
Agility Diaries – Practice Runs
All summer, our agility club gets to use an outdoor property for practice. On Saturday we had our last outdoor session of the season and then packed everything up for winter. It was a really fun day!
Practice Runs
They set up a course with novice and advanced options. Each team got about 60 seconds to run either course, or just work on whatever they wanted. We did three runs.
On the first run I started at the wrong end of the tunnel on the novice course, oops! So I made up my own course on the spot. Stan was distracted anyway, so we got a few obstacles in and called it good.

The next run went better. I remembered the course this time, and Stanley stayed with me pretty well. It was all just for fun anyway!
Overall, Stanley did OK. He still gets distracted and runs off on me sometimes, but he’s getting much better about coming back, which is great to see. This winter I’ll be working on more obedience training.
My friend Lisa Hanley took some amazing pictures of Stanley in action, and they’re all through this post!

The Weave Pole Challenge
We also did a weave pole challenge: 12 weave poles, through a tunnel, and back through the poles again. Handlers had to stay outside one of two lines while working their dog, and the fastest time won. I almost didn’t enter, but it was just for fun, so why not get the extra practice? We didn’t win, but Stanley did OK.

To finish the day there was a costume contest. Stanley made an adorable bee. He didn’t win a prize from the judges, but he took first place in my heart!

What’s Next
All in all, it was a super fun day. Our next round of agility classes starts this week, and our next trial is in two weeks! I’m also thinking about Rally classes to help with Stan’s focus.

Have you done Rally with your dog? Tell me about it in the comments!