Gotcha!

Today is Cody's 'Gotcha Day', ie the day we adopted him from the shelter. Actually I think it was yesterday but close enough. We took him and the other dogs out to the Boulder Reservoir for a nice long romp, one his favorite things to do. Later I'll take him for a walk, just me & him, and let him sniff all he wants which is a luxury he seldom gets because the other dogs and I are usually in a hurry and don't let him dilly dally.

We've had Cody for 7 years now and he's been quite a challenge but he's an awesome, freaky dog and I wouldn't trade him for anything. I'm still a little floored that he's going to be competing at USDAA Nationals in 3 1/2 weeks considering the out of control, barking lunging mess he was when we first brought him home from the shelter. He's the first dog I've ever trained for anything, unless you count the horrible yank & crank choke collar obedience class I took with my old Akita Roscoe which I stopped going to after 3 or 4 sessions because it was making him neurotic. Anyway, Cody and I were fortunate that the local humane society had switched to positive reinforcement/clicker training and offered obedience & agility classes. Cody was star of the class in obedience & agility but had a hard time with the stressful atmoshpere of the competitions when we first started out. It took a lot of time, patience and psychology but he's finally to a point where he can go in the ring and strut his stuff most of the time. Best of all, he can go off lead just about anywhere and pass loads of dogs on the trail without any fuss at all. He's turned out to be a very sweet boy without losing his crazy freakiness which I adore so much.

Here's a video of his final qualifying Grand Prix run for Nationals as well as a video of Lola on the same course. Cody came in fractions of a second ahead of Lo, beating her out for 3rd place.





Background music courtesy of Bouncing Souls ('Lean on Sheena' from the Gold Album) for Cody and Alkaline Trio ('Mercy Me' from the Crimson album) for Lola.