Poncho, AGI, The Flying Dog

Meg's Poncho

When I decided to get a dog, I had two criteria. One was that it should be an older dog, because I did not have the time to spend housebreaking and socializing a new puppy. The other was that it should be a small dog, because my sister, with whom I share a house, has a cat and we wanted them to be best friends, and I thought a small dog would be better suited than a large one.

At the shelter, the only dog that fit this criteria was Poncho. He was listed as a one year old stray, but he was in pretty good condition. I don't think he was a stray for very long. He doesn't seem to be afraid of a raised hand, so I don't think he was ever abused. I think he must have just gotten lost. One funny thing about him is that, at the time I adopted him, I was living in an apartment that had no doorbell, but when a doorbell rang on TV, he would bark at the door. So his former family must have had a doorbell. Also, he will bark fiercely at anyone holding a stick. He is also somewhat afraid of men and children, but many non-stray dogs are as well. I sometimes wonder if he would recognize a member of his old family if he saw them.

Poncho was listed as a Chihuahua Mix on his cage card, hence the name they gave him. His ears used to stand up, but gradually one fell down, then the other, so now he has a very Terrier look. He has the Chihuahua fawn color though, and his personality is all Chi. He's a feisty little dog who loves to kill bugs and grapes. He burrows under anything, especially the covers at night, and zooms around the house at least once a day.

I adopted Poncho on May 9, 1997, which became his assumed birthday. In August of 1997 we began taking beginning obedience classes. It wasn't that he was really bad, but he would chew furniture and get into things he wasn't supposed to. Basically just needed to learn some manners and I didn't have any experience with dog training. I didn't know there was such a thing as obedience competitions, or agility or any other dog sports. In this class the genius came out in Poncho. He learned heel position in one night, loves to retrieve gloves and dumbbells of any material, he's a natural jumper and jumps up to 32 inches (he's 12" at the shoulder). And it's fun! We wouldn't do any of it if I didn't think he was having fun, but he loves it! We dabble in agility, also, and just began learning Flyball a few weeks ago. We plan to start competing in these next year. Poncho also received his CGC last May at a dog fun day. But our number one sport is obedience.

Our first UKC show was in March of 1998. He did wonderful for only having been training for 8 months. We NQ'd however due to handler error (another long story). In other words, he knew what he was doing, but I did not. It was quite a learning experience, let me tell you. Our next show was ASCA in April. We qualified and got our first ASCA leg with a 191. Next was UKC in August. It was his turn to shine! He got his UKC CD with three firsts in one weekend. I was so proud of him! We'd come a long way from furniture chewing. His scores were 189, 191, and 193.5, which put us just out of range for Regionals. These three scores earned us our AMBOR CD, also. Next was a UKC show in which we tried to get some good scores to qualify for regionals, but he NQ'd both days. Next was the second ASCA show in which we qualified three times in one weekend and earned our ASCA CD. So the little ragamuffin became U-CD Poncho CD, ASCA CD, CGC ! Not bad for a pound puppy.

We are currently working on open exercises, agility and Flyball, and he's learning to catch a Frisbee. I don't remember what my life was like before I got Poncho, it must have been pretty boring. We will try for Regionals again in open, and cross your fingers and paws for us, we might see you there!

On July 5, 1999, Poncho earned his first agility title. He received 2 second places, with 2 perfect scores. His title was earned in UKC agility. Congratulations, Poncho!

Pepper, The Fox, Cookie and Chip

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