We're Advanced Agilites (?)
Last night was graduation from Advanced Agility Class. The rules were tougher this time. You couldn't touch your dog or the equipment. You lost a point whenever you repeated a command. You lost 5 points for every piece of equipment you missed or messed up. There were 16 pieces of equipment. And you needed an 85 to pass. This was the longest course we've run yet. There were some choices we got to make - high or low dog walk, high or low teeter-totter. We chose the low every time, since graduation was at stake. Both dogs have done the high ones before, but I'm not that confident about it. Casey also got to skip the A-Frame since he's been balking at it all class. I think his hips/back/knees/whatever are bothering him.
We got two chances to pass. Lexi scored an 80 on the first pass. She missed a few pieces of equipment, but she ran the fastest she's ever run. She was probably still the slowest in the class, but by seconds, instead of minutes this time. A few weeks ago she was the slowest by over a minute, and that included being slower than the dog who stopped to poop in the middle of his run. Casey passed with an 85. He fell for the decoy tunnel in the middle of the course that we were not supposed to go through. He likes the tunnel! So second pass was fun for Casey but pressure for Lexi. Actually the fun and pressure was on me. The dogs couldn't care less whether their score is an 80 or 85 or -110. Lexi ran even faster this time, and when we had only 2 jumps to go, teacher Shari said to just nail the jumps to pass, and she did! So she too passed with an 85 and she took a minute off her first run's time. Shari assured me she did not pass out of charity.
Now we've worked our way through all the classes there are and are eligible to drop into any class we want, but there's no more formal weekly instruction. That's bad for me. I need the pressure of a class to show up. Otherwise I can just go next time, or next time, or next time. But I want to keep running Casey as long as he can do it. He loves it, he's good at it, and someday his arthritis will force him to quit, and until then, I want him to keep having fun. So I'll just have to use that as motivation. Lexi really came a long way in this class. She's almost at the point where she runs it because it's fun, rather than because I have HOT DOGS in my hand. It'd be neat to see it really click for her. There's a fun run on Sunday afternoon. Maybe I'll take them to that.
We got two chances to pass. Lexi scored an 80 on the first pass. She missed a few pieces of equipment, but she ran the fastest she's ever run. She was probably still the slowest in the class, but by seconds, instead of minutes this time. A few weeks ago she was the slowest by over a minute, and that included being slower than the dog who stopped to poop in the middle of his run. Casey passed with an 85. He fell for the decoy tunnel in the middle of the course that we were not supposed to go through. He likes the tunnel! So second pass was fun for Casey but pressure for Lexi. Actually the fun and pressure was on me. The dogs couldn't care less whether their score is an 80 or 85 or -110. Lexi ran even faster this time, and when we had only 2 jumps to go, teacher Shari said to just nail the jumps to pass, and she did! So she too passed with an 85 and she took a minute off her first run's time. Shari assured me she did not pass out of charity.
Now we've worked our way through all the classes there are and are eligible to drop into any class we want, but there's no more formal weekly instruction. That's bad for me. I need the pressure of a class to show up. Otherwise I can just go next time, or next time, or next time. But I want to keep running Casey as long as he can do it. He loves it, he's good at it, and someday his arthritis will force him to quit, and until then, I want him to keep having fun. So I'll just have to use that as motivation. Lexi really came a long way in this class. She's almost at the point where she runs it because it's fun, rather than because I have HOT DOGS in my hand. It'd be neat to see it really click for her. There's a fun run on Sunday afternoon. Maybe I'll take them to that.