When I signed Luke up for his next agility trial (January 26 & 27), I was quite certain that he'd be comfortable at 20" by that time. I admit that I haven't been working him at that height yet, so thus I haven't really been HELPING the cause at all. I have felt much more comfortable working him over 16" & 12" jumps in practice, mostly for fear of "breaking" him again.
We saw Dr. Schilling on Thursday at the dog center. Luke was VERY messed up again. He was tighter than ever in his atlas! I'm not really sure what I can do to help that, but I will admit that I have not been giving him regular massage sessions these days. I really have to be better about that, because I do believe that it helps. Luke had a fairly big reaction to one of her adjustments to his neck, but he didn't seem to mind the lower body manipulations as much this time. He definitely wasn't going for the accupuncture again, though, and bent a couple of needles quite badly in his discontent.
On Saturday we had a big 4-H instructor's conference at the dog center. They were there to learn how to teach agility to their students, as some of them were completely new to the sport. I was scheduled to work retail that day, but Laurie asked if I'd also be willing to use Luke as a demo dog and to teach the table to the group.
We had an Excellent AKC course set up and I didn't get a chance to walk it, much less practice it with Luke before our first run. It was.... interesting, to say the least. I ran him at 16" since neither of us were prepared and he was leaping off contacts, bringing bars down, taking wrong obstacles, etc. It was a good example of what NOT to do!
For our second run we were supposed to make mistakes on purpose. I decided to run Luke at 20" since two of the other dogs wanted to go at that height and I thought it would be good practice for him. Luke wanted nothing of it. He refused the first (winged) jump twice and I decided to just go on. I pushed him WAY too hard on the A-frame and he flew off it a good foot above the contact zone. He went around another jump, jumped off the dog walk before the contact, went around another jump and then didn't go through the final tire. That run definitely gave the 4-H folks a scoring challenge and maybe a hand cramp or two. I decided that Luke wouldn't be doing any more demo runs that day because he just didn't seem into it.
He did help me with my table demo, though. It didn't require much effort on his part and he most enjoyed getting to play tug while waiting for our second group to reach us. We were short one dog for the final demo of the day -- a fun relay race that consisted of a jump (12"), a set of six weave poles and the tunnel. I knew that it was something that Luke would enjoy and he really revved up for it! The first team had a bit of an unfair advantage by having two super speedy Elite dogs, but we actually pulled our own and came in really close. We demanded a re-match, but got smoked on the second run because our lead dog ran off to visit someone in the corner! Oh well, I still pushed Luke really hard and he flew! It was a nice way to end the day for him and he had a lot of fun.
I did make the decision to move him back down to the 16" skilled division at the next show, though. I left a note in the secretary's office requesting the change. In the mean time we will have to PRACTICE at 20" to get Luke comfortable at that height again.
Tonight is week two of my beginner agility class (teaching) and I've decided to leave Luke at home this week. He doesn't enjoy spending that much time in his kennel and with as tired as he's been lately, I believe he'd be better off sleeping on the couch at home. Hopefully he can rest up and catch up on his sleep! Now if only I could do the same...