As my boy Spirit now is coating up for shows to come after Christmas, we decided to take up some agility training – again. He has not had much training in agility, and the sessions he has had have been far apart in time. So I was a bit excited about seeing what had stuck since last training.  Lined up 4 – 5 jumps to start with which he performed nicely, although an occasional bar went down just due to his eagerness after the long training pause. Thereafter the weaving poles which also went nicely. For the first time I decided to let him seek the entrance himself without any “pointing” by me to the entrance and sat up a jump about parallell to the entrance of the weaves. I guess I have thought that my high spirited “Spirit” would not focus enough to handle the entrance himself. Boy was I wrong, he took the jump, and just by the signal of my turning body, he turned back after the jump and took the entrance like a pro. Wonderful! My heart was singing.

Spirit is fast so I do not keep up easily or at all (lol), but speed is of course much sought after in agility. And he can be so funny at times too, and we all need that special someone to bring out the smile or laughter.  My Spirit is a bit independant, and suddenly he decided that isn’t it time for the teeter?  Obviously was.  He ran out about 10 meters towards the teeter which was facing him the wrong way!!, that is “the high end” of the teeter was facing him.  What next, in a split of a second, he stretched up and grabbed the plank with his teeth and lowered it elegantly to the ground, entered the plank,  handled the tipping point like an expert, and even took a short pause on the contact before jumping off. OMG!  I know I shouldn’t have rewarded him for taking an obstacle at his own will, but he came trotting back so happily, and he impressed me so much with his quick solution of the problem with the teeter not facing him correctly that I felt really impressed and proud of him.  He got the chicken bits, my wonderful Spirit!