Agility Class

We did 3 exercises, and I was paired with 2 other 20' dogs so I could do each exercise with Cassi, then one of the other dogs went, then Teka, then the other dog, then Cassi, and so on.

The first exercise was 8 jumps, set up in two rows.  Instead of going straight over the 4 in a row, we did front crosses in between jumps so that they did one on the right, then the next on the left, then the next on the right, and the next on the left.  Then we turned around and let them go over the four in a row to end where they started.  A fun exercise but so hard.  The instructors (and some others) have just gone to the Steve Moon seminar, so they were trying to retrain us to call the dog's name instead of saying "here" on our front crosses.  This was pretty difficult for me since I've been trained for years to NOT say the name without a command.

Next we worked on a sequence that was confusing in person, so this should be easy to follow.  :)  There was a curved tunnel, and to the right back side, but out to the right more, was a jump--that was the start and went into the end of the tunnel.  There was a jump to the left  of the tunnel and three jumps (like a serpentine) in front of the tunnel.  So coming out of the other end of the tunnel, we went over the jump, wrapping back to the serpentine.  On the last jump, the dogs were heading away from the handler, and they had to wrap to jump back over that jump, but not doing the serpentine again, rather going to the jump on the left of the tunnel, then wrapping back into the tunnel.  Coming out of the tunnel, they are supposed to go in between the middle jumps, over a broad jump.  That was super difficult for all of us.  Cassi had more trouble with it than Teka, but those jumps are pretty distracting!

Last, we had a sequence that had a jump, teeter, and two jumps lined up in the middle, with two curved  tunnels on the right side (before and after the teeter) and a curved tunnel on the left side.  The sequence was the jump, right tunnel, teeter, right far tunnel, farthest jump, wrap to jump, left tunnel, beginning jump.  (was there another jump between the first/last jump and the teeter?)  We did the sequence with these instructions: the first time through, stay on the right side of the teeter all the way through the course and the second time, stay on the left side throughout.  A very fun exercise but hardest with Teka getting her to go into the tunnel on the other side of where I'm standing.  Cassi did GREAT teeters.  I think Teka needs a little more practice on wrap.  I would like to invest in a bunch of jumps this summer so I can work on this at home.