Biggles had his first and only agility lesson almost a year ago and did so well that we thought he might be the agility star in the family. He’s certainly capable and judging by the speed his tail wags he seems keen. But when we try to teach him any skills he just doesn’t get it. It’s not that he can’t do what you’re asking of him – it’s just that he seems to look at you as if to say “OK, when are we getting started on the fun stuff then?”. It goes a bit like this:

• Throw the ball over a jump – Biggles jumps after it tail wagging furiously. Reward him well.
• Throw the ball over two jumps – Biggles jumps after it tail wagging furiously. Reward him well.
• Do it again – Biggles sits by your side, tail wagging like a propeller but does nothing. Then he snuggles up close to your leg and makes himself comfy.

OK, he’s bored (although he doesn’t look bored). Move onto something else.

• Call Biggles over a jump. Biggles jumps, tail wagging furiously. Reward him well.
• Call Biggles over two jumps. Biggles jumps, tail wagging furiously. Reward him well.
• Do it again. Biggles sits looking at you excitedly, tail wagging like a propeller but does nothing.

This isn’t completely out of character for Biggly Boy. During games of fetch he lets Beanie go get the ball. After she’s dropped it at your feet he picks it up and instantly drops it then looks at you as if to say “I did it too!”. At lure coursing he makes a beeline for the home straight and lies in wait for the lure so he can grab it on the way past.

It’s not as if he’s got a short attention span. At Heelwork to Music classes (which he loves) he’ll give me his undivided attention for a solid hour and he never seems to get bored.

We’ll give it a little bit longer – maybe we’ve just not figured out how to motivate him. But I’m beginning to think that Agility just isn’t his thing.

Beanie on the other hand is coming on in leaps and bounds in agility (literally) – despite next to no practice in the past year. Obviously skills from other activities are transferring to agility. I set this course up for her yesterday morning for the first time. She hadn’t practiced it – or anything similar yet she managed it first time. We still need to use a ball as a target to send her away from me, but not for much longer the way she’s going!

It’d been a long, long time since we’ve done any agility practice – several months at least. But as our lawn recovered from the builders and the weather got warmer we started getting the agility equipment out and trying to remember how it’s all done!

Today we decided to work on weaves with Beanie. We set up a little course with just six weaves and a few strategically placed jumps so we could practice entering and exiting the weaves from various directions. She was a bit sluggish but didn’t do bad at all given that this was her first time in almost a year!

Next we tried 12 poles and the most difficult thing for Beanie – entering the weaves after a jump. The jump gets her a bit excited and she tends to make mistakes. This took a few practice runs but we got there eventually.

Finally we added in a couple of jumps and a return pass through the weaves.

As you can hear in the final clip, Biggly Boy was now getting a little vocal about it being his turn.

Now in many ways Biggly Boy should be easier to teach. He tends to stay close and gaze up into your eyes with his tail wagging (unlike Beanie who initially would spend training sessions zooming around the course completely ignoring me!). But progress has been surprisingly slow. I think the problem is that he doesn’t enjoy flying over the equipment just for the sake of it the way Beanie did. For him it’s only about the reward at the end. Nevertheless we have high hopes for him as he always gets there in the end – in his own special way!

With the hard work out of the way it was time to get down to some serious business.

Noisy, who us?

We finished off with a game of fetch. True to form, Biggles retrieved his ball a couple of times and then took it off to his lair where he guarded it jealously whilst systematically destroying it.

Beanie was a lot more interactive.

It’s a hard life for a puppy.

A six legged Beagle – surely not?

Nope. It’s Beanie and Biggles doing a bit of (poorly) synchronized agility in the garden!

Followed by a bickie hunt (in retrospect not the smartest thing to do around an agility course – remember the dreaded tunnel of plenty!!)…

Then some toys and a chill out.

The brightly coloured activity tunnel is a new acquisition. We’d spotted a kiddies ‘potting shed’ tent selling for half price in Home Base and both thought it suited the Biggly Boy right down to the ground. We got as far as the checkout before coming to our senses and realising that our boy can’t read the ‘potting shed’ sign and wouldn’t know the difference between his new toy and a cardboard box. However, we couldn’t go home empty handed so chose the brightly coloured tunnel/den instead. It was very well received and makes a handy addition to our ever-growing set of agility equipment!