Wall-e's first beginner agility class

Wall-e had his very first agility class on Sunday. It was a lot of fun! The first thing we did was receive yellow targets. Each person got one target. These targets will be used in the class to help the dog focus ahead and know where to go, as well as build drive. After we received our targets, we worked on getting our dogs to be crazy about them, and sending our dogs ahead to the target. By the end of the 10 minutes that we worked with the targets, Wall-e was bouncing and leaping in the air and barking whenever I brought him back for another round to send to the target. He loved it!

Then, it was time for some obstacle training. We won't be participating in the dog walk training because the instructor teaches 2o2o (two on two off) and Wall-e is still just learning a running contact for the dog walk, but everything else, we'll do. With the A-frame the instructor teaches 2o2o as well, but Wall-e has a natural running contact on the A-frame (for now!) so we'll just skip the stopping and do running for the A-frame at class.

The dogs didn't do any contact training this class; only low jumps, tunnels, channel weaves, and a ladder-type structure that helps teach the dogs body awareness. I've done some 6" jumping with Wall-e, and he's been through our 4 foot long tunnel many times (and a "real" tunnel a few times too at the two training centres we've practiced at), but he'd never been through channel weaves or the ladder structure before. He surprised me when he knew what to do with the weaves right away. He raced right through the channel to get to his target!

Here's a video from his last beginner obedience class and his first agility class:



~Nat