A couple of weeks ago Poppy had her first birthday and we decided to give her a little go at agility-style jumping. As you can see she ended up doing very well, but it took a while to get her there. The biggest obstacle was that we haven’t yet taught her to appreciate the virtues of a tennis ball, and all the agility training we did with Beanie and Biggles relies on being able to use a tennis ball as a marker/lure. Without that extra visual cue, she just didn’t see the point of jumping when she could easily run round the jump.

Although still only 9 months old, Monkey has regularly demonstrated his jumping ability by leaping over low fences intended to protect our horticultural projects, so we let him have a go too. He has a stronger prey drive than Poppy, so when I ran and jumped over the bar he followed me instinctively, and in turn Poppy followed him.

This soon progressed to the two of them chasing after a tug toy thrown over the bar, and eventually I could put Poppy in a sit-wait behind the bar and recall her over it – not at all bad for our first agility session with the new pups! However, towards the end of the session both Susan and I started getting the feeling that we were being watched, and not in a friendly way. Ever had the experience as a kid where you were doing something a bit naughty and then felt the eyes of a disapproving teacher boring into the back of your head? That’s exactly how it was for us, and when we turned round to look for the source, we saw The Beanster up on the deck, staring intently at us. Susan described the look on Beanie’s face as being like Halloween’s Michael Myers watching his next victim just before the kill; personally I likened it to a scowling Clint Eastwood in the build up to a Spaghetti Western gunfight. Regardless, we both knew we were in trouble and that we should bring Beanie down and let her in on the action.

Now close to 15 years old Beanie hadn’t performed an agility jump in over 2 years, but she seemed eager to try. I honestly wasn’t expecting her to manage it, but she cleared the bar. It was certainly not her best performance – as a youngster she used to sail over the bar even at its highest setting – but she was keen to go again. Her second attempt was better and by her third pass, she was flying over the bar confidently. We stopped at this point for fear of overdoing things, but it was fantastic to see her in flight again.

To finish, here are a few shots of Poppy’s Dinner-time dance and a bit of slow-wading at the beach, which is I think one of the habits that has kept Beanie in good shape.

Voodoo rituals are part of dinner time in Poppy’s world.

If you don’t do the dance, dinner might not happen!

It’s a serious business for sure!

Thanks to her efforts, this dinner was served

A bit of slow wading in shallow and then deeper water keeps Beanie lifting her feet and gives her a gentle resistance workout

Of course it does mean that I get very wet feet