Beach girl

I've got another Casey brag. We had
agility class this a.m., and he now is running over that teeter with
no problem! This is a break-through that first happened a few days
ago, in a make-up class, where he finally, for the first time ever,
walked over the teeter without me gently pulling him on the leash
and encouraging his every step. He was still slow and cautious, but
he did it.

Today, he seems to really understand that the teeter is not out to
get him, and he's moving quickly. Over the teeter, on to next jump,
no problem!!

This is really a big deal to me; it has taken about a year, and a
lot of patience, a lot of work on a tippy board to get him used to movement, reinforcement, more patience, and on and on.

Now that he's made that break-through, we can work on fine-tuning
everything else so he'll be competition-ready. Definitely feasible
to start competing sometime this summer.

What's fun with him is that he understands pretty well how to focus
on my hand and on the obstacle ahead, so I can stand in the middle
of several obstacles and with gestures lead him through a
sequence: "jump, jump, hoop, poles, table..." and he knows what to
do, zooming ahead of me as needed.

Such fun to watch him do this stuff.

We have the same instructor for agility and for obedience, and she
said today that with Casey, "obedience is like school, and agility
is like recess." So very true.

fjm

Congratulations - that seesaw can be very frightening!

__________________

To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden,
where doing nothing was not boring- it was peace.

~ Milan Kundera

Beach girl

Indeed. He was absolutely petrified of it for the longest time.

Over the summer and into the fall we just worked on balance and not on a teeter, since I wasn't taking classes and didn't have one available. So this winter was the first time since last spring that he was really exposed to it again. Finally it paid off.

Cdnjennga

That's fantastic! Slow and steady wins the race. We just started our second agility level and are finally getting on equipment (well jumps and tunnels), it's so fun! I think our mini poodles are totally built for agility.

ArreauStandardPoodle

That is wonderful! You are making progress now in leaps and bounds!

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debjen

Congrats ...the teeter can be a scary obstacle for many dogs....I know it is something we work on to make fun for the dogs..My dogs love the teeter and I sometimes have trouble keeping them off it..LOL

Beach girl

That's the funny thing, now that he's not scared of it, he tried to give himself some extra free rides. During our practice time when I was trying to run him through a near-by sequence of obstacles, he took off running for the teeter because it was in fact what came next, although I wasn't including it at that moment in the practice. I let him finish it just because I was so glad he wasn't scared of it anymore.

CelticKitti

Don't you just love those lightbulb moments?!? Where all of a sudden they act like they've been doing it all along!

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Kodi FDCh-G aka "little man" Black Mini
Mia- FDX, agility dog in training, Black Standard