Outside!

Gracie had her last weaves class last Wed.  We start advanced jumping this next Wed.  I don't remember what all we did at that last class.  More practice with 12 poles obviously.  I think we put out a tunnel to do before the weaves.  Then an angled 2x2 was placed in front of a full set of 12 poles to work on entries.  Gracie did fairly well but still likes to pop out to check in with me.  Hopefully I'll have time to work on weaves with her on my own.  Our instructor did talk to us about using guide wires too and mentioned they could help Gracie with her popping out issue.

On Thur. there was an outdoor class!  I could have taken both dogs but Gracie and I were not having a good day and needed a break from her.  Surprisingly, our issues had nothing to do with other dogs or squirrels.  We saw both on our walk and she behaved just how I want her to for where we are in our training.  Now it's the pulling that's driving me nuts along with some of her other obnoxious behaviors.  My shoulder has been hurting for almost a week now, and I'm pretty sure it's from Gracie.  Thankfully our instructor is putting on a "Pleasure Walking" course that will hopefully help us.  If that doesn't work I may actually have to sign up for a private lesson because that will be cheaper than shoulder surgery.

Anyways, Gidget had an awesome time outside.  She was a little unfocused our first turn up, but you should have seen her weave!  Faster than I've ever seen her!  No idea how to train that into habit.  The courses were the work of one of my classmates.  I have no idea how he managed to think them up (or how anyone thinks up a course for that matter) but they were pretty fun.  The jumps weren't set exactly the same for each course, but this doodle gives the general idea.  Basically people wanted to practice serpentines and pin wheels so that's what made the course.  In the first course I used a front cross after 7, otherwise it was pretty straight forward.  The second course was trickier, especially with that opening sequence.  A tight wrap around 3 wasn't really an option (but with further training hopefully will be) with that tunnel calling, but I managed to call Gidget off the tunnel to continue on.  The number setter accidentally set 11-12 to be a threadle which I guess isn't allowed in AKC, but it looked fun so on one of our turns we tried it.  It took a second try but it worked and was fun!  I believe I rear crossed the weaves for this second course.  After we'd run this course a couple times I thought we'd run it backwards.  That was fun too!  We have an outdoor trial in 2 weeks so hopefully that gave us enough outdoor practice to prepare.  Happy agility!