The ups and downs of training with Toby

The first thing I need to talk about is the Tuesday night P3 class. This past Tuesday we had our first half of the test that we have to pass to go on to agility. Toby did great. I was very proud of my boy! His sit stays and down stays are rock solid. The one thing that we had just a little problem was his drop. Toby has been doing the drop by verbal only. For some reason during the test I had to give him a quick push on his shoulders for him to go down. Other than that he was perfect.

The instructor asked everyone of what our plans where. Did we want to repeat P3 if there was not an agility class starting until Mid April. I think everyone said they wanted to move on into agility. However if there was not going to be an agility class they would all repeat P3. Well, at the end of the test the instructor told us that we all passed the first portion of the test. Great! The next day I got an email from the instructor saying that after talking with all of us and watching our dogs there will not be enough dogs passing to make up an agility class and that we needed to retake P3 and wait until Mid April to start an agility class. This did not go over very well with me. Toby is far from being perfect; however, I feel Toby needs to move on. I can see the bordum in his face and actions by the end of class both on Tuesday night and Thursday nights. I have already pulled him from the agility ring for foundation work which he is doing. I think it is time for my big guy to start haveing more fun. Just to watch him turn his head and look everytime he hears the teeter hit the ground pulls on my heart strings. I have always told myself that I would know when it is time to move on and start working on the equipment. Well that time is now. The only problem is where. I have been looking hard for a class that starts around 800 P.M. Right now I am out of luck. I am going to try to make a 6:45 p.m. up in McKinney on Mondaynights. I hope it will work out for us.

Our Thursday night class is really coming along. Toby was in a sit stay. The instructor come out of the shed with a toy that looks just like Toby's favorite toy. Do you remember when I was working on Toby getting a toy drive. I talked about this long stick with a rope attached to it and a fuzzy squeeky attached to the rope. Well, it seems that the instructor has a bigger and better one than what Toby has. When she come out with that all I could say was this was not fair. Just wrong and mean. The instructor walked over to Toby and kept dangling it in his face. I thougth for sure Toby was going to break his stay. But no! My big guy did stick his nose out and sniffed it but he did not move from his spot. What an awsome dog! Now all we need to do is work on his stand and stand stay. We have been working on it and I thought that it was comeing along nicely until we got to class. I guess we need to work on the stand stay outside of the house. I think this week is going to be a stand stay week.