Remember when…

I had a flashback today. We set up our training equipment in Diesel’s community at their town hall-ish thing since there is an open space lined with trees so we could work in the shade. Both dogs worked on retrieving over the high jump, and the broad jump at some time in this training session.

Rugby was the bad one. He started it.

He knows that when I finish with Diesel, I leave him on a Down/Stay beside our stuff and switch dogs. Except today.  A couple of times I left them BOTH on stays while I adjusted the jumps before taking the next dog out to work. The first time I dropped Diesel off at our ‘spot’ and didn’t bring Rugby out right away, Rugby left his down stay to come over and surprise me. You know, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten to get him when I made the switch.

After the second time I found a little white dog bouncing in my face, I stopped sending him back and walked him over to our ‘spot’ and left him. Except now that I was dropping off Rugby… Diesel was sure it was his turn.  He popped up and offered to come with me.

I convinced them both to stay, fixed the jumps and then called Rugby over for his turn to work. He came, and so did Diesel. Apparently I wasn’t very convincing. This happened twice before I finally started giving signals to Rugby – something Diesel doesn’t understand.

Reminds you of a different story doesn’t it?…