Freckles Second Fly Ball Class

[Dukesdad]

Yesterday was Freckles second Fly Ball class. As soon as we arrived I wanted to show off his success at "homework" buy rolling a ball away while holding him. When the ball stopped I let him go to fetch but he was so scared of the surroundings he just froze. My fault. I should have given him time to adjust to the chaos.
I took him over to sit and watch the "pros" practice and, like last week, he could hardly contain himself.
It is really fun to watch the successful runs and hysterical to watch the "mistakes".
For one session a woman brought out her young Rottie mix pup, about a year old, to train with a veteran old Blue Tick Hound who was really good at running the hurdles but, as you would guess, not really that fast.
First they let Simba the Rottie fly down the course, grab the ball, then perfectly return. Only problem was that Simba's mom didn't grab him quickly enough so when he saw Fargo, the hound, running the hurdles he took off to chase. Unfortunately he chased right down the hurdles and met Fargo head on between hurdles as Fargo was returning. Poor Fargo was really disgusted and Simba ran away with his mom in hot pursuit. I couldn't stop laughing..
Finally Freckles got his turn to practice hurdles. I had a bag of somewhat stale liver treats to encourage him to come to me over the hurdles. One of the trainers took him two hurdles down and when I called him he ran those two hurdles perfectly. Then the trainer coaxed him back by waiving a HAMBURGER. Freckles FLEW back over the hurdles to her.
On the second try I called to Freckles while shaking the package of treats and he seemed ready to go; however, when the trainer released him all he did was turn around and sit, waiting for that hamburger treat. OK. Now the trainer gives me half a burger and we were all off to the races. Freckles ran all four hurdles back and forth without a single out of bounds until we ran out of hamburger.
Now I KNOW what motivates the little toot so next week I bring a hamburger. My guess is he will run the hurdles, grab the ball, and do double back flips all the way back to get to that treat.

[honeybears]

what fun! hamburger will the trick everytime