Agility Spaz

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Houston, We Have Lift-Off

agility n. a·gil·i·ty The state or quality of being agile; nimbleness.

spaz n. spaz or spazz One who is considered clumsy or inept; klutz.

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Welcome to the world of Agility Spaz! For one who never thought of herself as the sort of person who would have a blog, this is a bit of an adventure. Blogs are something college students have, or underground journalists, or the cool people in the neighborhood. Of course, as recently as a few years ago, I would never have thought of myself as the sort of person who would spend much of her spare time obsessing about canine agility, so there's obviously room in one's life to adjust one's sense of identity. The extent of my computer savvy consists of sending e-mail, deleting spam, reading posts from various agility groups, and checking in with the Icelandic Sheepdog Association of America, mostly when my dog is tired enough that she's happy to fall asleep at my feet. But blog? Me?!? I must really be hoping to stave off the advances of yet another academic year. That, plus the Yarn Harlot hasn't posted yet today, so unless I head upstairs to do something productive (read: wash the kitchen floor or practice piano), there's nothing to do but let you in on:

The Top Ten Reasons To Start an Agility Blog

10. Your dog plays agility.

9. On good days, you play agility almost as well as your dog.

8. You've improved enough as a team that your dog now has alphabet soup after her name to indicate the various and sundry titles she has achieved.

7. You're the only person in your family who has any idea what those constituent elements of the alphabet soup stand for, and

6. Your family is beginning to wear the all-too-familiar look of supportive yet resigned disinterest when you mention front crosses, start-line stays, or that elusive Superior Novice Jumpers final leg.

5. You dearly love the good, kind, inspiring people and dogs with whom you train but fear they're running out of patience when you post yet another trial report to the list.

4. You know there has to be a way to make the evening's weave entry practice easier for your dog, but

3. You can't figure out for the life of you what that would be, plus

2. Your dog is getting tired of paltry rewards for "Sit" and "Down" to the extent you could swear she knows there's a jackpot to be had if she could only figure out what her beloved yet temporarily inept human wants her to do involving those poles in the ground, and

1. It's started to rain hard enough that even you can't bring yourself to keep training.

Fill in the blank -- maybe it's not raining where you are. Perhaps the mosquitos that just descended on your back yard are the size of goldfinches? The thermometer reads 200 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade? Sometimes even the most hardened agility addict needs to call it quits (temporarily!) and pull a comfy chair up to her computer. May you enjoy the results.

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