Ben's progress

I have been steadily training Ben.

Contacts

I have been training a 2o2o on my little trainer. Seems good except he either over runs and does a lovely 4o, he does not get rewarded for it, but he still keeps doing it. I'll just keep b*****ing on with that. the alternative is he creeps into the stop position, thus is very slow. I doubt this is the version I will see in shows, so not worried at the moment.

We saw our first seesaw last night, and it did not bother him, though his stops are not very good on it.

Weaves

good. trained by just keeping on trying and going in a big happy circle back to the start if it goes wrong. There are enough successes to keep it happy. thrown ball is the reward, and for Ben there is nothing better. We started with three poles and jump wings (and a hedge to start with) blocking the exits. He looks at me for confirmation a bit, but not too much. This faded with Spike, and hoping for same with Ben.

jumpies

Now able to cross a bit, front cross looks OK. still runs out/in and misses from time to time, but it's early days. He seems to understand the tyre jump now, though still goes under sometimes (50%). Have not got much space in the garden for this, but if I am careful about setup I can teach the basics of stuff, and a box or star is possible.

Wait

Getting much better. Quite hard for him as he is very keen. I can wait him three jumps back and hold up my hand most of the time. He only comes forward on his name. Hoping for a wait similar to Spike's which is very good.

Speed

Someone said last night that he looks faster than Spike, which is exciting and worrying in equal measure. He will turn much tighter for jump wraps I think, so I had better get the distance work sorted for him, or start sprint training (maybe both).