Our Schutzhund club has been training at an indoor arena of a barn for the winter. Today was a "lazy" training day for Aiden and we just played around and had some fun goofing off. We had a good time saying hi to all the horses and we even found another "Aiden"!
The two Aiden boys

_MG_9251 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr

_MG_9263 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
They were so cute together!

_MG_9250 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
"He's right behind me..isn't he.."

_MG_9247 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
We also played around with the jumps today. That part of the Schutzhund retrieve has always been his favorite. I know nothing about handling a dog in agility, but I did set him up with a few (4-5) consecutive jumps and he really seemed to enjoy doing it! He's about 85 pounds and really long in body, so I never considered doing agility with him before, but he jumps really well. I also never really considered him as fast and didn't expect anything different in this case, but he really was running faster than I usually see him do.

_MG_9441 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr

_MG_9437 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
I am just wondering if maybe we should consider looking into agility. I'd never considered it before since he is such a big dog, but he really seemed to have fun today. He just seemed much less stressed than I sometimes see when we are training in Schutzhund. He's very handler sensitive and this kind of just seemed like he was actually having fun out there, rather than being upset about doing the wrong thing. I know most people here probably already know of our struggles with Schutzhund and my questioning his retirement, but I am thinking that maybe agility could be our fun new venue in the future. I'd love to hear thoughts from others who do agility with their GSD's.
The two Aiden boys

_MG_9251 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr

_MG_9263 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
They were so cute together!

_MG_9250 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
"He's right behind me..isn't he.."

_MG_9247 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
We also played around with the jumps today. That part of the Schutzhund retrieve has always been his favorite. I know nothing about handling a dog in agility, but I did set him up with a few (4-5) consecutive jumps and he really seemed to enjoy doing it! He's about 85 pounds and really long in body, so I never considered doing agility with him before, but he jumps really well. I also never really considered him as fast and didn't expect anything different in this case, but he really was running faster than I usually see him do.

_MG_9441 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr

_MG_9437 by Gator_Dog, on Flickr
I am just wondering if maybe we should consider looking into agility. I'd never considered it before since he is such a big dog, but he really seemed to have fun today. He just seemed much less stressed than I sometimes see when we are training in Schutzhund. He's very handler sensitive and this kind of just seemed like he was actually having fun out there, rather than being upset about doing the wrong thing. I know most people here probably already know of our struggles with Schutzhund and my questioning his retirement, but I am thinking that maybe agility could be our fun new venue in the future. I'd love to hear thoughts from others who do agility with their GSD's.