Dogs and kids will make you a liar

Yesterday I drove up to North Carolina to take some rescue shelties to their foster home in Winston - Salem. Because I was going so far I decided to take a lesson. I picked the shelties up from the kennel at 8am. Miley growled a couple of times when I put them in the crates but then settle down. We handed off the shelties at 10:30 and went to our lesson.

So first I showed "M" our board work for the 2o/2o. I told "M" that Miley was doing really well.( lie number one)
Well, Miley acted like she had never seen the board before. Didn't get into the 2o/2o position one time on her own. It looked like I hadn't practiced once since the last time she saw us. So "m" said I need to start taking the board other places and practice with it so Miley will start doing the board every where and not just at home.
Next I told "M" that she keeps popping out of the weave poles. ( lie number 2) So we ran the 12 poles three times. She didn't pop out once. So much for that. So then we worked on distance. Which was ok unless I pulled off to do a FC when she was 3 poles from the end. Then she would pop out of the weaves. So things to work on. Distance of me from the poles. Doing crosses at the poles. Getting her to wrap tight with a FC out of the last pole. Sending her into the poles with me standing still. And me slowing down while she is running the poles.
We worked on rear crosses and threadles. My timing is very late. I need to cue very early. Miley is looking 2 obstacles ahead and I need to cue very early. She said if my cue feels uncomfortably early, then its probably on time. I need to put markers on the ground where the dog is going to be when I give the cue. I will work on video taping and cuing and then go from there.
I thought this was interesting and I hope she doesn't mind me putting it on here. Many people have problems with their dogs breaking their start line stay. She said one of her dogs kept breaking their start line. Right before she was going to release her the dog would blow by. She said she watched hours of video trying to figure out what she was doing that was cuing her dog. She finally saw it. When she would walk out to lead out, right before she was going to say "ok" to release the dog , she would push her glasses up. The dog cued on that knowing that she was going to release him right after she pushed up her glasses. I thought that was fascinating that the dog picked that up. You just never know what little thing you are doing that the dog picks up on.

Oh yea, and kids will make you a liar: As soon as you say, "my kids never does that, or my kid would never do that" gues what? Ha!!