A Girl and Her Dog

Roscoe and I have been taking agility classes since summer of 2007*, with a break from April 08 to just a few weeks ago. We just finished our first set of classes after that break, and I made Joe come along to take some video. The Photobucket album is from those first few weeks in '07 and this past Thursday. We've come along way, baby!

Roscoe's just the best dog we could have asked for. He's so patient and forgiving of our myriad mistakes over the years. He gamely goes along with everything I ask him to do, and he never "loses heart" (as D says in one video clip) when I make mistake after mistake and ask him for do-over after do-over. He's just happy to be my partner in adventures.

Click on the album picture to see the whole album of Fall '07 pics and Feb '09 video. Otherwise, just click on each video from last Thursday.

Jen & Roscoe

Wagging on the A Frame

The idea was to go A-frame, jump, jump, weave. He missed his 2on-2off on the A-frame, so I made him go back and redo. His tail wagged the whole time, even thumping against the A-frame. Then I have him on leash for the rest of the obstacles because Chuck was feeding llamas, and I was pretty sure that was too much for Roscoe to handle.

At the second jump, he got a little squirrely, so I stopped and explained, "We're going to slow down and jump toward the llamas and then do the weaves. Think you can handle it?" I'm sure everyone at Gentle Pets thinks I'm a loon, but talking to Roscoe like that helps me remember what we're about to do.



Llamas

This is the reason he's on leash in the previous video. Chuck was feeding llamas just behind me here.



Front Cross to Lizards

A beautiful front cross, if I do say so myself. Then a nice sprint to the lizards. But the cool thing about this video is how quickly Roscoe regroups and comes back when called! He used to take off on his own adventure, and I'd have to physically go to him and pull him off the fence. Now it's like he's thinking, "Jump, jump, lizards!, oh wait, Mom and I were doing something."



Front Cross

The funniest thing about this video is hearing the discussion about Roscoe's gait. :) Also, notice the llama run and recall!! This has been our biggest challenge, calling him off llamas. Well, that and my complete ineptitude at anything remotely resembling athletics.



Rear Cross

Rear cross practice. We had just been using the same course to practice front crosses, so that's why I get mixed up at the beginning.

Then I get so excited about a beautiful (by my low standards) rear cross that I forget where I'm going and completely bypass the second rear cross (that's where I yell "oooh!!" and come to a dead stop).

We're not competition material yet, but we're having fun.



Touch, Spin, Be Cute

This is right after we'd tried several times to do this combo of obstacles with rear crosses, and he kept leaving me to chase llamas. So I brought him back and did touches and spins and "be cute" to get his focus back on me. I know he spun to the wrong direction on the second to last jump, but I was happy he kept connected and didn't leave me again. We also slowed the speed waaay down.



Rear Cross Success!

Ending on a good note.



*I originally wrote "fall of 2007" but upon further reflection, I think it was summer. Somewhere around there anyway.