Who's More Agile?

So...some of you may or may not know...I am a fairly spontaneous person. When I get an idea in my head - POW - I have to just do it. I don't 'shop around' or take forever to make a decision. Once it's made, BAM. I'm done. That's how I decided on all three apartments I ever rented and both cars I bought. Seriously - I decided to buy a new car one afternoon and just went and did it (my other one was driving me batty with issues).

So when That Mutt made a post about agility training with dogs on Wednesday I got a bug up my butt and googled agility training in my area. Presto. Found an awesome place called Fido's Farm. How cute is that? It's a working sheep farm and it's awesome. I e-mailed yesterday and today we went to training. =)

We only gave Trooper half his regular food (and next week we won't feed him at all for dinner) which was hilarious because he was STARVING and walking around like we hadn't fed him in a week. He tried to get to Kodiak's food but K was having none of that. :)

Finally at 6 p.m. we got in the car and headed to the farm. And this place is AWESOME!!! First of all I want to move out there. It's only 10 minutes from our house but I'd never been over that way and it's all rolling hills and gorgeous homes and farms that are good distances from each other. *sigh* One of these days.

Trooper was beside himself with excitement. Daycare has been on vacation all week and he's been a total monster. We had to start using the outside kennel again even just when we left for 10 minutes and kept the dogs home because he was telling us how frustrated he was. We'd come home and find my favorite pair of scissors chewed to pieces, my work bag contents scattered ... things he's NEVER done before. The little stinker. So we knew he was antsy and needing exercise and a challenge.

And BOY was he challenged. I wish we could have gotten photos of our first class. I have never done anything like this and I am completely exhausted. WIPED OUT! I knew I'd have to work but I had sweat dripping down my face and back. HA!

I'm glad he's such a food motivated dog though. It makes doing training things much easier. There were so many cute dogs there that I was in doggy heaven and having a very hard time focusing. I just wanted to go cuddle! But all the dogs were having SO much fun!.

Trooper seemed to do the V-Ramp (see photo above...that's not Trooper though) with such Gusto. The trainer said "he's really enjoying this" ... he even went the one way as we were guiding him and then turned around and went back up and over the other direction WITHOUT our prompting. It was hilarious.

The tunnel was a little tougher...I had to almost crawl in from the opposite end to coax him through. The table (an elevated table that they are supposed to move around on to get used to it) was super easy. The elevated plank was HARD. He's a big monster dog and this plank is only about 8 - 10 inches wide. Maybe 12 at the most. And they don't want us to use treats because they want the dogs to focus on paying attention to where their feet are ... apparently the plank is even higher in competition. He fell a lot. :)

And the tire (that they jump through) was nothing to him. I was so proud of my boy!!! I thought he'd be a little scared but nope. He wanted those treats.

And I finally have my tired little boy!

He's dirty too...but there's no point in getting him groomed for awhile. We will have classes every week for at least six weeks or longer if we decide to keep going. It was so much fun. Hubby even came! It was amazing. He is always leery of doing things like this because he doesn't like to be in front of people but he even took the leash and went through some of the course with Trooper. I'm hoping they will bond more because Trooper sometimes acts a little too much like "my" dog. He needs to be daddy's dog too. :)

Wheee! What a great evening. And I am completely exhausted.