Agility in Oregon Revisited

I'll avoid beginning this post with "Anne" but Anne did send me an email about an agility fun match that was held this past Sunday. The location was less than half an hour from here and I decided it was a reasonable way to spend an afternoon.

The woman hosting the match, Barb Turner, has a nice dirt-floored barn, about 75 x 100 feet, with concrete along one side for good crating space. The ring is well secured--always something I look for when I go to a new facility since the fox terriers are such wily escape artists. The barn is on her property. She hosts trials, fun matches, and teaches agility classes there.

I thought it would be a good idea to get Mimi out for some more practice. I was kind of hoping to find a place where we could practice once or twice a month and while Barb offers her barn for open practice, you have to be taking a class with her. My budget simply won't allow for classes for Mimi, and to be honest she is on the downward arc of her agility career. We are just playing around at this point. I will continue to enter her in trials, but only for a day or two (nearly all trials up here seem to be three or four days long, which is really surprising), only selecting trials that are an hour or less from my home, and only entering her for a couple of runs a day (not for every class or game that is offered). That keeps things pretty simple!

Anyway, the fun match was the perfect venue to let Mimi have some more practice on the contacts and a full set of weave poles (12). We got two runs, two minutes each, for $10 total. Not a bad deal. She and I had a lot of fun and I thought we really maximized our training time. Barb divided the day into big dogs (26-24-20 inch jumpers) for the morning and little dogs (16-12-8-4 inches) after lunch. The three hours I spent there were entirely in the company of people who had medium and small dogs like Mimi.

And here's the real meat of this story. I watched the other handlers and dogs, many of whom I recognized from the trial a couple of weekends ago, and decided to try again to approach a few people. My angle for a conversational opening: did they take classes from Barb and how was she as a trainer. Most agility handlers like to talk about training and their trainers. I figured it was as safe and as positive a topic as I could come up with.

Without the competition and stress of the trial, everyone was much more relaxed (we could have toys and treats in the ring to train) and I struck gold! I spent almost an hour chatting off and on with three women about terriers and problem dogs (not always the same thing, bless their little terrier hearts). In fact, the first two women I talked to dragged in the third specifically because she had a dog with a tremendous amount of fear aggression. They were quite vigorous in their admiration for how Barb helps them train such dogs. I asked a lot of questions but I listened more than I talked. The three women were pleasant and welcoming without being nosy (it probably helped that Mimi looked pretty darned good during our first run so I didn't come across as some weirdo). In fact, they all three suggested that I visit their class Wednesday night (tomorrow night) just to see how Barb operates. Isn't that funny, that the students proffer the invitation! I took that as a positive sign and will probably drop in (without Mimi, of course!).

As a result, I decided to put Azza on a waiting list for a beginner agility class with Barb. I'm still going to do the obedience class (at a somewhat grotty training facility in Corvallis) and I've still got low (reasonable) expectations for that. With respect to agility, I am not sure Azza will ever get on a teeter. But I have seen it with my own eyes, even helped other handlers achieve it: agility, if offered in a positive and supportive manner, can really help fearful dogs become more confident and focused.