Cowboy monkey dog pony crack that teeter totter whip and hop and whiplash and pop.

You noticed that's Hobbes's face on Whiplash's dog, right? Now THAT's what I call a spirit animal.

This is Whiplash, the cowboy monkey. He loves him his whip. You guys all know him, right? He's not the only rodeo monkey out there, but he's the toughest. A capuchin monkey who rides the rodeo circuit in the midwest, and his string of border collies do a little sheepherding demo and Whiplash hangs on and picks up dirt clumps while his border collie races around. His monkey trainer says he loves it.

And, you guys all know Steve, the Agility Nerd, right? He has border collies, but I am pretty sure he does not have monkeys.

His nerdy project last week was researching teeter totter whip and hop. In his meticulous and well researched way, with videos and diagrams and links. Teeter ass slam fans, fearful teeter dogs, go there now to learn all about the whip. That I was calling the ass slam. And I probably still will. I didn't even know we had a real agility word for it.

http://agilitynerd.com/blog/agility/glossary/TeeterWhipHop.html

You will learn. It was really interesting. And, in one of his videos, it shows his border collie getting the whip in a trial on the EXACT same type of teeter that Gustavo got his ass slam that started us on this whole journey back to teeter square one.

And then, because I guess it's Teeter Week everywhere, Monica of Clean Run just put up all this new teeter info on Clean Run. Vici, the video queen, even sent her video clip of Gustavo's fateful ass slam, I mean whip, moment, but it's not in there. But other dogs, they get the whip and likely have similar results to Gustavo's.

So in all this teeter research, I also found there's other dog and monkey teams. The Ghost Riders do a whole drill team thing, in red white and blue suits. 4 border collies with 4 monkeys. And likely, there are people out there who just duct tape their monkeys on to dogs and let 'em rip. A hobby that probably involves big trucks and Budweiser and putting your cowboy hat over your heart and blessing George Bush out loud.

Oh wait. We were talking about teeter totters and whip and hop? Somehow, in my mind, I just can't get over Whiplash. And his dogs. The cowboy monkey dog ponies. In a real world of teeter retraining, and the future of the whip for Gustavo, my mind is just sort of stuck right now on Whiplash. Who is CLEARLY Gustavo's new spirit animal. In teensy, tiny little monkey chaps.

Teeter totters? That's how life is. You got your solid, quiet, aluminum ones with steady bases, your hollow core fiberglassers, and your plank on tubing. The reality is, every so often in life, you're gonna cross a whipper or a hopper and you just got to be ready to deal with it. Maybe the consequences suck, but you keep calm, carry on, and start again. What else you gonna do? Just deal with it, move on. I think that's the lesson Whiplash teaches us. If he wasn't busy eating bugs and picking up dirt clods from a speeding border collie saddle. Or maybe he doesn't. But hell. It's a monkey riding a border collie. Life goes on.

Don't blink.

I think I'm getting better at running Hobbes. He belongs to my agility instructor. He is a big, fast border collie that has bundles of Lifetime Achievement Gold Points, always winning the Grand Prix, and is like driving a monster truck that has cruise control and ferrari speed. I've been running him for a few months, trying to learn to be a better handler. Last night I actually completed a few runs without errors, which is saying a lot for me. I usually mange to sneak as many errors as possible into a run. Maybe not always enough to knock a bar or go off course but always enough that I know it was an error, and not how I planned it. There aren't any do-overs in agility, but when I'm running his dog, my instructor lets me repeat the thing I managed to screw up til I get it right. I go by third times a charm usually. That may be why I am not a super champion of agility in dog shows. Because at the dog trial, there are definitely no do-overs. Unless the timer messes up and you have done a perfect clean and fast run. And then they ask you to do a do-over. Which has happened to me on more than one occassion due to my weird force field around me that messes up timers.

My dogs have to share when I run the other dog. I get 2 turns each for 3 dogs. So they get a little ripped off. They sit like a set of gargoyles at agility, in the dirt, tied to a fence, with Otterpop's slouching posture and Ruby's sitting up, and all you see sometimes are their big bat ear outlines. They just don't look like the other agility dogs. They sure enjoy sitting with border collies though. Some border collies obsess on them like they are little glowing hypno mutants for their staring enjoyment. Dogs that don't blink are a little weird. I am pretty sure I do not need a border collie, but they are fun to borrow.