Agility Foundation and Weave Pole classes

On February 22, 2016 I started my Foundations 1 class.  It was also that day that Rainy came home from the hospital, diagnosed with at least Stage III Lymphoma cancer which is terminal.

I would need to successfully compete Foundations 1, 2 and 3 classes each 7 weeks in length.

Each block of lessons built on what we learned in the previous block.  All the puppies/dogs in the class needed to be able to get in and out of a container as part of learning our two foot contacts for the contact equipment (teeter, A-Frame, dog walk) that we would eventually learn how to do.  Marty found a plastic food container with a lid, some nubby shelf liner, a yellow towel and a plastic lid from Crystal drink container for me to use as a target.  We had the tiniest equipment for me to use and it was easy for Marty to carry to and from class.

At home Marty set the open container on the nubby pad in front of my house so that I had to jump in and out of it to get into or out of my house where I eat my meals.  That was so easy.  Then when I was doing that easily she turned the box over on top of the nubby pad so the box didn't slip and laid the towel on top of the box.  I had to jump on and off the box getting in and out of my house.  This was really easy.

Then came the hard part.  Starting with the box, bottom side down, I had to jump in with all 4 feet then only put my front feet out of the box onto the floor.  Marty would turn the box so I never knew if it would be skinny or wide.

Once I got the bottom side down box down pat Marty turned to box over to bottom side up and I had to learn to jump up on the box with all four feet then put my front feet down on the ground.  Oh I loved the treats I got as I learned all of this at home.

I was a wiz in class too.

Many of the things we were doing in class Marty will set things up for me to do them at home only the things were smaller because Marty's house is small, not all the space like at the training center.

I had trouble with the tunnels but now I love them.  I also had great trouble with the chute because it was dark and the fabric of the chute was heavy.  Marty used the kids tunnels we have at home that got me over my fear of tunnels for setting up chutes.  She attached some light weight rip stop nylon to one end though it was only draped over the far opening of the little tunnel.  When I had no problem going through the chute that way, Marty pulled the whole 6 feet of rip stop nylon out forming the chute.  Neat thing was that all the Chihuahuas here (Whispy, Twig and Pin) all ran through the chute with no problems so I just followed them through.  We all got treats.  Once I was doing that quickly Marty set up a second chute so we had to go through one to come into the room and go through the other to leave the room.  All of us ran the chutes until Marty was laughing and told us no more treats, showing us that we had eaten them all up.

That was a really fun training day, it didn't even feel like training either.  It was the last thing Pin would do with us because she died suddenly in the middle of the night.  Marty was very sad so I didn't do chutes for a few days and then Marty set up one chute and I ran it over and over again as quickly as I could until she was again laughing. It was so good to hear her laugh again. <don't tell anyone but I am glad Pin is gone because she was always trying to attack me>

During the Foundations classes we learned all the equipment except the weave poles.  Marty had to sign me up for weave pole classes done in blocks of three in addition to the Foundations classes.  It took me only 3 blocks of weave pole classes to be able to weave all 12 poles correctly and find the opening from any direction correctly.

Here is me doing the weaves poles:

First I did them with Marty on my left and then I did them with Marty on my right

In these photos I was moving "fast" for where I was in my training.  Now many weeks past those classes these photos catch me moving slowly.  I am blazing fast now!

I had to learn to do the weave poles no matter which side Marty is on or how far away from the weave poles she is.  Sometimes she is more than 10 feet away from me as I run the weaves.

I successfully completed my Foundations 3 class on 5/23/16 and I will start going to Novice Agility on Wednesday mornings following Whispy's Master's Agility class on 6/16.  I am so excited!

When we were in Foundations 3 our class got to go out to the big training area to run courses.  It is fun but kinda scary.  Marty took me to some private classes out in the big training area when I was the only dog in the whole place.  But during class when we trained out there there were tons of dogs and lots of noise and movement.  I will have another private class on 6/16 to practice anything I had trouble with during my first Novice class.