Agility Seminar Day 2

Today at the seminar Gus worked as the demo dog again for teeter, flat work and weaves. He did really well on the teeter. He got on the higher Buja board for the first time. It was approximately 6" off of the ground. At first he noticed the height but he quickly dismissed it and started to play on it. After that section was over, he continued to try to play with it. Then we moved to the full height teeter. Traditionally Gus tends to hesitate at the pivot point and jump off the end of the contact as soon as it hits the ground. We have been working on his performance a little bit this summer but not too much because our major focus has been his jumping problems. Anyway, on the first attempt he did not hesitate and went directly to the end of the board to ride it down! He did however bail off of the teeter (to the side) to avoid the board on the bounce back. I need to continue to work with him on this. We played the Bang-It game (which he loves) and the Drop Zone. I worked on rewarding the 2o/2o position with him while my assistant (Amy) simulated the bounce back of the board. This game is supposed to increase the dogs rear end strength because they should be pushing the board back down to the ground with their rear legs. Gus was definitely pushing and I think with repetition he will get this and will understand that he can control it and does not need to perform the teeter so unsafely.

We also worked the 12 poles with gates. At first he was very hesitant with the weaves because he has not seen the gates on the poles before. Once he understood that he could get through the poles, he started to drive forward with some speed. On the first couple of attempts his footwork was atrocious. Then he started to perform the bouncing through the poles and he became slightly faster. It was towards the end of the poles that he was able to make this foot work adjustment but he was making the adjustment. With more repetitions I think this performance will improve also.

Tomorrow night we will be video taping his runs at class and I will be posting them to this site. I want to see if he is able to translate the jump work that we have been doing into full speed course work. My guess is no but I want to see it.