late winter agility

Late Winter but starting to think about Spring! New garden boxes for my husband to build for me, hose projects, got my seeds from last year out of the fridge to look at (tomato, crook neck squash, green beans, spinach). Pretty soon all my veggies will be bone dry and I will want nothing to do with them! For now I am dreaming of eating fresh strawberries from my garden.
Here is late February in Boise. A few inches of new snow overnight and we woke up to this. By afternoon it had all melted off again.

My yard is small, small and soggy right now. We have room for all of the normal agility equipment but just barely. Indi can't build up too much speed in my little yard so we work on tight turns, contacts, weave entries.

 

What we really need work on is running a full sized course together! At class today we did a small sequence. It was only the second time she has been able to run on a full scale course. We started out pretty good, three jumps to the tunnel, jump, front cross, jump jump, throw ball. Then on our next turn we tried to go a little further into a slightly more challenging section of course. It showed me just how much more work we will need before we will be able to run a real course together! She is way out ahead of me. How the heck am I supposed to direct her from so far behind?!? I have never taught my dogs left and right commands, only "turn" and that always worked in the past. Whichever side my dog is on, turn means to turn your head away from me while I cross behind you. Maybe I need left and right? Maybe I need a faster brain/legs/body!

  I must say, she is everything I wanted in my next agility dog. Lots of drive!

 Now that I have her, what do I do with her?