Co-ordination and Balance

Yesterday afternoon Skye and I went to Hannah Banks' workshop: Foundations of Co-ordination & Balance for Agility Dogs. We had such a good time! Even though at first I wasn't sure we would. Skye was quite shy when we entered the hall where the workshop was going to take place. There were lots of new dogs to meet and strange noises to get used to. She wasn't too keen about the first exercises we did either. But fortunately, after a while, she started to enjoy herself. Very much actually!

We did all kinds of exercises to make the dogs more aware of their hind legs and to strenghten their muscles in that part of their bodies. It was very nice to see the dogs doing the exercises that Hannah had set up for us. All the dogs did very well. And even though Skye is still quite small, she didn't have any trouble doing what was asked from her. Here are some pictures of a few of the things we did.

She loved the wobble boards. This is the square one.

There was a round wobble board too, which was very wobbly indeed!

She just couldn't get enough of that one and even did 'sits' and 'downs' on it.

'Stepping' over the little jumps.

After some initial hesitation, Skye loved going up and down the ramp:

such an easy way to earn some chicken!

The wobble cushion.

And last but not least: walking against a ball.

At first I thought Skye might be a bit small for this exercise,

but she was more than happy to do it.

During the workshop Lian and Colin, Skye's breeders, stopped by to see how Skye is doing. It was so nice to see them again. And Skye certainly hadn't forgotten them. She just loved playing with Lian.