16 weeks - Upping the Ante

I wanted to start with a video of Kili's hind foot placement. I used a bunch of bricks from the backyard for this because they don't move around as much as the stainless steel bowl and they also allow me to make a larger target. This video shows where she's at after about a week and a half since introducing this. She is not nearly so quick with the hind foot placement as she was with the front. I also tried to get her to move from brick to brick. I regret that the best didn't quite get caught on camera. I forgot that I was recording and was just trying something new, so part of it ended up off screen. Then when I set the camera up for it she didn't do it nearly as well... though it does emphasize how much more difficulty she has with her hind foot placement.

This week with no puppy school and only show handling class to look forward to I decided I was bored of just working on the same old things with Kili. Sit, stand, down, wait, touch a target. Boring. I get bored easily. So what else to do but start working on things that are actually relevant to agility?

I am not lucky enough to have any agility equipment of my own or have access to any. But I am nothing if not creative and resourceful. Pile of bricks laying around the backyard? Awesome. Two-by-four that my BF isn't using sitting in the shed? Awesome. What can you do with bricks and a two-by-four you wonder? Well, you can make a dog walk and a teeter for one thing. Now, it did end up being too narrow for Kili to manage getting all four feet on it, but she was able to get three on. And I was mostly interested in just having her get used to putting her feet on things and having something move underneath her. She did great!

But then my wonderful boyfriend helped me build this:

It's a home-made baby dog walk and teeter! If I set it on a couple of bricks I have a dog walk. If I just put it on the floor I have a teeter. As you can see the one side is weighted heavier than the other, so it even resets itself just like a real agility teeter. I was thinking I should spray paint it yellow and blue sometime.

The key was getting her to realize she could get all four of her paws onto it. Once she figured that out we were away to the races! We started with the dog walk and once she was comfortable getting all four feet on it and was making her away across at a pretty good clip we moved on to the teeter. We started with two bricks underneath so that there was barely any drop and only once she was comfortable I started making the drop greater and greater. I didn't take a video but by the next evening she was more than comfortable with the full drop. In fact, she is so comfortable that my bigger challenge now is slowing her down!