Lou and Molly Do Agility

Lou and Molly enjoy their weekly training sessions and membership in their Just For Fun league. Click on the picture above to see a movie of them at play (this is a large QuickTime movie and downloading may take several minutes).

Above are some stills of Molly and Lou training on 5/31/00. Click the picture to see an enlargement.

Lou and Molly took their first leap to an agility title Saturday 8/10/2002 in their first AKC sanctioned competition. They earned a qualifying score of 95/100 and finished in 50 seconds on a course with a maximum of 70 seconds. Under Lou's steady guidance, Molly wove through a twisty course of 13 obstacles, jumping hurdles, walking a teeter-totter, broad jumping, scaling an 8' A frame, squeezed through a bent tunnel, and sailed through a tire. It was remarkable watching the way the best handlers communicate with their dogs with body language hand signals and voice.

They might have scored a perfect 100 (called a clean run) had Molly not run past a 20" wall she was supposed to jump. She had never seen an obstacle like this in practice, but Lou quickly retrieved her (no touching allowed) before she engaged the next obstacle and directed her over the wall.

The meet was in Plano, Illinois, corn country, about an hour west of Chicago. It was a warm, sunny, cloudless day. What an amazing subculture we encountered. There were probably 400 dogs of every breed, handlers in colorful garb and tattoos, vendors selling all manner of dogwares, tents and campers, and every color in the 128 crayon box.