4pawsdogs.com Blog

I can’t believe that it’s been 8 days since my last blog post. I vowed to do better this year, and I have already failed you. Another New Year’s Resolution shot to hell. Sorry dudes and dudettes. All three of you that are out there. I’ll explain more in a subsequent blog, but for now, a bit of fun news (at least for me).

Tonight was the first night of agility class for us since my foot surgery last September. I was pretty excited and a little nervous thinking about how we would do. We hadn’t done ANY agility at all (other than weave pole training) during that time, so this afternoon I decided it would probably be a good idea to take at least a couple of jumps before we showed up for class.

I was pleasantly surprised by my scruffy black boy. He remembered even more than I hoped. He ran, and jumped, and stayed with me like a real pro, all with lightning speed.

And when he ran across the dogwalk he stopped in perfect 2-on-2-off position without me even asking for it. (That’s when the dog puts his front 2 feet on the ground, and his back two feet on the contact obstacle, and waits to be released).

I think he only made one small mistake in class, and that was just overshooting a jump, which I am totally cool with. The most important thing when we are working together is that he listens to me. If he makes a mistake or two along the way - no sweat!! But if he decides that he wants to run off and do his own thing - that is the cardinal sin - the worst thing he can do (as far as I’m concerned).

The other thing that I was a bit concerned about is that Micah is somewhat reactive. I think I’ve mentioned that before. He IS a terrier, and it doesn’t take much to set him off, barking and growling. He hasn’t spent much time in the last couple of months around many other dogs (other than his immediate family).

Well I’m happy to report that he and I were “in the zone” on our first night back. He was a good boy, and paid attention to mommy. Granted, we weren’t doing full courses, just short little drills, but still, after having been away, I was VERY happy with that.

Next week we will attend our 1st of 7 classes based on the book Control Unleashed, by Leslie McDevitt.

It’s an awesome book, based on desensitization and counter-conditioning for dogs like Micah (and worse) that react too much, to too many things, unnecessarily. I’m very excited about being able to participate in that.

It gives me great hope that someday Micah will have all of his fabulous energy under control, and that we will actually be able to compete in the addiction that we enjoy so much! Agility!!

Tags: 2 on 2 off, Agility, Control Unleashed, dogwalk

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under Agility, Fun Stuff, Micah's Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.