Day 59 - Agility Class (week 3)

Jedi woke me up around 5:30 or so this morning with what seems to be becoming a bit of a habitual barking habit. For the record, this barking is not due to any sort of bathroom emergency. When I do finally get up he takes his sweet time getting out the door and has no real urgency to get off the deck and go. Indeed, he generally has to be reminded to get back out in the yard to poop before he comes back in the house.

I ignore him when the barking starts. I don't say anything, I don't do anything. He stops and I watch the news for a bit until I feel like getting up and then he gets let out. I'm hoping he figures out that the barking doesn't get him anywhere. It's not long and drawn out or anything, but I'd rather have that extra hour of sleep, you know. On the bright side, I probably shouldn't be setting an alarm for 6:30 anyhow if I'm going to make it to work on time, so it's probably for the best that he gets us up earlier.  :o)

For breakfast this morning we did a few leg pivots and then spent some time holding the jump bar. It's been a bit since we've worked on this one and Jedi jumped right in where he left off, if not better. He was giving really nice holds with his right paw. He still doesn't offer holds with his left paw, but he did offer both legs several times.

When I got home from work we went outside and spent lunch on the teeter. I set up the camera and hopefully got some decent footage, but I haven't had any time to edit it yet today. Hopefully tomorrow. Jedi did really well with me on his right, but kept pulling off to the side when I was on his left. My assumption is this was happening because I was crossing my body to reward with the food in my left hand. I switched the food into my right hand for the last few and this seemed to make a difference. I know I need to be better about rewarding from the correct hand. It's just nice to have one hand that isn't slimy, you know?

After I ate lunch we went back outside and worked on more sends/wraps around cones. I set up the camera for that, too, so we'll see what I got when I get around to editing it. Jedi did his first rear crosses, but it was completely unintentional and more related to his obsession of going counter clockwise -- So I had him pointed clockwise and he would duck in and go the other direction. I continue to do a lot more rewarding from the hand versus throwing out to get him to pay a little more attention to my turning cues. We did a few teeter slams with the toy to finish and those are definitely harder than when we have food!

We had to do the obligatory bucket refill after play time. From there on, though, it was a very quiet afternoon. Jedi pretty much slept until around 4:00 when it was time to get up and start getting ready to leave for class. I was surprised at how hard Jedi crashed on the drive over considering his nap-filled afternoon. He's such a good traveler and doesn't even stir when we come into town and start making turns and stops. I look back at him and he might open an eye, but then he goes right back to sleep. I don't think he was fully awake when we pulled into Canine Sports Zone and I got him out of the van -- it took him a moment to realize where we were. Then he was wide awake and thrilled to be back at one of his favorite places.

I was a good fifteen minutes early for class tonight, so we had plenty of time to settle in and wander around. One of the instructors at CSZ brought out her six-month old border collie puppy, Twister, to meet Jedi. They hit it off immediately! I remarked at how much better Jedi played with this puppy versus Massey at our Monday night class. He was completely quiet and both of them took turns and nobody was always on top. I guess Twister doesn't have dogs at home that will play with him, so he was happy for the play time. Jedi is always happy to play with new puppies!

Tonight was our third week of agility foundations and the main theme of the evening was crate games. While I always make it a point to make the crate positive and fun, I admittedly have not officially done "crate games" with Jedi yet. I see crate games as an excellent tool to help build impulse control and, well, I think Jedi is doing pretty well in that department so I just haven't been motivated to take the time and work with the crate that much. They had two crates set up and the class took turns working on the beginnings of crate games with our dogs. Jedi needed one reminder not to go out the open door and then he was like, "Oh, is that what you want, okay, I have this." We're probably at the point in life where I should start to ask him to wait until released from the crate, but this is where my laziness shines through and it's easier to just open the door and let him out (note, I don't open the door for barking, but I don't stop the wiggles).

While we were having the crate games discussion I kept Jedi occupied with his dinner. We were right next to a big overturned rubber bin, so Jedi was mostly offering the pee trick and two-on/two-off.

After our turn on the crate we were with the group practicing bottoms on the raised plank. I used a toy (tennis ball on rope) with Jedi and he did well, but it's clear that I need to start challenging him to hold him position when I run past. I think he's stopping more off my body motion right now.

They put out jump standards for everyone to work on sending their dog through while they worked the last dog through the crate games. I took the jump standard that was next to the tunnel and chute, which may or may not have been the best idea because Jedi was a little obsessive about the tunnel. I've never asked him to send around a jump standard before and Jedi wasn't immediately clear on what I was asking, but he figured it out. For the most part, though, he kept getting stuck at the tunnel entrance. "Here, this thing here, you want me to do this thing now?"

Jedi learned a new trick tonight. Maybe not the best one, but it was kind of cute. I finally gave in and told him to "go, go, go" when he was doing his stare at the tunnel, so he blasted through it, came out the other end, and then blasted back through to come back to me. He thought this was very fun and did it several times. We killed some time by asking for some stays in front of the tunnel and these were very, very hard for Jedi. I'd worked stays with him on the other side and he rocked it (including me jumping and twirling all over with his toy), but the allure of the tunnel was too great. Homework!

Towards the end of class they took us in to watch the tail end of the advanced class in the big arena. I think the main purpose was to show everyone how the two-on/two-off exercise applies to "real" agility. We were on the side with the big wall so the dogs couldn't really see anything. Jedi just chilled. I picked him up to watch some at the end and he did well -- watching intently, but not screaming or barking.

We wrapped up with restrained recalls through the tunnel. Whee! Jedi's favorite part of class. Once we were done I let Jedi run through the chute and tunnel several more times on his own, which he thought was great fun.

Since we'd finished up Jedi's dinner at class, he got a bit extra when the rest of the dogs were fed tonight. He's probably due for a bump up in his food anyhow. I just had him do paw touches, focusing on having him touch with his right paw since that was his harder side. Since then he's been having a grand old time playing with the ice I dumped on the deck from the cooler.