After 4 years together, I’ve been forced to distance myself from what my wife calls “the love of my life” — the tiger-striped chiweenie.

It’s been very difficult for me, and after nearly a year of effort, we haven’t gotten very far apart.

Like most things in my life, it started with me paying money to be told I’m not very good at what I do — you know like they did at college, at marketing courses and writing conferences… I laid out $50 to take Carol Baskins to a “distance agility” seminar.

Jean White, the seminar instructor, has been doing dog agility for 30 years. Her knees don’t work anymore. Like me, she cannot run.

“I don’t have to run,” Jean said. “The dog has to run.”

She calls the handlers who run, “the spandex people.” A kind word for what I dub the “skinny fucks.” I didn’t say my description out loud, not because it’s a dirty word, but the class was full of skinny fucks in spandex running along with their thin dogs.

If Carol and I are going to get better at agility, she will have to learn to run on her own a far “distance” from me.

Carol has been the pocket rocket in the “fun” agility class for 3 years. She’s been in the beginner class so long, she is “coach Carol.” She’s the “demo dog” showing the newbies how to go through tunnels, over jumps and climb the wooden equipment.

I liked Jean at the start of the seminar, but my affection was sorely tested for 4 hours.

As the smallest dog in class, Carol (and I) were the first to try every new skill. When we were done, they would raise the jumps for the “big dogs.” Every first attempt ended in a “fail.”

We didn’t even get started on the first trick before the first correction came. I lined Carol up for the start.

“Stop,” Jean said.

We stopped.

“You shouldn’t have to manhandle the dog to get her started. It’s basic obedience to have the dog sit at your side and wait while you walk out on the course.”

Then I did everything wrong with my arms.

“Don’t pull your arm in,” Jean said. “That’s telling the dog to come toward you, and you want her to go away.”

I got her started, I got my arms out… then.

“You have to point the feet where you want the dog to go,” Jean said. “Your feet are always pointing behind her. Wherever your feet point, your chest will point, and the dog will go in that direction.”

I got her started, I got my arms out, I have my feet pointing toward the weave polls.

“You have to look at the pole before the start and look at the pole after the finish,” Jean said.

I stood there. There is no pole before the start, and no pole after the finish. But I couldn’t express that thought in words.

“What?”

I just kept repeating “what”, and she kept telling me to look at the pole before the start, then look at the pole after the finish.

Finally someone else stepped out and pointed my face in the right direction — meaning focus two feet in front of the first pole, and then once the dog starts focus two feet beyond the finish so they run through the whole thing. Once I did, Carol weaved the poles like a pro.

About halfway through the session, Jean asked us about our dogs.

“I got this chiweenie at a strip mall during the pandemic,” I said. “Although some people say she might be a chug.”

Jean frowned.

The other owners said things like:

• “She’s a border collie — they have dominated the 20-inch class for generations.”
• ‘He’s a mix of a border collie for agility and a greyhound for speed.”
• “We bred her from two agility champions.”

All the other owners held their dogs on a 6-foot non-retractable leash, or had them sitting on the ground on a dog bed and leashed to their chair or brought out a portable crate.

Carol can’t crate. She cries. She won’t just sit in one place for more than a few minutes. But I don’t need to keep her on a leash. She won’t get more than 4 feet from me, especially when other dogs are running by like border-collie-freight-trains.

The whole point of distance agility is to get the dog to perform 50, 75, 100 yards away from you. As the latest dog zoomed by, Carol jumped into my lap.

“You are going to have a hard time, distancing yourself from that dog,” Jean said, looking down like calling my chihuahua-mix a “dog” is a stretch. Many of the dog agility trainers started out working with horses. Carol’s about the same size and weight as one horse hoof.

It’s been a year since the seminar. When Carol and I walk, I take her off the leash and encourage her to explore without me. I leave a yellow plate with a few treats at our door when we are gone, and yell “go home” two doors down from my house. Carol will sprint to the treat and leave me in the dust.

But that shit is not really working. If I get more than 25 feet from her, she starts looking for me and comes jogging after. If there’s no treat at the door, she won’t even bother to run.

At agility class, I put the yellow plate at the finish with a few pieces of hot dog. The idea is to give her an incentive to run to the end without me.

Now she is cutting the course and running to snag her treat after doing only half her tricks. Smart ass little bitch.

If I don’t put treats on the plate, she won’t run through the finish. If I don’t “run” she won’t run. She won’t work more than 25 feet from me, let alone 100 yards down the field…

Who knew it would be so hard to “distance the dog?”