Show off

Photo by Dan Oas
For the obedience portion of the SchH title, the dog must perform a dumbbell retrieve. Difficulty builds at each level until the SchH3 level where the dog must retrieve the dumbbell from 30ft on flat ground, over a meter high jump, and over a 1.8 meter climbing wall. Since these activities account for 40% of the obedience score at this level, it is important to train it correctly.

At training this week, a fellow club member asked for help with teaching the dumbbell. I started training this a while back, but didn't have a lot of success and just put it up for a while. I thought this would be a good opportunity to try again, so I asked to be included in the lesson.

When it was Bison's turn to give it a try, he eagerly grabbed the dumbbell(DB)in his mouth and held it tight. This was very good because a loose grip can lose points. We followed the training process suggested by the fellow club member. Bison held the DB tight in his mouth. I used the leash to encourage him to trot in a circle a few times then backed up and called him in to front position to mimic how he would return with the DB after a retrieve. After he landed in the correct position for a few moments, then I would free him to trot in a circle again. The point of the exercise is to get Bison used to holding the DB and to see it as a fun game to carry it around. It also gives him practice getting into the right delivery position and shows him that when he carries the DB around it makes me happy. We had a great training session. Bison loved prancing around showing off the DB and even continued holding it while we practiced his "down", as you can see in the photo above.

For some reason, this reminded me of the Jr. Church kids signing "This Little Light of Mine". They hold their finger lights up high and twirl them around with the same gusto that Bison has as he prances with the DB. Both finger light twirling and DB prancing are such good examples of how we should be proud of representing Christ in our everyday life. The Bible says in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." What a wonderful thing to show the joy, peace, strength, wisdom, faith...that He gives us everyday and to show it with gusto! The point is kind of the same as the training activity to get practice with our faith, to show that the Christian life is fun, and to make our Heavenly Handler happy! I doing so, we give other people a reason to become a Christian too or just the opportunity to glorify God with us. So, be like Bison with his DB hold on tight, and show it off!