agility notes and whatnot

So....

1st trial-went really, really well. Griff crated well, was mellow and relaxed, friendly, focused, just in general a good boy. CPE trials seem very friendly and low-key, people were super nice when they realized it was my first trial, the judge was helpful and encouraging.

I wish I'd signed up for a game, so that I could have practiced one. I still don't get the rules of most of them, I guess it just takes seeing them a few times.

My olny complaint was his pre-start line behavior. Not even his start line behavior, which was the picture of focus. But as the dog ahead of us was running, he was getting a bit amped up. Probably wouldn't have bothered the average person, but I am so sensitive to him getting over aroused that it bothered me. I'm not sure how to address it yet...obviously I can't have food or toys within 10 feet of the ring, so I can't use a lure to keep his focus. Now that we are working with others in the ring at class, maybe getting to watch his classmates get all worked up and getting rewarded for calm behavior will help him? He was so glazed for a minute there I thought I would lose him. Luckily as soon as he reached the start line he was fine and ready to work...

Class has been a bit frustrating. We have a new dog in class, and quite frankly, she's not at the level that the rest of us are. This wouldn't be a big deal, except each of her runs takes like 15 mins, which cuts into the rest of our time. There are five dogs in the class, one of them shouldn't get 30 minutes of the run time. Frustrating.

We have a trial in March, and we're registered for jumpers, full house, as well as colors and two standard runs that are level 1. I either need to run colors and standard level 2 or move us to more games. I'm not sure what the best approach is. On the one hand, it'd be nice to see how he does on a course with weaves and a teeter, on the other, maybe not yet. It would also be cool to finish level 1, but I'm not sure I want to register for everything. It's a lot of pressure to run in all the legs we need to finish our title, then if I muck it up...Might be better to just do a level 2 colors and see how it goes...