Agility Class #2
Tonight was Midas’s second agility class and I think there were three more people/dogs added. It was nuts. One black lab, another terrier (in heat, complete with diaper) and a black poodle. Needless to say, a very full class. Midas had a little dog aggression moment which resulted in the instructor having everyone walk past him. He got a click and treat when he did nothing and a yank and reprimand when he was naughty. It was effective.
We worked in pairs tonight too, which was interesting. Me and my partner (who has a Golden and is also in my Rally class) started out on the tunnel. Tonight the tunnel was stretched out full-length. Midas wasn’t so sure about it to begin with but once he got the hang of it, he loved it. I could hear and see his tail thwacking the side as he rushed down it to pop gleefully out the other end and then race back to do it again 
Next for us was the board-walk with the wait command and walking the ladder. Midas had a little problem remembering the wait command but caught on by the end. The same with the ladder, he had to go over it a couple of times before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
We moved from there on to the weave pulls and a table. Midas’s first time running up to jump on the table resulted in him sliding right off the other end, which was humorous, but not good. His lay down on the table is very slow (also not good) so we need to practice this one more. The weave pulls were fine.
The next set of exercises were our favorite. Two regular jumps and a tire jump. First we practiced going over one jump and hitting the target while on lead. Then we did two jumps, with the target after the second, still on lead. Finally, we worked up to off-lead and over both jumps. Midas caught on right away and completed both jumps extremely quickly. I could tell he really liked this one. The tire he was less sure of, but once he understood he went right through, not once trying to go under or around it.
This class was really neat in that we worked off-lead a little and it was great to see Midas completely focused on the exercises we were doing. His concentration used to be horrible with other dogs running around and having fun, now he has great focus. I loved it! We had an absolute blast!
We had homework assigned this week, we need to teach the command Go Right Around and have him know to round an object, turning to the right.