The kids have been doing really well in agility lately, even Pan! She's still a bit of a spaz, but slowly -ever so slowly - she is getting her head screwed on correctly. A few weeks ago she refused to focus on me at the start line and totally pushed my buttons in all the wrong ways, something that she had never managed to do before. I walked her off the course to prevent running the progress we are fighting for. My instructor took her at the end of class to prevent leaving on a bad note and she did well. Every week she has fewer and fewer shut down moments. This past Thursday she only sniffed the ground once and only for a few seconds and then she immediately refocused on me.
Trophy is suddenly having problems stopping in his 2o2o lately, but only on one obstacle at a time. Last week it was the dog wall, this week it was the a-frame.I don't know what his deal is. In general he is doing well. I'm pretty impressed by his weave entrances lately. Not perfect, but I'm baby sitting him less. My biggest problem with him is thathe is in love with a classmate because she brings things like meatballs and ham. If she says his name he takes off to her and couldn't care less that we were in the middle of a course. At least I know if I ever can't run him he will do backflips for the chance to run for her.
Demo is doing really well. My instructor says he has "contacts to die for". Unfortunately, despite me finally trusting in my dog to not kill himself and relaxing when I run him, I have inadvertently slowed down his performance. Not that he is slow by any means. Now we are working on getting him weaned off his target discs and to hold his contacts no matter what I do until he is released. He is so much fun to work with. He's on the fast track to move out of his beginners class. He basically ran a full course last week, with a little help on the teeter. Have I mentioned how much fun he is? I'm hoping to get our a-frame out of long term storage and work on contacts at home.
Eevee (bet you weren't expecting to see agility updates about her) is learning to go through tunnels already. And I borrowed my instructor's babydog teeter board. She has once again proved her fearlessness as she ran across it several times without blinking. Then we started started working on hitting her contacts. She is one smart cookie.
I got to run my instructor's sheltie in a practice run too. That was fun. She ran him first so I got to see where his problem spots are. Then I ran him twice, the final run being pretty good, the only error being where he turned right and took an off course jump instead of heading left into the tunnel I was cuing. His mom was sitting to the right so I didn't take it personally. It's neat running a dog who totally understands his job on course (not having to baby sit weaves at all, for example) and gives you time to set up the next obstacle, but will show you where all your handling errors are.
Always so much to learn.
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