welcome back to classes...

Classes started back up last night at TD... drove very very very fast and hit traffic, but decided to enroll into Agility as well (beginners) - missed the first 15 minutes, but not much of class. The instructor is nice (and just took third in her division at AKC invitationals with her dog, Demon), and they said Rah (and Mercury) are too advanced for beginners but not ready to move up, but I'm ok with him being in this class. We did some targeting the teeter, some tunnel working both sides, some walking the weaves, and then some a-frame. It's a large class with lots of down time but I'm ok with that.

Then Miss Thang started Attention class!!!! This isn't her blog, but she did pretty well for a 6 month old puppy who doesn't have a huge attention span, certainly not the worst in her class and she didn't bark the entire time, which was good :) Not bad, puppyface :)

2 hours later, finally got to Rah's class - started out with the about turn-into-sylvia-bishop-turn up into you to get fast about turns, Rah does that well but always steps on me :) My b iggest issue was taking too long to set up in between exercises because I missed the start of a few runs.

Then we went to the mother of all Fig8 exercises - 10 cones set up and we just do 10 continuous figure 8's... its fun and very confusing for some but quite a work out... and by the second run, I was able to work it and actually get some good form in myself and TA DA - linda gave me a compliment!!!!
(science nerd interjection - compliment or complement... I first used the wrong one!!!)
She told me I did a marvelous one -- YAY ME!!!! I need to work on his left (inner) posts more, but I will work it and hopefully we will get there... she wants me to point at my face when we do the inside post and hopefully it will back rah up and have him look at my face from back there...

Then we worked transitions and ring entrances, which Rah likes, but he bit me in the face, which was a big unhappy face for me. Then we worked db, which made him incredibly happy, especially since he is apparently the only dog in the entire class that has a formal retrieve.

The class was REALLY small last night - maybe only 9 or so of us.. I wonder if it will really remain that small, or if some people moved on. I didn't think they were ready, but who really knows. I wonder if I will be ready by next session to move on... I guess I just don't have any real gauge of where I am according to their standards...