Agility training – casual style!
If only I could bottle the energy that Minnie and Maisie generate and have a daily dose of it! They are so energetic when it’s play time.
My hubby thinks its the food that they eat, so I’m thinking I may go on their diet for week and see if it has the same effect on me!
When it’s playtime, which it is several times a day they race around like possessed Tasmanian devils, the furniture becomes their obstacle course. They race each other upstairs leaping on and off our bed (they’re only allowed in our bedroom) then race back downstairs through the dining room under the table in and out of the chair legs then around the back of the sofa and into the kitchen. Then they take a brief pit stop and fill up their tanks and they’re ready to continue.
They start off running around in a circle because they can’t remember who was chasing who! Then they’re off again like greyhounds just released from the traps on a race course.
Through to the lounge, up and over the settees, around the pouffe, behind the settees and back up the stairs with a finale slide on the bathroom floor! They love sliding but have to get their engines fully charged before they can do the full slide so that’s why they leave that activity until last
With lolling tongues, wide bulging eyes and hot breath resembling a race horse that has just won the Grand national, they collapse, but not in heap as you may of thought, they go into flattened frog mode. They lie on their bellies with front legs where they should be……….at the front, but back legs where they shouldn’t be……….out of the sides! resembling a frogs legs!
So anyway, it got me thinking! Maybe I should invest in some agility toys for them for the garden, I start browsing straight away! There are loads of pet product websites to choose from, I know because I visit them often for ideas of what to buy for Minnie and Maisie much to my husbands dismay!
Oh wow, they sell tunnels for dogs to run through! I have a vision of Minnie and Maisie having fun racing in and out of it and can’t help but smile at the thought…………..I add it to my basket. Oh wow you can also buy a chute that attaches to the tunnel, they would love that, they love tunnelling under my duvet!…………. I add it to my basket. OMG they have an adjustable jump a bit like a horses jump but on a lot smaller scale…………. I add it to my basket. I never knew you could get all this stuff for gardens, I thought it was for agility clubs! I don’t believe it! they only have a hoop to jump through! this is amazing……….I add it to my basket and after a quick last minute browse I checkout ………. Eek really? That much? Oh well it will be worth it, they love racing about which is what agility is all about ……..right?
I couldn’t wait for the delivery man to visit with all the new toys. Every time the parcel man pulled up outside the house my heart was racing in anticipation of the contents of the box that was being carried up my path. Then that day arrived, the problem was….it was raining. I checked the forecast for the day…. rain….the next day…….rain and so on!
I unraveled the tunnel and the nylon chute and put them up stretching from the dining room through to the lounge so that they could at least play with part of it until the weather changed.
I couldn’t put the ‘jump’ or the ‘hoop’ up because they had spiked ends where they penetrate the grass for stability.
I poked Minnie in the hole of the tunnel entrance and she did a u-turn and jumped back out looking at me suspiciously. So I poked Maisie in and she did exactly the same!
So I got in, it was a tight fit for me if I was on my hands and knees so I had to ‘slither’ through on my belly! That got them interested!
To start with they both came in behind me trying to climb on my back to hitch a ride! So I couldn’t slither backwards, It was terrible, I was exhausted and hot after all the effort. By the time I had got a short way down the chute they turned round and went back out, it was obviously too hot in there for them too.
Then they saw my shape in the chute and they were both dive bombing me! I submitted, lay my head down and tried to compose myself I just hoped my hubby didn’t come in and find me! M&M were finding it great fun and continued to dive bomb me while I lay puzzling what to do to get out of this mess! I thought about calling my husband and asking him to cut me out, then I thought not only of the cost but any comments that he would obviously make! So I slithered on, all the way from the dining room across the hall and into the lounge.
It was only when I heard the words ‘what are you doing?’ I realised my hubby was sitting on the sofa watching my shape coming through the chute and listening to me puffing and panting! ‘I’M PAINTING THE FENCE’ came my reply!
I was totally exhausted, hot and sweaty, you could fry eggs on my cheeks they were burning that much, Minnie and Maisie were in full swing with their playtime by now, totally ignoring their new tunnel and chute and using the furniture as an obstacle course as usual!!
As it was raining the next day I wanted to have a look around IKEA, I love looking at all the room displays but the best bits are the fabrics and curtains. IKEA is very clever at leading you through the entire shop, so you have to go through departments that you aren’t really interested in like the children’s section (not me anyway). But as we are passing through the children’s section, guess what I spotted ? An expanding tunnel!! It was smaller in diameter than M&Ms new one and there was no way for sure that I could get through it, even slithering! but it was more colourful and a bit longer and it was half the price I paid ! …… I put one in my basket.
My hubby asked why I was buying another tunnel, when they don’t flaming well go through the other one! I replied ‘ it’s half the price I paid for the last one and if I join the two together they would like it better……probably ‘ blimey, men just don’t understand these things!
But one thing for sure, the next visit to IKEA I will definitely take more notice when we go through the children’s section because you never know what may come in useful for M&M!
So the day came for me to erect all the new gym outside, the sun was shining and Minnie and Maisie watched me intently from a safe distance.
I put one tunnel up near the gates at the back of the garden, I had made some ties for the chute so I could tie it either end to both tunnels. My idea was to have tunnel, chute and tunnel so it would be a long run through, then if they turned sharp left they would leap through the hoop then sharp right to fly over the jump! It looked brilliant even though I say so myself! I felt like inviting a few dogs round to come and have a play, it took me ages to get it just right. Our garden is small and I had arranged the course to use nearly every bit of it!
I got Maisie’s favourite ball and threw it down the hole in the first tunnel, she jerked as if she was going to run but looked at me as if to say ‘what’s the catch!’ I couldn’t go down the hole to retrieve it so I threw another one down. She jerked a bit more, she was really tempted then! Third ball, I bounced it a few times because that really gets her going and she ran for it…..yay!! I called my hubby ‘quick come and see, Maisie is in the tunnel’
By the time he came outside, Maisie had already retrieved a ball and was standing with it in the only part of the garden that had no obstacle course on!
But all was not lost ………….. Lola was visiting that afternoon ?
She spent the afternoon rearranging the course to what she thought Minnie and Maisie would prefer. And in all honesty they went in to it with more enthusiasm than my layout. Lola was playing and trying to encourage them to go through the tunnels and jump through the hoop and was having a great time even if no one else was!
She had been able to get Maisie in the tunnels no problem but Minnie was a different story, as much as she tried Minnie would not go beyond the entrance!
It all became apparent why she wouldn’t go in a short while later when Lola decided to follow my role and crawled into the tunnel herself, as she crawled through the chute we (me, Minnie and Maisie) were watching intently when all of a sudden she screamed and came scrambling back out at supersonic speed! Someone had done a poo in the middle of the chute!! And it wasn’t me, Lola or Minnie so the finger was pointed at Maisie!!
These days I put the tunnels out but don’t bother with the rest, I tell my hubby that I’m waiting for them to grow up a little bit before I train them to use the equipment. ?
They tend to just casually walk through the tunnels nonchalantly and Maisie prefers to play swingball!
