Can I Bring the Dog?

Julie has been video recording a lot of our runs lately, the good ones, the bad ones – who knows going in. But here’s the cool thing she does – after you watch the “bad” one…she erases it. It’s over, you know what to work on, you don’t need to reinforce the wrong by watching it over and over; disappear it.

I like it.

In that spirit, I’d like to stick to saving here only videos about which I have good things to say. So, here’s our Performance Speed Jumping run from a couple weeks ago. There was some tricky handling in the back and while I bought myself a refusal (he went past the intended jump), I didn’t get an off course (he didn’t take a different jump instead of the intended one). But the very best thing is the vigor with which Chico finally attacks the weaves on that second time through them.

Refusals don’t count, as long as you can get through the course and are faster than X percent of the dogs in the class, you get a Q, which we did. That means we have two PSJ Qs in our pocket now, and while we need lots of practice to actually be competitive there, we are now entitled to go try our luck at Cynosport this October. So, that’s cool, happened a lot sooner than I thought.

We had four runs last weekend and since Paws in Action was there, I have video of all four. I’ll give you two today and two the next time, how about that?

First class of the day was P3 Jumpers. We arrived just in time for me to walk the course and get Chico a poop walk and into the building in time to run. I was a bit high on adrenaline when I walked because five minutes away from the trial I had managed to miss by three or four inches the rear bumper of the truck that passed us on the right and ended up across the road in front of me with its nose in the snowbank.

Result of that was, Annie forgot the course. Chico saved the run the first time (you can hear the crowd when he doesn’t take the off course jump), but the second time, I was really off in my direction, and since he is so well trained, he took what I pointed him at, so we just went with that course.

But what a good job Chico did of engaging with the leash-as-tug-toy and then of dropping it and getting ready to work.

Next was Gamblers, and here’s what matters to me about this run. We played the Do You See game with the A frame, that got Chico engaged with the course instead of the commotion behind him, outside the ring. He made 1, 2, 3 into a serpentine, which I had not seen, I thought I had him lined up to do 1, 2, 3 in a straight line, but he made it fancier. It was not a super smooth transition from the dog walk to the gamble (the last three obstacles Chico must complete with me staying on the far side of that line of the floor), my slow down cue didn’t come fast enough for Chico to read it, he thought we were charging from the dog walk to whatever was next, and that wasn’t the tunnel…but we got it.

And that was the third leg of our P2 Gamblers, so we got the fancy title ribbon I posted a picture of that day and next time we get to move up and play with the big kids in Masters/P3 Gamblers.