A-sit agility

We had our first lesson today at A-sit with Lesley (www.a-sit.co.uk - her blog is in the list to the right), heres how it went:

Jemma:
We started with a course (grade 4/5!!) just so Lesley could see how we were doing overall - I was pleased with how jem did, there were only a few little bits that went wrong but for saying we are only grade one i was really happy with her. We then worked on those little bits and then did the whole thing again, much better :D We then chatted about the way forward with contacts with both dogs. As Jem never seems to have really cottoned on to the nose touch thing we are going back to the beginning with her and teaching her "stop" ie 2o2o - this is the method she was first taught and is basically what i get her to do in competition, she is just really confused so the plan is to go back to the beginning and just retrain the 2o2o so she fully understands it and to save confusion have changed the command from touch to stop!! My homework is to find a plank from somewhere (I have no stairs) so I can work on it :)

Elliot:
I have decided to the same thing with his contacts as with Jemmas as he has really lost it with the target and I feel he is the sort of dog that will always loose it when the target isn't there - we shall see how it goes, although he did throw himself to the bottom of the a-frame after only 2 repitions!! We did a little bit of work on his weaves - this is my main homework with him - we just tried him with them straight to see what happened - it was very interesting, he understood he was supposed to go side to side but he didnt "see" the poles and so kept going in and out of random ones. We then took him down to four poles and after only a few goes he was definately getting there - I just need to dig my poles out of the shed and do them three times a day for just five minutes - hmm, lets see if i can manage that this time (I have been told to do this on numerous occasions lol!!) We also tested his wait to see if it is the word go or my body movement he responds to - it seems to be the word luckily!!

I just need to actually watch my bridging the gap dvd and do some of the work on there!!

We have a flyball demo tomorrow, I have never done one before so it should be interesting, although it is only Elliot that gets a go - Jem is still too naughty!!