Today was the first lesson of Ringo’s new course: tracking. Since the next obedience course isn’t scheduled until April (which is just as well, because he needs a lot of training before then), we decided to indulge his interest in tracking in order to give him something to spend some of all his energy on. So, now I am sitting here with really sore hands, because he was (as usual) absolutely wild when getting to meet with other dogs and do super-fun things like follow a track made by dragging a deer hoof over the ground.
Since he saw us put the track down, it was a little hard to get him to track with his nose down all the time, and he also went waaaaay too fast (when competing, the dog isn’t allowed to pull on the leash, so we have some work left), but he more or less got the idea and happily grabbed and carried the hoof. We sure can’t complain about his interesting in grabbing things.
After we had finished up, we passed by where they do agility training, and tried out one of the obstacles (a big, inverted V) with him. First two tries, he ran to the top and then jumped off because he didn’t see he could go down the other side. Third time, he did it properly and really fast. He sure isn’t afraid of heights. In fact, a teensy bit more caution would probably not be a bad thing. But oh no, he’s a boxer through and through.