Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Right Side? Left? Plus Great Attention!

Little video from class last night.  Tibby is super cute!  I love the way she watches me and follows my body language.  And how she goes over the A-frame.  It would be fun to have an A-frame at home - Tibby likes it so much :)  She's really very brave.  I'm not sure I would run up and over something like that.  Dogs are very trusting!

I'm not sure if it was from the treats last night or chewing on her bully stick, but Tibby woke up with a yucky stomach.  She threw up this morning (thankfully we made it outside first) some green bile.  Then tonight she ate a turkey neck and then threw that up too.  I thought the throw up this morning might just be a quick thing, but probably the turkey neck wasn't a good idea - since she must still feel sick.  Except that she doesn't!  She wants to play and eat!  She can't understand why we aren't DOING SOMETHING!!  She ate a couple pieces of kibble that she found at the bottom of a Kong and drank some water a couple hours ago.  So far that has stayed down, but I'm letting her have a little fast and then tomorrow she can have rice and chicken.



So anyway our video - I thought running with Tibby on my right side flowed better.  If Tibby had a send I could have pushed her to the tunnel, instead of having to rear cross.  The Teacher told us that running them on the right side was a really horrible way to run it and we could try it if we wanted, just so we could feel how awful it was.  So we could learn.  She asked us if we wanted to try running it on both sides and I was like - YES!  That's what I have been wanting from the beg.  To get to try different things with the courses.  I was the only one who tried to run differently both times.  When other classmates were going up and running it exactly the same, I kept asking Zoe's Mom, "Aren't we supposed to try the left side and then the right side?"  I was confused about what every one else was doing.   When we got done The Teacher said, "Now do you see how horrible the right side felt?  The left side is much better - right?"  All I could say was, "Well, we got to run some more."  Technically true, not a lie, but not what I was really thinking.   Minnesota Nice, anyone? 

Zoe's Mom said after this class ends she's not going to do agility any more.  I told her it can take a long time to train a dog.  That we have been working for almost a year.  That Tibby was really, really, really hard to train.  She said she doesn't want to work that hard or train that long.  She wants Zoe to know how to do everything right away.  It doesn't work that way!!!  Although I can never forget that Zoe's Mom was the one who said Tibby would never be able to weave.  Well, ha ha!  She weaved 6 closed poles on Tuesday!  At class!  And no I didn't get video proof :)  I'll try next week!

In the video you get to see our classmates - Blondie, Zoe, Maisy and Cord (or Cort, I'm not sure which).  I would LOVE to get a video of Cord the Aussie running - it's very funny.  He bites his handler the entire time.  She yells at him.  He knocks down entire jumps.  She yells at him.  He jumps over tunnels.  Did I say it was funny?  Maybe I meant sad.  But kind of funny.  Take out his owner yelling all the time and it would be super hilarious.  I'm actually waiting for the day that she kicks him into a tunnel.  She's getting really close.

4 comments:

Diana said...

Running with your dog on the right seems like the right way to me. On the left you had to rear cross the tunnel so you had to wait on the dog. Plus rear crossing the tunnel may put you behind if your dog is flying and comes out of the tunnel really fast.

Helen said...

I think its a good thing to try and run a sequence on both sides. You never know when it may show up in a run and you might not be able to put in a cross where you originally had planned.

Jenn said...

It's great that you are comfortable running with Tibby on the right. Often the dogs I see are so used to obedience that can't understand that it's okay to be on the right.

And I would have totally run that all on the right, like you did. Makes perfect sense.

Cord sounds like he thinks he's the boss. That biting behavior is common in a lot of the herding breeds... but I always cringe when I see it. There's something wrong with the relationship if your dog thinks he can bully you like a sheep. (I'm just sayin' - obvs they don't feel that way.... *cringe*)

Loretta Mueller said...

I would have ran it with the dog on my right as well...for sure...why would you want to run it on the left? ANYWAY (that's Minnesotan BTW) ;-)

Poor Cord...he's frustrated...they need more skills :-( Obstacle focus, sends lateral and forward..LOTS of skills...and the owner yelling at him doesn't help...

Not Cord's fault...he would stop biting if he knew where to go or had the skills to get there...IMHO of course! I haven't seen a video. But...