Clean Run - December 2017 - 21

Or the dog who comes roaring into the ring in a blaze of overthe-tippy-top, wackadoodle frog-eyed frenzy. Who can't hold it
together enough to even sit down at the start line, who prefers
up and over there to sit, who's wrongness vapor is an electrified hotwire jolt zapping willy nilly up, down, and sideways. Eyes
bugging so far out of head that they're close to dangling in the
turf, their incomplete sentences just trail off at, "Get me..."
Stress. And how might one dress for this, you may ask? Shall
we start from the bottom?
Foundation garments. It's not all pivots and spinning round
cones and contact positions on boxes. There's no one size fits
all way to train it. Maybe the dog who tends to flatline needs
a lot more rewards for enthusiastic attempts. Maybe the dog
who tends toward high volume explosive frazzling needs a
lot more rewarding for calmly thinking things through. Look
deep in your heart to figure out what drives your dog's pulse,
then go deep inside your underwear drawer and find that one
sports bra that fits just so, perfect. It's a lady thing, gentlemen.
Maybe you have a pair of boxer briefs that make you feel the
same.You feel incomplete on washday.
I don't think there can ever be enough foundation in dog
agility. More impulse control for the crazed. More playing for
the undemonstrative. More sports bra for the jigglers. More
fun, more tricks, more reinforcing the things that you'll need
forever that you don't want to break. More noticing. Training
things you didn't even know you wanted. Things that you had
a little feeling about, and then glossed over.

December 17 | Clean Run

Do more of those things, because, oh snap, is that glossing
going to come back and get you.Your future self is weeping,
like they did when that one perfect pair of underpants was on
sale, and past self didn't buy them in every single color. Live it
up! You get a pass on underpants numbers when curating your
capsule. The elastic will eventually fray and you're left thinking,
I knew this was going to happen, as the start line disintegrates
before your eyes. More with the crazy puppy impulse control.
So much more. More toys and games with the low-key puppy.
More playing! More love, more snuggles, more of everything.
Mind the gaps and fill them up.
Maybe if you can help your dog feel like a million bucks, dressing for success not the stress, there's less fading. Less crazies.
They know you got their back covered.You can cover yours
with an upmarket athleisure hoodie with a pocket big enough
to hide the toy and you're ready to go.
There's a look at agility. Sporty and sensible, with the occasional tutu paraded out during team events. Not so many
blouses and slacks. Tank tops and stretch bottoms stitched
from fabrics bestowed with drag queen names containing the
letter X. Lux Treme. Sup Plex. Moxie Flex. Cool Max. Junior
cuts for the slim and wide cuts for the less so. All bodies are
equally valuable. It took me a long time to become cool with
agility-wear. While the ease of sloppiness was rad, the footwear thing and appropriate sporty pants was hard to get into.
I ran in jeans and boots for a long time. Sometimes my beautiful dog Ruby, she of the crazy jumping, would crash through
a jump and vanish to chase gophers outside the ring. It was

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - December 2017