Aspen is a "hot and cold" performer. He usually blows my wife off in the ring......saunters over, says hi to the judge and ring stewards, tucks his head against them (he loves buxom women. Yeah, who doesn't?) and rubs against them like a cat. But every once in a while he gets a wild hair and tears through an agility course -- he even won a high in trial one time.

One time, during a long stretch of lethargic performances, we overheard someone talking about giving their dog a shot of Mountain Dew before putting them in the ring. Hmmmmm, we thought.....

.....maybe Aspen....

Anyway, we gave him a can of Mountain Dew (don't tell on me -- I'm a past president of the local Humane Society -- no kidding), anyway, he started off on his usual lollygag around the ring until he came upon the crawl tunnel. He really didn't want to duck under it so, sorta half way through he just stood up, apparatus and all.

Well, at this the crowd busted out laughing and that's just too much for a Malamute to stand. He perked up, looked over toward the crowd and then put his butt down and started running the course -- my wife in tow (so to speak) trying to keep up......the crowd laughing all the more and building to this final crescendo of applause as he LEPT from about 8 feet in front of the final jump, clearing the junp by about a foot and landing in the finishing area (outside the ring). The crowd went wild -- we ran up to Aspen and praised him BIG TIME. HE didn't know he had not qualified (and we weren't gonna tell him!).

We've never done the Mountain Dew thing again (in truth, I don't think it really had anything to do with the antics).

Aspen lost the big fight last night. I'll remember the laughs.