Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Agility Class

Our agility class resumed tonight and may I just say, THANK DOG!  Moira so needed to get out and do some work.

Our whole class was there and we went from 7:40 until 9:30!  It's supposed to be an hour class but we all have such a great time and the dogs are so wonderful that our classes almost always run long.  I learned 2 important things about running with Moira:

1)  She needs me to run as though there is a bear chasing me.  The faster I run, the happier she is.  So much for the idea that I will be able to stand and point.  This girl wants a fast partner - at least right now.

2)  For some unknown reason, she doesn't want to do the broad jump.  We started with just 2 sections and she was fine.  When we added the 3rd section to make it the right width, she balked and absolutely refused to jump it - even for a meatball.  So next week we will be spending some extra time working on that particular obstacle.

We also did some independent tunnel work tonight.  Moira picked it up right away and had no problem with being sent to the tunnel - until I had crappy timing with the reward at the other end and she decided that her chances of getting a treat were better if she stayed with me :(

All in all, a great class and it's wonderful to be back at it.

2 comments:

  1. With the broad jump, both my boys started out seeing it as something not worthy of jumping and they would run ON it. What helped adjust their viewpoint was to set up a regular one bar jump over the middle at 8 inches. They would have to jump to clear it and keep going, so after a few repetitions they got the idea. Maybe that would help Moira be less concerned about the broad jump part and get her to focus on the act of jumping.....

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  2. That's exactly what we are going to do at our next class. I think the issue is that she doesn't trust the obstacle. She stepped on it once and it gave under her feet so, clearly, there is a monster living there and it eats little red dogs.

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