Eri's Agility League debut
Well THAT was exciting!
The environment was WAY more than Eri has ever had to handle before and it was really interesting to see how it affected him. He was a wild man in the arena...and out of it as well. He found Haku completely overstimulating. Razor a bit less so, and probably only because Raze was not entirely sure that fluffy, flailing thing was a DOG! He desperately wanted to play with Pirate and London. He probably would have fallen completely in love with Eva if he'd seen her :-) I don't know why the dogs of friends should be such a draw for him and the dogs of people I hardly know don't get much of a second look. Odd. But it was interesting how the fast, big dogs - something we haven't had much exposure to - are a whole new level of overly exciting while waiting for our turn.
We had NO start line stay, more dropped bars and faster runs that I was expecting so I was out of position more than I would have liked. In his defense, he got all the obstacle discriminations and even had a lovely self-correction when he was headed for a tunnel and heard me direct to the DW in the standard run, he was very easy to run even though the spacing was tight for him - he's definitely stepping up on that front, and he only mauled the 'judges' a little bit... On the whole, it was a good thing. The tight waiting space and many, loud dogs are a challenge so it's an excellent environmental challenge to work through. I haven't had the opportunity outside of shows to do environmental flooding stuff with Eri, so this will be a good way to get someo of that work done without it costing a fortune!
No video. I took the camera and completely forgot that I had it. I'm not used to having the opportunity to video runs! MUST try to remedy this in future weeks.
He had to have his feet and face rinsed afterwards so here is his 'official' three year old picture. Apparently it's too much to ask him to stay awake after league and a rinse even if dinner hasn't been eaten yet! I'll try to get better pics this weekend...
Don't you love LOVE that big brown nose?!
The environment was WAY more than Eri has ever had to handle before and it was really interesting to see how it affected him. He was a wild man in the arena...and out of it as well. He found Haku completely overstimulating. Razor a bit less so, and probably only because Raze was not entirely sure that fluffy, flailing thing was a DOG! He desperately wanted to play with Pirate and London. He probably would have fallen completely in love with Eva if he'd seen her :-) I don't know why the dogs of friends should be such a draw for him and the dogs of people I hardly know don't get much of a second look. Odd. But it was interesting how the fast, big dogs - something we haven't had much exposure to - are a whole new level of overly exciting while waiting for our turn.
We had NO start line stay, more dropped bars and faster runs that I was expecting so I was out of position more than I would have liked. In his defense, he got all the obstacle discriminations and even had a lovely self-correction when he was headed for a tunnel and heard me direct to the DW in the standard run, he was very easy to run even though the spacing was tight for him - he's definitely stepping up on that front, and he only mauled the 'judges' a little bit... On the whole, it was a good thing. The tight waiting space and many, loud dogs are a challenge so it's an excellent environmental challenge to work through. I haven't had the opportunity outside of shows to do environmental flooding stuff with Eri, so this will be a good way to get someo of that work done without it costing a fortune!
No video. I took the camera and completely forgot that I had it. I'm not used to having the opportunity to video runs! MUST try to remedy this in future weeks.
He had to have his feet and face rinsed afterwards so here is his 'official' three year old picture. Apparently it's too much to ask him to stay awake after league and a rinse even if dinner hasn't been eaten yet! I'll try to get better pics this weekend...
Don't you love LOVE that big brown nose?!