Losing Focus

Last night was the first night of a new session of Agility Class. We had gotten very spoiled over the last few months as our class' participants had stayed pretty much the same, with perhaps someone taking a session off and then coming back. Well, there were FOUR new dogs last night. Ceilidh was all over the place. The first course was a series of five jumps with three front crosses scattered in there. Ceilidh jumped the first one, and then had to make sure that our instructor was the same. OK. We started over. We got the first two, and then Ceilidh had to make sure that the instructor hadn't changed. Whew, still the same. Well, we made it through our little course the next time, but missed the last cross. Oh well. It's amazing that, even though the dogs do not go visiting, that even the presence of new dogs can have such an effect on poor Ceilidh. Sometimes even I forget that Ceilidh is prone to acting silly and losing focus. Thank goodness I remembered our focusing techniques and the rest of class was pretty good, finishing with 24 weave poles, done properly the first try!