A sad, cautionary tale

Viva popped open the chute end by rearing up, which sometimes meant tangles. When possible, dogs should be trained to run low and straight through the chute fabric. Unfortunately Viva never learned that method, but she was never seriously tangled.

This morning I heard a very sad story on one of my agility lists about a young up and coming agility dog in the Dallas, TX area. It seems that these folks have agility equipment in their backyard, and let their two dogs out in the morning while they got ready for work. The following is reprinted with permission from the post.

"After some time, Sue went to bring the dogs in the house, but Mattie was gone. With help from neighbors, they scoured the area but couldn't find her. When they got back to the house, they noticed that the agility chute in the backyard looked funny. The fabric had been bunched up in the barrel. It was typical chute fabric, not a tarp. Sue found Mattie's body tangled up in the chute. She had gotten twisted tightly in the fabric and suffocated. They tried to do CPR, but it was too late."

What a terrible tragedy for all. And it reinforces my opinion that dogs should never, ever be allowed around or on agility equipment unsupervised. The potential for injury is very high. Not just from getting tangled in a chute, but dogs could get legs caught on teeters, have bad dogwalk falls, have a tire or fall on them. If you let two dogs out to play, what happens if one flies up the teeter to slam it down and the other one is standing underneath it? I used to be so afraid of that happening with my little dog that even when we let dogs play supervised in Kathy's agility field, I'd go tip the teeter over on its side.

In addition to accident and injury, allowing dogs to run around unsupervised doing equipment can end up really sabotaging your training. If your dog learns that running down the dogwalk and leaping to the ground from four feet up is fun, and he does it repeatedly when he's out playing, how successful are you going to be at teaching a stopped contact? If your dog's favorite place to view the world is standing dead still on the top of the aframe, how fast will his aframe be? Besides. Having unlimited access to equipment diminishes its value. Having unlimited access to equipment without the owner nearby fosters lack of respect for teamwork.

So please, please do not allow your dogs unfettered access to agility equipment. It's not a play gym. It's a game for our dogs to play with us, using teamwork and rules. Not something they should be doing by themselves. It's one of the several solid reasons we at CCSC do not allow non-agility students on agility equipment.

Fruit & Nuts: a new game from Jura & Ailsa

Those who know Jura know that his most favorite game is to drop an object (ball, soft toy, yogurt container, stick, what-ever-comes-to-mouth-if-none-of-the-above-are-available ) on the ground and to stand over it and stare at it until some obliging mammal with a hand picks it up and tosses it in any direction so that he can retrieve it and begin the cycle all over again.  Some of us are particularly obliging and indulge his silly habit indoors (particularly dangerous depending on object dimensions & direction of toss), outdoors in any weather.  With his propensity to re-injure his lower back this game was banned for the last 8-9 months.  

His journey to VetHab to remove his excess poundage and re-condition his body, though, has had an bonus benefit - he can play his game again (albeit the biped who feeds, trains & plays with him a) has to be more sensible about the limits on the game & b) he is to be warmed up BEFORE playing the game).  

I usually shower as one of the last of my morning activities which means the dogs are exercised, fed and have usually performed whatever morning training will occur on that day prior to my being able to attend to my needs.  They hang out in the vicinity of the bathroom and one is usually on guard lest I happen to go down the drain during this dangerous activity (Not bloody likely - but they have to check behind the curtain just to be sure). Sometimes one of them (Jura) gets bored and has taken to dropping a object into the tub.  I pick it up and toss it out, he catches it (more points for leaping up and snagging it before it hits the floor), and he repeats the cycle.

This morning the object was an artichoke from Planet dog - it is chewy, fits a springer mouth and has a very eccentric bounce.  Ailsa wanted in on this game but was summarily excluded.  So she went off and returned with the eggplant which is even more unusual in its ability to bounce.  Luckily, Jura was not interested in swapping objects as that can be very boring.  By the time she was playing the game, I had removed myself from the shower, was dressed and completing the teeth cleaning routine, but my job as tosser is usually not complete and it ended up that the eggplant was deposited in the now empty tub - great distress for Ailsa as she did not know how to get it.  At this point I was interested because she can jump objects higher than the rim of the tub (agility table, for example and even up on to the bed) but she had not generalized about the tub rim.  Jura had the artichoke in his mouth and dropped it and I tossed it into the tub (well on our way to making ratatouille).   He popped in, rejected the eggplant and fetched his artichoke and popped out.  She - being smart at watching the older guys - did the "Ah ha!" and popped into the tub and picked up her eggplant.  Interestingly, she could not easily jump out with the eggplant in her mouth so she dropped it out of the tub over the rim and then jumped out of the tub.  

