On people who compete with their dogs

<---- How my dogs compete

My fantasy used to be doing some competitive activity with my dogs, showing the world their skill and strength and agility. They would win ribbons upon ribbons; I would have an entire room devoted to their winnings. Visitors would hear their escapades, riveting tales of weekend trips to anywhere but here and great heroic feats performed by Mina and, later, Celeste. It would be Epic.

Then I learned this was all a lot of hard work. You had to take a lot of classes. I mean, a lot. Like three or four times a week, I would be dragging my dog(s) to training and rally and agility classes. There would be classes on hand signals and clickers and classes on how to move left and move right appropriately. After a hard day at work, I would spend another four hours working on weaves and stands and other such important stuff. Um. No thanks.

Even taking my dogs to training classes proved, how do I put this without sounding whiney, boring. I liked them, especially the pit ed classes for Mina (because she was a hit and was sassy). The one for Celeste proved far below her skills, considering I had already ingrained in her stuff like sit, watch, down, stay, stand, shake, come, heel.

I admire folks who spend any amount of time getting their dogs to compete. Mina is anti-competitions because she believes she is #1 so why bother with all the hoop-la? Celeste would probably excel at something or other but mostly she just wants to chase things (I have yet to find a lure coursing club who accepts nondescript mixed breeds with blue eyes). When I have more money, I am going to be the person on the block with her own continuous loop lure system. It will be a big hit and I will have children see if they can keep up with Celeste.

And that will be the extent of my dogs' competitive streak - a $1,200 pulley system.

Wait. $1,200? Perhaps Celeste will just continue on her love affair with the flirt pole.