Working Group Trial - Cedar

What can I say, Cedar is awesome and I can really mess up some of the time, grr, need to get my act together, if Cedar decides to be fast I go to pieces , so what the heck is going to happen when I run Zola one day and she is a whole lot faster.

Cedar and I did come away with a Double Q on Saturday but I felt like I was barely keeping it together on both of the runs, no handling mistakes I don't think, but a little faster than I expected.

On Sunday the wheels fell off, great runs by Cedar except for the one missed weave entry on the Standard course which I am not taking credit for, she is an advanced level dog so I really shouldn't have to be babysitting the weave entry.

The jumpers course was a mess, she was going way to fast for any of my plans, I recovered in 2 spots but by the 3rd place where she was going to fast my brain gave in and I couldn't improvise any more. My bad, learnt my lesson, should have just done rear crosses that whole course and we would have been fine.

Zola got to do the practice jump both days and practiced being measured. Hopefully she is used to Soccer Blast now. I think she is. ;-). Starting to get very excited and scared about running a much faster dog at a trial. Not sure how the border collie or sheltie people do it, it must be a total rush for them every time they do a run .... And Zola isn't nearly as fast and she gives me an adrenaline rush.

We're back!

After 2 1/2 weeks off for spay surgery, I am very grateful to report we are back.  All went very well and Zola's scare is tiny and she was a very busy active patient which made it tough on me trying to keep her quiet.  Both her and Cedar got bones every day for nine days to chew on just to keep them quite.
We have been to two agility classes this first week back and both went well, but we came out of each with distintive problems to work on.

First up was On the Run:  Our Post Turns were not good if there is a 180 degree jump to go to instead, plus our rear crosses have gotten rusty, here is the modified sequence we worked on, the original had a curved tunnel, but I don't have one of those.  Please note, no front-crosses allowed in this sequence, the goal is to practice post turns and rear crosses.

Next up was Cloud 9:  This sequence had a tough weave pole entry, and an opportunity to practice layering, or a blind cross, and then the tricky weave entry, see map below.  This I will practice when we get a tunnel.  Please note you have to start with your dog on your left and you have to start with your dog, no lead-out, this was part of a bigger course.



And last but not least of things I have been practicing this week, a Sequence out of the Alphabet drills book, from the letter T.  I am pleased to say we can actually do this sequence now, but the challenge was leading out to the side instead of in front.  It was a new skill for us, but it did not take that long to master, we did have to take it in baby steps.

So as you can see we have worked on quite a bit and still have work to do on map 2, the weave pole entry one.  I have submitted my order for a tunnel.  :-) even though we only get to use it 6 months of the year.  I figure if we receive the tunnel by the end of August, then we still have September and October (maybe November) to practice with it.

Zola is entered in her first trial next month, just one day.  We have all the skills needed for novice, except our 2 on 2 off is not 100% accurate yet, so we will focus on that as much as possible in the next 4 weeks.  I think next time I will write will be after the Game Fair on the 11th August, as we have a Mock Trial on the 10th August and the Game Fair on the 11th August, so some really good distraction practice coming our way.