[Barb VanEseltine]

WOW, just WOW! The seminar by ZOOM was amazing! I had no idea it would work so well. Actually, I had no idea what it would be like but I didn’t expect it to work that well. It was amazing. And — you are wise to keep it to 4 hours. By the end my head was ready to explode and Enzo was snoring! 😊

Congrats!!

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

We are off restriction!

I didn’t get video but I did work on the jump before tunnel exercise. I’ve had dogs who really struggled with this but Enzo isn’t one. With jumps at 20” I moved it forward from 15 feet to 10 feet and he never came close to dropping the bar. And we were going FAST. I didn’t go any closer because
(1) I think 10 feet is plenty close enough and
(2) I hate “testing to destruction”.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Well, a million thanks for your noticing eye: yes, Enzo is sore. The Chiropractor only found him “out” in his front left but he was sore all along his lumbar back. I probably caused this by overworking collection drills; (I’d really like to have one dog in my life who actually knows how to collect when asked).

So, we’re on “no jumping” through Sunday but swimming is ok, so we’ll do that.

Thanks!
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Thanks — agree. Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

What I think is: “Wow, I really hope Tracy is right!”

I don’t have a massage appointment soon but I am seeing the chiropractor tomorrow (normal monthly session). I think she’ll be able to advise if she thinks he is sore. I do know a masseuse, so I can get him an appointment if I need to.

I suppose he might be sore but I’m not at all clear on why. We have been doing some foundation contact work but I’m not sure why that would make him sore. Otherwise, I haven’t seen any particular thing. Although, of course, running and ripping around the yard with the other dogs always has accident potential. I didn’t see anything but I could easily miss it.

On the A-frame suggestions, I have a beeper mat which I bought for Lollie’s running DW. I didn’t really need it but it’s around somewhere. At the current moment, Jen Pinder and I are working on ground work with lead changes. That seems to be a big deal for him (Jen calls Lollie a “lead change savant” to explain why she never needed any special lead-change work).

So, I’ll give him some time off and see what my Chiro says.

Thanks!
Barb

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Barb VanEseltine.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Funny — it turned on the italics and didn’t turn it off. 🙂

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

As far as new things – well, that’s part of what makes it fun. Moving on to the coursework…

I set up the Masters Course and I think he was over faced. At any rate, it was a serious goat rodeo. I’m putting up a video showing what happened and I mostly want a quick piece of advice:

Should I just renumber for course #2 or should I build and work on the Novice courses?

Throughout most of camp, I have felt that the master’s level work was good for him: pushing and difficult but not so hard as to be discouraging. This morning, I think it was too much.

PLEASE keep in mind that the contacts are still a work in progress. I’m not really worried about them (yet). Although, because I was watching the running A-frame I was late on the next line. And all of his A-frames were awful.

When I first saw this course, I thought that the two interesting parts would be
• #3: should I do the forced front or the German?
• #10 to #14: could I get far enough ahead

I have no idea why so many bars went down. I wasn’t able to get far enough ahead on 10 to 14 because I was watching the truly awful A-frame performances. <sigh> I thought about a spin on #9 but didn’t want to take the time.

So maybe the best thing to do is to glance at this and suggest I go do the novice work. Which would be fine.

https://youtu.be/lECVTcKkSqs

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

It seemed to me to be very nice – I’m glad you agree!

Yes, I think he needs some distraction work – arm flings and words. We had quite a mess on today’s course work and that might have been part of it. I will definitely do some proofing work on that.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Running a bit late on the Friday zigzag but finally got it done. I remembered to include some reading, also.

https://youtu.be/AlUKFQXOIEA

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Hmmm. Here are my thoughts tonight (going to try it again tomorrow). I’m following everything up until we get to sequence 2. When you say, “converge more on 3” do you mean “go in further between 3 and 4”? I was trying hard NOT to do that and get stuck by 4 and unable to get to 5. Later on you say, “converge more immediately” which maybe means “cut in after 3 sooner so you can get out and on your way to 5”. I am more excited by your suggestion to try to do it with lateral distance, since I can’t get stuck by #4 if that works.

