He gets the weaves!

I'm so proud of my little doggie! Weaves are by far the hardest obstacle for dogs to master. I made a homemade Weave-a-matic from PVC pipe so we could practice at home. He's been doing pretty well with a very slight angle, so I decided to close them up and give it a try. Well, to my surprise, he got it!! Major jackpot!!! We did it over and over again and he did a fabulous job. He's still really deliberate and pops out if I encourage too much speed, but that will come with practice. I'm just so proud of him!

A Click Above Orientation

So, last night was our orientation session at ACA. It lasted a bit longer than a hour and a half and was very interesting. The most interesting part of it all was the demo of human clicker training. I was the guinea pig! She sent me out of the room with the instructions to count to 40 and come back. The only requirement was that each time she clicked, I had to take an M&M. So I come back in and I start getting clicked and eating my M&Ms, without a clue what I'm doing that's getting the reward. So I keep guessing, and eventually get it right. :-) It was an interesting perspective though, clicker training from the dog's POV.

Three of my classmates from DGOTC are also taking the ACA class, so it should be a good time. :-)

The drive isn't too long or painful, although I suspect it will be worse when I have to leave at 5:30 for the class at 6:35 pm. The facility is great, and the best part is... NO HORSE POOP!!! I might actually be able to keep Bailey from running off to eat poo all the time!

First Post

I'm starting this blog to keep track of Bailey's agility and obedience training and trialling adventures. So far, we've taken several classes with DGOTC, our local dog training club. Even though it's a UKC club, the classes are mostly taught with a focus on AKC curriculum especially at the higher levels. Last spring, we took a basic class at DGOTC, which was the start of our fun in obedience. From there, we took Sub-Novice Obedience (taught by the then-president of the club) and quickly graduated to Novice Obedience, which was taught by a fellow Golden Retriever breeder/exhibitor.

We've also taken a few Intro to Agility classes and Bailey really loves them. We took Intro to Agility I with Karen Zelonis and Intro II and Intro III with Melissa Muniz, Brenda Shaver, and Nancy Leibhauser. We had so much fun, that Melissa convinced us to take classes at A Click Above this summer. Tonight is the orientation session of the ACA classes and I'm so excited!