A Secret Mission

He Needs Cheering

Cisco and I went to a 2 hour training session last night. I was interested to see how he did because of his pokey performance this weekend and the fact that usually he’s done after two runs in practice.

Well, apparently all he needs is a little cheering — from someone other than me. We did 4 mini-courses (11 obstacles) and then one long course (21-ish obstacles) and occasionally he started pokey, and other times not so pokey. But when he was being pokey if Paulena or anyone else started cheering him on, he kicked it into overdrive — I saw some of the fastest most driven weaves out of that dog that I think I’ve even seen while he was being cheered on.

I’ve always said that he doesn’t have a lot of stamina (which is partially true), but I’ve often questioned exactly how true that could be when he could appear exhausted in class and then come home and want to play (like last night — he played with the puppy for 2 straight hours after his two hour class).

I know he loves agility because if you tell him he has class, he won’t leave you alone until you get up and get the keys. But I don’t see the same level of excitement from him before running an agility course that I do when we’re waiting in line for dock diving (or even our one experience from field work). It’s obviously there as other people can get him revved up for it. I wonder if I managed to squash the enthusiasm in trying to get some control over him in the agility ring when he was younger….

Now all I gotta do is figure out how to get it back… or recruit a cheering squad to follow us to trials.