Intro to Agility, Class 3

So we had our last Intro to Agility class last Friday.

We went through the weave poles first. She did really good! We brought cheese for her treat this time and she was definitely excited about that. Unfortunately, Dylan got up during this to use the restroom and Freya did not deal well with Dylan being gone. She ran over to the door he went out of and kept running over to him when he did come back. From what Zona described, one of the hardest parts of getting a dog to do weaves is the height of the poles and not being able to see there is something else right on the other side. Freya did really well with any height of pole, so that was good. The other trick is that the dog always needs to enter on their left shoulder, so we would need to practice this from all sides and angles.

The next thing we learned was the tunnel. Of all the agility obstacles, we knew this one was going to be the worst. Freya definitely hates being in confined spaces, absolutely hates it. So how you get your dog through it is by "bowling your dog" through the tunnel. Sounds harsh, but it's really not that bad. So you grab them by the collar and run with them to the tunnel, make them go through and they get a treat from the trainer on the other side. She actually got the hang of it pretty well by the end and we didn't have to force her through.

The last thing we worked on was the tire. One of the biggest issues with this obstacle is the space on the sides, because the dogs have a tendency to go through the sides instead of the tire. This one definitely went well, although after class Dylan said I wasn't giving Freya enough of a start to make an actual jump, so she had to step through.

So Freya definitely has had a good time with it! Unfortunately, we just cannot commit to the 7:30pm class on Fridays and her other classes are M, W, F at 5:30pm. Between not having extra cash to throw at the dog at the moment, and the classes being at inconvenient times, we will not continue for right now. I think we will look for an agility class closer to us once we have more flexibility.

Overall a great experience that I hope to continue in the near future!