Mommmm … she’s following me again!

Faith won’t stop following me!

What?  I’m not doing anything.

See?  She’s right there!!

What?  I’m not even *looking* at him.

Faith, stop following Dexter.  Oh shit, you can’t hear me.  *shakes head at Faith and scowls*

I’m sorry.  Please don’t hate me.

How could anyone hate sweet Faith?  Well, except Dexter.  For the first day or two, she was obsessed with Piper, but Piper soon had enough.  She basically picked Faith up by the face and dumped her on her ass, and put a stop to it lickity split.

I’m very adorable.  But do not cross me.  Kthx!

Since then, Faith has decided that Dexter is her everything, and she won’t leave him alone.  Even when he’s not doing anything at all, she just stands and stares at him relentlessly.  Not that you can blame her, he *is* ridiculously good looking.

Mostly she is quite easy to distract – if you get her attention by poking her in the bum, she turns around all wiggles and apologies, because she knows what you’re going to tell her. 95% of the time she just wants to get all crouchy and skim the ground on her belly after him, but the other 5% of the time she wants to go in for a nip to get him moving again.  Fortunately, she now has a “don’t even think about it, Faith” sign, which is me shaking my finger at her and scowling, and she will back off a little bit.  She still stares at him, but doesn’t go in for the grab.

Well, mostly not.

I brought her to agility class last night for some social time and as is her SOP, she greeted everyone with total delight.  At first I didn’t tell the Sadist she was deaf, as it was too much fun watching him look all hurt when he spoke to her and she totally ignored him … but after a little bit, I started to feel bad for him as I was pretty sure he was going to cry, so I clued him in ;-)  I also taught her the dogwalk and the A-Frame, both of which she went over without hesitation.  She’d probably make a fun project agility dog for someone, and she’d be a great tool in learning to keep one’s mouth shut and concentrating on body language whilst running their dog, that’s for sure!

As much fun as she had though, she still prefers to creep around after Dexter.

Or Tweed, in a pinch.

What do you mean “there’s something behind me?”

She and TWooie have come to an understanding … if she gives him a wide berth, he will pretend she does not exist. This eliminates the fighting, but also means that on walks I lose TWooie for long periods of time.  After all, he can’t pretend she doesn’t exist if she is standing beside me, so he decides that if I’m in her orbit, I *also* don’t exist and therefore, he doesn’t have to hear me calling him.

I would hear you, but there’s a Faith in the way.

Dexter did all 12 poles in class night, a cause for much celebration!  Of course, he only did it once and then after that he pretended to do them all, but really only did every 2nd pole again.

Look at how adorable I am!  Don’t look at what poles I am weaving.

We haven’t had much chance to practice on the new weave poles the Sadist lent us, because of the rain, and work, and the fact that I don’t actually have 12 poles to put in the bases.  One of these days I will get around to buying some more PVC and finishing up the poles.  And one day it will stop raining long enough for me to glue together the boards of the dog walk too!  Fortunately, our property is Nature’s Agility Course in lots of other ways, so he’s always practicing jumping.

I love taking photos of this, and wish it would translate better … I’m standing on a hill, and he’s jumping the ditch at the bottom of the hill, so the angle is all crazy (you know, if you click on the photos in the blog, you can view them at a bigger size.  Did you know that?) which makes him look all crazy.

He’s got SUCH a stride on him because he is such a loooong dog.  Our biggest challenge is me trying to adjust my handling to a dog I still find somewhat unpredictable due to his stride – he’s never where I expect him to be, after years of running Shorty Tweed and Mini Piper.  And you know that as he gains confidence, he’s just going to get faster.  doG help me!

Fortunately, he loves to jump, and doesn’t mind practicing sequences over and over again.

In  less than a month he will technically be old enough to start competing.  But we’re not there yet, we’re still perfecting some things.  I’m in no rush – not only can I not afford to compete with another dog, he’s got the rest of his life to kick some agility ass.  We’ll get there!  But I am going to apply for his competition number this month.

Mommmm … she’s doing it again!

Poor Dexter!