A thinker

Well, last night in class was to say the least, well, interesting. Deuce is a huge thinker, probably alot because I do tons of clicker work and shaping with him. It is starting to really show in our agility class as Lori ups the anty and he is starting to run slower and slower, trying to think through things instead of just do. While I like the fact that he is body aware and does not go balls to the wall, I hope we are not looking at a dog that is going to trot around the course thinking about every little detail. I don't think i can be a cheerleader and that was what I was doing all night last night. In his defense, the wind was blowing 100 mph and his favorite three dogs in the whole world were present but they are there every week, doing the open practice while we run our pups through their paces. I don't mind him looking at them, but I want him to not disengage from me and go see them, which he sometimes does. Last night we did more running a-frame work, channel weaves open very far out, and jump tunnel work. I love class because it gives me so much to work on. Previously all of my running a-frames were with me being behind him, either sending him or letting him get ahead of me to focus on the target. Last night we ran with and he was very confused. He also has been using a plastic target to target to and all I had last night was his treat bag. You wouldn't think it would make a difference but he would drive to the bag and just look at the cookies on the bag, like "what I am suppose to do with this?". I will be incorporating different elements for him to target to in our target work from now on!

We also did some channel work and I hope that doesn't screw anything up with the 2 x 2 method. To me it is a very different picture, but I may need to ask my 2 x 2 friends. The channel was spread way apart so that the dogs are just having a good time running through, absolutely no weaving involved at all. I don't want any weaving going on until his growth plates are closed, especially since he is so big. I have seen too many dogs come up lame or have signs of dysplasia or OCD before they even reached two because their owners were in too big of a hurry to weave. Weave takes muscle skill but it also takes brains, so I am in no hurry to start doing anything with the weaves other than running through channels.

I don't want to worry about his performance, but I am human so i am a little worried. We put so much hopes and dreams into our next dogs and we place our previous criteria from other past dogs on our babies. Again, we are human and we are going to do this. We are use to things being a certain way so when performance is different, we tend to worry or doubt. You know, even if deuce never did agility again, there are so many other avenues that we could pursue or he could just be a big lap dog for all i care. I think I could use his thinking ability for tracking and obedience, and of course, who wouldn't love to do herding, but what is important is i LOVE this dog and would be content to just snuggle with him for the rest of his life! I am going to keep that in the front of my mind so that I don't put any unnecessary pressure on my baby.