Yin and Yang, Salt and Pepper, Earth and AIr, Gromit n Chewie

Gromit thinks at a blistering pace. Just when I have myself convinced that I know his every trick, he comes up with a new one. At night he has taken to jumping in bed for a little snuggle before we go to sleep. I think he is relaxing when he drops the weight of his head on my shoulder, runs his tongue over his nose, and then gives a big sigh that blows my bangs up. His eyes close and he starts that rhythmic breathing. I fall into a shallow sleep until I am woken by his bounce off the bed and an ever so casual clip clip clip of his paws as he slips, pink panther style, back to the kitchen. As I lie half awake trying to remember what we had for dinner and what would still be on the counter, in the sink, above the stove - lights out and holding my breath, I hear - clunk, clink - Kristin looks at me, "I think that was the spatula from the cookies," crash....we look at each other and in unison say "the pizza pan from the sink." So as you read this blog I ask you - does he know - does he have a plan to get in bed and snuggle in close, help us relax and fall asleep so that he can get to the kitchen and start his evening tramp of whatever didn't get put in the dishwasher without worry? We are both so close to falling into the REM state we just don't care that he has the spatula or pizza pan. Do you think he knows this? I would not put it by him...I know what you are thinking - a better method would be to clean the kitchen before going to bed - we do this 95% of the time, but that 5% when we don't - he must get good enough goodies to make it worth all this planning - ha!

Gromit and I live by the same motto - life moves too fast to spend time reading the instructions. Or perhaps another way to look at it - I wanna get going, I don't like having to pay attention to anything but what I want to pay attention to - Push buttons, scratch open doors, always live with you nose taking in the air and your tail swishing happily above you - there could be something interesting happening at any moment and if you keep your adrenaline flowing you won't miss anything. Touch it, taste it, sniff it - just try it -

So when it comes to agility, Gromit is always willing to try just about anything - lord knows I have seen that dog twist in directions no body should go in - like Kristin's bread dough, he would just rise up and try again if it didn't go as planned.

In class most people walk the course three times - once to understand it, a second time to see what it looks like for the dog and a final time to plan how to get the two of you through it most efficiently. I walk it a fourth time to see what the distractions are - are there sandbags stored under the dog walk that Gromit will need to visit? Is this tunnel new? Are there any toys that the instructor was using to motivate another dog that got left on the course? Is there a pin that is sticking out too far? Does the A frame have rubber chips that Gromit has never felt under his feet? Who is running in front of us and do they have a toy sticking out of their back pocket - Gromit will sneak up and grab it if they do?

Enter the ChewBug - Now Chewie is our downward chi dog. I think if the universe has an OSHA spirit, it surely sent us this dog to keep Gromit's helium self from floating off into thin air. Safety first - bark safety, think safety and eat a lot of good food. There isn't a manual long enough to convince Chewie to get on the teeter in agility class. He is going to take a good two years to try that thing out. He is such a loyal dog he will put his head down and try things for me but only after a fairly lengthy lecture on the reasons not to try it. I think his lecture goes something like - "Hey, those little shelties are darn lovely but they don't weigh anywhere near as much as me, how do you know that table will hold me? Let's just try this thing out here a paw at a time I don't think we should go jumping on it, let's just slow down a bit here." "Heidi, sure those border collies went up the dog walk, those dogs are crazed - they don't even care about food(?). They think they are working, they love to work but hey do you see any sheep here? Listen here, what is the treat you brought to class, I might try this for say, oh a piece of bacon - did you bring a tennis ball? We know how to chase tennis balls, that is a good job why don't we go do that, we know that, I trust tennis balls, tennis balls are my friend...I don't know anything about this teeter."

He jumps at 16" - even though he is tall enough for 24". This summer I had him up to 20" but he has never done that in class. So when we tried moving the bar up, he went around in a pinwheel but when he got back to the first jump he started prancing his front feet, head up in the air lecturing of me to get that bar back down - I swear that dog counted the posts on the jumps and realized we had moved the bar up - GOOD GRIEF!

The fun of all this is that when my salt of the earth dog gets up the confidence to try something and he executes on it he is so proud of himself that he sings his own praises. I think that the day he gets on the teeter I might give him a gold medal filled with bacon. It will be his own personal Olympic achievement.

Now that other big white dog, well, sprinkle a little of him into your day and you have enough spice to take your attention away from everything else - I am forever trying to help balance that boy - or maybe he is trying to help me focus on something...anything...or at least him?!

Either way, it is all about the fun - neither one really lets me forget that - or maybe it is all about the treats, or it is all about the tennis ball....