More agility

Sorry we forgot that it was Tricky T-Day today so we'll try to remember to play on the other T-Day in the week!

Since it's more or less summertime now, we spend far less time in the house and at the computer than we used to. So we get really behind at sharing our activites with all our blogging friends. We've been on some great walks - including a brand new place for me - a huge park about 45 minutes from here. We've been practicing a lot of backyard agility - working on running the down plank of the dog walk using my teeter board on a cement block (in my novice comp. class last Wednesday night, I jumped off the side of the down plank above the yellow twice! - mom was turning and trying to get me to go faster - so I did! - but now we have to work on making sure I know to go all the way to the end), practicing serpentines with two jumps and the tire, and throwing a food container (that bolt holder thingy that Sara told us about once - I can't remember what it was called) out ahead so that I run faster forward through the weaves or over jumps or down the dogwalk board. It works really well, but mom's not sure how that eventually translates into making me faster when she doesn't throw it. We'll make a video soon so you all can see.

Today we started a new class called handling drills and skills and it's held outdoors at the instructor's house at 9:30 in the morning. We had a great time! I was a little distracted when we first got there but I was soon able to focus better. There are only four dogs in the class - and they are all tri-colors! Two Berners and two Shelties! The small class size is wonderful but there are three jump heights so we are constantly running around changing the bars. Today's class was taught by Jenn Crank (her mom Susan is going to teach the rest of the time). It was very exciting to have a USA World Team member as our instructor. She is really good - and nice too. In this class we focused on forward sends and parallel sends. It's hard for me to get motivated to jump when we are drilling the two sends and mom is standing pretty close to the jump - I did ok but not great. I sped up some once we started trying to incorporate those moves into longer sequences. We also talked a lot about turning cues - like deceleration - we are never supposed to use "come," "here," or the dog's name as cues to turn. It should be all body language. The last sequence of the morning was the best for us - Jenn said mom's handling was excellent on that one!!! We are really looking forward to next week's class! (Our Wed. night class overlaps with our new class for two weeks - so we have class twice this week and next).

Gotta zoom!

Ricky