Last night Chase and I attended our first Agility class since he was a puppy. He played agility with Cheryl while he was in Tennessee and he loved the game. To make this work (until I move the office the end of the month), Chase has to spend the day in Albuquerque with me. That’s not a hardship for him — he loves visiting all the folks in our courtyard and helping me work. Yesterday we had special guests as well. Ratigan and David are thinking about getting a corgi and trying to decide which brand they want. They came to visit at the end of the day. Chase was delighted to meet them and while we sat and talked in the courtyard, other people took Chase for walks and played with him.
Class begins at 7:30. That means we don’t get home until after 10:00. I think it was worth it — at least for Chase. The instructor had us back up a little because we are teaching Chase to work at a distance. That is the only way I can possibly play agility with him (short of a whole-body transplant). He had to learn to stop at the bottom of the contacts because that is the place/time during which I move into position for the next series of obstacles. It certainly doesn’t mean I s-t-r-o-l-l into position, but it gives me a second more time. The instructor also wants him to only jump 4″ in practice. He can easily jump 16″, but I will trial him in Preferred so he will be jumping 8″. Her theory is that a dog has only so many jumps in it, it’s clear Chase jumps high and clean, so she wants to save his front as much as possible. Chase is a deep-chested boy and the last thing either of us wants is to injure him or to contribute to breaking down his front.
We will have a great time! I’m going to visit my storage units this weekend and pull out my jumps and the weave poles so we can get in some practice at home. With the weather, Chase gets hosed down before he begins practice or class — he loves that too. Shaking water on bystanders is among his favorite activities.
