Of course! It's fun to talk dog stuff with others, especially training that leads to fun dog sports! Do you ever plan to compete with Moo? or can't because of his leg? I think it'll be a while before we hit a trial. Just having fun learning honestly! I don't feel rushed at all with agility. My instructor said she wouldn't jump Ripley at max until she is 3. If/when I wanted to trial, to do preferred at 18. So many working parts there's plenty to chew on each week so we are both enjoying the process.
We have an agility workshop we are going to in June!! My instructor is hosting Alice Cinotto at her place. I'll include a link to her FB. She has a bunch of public videos of her runs. Obviously going to learn from an extra set of eyes will be great for us both but also good for Ripley too as my instructors building has indoor turf. 4 hour long workshop with 5 others. Super excited to dig in to gain more knowledge! She does a lot of distance handling I'm seeing with having fast BCs so I hope to glean some direction there for our own use.
Moo and I did compete a few times but not to the point of getting any titles. I'm sure he would have loved to stick with it but part if it is definitely concern about his leg and elbows and the cost $$$. Not gonna lie, what I enjoy about Fast Cat is that we can usually get in an out pretty quick. Agility is a LOT of waiting, I'm sure just like conformation.
And I agree, Rubie started jumping at regular height but I noticed she tired and shut down a lot quicker plus 24" just doesn't seem healthy, long term (on the flip side, it slows down those FAST BCs!). I moved her down to the preferred/veteran/etc. levels and she did much better.
That will be SO FUN!!! And extra eyes are always helpful. As many as you can get!
Alice handles BEAUTIFULLY! It's frustrating none of those runs were Qs though... these dogs!!
Rubie goes ZOOOOOOOOOOM.
Wow so you worked in a really tight space in the beginning! Impressive!! I see what you mean about Rubie not liking it when you have to set her back up to take an obstacle right. She just wants to go faaaast! I heard my instructor talk about this a little with a dog and handler in her intermediate class. He broke his start line stay and then was mad at his handler for not being where she should have been (if he had stayed) so there was a bit of nipping in frustration. Looks like Rubie shuts down a hair when she's frustrated. I laughed at her taking off with the tug and not coming to you to tug. That's so Ripley.
oh, Yes. When they have the drive, they can get quite frustrated! We got to run our trainers BC a few times in class. She would've been a champion several times over but our trainer swears she had depth perception issues so constantly knocked bars. If you were running her and didn't tell her what to do fast enough, she'd let you know she was NOT pleased
Running other dogs and having someone else run Rip would be a fun challenge in the future, too. It's very different seeing your dog out there and how they respond vs being the one 'in it.' Running other dogs helped me figure out where I was communicating too much or not enough.
Gosh I could talk agility all day