While I completed the morning ritual she made a new game for herself - pick up eggplant, drop into tub, watch it roll around, when it stops, jump into batch tub, pick up eggplant, drop over rim, watch it roll around the floor, jump out of tub, repeat until Mother leaves the bathroom.  Baker, who usually presides over bathroom duty from the threshold, was sufficiently intrigued to sit up and watch from just inside the door (his job appears to monitor who is in and who is out of the bathroom).

We will see if the game exists beyond today - I will add pictures but we are off to CCSC for fun & games.

Ginger

Reciprocal Actions

Way back in January I told the story of how Ailsa (at just over 6 mo) had taught Baker (just shy of 7 years) how to use the new dog doors and how she had been imparting the wisdom she had learned from her Scottish Mum in helping Baker to "get a dog life".  Well there was an interesting interaction last week when the tables turned.

We (Ailsa, Baker, Jura - he's home!, and I) and Robin's crew (Cala, Viva, and Zipper) decided to let the dogs get their "yayas" out at Bradford on Wednesday after work before the weather changed back to that dismal rain and cold.  The 6 dogs had a super time running free, hunting up voles, eating corn cobs, and sitting in muddy puddles.  We started out down the lane, then cross country until we were south of the big lake.  Baker and Jura both raised their heads, smelling the water and took off like a shot - Robin and I laughed that it was the first certain sign of spring that the dogs knew they could go swimming.  

Indeed, as the rest of us came to the top of the rise we could see the two springer boys swimming in the lake.  Ailsa on seeing her house brothers ran down to the water and allowed herself to go in roughly to the point where she could float but also touch down her paws - about 3 feet off the edge and she was content.  The three emerged from the water, shook wildly and then trotted further along the edge past a dock that was added last summer.  Not thinking, I tossed a frisbee into the water causing not just Baker and Jura to leap in, but also Ailsa.  They moved rapidly out to the floating object without trouble, Jura got there first and the three turned back toward the shore.  Oddly enough it was at that point that it dawned on Ailsa that she was a good deal further than 3 feet from dry land and she began to flail.

When a dog panics in the water they start to do what is described as a "doggy paddle" and it is not fun to watch - the head and torso rise out of the water and their front paws slap at the water quite ineffectively.  Worse, they become like sticks with a minimal volume with which to float - usually the next thing that happens in that they tire and go straight down.  

Given that the worldly wise Ailsa is but a puppy and not practiced in the water and given that I do not want her worrying about water and swimming, I began to strategize about how I was going to get her out of the water, how cold it was, what clothing would need removing, how many towels were in the van, etc. etc.  My rapid planning was interrupted when I saw Baker. 

He had been just ahead and to her left when she panicked.  When she started to flail he looked back and then slowly turned in the water toward her.  When Baker swims it is with incredible ease - he always carries his back level and his head barely out of the water - looks more like a partially submerged submarine with a nice clean wake.  He drew along side her and slowed until his head was near hers, the picture of calm and confidence. When she caught sight of him it was amazing as she almost instantly quieted and sank back into the same position that he illustrated thereby making herself an excellent floating object.  

I swear that he was smiling as he escorted her ashore, quietly, efficiently, and, best of all, with huge confidence.  Once back, she rapidly removed herself and had a great big, terribly wet shake.  I thought that she would stay away from swimming again that trip, but no, a few 100 yards further along she was back in the water (YEA!) albeit very close to shore.  When we go out again today, I will be interested to see how they both approach the water.

I can not tell you how proud I was of Uncle Baker for sharing one of his strongest talents with Miss Ailsa.

Ginger

Dogs being dogs

Those of us who train and do dog sports with our dogs expect a lot of them. Our dogs are pets and beloved companions first and foremost. But they go far beyond that. Our dogs are athletes. We demand a tremendous amount from them both physically and mentally. Agility in particular requires both peak athletic effort and the ability to think and react very quickly to a huge number of human body and voice cues. Many agility dogs will turn left or right on a verbal alone, know to come tight to the handler when their hand drops to their side, know each obstacle by name and have the ability to pick which obstacle to take based purely on that. And these dogs are letting all that information click through their heads while running 30+ miles per hour around a tight little course.

