Riverside Fun

We had a great lesson today up at Riverside.  We did quite a bit in our half hour!  There were four different courses.  Jonah did them all correctly without any mistakes the first time.  Then we would go back and clean up some areas where I hadn't given him the best lines or where things had just been a little sloppy.  Highlights:

1.  He was very fast most of the time!  There were still some points where he'd lose motivation (especially in a pinwheel and a turn coming out of a tunnel), but in general his speed was better.

2.  His dogwalk is looking super.  He had dead-on contacts, and he was super fast all the way up, over, down and into his 2o2o.

3.  He's gotten a lot more confident on the teeter.  It's really loud, but he has learned to like it anyway.  If I'm not paying attention he'll go over and get on it by himself between rounds (but I'm trying to break him of that habit of taking obstacles when I don't ask for them).

4.  We had an innocent bystander come stand in the ring while he was running to look like a judge.  Jonah didn't blink an eye.

5.  Some of Joan's dogs escaped into the ring, so Jonah got some surprise social time.  He wasn't especially friendly, but he didn't do anything bad.  He was super excited to start a run after that!

6.  Jonah is loving his bait pouch.  I throw it at the end of a run, chase it, open it, and dispense the goodies as he's moving.  He really drives for it.  Great idea, Joan!

A middle-light:  Jonah blew another A-frame contact!  I know that sounds like a bad thing, but it was nice to have Joan's eyes on it to see that he is actually naturally jumping off if he is going fast and gets air over the top.  We put up a hoop at the bottom so he would run down and under it.  He didn't mind the hoop at all, and that way we can keep him running full speed over the A-frame.  Dave suggested that we might have to make an A-frame when I get back from my trip.  It would be a big project, but we'd be well on our way to having pretty much all the equipment (broad jump?  a tire that's not just a hula hoop?  we've gotten quite the collection already!).

Low-lights (my problems!):
1.  I keep making turns too wide.  I really need to get used to the fact that Jonah can jump a small section of the bar, can jump on an angle, and doesn't need me to babysit his lines.

2.  I bring my hand up too high for front crosses.  He can't see my hand much above my waist, so why bother with the extra motion?

I love our lessons so much.  I'm really going to miss them when I'm away.  We'll see how much time I get to do agility at home in the next couple weeks, but I'll post when we do anything exciting.