Brutus' Take on Agility

Hey everybody, Brutus here! Mom is so pathetically behind on blogging I thought I'd better take over before you all gave up on us. So she worked on a lot of teeth last week - big, hairy deal! We have obligations you know!!

Anyhoo, as you may remember, Mom carted me off to an agility trial (or as Dad calls it "chasing around her goblin") this past weekend. Mom justified it by saying something about "making up for time I had to spend in my crate..."

Seriously? By making me do circus tricks?? Hmm, we'll see about that!

Don't get me wrong, I love agility. But the parts I love most are those moments between the obstacles that are just chock-full of potential for a Frenchie to create embarrassment for their human teammate truly shine.

For instance, take this fine moment. It's me and mom having a little discussion about who's going to be the one to go over this jump. I told her it was her turn. As you can see, she is a little perplexed by my suggestion....


Then there's my favorite: ZOOMIES!! I took full advantage of numerous opportunities when mom took her eyes of me for a split second. My motto this weekend was "I only run fast in all the wrong directions!!" Sorry the photo is a bit blurry (I was running so fast no film speed could capture it), but you can still tell the by the look of utter joy on my face that I just LOVE this part of agility!!


After all, what sort of a competitor would I be if I didn't take to opportunity to go over (at full speed) to introduce myself to the judge?? If you look real close, you can actually see me sticking out my tongue at mom! The judge and the ring crew all thought this was pretty funny, not so sure that mom did...


Here's something I experienced for the first time this weekend - being carried off the course by mom. I guess if you screw around out there for long enough, you get a free ride back to your crate. Just think of all the effort that saved me! Not only did it significantly reduce the distance I had to run, but also relieved me the chore of having to do those all those weaves, A-frame, and tunnels you see behind us!! Mom is smiling this time, so it must have made her happy (she was mumbling something about "having to laugh so she didn't cry" whatever that means).


Here I am at the end of a run (another favorite moment of the course for me), being loved on by mom. She's not allowed to touch me during the run (great rule, as it totally works to my advantage), but me getting on the table is what ends the run in this game, so here it's OK. Guess I'm lucky that no matter what I do out there, she still loves me!


In case you'd like to see it all in living color, I complied a little video montage of my favorite moments (the still frames above came from that video). Thanks as usual to my mom's look-alike Courtney (she even fools me sometimes) for documenting all these fabulous moments.

In all fairness to mom, I do feel a little guilty sometimes. So to do her justice, here's a video of me pretty much behaving during one of our runs this weekend (we Q'd). For those of you without high-speed internet, you'll just have to take my word for it!

Mom promises to be extra nice to me this week, in return for which I'm considering behaving for our AKC agility debut on Friday.  Already got me some FrostyPaws, but there better be lots more where that came from. It's awfully tempting to steal the show at a new venue, you know!!

Oh, and one more request, mom:  my own directors' chair.  No more crate time for this Frenchie.  Star treatment from here on out, or all you get out there are zoomies, understand?  Hehehe.

Ok, all kidding aside..  At least I get to hang out with mom all day.  Maybe I should take it a little easier on her, what do you think??