A Weekend of Working

The day after our catastophic day on September 3, 2015, my good friend, Terry Simons, arrived in Edmonton from California to teach a seminar for me.  Uncle Terry, as my dogs know him, means there is agility and good times in store.  Terry is also the reason I have Tollers and he and his wife own a brother to Sniper.

Terry knew of Sniper's diagnosis before he arrived and he had been helping me with some advice from his experience teaching a dog with autism.  When I picked him up from the airport, he noticed the bites on my hand and asked if it happened with a dog at work.  That launched the conversation about what happened and he could clearly tell how upset I was for Sniper.

When we got to the house, I unload the dogs from the car and their is a Uncle Terry reunion in the backyard.  All four dogs are super excited to see Terry including Sniper.  Sniper and Terry have only seen each other a couple of times but there was no doubt that Sniper remembered him and categorized him as one of his "people".  When you are one the "Accepted People" list Sniper throws himself up into your arms whether you are ready to catch him or not.  It his how he expresses his happiness and pure joy.  Sniper stuck to Terry like glue and they shared many quiet moments over the weekend.  A closeness that very few get to experience with Sniper.  He knew he could trust Terry and gave himself over to that place.

Terry wasn't just in town for a visit he was there to teach a three day agility seminar.  I have worked with Terry for seven years and call him my "coach" when it comes to all things agility.  Now that Sniper was old enough for a seminar and doing all the equipment I was super excited for the weekend.  Fingers crossed that the episode the couple days before did not have a lasting effect for the weekend.

Sniper was brilliant at the seminar!  We were outside in the rain but he did not care one bit.  As expected, we came across a few hurdles where we had to stop and reset his brain on a couple of sequences.  This is all a part of our learning process developing our team work.  Finding the key to unlock his vault.

For as brilliant as he was during the day, when we got back home Sniper was quiet and withdrawn and seeking out new places to "hide" in the house where he could be quiet.  For the most part, he chose to sleep in Terry's room where it was dark and quiet.

All in all he seemed to cope okay after his panic attack.