This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Agility, Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
There’s a well-known saying that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Well, I’ve found that little pearl of wisdom to be way off base. Take my 8-year-old Basset hound Rufus, a dog that was abused for the first few years of his life and was on the brink of being euthanized when I picked him up from the humane society. Although most everyone had given up hope of socializing him, I saw something special behind those big, droopy eyes.
The conventional means for teaching a dog acceptable behavior didn’t seem to work for Rufus. As a last-ditch effort, I enrolled the two of us in some dog agility classes with a seasoned instructor. It didn’t take long for everyone involved to notice that Rufus was taking to the canine competition obedience equipment like a fish to water. I knew there was still plenty of work to be done, but it was finally a positive sign.
