Agility 101 :)

Ok so my mini-vent of the day -- my Kobo isn't working right any more :(   And it's only a few months old.  Booooo.   When you plug it in it only sometimes charges (and a Kobo with no charge is less than useless) and it won't connect to my computer at all, making getting new books more of a pita.  Thoroughly not impressed :(  And the internet suggests *lots* of people are having these problems.  Till now, I loved it.  But now I might recommend one of the other e-reader options out there to those shopping.

Now in much happier news - Sasha did her first agility class this week :)  hahaha woohoo!  She has to pass grade two before she can do real agility but this was an "on leash" class (nobody ever said the leash had to actually be held!)  She was *SPUN* when we went in.  Fake grass and TONS of new dogs to play with (and they did all seem to be full-grown dogs; I'm pretty sure Sasha was the youngest).  At that point I had a *few* doubts.   First, and most important -- I couldn't really control her even ON leash.  Definitely not a promising start *sigh*.   Then, the ring was set up with three stations - jumps, tunnels, and planks.  Sash isn't a big fan of jumping and hates terrain changes.  So the only one I thought might go well was tunnels.  *sigh*   But at least the jumps were super low -- going over them would be not much different than stepping over the poles flat on the ground at the barn.

So they divided the class into three -- seemed to mostly be by size.  Sasha was with a couple boarder collie types who seemed to have been there before.   Our group started with the jumping -- she certainly did it well enough; didn't like the idea of one she'd actually have to jump over but everything little was done bravely if a little puzzled: "ummmm Laur?  It's really just as fast and much easier to go around..."  hahaha but she's a good puppy, so she humours me.

This is easy!

So then we moved on to the tunnels - which she loved!  She figured out that game after the first try: "I go through here, you give me treats."  And then would *run* to whatever tunnel was closest and bolt through it -- I was having to run just to get to the other end before she did -- even though they were curved tunnels!  hahaha so that part she's clearly got down :)  The only down side was when she tried to randomly pick her own tunnel, just as somebody else was setting up from the other side.  Oops - poor puppy form!

Best. Game. Ever.

The day finished off with planks -- Sasha's not a huge fan of weird footing OR heights, so I wasn't sure how this would work, but with a handy lead of hotdogs after the first few tentative steps she was happily trotting along from one end of the balance beam to the other, up and over the A-frame, and even navigating the teeny-tiny teeter-totter!  I was pretty thrilled :)

First time on the A-frame

And grade two starts next week :)