Recap of yesterday's lesson!
We warmed up with circle work and running to a nose target. The instructor then brought out a couple of circular wobble boards, a tiny tippy board, and a dog walk plank. The students rotated between the stations. Tiny Dog was excellent on the boards. On the wobble board I was able to slam my foot down on it and he was airborne for a micro-second and he just continued walking over the board and sniffing for treats. Excellent!! All the time I've taken with that has really paid off. On the tippy board he also was not concerned about the movement at all and I had him hop onto the end and ride it down (all of the two inches) just like we'd last been practicing with a mini-teeter.
With the dog walk plank he didn't drive across it as quickly as I'd expected, but I think that that's because he couldn't see his nose target very well. I switched from the gold metal lid I'd been using (which was similar in color with the woodchips at the agility field) to a bright white yogurt container, but he still has a little trouble in the dark. At one point when all the stations were taken I snuck off to a corner of the field and had him run along a folded-up teeter to his nose target for more practice. (I had him run down the end that was resting along the ground; no teetering movement.)
We did sit-stays and recalls, making sure to separate body movement from the release word, and rewarding by throwing a toy ahead. I used the new food-stuffable toy I made. It works great except that I had to replace the original magnetic close with metal snaps, because Dragon had learned to pick it up and shake it to send the treats flying. Also I need to add some weights to the bottom so that I can throw it farther.
We moved on to tunnels. The other dogs in my group also had experience with tunnels, so we used one that was fully extended. I rewarded by throwing the food toy ahead.
We ended by having our dogs sit-stay on one side of a jump (no jump bars, just a support along the ground), tossing a toy on the other side, and releasing our dogs to drive through the stanchions toward the toy. Easy-peasy for Dragon.
He did well staying on the mat, chewing a bully stick, except when I had to stand about ten feet away to be able to hear the instructor better. Even better was that he didn't try to sniff the ground until the end of class when he had to potty again. His focus was wonderful when I remembered to take breaks and cue him to look around. Next week is the last class of this "focus and motivation" session. After that we will move on to the official "foundations" sessions, although obviously these past few weeks have focused on foundation agility stuff as well.
I'm going to poke around the internet and read up more on Derrett's handling system, since that's what Moe had started us on and Jump'n Java is using it, too. I know that I'll be able to train more confidently once I have the bigger picture in my head. We're quite ahead of the class and I don't want to lose momentum!
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