Agility updates

Lance is still doing really well in agility. Basically he just makes me look good. We're doing a lot of sequences now, including some with obstacle discriminations, serpentines, pinwheels, and threadles. Lance seems to get everything perfect the first time we do it! He really is an amazing dog and is extremely responsive to my body language. We're not doing a ton of contacts in class, and when we are it's mainly the a-frame. Lance still flies over the contacts so we're still putting a jump after it for him. Right now I'm not worried about it, I just need to make time to work on Lance running a board at home at greater and greater heights. I've been neglecting this area of training for awhile. With the teeter Lance is doing pretty well. It's still his least confident obstacle, but in class (the few times we do it) he's doing a really low height one fairly fast. At home there is now a teeter in our backyard that Lance has been practicing on. Here I'm just standing at the end and slowly lowering it as he runs. He seems to be really enjoying it!

I'm also very happy that so far only a small number of dogs have been coming to class consistently. This has meant that Lance has been paired with a little dog who has some focus issues, and tends to run off, but overall can do the exercises. He's not having to wait forever for the dogs he was stuck with before who have some major confident and attention issues.

Vito is also doing great in agility. In this new session they restructured the class and basically bumped up 75% of the dog's in his original class to the next level. This has meant that the class got a ton easier, but is really what Vito needs. He's still a baby and NEEDS all this foundation work that we're doing now. Mainly we're working on one jump exercises, teaching the dog's to offer jumping, turn tightly afterwards, take it even when it's parrallel to the dog, etc. Today we also did the teeter (not quite at full height), which tuns out to be Vito's favorite obstacle of all time. We haven't done it in class for awhile, but Vito was insane. I decided to make him sit and wait to be released and this was extremely hard for him. When released he flew like a mad man to the end! At the end of class we did a very short sequence with the dogs: tire, tunnel, jump, teeter. The first time through Vito did it with great speed but was fine. The second time through as soon as Vito shot out of the tunnel he eyed the teeter and sprinted straight for it, leaving me and the jump in the dust. I started over and immediately called his name and gave him a treat next to me after coming out of the tunnel and then directed him to his jump and beloved teeter. What a naughty boy!