Agility Aerobics

I have finally signed up Riley for a beginner's Agility-Obedience class. We went to our first class yesterday. I felt like I went through agility aerobics, for ME, not him!

We only have four people with four dogs in our class. This makes for a great ratio when we are working through obstacles, but heck, it is also not a lot of down time. Riley had fun. I, however, felt like a circus clown. I had to learn the names of all the obstacles to cue him: jump, tunnel, chute, doughnut, table, weave! And all the while I am waving little pieces of hotdog and cheese in his face, pointing through these obstacles, clicking my clicker with my right hand, and trying to hold his leash all at the same time.

We were to follow a few simple rules:

1. Introduce the obstacles slowly and carefully to the dog. They have no experiences with this equipment, thus it makes it quite easy to shape a positive association with everything. Once a dog is spooked by falling equipment or excessive noise, it takes much longer to unlearn the fear association.
Well, Riley being the confident fun boy that he is, had a great time. Hey, all he had to do was eat hotdog placed on all sorts of strange equipment.

2. You never go back through an obstacle that you just went through. Uh, this one's tricky when your dog's already gone through the tunnel but wants a return trip to double check for hot dog remains.

3. Don't use a recall command to call a dog through an obstacle. Why? Well, I quickly learned that my boy knows his commands quite well and I was totally confusing him. Let me explain quickly that the chute starts off as an open tunnel but then becomes a soft, flaccid tunnel in which the dogs have to push through with blind faith that there is light at the end. So Riley begins at one end of the chute peering in to see where the hotdog pieces are. I am at the exit side, holding it open to show him where the end is. I signal to him, "Riley, Chute!" And he begins to take a step into the opening. I am so excited I start babbling a million commands, "Good boy! Riley. Good chute! Good chute! Riley......COME." My good boy has been listening to me babble nonsence and finally hears a command he undertands, "come." He dutifully backs up, exits the entrance of the chute and comes running around to meet me at the other side. And when he gets to my side, of course he peers in as if to say, "So what are you looking at from over here? Where's the hotdog?" Urgh, I'm so lame.

Our friends, Jill and Jaxx just had their first agility class last week. I wonder if they had as much fun as we did. We will have to share notes and let the dogs talk it over.