Uh-oh, this is getting serious!

Miko has been in school, of one sort or another, pretty steadily since we got him in Sept. '04. He had basic and intermediate obedience, several sessions of rally obedience (a fun and interesting sport) and a class in tricks and utility skills at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, where we got him. He started agility classes offered through the city of Albany's rec department. This served to introduce him to the equipment, and me to the idea that this could be a lot of fun. We moved on to classes with Kathryn Horn, and then to Sandra Rogers at Ace DogSports, across the bay in Brisbane (indoor facility) or Pacifica (outdoors), depending on the weather. Sandy is very successful with her own dogs, and she's a terrific teacher. Miko has flourished under her tutelage ... even I, world's klutziest handler, am improving!


Next month (April), we'll be going to PowerPaws Agility Camp! I never went away to camp as a kid -- too busy with horse shows every weekend -- and this isn't sleep-over camp, but it'll be 3 days of intense activity, plus I'll get a Power Paws T-shirt!

Meanwhile, Moxie has had basic obedience and a trick class at the Oakland SPCA. He has recently started foundation work with Sandy. Foundation work is the training you do to get a dog ready to start actual agility training -- a lot of heel-work, stays, getting the dog to stand on different things (box, teeter-board, etc). Moxie was born to do this stuff. He literally drags me from one obstacle to the next so he can try them all. If he had his way, he'd get to climb on the "real" obstacles -- the dogwalk and A-frame -- that are shoved out of the way against the wall. His attitude is ME! LET ME!!! EVERYBODY GET OUTTA MY WAY!!!!!

So here's what my life looks like: 3 times a week I'm driving across the bay bridge, either to lessons or practice. Let's see -- the toll recently went up to $4, so that's $12/wk, plus about 2.5 gallons of gas per round trip in my Subie ... premium gas is now back up to $3.25/gallon AT COSTCO! Somebody else do the math; it makes my head hurt!