Beginner Agility Week 2 – Ella

This week, class did not start well for Ella and I. I was tired from a very long two day conference for work and she was not impressed with the ride to Skowhegan and the classroom. The first thing she did after I took off her leash was to head straight for the door and stand there staring at it. She wanted to go home.

After a minute where I composed myself (when I get tired, I tend to burst into tears, which sucks), we grabbed a jump and went all the way to the back of the room away from the others. Ella and I practiced jumping where she sat and I called her over the jump. Then I walked by the jump and asked her to jump. Then I jogged and she jumped. After we had done the jump with me jogging a few times, then we went back and worked as part of the group.

During this class, we worked on two things: taking a series of jumps (2, in this case) and working in the tunnel.

Ella tried valiantly to stay right at my side (heel position) as we worked on the jumps. A couple of times, she would almost trip me, because I had to cross behind her to get in the right position to cue her over the second jump. After a few rounds, we were getting pretty good at doing two jumps.

Then we worked on the tunnel. The tunnel for class is a medium blue color. It can be really dark in there for some dogs, so practicing with this color would take some of the fear away for Ella.

We started with the tunnel lying straight. I use the cue “through” since it is only one syllable and will be fairly easy to say while I am out of breath on course.

Then we moved one end of the tunnel so that there was a 45 degree bend in one end. We spent some time sending the dogs through.



Then we moved the tunnel so that there was a 90 degree bend. Finally, we ended with a 180 degree bend (so both openings of the tunnel faced the dog).


Ella did great! She willingly entered the right side of the tunnel 90% of the time. That is, until I asked her to enter the left tunnel entrance at the end. She turned and sat down. Apparently, we didn’t generalize enough yet!

During our second hour, I worked with Ella on the lowered teeter. She would hop onto the middle and I would click her for taking one step, then two and then walking past the point where the teeter pivots (and then moves). She didn’t really like that, but did more this week than last. I made sure to have her walk to both ends of the teeter. And, I also started working with her to stop on the contact section (yellow) and sitting down – she isn’t confident enough to lie down yet.

The she got to explore the room a little and get used to the weave poles.

So, after a few glitches, we had a great class.