Rally Obedience, Lure Coursing, Conditioning And Agility – Whew, We’ve Been Busy

Ruby… ready to go!

Ruby started his Rally Obedience class last week and really showed off for the instructor. He kept his excitement up for the whole hour without me lifting a finger for it except for releasing him every few minutes so his brain got a break. I wasn’t even using toys, just food. Why do I never get such excitement for work when we’re practicing alone?

Really nice precision in heeling, matching my pace from slow to running and back and following direction of movement, without crowding that I usually see in agility. Backing around me – no problem, changing positions – no problem. Ignoring distractions like a pro. Lovely sends to the table even though he has never done that before. Down stay on the table was iffy – his elbows came up, anticipating recall to heel. In short, he loved Rally Obedience. It did help that we were doing all this around agility equipment. Maybe he thought this was just a long agility warmup 😉 I hope he will keep the attitude even after he figures out that this isn’t agility!

Speaking of warmups they have changed quite a bit since we started K9 Conditioning class. In addition to 15 minutes of walking and some tricks we now do a series of exercises to warm up the joints – even toes! I don’t yet know how much they’re helping, but this week Ruby had first two agility trainings after a month and he looked great in the evening, wasn’t sore at all. Of course I made sure that these trainings were easier on his body after such a long time off, but maybe also the new warmup and cooldown routines helped some.

Java’s Jumping Is Looking Better Again

So last time in March (wow time flies!) I wasn’t sure what was causing Java to take off early – was it due to lack of confidence after a long winter break or were there some other issues developing? I am happy to say that with very minimal intervention it seems we are now back to her lovely centered jumping style.

I did three basic Susan Salo exercises to compare her jumping to how she was jumping in autumn, to build some jumping muscle and gain confidence on a setup where she doesn’t have to watch my handling in addition to judging her takeoff spot.