Agility and Zoomies

The red dog had a blast at agility on Tues. She certainly seemed less stressed in general than she has been the last few weeks.

Julie posted the course map on her blog. Thanks Julie! I had trouble remembering the course while we were running it, so it helps seeing it now. The course started with a tunnel. I admit it, I thought Iris was going to run around the tunnel. Nope! She had absolutely no problem with it. After the second tunnel, I needed to front cross in order to get Iris into the next tunnel instead of the a-frame. Well, I got the front cross in, but I kept losing my dog. After I would do the front cross, I'd be so relieved I pulled it off, I was pausing. I needed to look where I was going and keep moving. Iris was not really in the mood for pausing. She says, "I don't know what you're doing, but I's doing agility!" If I wasn't going to tell her what next, she was going to make it up herself, and she says a-frames are fun! Then the zoomies kicked in. Which had me laughing, which I'm pretty sure only encourages her. But hey, she was having a blast out there and considering how stressed she's been lately, I'll take it. She did sit when I asked her to (good girl!) and I got her attention back.

Towards the end of the run, Iris ran over to the other dogs to grab a drink from Carmen's water dish. (Iris says, "What are you guys all stressed out about, I only wanted a drink!" Hey, she's earned her reputation as a trouble maker). I just got her some new dried salmon treats. I think they smell bad, so of course Iris thinks they're awesome. They're really dry so I think they made her thirsty after all her zooming. Once she was back in her crate, I gave Iris some water and she actually finished it. She never finishes it. I may have to use the salmon treats at home and come up with something else for agility. Maybe back to string cheese? The little snob doesn't like it if I use the same treats too many times in a row. She says I'm B-O-R-I-N-G.

Iris' wait on the teeter was perfect (and she really thought about flying but didn't). We had a little trouble with waiting on the A-frame, but as soon as I remembered to turn toward her, she had no problem. She hasn't seen the chute in a while, so she did have trouble with it at first. Once she figured out the she could push through it, she did much better the second time through. I might try and come up with something chute-like to practice with at home. Once she goes throuigh it a couple of times, I bet she won't have any problems. She's nicknamed "the Kool-Aid dog" for a reason.

Now that she had such a fun time at class, I have to see if I can keep my red dog relaxed and happy. I'm hoping to get her out somewhere to play this weekend (maybe the beach?) Hence the color changes to the blog - I really didn't like the way my photos looked against the dark green, and I might try and get some new photos of the girl this weekend. Hopefully this will work better (snobby artist, I know).