First class of the new session

Today was our first class in competition silver (last session we were in competition bronze)! Last session was a lot about handling and this session is going to be more on skills - not sure what that means, but we'll find out! I'm sorry to say that I don't have a lot to report about what we learned today. My backyard target practice and ground speed work is not translating to the training building yet. Jenn says it probably won't and mom will have to bring me to the building to work on it. (As well as taking me to other places). I don't know why it is so difficult for us to go and practice in new places but it seems almost impossible to get it done! We must make more of an effort. Any way, I sniffed some - not as much as some weeks - and was kind of slow. But today's class was about rear crosses again and those just don't motivate me! I can do nice rear crosses but they are mostly in very slow motion!

Ok, the advice for the day - make sure you have two separate and clear signals for a rear cross and a rear cross on the flat. So if you are doing a rear cross at a jump, the handler needs to cue the jump with shoulders forward, inside arm and a jump cue - when the dog commits, then introduce the outside arm to cue the turn. BUT when doing a rear cross on the flat, the handler needs to get her outside arm ready sooner (this cross is of course done separately from a jump) as the outside arm cues the dog to the side change. Jenn said a lot of handlers get into trouble when they use their outside arm to cue the jump where a rear cross is going to happen because the dog doesn't know to go forward and take the jump first. Make sense? Did I get that right? We might try to make a video of this later in the week.

We also experienced that when you practice a sequence it's important to get it right the first time. If you don't, and say the dog takes an off-course, the dog becomes pattern trained very quickly and it's difficult to get the dog to do the sequence you intended. Jenn suggested we all do more box work - some dogs wouldn't run parallel to their handler and just take two jumps straight in a row - they were veering off and taking the jump to the side even if their handler was not indicating that jump at all!! Even I got into that act at the end and made up my own sequence instead of following mom. But mom was thrilled with that since I was moving faster and showing my confidence.

Tomorrow is the day - MILEY will be here!!!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky