A while back Sophie and I were working on beginning agility classes. In these classes, they have several obstacles including boards to walk across, A-frame height challenges, etc. If you've seen the "Alpha Dog Challenge" on Animal Planet (cable television), you have seen most of the agility apparatus.

Well, anyway, we were practicing in class when Sophie came across a "trick" challenge, that is one that the dog sees two challenges, but can only do the one that the trainer selects. Sophie got confused as to which one she should do: a tunnel or an elevated dog walk. I kept pointing to the tunnel and blurting tunnel, but she wanted to go up the ramp for the walk. She stopped in mid-stride and started to shift from one front paw to the other with this confused look on her face. All of a sudden she compromised: she spun around and jumped on top of the tunnel! Now the tunnel is pretty unstable, so she then proceeded to jump around on top of the tunnel to keep her balance. It was truly hilarious and the whole class started laughing histerically! Sophie, knowing that she did something to attract attention to herself, stopped, immediately jumped off the tunnel, and started prancing in front of the group. She then let out this cute little howl as if to say "Thank you, Thank you!"

Something to keep in mind about this also is the relative height of the tunnel versus the dog. Sophie, a Papillon, is only 11-1/2" at the shoulder and the top of the tunnel is about three feet off the ground. Quite a feat for such a little dog!