Tonight Dice had his first time working in a proper class with eight or so dogs he doesn't know.
He was great! he had good focus on me, although he recognized one of the dogs, since we had walked together, and had to say hello to him. After that he was quite happy to work, and in fact did his first real sequence, 5 baby jumps and a tunnel, with 2 right angle turns, one of which was a rear cross
:-)

so proud of my baby boy!

well done Dice, sounds will he is going to do very well at agility the hardest thing they have to learn is the weave poles and if i remember right you have already started him on those.

That was way back in Feb! Now he is weaving really well, has got his head round doing all 12 poles, but will sometimes still pop out a few early if I push him too hard for speed. I have confidence that will stop too. He seems to have got in his head about the entry too, without even doing the "slowly by degrees" moving of the approach point! Wow! I set up something at club on Thurs that had almost 45 deg of approach angle, forgetting that he hadn't done that yet, and he did it like a pro! both sides! who woulda' thought!
He's also figured out by himself that you have to put the brakes on when you approach down a straight line at speed, in order to get in the first hole and hold in for the second/third, which is where a lot of young dogs lose it, even if they get the first gap.

Now I have started pushing him for speed, and he's going probably as fast as he can, doing a two foot pattern. I hope he figures out that a one foot pattern is faster...

Must see if I can get someone to video him for me...

I think the hardest thing for him now is turning sharp corners. At the moment he is doing huge leaps, and putting in a bounce stride where my welshies could never hope to achieve that, BUT, he has some understeer going on. He thinks he knows where to go next, and it's not nessessarily where I want him to go, and by the time he realises that, he's 15 feet in the wrong direction.
:-( sadly, I no longer have anywhere at home to work on that, so it will be slower progress.
Anyway, I think he will be fine for starters, not too much steering required there, or in C Jumpers which is the other class he'll be starting in. His first show is on July 26, his 18 month birthday, so over the next two months, I need to get him jumping up to competition height. Fortunately he has a nice clean jumping style for the most part, so I don't think it will be too much hassle.

You go girl
Yay Dice.
Can't wait till the 26th.
You just got to find someone who can video it, this is a milestone.
My babies first trial, oh I feel like it's my first all over again.
All the best.

Dice will do very well and try his hardest for you as koolies do, even if he muffs up a bit who cares as long as he is having fun.

Well done Dice and Penny! Sounds like you've done a great job on getting him started and he'll only get better surely! Would love to see some video!! My son reckons Paxy has rear wheel drive she turns so fast when running!

Yeah, I must arrange for someone to video him :-) He's going to be fun to run, but I think it's going to take a while for me to adjust to working him, and anticipating what he will do in any given situation, as I'm course walking, and the speed of his reactions when he's running. Training is just not the same as competing. :-)

He can turn on a dime when he wants to, he does this funny little thing, where he plants his front paws, and sort of hops his back end around while he does a bit of a handstand, so he's facing the other wway!

Ashley works very accurately, but slower than Dice, so I have more time to react. Not a lot, but more. And of course we have worked for 6 years together, and know each other very well.

don't worry Dice will teach himself to pace himself to you, it may take a while as he is a young boy full of oats but he will get there, i have always dreamed of a dog that would run the course and i would only have to stand in the middle lol now that's lazy.