Of course getting that end result means a lot of training beforehand. It usually takes performance dogs in any sport 1-2 years to get ready to show. There are hundreds and hundreds of training hours in every dog you see in the obedience ring or agility field. Most of us train several times a day in tiny spurts (heeling while the coffee brews, hand targeting while the bread's in the oven, finishes when the commercial is on), with more intensive training 3-4 times a week. Then, of course, we're also doing physical conditioning. Some people use the treadmill at the building. Others of us go on long hikes, or have the dogs carry a backpack or pull a cart.

On top of that, our working dogs are in the public a lot. We demand that they be good canine citizens in all they do. We give a lot of demos and of course show on public property. We can't have a dog that goes all wingnut if somebody wants to touch them or a dog gets too close.

If all this sounds like a lot for the dog, it is. However, our dogs love to work. Very few breeds of dogs actually do not like to get out there and exercise their brains and bodies. Just like people our dogs love having something to do. I'd venture to say that our working dogs are probably far happier and well adjusted than many dogs. I promise they're way better off than that poor dog hanging out on a chain or in a run in somebody's back yard, more lawn ornament than functioning, thinking canine.

But sometimes we dog trainers start feeling like over-ambitious soccer-mom types. Every waking moment of the dog's life to be managed, directed, groomed. And you know what? Sometimes dogs just need to be dogs.

Part of how we let our dogs be dogs is to take them to a safe area and let them run off leash. They hunt, they get muddy, they run. And run, and run, and run (hey, added bonus, physical conditioning!). But Zipper, who has been perforce raised in a big-dog world, also gets an occasional added bonus. Yesterday afternoon was such a day. It was warm enough that he could go back to his breeder's house where he was born, and be part of a Min Pin pack. He and his dam stayed all afternoon in a big fenced paddock, with his brother and various other relatives in the next paddock over. They ran around and sniffed and barked at each other and did Min Pin things.

Last night I took home a happy, tired, and self-satisfied little dog who got to spend time just being a little dog in a little dog world.

Let's talk sex

Xander and Zipper playing

Okay, let's not. At least, not the way that sounded. But I do want to discuss some things about male dogs and female dogs, and I'll be using the correct word for females, which is bitch. (Want to know if someone is deep into dogs? If they are totally blase about throwing around phrases like "oh, she's a lovely little bitch," and "I've got a bitch in the classes" while sitting at a restaurant munching on won tons.)

I was at a 3-day AKC agility trial in Glen Carbon, IL this weekend. I traveled with a good friend, and left the two Doberman girls at home. She has a 5 year old intact male German Shepherd. Xander weighs just short of 80 pounds. And I had Zipper, also intact male, a Min Pin weighing in at a whopping 10 pounds. Let's put it this way. Xander's head is bigger than Zipper's entire body.

Zipper managed to collect two Novice Jumpers legs and one Novice Standard leg. In English, that means that he now is 2/3 of the way to his Novice title in both of those styles of agility. Jumpers is a numbered course where only jumps, weaves, and tunnels are used and Standard is the other common course type used in AKC. It involves everything in Jumpers plus contact obstacles; the dogwalk (thin plank raised 4' off the ground), teeter-totter, aframe, and pause table, where the dog is to sit or down for 5 seconds during the course to show control.

But all that aside, there were two things that struck me over the weekend. And both involved boy-dog stuff.

There are a lot of stories about intact male dogs. They're aggressive. They'll fight other male dogs. They'll go insane if a bitch in season (ready to breed) is anywhere within a 5 mile radius. Basically, they're dangerous and should be neutered at the first possible moment.

But Xander and Zipper? They don't read those stories. Xander, who could easily kill Zipper with a single bite, was exaggeratedly careful. Slowly, he play bowed. He gave teeny-tiny Shepherd kisses which were still big enough to soak Zipper's head and neck. Zipper, meanwhile, buzzed around Xander like a tiny bee on crack, wiggling and squirming in delight, throwing himself onto his back to flail his legs in the air. Not a tooth shown, not a hackle raised, just two intact males having a ball playing together each night at the hotel. So my foremost and best big memory of the weekend was of the two male dogs playing happily together.

