Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Agility, Week 5

Not bad for only 5 agility classes, eh? Oh - don't mind my flailing arm and terrible voice (I neither sound like an 8 year old nor say "tunnel" so gruffly in real life) - just focus on Marge. :)



Class went well, I'd say. Marge only interacted with one dog - the JRT, Rusty.  LOVES this dog.  I have come to realize that Marge may or may not be dog selective based on gender.  Almost all of the dogs she knows and likes (with few exceptions) are male.  Some are intact as well, and that doesn't bother her.  She, additionally, interacted with quite a few people and enjoyed it, too.  My teacher keeps saying that agility brought her out of her shell.  I don't think she was in a shell at the beginning of classes.. but I do think that agility is something she enjoys immensely.

Couple of things going on with her agility skills:

  • I don't know if it was because of the heat and soggy obstacles, but Marge refused a LOT of tunnels.  She'd go through with some coaxing, but I could NOT send her into any of them for the life of me (except for the straight one above).
  • Very good work on the teeter yesterday!  Jessica came and helped me out.  Marge has no problem walking across to the middle of it completely alone.  I didn't let her go farther than that, though, unless my sister was on the other end, easing the other side downward as Marge stood on it.  I'd say that was our big success of the day.
  • Her recall STINKS.  I have no idea what happened.. she used to come to me at the drop of a hat.  She wandered off a bit offleash yesterday to try to steal some of Chase's treats.  I also leashed her because she was eyeing some new dogs suspiciously towards the end of class.  Don't know what this whole thing is all about.
  • We did the Dog Walk.. one time, she went over and jumped off, and the next time, she went over perfectly and I fell on my face. LOL!  We need to work on our coordination.  Wasn't too bad though considering we've only done the Dog Walk a select few times.
  • 4 comments:

    Roxanne @ Champion of My Heart June 3, 2009 at 7:33 PM  

    She looks great. Congrats! I think I'd rather face a tunnel refusal than Lilly's fear response of going in BUT not coming out.

    I cannot tell you how many times I crawled inside a tunnel to get her before we had to give up group agility classes because she refused to work in front of the other dogs or would freak out and hide somehwere.

    StellaStar June 3, 2009 at 10:35 PM  

    Woo hoo on all the progress! I'm glad to see Marge is doing so well on agility! Rufus loves tunnels. There was one in his puppy kindergarten class, and even when it wasn't his turn, he kept trying to go through. I really admire you for all this work you're doing with Marge. It's hard enough socializing a puppy, who is pretty much a clean slate, much less an actual dog who has had a bit of a rough time. Wow. Hats off to you!

    Life With Dogs June 4, 2009 at 1:03 PM  

    WOW, not bad at all for five classes. I was thinking things were not going so well based on your recent posts, but am very happy with what I see here!

    Rufus and Indie June 4, 2009 at 7:09 PM  

    Marge is pro! The video is great, we always think that our voice is the worst in the all world! :)
    Kisses
    Rufus and Indie

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