5 Directions #5

In 5 Directions on Thurs, we worked on "Go." There were three jumps set up in a straight line with a table and a tunnel at either end. The idea was to have the dog go over the jump and pass the handler at the third jump to do either the tunnel or the table. Iris did really well with it, especially since she hasn't really don't anything with equipment in this class. She was happy to do all three jumps and only hesitated a little before going into the tunnel. She has no problem hopping up on the table, but I need to work on getting an automatic down. Iris wasn't really going very far ahead of me, but she seemed pretty happy to be playing with me and not overly distracted by the other dogs. There were a couple of moments where Iris thought it might be more fun to go supervise the other dogs instead of going in the tunnel, but she stayed with me (with a little help from Katrin blocking her...) Iris was a little more bratty than she has been recently, but in general, I think she did good.

Katrin pointed out that as long as I keep my arm up, Iris will go over the jumps, and as soon as I start to drop my arm, she starts to think about coming in toward me around the jump. I'm surprised by just how important body language seems to be to all of the dogs in class. I've never really thought about it before, but it makes sense because that's how dogs communicate with each other.

We were practicing "switch" and "tight" last night and I noticed that Iris seems to only pay attention to my body language. I think I could insert any word in there and it wouldn't matter to her right now because she's not actually listening to what I'm saying. If I'm staying more stationary, she just sort of walks around randomly hoping to guess right. I'm not sure how much that matters right now?