Yesterday was Photon and my final class of beginner Agility at Who’s Walking Who. It was a nice, small class (four dogs and their handlers), but Who’s Walking Who really has to work on their registration system: I didn’t know until the day of my first class whether there was a class or not, and whether or not I was in it!

For those who don’t know, dog agility is the kind of stuff that the Superdogs do: jumping over hurdles, running through tunnels, over seesaws etc. through a set course. The dog’s handler runs alongside, guiding the dog through all the stations. Unlike flyball (another dog sport), the dog and handler are equal partners, playing as a coordinated team.

Learning the Equipment
Each class of the six-week session had dog and handler learning a different agility apparatus, set at a much easier level than in an actual trial: The jumps were only about 6 inches high; the see-saw board tipped maybe 2 inches up and down; the A-frame was only about 4 feet tall rather than 7 feet.

The first event we started learning was the weave poles, since it is the hardest for the dog (and human!) to figure out. Several of the other students actually bought practice poles for home. (Photon did reasonably well at the poles considering that we never practised outside of class.) She was game for all the events, even the towering A-frame, which many dogs balk at the first time.

The Hard Part
When we weren’t practising on the equipment, we were learning basic handling techniques. I had a few problems with a few of the instructions: We were encouraged to entice and wind up our dogs with a tug toy, and have them excitedly play with that after we had successfully completed a task. This is to get the dog super-excited about doing the events. The problem with this technique is that 1. None of the dogs in the class were particularly toy-driven to start with. Photon likes her toys, but plays with them in a more business-like fashion. She’s more food movitated. 2. It tends to get dogs to go hyper and crazy about their toys, which I don’t like.

The third class was especially difficult for Photon and me. I made the mistake of feeding her her entire dinner, so she wasn’t particularly hungry (there goes the food motivation). Also, she—in the throes of adolescence—decided to “forget” all of her previous training, to the point of totally ignoring me, not sitting, not coming, nothing. The instructor was actually a bit nonplussed, since Photon was always pretty good up to this point. I got ticked off at her; she got sulky. I was ready to pack it in then and there, deciding that agility just wasn’t for me, but hung in anyway.

Final day
We ended the final class doing our first run-through of a short agility course (we’d previously only worked on individual apparatuses). Here’s a video of us shot by Peter (who came with Jon for the last class to see what we had been doing.):

The blue barrel is actually the entrance of the tunnel event. There should be a cloth tunnel attached to it that the dog must run through. Photon learned the table event (jump on table, lie down before going on to next event) about half an hour previously (we missed that class), which was impressive! If you’re wondering what happened at the finish of the A-frame, she’s supposed to touch a small target at the bottom, which I completely goofed up. This is to ensure that the dog slows down enough to touch the yellow part (as opposed to jumping off the A-frame from halfway up.)

Final impressions
As opposed to some of the iffy previous days, the final class left me with a good feeling about doing agility. The instructor refrained from too much criticism (left us feeling confident), and had us run the whole course only once (left us wanting more!) I have no idea whether I’m going to take any more agility courses or not (certainly not before the new year, even though one starts next week), but I’ll think about it!

A couple of us dog-owners near Riverdale Park West got together to take pictures of our dogs at play. Let’s introduce the cast of characters.

You already know Cobalt and Photon:

And this is Callie:

And Milo:

Photon and Callie have been friends since they were much closer in size. Callie plays rough, but has a soft spot for Photon and sometimes treats her like a favourite doll. Very adorable, but didn’t happen today, with the cameras around:

Milo likes to play tug with Photon

Milo and Callie teamed up on Photon for some exciting, intense wrestling. Photon handled it easily.

Cobalt gets to the frisbee first

Teasing her sister

Our heroine