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
