Oh my little coonhound boy, how he continues to impress!
Monday was our first night back at agility after a two week break for the holidays (and only our second night in intermediate level). Our trainer was busily setting up a course when I arrived and I started feeling a lot of trepidation. I've set up little courses to run when we come to do our homework, but I've never had any instruction on sequencing and the bulk of what we do when we practice is working on specific obstacles. I thought, now is the moment where I completely embarrass myself.
Anyway, I put Marlowe on to his mat in a down and when our trainer called us all out to the ring I thought, hey, why not? I'll leave him there with no restraints--I know he can do it. All the other dogs had to be crated or tied while we went in to talk with the trainer and then walk the course. But Marlowe? Amazing. A perfect gentleman, laying on his mat looking like the Saddest Dog in the World. People and other dogs walking around, an over-enthusiastic golden not 10 feet away, and we were out there for a long time--almost 15 minutes. The owner of the golden was surprised to hear we'd only just graduated from beginner and had never run a course before, because she'd judged by Marlowe's behavior that we were "experts". Yeah, not so much!
Anyway, the running of said course was also not nearly as disastrous as I thought it would be. The beginning was with a 180 jump sequence and after one misfire (as usual totally my fault) Marlowe got it down and didn't have another problem with it for the rest of the night. He flubbed the tire the first time around because it was set pretty high and he just ran right through the frame--but after that he got that one too. He was only one of two dogs who was actually doing the teeter (he's still a little remedial with it, I have to "help" by starting the teeter on it's way down). He's also one of only two dogs who did not have serious zoomie issues. The aussie actually couldn't even be started at the set start line because it was too close to where the rest of us were sitting and this boy is just so in love with other dogs, he couldn't not come over and say hi.
I'm getting a little concerned about Marlowe's contacts though and will have to start working on that immediately. Now that his speed is increasing, he's missing them on the A-frame and the dog walk (teeter not an issue since he's still hesitant with it). I do not want to get this habit reinforced, so we'll explore our options (my preference is for a running contact because he's not missing them by much, and he's not jumping off the side, but he is "bounding" off the equipment in such a way that he's leaping over the contact area). But we'll see.
Now if the danged dog would stop eating his beds, we'd be all set!