A Day at Wag It, Inc.

Another on-site assignment! This time, I head to Lincolnville to spend the morning watching classes at Wag It, Inc., one of the coolest agility/obedience training centers in all of Maine. Sumac Grant-Johnson runs the place; she's won prizes and done trainings and is pretty much Guru of All Things Agility 'round these parts. I'm doing an article on ways that our dogs keep us fit and push us outside our comfort zones. Sumac suggested I sit in on this particular class because several of the students are actually in their seventies.

I've been to Wag It before, because I took Adie to a rally seminar about a year ago. The facility is 3800 square feet, and it has those awesome rubber mats I've always dreamed of having - plus agility equipment in every direction. I LOVE agility equipment. I don't even know why, but the colors and shapes and textures always get me excited and motivated to turn Adie into the Champion Agility-Meister I just know she could be. I'm flying solo today, though - no Adie, no Killian. Just me and my trusty camera, plus my brand new tape recorder that I purchased in the hopes that I would stop freaking out about potentially misquoting people. Now there's no chance - it's all right at my fingertips, to play over and over and over and over again.

Susanne Ward, who runs Rock City Books and Coffee in Rockland, is here with her two Irish Water Spaniels, Desmond and Rosie. Back when Susanne and her partner Patrick first moved to the midcoast, I was just getting out of high school and we'd never actually had something as cool as a coffee shop - forget one that sold books, too. Susanne served me my first - and last - espresso when I was barely nineteen. Now, it's a whole lot of years later, and she's never looked better. Still hip, still sharp, and her dogs are pretty much running rings around everyone else. Between you and me, I've always had a little bit of a Girlcrush on Susanne, and today does nothing to change my feelings. And her dogs are amazing - Desmond even knows how to skateboard!


Marilyn Stearns, a former business teacher at Medomak Valley High School, is here with her rescued dog Lacey. At seventy-four, she's racing up and down the agility course, shouting and laughing and clearly very intent on getting little Lacey over the next hurdle (and up on the table, which is a little high for poor Lace).
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I meet Perri Moore, another woman in her seventies, who comes with her daughter Brandi and her two rescued Shelties. Perri has Parkinson's disease; coming out to Wag It once a week during the winter months keeps her active and social when things are too slick to risk a trek in the great outdoors. There are Scotties and mutts and poodles and a long-haired whippet named Perseus who is just about the most gorgeous thing on four legs:

By the time the second class is winding down, I'm so gung ho on agility I'm ready to sign both Killian and Adia up on the spot. I don't know how they'll feel about the whole experience, but I'm more than ready to tear it up in the ring. And convinced more than ever that the Dogged Life is the key to a world of fitness and good times