Agility class

I am trying an 8 week session with Contact Zonies. Teka's Advanced II class is first; Cassi's Handling class is later. Their exercises were about the same though.

The first sequence was a circle (or horseshoe) of obstacles, but not taken in that order. The tunnel was on one end, and facing it, there was a tire hoop and a jump on the left and a serpentine of 3 jumps on the right. For Teka's class, we did the jump, tunnel, tire, the right end jump, round to the middle jump, and out to the left jump. She did it perfectly. Her last time through, we did the opposite sequence and she dropped a bar; the instructor said it looked like she got lazy. (tired?) In Cassi's class, we switched it up more but she did really well in each case. The tire proved to be the challenge. We had it lower (16"?) but she kicked it every time; in one case, hard enough that another student asked if she was okay. I have to get my tire fixed or get a breakaway tire to practice with her!!!

The next sequence was an A-frame with a curved tunnel underneath, headed out to a jump on each end (45 degrees from each other, so one was a discrimination), with a tunnel to the 3:00 from the end of the A-frame that did not have a tunnel discrimination. Teka's sequence was the A-frame to the jump, wrap to the tunnel open next to the A-frame, coming out to the jump on the side, switch to the teeter. She loves the teeter, so she made that part look easy! We also did it with a couple of front crosses, which actually made it more smooth for Teka. Cassi's class did more variations, such as starting on the side jump, into the side tunnel, out the tunnel by the A-frame exit, out around the jump to come back over it, over the A-frame. We had a LOT of trouble with that "out" and I had to basically block her from going over it. We also had a couple rounds with the teeter at the beginning (going around to the A-frame entry, out around the jump, into the tunnel, over the side jump) or end (like Teka's sequence), and she did the teeter with NO problem, no hesitation. And lots of treats.

Our last exercise was two pairs of straight tunnels next to each other (yellow, blue, then a large space, then green, and orange) with a purple curved tunnel at one end and two jumps at the other end, kind of angled, one from each pair of straight tunnels. We did a lot of variations, but essentially working on "out" without blocking the inside tunnel. We ran down the middle while they took the tunnel or out tunnel and so on. Teka had some trouble and actually went between the pairs of tunnels a couple times, but mostly got it. Cassi did really great except at one turn when she kept coming back out of the tunnel after she entered it. (Basically backing out!) I started telling her to go on while she was inside and she was able to complete it.

These seemed to be fun exercises for both the girls. The only incident worth noting is that during Teka's class, a young boxer decided to take a run around to find someone to play with, and he got into a bit of a scuffle with the dog in Teka's group who was on the teeter at the time--he jumped off when the boxer approached. Teka started to act like they were playing and she wanted to, but when they started scuffling, she started growling and lunging, so I grabbed her and held on until the boxer was under control again. I'm glad (I think) that she wasn't the one on the teeter. But maybe since that's her favorite obstacle, she would have stayed and I could have dealt with the boxer instead of dealing with her. I am her protector, after all!