Catching up.

I'm behind again on posting. Anyways here's video from last weekend's trial.





He double Q'd and placed 1st in both runs. His standard run was smoking but looks like he actually missed the contact but didn't get called.

I also have video from Thursday and Friday's dogwalk practice. Thursday I worked some turns back into the tunnel under the dogwalk which went pretty well. Pulling still not working.



Friday's practice I worked on driving straight, pulling into the tunnel, and pulling off the tunnel completely . Seems like front crosses close to the dogwalk work ok for him.



Today we went to a trial and didn't do so great. In JWW, he knocked the first bar and then had some other issues. In standard, it was a really difficult dogwalk exit. It was a tight pull to a aframe/tunnel discrimination and the dogwalk was going into the fence. They had to take the tunnel which was closer and really tight to get into it. Then the jump after the tunnel was really far and hard to get to. I couldn't come up with a good solution so decided to try running laterally to the tunnel entrance. I lead out a little too far and got to the tunnel a step too soon and enzo came off the side of the dogwalk. Well, at least I know that lateral distance and not driving forward isn't going to work for us right now.

Working turns

The first few were straight off and then I did some backchaining. He got really distracted by the neighbor's gardeners so I gave up on that and just tried some turns off the whole dogwalk. He hit the contact no problem but didn't turn so good. Work in progress I guess!

Trial, Lesson and Tooney

Saturday D2ISC had a playday so we took Tooney and Enzo. I did little demo with the fitpaws peanut and was really suprised at the interest that it generated. Then they did a little mock toss and fetch competition. Jeff threw for tooney and we both threw for enzo. Jeff went out with a plan to throw 2 shorter throws, a long throw, and then the shorter throws again for tooney. She was a good girlie and caught all 5 throws. Even placed 3rd in the mock competition!

Sunday I went down to San Diego for one day of a trial. I was supposed to run Tooney for the first time since her injury in JWW but Sat night I thought I saw a tiny hitch in her step. I got paranoid so decided to leave her at home. She seems like she is fine now but best to play it safe.

Enzo did really good at the trial though and ended up with a double q and two first places! His dogwalk was not so great but he didn't get called so he must of gotten a toe in. His aframe was really good and well in the zone and I was running ahead and a little lateral. The judge had some fast fun courses. I did buy the video and will post when I get the links.

Then Sunday afternoon I had a private lesson with Stephanie to work on running dogwalk handling. We basically worked on some different scenarios just to find out what Enzo can deal with me doing and still get his contact. Enzo seems to do well with me running ahead or lateral. If I'm a little bit behind and running hard, that's ok but if I am too far behind then he puts in extra steps but still gets the contact. The thing that was most difficult was the hard 90 deg turns. On pulls he shortened up and on front crosses he would run behind me to an off course. Stephanie suggested practicing pulls with backchaining and the box on the dogwalk. It just dawned on me now that we never tried front crosses without an off course looming. I also need to try turning into a tunnel under the dogwalk.

Friday Dogwalk Practice

Here's the video from yesterday. Enzo had a bit of extra boing! in his step yesterday. He boinged for almost every toy throw and he had a few where he just leapt off the dogwalk from the middle. Otherwise he did really good. Even did good with the pull into the hard side of the tunnel.



Seems like he's still hanging around 70% accuracy. would love to see that up to 80-90%

Sunday's Dogwalk Training

Here's some of our dogwalk practice from Sunday.


Trying to work turns still and he's doing better with the box again. I didn't get it on video but I tried with the one bar at the top of the contact He didn't really seem to get it and started just leaping at the bar. I might try two bars one at the top of the contact and one at the bottom and see if that looks a little different to him.

Oh and I also got a call off of the tunnel at the other end! Didn't get that on video either. Been trying to do every so often but he always would blast into the tunnel.

Running Dogwalk from this week

I was sick with a cold this week so didn't really feel like posting our practice sessions so I'm putting them all in this post.

Our first practice session this week, I was feeling like crap but didn't want to slack off too much so I went out and did a quick session with Enzo. He was doing great without the box again but I wanted to work turns and though the box would help. Unfortunately he completely forgot the box and acted like it was on fire! I was too tired to work through it so let it go.



Here's our next practice session which was a couple days after that. This time I worked through the issues with the box.



By the end of the session he was doing better with the box.

Here's today's session. I started without the box and then put it back on. He's still doing better without the box on straight exits but he really needs some kind of help on turns. He shortens up and then doesn't make the contact.



My instructor, Stephanie suggested trying to use just a bar and see if I can teach him that he just needs to step over the bar. I might try that tommorrow.

Trial

So we got to test out Enzo's new running contacts this past weekend. Saturday he did great on both the aframe and the dogwalk but had some issues with the obstacle after the contacts. He went over an off course jump after the aframe and fell of the table after the dogwalk. I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera on Saturday so I didn't get video of that run (oops). His dogwalk was really solid and all 4 feet deep in the yellow!

I did get video of Sunday's run. He went over an off course jump right in the opening unfortunately. His aframe was great and his dogwalk was no so good but he didn't get called. It looks like he collected his stride a bit so didn't make it down far enough. I decided to test his table a bit and of course yes there is a reason why I normally don't move a muscle when he's on the table!



Oh and he had great JWW runs both days and placed 2nd both days.

Boxless Dogwalk Sucess!

I decided to try starting out with no box today. The dogwalk worked great! He nailed the first one, and then missed the second one which I accidentally clicked...oops. Then he got the rest. The dogwalk second from the end, he did get a foot down right at the end. I didn't see it real time but saw the dogwalk bounce in the video. I had to watch the video like 5 times to see it for sure so I wouldn't really expect a judge to see that. The last two I did some gentle turns at the end by moving his jump standard over a few feet. That's probably why they weren't quite as good.



The boxless aframe didn't work quite as well. The first one he one strided and missed. The second one was two strides but a little high so I put the box back and he did better. I even did one at the end with me moving away laterally.

Decent Practice Today

That first dogwalk looks like he actually got but just barely got his front feet in at the bottom. I thought so but wasn't sure until I watched the video. I didn't mark it as wrong but didn't reward either. All of his misses today were ones where he didn't put that second stride in which seems better than him putting in two strides but not getting down far enough in my mind since the one stride should be easier to fix than trying to get him to sometimes add a 3rd stride. He may need to sometimes though. We'll have to see.

He also did much better with his aframes today. No misses. The video didn't work but I did an extra one at the end to get the video and stuck it at the end of the dogwalk videos.

Last Practice before the rain

It's supposed to rain from today through Tuesday but I managed to sneak in a quick practice session right as the rain was starting. Got Jeff to video so I didn't have to mess with the camera.

I did a few reps on the dogwalk and all looked good so I left it at that and moved over to the aframe. I'm beginning to get a little worried about how I'm going to handle this though!



His aframe performance backslid a little today. I put the box back and he did ok. I'm going to need to move the tunnel back next time to give him a better approach and hopefully that helps. Next time probably won't be until Thursday or Friday though!

Aframe and Dogwalk Video

I haven't video'd any aframes for a while because I've just been doing a couple here and there. He had been doing really good on them but of course missed a bunch for the video! I know why though. I moved the tunnel from the end of the aframe and put it at the end of the dogwalk so coming down in that direction he's coming down into the wall. he has enough room but it's making him shorten up his strides. You can see that he does good going in the other direction.



I will probably have to avoid going in the direction toward the wall without the tunnel there, at least for now.

His dogwalk session looks pretty similar to other recent sessions. Missing some but doing really good on others.