A Tale of Two Kittens and One Puppy

This weekend was our second agility fun match where I take the dogs for agility. Technically, it’s Chester’s third fun match, since I took him to one at a different facility back in December. And since my husband was home we got some video! Not great video (not his fault), but hey, it’s video of agility.

This was Lola’s first outing at a fun match. Agility has been really good for her. Even our instructor commented that she was doing really well with all the dogs & distractions. Which isn’t to say she was perfect, but she did do really well.

I only did a tunnelers course with her (all tunnels). But it was a tough course, and she’s not used to sequencing eleven obstacles. She really surprised me — she did well. Sure, she missed a few entrances & did some sniffing (she really needed to pee, despite being given the opportunity to several times, which I think explained the sniffing), but she did some of the really tough stuff well. And she didn’t run off to the dogwalk, one of her favorite obstacles.

Chester’s first run went pretty well. Since he had a bad reaction to the tunnelers last time, I decided not to do that with him. He did the teeter beautifully. I messed him up a few times by not setting him up for tunnel entrances correctly.

You can see that he zips up the dogwalk, then really slows down, which is why I clap — to get him going. It’s like he suddenly realizes he’s way above the ground (Lola never even notices; she loves the dogwalk).

He also stopped at the top of the A-frame — I’ve no idea why; he never does that. Maybe he lost sight of me?

What you can’t see at the end is that he did run off the course before the last two tunnels. That is a problem he has, sometimes — he likes to decide when he’s done. I was able to get him back & get him to finish; if that had been an actual trial, he’d be disqualified for running off the field. We did have video of those last two tunnels, but it’s not terribly exciting. Still, all in all, I felt he did well.

Chester’s second, and final, run didn’t go as well. It started off just fine; I started out with a short lead out, which is when you put your dog in a stay and walk out so that you’re ahead of the dog. The dog has to have a good stay, plus they have to actually go where you direct them to — but it gives you a chance to get ahead of them.

But when I lost my place (someone must have knocked one of the cones slightly, because I couldn’t see the number), he went off into a major sniffing stint. I finally got him back in the game, only to have him jump off the teeter. I tried a couple of more times, but he still refused it. I’ve no idea why. He didn’t run off the field this time, and we just skipped the teeter and finished with the last two tunnels.

He’s been having problems with the teeter for a while, but he seemed to finally have a breakthrough this week. Until now. It will be interesting to see what he does in class tomorrow.