Agility in France!

(This is a preliminary report to our friends from Aimhi.)

Thanks to our friends, Chana and us got to do some agility last Saturday in a neighbouring city: Saint Nazaire. We humans are doing perfectly fine without a car here in Grenoble, but getting to an agility field in the mountain wouldn't be possible without one. Mind you, the place is not any further than the former Aimhi location from our home in Waterloo, but we really need a car if we start training...

We have so far seen two agility training places. The first one is an official canine club of Saint Martin Le Vinoux. They offer obedience, agility, and ring (shutzhunt) classes. They would hold an official agility competition as well, and they only welcome people who are gearing up for competitions which suits our mentality. BUT their facility was awful... Apparently, it often gets flooded, and they cannot invest in putting a better system as they may have to move. Hmmm... What to do? I am sorry that I did not take any photos to share.

The second one we went to was better than the first. Can'idee is run by a young lady who has two Aussies (with tails!) and one Border Collie. She is very welcoming and spoke some English. Facility-wise, the field is covered with rocks and stones, but she had all the contact equipments with the sand-paper (?) surface. I explained what we have learned so far briefly, and she told us to do a short circuit which contained: two jumps, tire, weaves, back to two jumps, and a tunnel. I could hear Linda's voice, "Weaves?" but we went ahead and did some practice. After having some difficulty finding the entrance, Chana went "through" the weaves as the poles are fenced with chicken wires. To my surprise, I somehow said "Poles!" to Chana, and I blame Kathy for that. The instructor kind of kept quiet and let us do what we were doing, which was again different... We are used to Linda catching me doing something silly from faraway in the field and approach me like a ninja.

The second circuit contained two jumps. tunnel, serpentine (yes, I remembered the term, and I remembered seeing them, and somehow I imitated what Theresa showed us one time in her workshop), a dog walk, a teeter, and a jump. I am not going to report on the tee-tar as I can see Linda covering her mouth and saying "Misato!" but Chana managed the dog walk. The trainer was quite interested when I said "Touch it" at the end of the walk, and she asked us how we trained Chana to do that.

Overall experience was positive, and I am happy we did it. Most importantly I was happy that what Linda has showed us for the past two years was ingrained in my head. I planned where I place myself in the course, and where I use my arms and voice. I even had an eye contact with Chana when she was doing the serpentine. We were using Holly's food frisbee for the reward, and Chana had a ball. She misses getting cheese sticks for rewards, but such a thing does not exist in France! We cannot find quality dog treats either. It seems that treats are rarely used to train dogs.

I think I would go check out a few more and see what kind of training they offer. So please stay tuned for our agility report from France.