Puppy Agility (or how to distract Reese in ten seconds or less).

You may or may not know that Reese has been going to puppy school since he was about four months old.  I decided early on that if I was going to have a big dog he was going to be well behaved (hopefully).  So far we have done Puppy Kindergarten and Beginning Obedience.  He has done fairly well...but he IS still a puppy...some things still need a lot of work! 

Last week we went to orientation for Puppy Agility.  At first, I was very excited about this class.  Because Reese has so much energy I figured it would be perfect for him! 

Excitement...well...that was before I took into account that Reese will spend most of the time in this class "off leash"....

The roomies will be the first people to tell you that he is MUCH better behaved ON leash than off. 

The class consists of five dogs, all under a year old.  Some of the dogs behaved better than others while they had to wait their turn (Reese was very good for this part). However when it was Reese's turn to try the obstacles he would rather have played with his four new best friend dogs.  This was especially frustrating for me!

Tonight we got to try three obstacles:

Ladder:  Dogs have to walk inside the rungs of an extension ladder.  Sounds easy, right???  It was...once Reese figured out that his BACK legs had to go over the rungs too!

Starter Weave Poles:  Imagine the weave poles you know and love but put them off center.  They start this way and gradually move them together as the dog progresses.  This was by far Reese's best performance of the night!

Table:  About six inches high.  Dogs have to sit on it for five seconds.  Again...easy right???  Well...not our strong suit.  My silly dog was afraid to get on it.  He wasn't the only one who had trouble but it was a little embarrassing since the three pound miniature dachshund did it easily!

All of this was apparently exhausting!

Oh well...there's always next week.  Time to practice!