Agility!

We started back at agility class this week, and Iris did great. As soon as we pulled into the driveway at the barn, she started crying. When I got out of the car and left her, it was the WORST THING EVER. It's a good thing I parked away from the barn because she was acting as if I was leaving her FOREVER. Crazy dog. Of course I went back for her after I walked the course. I guess someone was happy to be back at class. Ready to work or ready to cause trouble? Maybe a little bit of both.

The course had a couple pinwheels and a discrimination between a tunnel and the dogwalk. I had a lot of trouble getting Iris to take the tunnel instead of the dogwalk. I was turning too soon, so Iris was coming in toward me to take the dogwalk. It didn't help that Iris likes the dogwalk better than the tunnel. At one point, I blocked her from the dogwalk, so she squeezed in between the wall and the tunnel, climbed onto the tunnel and hopped onto the dogwalk. Brat dog. Eventually I did get her into the tunnel, so then she took the teeter at full speed. After she got that one out of her system (I swear, she thinks that's more fun), she was good about her "wait" for the rest of the night.

While we were waiting for Iris' second run-through, Katrin's puppy Obi, really wanted to play with Baxter. Iris was convinced that it's her job to tell the puppy not to bark. No Iris, you're not the ultimate supervisior of the world. She thinks she is. Even though she was all revved up, she was awesome about working with me when I brought her out afterward. I really need to stop second guessing my dog. It seems like every time I think she can't/won't do something, she proves me wrong. Oh, and it's been one year since we started agility! Yes, this dog has come leaps and bounds. And she still continues to exceed my expectations.

During the second run-though, we still had problems with the teeter and dogwalk discrimination. I think Iris did get it faster the second time. Also, the second time Katrin had us do a front cross before the tunnel (the first time I did a back cross). I think maybe that helped? I really needed to get the front cross in sooner since I always felt like Iris was coming straight at me over the jump, but she was getting tired so I had to push her a little to get her out to the second jump in the pinwheel. Agility is a bit like a balancing act sometimes. I did manage to only screw up the course once, which I actually felt pretty good about. In the past, I've only been able to keep track of a couple obstacles in a row. I think that's still me needing to have more confidence in both my dog and myself! Because I expected to screw up after the third obstacle and didn't, I certainly hadn't planned for the fourth.

I had a nice tired Aussie dog when I got home.