Traveling home from Hattiesburg on Friday afternoon, Tracey and I decided that we needed to get the puppies on the agility equipment at the field. Kayak and Spice had each had lessons at the practice jump daily during the agility trial but neither had seen any contact equipment recently. So Saturday morning at 6:30 AM we gathered at the agility field. Kayak and Spice each got a turn on the excellent style standard course that was set up. With the exception of the fabric on the chute the course was complete including a broad jump. Since the video camera was still in the car from the trial, Tracey videoed Spice so I could see how we are progressing. Just as Spice was finishing her first attempt at the entire course it started POURING down rain so our agility lesson at the field was finished. Tracey and I sat in the vehicle and talked about the next phase of Spice's training 1) increase her lateral distance from me when we run so I can look straight ahead and see her out of the corner of my eye and 2) improve Spice's obstacle focus which will be helped by me looking ahead as well.
Spice struggled with the broad jump when I showed it to her at obedience a few weeks ago. She jumped the broad jump at the field just fine but it had a jump set up in the middle of it. I pulled my mostly obedience used broad jump out yesterday afternoon inside in the dog training area. Spice was very confused that we had brought the agility equipment inside the house since to her it belongs outside. She did finally go over 2 of the boards inside. Then I got fancy and tried a 2 board jump followed by another 2 board jump.... oops the second set of 2 boards were not supposed to be in the house either. I think I will take my broad jump outside and work on it in a sequence to see if her attitude toward that piece of equipment improves.