The second thing I'll carry away from the weekend is starting to learn how to deal with a male dog when a bitch in season is indeed nearby. Because there was one at the trial, almost certainly being shown even though that's strictly illegal in agility. At the trial site Zipper was very distracted and very, very interested in the floor. He refused to down on the table Friday, too busy sniffing it. Had the same problem Sunday, and he spent a lot of time whining. It was an unmistakable sign. "Girl here! Really, really good smelling girl!" But though I did have more trouble with him than usual, he did manage to work, and even got those qualifying scores I mentioned above. Another myth down the drain, that male dogs can't think at all if there's a bitch in season nearby. They can and do learn to deal with it.

I'm all for neutering any and all dogs who are pets, who are mixes, who are not going to contribute to improving the breed as a whole. I absolutely agree that all adopted and rescued dogs must be altered before placement. But let's not assign blanket stereotypes to un-neutered dogs. Not all intact males are aggressive idiots, and for those that are, I hate to say it, but neutering probably won't fix it. Those of us with intact males DO have an extraordinary obligation in both training and management. We must teach our dogs what is acceptable behavior and what is not. We also must be 100% committed to never, ever allowing our dogs out of our direct control for a single moment. No wandering the neighborhood, ever. Always securely confined within a fence, in a crate, or on a leash. Period.

But please don't make the assumption that if our dogs are intact they are dangerous. Xander and Zipper would laugh at that one. Or maybe not. They'd be too busy playing to bother.

Living with Cala

Most of us who do agility want a dog with what we call "Drive." The word Drive is sort of a catch-all term, and it means different things to different people and can be applied differently to dogs. As an example, drive in a sporting breed could be tied to birdiness—the overwhelming desire to hunt/flush/point/retrieve birds.

In agility, we're a bit more generalistic. I think of drive as focus, intensity, speed, courage, desire, and resilience (ability to bounce back rapidly from adversity). The dog we're looking for in agility is not footing, body, or sound sensitive. The dog should have a "damn the torpedo's, full speed ahead" attitude. Who wants to work, and who is not happy without work. This is the dog who will fall off the dogwalk and immediately scream to get back on. The dog who wants to always go faster and will get impatient if you don't keep up. The dog you have to watch, because sometimes their drive will write checks their bodies can't cash.

Viva, Cala's dam, has drive in spades. She's retired now (shhhh, don't tell her). Over the years her drive has led to so many injuries I can't name them all, and now her body can't keep up any more but the spirit and the will to work is very much still there. Viva also has another critically important quality. It's called an off switch. She's a dog who could be sound asleep in the sun ringside. I'd wake her up, walk to the line, and by the time she got there she'd be screaming to go. So in spite of what she always looked like in the ring, she's easy to live with.

Now Cala, she's got insane drive. I've talked about that before. She's got all the intensity and speed and resilience. But focus? Not so much. And off switch?

Tonight I took all three dogs for a long run. Cala ran full out for a good 40 minutes or so. I came home, got their supper and mine and settled down to watch Dancing With The Stars (I love it, so sue me!). During Pricella Presley's waltz I was also being serenaded by pig grunts from the Cuz toy Cala was thrusting into my hands to throw for her. I kept putting it down, she kept giving it back. I finally got her to give that up. She wandered off. Came back and shoved a postcard into my hand. An invitation to a party at Rock Bridge Animal Hospital. I took it away from her. She wandered off again. This time it was a dog food coupon. Took that away. The next item to appear? Zipper's metal food bowl which she summarily dropped to the floor and stomped on. So much for a relaxing night watching TV.

This is pretty much how I spend my nights. She will eventually settle down, which is an improvement over when she was a puppy; she was six months old before I ever caught her laying down except when crated.

Living with Cala is endlessly amusing and also infinitely tiring. And now I must go. Cala is picking at Viva, she loves to nibble on Viva's head and Viva hates it.

Be careful what you wish for if you ever see Cala at the building and wish your dog had drive like that...

Since it's been requested...

Since Ginger mentioned it, I'll brag a little bit on the Pinhead's performances last weekend at the local ASCA show.

