Course of the Week

Here is the course I set up today.  It's still pretty wet so I didn't want to get out the chute and tunnel.  I thought it was a pretty easy course on paper, but it provided some challenges.  Here's the map:

• 1-3 ran smoothly, as you would expect.  
• I handled 4 and 5 with him on my left the first time through and it ran smoothly.  Then I put in a FC while I rewarded his lovely 2o2o, picking him up on my right for 6.  
• The second time through I put a FC at the end of the teeter and pushed for the dog walk at 5.  It worked but it was not as smooth.
• I did 6-8 with double RCs and double FCs.  Both worked well.  With the FCs, I sense that Jonah gets a little backed off because he sees me stopped for a minute and he doesn't know where the next obstacle is.  I need to work on getting my cross in faster and starting my movement toward the next obstacle more quickly.  With the RCs, I had to hang back a little before 8, but it worked nicely.  I was worried the RC would make a tougher weave entry, but I told him 'weave' while he was in the air over 8 and he drove out nicely to the entry without curling back to find me.
• 10 was problematic.  He wanted to just run around the backside of it.  Actually, when I came back inside I realized that I'd mapped it with him jumping the backside.  I wish I'd done that.  We got it done the second time, but it needed me to hold back, get his attention out of the weaves, and give a firm verbal command once I had set his line.  It was harder than it looked.
• I layered 11 just for fun (stayed on the outside of 7), and Jonah's contact was beautiful.  Good boy.
• Given a tree that's not on the map, wrapping left after 13 was the most feasible option.  He was good and took a nice short line, but he did lose motivation.
• 14-15 ran well, although we could have had a faster down on the table.
• I thought we were home safe at 16, but Jonah had trouble with the entry for some reason.  In real life it may have been a bigger angle than the map shows, but even so i was surprised.  He entered at the second pole instead of the first.  Anyway, I just had to support a little more than I thought I would have to.

Overall, it wasn't a bad course.  It never flowed as well as I was hoping it would, but Jonah was excited and happy to be doing agility.

We tried a new reward system today:  the bait sock.  Our bait bag is in the car which is at work with Dave, and I was wishing I had another.  So, I took one of Jonah's socks, tied a knot in the toe so the hole (the reason why it's Jonah's sock) wouldn't leak cookies along the way, and then filled it with cookies.  Yum!  It worked well and Jonah liked to shake it so the cookies went flying, but it did get pretty nasty in the wet dirt.  Oh well, he certainly didn't mind.  Also, the velcro belt clip on our bait bag is a nice feature.  After our first course I realized the sock had jumped out of my pocket along the way and I didn't have it to throw as we finished.  Oops!