Tuesday Night Class

Last night was Ike's Tuesday night agility class. I went over to my in-laws to practice with Carmen, and then left Bug with my FIL. So Ike had the evening ALL to himself!

He was great!! I was actually out of breath from running him - which probably says more about my conditioning program than his speed! But seriously, he was ON. We ran the same course twice and the second time I gave him a really ugly entry to the poles and he didn't even bobble. I also flew ahead of him during the tunnel, tunnel, tunnel sequence and he almost blew by the tunnel and then said - oh, it is in my p-o-t (path-of-travel), better take it. Yeah, Ike!!

Last week we discussed "switch," and this week there was a nice serpentine in the course design. A serpentine is the name for a series of obstacles (most often jumps) that are set up in such a way so that the dog must alternate its direction away from and toward the handler (switches aka lead changes); essentially running in an "S" shaped path. With Ike I was able to get one FC in after the first jump, but then forgot the second one twice - in part because I was flabbergasted by Ike's speed! I also fall prey to the fact that I *think* about a serpentine as a series of obstacles which is handled from one side, which isn't necessarily true. I need to retrain my brain (in a lot of ways).

In typical me fashion, I am of course over analyzing where this speedy Schnauzer has come from. I was talking to my friend Michele last night after class and she pointed out that with Ike it is typically many things, not one moment. True enough. He is feeling better, he has competition, I have totally changed what I am rewarding on walks, I told him he didn't have to trial any longer.....I think that is one of the biggest reason I am seeing a major change. Oh well, I will take a happy-speedy Schnauzer over trialing any day of the week.