Jonah and I went to class last night. In general he was very good. He did bark at one dog while I was walking the course. He doesn't like to be tied to the wall and he's too amped in the environment to stay while I walk the course without being tied/held, so he was walking the course with me, and so was the other dog. As a bad handler I was paying more attention to the course than my dog, and then he was barking and I looked and realized that I'd let them get especially close. Oops. Entirely my bad.
Our first course ran alright, but it wasn't our most connected. It started well, including a really nice flip to a tunnel off of the A-frame which I thought was tough. Now that we have the running contact, he flies off the A-frame and to get the flip I had to be a good ways ahead so I could get the cue in, but I also didn't want to get so much in his way that I screwed up the contact. Anyway, the weaves were before the A-frame so I was able to get ahead and it worked beautifully.
After that things were going well until there was a table at the middle of a straight tunnel:
The tunnel wasn't quite as long as the one in the picture. Anyway, he did a nice table performance, but then when I gave him the cue for the tunnel he was really confused. It was like he just didn't see it, even though he's usually good at those sorts of tunnel entrances. He turned around and hopped back on the table, then back down and went around the far side of the tunnel. After a bit of a frenzy where he knew he wasn't doing what I wanted but couldn't figure out where to go, it clicked and he rocketed through the tunnel.
He got a discrimination for the A-frame but then I drifted pretty laterally (maybe 20'), and it made him get excited enough to one-hit-wonder the A-frame contact. Yes, he got in the yellow, but not the way I'd like it.
Then, the last section was a line of three jumps that involved a lot of wraps and back-sides, running back and forth kind of like a suicide. We got it done but I let my eyes off him at one point and it made his line pretty inefficient.
We did this course a second time through and it went much better for us once we got started. The first two obstacles were a jump with a 90 degree right turn to a weave pole entry. The first time I pulled him around to the poles with him on my left, but the second time I led out and called him into my right side. When I did this, I was impatient and started my forward motion too soon, pushing him out of the correct entry. I set him up in a start line stay again and he got the entry perfectly the second time. I handled the rest of the course a little differently, and it all worked quite well. It was a good run.
Our last run of the night went well until the very end, where we ran into trouble. There was a tunnel under the A-frame and he was supposed to do the tunnel to the A-frame. Well, he came flying out of the tunnel and turned too widely to get onto the A-frame. Oops. The next time I backed up and gave him a longer approach. It worked. Grace suggested that actually being closer might be more effective, too. We'll try that today when we go back for run-thrus.
Our first course ran alright, but it wasn't our most connected. It started well, including a really nice flip to a tunnel off of the A-frame which I thought was tough. Now that we have the running contact, he flies off the A-frame and to get the flip I had to be a good ways ahead so I could get the cue in, but I also didn't want to get so much in his way that I screwed up the contact. Anyway, the weaves were before the A-frame so I was able to get ahead and it worked beautifully.
After that things were going well until there was a table at the middle of a straight tunnel:
The tunnel wasn't quite as long as the one in the picture. Anyway, he did a nice table performance, but then when I gave him the cue for the tunnel he was really confused. It was like he just didn't see it, even though he's usually good at those sorts of tunnel entrances. He turned around and hopped back on the table, then back down and went around the far side of the tunnel. After a bit of a frenzy where he knew he wasn't doing what I wanted but couldn't figure out where to go, it clicked and he rocketed through the tunnel.
He got a discrimination for the A-frame but then I drifted pretty laterally (maybe 20'), and it made him get excited enough to one-hit-wonder the A-frame contact. Yes, he got in the yellow, but not the way I'd like it.
Then, the last section was a line of three jumps that involved a lot of wraps and back-sides, running back and forth kind of like a suicide. We got it done but I let my eyes off him at one point and it made his line pretty inefficient.
We did this course a second time through and it went much better for us once we got started. The first two obstacles were a jump with a 90 degree right turn to a weave pole entry. The first time I pulled him around to the poles with him on my left, but the second time I led out and called him into my right side. When I did this, I was impatient and started my forward motion too soon, pushing him out of the correct entry. I set him up in a start line stay again and he got the entry perfectly the second time. I handled the rest of the course a little differently, and it all worked quite well. It was a good run.
Our last run of the night went well until the very end, where we ran into trouble. There was a tunnel under the A-frame and he was supposed to do the tunnel to the A-frame. Well, he came flying out of the tunnel and turned too widely to get onto the A-frame. Oops. The next time I backed up and gave him a longer approach. It worked. Grace suggested that actually being closer might be more effective, too. We'll try that today when we go back for run-thrus.
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