Update on Stout's Agility Foundations Class

After all the Porter videos earlier this week, I thought I'd give you a couple Stout videos  :)

We received Lesson 2 in our online class with Silvia Trkman. We have only begun to scratch the surface. We still haven't perfected Lesson 1!

But I went ahead with the contact portion of the new lesson. I think I will try for Running Contacts with Stout. Porter has running contacts, but I didn't train them. Mostly it was a lack of training anything else that led to his contact performance  :)

But I figure I can't get that lucky twice, right? So as long as the beginning stages are part of this class, I may as well take advantage of them!

So I got out some carpet (which according to Silvia was too short) and got started.

http://youtu.be/SLh22-DhmZ0

 

Before I critique the video, I just want to state that it is so nice to have a dog who will almost fetch. Or at least wants to chase a ball... So far I have been able to do the bulk of Stout's agility training with toys.

 

Anyway,  Silvia started her critique with "He sure is having fun!"  All of my videos so far have been met with "He's so cute!" or "He's so funny!"  I feel that this is going to be a common theme in what everyone says concerning Stout & agility...  :)

 

She said I should have jackpotted the try at 0:50. Um, you mean I have to try to watch those stubby little legs and click while I also throw a ball? This may be harder than I thought...

 

 

So then I submitted a video of us still working on wrapping the jump stanchions. I was pretty proud of this. He was finally running after the turn! He didn't flop on his back & bark! He didn't hump my leg when he got frustrated!

 

But I still have a looooong way to go:

 

 

http://youtu.be/2UTtyS8-qt0

 

 

Silvia is happy now with his driving out of the wrap. But I need to get him to drive to the wrap as well. Most people help create this by restraining their dog. Did you see the video of me trying to restrain Stout? It didn't go so well.

 

She suggested running more with him into the wrap. Which I had done but didn't submit because I thought I was supposed to show him being "sent" to the wrap from some distance. The ever-clever Silvia explained it perfectly to me: "with more speed, getting distance will get easier too! – Things get closer faster when they run full speed :)"

 

So far I LOVE this class! Seriously, I have learned so much and we are only on the 2nd lesson!