Private lessons

I took 2 private lessons with Karen Holik this week while she was here. On Tuesday we worked on the table issue first. She first thought Miley was coming off because of something I was doing with my body motion. Nope, that wasn't it. Then she thought Miley didn't understand her job. Nope, that wasn't it. We tried to make Miley fail at the table but she just wouldn't, until we got things really exciting. She had to run and play with Sizzle close to where I was working Miley on the table to get her to fail. Then I could correct her. It was probably a mistake to let her not get on the table at trials because then Miley figured she didn't have to do the table. So if she does it at a trial again, I'm to bring her around back to where her approach was and make her get on that way. Don't let her pick the way she wants to get on. She gave me table drills to work on with her. And I need to do it in really exciting environments. Karen thinks you should reward the dog coming off the table toward you because they are never going to be fed going away from you( toward the table), or when they are on the table at a trial. But they may get a reward coming toward you, they dont know. When you release from the table, you have set their line and they are coming toward you. ( remember this is what I think I heard her say).
Next we workes on weave poles. We set up entries and Miley did really well. I think she only missed one. So then Karen had me run a small sequence. Guess what, Miley missed the entry. Why, because of what my body motion was showing her. I first was way behind my dog when I could have led out from the a-frame. So when I released her to the jump she then started to curl back toward me because I was so far behind. Which made the weave pole entry hard and then my shoulder were turned and not facing the weaves. So totally my fault. I wonder how many times I have done that to my dog. She gave me weave poles entries to work on and an exit drill to work on. When I worked Miley tonight I notice her head was up every time she came out of the poles. Probably looking for the bait bag flying over her head. I thought I had better timing but this shows that I don't.

The next day we worked on pinwheels because at the trial I pulled Miley off the 2nd jump in the pinwheel a couple of time. Again, its me and my shoulder rotation that is causing the dog to pull off the number 2 jump in the pinwheel. The 2nd jump in a pinwheel is a forward send. As soon as your dog is committed then you can turn and run. Once I did it correctly, Miley did really well and had a tight turn.
Lastly we worked on rear crosses. I really messed theses up. Depending on how tight you need your dog to cross will dictate how you cross. If I wanted my dog to turn tight as I rear crossed her, I should step laterally toward my dog as she is parallel to me. Then cross behind the dog. If I need her to go out more and then cross, I need to converge on her line. I cant remember the third type of rear cross was , so I sent her an email and asked her. I forgot to bring my notebook to the lesson to write down stuff.
They were good lessons and I'm going to try the stuff she told me. I don't have anything to loose considering how the last trial went.