There are three types of agility courses in ASCA agility. Regular (Standard, with the contact equipment such as the aframe and dogwalk) , Jumpers (jumps and tunnels only) and Gamblers which I'll describe another time. I entered Zipper in Regular and Jumpers, which added up to him doing 3 agility runs Saturday and 4 on Sunday. That's a lot of runs for a young, green dog; in contrast, at most AKC trials you have 2 runs per day, one Jumpers and one Standard. AKC does have a new class that's gaining popularity, but not all clubs offer it.

When I started Zipper last fall, I was having a lot of issues with him being distracted. He'd stop, or sniff, or take off around jumps. Once he even left the ring. I think the causes are a combination of stress and uncertainty (sniffing is a classic stress behavior), not being quite sure what I want, and frankly, being an intact male Min Pin who is very visually oriented and sometimes has the attention span of a flea.

So I was especially thrilled with his progress last weekend. He stayed with me. We had some wrong courses, and his Jumpers run Saturday was very distracted. But for the most part he did really well. He ended up earning two titles, his Novice Regular and Novice Jumpers titles. And he got his weave poles in three out of four runs where weaves were present. One of his jumpers runs was especially fast and smooth and I started to get the feel of how we'll be working together as a team long-term. Best of all he managed to retain focus all the way through Sunday afternoon. By 7:00 p.m. Sunday night the little guy was done. I noticed he wasn't in the living room. He'd taken himself to his "big-dog" crate, a dobe sized Varikennel, and put himself to bed. Literally. He'd crawled under the blanket and was out like a light. A big exciting weekend for a very little dog.

Of winning and losing, triumphs and defeats

Zipper with his UKC Agility High In Trial winnings

I'm in the midst of a discussion on the Rally-Obed yahoogroup, and it's brought up some thoughts I want to share about what it means to do dogsport, on newbies and experience, on winning and losing and the effort therein.

This particular discussion is about the A versus the B classes. The A classes, such as Novice A, are for people who have never put an AKC obedience or rally title on a dog. The B classes are for people who have either put a title on a dog or the dog is co-owned by a person who has titled the dog. And at the moment we're getting a lot of cries of "unfair" because sometimes true newbies ended up being slotted up against much more experienced teams.

Let's say you buy a dog from a breeder who does obedience, and you buy on a co-ownership (both your name and the breeder's name are on the registration papers). You've never even owned a dog before and have certainly never trained one. Yet when you do train your dog and enter a show, you will have to enter the "B" classes. As such, you may be competing against people who have showing for years and have put OTChs (Obedience Trial Championships) on their dogs. Heck, the dog you're competing against might *be* an OTCh.

In another situation, a person may have competed extensively in other venues. Let's say they have a UKC UD and an ASCA CDX but have never entered an AKC show. They will get to compete in Novice A, because the AKC doesn't recognize titles from other organizations. So even the Novice A class, meant for those new to showing dogs, may hold some teams that are very experienced.

Some people feel this is unfair. That newbies shouldn't have to compete against these more experienced teams. That it's too hard for them, and that it's demotivating for them to lose. They deserve to not have to struggle so hard to get placements and they can't possibly win against those who have titled other dogs.

My reply to that is bullhockey (well, bull-something else, but this is a family blog).

I think that kind of attitude does a disservice to everyone, but especially those new green teams. It seems to be a general thought today that everyone should win just because they enter. We strive for mediocrity because that's all we need to do. Everybody gets a gift at the kids birthday party just for coming. Why should we work hard to when we can get a title just for showing up? Lord forfend there's any sort of real competition. It's not fair that we have to be in the same ring as those really experienced teams. We'll get beaten for sure.

The truth is any worthy endeavor is one that takes effort and struggle to attain. In any dog sport, (or any sport) what you put into it is what you get out of it. If you don't want to work hard, don't know the rules and don't train your dog, you're probably going to get beaten. Sometimes you will work hard and you'll still get beaten. If you won all the time, then winning would be boring. In order for us to truly appreciate winning, we need to understand that effort must be put forth.

We should never ask others to descend to our level of mediocrity in order for us to succeed. Instead, if we want to succeed, we must rise to a level that makes that a possibility. And that means that we're going to work hard. We're going to fail along the way. We may struggle. That makes success all the sweeter.

