Yes, I am now officially working with three different dogs - that's right: three! I had the first agility class with Sena on Thursday and I also convinced Daša to lend me one of her border collies, Kate, for Rally-Obedience. Working with a BC is very weird for me, specially because she's so big compared to Xsara and I have to use my body language a lot more with her. She also needs very clear and determined handling; if she is not absolutely sure what I want her to do, she gets nervous (while Xsara would do it anyway if she was in her position). I think working with Kate will be very helpful to me and that Xsara will also benefit from what I learn with another dog. In addition, Kate is an extremely cool dog, so I really enjoy spending time with her.
Working with another beagle is a real treat and I have to say that Sena surprised me a lot. I didn't really expect her to follow me so nicely in our first training, but she was amazing. We started with obstacles introduction and she tried to avoid jumps at first, but she would already do a set of three jumps and a tunnel by the end of the class. We also started introducing her to the weaves. I thought she would try to escape and go sniffing around since she was in a new place (our course is in the woods, by the way!) without her people, but when she saw Xsara was also there, she really enjoyed being with us. Xsara wasn't really jealous, but she did want to play with me while I was working with Sena so she cried a little - and she was super proud when it was her turn to run with me. Sena will be staying with us for one week from May 12th on :)
I don't know if my working with other dogs is the reason why Xsara is performing so nicely lately, but she is amazing. She just learned a new trick and is now able to wrap herself in a blanket like a cute furry pancake. And she performed so well in yesterday's trial, that she even surprised me. The courses were very difficult and the times were so fast that even most of the fastest dogs got points on time. Our first run was clean, even though the contacts were rough enough to satisfy any fakir and dogs couldn't wait to get off them. The second course was even more difficult, and I made it extra hard by including two additional front-crosses in our run. It was very silly of me, but I am still happy with our performance. Despite my mistakes and one bar down (again, my bad - made the front cross too quickly), we were first in our cathegory and had quite satisfactory times in both runs. Here are the videos:Agility
Jumping
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