Happy Dog Agility

Happy Aussie came out to play on Tuesday! Last week Iris was pretty freaked out by new people and dogs, so it was good to see her bouncing and more relaxed. Katrin posted Tuesday's course diagram on Monty's blog. I really liked this course and I think I learned a lot from it.

I started the course with Iris on my left and crossed while she was in the tunnel. I'm pretty sure she saved my butt by guessing that the tunnel was right because she was out-running me and I wasn't sure where to throw a cross in at that point. It shouldn't be surprise me that my dog is a lot faster than I am when she wants to be. Later in the night, we tried the start again, and I did a rear cross/switch between jumps 3 and 4.

Iris came out of the tunnel, over the next jump and instead of curving back toward me for the next jump, she said "Hooray teeter!" Iris really likes contact obstacles, and I was completely facing the teeter. But she did wait on the teeter perfectly without me standing right there to grab at her or remind her a half dozen times to wait. Ok, so we tried it again. And again Iris demonstrated that she can wait nicely on the teeter. I still didn't turn my shoulders enough. This was definitely a handling challenge for me. Iris didn't seem to mind because she got to keep showing off on the teeter. She knew I wanted her to do something different but couldn't figure out what. She tried jumping over the tunnel and putting her paws up on the tunnel. When I did remember to turn my shoulders, I turned too much and Iris came in too tight and missed the jump. Ooops! I'm sill amazed by just how much my body language "steers" Iris. As soon as she did jumps 6 and 7 correctly (ok, it wasn't pretty because by that point Iris just wanted to be goofy, but she did go over both jumps), I had her do 8 and 9 which she did perfectly.

I think this is the first class Iris has been in that's followed by a different class. At the end of class, there were cars pulling up and people coming through doorways and she really wanted to bark at everyone. Katrin had me keep her out of her crate for a few minutes while Niel and Tessa did a few more jumps. Iris really settled down quick and then was happy to do a few more jumps. I was proud of her.