Monday, July 6, 2009

Agility Class 7/06/09

Class continues to work on acceleration / deceleration and developing better handler focus vs obstacle focus. And after tonight's course, I can see a difference in Slider. He is beginning to focus much more on me than the obstacles! Yeah!!! Towards the end of class, we had a course that gave Slider and I some really good challenges. I messed up in the beginning by not decelerating. It was jump / tire / jump and back to the tunnel. Since, I did not decelerate I pushed Slider to the A-Frame after the 2nd jump. I brought Slider back to the start line, and watched myself more closely as to when I needed to take it easy / decelerate, and he responded beautifully!!

Another tough situation for us was the last 2 obstacles: tunnel back to a jump to finish the course. Well, Slider tends to power out of tunnels so I thought that I would not make the jump. So, as he was going to the tunnel I told him "easy tunnel," and as he came out I was able to direct him "back / jump" and he did it!!!! I was very pleased with how he ran the course for me tonight!!! So, he had a jackpot of chicken after the run!!!

I'm enjoying that the courses are more challenging than what I would see in Novice.

1 comment:

tailsofgold said...

Isn't it hard to decelerate??? I have such a difficult time with that. I get running and I just want to keep on going! I'm so glad you guys are having fun :) Can't wait to hear about your trials this Fall!