Thursday, July 24, 2014

Agility 1: Week One

We've started the next agility course before we've even finished our pre-agility course, but that's what the weather gods had in store for us. I think we suffered a bit because of it.

None of the dogs in our previous class were in this one. Buster was very excited and agitated to be around a bunch of new dogs. He wanted to meet them and play so badly.

The first thing we did was learn a front cross. You cross in front of your dog as he is walking in a straight path. Not hard.

But then we tried a front cross while our dog went through a tunnel. That would have been fine if Buster remembered tunnels. He would go in and as I'd run to meet him at the other end, he'd pop back out the entrance and follow me. This proved to be a problem over and over throughout the class.

After we all did the tunnel exercise, we then did a full sequence involving two front crosses, 2 jumps and 3 runs through tunnels. Buster did pretty well on the first run and completely fell apart on the second. He did so awful we had to go back to basics where the instructor held him at one end of the tunnel and I called him from the other end, and even then, he still just wanted to run directly towards me and not go through the tunnel.

So the lesson for me is to buy a tunnel! I'm trying to find a cheap one ($20 or less), but even on ebay that's hard to do. 

Update: I purchased a Pawhut 16.4 ft Tunnel on ebay for $28. It was sturdy enough for a 65 lb dog to run through and came with a carrying case. Buster's trainer could tell the next week that he had been practicing. Never had trouble with tunnels again. Highly recommend.

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