Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Tuesday's class

I went to class yesterday even though it was my birthday and I would've rather just been out chasing squirrels or something. Mom says I am still young enough to learn new things so off to class we went.

Class was about backy uppys, serpentine recalls to heel, foundation recalls, and double fronts with some obstacle discrimination thrown in. We warmed up at one jump with the BU, SR, and FRTH. (abbreviations by me). Mom chose to use the triple and double jumps for me just to get me more exposure to them. I did fine and did knock any bars or anything.

Then we had to do sequences that included those handling skills. The first one was jump to aframe but there was a straight tunnel next to the right side of the aframe. Mom knew I would want to take the tunnel and while most people started with a lead out and the dog on their right and just said, "Frame" and the dog went up the aframe, mom ran with me on her left and tried her hardest to block my access to the tunnel (planning to rear cross me as I went up the aframe as there was no room for her to get around the right side of the tunnel). Well I could not be thwarted and took the tunnel any way! Yay for me! I love tunnels! And it WAS my birthday. Then I did double, triple and I was supposed to look at mom and run by the big gaping obvious right end of a curved tunnel and follow her around to the far-away left end of the tunnel. Mom called my name and I blew past her and into the wrong end. But I was very happy about it - I had a huge grin on my face (and I have to say again it was my birthday)! Jenn was NOT happy about it and she said to mom (and I quote) "He is extremely unresponsive to his name!" Well. So there.

I also ignored mom on a serpentine recall involving a 180 and preferred to go and do the chute! Yes, somehow the chute and I have become good friends!

At the end of class we did a timed experiment to see what would be the fastest way for each of us teams to handle a 180 - backy uppy was first, then serpentine, then the double front. It was fun and of course I was fastest with the double front. This will be a good exercise to try again in our yard and to video for you guys some day! We will try to remember.

After class I got to go to my favorite pet store and they gave me lots of treats and I got a new bully stick - I love to chew on them and they are really helping to clean my teeth! Also they had a Nino Ottosson Dog Magic game out on the floor of the store and I got to play with it -


I had it figured out in no time and had a blast moving those silly bones out of the way and getting the FOOD underneath. Mom was glad she didn't have to bother to buy me a new toy!

It has finally warmed up around here - today was 59! So most of the snow is gone and we just have a little ice in the grass where the sun never shines on it to melt it. Our yard is all soupy muddy puddley now. But in the very back of the backyard the ground is drier so mom set up my table with a straight tunnel right next to it and we practiced jump to either table or tunnel and sometimes mom called me off - and guess what? I was responsive to my name! Ha! It felt so great to be outside doing agility again. AND our daffodils are starting to peek up out of the ground. We know winter is not completely over but this is such a nice and welcome break from all that snow and cold!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky


10 comments:

Sam said...

So you are a tunnel suck.. Marge is the opposite. I think she's magnetically attracted to the A-Frame!

Hope you had a happy birthday.. you're lucky to have a Momma that gives you the gift of agility all year round. :)

Kiyi Kiyi said...

What a great day! That sounds like so much fun!

Unknown said...

Well, it WAS your birthday after all. How can then expect you to behave perfectly? Your trainer was a bit of a meanie! Couldn't she see you were having such a great time?

I love that new toy you got! We've always wanted to get one for Eva but unfortunately they don't sell them here in Malaysia :(

Sara said...

That sounds like a fantastic birthday Ricky! Glad you had fun doing tunnels. That's all that matters :)

Enjoy your bully stick.

Arran, Arthur and Mum said...

Sounds like you had a fun class Ricky! I love tunnels too, I casnot wait till summer when I can do them again!! Yippee!
~lickies, Ludo

Diana said...

Sounds like class was lots of fun for Ricky!! There are just some days like that. Ive been to class where my dog looks like she doesnt know anything. LOL Im soo happy the weather is getting better!!

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

That 180 exercise sounded like fun! i would like to do that. You have to remember to LISTEN to your NAME on your birthday????? WHen did that start??? I thought that was a total free pass day.

Dawn said...

What a great birthday Ricky! Katie is an A-Frame suck. I have no idea why. I think on your birthday you get to choose when you want to be responsive to your name, right? Isn't there a rule somewhere about that? I'm sure there is.

I'm glad about the snow leaving and the daffodils. Can you arrange for our yard to be all clear of snow when we get back? Thank you!

Amy Wood said...

Sounds like a good class. When we were doing agility my sheltie, Scotty, loved the tunnels too! He would do the same thing when the A-Frame and tunnels were set up that way in our class. Glad to hear you had fun on your birthday!

Marie said...

Zoe says to tell you that she thinks it's perfectly acceptable to not be responsive to her name when she's doing agility and her course is obviously better than mine!