On Thursday, the Dhahran agility class met for the sixth time. It was probably our best class yet.
After dragging all of the equipment from our cars to the field (with careful stacking and use of bungees, we have improved our transport efficiency to one dolly trip each and one dog trip each), MH and I started talking about what we wanted to do that week. I said, I want them to do another short sequence using the two tunnels, perhaps jump-tunnel-jump-tunnel-jump. Michelle suggested instead that we put the two tunnels adjacent to each other and start with them. Our goal would be to get the dogs and handlers motivated and running fast. I thought that sounded like a great idea.
So we set one tunnel up in a J-shape, often easier for a novice dog to negotiate than a C-shape, and the other as a straight tunnel with about 16 feet between them. We had the handlers line up and ran them through very quickly. Most of the dogs were driving for the first tunnel and heading right for the second to the surprise of their handlers who were often hard pressed to get to the end at the same time as their dogs. We encouraged people to throw toys and treat containers to help the dogs go on.
Then we added a jump at each end, before the first tunnel and after the second one. We have dogs of all sizes and we have to change jump heights a lot. The beauty of this setup was that MH could be at one end and I could be at the other assisting as needed.
I had to hold the dogs at the start line for the first couple of times through because we had some handler chatter and arm-flailing that needed some correction, but the handlers and dogs quickly got into the groove. They progressed so quickly and successfully that we added a second jump at the beginning and the end--now we had six obstacles for them to do. The whole sequence formed a smooth arc across the field.
I got goosebumps watching handler after handler approach the first jump, remove the lead, set their dog up at the start, lead out past both jumps to the tunnel (with their back to the dog), stop and look over their shoulder, hold out the hand closest to the dog, and calmly release their dog to the tunnel as they took off down the arc...it was as close to the real thing as I could ever hope for and quite an achievement in just six weeks. They looked so confident and their dogs were so enthusiastic about "doing it again"--exactly what I was hoping to achieve with this class.
I've already arranged with Community Education to teach the class again in the next session (late January-March), and I've invited two of my current basic obedience participants who have shown exceptional promise to join us. A particularly unique challenge of teaching agility in Dhahran is the difficulty in creating continuity and improving skill levels from week to week when people are out on leave so much. In ten weeks, most people might attend only five or six times and rarely in succession. Still, MH and I think that all of the time and effort are more than worth it!
After dragging all of the equipment from our cars to the field (with careful stacking and use of bungees, we have improved our transport efficiency to one dolly trip each and one dog trip each), MH and I started talking about what we wanted to do that week. I said, I want them to do another short sequence using the two tunnels, perhaps jump-tunnel-jump-tunnel-jump. Michelle suggested instead that we put the two tunnels adjacent to each other and start with them. Our goal would be to get the dogs and handlers motivated and running fast. I thought that sounded like a great idea.
So we set one tunnel up in a J-shape, often easier for a novice dog to negotiate than a C-shape, and the other as a straight tunnel with about 16 feet between them. We had the handlers line up and ran them through very quickly. Most of the dogs were driving for the first tunnel and heading right for the second to the surprise of their handlers who were often hard pressed to get to the end at the same time as their dogs. We encouraged people to throw toys and treat containers to help the dogs go on.
Then we added a jump at each end, before the first tunnel and after the second one. We have dogs of all sizes and we have to change jump heights a lot. The beauty of this setup was that MH could be at one end and I could be at the other assisting as needed.
I had to hold the dogs at the start line for the first couple of times through because we had some handler chatter and arm-flailing that needed some correction, but the handlers and dogs quickly got into the groove. They progressed so quickly and successfully that we added a second jump at the beginning and the end--now we had six obstacles for them to do. The whole sequence formed a smooth arc across the field.
I got goosebumps watching handler after handler approach the first jump, remove the lead, set their dog up at the start, lead out past both jumps to the tunnel (with their back to the dog), stop and look over their shoulder, hold out the hand closest to the dog, and calmly release their dog to the tunnel as they took off down the arc...it was as close to the real thing as I could ever hope for and quite an achievement in just six weeks. They looked so confident and their dogs were so enthusiastic about "doing it again"--exactly what I was hoping to achieve with this class.
I've already arranged with Community Education to teach the class again in the next session (late January-March), and I've invited two of my current basic obedience participants who have shown exceptional promise to join us. A particularly unique challenge of teaching agility in Dhahran is the difficulty in creating continuity and improving skill levels from week to week when people are out on leave so much. In ten weeks, most people might attend only five or six times and rarely in succession. Still, MH and I think that all of the time and effort are more than worth it!
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