We had our first class this week with stella and with deucy out at Joc's barn. What a great opportunity to get out and do something finally and have a place indoors to do it. Not that this winter has been all that bad but my motivation to drive out to Lori's place on my own has been 0 and I haven't been out to the farm much lately (hope my equipment is still there:) Stella got to train first so I just made up little sequences out of jumps since we are doing running contacts and don't really want her on them. Lots of go do this and then come back and touch my hand. Lots of wait practice while I worked on different lead outs. Of course jumps were at 12 inches so not very hard for her to get over. Worked some fronts and rears with her. She HATES rears. I think she reads too much into my decel still and wants to stop instead of going on ahead of me. She is a tugging fool which makes rewards so nice. Worked her on Joc's huge wobble board and was doing some toes work while I ran around her or other dogs were out on course. Great distraction practice for sure. She gets a little frustrated every once and while and gives me a little sas but for the most part is quiet on course. Need to learn how to run with a tug toy better because a couple of times she ran past me and got it on her way. She actually bit me once accidently in her excitement but it was an accident. I just did a loud yelp and dropped the toy.
Deuce's class was next and was a mixture of those who had been competing for years, those who have just started competing and those who have hopes to compete. It was a great mix and I enjoyed helping those who had questions or were having issues. Joc had some really hard courses, one that kicked my ass several times. I am not sure if the spacing was really right since she had to squish it a little to fit it in the barn but basically they started out in the far end of the barn coming out of a long tunnel and then a 180 back down the line to another tunnel in the other corner. Of course the entry to the tunnel was the one that made the least amount of sense as they landed off a double right at the wrong end. So the dilema was how to do the 180 and getting up the line to cue collection so you had a prayer of getting the right end of the tunnel. Again, I think the spacing was a little off but it was a fair challenge. Every time i rushed to get down there, he just ran faster, jumped the double in extension and landed right in the wrong end of the tunnel. I played with some decel and he was so patterned he wasn't reading it at all. Finally he started reading it and actually didn't even take the double once. YIPEE! Now to find that balance. We had a similar sequence later where he had to take that same double but come back to the dog walk instead of the tunnel at all. Still need to find that balance between acel/decel. We also had a very tough weave pole entry, one of those 90 degree entries. He kept on taking it, not collecting enough, slipping on dirt as he tried to collect and missing the entry. I found if I left him on the a-frame and got up the line to cue collection he could get it no problem. Ah, mighty collection:) Was fun all around, learned alot about my dog. Still really, really miss having a trainer helping me with issues but we are all chipping in to help each other constructively which helps me see some things. Can't wait till another weekend! Suppose to rain tonight so not sure we will get class in or not out at All Star. Have alot of ideas to share with my students so hoping we do but 90% rain chance doesn't sound promising!
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