Oh my. We were a pathetic lot on Monday night. So uniformly so that it was frightening. Our focus topic was Serpentine and Threadle. Something we are all quite well versed in at this stage in our lives, sort of like taking a course in Washer and Dryer, or Hair Bands of the ’80’s. Everybody KNOWS these things. A topic that should not be cause for dog agility disaster.

But there was flailing and forgetting and flicking and double pointing and backy upping and numerous other sins of dog agility happening all around. If everyone there was like me, they must have all forgot to make their giant coffee for the freeway ride to class. I know that was the tip of my iceberg. I did a lot of gazing about at the sky and at the carpeting of bark chips, dreaming of coffee between my turns. It’s the little things.

I didn’t even take notes. When I went out to the car to dig around for a pen all I found was the chapstick I lost last summer and an old, oozy stick of string cheese. So I may be a bit hazy, but if I’m correct here though, I believe what we learned was the preferred threadle move in Derrett Handling System is now called Stork. This is easy friends. We don’t even need Twister to explain.

Everybody up now, you need to be standing to do this. Wear comfortable trousers. But not so comfortable you are showing everybody your Blind Cross Crack. That is a No Go Zone.

Left Stork. Face away from the computer, left foot up, left hand pointing at your Pleasure Zone. It gets a bit disco for the moment now, hustle steps back with your left foot, quickly now and then right hand flies through the wind like the egret in flight. Your hands should move gracefully and shove that toy in your dogs mouth as they are in mid flight. No matter how bad it hurts.

Good. Right Stork now. Face away from the computer, right foot up, right hand pointing at your Happy Zone. Never, ever confuse your Happy Zone with your No Go Zone. I mean, you can, I guess. Who am I to judge. I am addressing a wide audience here. But then you won’t even be in Stork anymore and by now your dog is in the left side of the tunnel so just point, damnit. Down. Pleasure zone. One hand. Point with one hand.

Are you pointing? Can you envision the birds, grasshoppers? The grace and balance of the one legged stork, poised for attack. I think storks attack, right? They are sort of the giant, silent killers of the bird world? It’s a fleeting moment, before a tiny little disco moment, little hustle steps. Without spinning. Don’t spin. The dogs are confused enough as it is. Quickly bring left hand back up, and off they go.

I’m just passing along what I heard. It’s possible some of it is muddled. The coffee issue. Hope this helps, top handlers! Good luck storking.