Phoebe's Tails

I used to go out at lunch time and toss around Phoebe’s Kong and a ball until she as was pooped out. She started to get a little bored with that, so I went and bought a chase wand. It has a little skunk attached to the end, and also has a hamster attachment to  break up the monotony. Let me tell you, that little wand is worth every penny. Whenever I see that Phoebe has a little too much pent-up energy, we just take that wand out and let her chase it for 20 minutes. She is like a mad woman and has a blast. By the time we are done, she is d-o-n-e.  It is almost guaranteed that she will be in her bed snoring minutes after dinner.

Keying on the magic of running her to the ground, I thought I would pull together a make shift agility course using odds and ends from around the house. That was the perfect plan, but once I went searching for ideas I found instructions for an agility course built solely from PVC pipe. Actually it is only half of an agility course (the weave poles, see-saw and jump) but hey, it is a good start. I could have purchased a kit, but I wanted the satisfaction of building it myself.  If I was not going to build it, I would have chosen “Agility in the Bag,” which is only a little more than what I spent to build the three components. In the long run it would have been the better choice. Oh well, live and learn. While I was putting it together, Phoebe put her groove on and did some limbo dancing. She kept wiggling her way under it, and surprisingly she never touched the bar. Pretty impressive. Though, it was a little eye opener on how small of a space she can slink through (time to check he fence line). It did not take long for her to get the hang of jumping over the bar (I added a little video to the end of this post). The only problem is that she can jump over it without a running start (she must have springs built-in to her feet or something). I think I am going to flip the side bars over, so that the low bar is moved to the top. That will add some extra height, and give us something to build up to.

We have not started working on the weave poles too much. She has wiggled in and out a few times, but there is still room for improvement. Next stop: See-Saw. I have to go buy a plank over the weekend and then pull it together. Pretty soon our (I mean Phoebe’s) yard will be one big doggie playground. I guess it’s a good thing all the children are grown.