Cuddlebugs and Agility Notes

I took these shots of the furry little beasts yesterday. They're always so comical with each other.

I'd be lost without these two.  They offer me something totally different in my individual relationships with them.  

On another note, I didn't get in an agility update yesterday, so here's the (silent) video from last night's class:

We ran better than I could have ever imagined. I was all set to water down this course for Marge and make it easier, but, despite the horrible opening sequence (that A-Frame is soooo tempting) she really did fine. She's starting to learn to watch where I am and come into my hand rather than to just take the nearest contact obstacle.

She wasn't super speedy, but she doesn't look stressed. I prefer her to go at a pace like this, anyway, because she gets out of control when she's super fast, which leads to having to do things over, which leads to more stress. At this pace, she's loping along, picks it up down the line of jumps on the right hand side, but is obviously paying attention to me and where I am when the course gets tight.

We did have some weave issues, as you can see. We've been having them. Going to keep an eye on it. If it worsens, we might be off to the vet to make sure there are no underlying injuries, though I doubt it. The poles didn't seem "right" to me, either.. I'm thinking maybe they were not correctly aligned or something. She's not the only one who flubbed them.

She was uncharacteristically happy at class. Everyone was her friend. Well, except for when one of the male significant others of a handler stood up. Marge loved him when he was sitting down, but got a little nervous when he was tall. So, that was my cue to take the pressure off of her and move her to somewhere she could feel more comfortable.

Next week is our last class outdoors at the field. The winter session will start in December, but I'm still undecided about it. My class is sandwiched in between two other classes, which means that there will be dogs coming and going. Plus, since the classes are destined to not be made up of the same dogs (most people in my class can't attend, with the exception of the lovely Viszla boy) I don't know who or what I'm going to be seeing. To make matters worse, I won't have anyone to come along with me to hang on to Marge when I have to work on handling by myself - though I anticipate less of that happening, since we probably won't be doing big long sequences.

The one saving grace is that the class is on a Monday afternoon, which means that a lot of people will be working.

I have a few days to think about it, so I guess I'll just have to mull it over long and hard and decide what I think is best.