Due to our move in May, 2007 and an endless variety of other obligations we've faced in the past year or two in preparation for same, we really haven't spent too much training any of the Presto Dog pack in the finer nuances in the sport of canine agility. That sport, of course, is the one you might have seen on Animal Planet where dogs can be seen coursing through tunnels and chutes, weaving in & out of poles in the ground and jumping through tires, all in a race againt time. Now, we do have our own agility equipment that I've built (jumps, weave poles, pause table, teeter, etc.) that our pack is trained on, but really only sporadically.

All this is a brief prelude to the fact the Declan, our li'l alpha Shetland Sheepdog, surprised the ever-lovin' holy shnikees ot of me this afternoon. We had taken him to a place called the K9JYM where dogs & their human friends can use all kinds of agility equipment for a few hours for a few bucks. Here are two pictures of the K9JYM located in nthe commonwealth of PA:

K9JYM 1

K9JYM2

Declan, who hadn't been on any formal agility equipment such as the stuff seen in the pictues above breezed through the stuff at the place as if he'd been training on it only yesterday! Here he is coming out of a tunnel:

Declan Tunnel

And here's a picture of him as he walks across the teeter:

Declan Teeter

When he was done on the teeter, he was taken to the A-frame where he flew up one side & then down the other, all with no problem at all. Here he is coming just over the top of the A-frame, looking a wee bit demonic, if I must say so myself:

Declan A-Frame

A picture of Declan as he courses through a set of weave poles:

Declan Weaves

Declan patiently and happily (just look at his face!) waits for a treat after he performed so well in the weave pole practice run a few moments ago:

Declan Waits

After he was done with the day's activities, Declan stopped to take a long, refreshing drink before went left the place to go home:

Declan Drinks

We discussed the fact that declan really deserves to be entered in a real, live agility competition. So, you're probably going to be reading about our endeavors to get him ready for a competition as well as how his training  progresses toward that end.