dandy the amazing!

ganesh - visiting for the week - took us to "dog days of winter", an event put on by a trainer down by lindsay (sharon worsley - http://www.paus-n-train.com ). saari was exhausted (click images for larger size):



we entered dandy into one event, though - the toy retrieval. technically, the dog is supposed to bring the toy back to the owner but since most of the dogs weren't trained to that level (difficult for them, being as there was easily a couple dozen dogs yowling, howling, and generally partying it up), it was only required they bring it back across the line. dandy had it figured out - the second i let him off his leash, he charged over, grabbed a toy, and brought it back but i thought he was supposed to give it to me so when he ran over to ganesh with his prize, i said "no, no, dandy, here!" instantly, i could see i'd confused him - he started running around with the toy like crazy, so i pretended to throw something and said "find it!" and sure enough, he dropped the one he had and went charging around to find the one i'd "thrown".

he ended up bringing back four - tied for first with three other dogs!

so we had a run-off. in 30 seconds, he brought back two, two other dogs brought three, and one brought one. the two tied for first had another run-off and he came in third overall - not bad, considering the winner was a service dog (professionally trained) and the second has also had professional training at that facility while the one came in fourth was trained also (just not there)!

ready? set...



go!



"i'm the man!"