Clean Run Magazine -May 2010 - 78

A-frame and dogwalk long enough to hit the contact most of the time! If she responds to my voice telling her to Trot, she usually trots right through the contact. I have to be close to her, but Tess is a small dog and I can usually be there. She will do gamble contacts quite well, probably because her speed at a distance isn’t so great.
LB: Your favorite agility moments with this dog?

a minute, and she finds food where food just cannot be. She has pretty well proofed us in the house. At our first trial Tess left the ring to chase a cat under a trailer. It took several trials at that particular site before she would actually stay with me on that side of the ring! Since I couldn’t take food in the ring, I just had to wait for her to decide she would get to her reward faster if she stayed with me. Her biggest accomplishment has been the ADCH. Getting Super-Qs was very hard for Tess. At 13 1/2", Tess is quite small for the 16" class in USDAA. She is fast, but not with the world team Sheltie and Poodle and Border Collie speeds we see in that class. I think we always knew Tess had the capability of becoming a champion. The question was whether I had the patience to take her there.
LB: What are your favorite things to do with Tess other than agility?

TD: I took Tess to the USDAA Nationals this year. We had a horrible time. I never seemed to handle her well enough to show just how good she can be, and we frequently seemed to be on a different wavelength. I wasn’t doing much better with my other dog either, so I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. It certainly isn’t the end of the world if you blow an agility run, but I knew how good both my dogs are, and I felt bad about making them look bad. And then Tess and I ran a Jumpers class, and Tess ran fast and clean; it was as if our brains were joined and we couldn’t put a foot wrong. Good little Tess. Win? Place? I don’t even know where we ended up. It didn’t matter. For about 25 seconds Tess and I were invincible. What a rush!
LB: Describe the road to her championship.

KD: Swimming in the ocean or river. Tess loves to swim. She will out-swim the Border Collies in the ocean. She enjoys the pool, but she prefers to go down to the coast. She is just a great little dog to have around. We love having her with us. She absolutely adores everyone she meets, young, old, in wheelchairs, in bed, whatever. Tess lets them know she is thrilled to see them, and she bestows many happy kisses on everyone she meets. Her whole little body just wriggles with delight. She is equally good with dogs, although perhaps not quite as enthusiastic. I have been out of obedience training for a long time, but I recently started training obedience with Tess. She thinks it is a huge joke and applies herself with great enthusiasm.
LB: How does Tess fit into your household?

KD: It was a rocky road! Tess cannot be called reliable. She has little Spaniel brains in her little head. Just to get her to stay in the ring was the first problem. Tess is an incredibly nosey little dog. She is curious about everything and everyone. Put a bag down, and Tess will run over and check it out. Open a car door. Tess will leap into that car to check it out. Open a door. Tess will go into that room to check it out. She is also the most ill-mannered dog I have ever owned. My friend, who knows Tess very well, states that if we had a nuclear holocaust, only the cockroaches—and Tess— would survive. She also says I never need to actually provide food for Tess; she would do quite well scavenging for herself. Tess will find and steal food if there is food to be found. She eats bugs, she eats garbage, she eats goodies from people’s training bags, she eats things from my purse if I leave it in reach, she climbs on the table to steal breakfast if you leave the table for
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KD: Tess fits in perfectly with our dogs and us. I am just not sure if we fit perfectly with her! She has completely changed our outlook on things. Food must be placed out of reach, containers must be locked, doors must be kept closed, any clothing that has ever held a crumb of food in a pocket must be hung out of reach. Because I am not always compliant with her
Clean Run | May 10

Clean Run Magazine -May 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine -May 2010