Sunday, October 30, 2011

Two Tired Dogs

Today was our first agility day in the barn.  It is Max's regular day and Rylie had a makeup class for one that was rained out earlier this week.  I have two very tired dogs tonight and one very tired handler.

The transition to the barn is always interesting.  There are cats that live in the barn - probably rodents - lots of hay, very interesting dirt (or so the dogs would have you believe), well you get the picture.  As the owner had to get in one more time with the hay wagon all the holes hadn't been plugged with hay bales.  There was a Rylie sized hole at one entrance so there were a lot of things to watch out for.  There was only one other dog in Max's class today so we all had a good workout.  Max did really well - he did take off once after something nobody else saw but he stopped dead when I called him and did come back to me.  Rylie always stays where he is put in class because the female border collie has told him off on more than one occasion when he wandered (intentionally or non-intentionally) into her space.

Both dogs had a hard time with taking the correct end of the tunnel.  With Max it was a pretty hard entry but with Rylie he was just convinced I didn't know what I was doing.  Every time I stopped to reset him he looked at my trainer as if to say "you tell the crazy lady I was right and she was wrong".

We have a trial next weekend.  I'm looking forward to it.  I think Rylie and I are starting to gel as a team and I sense more confidence in Max (which probably comes from me gaining confidence).  We have been running a lot of full courses in class and I think that has been helpful to me.

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