Agility continues

Last night we took Kozmo to agility class. We are determined to quit using his training collar so this was our first class without it. I was a little nervous but our trainer was estatic to see he wasn't wearing his training collar. When we walked into the room an agility course was set up that had a dog walk, pause box, tunnel, 3 jumps and weave poles. Each dog and their handler work on a challenge individually and the other dogs are expected to wait for their turn with their handlers. Remember the other dogs in class are all 3-4 years old. They sit at their owners feet and quietly wait their turn. Waiting our turn is a good opportunity to practice impulse control. The trainer's dog, Bobby, was a gated area next to us. Bobby had a squeaky toy and when Kozmo saw and heard Bobby playing with his squeaky bone I thought Kozmo's head was going to explode. The trainer took the toy from Bobby and tossed it out of the way, under a table.


The first challenge was the dog walk. Below is a photo of some agility equipment to give you a better idea of what Kozmo and I are trying to learn. The dog walk is the bottom middle image. The dog has to walk up a ramp, across a narrow walk, down a ramp, and pause at the end. The first part of this exercise was fairy simple for me, the trainer wanted to work with Kozmo on the dog walk. As usual, Kozmo shows no fear and just walked right up the ramp. He started to get excited and very focused on the treats he was being given. The assistant trainer placed treats every 18" or so and the trainer took Kozmo across the dog walk several times. He did really well and pleased the trainer. Kozmo did so well that the trainer then wanted me to take Kozmo over the dog walk. By this time he was getting excited and he ran across the dog walk, down to the bottom and just kept running. Kozmo ran around the room, to the area that is fenced off, stuck his head through the gate/fence and retrieved the squeaky bone toy Bobby had been playing with and proceeded to run around the room like a lunatic playing with this squeaky toy. This way highly entertaining for every other human in the room but me. Best of all, one of the other dog owners was video taping class. Now Kozmo's stunt is captured on video for ever. Good stuff. Eventually, I got Koz back on his leash and we returned to our seats.

The next exercise was working on 3 jumps in a row and the weave polls. The weave polls are, to me, the most challenging obstacle. To teach your dog to go through the weave polls the human has a million things they have to do perfectly or you send your dog the wrong signal. It's really fun to watch a dog do them well, but it's not like what you see on TV. When you see dogs racing through the weave polls on TV that dog and it's handler have literally spent hundreds of hours working on this one skill. The other 3 dogs in class did well with the jumps and weave. Some of the dogs had trouble doing 3 jumps in a row, but they would all do 2 jumps before they got distracted. Finally it was Kozmo's turn....


Kozmo and I approached the jumps. I sent him over the first jump. He realized he wasn't on a leash and, again, took off racing around the room. This time he went back to the gated area and helped himself to a tug toy. Please keep in mind this is still being recorded. The other human was in the ring to help in the event Komzo had one of his "spells". The other human almost had Koz and then that silly mutt saw the tunnel and decided that he could avoid being caught and having to surrender his new toy if he kept running through the tunnel. Back and forth, back and forth, more laughs, Kozmo is the class clown. Once the beast was back in our control the trainer suggested we do the weave polls to calm Kozmo down. He gets really excited with the jumps and the weave requires more concentration and the dogs tend to calm down. We worked on the weave, and Kozmo has the sloppiest weave in his class, but we did get praise for huge improvement and that Kozmo actually did a good job staying with me. I was glad when our turn was over and I could return to my seat.

The last exercise of class was for each owner and their dog to do the entire course. Start at the dog walk, go to pause table, then tunnel and end with 3 jumps. The pause table is just a square table about a foot off of the ground. You dog just has to stand on the table and pause before going to the next obstacle. In the first image the dog is sitting on a pause table. The other 3 dogs in class did the entire course. A few dogs struggled with the three jumps in a row, but after a few attempts they all did it. Kozmo and I enter the ring, he does the dog walk very well and goes right to the pause box and went through the tunnel. Our trainer only wanted him to do one jump and get a LOT of praise. We did it and Koz came back to me after his one jump, he got a handful of treats and I was ready to go home. The trainer asked us to do it again. I was hoping she meant the jump, of course she meant from the beginning. On our second try we did the dog walk and pause table, on his way to the tunnel Kozmo became distracted and went behind the tunnel. He came out with a bungee cord in his mouth. The bungee cords that are used to keep the tunnel collapsed when its not being used were tucked away in the back of the tunnel. No other dog noticed these, but Koz wanted to play, again. Kozmo was getting tired and getting the bungee from him was fairly easy. We did the course one more time, it wasn't perfect, but we did each obstacle, one jump, he returned to me and we ended with lots of praise.

This week we are going to build weave polls in our back yard and practice, practice, practice. The fun mental image I had of me and my dog running through these obstacles and letting my dog have fun and get tired more work than I ever imagined. Our trainer sees a lot of potential in Koz and we won't give up but, I am tired.