Agility trial this weekend

There was an agility trial this weekend at a local park. We walked there during the week so Sunshine would be familiar with it. He rapidly went over threshold with the few kids on the jungle gym at a distance.

On Sat. we drove there. Sunshine refused to come out of the car. Eventually I bodily removed him and we hung out on the fringes. I think he didn't like hearing the other dogs bark. We stayed briefly at the far fringes of the park and then went on a walk over to a natural area where he loosened up. We finished the outing with a McDonalds McDouble.

On Sun. I walked back to the park with the dogs. Sunshine sat down facing away from the park 3 or 4 times as it came in view. I waited until he normalized and got up and then we went a little closer. Then repeated as he sat down again.

Eventually we got to the edge of the agility area where there was no one at all so we sat down. At first Sunshine could only watch the pick-up football game farther away. He was very nervous of the kids jungle gym area and was purposely not looking at the agility. Eventually he loosened up enough to look at the other dogs and the agility. I think his experience in a hoarding facility and then the humane society lead him to believe he wouldn't see anything nice. However he seemed to me to be amazed at how calm the dogs were and how much fun they were having. He wasn't looking at the ones on the course but instead the ones being played with by their owners on the sidelines or sitting with their owners. Once he loosened up we continued on our nature path walk.

Although I doubted we could pull off a success when Sunshine refused to leave the car, I think after Sun. we can say that it was a successful set of excursions.