I was at our Lab Specialty agility trial all day today running two dogs as well as working at it. Jazz had some really fast runs (as in fastest in her class) but still can’t keep all of the bars up. People keep saying “wait til she grows up, she’ll calm down” — she is SIX! It is very frustrating to have such a talented dog and still be stuck in Novice Jumpers and no legs in Open Standard. Cori had the opposite problem — she doesn’t like it when it gets hot and in the sun it was hot so she just trotted along or barely ran until the last few jumps. She either didn’t make time (and had the slowest time in her class) or had a knocked bar due to laziness. I think I just need to give up running her outside in summer weather. So I ran two directly opposite types of dogs and no “q’s” today. Just venting…….

ADDENDUM: Saturday Jazz qualified in both rally obedience classes with 4th places in each (95 and 97 out of 100) so partially redeemed herself.

Tonight I hosted a clinic for kids in our county’s 4H dog project to introduce them to agility. We had 15 dogs participate with their owners and I think a fun time was had by all. I especially wanted to show the kids how positive training techniques make it easy for the dogs to learn as I don’t think they get a lot of exposure to those techniques. I was fortunate to have my friends Jeff and Michelle helping out so all the kids got plenty of assistance. All the dogs ended up doing great and there isn’t one of them that couldn’t do agility in the future. If you are a dog training instructor please consider offering 4H clinics or classes at discounted rates so kids can get exposure to all the fun they can have with their dogs. Kids are the future of our sport and I love teaching them. I hope to arrange a 4H dog agility class session for later this summer.