Fitdog Friday: Chewy Gets His White Belt in Martial ARFS

Chewy recently started classes at The Martial ARFS, a dog obedience/fitness/agility school near us. By recently, I mean almost two months ago, but we have only been to 4 classes. I guess that kind of makes us delinquent students...

Ready for class!

Come on, what are you waiting for? Let's go in!

Chewy loves going to doggy school. Then again, he loves to go everywhere. Sometimes he even tries to go to other people's houses when we're on walks. He just bounds up their stairs and heads toward their front door!

After 4 classes, Chewy is more accustomed to the FitPAWS equipment. He is still a little hesitant at times, and might streeeetch his body to avoid putting all 4 paws on the balance discs in the quest for treats. However, it is a big improvement compared to his previous favorite tactic of running around the side to get to the food.

Four paws!

Being a Golden, Chewy is QUITE food motivated, so he can be lured into doing most things. Moving the treat slowly over the equipment gets Chewy on the discs and working his core muscles to maintain balance.

Will work for treats.

Chewy was much more confident about doing doggy squats this time. The upside down Bosu ball under his front paws works his core and makes him shake a little, so he would always be very reluctant to do anything other than stand. The prospect of Goldfish was just too tempting, though, so he agreed to pump out some squats. The squats are essentially a sit, but with front paws on the ball.

Doggy "squat"

Master of the wobble board!

Chewy's favorite piece of equipment is the A-Frame. We were working on jumps, and he was like "Nope!" and ran back onto the A-Frame. I think he likes the "I'm king of the world!" feeling, as he always pauses to look around when he reaches the top.

A-frame with obstacles

Chewy received his white belt at the end of class. I'm pretty sure humans get white belts in martial arts classes before they even learn anything, since they need something to keep their robes together! But I guess because doggies don't wear robes to martial arfs class, they have to show some skill first. Chewy had to do five squats to earn his.

Bandanas are for chewing, right?

Zen doggy

We are joining the FitDog Friday hop hosted by SlimDoggy,
Peggy's Pet Place and To Dog with Love.