Both dogs had a great time at the fun match yesterday. I ran Mika in two Masters Standard runs and one Steeplechase, and Wall-e in one Steeplechase.
Mika had some great independence in our first run, the Standard; I accidentally sent her to an off-course tunnel that was 20 feet away! My handling of this course wasn't the greatest, though. There was a section of the course where I had to RC over the first jump of a 180. The first time we tried it, I pulled her towards me instead of pushing her away over the jump. The second time, I managed to push her away, but she didn't know where she was going after the jump and knocked the bar. But oh well, we had fun and I rewarded Mika a lot during the run.
My rear cross at that 180 was much better in our second run (same course as our first run). She jumped the apex of the AF in this run! We haven't trained the AF in about a month, so I doubted that she would jump it.
Next was Wall-e's turn at Steeplechase; "finally," he says! He'd been waiting hours to run and by the time it was his turn, he was ready to burst.
I ran Wall-e at 6". He had tons of fun careening around the little jump/tunnel sequences (we couldn't run the full course because the AF and weaves are too stressful on the rear legs). I rewarded him with a nice "party mix" of Polish sausage, cheese, and sweet potato.
Last run of the day was Steeplechase with Mika. She had a beautiful AF, jumping the apex again, but much less awkwardly this time! At the end of the run I started sending Mika over the wrong jumps, haha, but she went and started taking the right ones, which made me realize my mistake. If this were a trial, she would have saved the day!
Sounds like a great fun match. Sounds like you did a fantastic job altering the course so Wall E ccould run and have fun and still stay safe, you are so good with your doggies ;-)
ReplyDeleteMighty Mika knows what to do when you mess up, LOL. Sounds like Wall-e is doing a lot better. Total shame that I couldn't see him kick some a-frame and weave pole butt, but better to be safe than sorry. Polish sausage, cheese, and sweet potato? How do you have time to cut all this up...sweet potato?? Man, if I rewarded like you do my dog would probably run til she died. Seriously, you have to provide my with some tips. Weight management tips too, my doggie is getting a little chunky again with all the clicker training we've been doing.
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