Oh my yes. I am a proud dog owner. Have I mentioned my dog is a genius? Well, she is. Just so you know. I'm quite sure Nisby is the first and only (and best-looking) dog to ever be almost completely reliable off-lead in only 6 month's time without a single formal obedience lesson to her name. *ahem*

(Yes, and I'm sure your dog and/or children are the only creatures on earth who are nearly as smart as my dog. You may think they're smarter, but you'd be wrong.)

I've updated the list of Nisby's Commands today. For quite a while, we were just reinforcing and improving her off-lead performance on the old standards: stay, heel, come, playing fetch and tug-o-war, and various general "manners" issues. She really seemed to plateau with her development for a few weeks, until the fateful Friday I left her kenneled at home alone overnight, and she had a bit of a "fuck you Mom" teen rebellion thing for the rest of the weekend. After being mostly off-lead for months, she was put back on the long line for the weekend, I reinforced her on the non-optional nature of the "come" command, and suddenly she started absorbing new things like a sponge again.

So, yep, after 6 months, she's almost completely reliable off-lead. We can off-lead heel inside the dog park, I can recall her while she's in the middle of chasing a squirrel, and she'll wait to jump out of the car until I say "OK", whether we're at home, at the dog park, or over at a friend's house. I couldn't be more pleased.

So, I decided it would be good to do an agility class this Winter, but the next round of local classes isn't starting until February ... so when a fellow dog-park regular brought a full-size agility tunnel to the park and Nisby was totally spooked by it, I decided it might be good to start working on things ahead of time. When I saw a beginning agility kit for sale at a local animal supply store last Friday, I snapped it up.

After three days, she's now going through the short tunnel with an abbreviated hand gesture most of the time (a "snap & point" at the end of the tunnel, instead of having to bend down and actually gesture inside the tunnel in front of her), and even running through it unbidden sometimes. What she'll do with the next full-size tunnel she sees, I'm not sure ... but she'll almost certainly not try to run away from it.

I also set up the jump outside, and if I "lead" her over it with a hand gesture, she'll go over without hesitation almost every time. Not to the point where I can just point and say "jump," but after not-quite-three days, what can you expect? Today we did a few rounds of running through the tunnel, followed by immediately heading over for a jump and vice-versa, and she seemed to be genuinely having fun with the whole thing (not that the pocketful of treats wasn't helping! ;-). Once I've got those two obstacles pretty well down, I'll try setting up the weave poles that came with the kit.

By the time the February agility class comes up, I'm hoping I'll be able to test her past the "Fundamentals" and possibly even the Novice I classes. Need to call and find out exactly what's covered in each course ...