I've been experimenting with running contacts for Ava. Today she finally leaped the yellow on the dw. I had been putting a tunnel in front of the dw, but not after.  Today I put a tunnel after the dw and she leaped the contact on the way to the tunnel. In a way I'm excited that she was confident enough to try that, but of course I did not reward it.

I did some backchaining and didn't see this behavior again. However, I'm not sure she understands the concept of running thru the yellow.  I've rewarded this a lot, but her natural stride almost always takes her thru the yellow.  So, it's hard to have the opportunity to show her what is correct/incorrect. I think it would be good to have a manners minder at this point.-so, I can control the reward remotely.

I have trained a stop, too, so not sure what I'll eventually stay with. I originally started having her run the contacts for confidence. When she does her "feet" command her little stub just wags and wags - just cracks me up it's so cute.

I've been training her weaves using the 2 x 2's and I'm really happy with how that is going. I've been using LM's jumping book to train her jumping. I'm happy with where she is right now. She will be 17 mo in a few days and is definitely still inmature in many ways. We are having fun together and taking our time.

My favorite thing is she can jump in my arms because she is so little. That is fun and she seems to love to do it!
 

Having lost two dogs, agility feels in better perspective for me. I love it and want to do well at it, but I don't want to miss one minute of loving my dogs for who they are- agility or not! I haven't appreciated Cole(or my other dogs sometimes) for who he is and I am determined to do that. I don't want to have any regrets.

I am sure missing Zeke. Sometimes when I think about him it feels like someone punched me in the gut! It's harder than Rumor in some ways!