The Breakfast Club

Yesterday, there were no classes.  Our instructor is in Virginia with one of his dogs, competing in Nationals.  Of course, we couldn't possibly survive a week without agility, so I decided to rent the facility.

I got the room for 2 hours yesterday morning and invited a bunch of my fellow students.  Everyone brought something to contribute for breakfast, and we trained!  We ended up with 7 people and 8 dogs; one dog was just a visitor, and one person just watched.  We had tons of great food and a high-energy group of dogs.

Just some of the yummy food people brought

We set up the JWW course from last Sunday.  You know, the one Sadie bailed from.  Now that she was on her home turf, she acted like it was no big deal.  Even better, she was perfectly happy to run it with a different handler!  And Maxwell was fantastic, having had his pre-agility run.  He took the course beautifully, only missing the tunnel.  Can't blame him for that, though, since he's never trained it before.

 A low-res shot of the facility, via my cell phone

We ended up running the course with our own dogs, then switching dog/handler pairs, then running the course backwards.  It made for a lot of fun, some good training, and a smooth sequence of runs.  I got to run two other pups of rather different temperaments.  One is the highest drive black Lab I've ever met, who moves faster than I can think.  She challenged me to give sufficiently early cues, at which I was only partially successful.  The other is a sweet gentleman of a flat-coated retriever.  He's a very quiet runner, and tends to be overly handler focused.  I'm not sure exactly what I did, but he ended up flying around the room like a happy maniac!  It was the best possible 'mistake' he could make on a course.

It was also nice to see other people work Maxwell and Sadie.  Both ran very nicely.  Sadie actually did even better weaves for her substitute than she had done for me.  And Maxwell didn't seem to care that the handler wasn't me... just that he got to RUN!

Thinking back to all the previous sessions I've attended with the other handlers, I'm amazed at how far each of us (and our dogs) have come.  Most of us started around the same time, with people who were as clueless about agility as the pups.  I can see that everyone has gained more respect from their animal(s), better handler focus, and certainly a love for the sport.  Each dog/handler team works together on course, without anyone having to 'fight' for control.  It makes me proud to be part of the group.

Overall, it was a highly successful practice session.  Hopefully we'll be able to do it many more times!