Day Three (Team) was ______ (still trying to fill in the blank!).
Gamblers to start- the Dog felt a bit off. Still sleepy? In an abnormal occurrence she ran around the first jump for the gamble. Whistle!
Jumpers- better. One bar down, but since it was that or an off-course I will take it! The bar made her a bit sad, but she recovered a few jumps later to finish up a tricky (pipe tunnel filled!) course nicely.
Standard- better still. Another trappy course; my screams (“auuughhh! NOOOOO! COME! LEFT LEFT LEFT!!) resulted in one bar down.
Snookers- UGH! Who stole my dog!? I had a nice FUN plan filled with everything she likes and it was still like pulling teeth. No, like it was her first run. In agility. Ever. Practically walked through the first 6 or so things. Then when she started to go all of a sudden, she was gone. We made it through 5 in the close before time buzzed and I tried to leave with some dignity, but she got stuck in a tunnel vortex and kept running around and around, each time surfacing to peek at me with a ‘nah nah nahhhhh’ look on her face before diving back in the tunnel for another spin through. UGH!
Relay- finally had a happy dog again. Something about playing with the baton really peps her up.
Overall the Team ended up in 2nd with a Q, which was awesome all things considered. To be fair, the courses were super tricky with a lot more off-course options then we have seen recently.
Now let’s review the weekend goal situation. Keep in mind that the courses were atypical for the judge- very much NOT ‘run from behind’ as I had hoped/expected. Most situations forced a front cross or similar maneuver from the front.
Video from the weekend...for review!!
*Dog RUN from start to finish. To achieve: I will stay out of her way as much as possible (rears instead of fronts, TELL not show what to do). I will pick courses in flow when I have the option. I will mark it ("YES! GO!") asap when I see her committing to the right obstacle. I will run and run some more.
Well, over all there was more consistent running from her. Just a few classes where we really lost the momentum and for pretty obvious reasons. I certainly tried the flow thing and think I was ok with marking her choosing the right things.
*Will Dog’s contacts will hold up. We’ve been doing a lot of racing, especially on the DW to enforce it in her mind that she no longer should stop. Will they be fast? Will the show hit % be as good as the practice %?
I think she did amazing on her DW contacts. They were much faster than usual- she really launched herself up and over the obstacle, where in the past she kind of loped over the whole thing. She did not try to stop on the bottom once. YAY! Note though- I watched the video and they look much more “iffy” on tape then when we ran, so we will keep working to get one extra ‘safety’ stride.
*Competitive times, particularly in Jumpers. So many jumps, so many options, makes for so much thinking aka hesitation. To achieve: set lines and let her run ahead. Hopefully the courses will allow this
Quasi-Fail. I think the jumpers courses required to much control for this to work. When I did try to let her GO and run ahead she was very uncertain due to all of the off-course options. BUT getting much better time-wise on standard classes, which is great to see!
Lots to work on now for the next show. (AKC in two weeks, USDAA 2011 tournament qualifier in three weeks). Tomorrow we will do some basic board runs on the dog walk plank. Also have to try to find something that will work to motivate her to run with confidence for the big outruns in Snookers from the get-go.
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