Happy New Year!!

Here are some photos from our walk this morning that I thought were interesting. I hope you enjoy them. If you click on them, they will get bigger and look cooler.

Practice

Miley has been having a lot of problems with weave entries. She had lots of problems yesterday. I talked with Meagan , and figured out she is probably not collecting to make the entries. Yesterday I ran Miley at a friends house to practice contacts. She was flying and lost control going over the dogwalk. I thought she was going to fly off head over heels. It was very scary because there was nothing I could do to stop it. Luckily she jumped off and saved herself. She also crashed two jumps. I wasn't pushing her for speed so I'm note sure what is going on. I think this is something she needs to figure out herself. So it makes sense that she is not collecting. Plan for today: I set up the weaves with two jumps in front that will force her to collect. The jump closest to the weaves is 6 feet from the weave entry. I was only able to move the jumps 19 inches off center and still get a successful entry. So lots of work to do there. I marked the lawn with spray paint so I know were I started and finished. ( you start with the jumps directly in front of the weave and move them around the clock to work entries) when working this Miley was pretty slow. Hopefully she was thinking.

I ran her twice on the dogwalk. The first time she ran down to the bottom and stopped right before she would go into a 2o/2o. I just waited and didn't say anything. It took her about 15 seconds and then she stepped into the 2o/2o. I then put her on the table with a release to the dogwalk. This time she did a perfect 2o/2o but after receiving the treat,she released herself into the tunnel. Smart dog, she know the routine. Guess I'm going to have to change that.

More pictures.

Just trying to edit some of the pictures to get more color in them. I notice when I posted some of the pictures yesterday that looked washed out. So Im trying again.

Here are my action shots

Thanks to Sara for helping me with my action shots. I thought I would post some of them. I also shot them in RAW so I could adjust some of the lighting and color.

Back to Agility

I made it to a class last night. I should have taken a private lesson but me and my infinite wisdom thought there wasn't anything to work on. ( Now that you have picked yourself up off the floor because you were laughing so hard you fell out of your chair) I know , what was I thinking. Anyway, in the class first we ran numbers 1-8. I didn't have any real problems. Except the fact that Meagan asked me how my contacts were going. I said, "there great, she has good speed and is stopping on all the contact even with me behind." LoL, she didn't stop on one contact in class. Miley made me a lier out of me again. Meagan said I just need to work on the contacts in as many different places as I can. Then we ran 9-18. Here is where the trouble began. Jumps 11-13 I just couldn't get. I tried a front cross at 11 and 12 but she went way wide coming over 12, like she was going to the weaves. My cross was late, I tried it again, same thing. Then we ran the whole course. This time I move laterally to soon and pulled her off the #2 tunnel. So I restarted. Success. Then doing jumps 11-13 I tried being in front of jump 11 and then post turn #12 but again Miley went way wide. So Meagan said that I either needed to said in the pocket ( where the red man is on the course map) and work it all from there to keep the dog tight. Or I need to front cross where the green man is on the course to bring the dog in tight and collected. I was front crossing to close to jump 12. Miley didn't get into any of the weaves until the third pole but weaved all the was down. I didn't fix any of that. It was dark on the field even with the lights on. Plus weave entries is something I need to work on at home and not waste class time on it. She did stop on the A-Frame. Most of the dogs struggled with 16-18. It was tight coming off the a-frame to jump 16. But the dogs were mostly big dog with long strides. Miley didn't have a problem with that. So it was a good class and I know what I need to work on at home. ( The course map above is just an estimate of the spacing. Meagan designed the course. It just an idea of how the obstacles were laid out. If you set the course up you will have to adjust it.)

Happiness is puppy pictures

Its still cloudy and raining here. So I thought I would post a happy picture. This is Miley when she was about 10 weeks old.

Just trying some pictures.

Hey look, all 4 dogs are lying down and staying still for the picture.