Kozmo Kringle

Kozmo Kringle
our first day together - December 2011

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Class Clown

Kozmo and I are continuing agility training. I will take him to agility classes as long as he is having fun. I have always wanted an agility dog and am highly motivated to prove the trainer who told us we couldn't do agility wrong. At the end of the day all that really matters is that Kozmo is happy and loved. His past two weeks in class seem to demonstrate that Kozmo just might be having a little too much fun in class.

Last week Kozmo worked really hard in class. He stayed focused for the first 58 minutes of the hour. Kozmo did two different courses off leash making me and his trainer proud. At the very end of class we were doing some extra work on the weave poles. Admittedly the weave poles are one of our biggest weaknesses. Making sure I was ending class on a positive note and reinforcing to Kozmo that agility is fun, I sent him through the weave poles one final time and then directed him to the pause table. I yelled "table" and Kozmo jumped right up on the table. I was so proud. Remember Kozmo is always faster than me (he has more legs). I'm walking towards Kozmo with a huge smile and a handful of chicken. I wanted to give my dog lots of praise for a great class. Just as I am holding out a handful of chicken I see this look of mischief in Kozmo's eyes and in an instant he jumps off of the table and grabs the #8 cone. Each of the obstacles have a small orange cone similar to a traffic cone. Each one is numbered so the humans understand the order of the course. Kozmo had the pointy end of the orange #8 cone in his mouth so that he sort of looked like a cheer leader with a megaphone. He was off and running, shaking his head and generally having the time of his life off leash with a cone in his mouth and an audience. Kaylee's human appreciates the silly spirit in Kozmo and cheered, "Run Kozmo Run"!! Kozmo paused to make sure he was getting the desired reaction, and of course, all of the other humans were laughing. Looking back this is where I think we might not be cut out for competition. Rather than firmly correcting Kozmo's silly antics I couldn't stop laughing. Kozmo ran around the room several times. Koz had a really fun game of chase until he bumped into the tunnel and dropped the cone.

This week a very special guest joined us for agility. It was my mom's birthday and since we spent the day together I thought it would be fun for her to end a great day watching Kozmo's progress. Kozmo didn't bother waiting for the end of class to act silly. Kozmo and I were asked to go first. On our very first attempt we made a mistake and Kozmo knocked down the horizontal bar on the second jump. I'm sure I did something wrong and gave an incorrect signal. Instead of continuing on to the next obstacle Kozmo picked up one of the poles, a 4 foot long piece of pvc, and started running around the room. It was like he had a big stick, he was running round shaking his head getting lots of laughs from the other humans. The funniest part is when he ran down the length of the room. He was like a kid taking a stick down the side of a fence. Kozmo had this big pole hanging out of his mouth and ran around smacking into the wall and against all of the obstacles.

It was quickly decided Kozmo should wear a leash until he settled down and got some more focus. This plan lasted until I sent him through the tunnel. He came out the other end of the tunnel with the leash in his mouth and ran around the room.

Finally we got to try a course that included the teeter. Our trainer puts a folded towel under each end of the teeter so that the noise of the teeter hitting the ground doesn't startle the dogs. Kozmo has no fear of loud noises but he does love to steal towels or blankets when possible. In his third stunt of the evening Kozmo went over one jump and made a bee line right for the towel. Again he ran around the room proudly shaking his new treasure.

I'm starting to wonder if Kozmo will ever be a great agility student. One thing is certain, he is the best class clown. Kozmo is entertaining and makes me smile every day. Our agility training continues......



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