We went over to Dog Logic today for a Show and Go. It was cold and a little wet but we had fun. They're very nice and always willing to help with a course.
They had a nested course and you could do novice or excellent. I had planned on trying both but I walked the excellent standard course first so we just stuck with that. Venus did great on her first run, no refusals, off courses, or knocked bars. Yay Bean! She didn't hold her dog walk contact so I made her go back and get on it. The 2nd to the last obstacle were the weave poles. She hit the entry fine, yay again. She then noticed the pretty tinsel on the tops of the weave poles and had to stop and check that out. As she got tired it got harder and harder to run that course. She really struggled with all the weaves after that and I'm not sure why. Maybe the spacing was different. She switched to hopping instead of single stepping and would end up hopping out of the poles.
The jumpers course didn't go as well. She was tired and wanting to be a velcro dog. We made it through though and it wasn't too bad. On that course she did want to enter on the wrong side of the weaves though. I really need to work on that.
At the end of the day I found out that the courses were from the 2005 world championships. The jumpers was kinda different but the standard was set up mostly the same. Here's a link to that coure map. 2005 Large Team
I will try and work weaves in the next two days and get some new video up.
Brandy
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Monday's lesson
Our lesson on Monday with Rhonda went well. It was Venus and 3 excellent level BCs lol, kind of an interesting group. Venus can be fast but she doesn't compare to the speed of those dogs but she did have the advantage of tighter turns. She will wrap around a jump to switch directions beautifully if I just hang back a little.
There was a sequence that was the dog walk to 3 jumps. I decided to send her on the dog walk and I would get on the other side of the 1st jump and do a front cross. She didn't pull off the dog walk even though I was moving away from her. I was very happy to see that. She did hesitate to make sure where I wanted her but as soon as I told her to go bottom she did and held it until I released her.
We have to work weave entries! We worked a very similar thing Monday as we had in the weavers course on Sunday- a 90 degree right turn to the weaves. She was entering from the wrong side. Once she entered correctly she did a great job doing all the weaves. She doesn't seem to be one to pop out of the poles, yay.
This Saturday I'm going to try and make it to a show and go. I think they will have excellent and novice courses set up so I may try Venus doing the excellent courses. I'm also going to try and see what I can get her to go there.
Brandy
There was a sequence that was the dog walk to 3 jumps. I decided to send her on the dog walk and I would get on the other side of the 1st jump and do a front cross. She didn't pull off the dog walk even though I was moving away from her. I was very happy to see that. She did hesitate to make sure where I wanted her but as soon as I told her to go bottom she did and held it until I released her.
We have to work weave entries! We worked a very similar thing Monday as we had in the weavers course on Sunday- a 90 degree right turn to the weaves. She was entering from the wrong side. Once she entered correctly she did a great job doing all the weaves. She doesn't seem to be one to pop out of the poles, yay.
This Saturday I'm going to try and make it to a show and go. I think they will have excellent and novice courses set up so I may try Venus doing the excellent courses. I'm also going to try and see what I can get her to go there.
Brandy
Monday, December 10, 2007
NADAC Toys for Tots Fundraiser
I took Venus to a NADAC trial yesterday in Youngsville. We ended up Qing 3 out of 6 runs. I'm very happy with her overall performance yesterday.
Our first run was Weavers. I wasn't thinking or something but decided to start at the start line with her. Well there were 3 tunnels and then the weaves. By the time I got past the 1st tunnel she was in the 3rd lol. We were over time in weavers so no Q. She attempted to do all weaves correctly but she forgets she has to slow down to enter the weaves. She tends to fly into the entry and miss curving back for the 2nd pole. So she ends up weaving the 1st and 3rd poles. She did that at the first two sets of weaves so we had to fix that. Then the 3rd set she entered on the wrong side. She started to head the wrong way out of a tunnel at one point and I told her to "come". There was a tunnel kinda between us that she was supposed to take next. She headed for it and it was like she realized I didn't tell her tunnel so she came back to me. Even though it isn't what I wanted it was what I said so I was very happy she listened to me. We ended up with a 2nd place.
Tunnelers was next. Venus had a beautiful confident run in there. She wasn't hesitating like last time. The run was clean and fast so Venus got a Q and 1st place.
This week I kept telling myself to remember to make Venus hold her 2o2o for a while at the trial. I released her very quickly at the last trial and that's not what I want to do. The first regular run was set up nicely so I could do a front cross while she was holding her contact on the dog walk. She did it beautifully! At the start line I accidently pushed too hard and pushed her off the tunnel she was supposed to take, whoops. The rest of the run was nice and she got her first regular Q and a 1st place. The second regular run was the same course in reverse. She missed one jump that I had to send her back to do. Everything else was going well until we got to a jump that had timers on it. Somehow she jumped between the jump standard and the post with the timer on it. So I made her go back and fix that one. Again she held her contact very well and I left her on there and went on to the next jump and then released her. We didn't Q that run because of time but we did get another 1st.
