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Hi Tracy –
Georgie is incredibly fun. And sweet. And funny. I love her to bits. But nobody warned me how hard it is to run a fast dog. Seriously, who knew?
We did some 2 jump advanced work in the backyard. Let me know how I did with my arms…..not 100% sure. I think I’m getting the idea, but it’s hard to think about my arms when there are other things to think about. we trialed yesterday (don’t ask) and I did a long, long lead out in FAST because I saw no other option for the send. She was amazing, and didn’t drop a bar, which surprised me, so I think my focus on arms helped. Sadly, we didn’t get the send because she doesn’t understand the concept of a going to the tunnel if I”m not moving forward, but that’s a whole other problem, and outside the scope of this class.
When I bought this house, agility wasn’t yet a thing. If I’d known, I would have held out for more space.
Cindy
P.S. I recommended your puppy class to my friend Sally. Sorry it got interrupted because of the Eaton fire. She was grateful for the concern expressed by you and her classmates.
Brilliant idea about having the phone in my hand during the walk through. This arm stuff is such a hard habit to change, but I know it’s critical to running Georgie, and says a lot about why we’ve had so few Q’s lately. Like none. For months. Running a fast dog is overrated. And she keeps getting faster.
The water bottle was fun! This might be crazy, but I’ve been wondering if carrying weights in my hands during practice would help create some new muscle memory. Don’t they make some that go around your wrists? Sure, sure, might be a little dangerous, I might strain something, but no pain, no gain.
Thanks for the detailed comments. I usually edit out the stuff at the beginning of my recordings, because I try to fix it later. But I suspect under pressure I will revert back to bad habits. Having your detailed analysis will be very helpful and you did, of course, find a lot of stuff I wasn’t aware of.
Now I’m reaching the more difficult part, I don’t think I have enough space for the sequences. I will do my best to find a field where I can work them because I think these skills are critical.
So…girl dogs. I’ve always had girl dogs. Until I listened to the BDA podcast where all the presenters said boys were the sweetest, I didn’t fully realize…..my other girls were amateurs next to Georgie. I’m a slow learner, so it took me a while, but eventually I learned that when she jumps in my lap and cuddles, it’s not because she loves me, it means she wants something. Usually food. She barks at me when I make mistakes on course, and she tries to trick me into giving her treats. Good thing she’s cute. And sure, she probably does love me a little.
Cindy
Here’s our two jump work, we didn’t do all the variations, I wanted to have time to try the two blinds.
It occurs to me when reviewing the video that I might have been in the death zone on some of these…
I know I have work to do on this. So many things to remember!
Cindy
P.S. That last photo was one of the best I have of Georgie. She has an amazing repertoire of expressions, most of which aren’t quite that flattering. 🙂
Thanks so much for this explanation and the video. Very helpful. I went back and watched the video of my standard run, and it was my arm and loss of connection that caused an of course and lost us the standard Q on Sunday. Didn’t even see it until I slowed down the video.
Going to watch more of my runs to see what the heck I’m doing with my arms and connection.
And yes, she is a blast to run. What a rush.
Cindy
Ah yes, the arms. That really may be critical all around. I’m really not trying to be dense, but this is a long standing issue, so I’m thinking about it in reverse. In what situation would I want to raise my arms? If I can fully understand that, then I can work on my arms close to my body with exceptions, maybe that would help..Or maybe not, might be a lost cause, but I’m definitely willing to try.
This practice is so helpful, it never occurred to me to start executing the blind before she enters the tunnel! So that’s how I can manage to get these blinds after a tunnel to work!
That blind at the trial was a weird sensation, because I looked back, and couldn’t see her, seemed like I waited forever, then there she was and on we went. I missed the walk through on that course, otherwise I suspect I wouldn’t have put that blind there.
I can see that Georgie absolutely relies on connection, when I fail at that, things always go wrong. Georgie is not tolerant of sloppy handling. If I’m off by a split second, she’ll wing it. She’s quite the taskmaster, she even barks at me in practice/on course if my handling is not clear. Or should I say she yells at me. She’s my first border collie, and it’s a humbling experience to run her.
I will get on the two jump exercise, hopefully tomorrow.
