Intro to Agility, Class 1

Overall, I would say the first class was a complete disaster.

A) Freya would not stop pulling. They give you these little strings to use for a leash, since they are lightweight and won't knock a bar off or get in the dogs way. Not effective for a pulling dog. The issue is that Freya loves dogs more than anything else in the world. More than food, probably more than me and Dylan. There were so many dogs and smells, she wanted to go after them all the time. The result of the pulling was that I ended up with literally raw and swollen hands. My fingers were about twice the size of my left hand since I had to wrap the "leash" around my fingers to keep ahold of Freya. OW! I finally felt better the next morning, but it was painful. We will definitely be getting a little short leash for me to hold on that won't go much past her shoulder so it won't hit stuff, but will allow me to hang on.

B) There were way too many dogs. As I mentioned, Freya LOVES dogs. So between that making it difficult, it also made the lines to work on things really long, which in turn made Freya bored, and then want to pull. It was also a lot for me to deal with, since the trainer, Zona, was really distracted from so much going on and too many dogs. Fortunately, of the about 15 dogs (classes are supposed to be 10 max), 2 or 3 were normally for a different class time and 3 other dogs switched to another class time. So hopefully this week is better. Also with so many dogs, it meant a lot more people. We are supposed to be enthusiastic, but it was hard with SO many people around.

So I left the first class relatively dejected (and in a lot of pain). Dylan, who watched from the side, said that Freya was definitely not the only dog that was pulling/distracted the whole time. So that made me feel better. I feel like we have A LONG way to go though. I definitely understand why they have a shorter intro class before you make a bigger commitment. We'll definitely see how these next 2 weeks go. I think she would be good at it, she just needs to focus, which means I need to help her focus. Hopefully with a smaller class and getting the hang of it, we can actually get to enjoy the classes the whole time and run around like her and I both want to do.