Thursday, February 23, 2012

Class Review

Jonah ran tonight's first class well, but lacking a little umph.  It included two discriminations, a pinwheel, a serpentine and some other challenges.  Jonah ran clear right to the end, when he popped out of the weaves at the 11th pole.  The weaves ran straight into the wall and they were the last obstacle.  Honestly, I had taken my eye off him at the last second to see where to throw the bait bag.  I wouldn't have noticed he didn't finish the weaves if the others didn't tell me.  Oops!

Luckily we got to run it twice.

The second run was excellent all the way through.  On the first time, I'd gotten ahead of him at the DW and he did his 2o2o but he didn't drive to it quickly.  This time I stayed more even with him and he actually went much faster.  I'll have to remember that.  I was good about jackpoting the great contact before we went on (honestly, though, he just wanted to keep going--I don't know how much he cared about the party).  I ran the serp on the other side this time.  Both worked well, but it was good to try something different.  This time I trusted him in the pinwheel and busted my butt to get in a FC after it.  It was actually quite nice, and I always enjoy a handling challenge :).  I stayed more connected for the weaves this time, and he didn't have any trouble.  Overall, the course was fast fast fast, and his lines were good, too.

The second course was a jumpers course and honestly I wasn't pleased with the way it went.  I mean, we got all the obstacles and didn't drop any bars or anything, but he was just really messy with his lines, making very wide turns.  I tried handling different parts different ways, but I never figured it out quite right.  I'm glad there are run-thrus tomorrow.  I'm going to think about it a bunch and try again.  When I watch some of the international handlers, they seem to really micro manage a lot of turns, so I might try to play with that rather than sending him out and trusting him to turn nicely (which he didn't).

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