Jakey Wakey the Fruit Dog

Jake had spurts of being pretty fast at the fun match but several nonspurts of being fairly slow. It was hot, but that doesn't usually stop him from, say, chasing squeakies at .95 times the speed of light. His weave poles are on-again, off-again. Sometimes he hits them like a real pro, but more and more often he takes them at a slow and cautious pace. Sometimes both during the same class session, not predictably in any order, or I'd be more inclined to think it was the bone spur on his toe or some other arthritisy thing.

It might be, anyway, of course, but it's not clear.

He is generally such a good boy. I entered him in the fun match to see whether I could get him to do his contacts there the way that he does them in class--nice and fast to a solid 2-on/2-off stance. Flew off the first one, so I made him do it again, and he slowed down a bit for the contact and with some encouragement managed to get there.

Have been discovering at home that he has no CLUE how to do contacts. So apparently I have successfully trained him to do beautiful contacts in class and nowhere else on the known planet. That's mostly what we lose Q scores to any more, popped contacts, so I wish I could fix them.

But (see earlier various posts) he is SUCH a slow learner.

Apples: It's apple season now. Plums are all gone, so now he's munching whatever other fruit he can find in the yard. Body doesn't digest all of those big chunks of barely ripe fruit very well. (Don't ask how I know.) He's constantly got one between his paws while lounging around. Sometimes he eats them. Sometimes he lies there, chin on one paw, emitting whines that get gradually longer, higher pitched, and sharper. That's the "don't anyone dare to steal my apple" whine, although in fact he's on the far side of the room, my back is to him while I work on the computer, and Tika's out lying on the deck, watching for invasive squirrels.

So actually it's more the "I have a really cool apple here, and I wish someone would try to take it from me so that I could whisk it away and eat it in front of her" whine.

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