Front crosses , ugh!!

I took the dogs to the field to work on handling. I also ran Java over the dogwalk a few times.

Ive been using the Sourcebook 2 from clean run. Its has three different ways to run the course. One is novice,  then intermediate and maters. I can always run the novice with Miley.I can usually can run the intermediate. But I have yet to run one of the Masters once clean on the first try. But this time the master course kicked my butt. I took me forever to finally get it right. It was all m fault , not Miley.

First I ran Miley through the novice course. No problem. Then Java. I dont think we ran it right once. I couldnt get my front cross in soon enough after #6. I tried front cross after #5 but that just didnt work.   Then she kept going around #12. So we worked on that. Then a she kept going over #14, I rear cross and she wasnt reading. And  would go off course over #6 and into the tunnel. LOL.  So we worked all those little things and never got to run the whole thing right.

The masters course with Miley, getting her to go between #8 and 9, I had to be right there to manage it. Then I was behind the whole time and cutting her off with front crosses. We finally got it right in the end but it still didnt look pretty.



I like this book of courses. Espeically since I can work both dogs on the same course. Now, how to I fix my crappy front crosses???????

Practice

I decided I needed to take some jumps out to the baseball field. I need to run her in areas that have more room. I think I get use to running her in smaller places and then when we get to a trial and its so open, I can't judge when I need to cue her.
I only have 7 jumps that I can transport. Man, that's a lot of work. Loading up the bag of jumps and poles and then setting it up. So I first set up a run where I would have to front cross. I wanted to practice what I messed up at the last trial. Here are the jumps I set up. I'm not sure this is exactly right but its close.



I had a very hard time getting her to turn from #3 to #4. She either went on to the off course jump or I pulled her off to soon. We did get it a few times but we will have to practice some more to get it the first time.

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I only posted one of the good runs. But as you can see, she still goes wide so my cues are late.

Then we practice rear crosses. It only took 3 runs to get it right. And as you can see , she zigs and zags at that 4th jump.


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I can see why they dont want people running their dogs on the baseball fields. There was dog poop every where. If your going to let your dog run in the baseball field, pick up after it. I picked up a bunch, yuck!

I called the vet today. They said they already have someone to adopt the Yorkie. She promised me that it was a good home and I didn't need to worry. She hinted it was one of the vets. So that made me feel better.

The schedule is out for next weekends AKC trail OMG, its packed. I'm going to the b-match on Thursday and then entered Friday-Sunday. When I looked at the schedule, Friday looks ok. But then Saturday, My first run is at 8am, my next run around 9am and then the last run is after 6:30 at night. What?? Then Sunday, I don't run until after 1pm. Hmmm. I'm thinking of not doing the Saturday night run and driving home. Then driving back for my afternoon runs on Sunday. Its a 2 hour drive each way, but that's a lot of down time.

Im feeling better

I'm finally feeling better. I no longer feel like bursting into tears because I feel so bad. I'm very tired now but that's ok. I can deal with that.
I took the dogs to the field this morning. Guiness wasn't going to let me leave without him. So he got to come. We had a clean up day at the field last week and had trash that needed to be disposed of. So we took my husbands car to load the trash into. He has a Honda element, its easy to clean if something messed up the car. That was the real reason for going to the field.

I decided to set up a course and run both the dogs. Guienss was very happy to be there. I set up the course from this months Clean Run called "Can You Handle It?" I like it because it has a bunch of different ways to run the same course. First I ran Guiness. We thought that would be a good motivator for Miley. (Not that she needs any motivation). Guiness ran really well for a dog that never practices. In the beginning of the video, Miley pulled on the leash and my husband lost control of the camera.

I ran him on the course another time but a different sequence. He didn't really want to do it. He didn't want to wait at the start line, he would just walk away. Then he went around a couple of obstacles. So I didn't have him run anymore after that.

Then it was Miley's turn. Our real problem is getting into the weaves. She cant seem to get in unless I stay behind and let her find the entrance. Do you think that is a bad thing? It isn't independent obstacle performance if I have to stay behind, I should be able to be anywhere. I do think that she looks at my feet so much that if they are ahead of the weaves, she tracking my feet and misses the entrance. Then she realizes it to late, then gets in but of course its in the wrong pole. I'm not sure this is really the problem. Its just what I think is happening.

Beware Miley doesn't get on the a-frame correctly and cant keep control and jumps off. She landed fine and was ok. It looks ugly on the video. I then had her run the 2nd half of the sequence again to get the a-frame in again correctly. She did well. More the reason to have rubberized contacts. Also , Guiness is barking like crazy. You may want to turn off the sound.

Weave troubles

So Ive been having weave problems. Saturday and Sunday she just couldn't make the entry or was popping out. Sometimes she would jump in half way down the line. Sometimes I think she didn't get in because she wasn't collecting but other times I'm not sure what was going on. So on Sunday I put some of the poles slanted to see if that would help. Nope, same problems. The first video is of the 12 weave bad practice. The second video is of the 6 weave and 9 weave practice.
So today I took the weaves down to 6 poles straight up. No problems. Not once. I didn't put all of them on here. The last time she runs I added 3 more poles to make 9. Still no problem. So Ill stick with that for a while.
I used food with the weaves. I also did some 2o/2o training. Its going pretty well. I made the mistake of trying to get her running and then run her over the a-frame. She didn't stop. She will stop going all the way over except if she has a running start. Then we took a break. Next I got a toy out to play. We played and than ran some short courses. She did great and seemed happy. Then only problem is I couldn't get her to come into me to set up. But I just went with it. So over all we had a great practice. After the last two days, I needed a great practice.