Spot agility January 14th

So, Spot had agility class last Thursday. I decided not to take Shelby, since she doesn't have any competitions coming up, and hopefully Spot will get into either the next All Dogs trial or Bo Gee trial.

This class we did some work on weave poles. Spot isn't great at them. He could do 6 poles if they were open. When we closed up the first set, he missed them and went to the second set. He gets so hyped up, it's like he just doesn't see them. It doesn't help that we don't work on them at home, but I just don't have enough space.

Next we did a jump grid. This is where you set up 4 jumps at a low height in order to encourage the dog to bounce through them. This means landing and taking off right away without a step in between. Like flyball jumping. This helps the dog learn their optimal take off point and learn how to jump more efficiently. The first time we tried it, we had 2 jumps. Well, Spot took off and jumped both at once! Once he understood, he did really well. He had no problem with 4 jumps. Some dogs don't plan well, and by the time they get to the 4th jump, they are off balance.

Then at the end we did a small sequence. Part of the sequence was a rear cross. I feel like Spot's rear crosses are suffering the longer we train. Like before, he just charged ahead and didn't care, but now he's actually paying attention, so he sticks with me. So I need to do some rewarding for going ahead.