Tempest Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 After Jess' leg injury in February I wasn't sure if she'd be able to do agility but after doing hydrotherapy she's come on in leaps and bounds and the vet gave her the all clear to start agility She's still swimming twice a week too so hopefully that should help I'd decided that for our first few sessions I wanted to work on a one to one basis with a trainer as I thought this would be a better introduction for Jess and I was really impressed with our first session We started off with the tunnels - the rigid one first which she flew straight through and then we progressed to bending it round and then we worked on the 'floppy' tunnel and she went through that with no problems We did a couple of jumps and I knew she'd be fine on that which she was but the main thing we worked on was the dogwalk!!! Jess was really really nervous about the dogwalk at first - we spent ages with her doing it all very slowly and using lots of chicken and by the end of the lesson she was flying over it on her own!!! She made me laugh as she loved it so much she just kept running back to it and going over it again!!!! She really seems to be a natural as she finds it all so exciting but I think the main things we need to work on will be my handling as I've got no worries about her learning the equipment relatively quickly - she's such a brainy box! Firstly I couldn't get used to working with her on my right so need to work on that and my other big worry was keeping up with her - she's so bloomin' fast!!! I think if anything it's going to be a case of me trying to tone down her excitement about it all to keep her focussed and listening to me - she does tend to anticipate things so she was flying over the dogwalk everytime we went near it as if to say 'look I know this one already!' so I need to think how to work on that too! Just wondering if anyone had any handling tips for complete agility beginners or anything that we could work on at him for our next session? Tbh I had only thought of doing agility for fun but the trainer seemed to think that Jess would be more than capable of competing in the future which I'm quite excited about! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirisox Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 That's great Jules, where are you training her? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 We're just training with a trainer called Caroline Ashby (at Rayleigh in Essex) on a one to one basis so it's not a 'club' at such. Caroline's got 5 border collie's and competes with 3 of them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyspaniels Posted May 4, 2007 Report Share Posted May 4, 2007 I think if anything it's going to be a case of me trying to tone down her excitement about it all to keep her focussed and listening to me hate to say it but they only get more excited and harder to keep up with, once they can do a full course they think they are invincible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 This week we recapped stuff from last week - dog walk, tunnels and jumps and then introduced the see-saw, A frame and weaves Jess loved the A frame and was soon just repeatedly going over it We've only done the see-saw with us guiding it so far but the movement didn't seem to phase her and we did the weaves onlead and didn't even need to use a lure Basically she's absolutely LOVING it!! She's got no fear of anything at all and just goes charging over the equipment at full pelt so her biggest issue is that she's missing the contacts - any ideas how to work on that? So far she's only getting treated on the contacts so she's starting to slow a bit but I think this is going to be her biggest issue. I've introduced the command 'side' for working on my right but she still keeps correcting herself back to my left so this is something to work on too! She impressively fast for a lab too - mind you she's working strain so is very tall and 'lean' which probably goes in her favour for agility Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paula Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 Have a look at this thread, I put some stuff about contacts which may help. Contacts thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2007 Thanks for the link Paula Just a quick update after lesson number 3 today Well not only is Jess absolutely loving agility so am I!! I think I may be in danger of having the bug bad Jess is doing amazingly well and was doing great at making her contacts today. We got to see our trainer compete at All About Dogs at the weekend and I think that's just got me even more excited about eventually aiming to compete with Jess She just gets soooooooooooooooooo over the moon with excitement when we arrive at the agility course that it's a joy to see Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amaranth Posted May 17, 2007 Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Wonderful to hear how well it is going - well done to both of you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts