Kaiser's first official night of agility class tonight!

 Good luck!  You'll have to post back and let me know how it goes.  Just DON'T let yourself get so nervous, he'll be able to tell and that could  disrupt his performance.  But I bet he'll be awesome!  I can't wait to hear all about it.

 With your agility experience I am sure you are in the right class. You have a good judge of where your young dog is, and I am sure he will be fine. It might be more the class setting than anything since he is used to working at home.

Let us know how it goes. 

 Well how'd it go?? Were you nervous for nothing and you and he did great!!?

Thanks everyone.    I knew I was just being silly -- I don't get nervous for trials, so it was just beyond my comprehension how I could have been nervous over a silly old class.

The roads were AWFUL last night (we got 5" of snow!) and the normally 30 minute drive took almost an hour, so Kaiser was definitely happy to get out of the car when we got to the center.  It took a while for him to stop going, "Look Mom!  There's a dog!!  Oh, but there's another dog!  OMG, that one is a GIRL!!"  He handled himself very well, though, especially when the little JRT female got away from her handler and wouldn't leave him alone --- one benefit to having a small dog is that I can pick him up to avoid annoying situations like that...

It was the first week & I don't want to make too many judgements, but the skill level of the class seems like it's going to be pretty low.  That's fine -- I can work on increasing the difficulty of his exercises in the spring when I get my own equipment out again.  For now he's just learning to behave off leash in public.

I had to redirect his focus a few times during the (boring) warm-up exercises with single jumps.  I also had to change the exercise to suit him, as the one we were instructed to do was going to ruin my dog.  Thankfully I think I can get away with doing my own thing in this class, so long as we stay quiet and out of the way...

Things got even better when we split up (large vs. small) to start doing actual drills/exercises.  We started out with a jump chute, which Kaiser thought was great fun.  He did a great start line stay with a lead out, which is more than I can say for anyone else.

The big dog group was still working on their exercise, so we moved over to the teeter.  I don't have one at home, so this was the first time Kaiser has ever seen one.  The other two dogs in my group also don't have teeter skills, so we just did very basic touch exercises with the teeter a few inches off the ground.  Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to introduce Kaiser to the teeter too much in class -- I'd rather build my own and do it at home where I can do it right.  The teeter isn't used in NADAC, so I'm not terribly concerned at this point.

The last exercise was a simple drill with jumps & tunnels.  Kaiser did it like an old pro and the instructor (the same one who taught Luke and I in the beginning) admitted how impressed she was with the work I'd done with Kaiser at home.  We were even chosen to "demonstrate" a few things to the newbies.

We ended with a speed circle just to make the dogs happy -- I don't think I've ever set one up for Kaiser at home, but he loved it.  He was all about the work last night and handled the class environment very well.

I worked on his weaves while waiting our turn a few times and he did very well with the different style (ie: the club has MUCH nicer weaves than I do!).  There wasn't any contact equipment set up in the arena, so we didn't get to do any of that -- so I'll have to wait another week to see how he does on unfamiliar equipment.  If last night was any indication, though, he should do just fine! 

We've got 5 1/2 months before his first trial.  Tick, tock, tick, tock -- I'm so impatient!!

That sounds great!!!!

I'm so glad it went well!  

 It sounds like both of you had a great time!  See, no need to worry.  It sounds like he's going to be great.

 Sounds like you have a great foundation going.  :)

So how big is Kaiser?  How tall?  Weight?  I love my little dog but don't really want one much smaller than him when "new dog" time comes.  :)

Kaiser is 14 1/2" tall (although I'm going to try to get him squeaked into the 14" measurement to jump 12" vs. 16"....) and probably about 15 lbs now.  I haven't weighed him since he started bulking up into an adult dog!    He's still a fairly scrawny little thing, but has a lot more muscle than he did even just a few months ago.

He is just a smidge taller than ideal, due to the height class issue that I mentioned.  If I can't get him measured as a 14" dog then I'll have to run him in the skilled category for the 4" drop to 12".  While he CAN jump 16", I don't want him to.  His "optimum height formula" says that he shouldn't jump over 14 1/4".

As it stands, I plan to start him in the 8" skilled class at least through his Novice titles.  You don't have to measure skilled dogs, so it won't matter if he's off by 1/2" until we try to move to Proficient.  We'll see, things could change in the next few months.  In mean time, I work with him at every trial with the measuring wickets after everyone is done with registration.  I can get him to measure under the 14" bar, but I'm not sure what will happen when a judge tries it.

 Thanks!  My little guy measures about 14 1/2 inches and he's the perfect height and size, imo.  He weighs about 20 pounds though and I can feel most of his ribs so he's definitely not fat.  I've even been concerned lately that he's losing too much weight pacing around the house.  20 to 21 is about ideal for him, but that's good to know about the Klee Kai...  I may have to consider them.  :)

Well, last night was Kaiser's third night of class -- and I bumped him up into the advanced group.  The novice group had 10 dogs and it was going to take them F*O*R*E*V*E*R to get through the simplest of exercises.  The advanced group had only four dogs and they weren't exactly doing anything above Kaiser's skill level, so I okayed it with the instructor and made the jump.

I'm SO GLAD I did.  Kaiser did so much better with the increased "difficulty" of the exercises in the advanced group and it was easier to keep his attention with the shorter breaks between turns.  Our group got to run through about 10x as many exercises as the novice group, which made ME much happier, too.  There is nothing I hate more than sitting around doing nothing in class.

This was our first week with contacts and I'm happy to report that Kaiser was fully comfortable on the new equipment.  In fact, I dare say he was even better on their equipment than my stuff at home!  It was fun to see him sail over the a-frame with such confidence -- I think he's missed it!

At the end of the night we played a game called "Beat the Clock."  It consisted of four quadrants of different exercises with a tire in the center.  You had to do one quadrant, go through the tire, do another quadrant, back to the tire, etc.  If the dog bobbled at all on a drill you had to go back to the tire to try again.  Kaiser made it through all four in the given 60 seconds and the only time we had to go back to the tire was after his first missed entry to the weaves.  After that he was golden!  I believe we'll stick with the advanced group from here on out.