Agility training

Started our next session of Agility classes last night.

A few returning students and a few new students.

One of our returning students was chatting with me, she's a middle aged woman with an Afghan. I was giving her some feedback on things, and she asked how long I had been doing agility. I told her I started with my GSD at about a year old, so that would be 4 years ago. She said, "You know, you're really good at this." This woman is sort of a know-it-all and very brash, pretty intimidating. So it was a lovely compliment coming from someone like her, especially.

My pet classes are fine, but it isn't information/teaching that comes naturally to me. Teaching agility does and I love it.

We had a good time tonight and I *Think* may have had a breakthrough with her right hand weaves. Still slow and too lured for my tastes but she at least wasn't trying to do them on her back legs this week.... Her left side weaves hit every time perfectly. We did some good little sequences. She jumped her contacts twice. But really it was a great class and we had a lot of fun.

God I love that dog. She's so good.

Had a wonderful class with Jari today. He was just ON. It was so cool to watch him. Kimma was off a bit, but she is allowed to have a bad day now and again. She ended things with a happy, easy and fast run, so I'm pleased.

Fun run last weekend went pretty good with P. No contacts set up so we just did weaves and start line stays. Got some really good weave stuff with him. It might not transfer to the actual trial this weekend, but I have WITNESSES that Payton can do really great weaves, independently, even with some really tough entries.

WITNESSES.

Too bad they didn't have contacts set up because that's really what I wanted. But Stuart's opinion was if one improves I will probably also see improvement on the other, so... here's hoping.

Bloo is so much fun to train.

This little dude had a blast crossing and wrapping some stanchions and getting used to the teeter two nights ago at class.

[youtube]0mbEeHPTipI[/youtube]

I'm bummed that he was sold so fast!

PAYTON WEAVES.
ALL 12.
THE FIRST TIME.
IN A TRIAL.

AND THEY WERE GLOOOORIOUS.

Yay Payton!

YAY! Go Payton!!!!!

That's awesome! Way to go Payton!

2/3 contacts today, no table fly-off, and more beautiful weaves. Would have had JWW if not for a dropped bar. Haven't looked at the video but I think it was my fault.
A very good weekend for the baby P. After last trial and this one combined I feel like maybe we are going somewhere with this, finally. I had a trial like this before where progress seemed to be happening and then the next trial was such a disaster that undid all of that... this is two in a row. So I think it's for real this time. I think it might be happening.

So haven't really trained in probably 3 months or trialled since February (regionals doesn't count), Iwanted to go out but didn't have time. So entered a trial anyway. Well, Iz is an old shoe now because we pulled off a 5/6 weekend with just a knocked bar preventing us from a perfect 6/6 (due to a poorly timed blind on my part... hey it's been a while!)

1 Masters Jumpers - Beautiful and smooth
1 Masters Gamble - nearly peed myself on that one because gambles aren't our thing
1 Masters Standard - Weave poles? No issue... Seriously now that we have her MADC, we're going to rake in the Standards
1 Steeplechase - First steeplechase Q, fast enough to qualify in regular time and plenty of time for veterans
1 Team Relay - Debuted the recent partnership of Izzie and Fitz, known as "Itz Fizzy"

So all in all it was a good weekend. She was running between 3.8 and 4.6 YPS all weekend which is exceptional for her. So proud of the little smushlet.

Yay Payton! Yay Pug!

I have a seminar Friday.. dread.

Congrats to Payton and Izzy!

I went to our last outdoor trial of the year (and probably our last trial of the year, given the footing indoors and my new concerns over Gusto). Just went for one day, and barely ran at all, because I wasn't ready to put Gusto on contacts.

Meg had a lovely standard run over a tough course, and then I stupidly over handled the second to last jump (which she didn't need help on) and completely missed my chance to get in place to cue the last jump, so she ran past it. Ah well. Someone came up to me after her run to comment just how happy Meg looked running - that's all I need from her at this point. She did Q in her other run of the day in jumpers, although I'm shocked she didn't get called on refusals, as she was all wound up and growling at me and spinning like a ridiculous border collie. I am so happy that she still loves trialling so much.

I did let Gusto run jumpers; he was sound and seemed happy to run. He didn't Q, as he ran a little wide and took an off course jump. He gets focused on obstacles far, far earlier in trials than in training; I am still trying to work out if it is a training issue or a stress issue.

He has his appointment with the rehab vet tomorrow, and, if we get the go ahead, a group lesson on Sunday. I'm feeling a little better about his ability to continue doing agility, with some additional care and considerations, after speaking to some people this weekend. I'm leaning towards not doing surgery on him at this point, although we will see how the appointment goes tomorrow.

Go Izzy!!!!

I hope Gusto is going to be OK without surgery. I can't imagine how hard it is for you already, BB

WOO PAYTON!

Kimma and I had our first trial back since May. She did good, even though her tummy was upset (she held it until we were all done but ugh she really must not have felt well!!). Nice Q in Standard and we ALMOST had the Q in Jumpers but I handled something wrong and pushed her out to a tunnel so she missed her weave entry. It's OK though because she was otherwise clean and pretty fast! We are doing lots of trialing over the next month or so - I'm so glad to be back in the game

I don't know whether Lo and I will be successful/competitive but we are going to have a ton of fun haha. Already having a blast with little monkeybean.

And...The Cheese and I will finally be back in competition soon! Effectively over a year off...yeesh. Can't wait!

I got to run Lodin's mom in class last night!! I think I'm going to enter an AKC trial in November with them.

Sooo happy to be back at class. We missed four weeks and last night Cbone rocked it! I also found that after he sees me run another dog he's waaay more motivated.

It's about that time that summer activities are dwindling and trialing begins! Woo!

Foxy and I just got back from our first real agility class and I'm so proud of her! She hesitated the first time she encountered each new piece of equipment but on her second try she acted like she had been running agility all her life. I've wanted to get involved with agility since I was a little kid, so to finally be able to and to have a dog who loves it, it's just a dream come true!

Hurray for both of you! And for igniting some useful jealousy in Crossbone haha

Izzie video!

[YOUTUBE]Q47FeEokxh0[/YOUTUBE]