NAWS

Spike got his forst clear rounds in the form of a second in jumping and fifth in agility. Cool! The second was quite close in time to the winner. The fifth was 3 seconds off, but I stopped him on all his contacts.

Willow got two good clear rounds, though she uncharacteristically knocked a couple of poles. She has not been training for about 3 months, so we might need to just do a bit of practice to keep her confident.

Worked a bit on getting tighter turns. Tried sending him over a jump and giving left or right command, then throwing the toy in the line of a tight turn. Seems to work.

Also took a weave pole off and got him to do them a couple of times. Didin't seem to have a problem with the odd weaves. as well as that I put the weaves at the edge and put just one jump ahead so he was speeding into them, he slowed himself down and got them right. There must be a difference with the ones at training. I'll take a tape measure next week! I might even be able to borrow them for a week.

I let Willow have a bit of a run about, still fine on full height, and weaving nicely. She stops on her contacts now too.

Roll on NAWS!

training

He's getting there, much calmer and needs many less treats to keep his attention.

Today's problems:
cutting in and missing last jump in a line.
9 weaves, missed the last one.
weave entry went in nicely then missed no 2. I may need to change my home weaves to give him more idea of what some weaves are like.
a little bit distracted, probably me needing to work him harder.
the usual big wide turns, but I have a plan re: this.

Today's positive:
good wait.
good contacts.
good weaves when he got them.
nice first run on the complex course (clear but withsome huge wide turns).
pulled in nicely when I didn;t get in place for fc.

Willow was glad to see me when I got home. I feel a bit mean not taking her to training, she misses it.

The during the week training was good, but not due to Spike's agility. He was well behaved and did a lot less lunging and barking while dogs were running.

The agility went OK, but Spike was a bit excitable, and I may have been a bit slow with the commands etc. I had to put him back over his contact a couple of times. His weaves were good (12). Once again I let him jump something I did not even think he would, because he works away so well. I must watch that and work him through each obstacle so we both know where he is meant to go.

Every now and then I sneak off from my usual training and drive miles to another class. It is very complementary with the more regular stuff and makes me think about other things in my performance. It helps to have as many pairs of eyes looking for areas for improvement as possible.

Spike seems to take it in his stride and works really nicely. As this is all done in an equestrian centre with lighting so I am really please about how he behaves.

So what did we learn?
1/ Pushing Spike over a jump can be done by standing quite close to it, and making the hand signal quite late. works better than standing off and "just pointing at the jump".
2/ I got him to sit and stay at the side of the arena, and he did it very well. Perhaps he behaves better when I am not right beside him!
3/ "steady" command, to slow them down for tight turns. We did this from in front of the dog with opposite hand, while moving back reasonably slowly.
4/I need to keep moving to commit spike to "go-on" sometimes I stop and wait for him to come back and it calls him off (which might be useful at some point).
5/ I should use left right not here all the time. Good point, otherwise why did I bother teaching them to him!
6/ I could use a close or heel and similar for rhs to call him in here is a bit too vague. (Does anyone know should it be close (static, sitting) or heel (moving), or is it a completely different behaviour really?).
7/ Spike is great! He can even be relatively quiet for a bit of last weeks pork roast!