Agility Class

Once again I am falling behind. Last week we had Obedience class, two agility classes (Tuesday and Wednesday) - one a make up class from a snow storm, noseworks class, and today the obedience show n go. I am exhausted.

The last few weeks I have felt like I was really struggling with Steeler's attention and focus in agility class. In thinking about it (obsessing about it?) I realized that the nights that I felt like I was really struggling (video here if you really want to see how bad it was) I had brought Steeler's dinner to class with me. My thought was that since dinner of ground beef and veggies was VERY reinforcing to him - I could start building some speed and drive from him. Unfortunately I think it sent his poor spotty brain into overload and he just couldn't focus at all. *sigh* Some day I will remember not to up the criteria so much at once. If he can't practice obedience stuff at home around his full food bowl with out loosing his brain - why should it be any different at agility class! So after Tuesday's class I felt very discouraged until I had that epiphany and on Wednesday I did not bring his dinner with us to class. It was in the car, but not in the building. This helped! Wednesday we worked on threadles - so we were doing a bunch of drill type exercises. I worked on making sure we were connected getting to and from the start line and paid him for his attention - and he was great! No running off and he was very attentive!  Yippee!  Meanwhile - we will work up to those distractions at home first before bringing them to the barn! Here is some video of what we worked on.