Trixie's day of agility

No pictures to show for it, but yesterday I took Trixie to an agility foundation seminar taught by Susan Perry. After working with Timber, who even in his craziest state will stay close to me and come when called simply because he's a herding dog, I was a little nervous taking Trixie off-leash in an open arena. Trixie has a good recall. But she is a shiba and no matter how much I've trained, the chickens next door, a sparrow flitting through the arena, the grass waving in the wind outside the arena can all be way more exciting for a one year old shiba that me with my bag of treats.

So I put her in a wait, led past the first jump. She stayed nicely. I called her over the jump. She came to me perfectly. And then... she realized she didn't have a leash on. I could see it in her eyes, like a light bulb going off. She did that shiba thing where they duck away before you have a chance to grab their collar. Without time to even exhale, I pulled out a toy and took a few steps away from her. OK, the toy was more fun than running off. Now I can breathe. We played tug until I could grab her collar and then I took her over two jumps, and then three and four. She stayed with me off leash through the rest of the class. I even think she thought agility was fun.

I know that people with other breeds don't have the same fears as those of us with shibas. But the first time you're in a place that's not fenced like Ft. Knox and you slip that leash off, as a shiba owner you can't help but say a little prayer and hope that when you open your eyes that the dog isn't a 1/2 mile down the road.