Friday agility class and Sunday fun match at Riverside Canine

I had agility class with Spot and Shelby on Friday night. My work week wasn't too stressful, so I actually felt ok and ready for class.

Spot did well in class. I'm a little concerned about his weaves. I'm not sure he really gets it. Sometimes he runs by the poles and looks for his toy, so I'm not sure he knows that he's getting rewarded for going between the poles. His clock work is going really well. I can get about 10 feet of distance on the side, next to the jump and calling him over the jump to me. We did a nice sequence at the end of class of two jumps to a tunnel, then a front cross to a jump with a post turn then two more jumps. Spot did well, I needed to work on my front cross. I was kind of doing it in place, trying to make sure I got it in before Spot came out of the tunnel. He's not like Shelby, who likes to be behind and chase me. Spot likes to be out front, which can be a good thing for Jackpot, etc.

Then it was Shelby's class. The course was somewhat complicated with a twisty opening. I totally messed it up the first time. I wasn't mentally into it and Shelby was being weird. I think I need to stop having Spot's class right before Shelby's class, because I have to go out and switch dogs, walk them both, bring Shelby in, warm her up, then walk the course once to see the sequence, then try to figure out a strategy. I really don't feel like I have time to come up with a plan and I feel like I'm wasting my class time. The second run through is always better, but I know I could do better overall if I weren't so rushed.

On Sunday I dragged myself out of bed and drove up to Riverside Canine in Nashua. They were having a fun match. I will be doing a trial on the 28th, and we haven't been to a trial since Oct, and not an indoor trial for a year, so I wanted to see how Shelby would do. She's been to Riverside before. There were about 25 people there, with some totally new dogs and some experienced. I think there is a trial there next weekend, so some people were using the fun match to get their dogs acclimated, which is a great idea.

They had 3 nested courses. Novice, Open and Excellent, I think. I liked the Open course, but decided to do the Novice so I could concentrate on Shelby and not really worry about handling. The course was 3 jumps to a tunnel under the dogwalk, then a 180 to take the dogwalk, then a jump to 6 poles, then the table, the A frame, 2 jumps to the teeter then another 180-ish to a 4 final jumps in an arc.

I was pleased with Shelby. She was excited to be there, but not crazy. She set up no problem and held the stay, even with the other dogs distracting her, so I went back and rewarded her. I lead out to jump 2 and then I realized my forward motion mis-cued Shelby and she headed toward the A frame, but I called her and she took the double jump and the tunnel. She came out of the tunnel and came up the dog walk. It was a little sloppy, but she hit the up contact. At the other end, she was slow to the contact. I definitely want to improve contact speed. Then we went to the jump and Shelby blew past the weaves the first time. We went and tried again and she did great. Then the table and the A frame. Shelby didn't stick her 20/20 on the A frame, even though her descent was sooo slow. I think it may have been because she was looking for a reward. Then I did a rear cross to take the two jumps to the teeter. Again, teeter was a little slow, but then she had to get out and around to take the next jump and it was no problem. The end I just ran as fast as I could and Shelby loved it. She jumped into my arms at the end. I'm encouraging that so I will be able to get my hands on her ASAP when the run is over and not have to worry about her running out of the ring.

I'm glad I went to the fun match. Our last trial experience wasn't great, and class hasn't been great lately, so I was starting to wonder why I was even doing agility. This reminded me that it can be fun. We'll see how the next trial goes. I'm only entered on Saturday and only Standard and Snooker, so even if it sucks, it won't be so bad. :-)