AG II

In Thursday's AG class does not have so long waiting pauses between the exercises then in Tuesday's AG class. There is always something to do on Thursday :)

• Guiding. Two jumps on the left side, two jumps on the right side and a tunnel connecting the sides, so at first the dog takes two jumps from one side then tunnel and finally two jumps from other side. 1) We practiced guiding the dog being only inside the track, so the guiding hand stays the same. 2) We practiced guiding the dog using the blind cross after the tunnel, so you run two jumps being inside of the track, then after the tunnel you change the guiding hand and run outside the track. Good.
• Dog-walk. I have always stopped at the end of the dog-walk to teach contact area to Ruudi. So now I tried to continue moving at the end of the dog-walk. At first Ruudi did not stop as supposed to but quickly he released that he has to stop to get the treat. Of course we have to practice it more. Good.
• Wave poles (crossed). Different modes: tight but higher, wider but lower, something between those two. In the tight case I heard the sound how Ruudi's body was hit against the poles :) Couple of times Ruudi got out of the slalom, but in general he performed well! I am happy!  
• Track with jumps and a tunnel. The main purpose was to get the dog slowing down and get him exactly following your hand. To slow down the dog, the cramped hand is used in front of the dog. If the dog came out of the tunnel he had to take the 90 degrees turn to the jump, so after the tunnel you had to slow him down and you had to guide him to take the jump as straight as possible. To practice the hand sign, you stop the dog with the sign and give him a treat if he stops correctly. To run this track I had to memorize all the turns that I had to take. At first I though it is nightmare but after running the track without the dog, it did not seem so frightful anymore :) Although I still cannot understand how it is possible to memorize the whole track i.e. in competitions?! In general, the slowing down needs practicing, although in the class Ruudi released what I expect from him.

Ruudi barked in the cage during the pauses. How to get rid of this behavior? I got some tips to calm him down: I just hit the cage exactly when he barked. It quite worked!