Back to agility

[MellowYellow]

There’s no goal, just to spend time with Shads doing something he enjoys. Having him spend time in the company of other dogs is a huge benefit, too.
As for competition, we may or may not end up trialling. If we do, we’re not likely to progress very far simply because he’s not a border collie!

Yes it is so wonderful to be able to enjoy something with your dog, nothing beats it!

And as for the border collies, a friend of mine trials with her flatcoats, and is very successful, so never say never!

 

[Lisa]

So fun for both of you!! You both looked great to me!

 

[snowbunny]

And as for the border collies, a friend of mine trials with her flatcoats, and is very successful, so never say never!

It varies so much between countries and between venues in the country as to what counts towards points and titles. I was talking to friends in the US tonight and their venues are very different. From what I understand, here to graduate from grade 1 to grade 2, you only need three clean runs. But to go farther than that, you need wins. Which means beating border collies. Which is unlikely, however fast he is for a Lab

Poor boy is lame today. Not that he knows it, but he’s favouring one of his feet. Now I am thinking that this may actually pre-date the trial, and he ran despite it. He’s so stoic but some things are lining up to suggest it’s been there a couple of weeks.
So we’re taking at least a week off with him. I might try taking Willow back to see how she gets on. She loves it so much but found stuff around it to be very stressful (such as the drive there and back again) so I’ll have to see if she can manage that better now.

 

[snowbunny]

Quick update: Shadow is back fighting fit after his week off. I took Willow while I was resting Shadow and she LOVED it. The instructors love her, too. She's nowhere near as interested in the people as Shadow is, she just wants to GOGOGO and everyone thinks she's "un poco loca" but that she could make a brilliant agility dog. Buuuut, she's not going to be easy to train because of her energy levels.
When last Tuesday came around, she was up and at the door, raring to go! I felt sad telling her I was taking Shadow again.

We didn't get to go on Thursday, but now we're into a new month I've signed Willow up again, so I'm taking them both from hereon in. We'll see how it goes.

I've also signed up to two foundation agility courses with FDSA which should keep us busy for the next few weeks. One is on all foundations and the other is focusing on weaves. Shadow's weaves are OK at a basic level but could do with more speed and a lot more independence. Willow basically doesn't have weaves yet, so it's going to be great for her to do them right from the start. I also need to do lots of confidence building with her around the see-saw, because she's very uncertain of that. I've made some wobble boards at home that she's now happy to walk on and bang on the ground, so hopefully that will translate to the teeter in time.