Tonight the word is Jumping Bean

So it is official, Nubs LOVES agility. I kind of figured he would. Here is another no brainer statement, Nubs LOVES people. So if Nubs had a chance to either do tunnels and jumps or love on a stranger, which would he choose? If you guessed love on a stranger you would be correct. This is a tad bit of an issue for us. He’ll ignore everything if the agility trainer is near it, and go straight for the agility trainer to get some loving. We... well I have some work to do.

Tonight Nubs was a jumping bean, he just could not stand still. He was jumping all around me, jumping toward people, jumping over the x-pen that showed the dogs how to weave through the weave poles, and even jumping out of the chute when he came to the end. I swear I fed him jumping beans or a massive amount of sugar before class. It was like having a kid with ADHD full of candy. “Watch you? OOOOOHHHHHH LOOK!!!!!!! Wait what? Watch ok… TUNNNEL!!!!!!!!! No tunnel? Fine. DOGS!!!! MOM LADY LOOK! THERE ARE DOGS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT FENCE DIVIDER!!!!!”

At this point I was scratching my head. He had a nice walk before class and a mental work out; he shouldn’t have been acting like he was. So you can assume I was floored with the next conversation I had with the other Pit Bull owner in the class.

PB owner: “So, how many other classes has your dog taken?”
Me: “Just one other. All of my training I’ve pretty much done myself, including training for his CGC test”
PB Owner: “I just can’t believe how well behaved he is! He really listens to you!”
At this point while the Pit Bull owner is talking to me, Nubs lunges at one of the trainers grabbing equipment trying to get attention then when he realizes he’s not going to get attention from her, turns and attempts to pull me over to say hello to the boxer about 10 feet away
Me: “Um… yeah… Well behaved… um, thanks... NUBS ENOUGH!”

Honestly, when Nubs is acting like this and I get such a complement I really wonder, if these people think Nubs is well behaved, what is the world does their dogs act like at home?!?!?!? Nubs does listen very well I do admit. He’ll stop what he is doing with a simple command, but the commands are only short lived. “Enough” will stop him from what ever he is doing, but he’ll start up something else right away. He’ll “Leave it” and “Wait” but will just turn and do something else instead. I had 2 other owners besides the Pit Bull owner say the same thing to me tonight. I still am scratching my head over it.

Agility class wasn’t as funny as last time. Nubs actually sort of behaved. Besides attempting to head butt the Boxer (Nubs and the Boxer seem to get along the best at closer range so we stick close together.) who of course thought Nubs was being rude and laid into Nubs with a growl and a nip. Nubs ran away with his Nubs between his legs. All I could say was “You deserved that”.

Nubs has been the only dog so far to not get loose during class. For being as quick as he is through the tunnels and weave poles, I am about 2 seconds quicker and catch him as he comes out. Tonight, I missed the catch and he decided to go visit his Boxer friend.

Now most of the dogs in this class are not nice to other dogs on leash. 3 of them will snap at the other dog is you get more then 5ft away from them. So you KNOW to keep away from these 3 dogs or expect a lot of growling. So here is Nubs starting to run toward all 6 other dogs and I’m still at the tunnel. I know I can’t catch him in time, so I shout “NA AH!” Something I learned from “It’s Me or the Dog” on Animal Planet. It’s 100% effective at getting him to look back at me because I’ve used it so much and trained so much with it. It’s like a NO command but so much stricter.

Nubs does what I wanted and gives me a millisecond backwards glace. I yell out “Nubs, here!” and HE TURNS AROUND and COMES BACK!!!! Everyone including the trainer is in awe, and I am just proud and relived. The trainer gives me props for such a good recall and everyone else is just giving me the stink eye. I couldn’t have been prouder of the recall. It really does pay to work on you commands with such important ones as recalls.

This weeks homework is working on Nubs and knowing where his back paws are, keeping his focused on the task at hand and not other people, and on his jumping. So much fun.