Photo credit: Rob Michalski
Sometimes when me and Otterpop are practicing, I look down while we’re running and there is this weird little lowrider tank, stubby legs chugging along as fast as they can go right there next to me, blasting through the grass. Mini jacked up hotrod, made of a bunch of spare parts but souped up with a rocket blaster motor driving it along in the name of Frsibee.
Photo credit: Rob Michalski
I send her away from me, rehearsing for the day we finally get those gambles at the dog show. That stumpy motor kicks into gear, and looks like someone has launched a meatloaf out of a tiny little cannon, and the meatloaf flies out to a tunnel 100 miles away, blasts through and I yell, “TURN” and the flying meatloaf changes direction, some crazy baby missile launched by cackling degenerates looking to explode a town for no good reason other than it’s fun to blow things up. And she turns tail, goes over the jump and flies across the ring when I throw her frisbee as far as I can. At that very moment, her brain has only one thing in it, and all is well in the world and the universe and if life could stand still just then, both of us, could just die right then and there of the happy of it all.
OMG, my eyes are welling up. I know the feeling well.
There’s a greyhound now in my Thursday night class. His command to go into the tunnels is “Get small!” And he really does have to scrunch down–and yet he does them pretty fast, and you have almost NEVER seen a dog look as happy to be doing agility as he looks. Thin waggy whip tail the whole way, bouncing and bright eyed and absolutely totally delighted to be running and jumping and playing the game with his mom.
Makes one remember, indeed, why one does this.
That's it exactly! At the end of a video of a technically unimpressive run, my dog Jake turns to me & jumps in the air for joy. That's why we do it.