Nationals Bound!

So at the last two trials I've been to people have been talking about CPE nationals next year.  I did some research and I've decided that we're going to go!  We're all qualified, and the event is only a few hours away.  I think it will be lots of fun.  All of the courses are level 5/C challenge, but you get your Qs for whatever level you are at.  With that in mind, I know we can do most of the upper level CPE courses now, but I want to launch a bit of a program to prepare with a little more focus.  The problem is figuring out just what that plan should look like.  I'm going to talk to Grace and keep thinking.  Currently the biggest real challenge I see for us is distance for Jackpot.  Those are the only course maps that I look at and say I'm not sure we could do.  Other than that, I want to improve our discriminations.  His obstacle performance at this point is all solid, and then we just need to work on our general partnership, focus in the ring despite distractions, and motivation and speed.  I'll let you know as I start to develop our training plan in a more concrete way.

In other news, today I chopped up the big log so the agility area is pretty much back to normal.  We even have a few new stanchion stumps :).

In USDAA concerns, I put the A-frame up to USDAA height today and Jonah had trouble with his footwork.  He was wanting to put an extra stride on the down side.  Granted, this was before the limb was gone so there wasn't a lot of space to get moving beforehand, but it's a little concerning.  I put it back to about 5'7" and he was doing well.  I'll put it up another few inches tomorrow now that the branch is gone, and hopefully we'll get it right.

I also brought the tunnel out today and Jonah's discriminations were excellent.