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.