Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Lesson and class

First of all, I tried for the last 24 hours to try and download a video. But it just isn't happening. So now on to something else.
I finally got to a private lesson and and class. I figured if I was going all that way for a class, I might as well do a lesson. Miley has been dropping a lot of bars lately. "M" watched her her do some jump grids and she felt that Miley had good form over the jumps. She is using her back end to propel herself over the bar. She feels that Miley just wants to run fast and isn't realizing she is dropping bars. She set up a jump grid program for me to work on with Miley.

Then I had her watch me do serpentines because those weren't going well either. Well, I was standing to far back from the jumps and giving Miley to much room, which was giving Miley the wrong information about where to jump too. Plus I had her set up straight at the jump, instead of sideways.

Then she watched Miley weave. She felt that Miley's weaving was good. I need to work on entries more. When I'm moving the jumps around the clock into the weave poles, I'm moving them to much for a young dog. I need to only move them inches at a time.








Next she had me walk this course and run Miley. I don't know why but I did a come to heal from #1 to #2 , then when she came out of the tunnel I had her kinda come to heal againto jump #3 and then I rear crossed her going into the tunnel #4. So when she came out of the tunnel I was behind her and my call to the next tunnel was late. So she came straight out of the tunnel heading toward the a-frame. "M" told me to run it again, and this time use post turns. This got me ahead of Miley coming out of tunnel #4 ,so that I could direct her better to tunnel #5. It work so much better than what I did. But I still pushed her off her line a little going to tunnel # 5. This is a good reason why I need to go to classes. I never would have thought of that. It amazed me how much better that little change helped the dog. (I know Im easily amazed). That was the end of the private lesson. After the lesson, Miley kept going up to "M"'s 6 month old puppy that helps guard the sheep. Miley wanted to play. So "M" got her Jack Russell puppy out, but Miley wouldn't play. So "M" got out her boarder collie puppy. Miley almost played but didn't. I guess she felt is was safe to try to play with the dog behind the fence as long as they don't get to close. Funny dog.



Next was the class. Only one other person came to the class. We worked on the circle of death. Serpentines and threadles. Then we ran this little sequence.





we ran it a bunch of different ways. Miley did really well except for a few times while jumping over the broad jumps, half way across she would give herself some more lift by pushing off one of the middle planks. She wants to fly I think. The other thing I need to work on is having the dog come out of the tunnel, she crosses in front of me and then takes one of the side jumps. So a rear cross. I hope that makes sense. All in all it was a good class.

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