Lance is really the perfect dog
At agility Thursday the instructor was reminding us all to pay attention to where our feet are pointed. There had been quite a few screw ups where the handlers meant to tell the dog to go one way, but since their body was twisted dogs naturally went to where the owners feet were telling them- good dogs!
When it was Lance's turn to go, he illustrated this so perfectly it was ridiculous. As soon as I had Lance in a "wait" at the start line and went out a little bit, his head turned toward me, looked at my face, down to my shoes, faced ahead, back to my shoes, and then looked ahead again. He was very seriously calculating the line of travel we were going to be taking!
I'm sure that he's probably done it before, but today it couldn't have been more exaggerated as his head swiveled between looking ahead and at my shoes.
Now with Vito's class on Friday he was a little naughty. Twice he blew me off to run to the instructors. They were the ones treating him at the bottom of the a-frame since he is speed demon, and apparently Vito wanted more. Vito also pulled another stunt later in the class. When setting him up for a small sequence, Vito completely blew off his "wait" and headed straight for the a-frame. To make it even worse, as I called his name Vito paused for a half second, thought about it, and then continued his way to the a-frame where he vaulted over it! Naughty puppy!
I am really going to have to work hard with Vito when it comes to handling. All of the contact obstacles are magnets to him. Vito absolutely looses his mind at the slightest prospect of getting to fly over one. I was so happy that I got Vito into the tunnel right next to the A-frame at the start of the sequence, only to have Vito zoom out and immediately curl back around to hit the a-frame on his way out. *sigh* At least he is extremely responsive right now to any handling on low jumps.
