Today Jonah and I had a big adventure. We joined an agility club! (well, officially they have to vote on us, but we paid our money and got the unofficial approval)
It was a rainy day so I didn't do any running dogwalk work, but we went to the ARFF field for our evaluation.
When we got there there were probably 8 dogs or so out in the field. I parked and left Jonah in the car while I went to see what the situation was. Sue was there so we chatted a bit. Joan, the person I was supposed to meet, was busy doing another evaluation. Lots of the other dogs were running around loose. Two dogs were running at once, with no barrier in between. There were horses on the other side of the fence. It was a bit of a hectic environment!
Our saving grace (for us) was that the other dog getting evaluated was having a tough time. I felt really bad for the handler. Apparently the team competes in AKC excellent, but only trials outside. The dog was very high and having issues with reactivity. They were on the far side of the field, and still the dog was very stressed. I'm sure the human was stressed, too. It wasn't a great situation, but I at least knew that Jonah would be better than that.
When Joan finished with that dog, she came over, introduced herself, and said I could go get Jonah. Well, it turned out he was pretty excited too! First he had to go through a gate between three dogs. He barked. Great, I thought, what a way to start. Once we were beyond that, though things got better. He was pretty amped and was not excited about sitting still while I talked to Joan. Soon enough she took us to the equipment.
There was a low dogwalk (which will be awesome for our training in the future!), and she asked us to walk across it. Jonah was still on leash, so I jogged a little while he went up and over it. He gave me a nice 2o2o. We went back the other way and the poor little guy was about to explode. Mom! We don't walk over agility equipment! Joan had us do the teeter. Again, it was funny to be on leash and walking, but he did fine. Next she walked us over to the A-frame. I got up the guts to ask if I could take him off leash, and she said that was fine. Good thing. He did a lovely A-frame, and I'm not sure how we could have done it on leash.
I put him back on leash and he was really wanting to run. This isn't how we do things, he said. Joan was clearly just pleased that we were not as difficult a case as the previous dog, and said we passed with flying colors. She gave me the membership form but said we could play a little bit before I filled it out. We did the first 5 obstacles of a sequence, but people were walking on the rest of it. He was good and clearly just happy to be running. Then I just toyed around with the contacts and some jumps. We didn't do much, but it at least took a bit of his edge off. Then I put him back in the car, filled out the form, and we were done.
It was a bit of a strange experience, not knowing what to do, and all. I'm sure I'll feel out how to handle it all. I was just thrilled we passed. It's close, a fantastic deal financially, and should give us a chance to practice some stuff and meet people. I'm thinking I might look to get a pop up crate so he'd have a place to go away and relax among the busy atmosphere. The car is rather far away. We'll see how things go. It will be a great place to practice our dogwalk. There was another person there who's going through Silvia's online contacts class now. It would be good to get her insight.
It was a rainy day so I didn't do any running dogwalk work, but we went to the ARFF field for our evaluation.
When we got there there were probably 8 dogs or so out in the field. I parked and left Jonah in the car while I went to see what the situation was. Sue was there so we chatted a bit. Joan, the person I was supposed to meet, was busy doing another evaluation. Lots of the other dogs were running around loose. Two dogs were running at once, with no barrier in between. There were horses on the other side of the fence. It was a bit of a hectic environment!
Our saving grace (for us) was that the other dog getting evaluated was having a tough time. I felt really bad for the handler. Apparently the team competes in AKC excellent, but only trials outside. The dog was very high and having issues with reactivity. They were on the far side of the field, and still the dog was very stressed. I'm sure the human was stressed, too. It wasn't a great situation, but I at least knew that Jonah would be better than that.
When Joan finished with that dog, she came over, introduced herself, and said I could go get Jonah. Well, it turned out he was pretty excited too! First he had to go through a gate between three dogs. He barked. Great, I thought, what a way to start. Once we were beyond that, though things got better. He was pretty amped and was not excited about sitting still while I talked to Joan. Soon enough she took us to the equipment.
There was a low dogwalk (which will be awesome for our training in the future!), and she asked us to walk across it. Jonah was still on leash, so I jogged a little while he went up and over it. He gave me a nice 2o2o. We went back the other way and the poor little guy was about to explode. Mom! We don't walk over agility equipment! Joan had us do the teeter. Again, it was funny to be on leash and walking, but he did fine. Next she walked us over to the A-frame. I got up the guts to ask if I could take him off leash, and she said that was fine. Good thing. He did a lovely A-frame, and I'm not sure how we could have done it on leash.
I put him back on leash and he was really wanting to run. This isn't how we do things, he said. Joan was clearly just pleased that we were not as difficult a case as the previous dog, and said we passed with flying colors. She gave me the membership form but said we could play a little bit before I filled it out. We did the first 5 obstacles of a sequence, but people were walking on the rest of it. He was good and clearly just happy to be running. Then I just toyed around with the contacts and some jumps. We didn't do much, but it at least took a bit of his edge off. Then I put him back in the car, filled out the form, and we were done.
It was a bit of a strange experience, not knowing what to do, and all. I'm sure I'll feel out how to handle it all. I was just thrilled we passed. It's close, a fantastic deal financially, and should give us a chance to practice some stuff and meet people. I'm thinking I might look to get a pop up crate so he'd have a place to go away and relax among the busy atmosphere. The car is rather far away. We'll see how things go. It will be a great place to practice our dogwalk. There was another person there who's going through Silvia's online contacts class now. It would be good to get her insight.
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