Tonight was exercise night; it's not so much that I don't like running exercises, it's that I really, really enjoy the flow of running courses (guess it's a good thing that exercise night seems to be few and far between with these instructors). I missed class again on Monday, but after the second time now going to the Wednesday night class, I think I may switch to Wednesdays, since the class is about 1/3 the size.
We spilit up into groups and worked with both of the instructors and worked independently on contacts. One instructor was working on handling with wrap arounds and tight serpentines, all jumps. I must admit to getting a little frustrated with her, as she wanted me to really get after Mikey for knocking jumps; as in pick up the bar and shake it at him or poke at him. EXCUSE ME!?! Happily she didn't push me much for doing it 'her' way and I just put Mikey on a drop every time he knocked a jump and made him wait while I reset the jump and then made him start over. There is NO WAY I'm going to do anything to take away from the joy Mikey gets out of doing agility.
Plus, I think when a dog is working really hard on technical stuff that requires a lot of mental work on their part, it's just expected that the physical performance may suffer temporarily. And some of it too is recognizing Mikey's physical limitations. He's not a Border Collie (as much as he may act like one). Mikey is very athletic for a Cardigan, and I think it's only fair to realize that even if he can turn on a dime, a slightly wider turn may give him a better chance to set himself up for a clean jump. IMHO.
Currently reading 'Escape' by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer.
Holly and Mikey say 'Hi.'
4 comments:
Just found your blog. Wonderful! We have 4 Pembrokes and a Cardi X. Yours are gorgeous. Join a bunch of us at http://mycorgi.com.
I really want to do agility, but we move around so much, hard to haul equipment or find classes. Maybe next move (Iowa or Delaware) I'll break down and head down to Home Depot and build some PVC pipe jumps. I took one 6 week class and GoGo did well. Wish he wanted to please a little more than he does. Sometimes he says, "Ef you, I do what I want, and right now I want to sniff and pee."
Is there and "Agility for Dummies" book? ;)
Poke your dog with a bar? Not a training strategy I am familiar with I guess!
I don't know the first thing about training or agility, but I don't like anyone who thinks you should be mean to Mikey!!!
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