Well, so I gave it a try. First, apparently today was my day for expecting my verbal cues to completely override my positional cues. <sigh> I made the same mistake a number of times, perhaps it will stick. Or you could say: I wasn’t successful using lateral distance. After the errors, there were two successful runs. In both cases, I was trying to cut in more quickly after 3 to set the #4 backside as a straight(er) line. Is that what you were talking about?

Repeat of sequence 2: https://youtu.be/5HWTHwuogJI

Then on to sequence 3. Here it is twice through; the first time with a backside mistake and the second time clean. See what you think…

Sequence 3 video: https://youtu.be/sPF_Yi-4JV8

Thanks,
Barb

Also: I really appreciate that you can tell me things without making me feel like a lousy trainer with a poorly trained dog. That is a skill which some people, even though they are excellent handlers and instruct a lot, have not mastered. I realize that with my age and experience I should be able to shrug it off, but I can’t and I don’t. If we were talking obedience, back in the day, then I would be much more confident and steadfast. But agility is a constantly changing game and if someone tells me that I’m not doing it right, I am likely to believe them. Also, the COVID19 thing is making everyone more sensitive. I think Dudley had it right when she said everyone should strive to be extra nice. You are always extra nice and I really appreciate it.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

We had a little bit of nice weather – occasional rain and temperatures in the seventies. But now we’re back to high eighties and Enzo has had enough of that (me too). So I brought him inside for the sequences since they fit in the barn (which has a/c). In past summers, I have almost never used the barn. It has been cool enough to train outside almost all the time. This year, the barn has been a godsend.

When it comes time to do the courses, we’ll have to be outside but I figure there’s no real hurry.

First up, the skills. They went fine.

https://youtu.be/mGUWYahvcPQ

Next is the Masters Sequences. I got the first two done today.

The first sequence was the biggest surprise. I timed them from “head over jump 1” to “nose exit from tunnel”. I did it twice.
First run, wrapped #2 to the inside and #4 to the inside. That is the dog path I would have chosen. Time: 16.5.
As a lark, I did another run wrapping 2 and 4 to the outside. I thought the wraps were more rotation (especially #2) although I did notice that the tunnel entrances were better. My guess was the time would be slightly longer or about the same. ***SHOCK*** I was more than one second faster. Live and learn; I didn’t think the smoothness of the tunnel entrance was that important.

https://youtu.be/13LdLsxfO8E

The second sequence did not, it seemed to me, have much in the way of dog path choices. As and exercise, I worked 5 and a slice and a wrap. I did the wrap using two different handling choices. The wrap was never going to be faster, since (a) it was a wrap and (b) the tunnel entrance was worse. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought. First run 13.4; second run (wrapped around me) 14.2 and third run 13.9; measuring from nose over jump 1 to nose over the last jump.

https://youtu.be/HnxvkosXXsk

Hopefully more tomorrow.

Thanks!
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Kathy,

The zigzag stuff is from MAX Puppy. Tracy copied it into my thread (Barb and Enzo) on June 17, 2020 at 1:07 pm. There are two videos there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Vq_Mv4j0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvjkED-e7jw

Then this thread is where we went once I had worked on those intro grids.

Feel free to jump right in!

Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Yes, I needed something else at 10; the “DIG” should have done it but obviously didn’t. I was aware he would probably be wide and was prepared for it (basically serp’ing the #2). 😊

For the third double whammy course, the wideness will be valuable at #10 because it is a backside at #2.

So, once again I went through it twice. On the first time, I didn’t get the turn at the end of the first 10 and messed up the backside at #2 (11). Second time it went well.

Last time I ran this course, I didn’t get very nice turns at 6, this time I added a spin and got better turns.

https://youtu.be/rv8vZ56-ZAY

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Thanks for the review – I agree he looked great on the 5 jump grid. The backside is an issue because I need to be near him to get the backside – it doesn’t seem to make sense otherwise. Remember that he will do the grid backwards if he doesn’t catch the backside. 😉

I will try to do more reading next week.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Denise,

Welcome to the zigzags! Enzo is only just two years old, so we are working on jump skills. That is one of the big issues. We are looking for lovely, rhythmic jumping. The backside starts (on three jumps) are part of learning and committing to backsides.

(Tracy will surely add more. )

Barb

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