In most of dog sport, you really don't have to beat any other team to be successful. Your ability to "win" is tied directly to the amount of work and effort you put into your team. Very few titles (the OTCh is an exception) require you to get a first or second place. Instead, you simply have to meet a minimum score and get a qualifying ribbon. Get three of those under two different judges and you get a title. You've won. If you want a class placement (first through fourth place) on top of that well, then, you have to work for it. Whether or not somebody else has a multi-titled dog and is competing against you is totally immaterial. Any person can place first in any class at any show on any day IF they put the time into making that happen.

If you don't want to work very hard to get that title? That's fine. Just know that you aren't going to get the same score as people who were willing to train. It's not a level playing field. It's never going to be a level playing field. But it doesn't matter. How you do depends entirely on YOU.

Oh and I have seen some Novice A teams get out there and kick butt. Because they worked at it. You can do it too, but if you want to be great you have to be willing to put in the time and miles to get you and your dog there.

Progress for Jura

Thank goodness this week was significantly quieter, albeit busy & wet, than last weekend.  Indeed between replacing license, bank card, and losing cards with contact information there has been minimal time to train with the kids.  It shows that Ailsa has had her brain addled with hormones - at retriever class last week she first could not seem to find the bird dummies - ran right over them and when she did come back and find them she looked at the dummies like they were evil, smelly hunks of plastic to be brought back holding on to the least offensive piece with the incisors only (mind you, this is the dog who will fetch a dog poop bag fully loaded from the back yard and bring it through the famous dog door to deposit it proudly on my computer key board).  After watching Faith at work she seemed to regain some of her focus.

In the meantime, Jura has been off at VetHab being worked on a daily basis come rain or shine.  When I last reported he was safely in Raleigh, weighing in at 53 lbs.  During the first week they were able to get him working on the treadmill underwater so that he could work for 15 minutes without running out of steam.  He dropped 2 lbs.  At the same time his ears cleared up as did the staph infection on his head.  

The week of the 17th when I called he was plateaued at 50 lbs but he was now working alternate days with an 30 minute endurance run at 5 mph on one day and a strength run at 12 degree incline 3 mph, in 3 15 minute sessions.  

This last week that hard work was apparently paying off as they reported that he is down to 48 lbs and "Back to his old self".  In this week they have added a weight day where he runs with a pack containing 8 lbs.  In addition, apparently the cracks in his pads are healing and they have been making sure that his coat is brushed daily as he runs in water up to his upper thigh (to add resistance).  When I pick him up, I will have to groom him to remove the dead fur - springers have a double coat - the outer layer has the guard hairs which are relatively long and soft; the inner coat is "woolier" and when stripped out looks like liver fluff.  This inner coat keeps them relatively dry and maintains body temperature but left in place it can make those nasty mats that some dogs get and the color of that material fades in the sun and on exposure to chlorine in the water.  

Which remark made me happier last week?  The fact that his weight is back in the 40s or that "the Old Jura we know and love is back"?  Well, to know that "Jura" is back says boatloads - a) it reminds me that the staff at VetHab and Jura have a relationship, b) they know him, c) he likes to work and be active.  Jura is basically a low maintenance dog in that he is inherently content so it is easy to forget he is there.  On the other hand, if one engages him, he will light up and respond but the initiative has to come from the other person/dog.  Left to his own devices he would happily go about life without people and be a couch potato - if he had a choice of activity, it would be to be in the field working birds!  But if they are not there he is content to be content.   It is pleasant to have a dog like that but I now appreciate that I have to watch out or I will forget he is there just because he does not demand my attention.  I think that is what almost happened when he was out on the road.  

I hugely miss Jura in the house and in my company - I derive a certain strength from his calm demeanor.  It is just 2 weeks before I get to bring him back and I am already starting to plan how to make sure that he remains in the fit condition that he will be in from his 5 weeks in NC. 

He will be surprised by the pretty sassy young bitch in the house - she was a true puppy when he left - now she has that young adolescent air about her.  I think Ailsa will happily include Jura in her social duties as she is indeed pushy and unwilling to just lay around.  Already she makes Baker play every evening; adding Jura to the mix will be more fun for her and I will be trying to figure out how to keep the yard from covering the floors of the house!

Here is hoping that Robin & Kathy share the super runs they had with Zipper & Briar respectively last weekend during the ASCA trial because I want to brag on Mr. Baker but he can wait :)

This is the last week of classes this session and bitter sweet as I love having watched the progress of all the dogs and knowing that some will not be coming back :( as their owners have accomplished what they wanted from classes.