It was bitterly cold this morning, so Parker didn’t get his morning walk with Mike. And yesterday was stressful for him (new groomer) so he’d slept most of the afternoon and late this morning. End result, a dog full of beans and zoomies. Good thing today was a fun day in class. We got there to see a few pieces of agility equipment set out. After a few rounds of heeling, which Parker now does with the leash draped over my shoulder, we split into groups to work on the equipment.
Our first was the table. We were supposed to get the dogs up onto the table, have them sit, stay while we backed away and then call them. Parker hesitated getting up, but I didn’t. Which was probably not such a good idea, since I weigh slightly more than the average Bull Mastiff, but I didn’t think about that until I heard the table creak. It worked, though, and Parker got right up with me. Problems arose when I asked him to sit, which he did, but the table was slippery and he had just had his feet shaved yesterday. So I got him off right away and the next few times I didn’t ask for a sit.
Then we went to the ladder, which was short -- about six rungs -- and lying on the floor. The idea is to get your dog to step through the rungs with confidence. The way the teacher told us to do it was to hold a short lead and not give the dog much opportunity to pull away from the ladder. Yeah. Right. Instead, I walked backward through it and Parker followed nicely. Which works well if the owner has a better idea of where her feet are than the dog. Which I don’t. Next time I placed treats on the floor between the rungs, and Parker walked right through, head down, scarfing up food.
Onto the jumps. They were all set so low that it was a piece of cake. We walked through the first time and ran for several other tries. He was happy with that one, although I think the running part about killed me.
The final piece of equipment was a tunnel. I wasn’t happy with the fact that it was over six feet long. I would have preferred to take him through one that was completely collapsed. We were supposed to have the dog at one end, held by the teacher who would throw the lead through. We were to grab the lead and “encourage” the dog through. In this situation it helped to be a baldfaced liar. I told the teacher that I was afraid that the dragging lead would scare Parker, so I asked her to hold his collar. I went to the other end, got down on the floor (oh, the sacrifices we make for our dogs) and stuck my head into the tunnel. He raced through to me. The teacher said, “Oh, good! Bring him right back!” Easy for her to say. She was standing up. So I asked Parker for some help and he stood steady as a rock while I used him to get back on my feet. This from the same dog who refused to stand, an exercise they had taught us earlier in the class. We ran through a few more times, finally doing it at a run toward the opening, releasing the dog at one end and meeting him at the other. Like I could run that fast. Parker rushed through and bounced up on his hind legs in happiness when I caught up.
All in all a good day.
Oh, and they showed us “spin” (clockwise) and “twist (counterclockwise). Mike will be disappointed to learn that Parker is right-handed. Spin, yes. Twist, not a chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment