Practice, Practice, Practice...

My first attempt at building my own Rally course in my front yard last night was nto a total disaster... I think it will just take me a bit to learn how to space the signs properly to allow for room to perform the exercises. I tried to cram too much stuff in my smallish front yard. Im sure it was pretty comical to watch us navigate my mini course from hell. I had to do a few of the signs and then back track to get to the next one for the lack of space. I had spent at least 20 minutes setting it all up so I didn’t want to just take it down right away, so we attempted to make it through the awful course at least 4 or five times. (Note to self: front yard is too small for 14 rally signs, try the back yard next time)

I’m growing in my confidence that we should be ok on May 1st. I’m worried that at this point any errors will be my fault as a result of reading the wrong sign or something like that. To combat this problem I have made little flash cards with all of the signs and have been testing myself on them regularly. Hopefully I should have them all down in plenty of time for the trial.

Once I had torn down my awful Rally course I put up three jumps and some cones to work on our weaving. Bella really seems to enjoy the jumps. I also changed things up a bit by rewarding her jumps with a squeaky toy instead of our usual hot dogs. I think I’m going to try the toy in class tonight to see how things go. This is part of my master plan to wean her off of the treats.

Stay tuned to see how it goes at tonight's Agility Class!

Sadie even got to come out and play on the jumps a bit. I want to be sure to spend one on one time with her too so she doesn’t get jealous. I lowered the jumps down for her ‘cause I’m still not sure if she’s developing joint problems as she gets older, but she had fun going over the lower ones anyway.She has taken Agility before and is familiar with all of the obstacles so I'm hoping she will be able to help me show Bella the way when we are practicing at home, I think this will especially help when my new tunnel arrives next week!