The next run was jumpers and it was a wonderful course. It was basically an S with one more curve and line of jumps on it. I decided to use this course to try running ahead of Venus like Rhonda has said. It worked great. By the 4th line of jump where we were headed towards the finish line I just took off and told her to go! Another clean fast run for a jumpers Q and 1st place.
Our last run was Chances. Venus struggles on distance so I thought it would be a good thing to work with her. Since it was our 6th run of the day and we'd been up since 5am she was exhausted. The more tired she is the closer she likes to stay for me so I figured she wouldn't Q this round. It started off well but when we got to the distance part she didn't want to do it. I finally convinced her to go over the first jump, she missed the 2nd one because she'd moved back close to me but she did do the 3rd one. The rest of the run was nice.
Overall I was so happy with her performance. She was very focused, had no wrong courses, and no knocked bars! I definately think she'd ready for some AKC trials.
Tonight we have our lesson with Rhonda. Hopefully Veni has rested enough today to really be on tonight!
Brandy
Our first run was Weavers. I wasn't thinking or something but decided to start at the start line with her. Well there were 3 tunnels and then the weaves. By the time I got past the 1st tunnel she was in the 3rd lol. We were over time in weavers so no Q. She attempted to do all weaves correctly but she forgets she has to slow down to enter the weaves. She tends to fly into the entry and miss curving back for the 2nd pole. So she ends up weaving the 1st and 3rd poles. She did that at the first two sets of weaves so we had to fix that. Then the 3rd set she entered on the wrong side. She started to head the wrong way out of a tunnel at one point and I told her to "come". There was a tunnel kinda between us that she was supposed to take next. She headed for it and it was like she realized I didn't tell her tunnel so she came back to me. Even though it isn't what I wanted it was what I said so I was very happy she listened to me. We ended up with a 2nd place.
Tunnelers was next. Venus had a beautiful confident run in there. She wasn't hesitating like last time. The run was clean and fast so Venus got a Q and 1st place.
This week I kept telling myself to remember to make Venus hold her 2o2o for a while at the trial. I released her very quickly at the last trial and that's not what I want to do. The first regular run was set up nicely so I could do a front cross while she was holding her contact on the dog walk. She did it beautifully! At the start line I accidently pushed too hard and pushed her off the tunnel she was supposed to take, whoops. The rest of the run was nice and she got her first regular Q and a 1st place. The second regular run was the same course in reverse. She missed one jump that I had to send her back to do. Everything else was going well until we got to a jump that had timers on it. Somehow she jumped between the jump standard and the post with the timer on it. So I made her go back and fix that one. Again she held her contact very well and I left her on there and went on to the next jump and then released her. We didn't Q that run because of time but we did get another 1st.
The next run was jumpers and it was a wonderful course. It was basically an S with one more curve and line of jumps on it. I decided to use this course to try running ahead of Venus like Rhonda has said. It worked great. By the 4th line of jump where we were headed towards the finish line I just took off and told her to go! Another clean fast run for a jumpers Q and 1st place.
Our last run was Chances. Venus struggles on distance so I thought it would be a good thing to work with her. Since it was our 6th run of the day and we'd been up since 5am she was exhausted. The more tired she is the closer she likes to stay for me so I figured she wouldn't Q this round. It started off well but when we got to the distance part she didn't want to do it. I finally convinced her to go over the first jump, she missed the 2nd one because she'd moved back close to me but she did do the 3rd one. The rest of the run was nice.
Overall I was so happy with her performance. She was very focused, had no wrong courses, and no knocked bars! I definately think she'd ready for some AKC trials.
Tonight we have our lesson with Rhonda. Hopefully Veni has rested enough today to really be on tonight!
Brandy
Monday, December 3, 2007
New A-frame and Lesson change
If you were wondering what Rio's comment about a new toy was about, we are building an a-frame! It's not done yet but is slightly more complete than what you see in the above picture. We have slats on one side now. Each side is 9x3 and is too heavy for me to move much.
Rio is one of our Sheltie buddies, go poke around at the Agility Addiction blog. That's his owner and her wonderful Shelties that are very good at agility.
With it being dark and cold by the time I get home Venus hasn't gotten to practice much lately. We have a lesson with Rhonda next Monday and Venus will be working in the advanced group. I hope we're ready for that. I'm very excited because I love watching that group work. My novice Sammy with the excellent BCs, it might be amusing. We'll see what happens, I will keep faith in Venus and myself.
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