week one - advanced beginner agility

Last night was our first night in advanced beginner agility. Waste' & I are the only 'new' students. Everyone else has been thru this class a time or two before. Carrie, the assistant in our last class is the assistant in this class - she's the one who finally got us over the a-frame freeze. So, it's nice to have a familiar face to work with.

We split into 2 groups. One was most of the returning dogs and mine was made up of us and a chihuahua - oh i forget her name. They put her with us because she does not like to do anything at full height and his having huge issues with the weave poles.

So, first we did the training weave poles, spread about 6" apart; no guide wires. At that spread, Waste' just breezed thru... once they are closer, she has a tougher time. Then we did some handling exercises.
1. a circle of obstacles: a verticle, right tunnel, verticle, table. Carrie suggested I drop our leash at the table. Well, she just bounced the table and went for the leash. So, we decided I'd hold my own leash and not leave it as a temptation.
2. using a front cross: verticle to left tunnel - i have to cross in front of her as she is jumping obstacle and change hands, directing her to left entrance of tunnel (this proved very difficult to get thru my head) - to the verticle and bench. She does hit the bench pretty hard; hard enuf to make it skid across the floor. Thank fully this does not seem to spook her at all.

After we finished those exercises we moved over to work w/Christie. She wanted to evaluate Waste' and I on the contact obstacles. We also worked on some new handling techniques. There were 2 verticles on a bending line, leading to a tunnel. Unfortunately, the first verticle also headed us straight to the a-frame set at full height (which we have never done). Well the first technique was to leave the dog in a wait position angled to the first verticle. I am to position myself half way between the 2 verticles, point my left foot at the tunnel and raise my right hand and finger to get her attention. At this point she is to jump v1 towards me and then follow my body language around the bend, putting her in a straight line for the tunnel. If you remember, tho, this also puts her in a close proximity aiming at the a-frame. So what do we do? Yep, you guessed it... over v1, right past me and up over the a-frame, hits the bottom, turns around and back over it. After her 3rd trip over, I caught her. We tried this 2 more times w/the same result. I'm thinking that there is no problem with full height there! Christie finally came up with the great idea to put a gate in front of the a-frame which broke poor Waste's heart, but we did great over the exercise!

So that was it for last night. Next week is the GLKC dinner, so no class and Christie will be out of town on the 18th - we may do a drop in and work on our own that week.