We took Beanie and Biggles to the agility barn for a practice session today. Biggles is still only 8 months old so we’re keeping the jumps on the floor for him and avoiding anything he could fall off. He loves it and is doing great. As for Beanie….what a little star – her weaving is perfect every time and getting faster!
Here’s the vid (YouTube muted the original soundtrack I’m afraid!):
Notice how mum (the slow part of the team) is running around the OUTSIDE of the circuit and covering a greater distance than speed demon Beanie! I think that bit needs a re-think! In fact, I’m doing just about everything wrong yet Beanie is responding to me a lot better than she was when I was going to classes and trying to do things right! I guess the reason is that I’m now focussing on her and doing what I think is necessary to keep her moving in the right direction. When I was trying to do things the ‘right’ way I was so focussed on what I had to do that I wasn’t really paying attention to her. Hopefully if we keep videoing our training sessions I’ll gradually start to fix the things I’m doing wrong. It’s certainly more fun for us both doing it our ‘special’ way !!
Love the out-takes! That is a classic Beagle move – using her agility skills to explore a table that is ‘off-course’ — in the hound world, why ELSE would one learn to jump, dodge and balance? Her confidence and happiness really shine through, and it’s great to see. Dolly’s agility specialty is cleaning out the tunnel, where other handlers have thrown bait to get their dogs to enter it. She’ll never have a fast tunnel, I’m afraid, but she does love it ;-)
That sounds familiar – have a read at this post from last year :
http://www.fourleggedpal.com/2008/05/30/beanie-and-the-magic-tunnel/
It’ll give you a giggle. It seems that these hounds all have one track minds!!!!
Hilarious!! I can just see the look on her face — a reliable treat source — pure magic!!