There’s “Naptime Agility” where Penny sneaks, slithers and scampers for the most comfortable position in the dog pile
And there’s “Brawling Agility” where Penny does her best to avoid the maw of her older brother
For our agility work, we’ll need to blend both of Penny’s natural agility proclivities into a a single, focused and working mindset. Great deeds have humble beginnings, so before Penny can whip through a full agility course we have to start at square one.
A broomstick stuck between two stools. Very humble indeed
Of course Eko had to come help Penny check out my work of modern art. As we learned in class, I didn’t encourage Penny to jump or lure her with a treat
I let the pups get comfortable and sniff things out on their own
“Oh Eko, I remember these jump-things now. It’s easy, watch me.”
“You just walk around and get free treats!”
Not so fast Penny girl. Treats are only rewarded for interacting and moving towards/through the jump.
“Okay, now can I have a treat?”
At this point I put down my camera and fully engaged in the exercise. Before long Penny was zooming back and forth across the broomstick on her own without any commands from me. We made some nice progress so I moved to our second exercise.
For this part of training I held treats out in my hand. Any time Penny went to eat them I would close my fist.
“If you would just leave your hand open this would be a lot easier…”
Only when Penny completely disengaged with the treats on her own accord would she earn any. Penny quickly picked up on the reverse logic
“Yeah, sure Will. I definitely don’t want those treats….*wink*”
I’ll give it to you, broomsticks and self-control exercises aren’t quite the exciting experience you might imagine from dog agility, but that’s what makes fundamentals so important.
We’ve hand a number of opportunities to work on these drills this week, so now it’s time to head back to the classroom and see what we’ve learned. Back to school we go!
