Agility Lessons

[haleigh]

So, about two weeks ago, Joy had her first *formal* agility lesson. In intermediate OB, she learned the tunnel, and I taught her how to jump. In October, I got a 16" duffel jump, 6 pole weaves, and a 9' practice tunnel. They have a tire at the dog park, so I could set up a mini course. Joy had "intensive" at home agility training. She knows directionals extremely well, and know the tunnels name, and differentiate between the tire and her jump. I could enter her in a novice tunnelers or jumpers and she could place. The only thing, it that not only have I never entered a dog, I have never handled a dog in a trial. I also don't trust Joy with staying off leash at the starting point. I believe, and have full confidence, that once we actually are on course, she'll stay on course.

 

In her first agility lesson, it was all on leash,, and she knocked over quite a few jumps. NO, my dear friends. She did not knock the bars. She completely knocked over the jump. She was absorbed into the other dogs. We switched back and forth between the gentle leader and her martingale. Towards the end of the class she was under more control.

 

We skipped the class after that, because my sister had a band concert. We went to this weeks, on Thursday. At first she was intent on lunging and barking at every dog in site. Luckily, everyone smiles at me, and chalks it up to excitement, and they don't glare at me during training. I seriously want to kick the owner of the border collie. She's a lot younger then me...about 10, maybe 11. She has no patience. I don't mind mild popping for misbehaving, but she's so impatient, as to start popping and yelling when Boomer doesn't PAW. It really bothers me.

 

Anyways. We introduce the dog walk. Joy did well. She already knows the mini dog walk, and we introduced the big one by back chaining. Some dogs were scared, but Joy tried wiggling away from me and plowing down herself. Then we did the teeter. She did great on that too.

 

The trainer said we'd been doing excellent, so she set up a mini course. There was a tunnel, table, weaves, and four jumps. The first time, she chose the course for us. She put the gates up, so if we lost control our dogs, they wouldn't run away. She said this is her first class ever she let dogs go off leash by the third class.

 

I was terrified she would blow her stay and jump the gates. I took her leash off, put her in stay, and let her go. She went flying through the tunnel, went on the pause table and did a perfect down, and jump twice, ignoring the other two.

 

Everyone was speechless when they saw her. They just kind of stared at her, in disbelief that such a misbehaved dog, could be so good at agility.

 

The we had about 10 minutes left, so she let us go one at a time, and do some freestylin' agility

 

I put Joy in a down. I ran out towards the weave and had her jump twice, table (I patted it by accident...is that a blown contact?) then tunnel. She started veering away, but I called her back! She did! I was SOOOO PROUD! This was the BEST training class I've ever had with her!

 

I seriously think its because Joy thinks agility is a lot of fun, compared to OB, which explains why she sucks at obedience.

[BC Wild Child]

Sounds like you are hooked and are doing very well. Good for you both!

 

Tux doesn't like obedience either and we knocked down our fair share of jumps starting out. In fact he broke two jumps at a couple of his first UKC trials. Ooops!!

 

Going to watch and help at a trial before you actually start competing is a good thing. I did that and found that I was much better prepared when we started trialing. Do you have any fun matches or show-n-go's in your area that you can go to to practice before trialing for real?