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how's he doing? sadie's going to her first agility class tonight. i'm hoping she'll do ok but sometimes in situations where she's on a leash and around other dogs she gets kind of barky. it's a small class though, so hopefully she'll get used to the other dogs quickly.
If Sadie barks at the other dogs it could just be excitement or maybe she is a cheerleader type dog if she is doing the barking while they are running the course. If she barks when she is doing it it is the fun factor or like Jazz she thinks YOU made a mistake and she has to correct you! If she is barking because she does not know the dogs that will improve. The important thing is for both you and Sadie to have fun.
Right now we have a bit of a break as the instructor needed to take a few weeks off so a new session begins on May 9th. Last week I went to club practice but there is so much going on at the park where they have practice that it is hard to keep Dazzle's focus. I set up some weave poles and a contact board so we could practice our weaves and touches on the contact instead of trying to run the advanced courses that were set up.We did go out and make an easier course by running it in our own way twice. Dazzle has a thing about the table and if it is out which it was he rushes to it and sits on top so I was working on getting him to do the tunnel that was wrapped around two sides of the table. Other problem with practice are there are a couple dogs that he knows form other places that he was allowed to play with so he sees them and gets all silly wanting them to play.
The other club in town offers a " fun and focus" class. I ams going to see when it is but working nights makes evening classes difficult as things always fall on the nights I work!
He is never going to be the agility dog Jazz and Dash were but that is oK as long as we have fun we will go to club practice and play and one day if he learns to focus maybe he can try a real agility competition.
I did take Jazz to practice and while she is too old to jump we did do tunnels weaves and the dog walk so she seemed happy and like she felt that she still has it I really miss running the course with her as she was good and saw it as serious work so did not goof around. I reall hate the fact that she is so old now.
sadie did really well in class! well, behavior-wise. she was a little barky, but not too bad. the only other class i've taken her to was a force-based trainer, and she got borderline violent at those, so i was pretty worried. but she doesn't get that way with positive training!
as for the agility stuff, she loves the tunnel and did all right with the ladder on the ground but just didn't get walking on a board. one of the people in the class suggested raising it a little and i think we might try that next time. i really think she doesn't understand that there's a difference between the board and the floor.
she was itching to go on the giant a-frame, i've run her on littler ones and she looooves it! but they didn't have any little ones set up.
sadie's doing really well still. today she graduated to a board that teeters just a little and for some reason she did way better on it. she did it perfectly a couple of times. she's doing super well on tunnels (bent and straight), collapsed tunnels, and that thing where they have to step over little jumps to even out their stride. she learned "table" almost instantly. she also tried to climb onto the big teeter from the side, oops!
she is getting really good at focusing on me, which was one of my main objectives in taking this class. i still need to work on the duration of her focus, cause she'll look at something, i'll tell her to look at me, she'll look at me and then go right back to whatever it was. but in general she is getting less and less distractible.
i don't know if she'll ever be competition level, but i don't really care. she really enjoys it (except when she gets confused/frustrated) and so do i, and it's a fun and structured way to keep working on basic obedience stuff and just keep her brain working.
I am glad to hear that Sadie is enjoying agility to me that is what it is all about.
I think Dazzle being a sight hound lacks that great focus to ever make a great agility dog but he does have alot of fun and I enjoy knowing he is having fun. When we head to class on Sunday mornings the minute he realizes where he is going he gets very excited and cries in anticipation.
Dazzle added yet another new obstacle to agility. There is a woman that assists the class but alot of the time she is sitting in her chair off to the side. Her chair was behind the tunnel and Dazzle came over 3 jumps bypassed the tunnel and ran and jumped in her lap. Then he turns and grins at everyone and they all laugh so I took him back to repeat the 3 jumps to the tunnel and he tries pulling the lap jump again only she stopped him.
He can do everything and is the first to really do the weaves and do a good touch on contacts but his silly desire to act crazy always gets the best of him until he starts to get tired. He is smart enough just not focused enough. We are in class with alot of aussies and when I watch them I do miss that focus and intense desire to please me as both Jazz and Dash had that so both could run a clean course. Of course for demos Dash always hammed it up and make crazy mistakes as he seemed to know that demos were for the enjoyment of the people watching verses a real competition. I do miss him out there and I also miss Jazz being able to run the course but at 14 she can handle tunnels and teeters, weaves and the dog walk but no jumping so it just isn't the same.
last night we had a substitute teacher, and she was SO MUCH better than the regular teacher! this teacher was just so much more observant of our and our dogs' behavior, and much better at explaining how some of the exercises we were doing related to skills we/our dogs needed for agility trials. she was also a lot more willing to try different methods if one didn't work. she helped me get sadie to go across a fairly wobbly teeter (which so far is her weak point) like a pro! i'm definitely going to look for her classes in the future. i don't feel like our current teacher is awful, but i do feel like we could be getting more out of the class.
oh bummer, she only teaches the highest level class. so i guess i'll look for her 5 classes from now (we're on agility 100, so we need to do 101-103 plus handling 1 & 2).
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Other problem with practice are there are a couple dogs that he knows form other places that he was allowed to play with so he sees them and gets all silly wanting them to play.
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