The Agility World....

Yowza.

So much to learn!  It's boggling my little mind!

We had a clinic sort of class last night because the instructor is leaving for a couple of weeks.  No sense starting up something new for a class then putting it on hold for 2 weeks. 

She had this clinic style class last night where we discussed targeting for speed and getting our dogs used to working out and away from us...

We talked about contacts - those yellow zones on some of the agility obstacles.  Our dogs are supposed to have 2 paws on and 2 paws off upon leaving an obstacle or they get disqualified - even once they understand slowing down enough when they are running up and over a regulation A frame they can easily pop off and miss their contact or 2 on / 2 off... they need hind end awareness. 

Just like with horses, dogs want to be on their forehand and they carry a lot of their weight on their front halves.   Teaching your dog how to back straight up helps strengthen their hind end, as well as teaching them to sit up... then have them stand on their hind legs from the sit up position also helps....

And we talked about weaves.   (weaves scare me)  Instructor says contacts and weaves will be the hardest things to learn and those two things are the things that will disqualify us in a majority of runs. 

Got to work on your weaves and contacts!

Anyway - once the information was slowly leaking out my nose - she let us go.  I wish I woulda brought a notebook to jot some things down.

Toe is having great fun zooming around, jumping, running through tunnels, chutes and over dog walks and A-frames.   He is such a jolly little guy.  (tho Furry and I call him the Lil' F*#$er... very affectionately of course....)

Keenan is really digging all this agility stuff as well.... I asked Furry Husband on one of our morning walks if he was enjoying the agility classes.  He said he was surprised but yes, he was enjoying it and could see Keenan was having a lot of fun too....

Interesting ....  wonder where all this new agility stuff will take us?