I can't believe that there is only one more class left in this round! I feel like we have come so far in this time. Mostly, I am really proud of Duncan. For such a little dog, he has gained so much confidence. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this next week. Let's get to the good stuff.

Class went really well. I had JUST explained to one of the instructors that I thought Duncan might need some more contact work when he surprised me. After luring him over the A-frame once, he got it! I think he realized that if he flew over it, it wasn't all that bad. The instructor wanted us to attempt 2o2o (two on, two off). I keep bouncing between wanting to do this and not liking it. I'm going to rig something to practice it at home.



Notes:

It was obvious to me and everyone there - Duncan loves to run. He can't wait to get started. When he gets past a certain threshold, he can't sit for the start and I have to work with what I've got. I varied a few running starts with the waits. I think a Sit-Wait will be our goal. When I felt he wasn't giving me good focus, I walked around the obstacle (well, was instructed to!) and came back to him. I liked this approach. Since Duncan really wants to rrruuuunnn, I think he will quickly get the point that focus and a good wait get him what he wants.

2o2o - ugh. If you watch the very last run, we had a blast and no danger of jumping off the contact zone. Should I just watch it and risk having to re-train? Or should I put in the effort now so that later I am grateful? There is one clip where you can hear Thane say "fault" as Duncan clearly goes well into the contact zone. We had to watch it together to settle that! Too funny.

After a certain point, Duncan turns in to Mr. Barkerson. I ignore the best I can. The little happy barks are completely different and so, so very cute. Mr. Barkerson, however, doesn't listen or watch. He just hops around yelling about my bad handling.

Teeter - We need a trotting start for him to really get the feel. Also, I think we estimated the tip point too close to the fulcrum, when it needs to be out a bit more. Each time was a little worse because we went slower and slower.

The chute was a huge success. We finally got that one down pat. Yay for Duncan!

Can you say velcro dog? On the list to work with on the field: go, out, left, and right.

Overall, I was extremely happy with my Duncan. We have a long way to go, but man it was great to feel like we were getting somewhere! On of the instructors came up to me at the end of class and said, "You have an agility dog now."

This week has been miserable, so we haven't gotten to do much training. My house isn't that big, so we really don't have space to do it inside. I am petitioning Florida weather to pick somewhere between the 100+ temps and the pouring rain!

The following video sums things up nicely.


As you can see, Duncan is doing great at the home weave set. I like the channel weaves quite a bit. We're at just over half a turn (about 95 degree turn from original open position). As you can ALSO see, we got rained out. I barely got everything inside before the onslaught began! The tugging is working nicely for at home training if it isn't too hot.

Moving on to class. Thane took some video sporadically. We did much more than chutes, weaves, and tunnels. Duncan balked a little at the contacts. He just wasn't focused tonight, but I don't think I was either. Not sure, but we weren't clicking as well as last week. Probably due to lack of practice. Oh well!

Duncan hasn't really had an issue with chutes until today. We finally dropped the cloth all of the way and he got confused. We backed it up and I think he'll do better when we have amazing tunnels. Speaking of tunnels, the few times on the video were some of our best for the night. I think he's confused because for tunnels and weaves, he isn't right next to me. I need to work on distance with him, but I'm afraid of doing too much, too soon (especially considering we are doing two sports with him).

See that pitiful weave? Hear my strained high pitched voice? Gah. That kind of summed up the practice. Duncan found everything he wanted on the floor and only thought about me if I was a lunatic. I think I'm going to pick up my Control Unleashed book again and work on focus exercises.

Brag that isn't on the video: Duncan did the teeter three times without even a flinch! I lured him the whole time with turkey hotdogs and the teeter was smoothly dropped to a medium high wait table by an instructor. We didn't want to over do it, so we left it on a success. I was so proud of my baby.

Sad news - no Flyball tomorrow. It got moved to tonight and we had Agility. I'm going to get some practice in anyway, though!