Agility Class

A few notes on agility class last week -

• Iris was a bitch. I really need to get her out just to work her around other dogs/people. It's been a while since she tried to run over to the other dogs instead of playing agility with me. At the very beginning of class, I kept her right outside the door and she was actually doing a really good job of not reacting to the dogs inside. I'm not sure why she fell apart when we got inside.
  
  
• TURN SOONER. I really need to remember this. My dog knows what a jump is. I don't need to run over and stand right next to the jump to show her where it is. She knows what she's doing. I had some trouble with her going too wide when we turned and therefore taking the wrong obstacle. This included taking the a-frame, which wasn't even part of the course. I need to turn my body and shoulders sooner.
  
  
• Iris needs more work on weave poles but actually less than I thought. We haven't practiced much because the ice and snow has really limited us to indoor training. In class, the first time Iris approached the weaves, she missed them completely and took the tunnel. I do know what happened. I was thinking about the front cross between the weaves and the tunnel, so guess what obstacle I was looking at? Bad handler! During the first run, there were cages on all the weaves, but for the second run, the cages were only on one side. I forgot some of the cages were off and was only thinking about getting ahead of Iris to get the front cross in. Well, Iris was perfect! And she did it without me babying her. Good girl!
  
  
• No flying off the teeter! Iris was awesome about waiting. I was a good distance behind her when I asked her to wait too.

Our last run of the night, I thought things were starting to come together. I had Iris turning in the right places and ignoring the other dogs. I managed to get both front crosses in (the second wasn't as pretty as the first, but they were both there!) But it felt good.