Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Happy Schnauzers!

Yesterday started the new Tuesday night sessions and Ike started agility again. I don’t think I have ever seen him so happy – maybe in the competition heeling class. He was happy and fast – I almost crashed into him trying to get a f/c in! Wow. I think the boy might be feeling better! Thank you, thank you. Now I must remember to “Just Say No” to greediness and NOT decide it is a.o.k. to enter him in any sort of trial (except potentially Rally).

Carmen had her class first and she was super. The course (thank you, Katrin!) included a four jump serpentine and allowed for some definite use of the shoulders as directionals. I should say REQUIRED! I loved it! It is perfect for my current discrimination dilemma – which I am sure is partially a result of mis-directed shoulders!

We also played with a variety of course starts. I did a three jump lead out with Carmen, a f/c between jumps 3 and 4, and I ran on the right from 1 through 5 with a r/c at the tunnel. I tried to do a switch between 4 and 5 but Carmen wasn’t moving far enough ahead of me to allow it.

I need to work on changing my crossing plans during a run. This is what happened in both jumpers runs of the last trial. I needed to change my cross-plan based on the way Carmie was running and I over-thought and ended up staying with the cross I had “walked” the course in mind with which resulted in Carmie going, “huh?” I suppose it is progress that I know I need to work on this!!

The teeter and chute were in last night’s course. Carmen’s teeter is looking very nice. I definitely need to buy a chute – Carmie is back to trying to avoid it. Katrin commented that given her eye issue it might be stressful to be going into a dark closed tunnel. Egads! Yeah. I also occasionally use the word tunnel instead of chute and Katrin thinks that especially with Carmen I need a specific word. I need to remember and use chute consistently.

All in all it was a nice class. Carmen was really good and I felt like I handled the course and her decently. I was definitely more consistent speed-wise.

Ike’s class was next and it was fairly small. Ike was SO happy, prancing and wagging. We had some difficulty with the serpentine as I was pushing him out with my shoulders. He was So happy I was afraid to keep reworking it - in the past that would cause him to get stressed out and not want to play anymore. Somewhere along the line Ike figured out it is not all about him and that when we are reworking things it is because mum was a goober. He didn’t stress AT ALL about reworking the serpentine and eventually we nailed it.

It was amazing to me – at one point I more-or-less asked Katrin if we could just move on since I didn’t want Ike to lose his happy mood. I think she ignored me (intentionally or not) which made me nervous but was absolutely the correct thing to do. I walk on eggshells with Ike sometimes and that isn’t going to allow him to continue to develop. He is definitely figuring out that I am the one causing errors not him or he is no longer worrying about making mistakes? Either way I feel even more connected to him than usual.

I also made a concerted effort to cheer him on and have a grand old time. I think he benefited from it. It was cool to run Carmen and Ike back-to-back as they are so different. I don’t say much with Carmie at all! Commands and “Good Girlie!” are about it – with Ike there was much more dialogue going on.

To see Ike so happy makes me so incredibly happy. He was obviously pooped – this morning he stayed in bed much later than usual!

4 comments:

Diana said...

It so nice when are dogs are excited about the same things we are. Yea! Diana

Katrin said...

It was unintentional, don't even remember you asking about moving on

Jules said...

Yeah, you might not have even heard me since I think I was mumbling!

It was a great class!

Blue said...

Carmen was great in class! Glad to hear that Ike had fun too.