Tuesday's class

Yesterday's class was about blind crosses. With this cross the handler actually turns her back on the dog but immediately makes eye contact again. We started out with an exercise using a blind cross at the end of the DW, then we did it with the teeter and the aframe and last we tried it with the weaves. The handler needs to make sure her blind cross move is completed before the dog finishes the obstacle. BCs can be very effective when used with nonturning obstacles but if timed correctly, they can be used with turning obstacles when the goal is to move in a straight line. The handler should perform the BCs on the landing side of a jump as the dog commits to that jump. BCs should not be used to turn the dog.

Other thoughts:

If you are having trouble figuring out where to stand for a lead out, think about where you would put in a front cross and then freeze in the front cross position and you have your lead out. A lead out push is a frozen front cross. Also recall to heel positions are intended to be performed at jumps and not on the flat.

A backy-uppy is generally only appropriate if you need to block the choice of taking a jump - like if you have two jumps side by side and you want to pull the dog through the gap (threadle) then you use a backy-uppy. If you only had the one jump and you need the dog to wrap back towards you, you would use a forward send. However, for dogs that are slower like me, the backy-uppy would work better than a send and the handler would just have to run more. Get it? I know video would make it clear but I don't know if we'll get around to it.

That's about it for this week's class. We are near the end of this session. Next week we run a course and then we have three weeks off because of USDAA Nationals etc. It's ok though because I have a trial this weekend, next weekend and then one day the following weekend. Some how trials around here are all happening at the same time. Hope we don't get burnt out!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky