Today, when I had Marley do a session with his agility set, I added the weave poles for the second time. He doesn't quite get the poles, yet, but he loves the tunnel and seems to like the jump. He wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I would have liked so I switched from mini Milk Bones to small pieces of cooked chicken. That got his attention.
As he learns the concepts of the agility obstacles, he gets more enthusiastic. I also moved the tunnel to a different location to make room for the weave poles to have a long run. This is the first day I've had all the pieces out and set up. So, I had the jump at the couch (if I stand at the other side of it, he has to go across it), then the weave poles were were one direction of the jump would end, then he'd go away from the jump, through the poles, then turn & go through the tunnel. This is the way a course would be set up -- so the dogs progress from one obstacle to the next in a reasonable flow.
A real course would have a lot more than 3 obstacles, but we're just starting, so we're working on "what" the different obstacles are. We're also working on directing him by voice, rather than running the course with him. The tunnel is the first one he does on direction. And I do mean "direction". I'm telling him to "go tunnel" (away from me) or "come tunnel" (toward me) and he's getting it. At least most of the time.
The hard part is that he is going to really enjoy the jumping part. I think he'd really like to jump higher, but everything I read says not to have him jump until he's fully grown at 18-24 months. That's a long way off.
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