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Bisou In Agility Class

By Eulalia Benejam Cobb

There are eight dogs in our agility class, and Bisou is, far and away, the most hyper of them all.

She is not the most hyper one in the ring. That is, she IS hyper, but when she takes off, she does, unlike some of her classmates, come right back to me. Otherwise, she errs on the side of overperformance. Did you want me to go over this jump? Sure! Glad to! And this one, and this other one too! Go up on the table? Watch me! No sweat! I love jumping up on the table–you don\’t even have to ask. Wow! Here be weave poles! And now I\’ll go over this jump again. Oh, you didn\’t want me to do this one? What about this other one? All this is done like a speeded up film, so that poor slow plodding human me can barely tell where she\’s been or where she\’s going.

But that is the least of my complaints. My main gripe is about the craziness that comes over her the minute we get out of the car and enter the training facility. She rushes to the end of the leash and then stands on her hind legs and pulls until she starts to choke herself. She relaxes for a minute, I barely get a \”good girl!\” out, and she\’s Cavalier rampant again, trying to get to the other dogs, to the people, to the jumps, to the jumps, to the jumps!

This goes on, I kid you not, for the better part of an hour. I try to be Zen about it. I try not to attach to outcomes. I tell myself she\’s just a puppy–never mind that her twin brother, also in the class, is the picture of calm composure. I tell myself to accept her as she is. Somehow, after endless self-sermonizing, grounding, and centering, we get through the class.

When we get home we head into my study and she jumps onto the inspiration divan (i.e. twin bed) where I join her, having taken off my boots. She folds sweetly into my arms, I pull the afghan over us, and we take a good long nap.

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