Had an amazing weekend running CPE agility with my guy. We were 8/10 on our runs and the two we NQ’d on were due to training holes or me just flubbing the handling. Sucks when that happens but it just means there was so much great stuff in the run otherwise. Kyber also finished his Level 2 Handler title with his Q in Wildcard and he just needs two more Qs in Level 2 Standard to finish all titles at that level. (We might’ve finished that this weekend had my car not been stolen on Halloween causing us to miss our competition earlier this month). That finishes up our trials for the year and I think we definitely went out with a bang!

Who else plays in Premier Standard with their dog? I think it's becoming our favorite class. Just wanted to share this awesome run from Brady today, it's his 12th Premier STD Q. I think we love it because there is really no pressure to Q & it's just FUN (like T2B!) I messed up our JWW run today so I will just keep watching this to make me feel better 😂🤩

Reinforcement only works if the dog knows how to access it. I love using treat holding toys in agility but not every dog immediately understands how to get the cookie out. It’s important to spend time training those skills before ever using the food toys to reinforce behaviors. I’m making the treat really easy for Kessel to access in the Treat Hugger and Lotus Ball but, even so, you can see it isn’t easy for her to get it. I won’t start using these for training until she’s confidently getting treats out consistently.

If you need some training material and you have a 40x60 foot space, here are five nested course from a course I did years ago (there is a 6th one in the comments). If you do any of them, please share a video! (If you are not familiar with Course Designer maps, please note that each section of the grid is a 10-yard by 10-yard space.)

Often I only post on social media when we have a great success. After all who wants to be critiqued for failure. I thought I would share this run because it’s an error and success at the same time. I lost the line coming out of a tunnel leading to confusion and lack of commitment. I tried to call Louie towards me to keep going. This was my 2nd error but I noticed quickly. Often I get anxious and want him moving quickly to keep the run going. This time I decided to reward at the obstacle and work the course like we started again. He didn’t do anything wrong so I should reward his effort.