Archie started a new agility class. It at the same facility and with the same instructor but we had to move to a new time because my own classes are beginning this week.
The other handlers in his new class are considerably more advanced than those in his previous classes. For one thing, every single one of them has their unleashed dog run back to his crate upon completing each exercise. This may not sound like a big deal, but to command a dog to return to his crate when that crate is many yards away, and the handler and dog are surrounded by lots of wonderfully exciting agility obstacles, and there are very interesting dogs in other crates with handlers nearby who almost certainly have food on them, and to have the dog comply without hesitation and with speed, well, that's a pretty big deal.
I'm a big fan of crate training, so I embraced this immediately. It's a fabulous test for young Archie. To have him choose to ignore all of those distractions and run as fast as he can back to his crate and wait inside it for me to catch up to give him some treats is a measure of his self-control and comprehension.
It's also an interesting example of generalization. All my dogs have to run to their crate before I leave the house. All of them get a treat every single time. Azza and Archie are shut into their crates while I leave Mimi loose, but the expectations are the same for all three. So Archie has already had a lot of practice at running to his crate then waiting there for a reward. But his crate at home is his crate--nobody else shares it. His crate in class? We don't even use the same crate each time, and many dogs would have been in any particular crate since he last saw it. He has clearly made a conceptual leap about the concept of "crate" and the behavior associated with it.
His instructor has been putting out the tire for the past few classes. It took Archie a while to get the point of the tire (he kept trying to go under it or next to it rather than through it) but he's got the idea now. In fact, I think he's carried it to quite another level.
Archie has this funny habit of treating everything like a jump: he leaps airborne into tunnels, he hops over hoops, he leaps almost straight up as he exits the weaves (this one in particular I'm working to extinguish). Now that he understands the tire, he has decided that if jumping through it is good, jumping even higher through it is better.
Last night, he clonked his head on the upper rim of the tire every single time he jumped through it. Just think about that. He only has to jump 12" to clear the bottom rim. But that's not nearly exciting enough. He is jumping over 30" and hitting the top of the tire in the process. The tire, a hollow plastic tube, is suspended from elastic cords so he isn't getting hurt when he does this--it certainly doesn't slow him down. Still, while extremely amusing, this is not a behavior I want him to repeat, so I'll be working to change this too.
Archie turns 1 year old tomorrow (September 21). He's a remarkably happy little fox terrier and he and I are having a lot of fun with his agility adventures.
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