Solei and I went back to agility last Thursday! As I said, I’d been so looking forward to it; but also with some apprehension – mainly as to what Solei would think! I knew I’d missed it, I didn’t realise how much until I got back to it…I had the most fantastic evening!

As it turned out we actually got to do more than I thought we would - the instructor knew Solei had done some agility before, so gave me a slightly freer reign!

We started off by showing the dogs the tunnel, and she let him do it “properly” twice, rather than her holding the dog at one end and the owner calling the dog at the other, like the others were doing. He loves the tunnel, so that was good :-) Then we split into pairs, to do some jumps – well, between two jump wings with the bar on the floor! There were an uneven number of us so Solei and I got our own jump to do as we pleased :-D We did some practice going through the wings, and then she put the bar up on the feet of the wings (so very close to the ground) and he was jumping that like a pro! I was pleased with him because the last agility we did he’d started trying to go under/round, and although he didn’t really have space to go under he didn’t even try. Then she put two jumps together and we had a couple of goes at that – Solei thought about going round rather than over, but after I showed him he did jump them.

After that we moved on to the dog walk, which was just one of the “down” parts, and all we did was 2 on 2 off contacts. This is the part his previous training deserted him, he used to have very nice contacts but he seems to have forgotten the “two on two off” principle!

Then came the tire – the first time I had Solei off lead and he decided to squeeze through the gap between the tire and the stand! So she put him on lead and showed him, and then you could see him going “oooh…yeah, I remember now!” and he did it very well. Finally we did a couple of recalls through channel weaves.

Bar contacts Solei remembered everything and above all he really seemed to enjoy it – which meant I enjoyed it! The only dodgy part was when I took him off lead for the dog walk cos I was getting confused with my lead and hand and at one point he ran off….but I was so impressed because he actually came back as soon as I called him without racing around in circles like he usually does! He was really focused on me most of the time actually, it was so nice to have a dog looking at me like that for once! Nice to have some Solei and I time as well. I can’t remember the last time we went anywhere without Elton!

The next day he had his chiro session, which was encouraging. She was pleased he'd enjoyed his agility so much and was jumping with no problems, and apparently he is in better shape than last time :-)
 
She actually managed to make him scream as well which was good because she could see what I’m talking about. He was slightly out of line so she adjusted him again, but as I’d thought, she thinks a lot of it now is psychological, so I’ve got some work to do with him to try and make his less sensitive and hand shy. He has reacted as he had a slightly upset tummy yesterday afternoon but not nearly as dramatic as last time.
 
We'll see, fingers crossed! Nothing this week, because it's the countdown to Crufts now - Elton and I show on Sunday. Eep!