and it went behind the fireplace tools. You could still see its beady little eye shining. The dog could see that mouse and she gradually creeped toward the hearth to take a good look before she did in the unwanted trespasser. When she was as close as she could get without getting on the hearth her tail started wagging and she started dancing with excitement. She turned and looked at me and I swear she was thinking, "Daddy, can I have him as a pet?" She continued to watch the mouse for a while but finally she had had enough of that and went back to the couch to do what she did best, sleep.

The mouse left the hearth and a couple of days later I caught it in a snap trap baited with peanut butter. My worthless mouser heard the snap trap go off and began barking which woke me up in the middle of the night. I went to see what the commotion was all about and retrieved the trap and the mouse which went for a swim in the toilet. The dog was so excited I thought she was going to attack me and take the mouse. That was our one and only mouse to ever get in the house as far as I know. Never did figure out how it got in.

That little dog was my shop dog and would spend the entire day with me in the shop if I was out there that long. If I was doing something really noisy like using the planer she would go out on the deck and snooze in the sunshine until things quietened down. She watched over me for nearly 16 years. When she died I buried her in the shade of the trees near my shop.

She never watched TV very much but when the Woodwright's Shop came on she would run at top speed from wherever she was to sit and listen to the hammered dulcimer rendition of Kildare's Fancy and watch that show. I think she liked Roy better than me....

I miss my little girl.

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Never really did formal agility, but played with some of the tricks years back with one pup. Was lots of fun.

Another canine exercise project is "safe ratting" aka Barn Hunting where the rats are kept in little tubes and the dogs sniff them out in a barn full of hay bales. Apparently the rats like it to (probably snacks if I had to guess). A friend of ours has taken their dog to a few events and said it was a lot of fun.
 
I wish I had a dog to play with it and train it in agility and other tricks. For a while I was wanting to get a giant Schnauzer, now if I was going to get one it would be a Belgian Malinois.
 
I've never tried it, but if I was in better physical shape I think doing dog agility training would be fun.
Toni Ciuraneta said:
I wish I had a dog to play with it and train it in agility and other tricks. For a while I was wanting to get a giant Schnauzer, now if I was going to get one it would be a Belgian Malinois.
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I love Belgian Malinois dogs, and LOML and I almost accepted an offer for a free puppy a few years ago, but they really require a LOT of work and interaction and we realized we didn't have the time nor energy to devote to raising one right. I have a friend who has a Malinois, but he's a retired Air Force paratrooper who trained dogs for combat, including parachuting with them. His current dog is about a year and a half old, and he plays and trains with the dog for several hours daily. He puts a lot of work into keeping the dog occupied and also socializing him with people and other dogs. He takes the dog almost everywhere he goes. He hopes to eventually take him skydiving, too.

I also got to know and hang out with a couple of giant Schnauzers a few years ago when I was working at the dry cleaners. The owners had a male and female pair, and they were always at the store. They were great sociable dogs, and popular with our customers. :thumb:
 
There are a lot of really cool things that can be done with dogs. Some of them are very very smart. Like people, they don't all have the personality to some of those things. Of the dogs I have owned, two have had the personality. My American Eskimo would have done it. My Boston Terrier that I now have is ready and rearing to GET INTO IT. Me - well that is the weak link. This may well be my last chance.

I have a couble of jobs to finish off, then I really need to do some PM and upgrades on my shop machines.

Spring is coming. Snoopy is 2 years old. My yard is all enclosed. Start really small.
 
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