Weeellll... tonight was definitely not one of our shiniest moments. Thane had play practice, so no videos - not that I would want evidence of the evening to survive.

We have been working and working on tunnels, weaves, and jumps (with a little plank thrown in) in the heat, with distractions. We've even gotten some pretty good distance work for our level. For the first 50 minutes of class, it felt like all of it was for naught.

As everyone was getting settled, I tried to run Duncan through a curved tunnel to warm up. He loves them so at home. He refused it. I gently put him at the beginning and tried to call him through. Nope. I stuck him in and crawled after him and he seemed to enjoy running through. One more time and he seemed warmed up, besides - the set up was being announced.

The instructors had four lines of three obstacles each set up for us.

Line #1 - Tire jump, teeter, weaves
      Tire jump is no issue if I put Duncan in a wait and call him from the other side. We have yet to get a Go. Working on it!
      Teeter... this is where my stomach sank a little. He wouldn't get on it unless I was constantly feeding him a turkey hotdog. Then when he was on, he walked to the end like nothing was a problem (instructor was guaranteeing a slow descent). The weird part? As soon as he was on, he ignored the food. That's right, a Sheltie did not want food. We tried it again and a few steps up he stopped. I tried every call, whistle, and thing I could thing of to entice him up. The instructor lowered the teeter before he passed the fulcrum hoping to encourage him down. Eh, he said, I guess I have to meander down this thing now...
      I suddenly remembered the tug! Oh, please work... It did a little, but his nose was still stuck to the ground. He got one or two really good weave passes before we moved on to the next line.

Line #2 - Wait table, dog walk, curved tunnel
      The wait table isn't a problem. I imagine we'll actually do more with it when he's actually running, but for now - no biggie.
      The A-frame is a contact, therefore Duncan did not like it today. His nose was glued to the ground. I tried running start, placing a line of hotdogs up the ramp, enticing him with his tug, and even tried to trade treats with classmates... nothing. So I picked him up and put him on the flat top part. What does he do? Saunter down the other side. I put him a little further back and get the same nice result (if sassy). I put him on the top of the first ramp and he goes down fine. But will he get on the contact of his own free will? Absolutely not.
      We did the tunnel just a few times, as Duncan was pretty good at this, if slow and distracted. The only time he really paid attention to me was to go in the tunnel (I guess because he did it) and the the two seconds afterward. Even if the 'party' was still going on, he was done with it. When we had a successful go of it with a little more attention, we headed back to the dogwalk. One of the other students (a terrier thing) snapped/growled/attacked a lab and was getting some direction while I was doing the tunnel, so we got a little more time on this line.
      A-frame again, why? Masochism. Duncan would not look at me, listen, wait, or sit because there was this spot on the floor that HAD to be licked or at least you MUST pull and try. I don't like having Duncan on leash for practice, but understand the necessity with anything with height. He never really pulls - ever. Until tonight. An instructor came over and I mentioned that ever since I've been treating on the ground rather than from my hand, my pup had had a preoccupation with the floor and his focus is gone. so no more ground feeding. We'll fix the eyes-glued-to-hands later. I was grateful when he had to switch.

Line #3 - Chute, A-frame, jump
      Chute? Nope, it's shoot! I called 'tunnel' as we ran up and Duncan went in. Yes! Wait, where is he? Oh... backing out and prancing toward me. I put him in a wait, went to the end and lifted the chute, and called him. He went around. Several more attempts later, and an instructor comes over to help. Thank goodness! She held him and I went around and repeated it. He ran through. We redid it several times until he went through the chute on his own. He really wanted the tug. Things were starting to look up...
      ...To the A-frame. We run up, I say "Up on it" which tends to just be what spews out of my mouth, and he diverts at the last second, avoiding the dreaded contact. We had a repeat of the dogwalk but worse, much worse. I felt like I was going to rip my hair out but was quite determined to have FUN and to get a success and to not show Duncan how grumpy I was at the world.
      The last jump was fine. Duncan will jump for me. I used the last few minutes to tug with him and try to raise his bruised ego, as I know I was not as peppy as I could have been on the A-frame.

Line #4 - Weird slanty jump, looooooong tunnel, jump
      The first jump was fine, I guess. Duncan did a decent wait but would not look at me. I got tired of waiting and called him over. It worked. Bad me for not sticking to my methods.
      There was a sign on the ground (where Duncan's nose was) in front of the tunnel: Tunnel refusal is much more fun than actually going through it. Duncan believed the sign. The instructor was trying to help me, but Duncan was being particularly uncooperative. She said, "Walk away and ignore him." Holy moly, it worked. He really wanted attention. Through the tunnel he went! He tried to goof up again and I walked away, playing bored. He followed like a puppy (haha... sorry). When I knew I had his attention, I put him in a wait and walked 10 feet in front of him. I was feeling a bit defeated and fully expected him to stare at something, move out of wait, or start smelling the bleeping floor again. Nope, we got our first three obstacle run of the night. Jump, looooong tunnel, jump, tug, tug, tug. It was awesome! We ran it like 10 times (okay, like 6), reveling in the glory of connectedness. We love tunnels.

At the very end, we were asked to do our least favorite then our most favorite things and end with a party. A-frame... not so good. Running a tunnel... very fun. It was a nice way to end that gut-wrenching class.