Bonkers for Bella: Progress

Novice Obedience Exercise Descriptions

Heel on Leash: Dog and Handler work as a team, the leash must be loose and held in a natural position. Orders for this exercise are: "Forward", "Halt", "Right turn", "Left turn", "About turn", "Slow" "Normal" and "Fast".

Stand for Examination: The dog stands in position before and during the examination without displaying resentment. Handler is instructed to "stand your dog and leave when you are ready", after positioning the dog the handler stands with dog in heel position, give the command/signal to stay and walk straight forward approximately 6 feet and then turn and face the dog. The judge will approach the dog from the front, using the fingers and palm of one hand, the judge will touch the dogs head, body and hindquarters. Judge will then give the command "back to your dog", handler returns to heel position. The dog must remain still until judge has said "exercise finished".

Recall: The dog must stay where left unitl called by handler and then must respond promptly when the handler commands or signals them to come. On order from the judge the handler will give the command/signal for the dog to stay in the sit position. Handler will then wakl forward to the other side of the ring with arms hanging naturally. On the judges order handler will command or signal the dog to come. Dog must come at brisk pace and sit stright, centered directly in front of handler. On judges order handler will give the dog the command/signal to finish. Dog must move quickly to heel position and sit.

Finish: Dog is directed to "swing" it's hind end around to the left to come to the heel position and then sit, or "heel" around to the right and behind the handler and come to the heel position and then sit.

Sit/Stay & Down/Stay (Group Exercises): The dog must remain in either the seated position or the down position, whichever is required by the particular exercise. The dogs will line up in catalog order along one side of the ring. The leash is removed and placed with the handlers armband behind the dog. Handlers are instructed to "sit your dog" or "down your dog", and then "leave your dog". The handler will walk across to the other side of the ring and stand in a natural position across from the dog until the judge orders them to "return to your dog". Any dog that leaves the place where it was left during the first group exercise will be given an "NQ" and excused from the remaining group exercise.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Progress

Despite the fact that I’m trying to recover from a nasty cold, Bella and I participated in our last Agility class for this session. She did very well, I’m so proud of her.

Luckily for me, since I wasn’t feeling 100%, it was a laid back class; Trainer Guy wasn’t there, so Mrs. Trainer Guy and Trainer Guys’ Step-Dad ran the class instead. It also seemed as though we were missing some people; normally we have to move fairly quickly through the course to be sure that everyone gets enough time but due to the smaller class we didn’t have to worry so much about that one.

The set up was pretty simple, we started with the teeter, went to the A-Frame, Chute (we skipped that one again), two jumps, pause table, three more jumps, tunnel (we skipped until a few times at the end of class- I’ll explain that later), dog walk and then finished with the weave poles.

Bella and I were the third team to go on the course. She is still very afraid on the teeter, as you can see by the complete tail tuck in the teeter video. But believe it or not she showed some great improvement by the end of class (when the camera wasn’t on of course) she was able to walk on and balance herself to lower the teeter without having someone else lower it for her.

Most of the other obstacles are no problem for her. We still skipped the chute; I don’t think she’s ready for that one yet. The first few times through the course we also skipped the tunnel; I didn’t want to hold everyone else up if she decided to hide in the middle again. By the end of class though, I decided to give it a try. With Hubby at one end so she couldn’t back out the wrong way, I sent her through. The first time she paused in the middle as usual but by the second and third time she was slowly crawling through, faster and faster. After everyone started to leave Mrs. Trainer Guy shortened the tunnel for us and took the curve out for Bella to practice that way. She had no problem with that and was going through the shorter straight tunnel very quickly. We definitely made some progress there!

As for the rest of it I’ll let the pictures speak for us. Overall it was a good experience and I look forward to trying it again later this spring when Trainer Guy has the next Agility class.