I bought a collapsible crate for my agility training online. It arrived this week, so I spent the weekend playing CCC (Crate Cone & Contact) games on the front lawn.
Able really enjoys his Crate Games inside the house, but I’ve been reluctant to do too much with a wire crate in case he gets caught up and injures himself. I was very excited to finally take our games outside and play with some more speed and excitement.
The Sunroof Entry
As an easy warmup, I thought I’d try sending Able into the crate from a few different angles. This is a fun little game that helps to build the skill of looking for the entry of something – later, the entry of a tunnel or the weave poles. This exercise is featured on the Crate Games DVD but I hadn’t done it with any of my previous dogs. I thought Able would nail it.
He did. We built up to starting directly behind the crate, so that he had to run around the side of it and then turn a corner to get into it. I sent him from my left side, he whizzed round the left side of the crate and in the door, and we had a party.
When I sent him from my right side, he ducked across in front of me so that he could run down the left side of the crate and into the door. I tried again, and he did it again.
I moved a bit closer to the crate so that there wasn’t enough room for Able to take his long-cut. He ran right around the crate and came back to me, quite perplexed. Another try, same result.
So we tried again, and at this point Able decided that the only possible way into the crate was to jump in through the sunroof. I’m impressed with his athleticism and his creativity, although not so much his powers of deduction.
Chaining Things Together
The next day I brought out a cone and my favourite contact trainer/mop bucket for some real fun – Able’s first “agility” sequence!
I set up the bucket on a line between the crate and the cone. Our course started with a 270-degree wrap around the cone while I did a front cross, and then I sent Able onto the bucket. He waited there until I released him, and then he charged ahead into his crate. I was really thrilled with Able’s performance of his contact behaviour, even when I was running next to him.
Things didn’t go quite so well when I reversed direction and tried running from the crate to the cone. He doesn’t have quite enough enthusiasm for the cone yet, so he was looking at me rather than where he was going, and suddenly my movement was all too exciting and he couldn’t stop on the bucket.
I had so much fun playing these games and seeing the little pieces come together in our first baby sequence. Now we just need to swap out the crate for a tunnel, the bucket for a dogwalk, and the cone for a jump – then we’ll really have something to celebrate!