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Wednesday evening was our second obedience class. “Sit” and “come” commands. Tyler was thrilled to see his dog friends reconvened. And totally absorbed in hunting down pinecones. Seeing as class takes place in a park under cover of some very old sprawling pines, the hunting is good.

He’s good with the sit command, but a little hardheaded about coming when called. Especially when he’s in the back yard and wants to carry on eating dirt.

Dog Teacher (and Tyler) demonstrated a maneuver whereby the handler has the dog on leash, catches the dog’s attention, says “Come,” and starts cheerfully running backwards. Cheery energetic dogs will generally want to run to catch the backwards running human. Tyler was all over this game.

Then we tried it with treats. This is the only command I am practicing with food treats. Ty is amenable to learning without food, but the “Come” command is really important — it can be a life-or-death command, say, if the dog is eager to go check out a rattlesnake on a hiking trail. So we’re using food. Once Ty realized I had a treat when I called him in class, he was especially compliant.

But that isn’t REALLY why he came bounding toward me every chance he got. No, it was my jacket, which must be retired from dog training class. My winter jacket (yes, I’m already wearing a winter jacket in Scottsdale!) is an oatmeal wide-wale corduroy jacket with fake fur trim on folded-back sleeves. And oh, how Tyler LOVED that fake fur trim! It was like I had a dog toy attached to my arm. My own fashionable bite sleeve.

I’ll hand it to him, though. When I pulled him back and told him “Leave it!” he transferred his attention from the jacket to the food treat. Still, the jacket’s got to go.

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How have backbends been? In a word: great. All of ‘em feel like magic these days, from salabhasana to ustrasana to kapotasana to urdhva dhanurasana to hang backs. Something about the hip flexors, for sure. I’ve been including hanumanasana at every practice, and it is just stretchy good.

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I leave you with a picture of Ty’s bath this afternoon. He loves the bath and particularly the plastic cup I use to rinse him off.