Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Tuesday's class

Jenn's mom Susan taught our class today! We hadn't been in a class of hers since two summers ago. It was great to see her! We had a course to run so we did sections of it first that involved 270s and weave entries. I did ok but was not fast at all (slower than last week). I jumped the triple but thought about it a lot first.

Susan suggested to mom that maybe I should jump 8" - (like several of my good blogging friends did). So on the course run-through I did jump 8". It did not speed me up all that much, but they thought I handled the jumps better. Susan says it will take awhile for me to trust that the jumps are easier to clear. She also said that once a dog (like me) knocks a few bars, it hurts and makes us afraid to jump. We're going to keep trying me at 8" in class and see how I do.

The course started with the chute and I had no trouble with that! Yay for me! Not too long ago I would've totally refused to do it. And I had a few very fast dogwalks!

Susan had a lot of good advice for each dog/handler team. She is great at figuring out how to help over-the-top dogs as well as more careful ones like me. We appreciated her advice so much and she made us feel lots better!

For the past few days mom and I have been working on the foundation stuff for treibball. I can go around the ball to my mat from each side and I am learning to nose touch the ball with enough weight to push it a tiny bit. I have to work more on lining myself up on the opposite side of the ball from mom so that once I do push it, it goes in mom's direction. It is fun so far and I am really enjoying it!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

11 comments:

Cowspotdog said...

I am so glad the 8" jumps are making it easier for you - I would be happy to swap you - mine are 14" high! It is always so helpful when you get a nice trainer too.

Amy Wood said...

Sounds like a great class. Lots of good advice!

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

I wonder how many khats make up 8"?

Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

now that sounds like a great class. Hope the 8 inches helps out after a few classes. The treibball stuff just sounds like so much fun!

Dawn said...

Sounds like a good class! 8" might be the ticket! I still haven't looked up that thing with the ball...but glad it's fun!!!

Amber-Mae said...

Sounds like it was a great class! For me, I can't jump over jumps that are higher than 21". And yes, if I accidentally knock down a bar & hurt myself, I would refuse to jump over the rest. I would go under them instead! HAHA! I discovered a new way to "clear" the jumps.

Unknown said...

Treibball? Never heard of that! I must go look it up on Google!!! But it does sound like fun, and if you're enjoying it, that is wonderful!!

Glad you had a good class today.

Sophie said...

Hopefully the 8'' jumps will make it a little easier for you, Ricky! I'm not sure how well shelties jump (unlike jack-in-the-box jack russells!), so maybe the lower jump will help give you some more confidence. :)

I'm so jealous that you are getting to do treibball! It sounds like the perfect game for a sheltie!

Diana said...

Ricky is very much a thinker! ALways taking in and processing the information.

Im glad you felt good about class.
Have fun with the ball game.

Sagira said...

Glad that she helped give you some ideas to try. Hope the jumping a lower height will help out as well.

Marie said...

I think Treibball sounds like lots of fun. Are you taking a class or did you find a dvd or book to help you learn about it?

As for the jumping, I hope the lower jump height helps you. That was one of the first things that we had done was lower the height for Dare. However in her case, (and she's probably just weird), her jumping is even worse at the lower heights. :-( Even Andrea finally said that it went against everything she normally advises, but that we shouldn't jump lower simply because Dare seems to have even more trouble gauging the distances. Go figure. At any rate...I hope you aren't like Dare and that the lower heights give you the confidence you need!