Poodle games are good for people, too.

Today Nancy brought over the agility tunnel she had bought for the dogs to use during their play dates.  At first no one was interested in going through, even Jasper, who has been doing agilility for awhile.  With liver treat enticements thrown in, Roxy and Canon soon followed.  Roxy earned the speed record for going through, especially when she developed the zoomies near the end of our time.  Canon  quickly learned to U-turn, and then claimed the tunnel as his cave, a better place to hide from Jasper than between someone's legs.

Caprice, as usual, was the cautious one.  I had to start slowly- giving her a treat in front of the tunnel, then placing it near the entrance.  Throwing it in the tunnel invited the other three dogs to dive for the treat, so I did the only thing possible.  I crawled into the tunnel.  Mind you remember that this is the middle of winter.  We had a snow last week, and the snow was still melting and the ground was wet.  Slightly colder and muddier than I was before, I crawled midway into the tunnel offering a treat.  Do you think having a big human in there deterred the other dogs?  Before I knew it, Canon and Roxy were all over me, looking for a goodie.  They had no inhibitions about getting on me, over me, and past me.  It paid off.  Caprice came for me, got her treat, and moved along to the exit, again, right past me.  Slowly, as my 60-year-old body took me, I backed out.  As I got to the end, again, dogs swarmed me, looking for liver. I think I was yelling and laughing at the time.  It had been awhile (perhaps a long time) since I got silly and enjoyed a genuine laugh.  Nancy took her turn in the tunnel.  More agile than I, but still greeted by poodles and laughter.  That's her in the picture.

Nancy was kind enough to leave the tunnel so I could practice with Caprice with less distractions.  Later in the afternoon, Michael and I achieved success, and it only involved crawling halfway in once.  Two times through, and that was enough for the day.  A day of poodle games for the dogs, and Nancy and me.