Dark Thoughts

I've recently started taking my dog down to agility at our local dog training club.  She's a pretty good dog when it comes to obedience training, but agility is something different all together.

Satin (that's my dog) absolutely loves agility.  I'm sure it's the highlight of her week.  She's not quite as well behaved at agility as she is at obedience, but maybe that has something to do with all the fertilizer they have just spread over the oval.

Anyway, what's making agility much harder for her than it needs to be is me.  Satin is great at going over jumps, through tunnels, over the walkway and A frame, but it's me that's forever in exactly the wrong spot, which slows her down and frustrates her.

I'm quickly realizing that agility is more about training humans than it is about dogs.  It's as much a sport for the trainer as is is the dog, and I certainly come away from every session with a healthy sweat.

Some of the other trainers spent some time last night showing me how to do the serpentine and the threadle.  The threadle is really really tricky, especially for the trainer.  Once you work out where to stand and when to change stances, and point, and dance, and try not to trip over your own feet, the dog just does what she's meant to.

Here's the threadle...

And here's the serpentine...

It all looks so simple when you see it in a picture, but it's really really tricky. 

Anyway, we got to where we wanted to in the end, so I'm all happy about it. 

Labels: dogs

# posted by The Puppeteer : 2:15 pm