On Friday we had another private agility lesson with Maureen Strenfel. We spent most of the hour learning sends. It feels like we're doing "real" agility moves now, haha! It was very exciting.
At first the sends were with Dragon lined up right in front of the jump. I would take one step with the foot next to him, point that arm forward, and say "go." He was to run ahead and take the jump, then wrap around the upright to return to me for his reward. We added some angles and a little distance. Then we switched to learning our first truly fancy handling move -- sending him past the jump, to turn around and take it on the way back to me. Oooo. I had to really work on my coordination and body movement here. I have to make sure to stand all the way to the side of the upright, so that there's enough distance that he doesn't get confused and think he should take the jump on the way out. Then I have to make sure not to turn my foot toward the jump as I step forward to send him (this was really hard!). Then I turn toward the jump after he's crossed the "refusal line" (the imaginary line extending from the jump bar). Needless to say, both the dog and I will need to practice this one a lot.
Finally we pulled over another jump and did a sequence! I would send him around the back of the first jump, turn, and run together over/past the second jump. Now I need to make a second PVC jump to practice with at home!
Today we stopped by the Oakland Pride Festival for an hour or so. I carried Tiny Dog through the crowds and we saw all manner of people dressed in unusual ways, as well as plenty of children. He was a bit overwhelmed (loud music and an overload of people), but I don't think that the stress was greater than his excitement at seeing all the new sites. At least, I hope not! I think that overall it was a good socialization experience. We rode the subway to the fair and back, and as usual he was a good boy for that, though he did attempt to chew on his crate pad once.
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