Delilah and I did another drop-in agility class on Thursday evening.  If you remember from my Tick Tick BOOM post a couple of weeks ago, Delilah was a little snarky in class.

You can imagine that I approached the class with a mixture of anticipation and fear.

We took our position in the back of the room again, same cast of characters as the last class with the addition of an unruly Cocker Spaniel and our Alaskan Malamute friend, Brockway.

Sara started the class by going around the room and introducing each dog.   When she got to our corner she said, this is Delilah the chocolate lab, she would prefer it if your dog did not put their nose in her butt, because she’s just not THAT kind of dog.

I giggled a little, but it didn’t ease my tension.

At the very back of the room (which is where we were) is a large pen and even though Delilah gets really snarky behind barriers I decided to try to work her a bit while the other dogs were running.

When a dog started their run, I walked into the pen and told her to heel, we then did three to five laps around that small pen, with a nice lose leash.  She did awesome.

Once we did that, I brought her out of the pen and we practiced our look command.

We did this every time a dog ran, my goal was to keep her focused on me and not on what was going on in the room.  It seemed to help me, until a dog would come too close.

I worry about the big dogs, I worry about the little dogs and I worry about the Delilah-sized dogs.

The big dogs worry me because I’m afraid that if she snarks at them they could hurt her and the little dogs worry me because I’m afraid she will hurt them.    The Delilah-size dogs worry me because I don’t want her in a dog fight.

Basically I just worry.

The Akita (Boots) got distracted on course and headed our way.  Delilah’s never officially met Boots and I panicked.  Luckily I remembered to drop her leash so she didn’t feel trapped.  Sara walked over and Boot’s dad came over to retrieve him, Sara and I were talking to Delilah and she was fine, of course it also helped that Boots wasn’t rushing up to her snarling.

After the situation was diffused I shared my observations with Sara.

Typically Delilah goes after high-energy, bouncy, off-the-wall dogs.  If a dog walks in calmly, Delilah is a dream, but if a dog prances, or dashes in, she wants a bit of that dog.

Sara agreed with me, she thinks Delilah is disciplining the not-so-well-behaved dogs.  At first I wasn’t too sure about that, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me.

Speaking of not-so-well-behaved dogs, someone was giving me a devil of a time during one of her runs.  She wouldn’t do the A-frame, instead she kept running into the tunnel and every time I went for her, she ran the other way.:-(

I was so mad, I practically picked her up to get her on that A-frame.

Epic Fail.

How do you redirect your dog when they stray off-course?