Tonight's class was lots of fun. Jonah was super excited, but in general he was able to handle himself with few problems.
We ended up chatting a bunch at the beginning of class instead of having our normal 'warm-up' period, so we jumped right into the first course. It started with a tunnel to the DW. Jonah was barking and leaping like mad, flew threw the tunnel, raced onto the dogwalk and then...I don't know what happened. My classmates said it looked like he put his back left foot off the edge. As I looked over, I just saw him scrambling like mad and then falling. I stopped stunned but he landed on his feet running and took the first few jumps he came to before racing back to me and barking at me like, "Mom, come on, why'd you stop?" We started over and he showed no hint of nervousness at going back on the DW. After that the course ran fast and fun. He was great and attentive, racing through the technical sections with tight lines and good speed.
The second time through the course we were supposed to change our handling techniques. My different handling generally worked but it was a little messier. I started by layering the tunnel and DW with a tire and jump, so I was about 15 feet away. No problem at all. Next was tackling this section:
The first time I had sent to the the chute, picked him up on the landing side of 2 on my right, pushed to three, and then rear crossed seven.
The second time I went to the takeoff side of 2, picked him up out of the chute on my left, invited him in over three, handled him on my left through the weaves, blind crossed the end of the weaves and then did another blind between 5 and 6. I was worried about getting ahead enough to give him space to land off 3 and shape his path to the weaves, and I almost pushed him past 3 altogether. It was enough to make him drop the bar at 3. Oops. The rest worked well except the blind before 6 got him so excited he '1-hit-wonder-ed' the A-frame. He did get in the yellow, but just barely.
The A-frame is funny. At home, extension is good. At the USDAA trial with the high A-frame, extension was good. With the lower A-frame at CPE and in class, though, when he's really hyped up extension is not necessarily good; it can make him just do one hit on the down side, which can lead to a missed contact. I have to keep working on it.
Our last course was just a speed circle, as we were short on time (2 weeks away from agility is too long! There were lots of trial brags to share :) ). Jonah was great. People commented on how fast his weaves were. Good boy!
We ended up chatting a bunch at the beginning of class instead of having our normal 'warm-up' period, so we jumped right into the first course. It started with a tunnel to the DW. Jonah was barking and leaping like mad, flew threw the tunnel, raced onto the dogwalk and then...I don't know what happened. My classmates said it looked like he put his back left foot off the edge. As I looked over, I just saw him scrambling like mad and then falling. I stopped stunned but he landed on his feet running and took the first few jumps he came to before racing back to me and barking at me like, "Mom, come on, why'd you stop?" We started over and he showed no hint of nervousness at going back on the DW. After that the course ran fast and fun. He was great and attentive, racing through the technical sections with tight lines and good speed.
The second time through the course we were supposed to change our handling techniques. My different handling generally worked but it was a little messier. I started by layering the tunnel and DW with a tire and jump, so I was about 15 feet away. No problem at all. Next was tackling this section:
The second time I went to the takeoff side of 2, picked him up out of the chute on my left, invited him in over three, handled him on my left through the weaves, blind crossed the end of the weaves and then did another blind between 5 and 6. I was worried about getting ahead enough to give him space to land off 3 and shape his path to the weaves, and I almost pushed him past 3 altogether. It was enough to make him drop the bar at 3. Oops. The rest worked well except the blind before 6 got him so excited he '1-hit-wonder-ed' the A-frame. He did get in the yellow, but just barely.
The A-frame is funny. At home, extension is good. At the USDAA trial with the high A-frame, extension was good. With the lower A-frame at CPE and in class, though, when he's really hyped up extension is not necessarily good; it can make him just do one hit on the down side, which can lead to a missed contact. I have to keep working on it.
Our last course was just a speed circle, as we were short on time (2 weeks away from agility is too long! There were lots of trial brags to share :) ). Jonah was great. People commented on how fast his weaves were. Good boy!
No comments:
Post a Comment