weaves, teeter, and contacts...

Barn this AM was crowded..I've never seen that many people there on a Sunday morning, must be because classes start this week.

Teeter-awesome. He seems to really get having to tip the board and shift his weight backwards. Must watch that he doesn't bail off. Why does he always think of new ways to run obstacles (he jumped on top of the tire again today)

Weaves: 6 perfect, 12 better with me on the right, with me on the left he pulled out at weave 10 so we aborted mission and just did 6 on that side. I still must keep pace with him thru the poles.

contacts: eh. only the A frame was up, and I hate sending him over it repeatedly, so we worked it in sequence, and he was spotty. He's again fine as long as I pause, but if I move he does too. I didn't work his release hard enough in the beginning.

My biggest concern for Feb's trial is that he'll knock a bunch of bars. If my handling is lazy, his momentum slows and he knocks bars. If I'm unclear, he knocks bars. Jumpers may be a nightmare. I need to look into that one jump program....

It's hard being a novice, because I can see the flaws in my handling and my understanding , but I don't always know how to fix them. I hope our instructor really nags my handling this round of classes.

Since we had to wait so much, we practiced stays, heel and "look at that dog". He's so much better when he gets to play that game than when I forget and try to keep his attention only on me the whole time.

So the plan for class is to bring his soft travel crate and have him practice being in there some of the time in prep for the show. I will probably try to crate him minimally, but since I don't really know when I'll be running and since I have to be there early to have him measured, it might be a necessary evil.

Side note: agility people are weird. I guess dog people are weird in general, and luckily people tend to have more fun with agility, so they tend to be less tense and nasty to their dogs, but still. I am used to APDT trainers at conferences, who can still be odd, but are more aware of their own dogs and what potential consequences are. People at the barn think nothing of having their dogs off leash, of walking them really close to a working dog, or letting their dogs drift into other dogs' faces without asking...I don't want to set Griff up for a reactive response since I think he believes that we don't visit with dogs during agility.