20. The Charlie Diaries: 10/28/22

My Aussie dogs have all been incredible athletes. Max, my first Kelpie, could run like the wind. When he’d be chasing a ball on the Penn campus in West Philly, strangers would exclaim, “Wow! Is that dog fast?!” Other dog owners would say, “no dog can catch my dog!”, as Max ran their dog to ground in no time flat.

Likewise the other Kelpies. Django and Keli, the last Kelpie generation, can be seen here in full flight! Django was like a lithe tight end, streaking across the field and zigging and zagging to catch his frisbee or out run Keli, who was no slouch herself.

Into the current Cattle Dog era, Suki was able to hold her own against Django, no small feat. 

I’ve compared Charlie to Larry Csonka, the Miami Dolphins fullback of yore. Csonka was a broadly built lumbering runner. Maybe not the fastest, but there was a Rhinoceros-like grace in the way he ate up the yards and plowed through would be tacklers, and Charlie has that kind of grace.

When Charlie first arrived, I ordered a floppy disc for him. They’re easier on a dog’s mouth than a hard frisbee, but otherwise serve the same purpose. When I first threw it for Charlie, he ran after it, picked it up, and tried to tear it apart, so it got put aside…till today.

After holding the disc out and repeatedly rewarding Charlie for leaping and grabbing it, I tried throwing it a few times. Charlie would chase it down, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch it in mid-air. His “leave it” cue is improving, so I was able to keep him from trying to tear it apart, although he did shake the thing hard enough while bringing it back; if floppy discs had necks, he would have broken its neck several times over.

Next, I put him in a “sit”, backed away about 30 feet, and then threw the disc just off to his left immediately after issuing his “okay” cue, which frees him from the sit. It took several tries, but he finally started catching the disc and bringing it back. Every time he caught it, he got a “jackpot”, several liver treats in succession to make the behavior more attractive to him. We did this for awhile, and then called it quits after a couple successful catches in a row. It was more like “playing catch” than running out and catching a disc. I’m not sure if he’ll ever be a running, leaping disc catcher like Django was.

And I can’t seem to remember how good of a pass receiver Larry Csonka was…

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