Last week I was seriously considering pulling Trophy from Agility.
Between his recurring back issues where he's had pinched nerves in his spine from several vertebrae that are frequently moving out of alignment and causing issues and the fact that he has been so darn pokey and uninterested on course I was ready to throw in the towel and call it quits. He wasn't having fun so I wasn't having fun so he was having even less fun... it was a vicious cycle.
So my instructor ran him for a bit and really got him revved up and really into the game again. His back was still out (didn't have time to take him in to the Chiro until yesterday) so he wasn't in top form, but for the first time in a long time we were having fun. A fellow student gave us some hot dogs to up the rewards (Zukes apparently isn't good enough for agility) and both Pan and Trophy got into it more.
Fast forward to today. Took a huge container of hot dogs with us. Took a deep breath. Promised Trophy we'd have FUN. and off we went. The course today was really fun and challenging without being frustrating. Started with a jump to Trophy's favorite obstacle - the teeter which I'm sure helped him - to the table and then a tricky set up where the dogs needed to NOT get sucked into a tunnel while we did a front cross in front of the second jump to the weaves. I think Trophy and I were the only team who really nailed front cross correctly. Also, his weaves were really, really good!
His sends out to jumps was also very good.
I'm really happy with how today went. One week at a time with him. Maybe we'll actually get to a trial yet. :)
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