Thursday, October 23, 2008

Last freestyle class and other things

Guiness had his last freestyle class on Monday. Everyones dog is calm and patient except mine. Barking and wanting to work, unable to relax until its his turn. Anyway, she gave us a short routine to music. We first practiced it without the music and then added the music. It was difficult. Its very hard to keep your dog going to keep up with the music. Most people get stuck in getting their dog to do the trick and then get behind in the music. Guiness did well. He feels more comfortable on my left then on my right. We did a heeling pattern with a spin to the left and then into a heel again. Then you brought he dog all the way around in front of you and around to the right side. Then heeling on the right with a spin to the right. Left side was much more successful than right. At least in agility you get to go at your dogs pace or your pace. In freestyle you go at the music's pace. Guiness does things fast. So his circles are really wide because he is covering more area but needs to keep with the music. He probably needs faster music but the teacher said you should start with slow music. Also she said that when she first started, she copied someone's routine. Once she learned it, then she started changing parts of it until she made it her routine.

Miley's 2o/2o is getting better. She is understanding the feet on the board and off the board. Now I just need her to understand that she cant release until I tell her. This weeks practice has been on and off. Tuesday she was on fire but yesterday she seemed a little slow to me. I tried to work on making the table more valuable. I guess I did to good of a job because she started by passing obstacles just to get to the table.

I took the dogs to the park the other day. I walked them in the middle of the day hoping to avoid the bicycle people. We did good until we got back on the main trial. I didn't hear the bicycles coming before it was to late. So now I have rope burns across my knuckles from trying to get Guiness under control. I usually don't use a flexi-lead at the park because of this but that day I thought I was safe. Usually the bicycle people ride in the morning and evening but I guess that's not always. So now when I get on the main trail , I need to lock the flexi-leads so they are short.

3 comments:

manymuddypaws said...

ugh! nothing worse than rope burn from a flexi!

Dawn said...

Yea, it's why I never use a flexi at all anymore. You just never know when something will pop up and spook the dog. Glad Miley is getting the2o/2o thing. Funny story about the table being so valuable now. She's so smart!

Chris and Ricky said...

Your freestyle class sounds really fun! I bet Guiness is loving it.

Whenever we walk on a pet/bike trail, mom's head is swiveling around in every direction, constantly on the look-out for bikes. So we just don't do it very often. But like you, we think there are times when the bikes won't be out there and then there they are! Sorry about the rope burns!!!