Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Tuesday's class

Today was our last class of the year and of this session so we ran two courses. There was a double jump that was repeated in each course and I did all of them. Mom supported me and didn't take off running too fast and didn't try any fancy handling - she presented the double to me as well as she could each time and that helped. I didn't fly freely over it but I didn't refuse it or knock a bar or anything.

It is super cold outside so there won't be any demo video this week. And there are only a few points that mom wants to try to remember from today. One is that she is not thinking enough about setting a line for me. Like if a handler is doing a lead out, she should think about the line she wants her dog to take and that will tell her where to stand (or where to do a cross if she is not leading out). With all the things that mom tries to think about, she still is not really looking at MY line! Also the handler has to go past the plane of a jump to encourage the dog to follow and not to back jump (this really needs video to show what we mean but hey, not this week - LOL!). And finally, what about lead changes? Every time Jenn brings up something about the dog being on the left lead or right lead or changing leads mom hears, "LaLaLaLa" and her eyes glaze over. So during the three week break from classes, maybe mom will study that a little bit and then she can help me even more out on the course.

At the end of class we started to try some "bombproof" weave drills. First one, put your dog on a stay and go to the end of the poles. Recall your dog through the weaves and as your dog starts towards you, you walk in the direction the dog is coming. Disaster!!! I thought I had done something wrong when I started weaving and then saw mom coming towards me - so I stopped weaving and wouldn't go any farther. (Mom wishes she wouldn't have even tried this one with me as I was a little demotivated and bummed by it). Oh well, we won't be practicing that one but it might be good for some dogs. Then next drill was the handler leads out or just gets ahead of the dog, the dog starts weaving and the handler runs through the poles to the other side (like around pole 8). We were good at that one. Another one which we didn't get time to try is moving one set of 6 poles at an angle (little bit at first) so that eventually the dog does 6 poles and keeps going into the other 6 but they are angle at maybe almost 90 degrees. Sounds interesting and we'll try it some day.

Gotta zoom!

Ricky


8 comments:

Marie said...

Yay for the double jump success! As for those "bombproof" weave drills, all I can say is Wow! That qualifies as extreme proofing in my book.

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

Woo are such a super zoomer!

Keep up the great work!

Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra

Unknown said...

GO Ricky!!!! You are really amazing :))

Sara said...

LOL. Your mom is funny. I do a lot of "lalala ing myself" in classes!

Walk toward the dog during weaves? Run thru them? Oreo would send me to the psych ward.

Diana said...

Its freezing here too!! I havent walked the dogs after work for the last 2 days. Ugh! Im glad Ricky did better over the doubles. I realize we need to proof weaves but when would you ever walk or run into your dog like that. Hmmm. Diana

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

GOOD JOB on that double!!!! Sounds like an awesome weave challenge, I would never thought of going throuh the poles to the other side, and angling some of the poles-it would be interesting since my dogs learned with 2x2 and angles poles if that would throw them off???? I am going to do that recall with my dogs but after what you said I will be warned to break it down like just look at them then take a step, then a few steps, because I KNOW my dogs would think something horrible had happened for me to be coming toward them. I totally get what you were saying about going past the plane of the jump to prevent back jumps, very good reminder. Even with no video, great class and of course I ALWYS look forward to your class recaps-they are always FANTASTIC!

Xsara and Tani said...

interesting ideas! we need to do some games with weaves as well, they're perfect in training but when she is hyper in a competition, she sometimes popps out the last two poles. I was just doing things like sending her in and stopping while she completes the entire set of 12 poles or running far away laterally, but I'll try some of the things you suggested too :)

Sagira said...

Bummer that the weave pole thing bummed you out. Will have to tell my dad to try that one with me sometime. Or maybe not...since he is already having problems with me going SO slow in them.