Thanks for all your feedback.
Cindy
Hi Tracy –
Here’s some tunnel work. I have some additional tunnel bags on order, in the meantime, I have adjust each time she goes through. <sigh>
This is a 10 ft tunnel, so I had to move fast.
I’ve added a little something at the end as a follow up to the work on “Don’t Hit the Handler.” This clip was from a run last weekend. When I watched the video, I realized how lucky I was she didn’t take me down. Good girl, Georgie, and I’ll try to do better next time.
Cindy
Hi Tracy –
Thanks so much! You solved the mystery of why Georgie sometimes drops the first bar! That’s huge! Appreciate the feedback.
I’m going to play catch-up this week, been recovering from my back strain and need to get going.
Just a quick video for now.
Cindy
Hi Tracy –
I’m put the link to my flat work below, minus the tunnel exercises which I haven’t done yet. Need to drag out the tunnel…
I had a hard time with the double blind, maybe not enough space, maybe not fast enough (I’m almost never fast enough), not sure.
When it comes to the regular blinds, I’m not sure I can do a good job with getting my arm up upon reconnection after the side change, that can tweak my back. But I’ll do my best.
I have another question. At last weekend’s trial, I decided by day two that I was playing it too safe, I’m rather desperate for my last Q to get out of Excellent, and I suspect my handling has reflected that. I haven’t done any blinds for a while. So I put in two blinds in Sunday’s jumpers run. I’m thinking I pulled away too soon on the first one, and that’s why she dropped the bar, but just curious how I can maintain a good connection while trying to get into location for the blind. The blind after the weaves seemed to work. If I should bring this up at a later time, or it’s outside of the scope of the class, please let me know.
Thanks!
Cindy
Luckily the crazy weather wasn’t all that crazy. We did get over 5 inches of rain in 24 hours, but no wind, so all was well. It was weird, though. I mean, we seriously don’t get rain in SoCal in the summer. Maybe sprinkles, but not rain. Oh and then the earthquake alert on my phone really startled me, going off right during the worst of the storm. But never felt the quake. Whew! And the weather has been unusually delightful ever since.
How about that, I did end up better on the blind on the left that the right! Must have been all the practice. It just goes to show, I need to work more with dog on left.
She’s a funny girl, I went back and looked, and she did have a “what? We’re stopping?” Look on her face.
So I’ve lost track, are we at or over the time limit on videos?
Thanks!
Cindy
Hi Tracy,
This was interesting….I started working on the sequence, things were going well, and I thought, I’ve got this, I should be able to get this video done quickly. Then on day 2, thought I would finish up, and I realized that I was supposed to do it the other direction, too. Fine, I’ll just do the other side, handling on my left, and I’ll be done. That’s when everything fell apart. I assume since I’m a little slower handling on my left, it just didn’t work. So it took me a few more days. 🙂 But here it is!
Cindy
Thought that “go” probably wasn’t right, it just came out of my mouth. I guess Georgie knew that, too!
I need to work on that feet running with body facing the other direction thing, not my strong point.
This feedback is invaluable, thanks. I’ll come back to this, and maybe I’d better start working on rears next.
I just ordered a teeter teach-it, and am going to borrow a teeter. Is that the method you use on the terrific teeter course? I have an idea of how it works, of course, from your videos, just want to make sure I don’t mess this up.
Thanks!
Cindy
Cindy
Ok, managed to do this in under 4 minutes. Next time, under 3.
We worked through the tunnel serp exercise, I did the 3 jumps offset, and here we go. I’ve been having trouble with the third jump when she’s on my left, I looked at the video, and if I wanted her to bypass it, I couldn’t have done a better job. 🙂 I tend to look forward at the third jump.
Onward!
Cindy
OMG that makes me feel to much better, I’m going to go give my Terv girl a pat, she LIKED doing serps, it was one of our favorite things, I don’t even remember spending a lot of time training it. Ok, going to give Georgie a little break from serps for a day or two, work on some other stuff, and go back to it and try not to obsess. I need to be careful about that “just one more time” thing, I sometimes have a hard time stopping, and since Georgie never looks like she wants to stop, I can see it would be easy to overdo.
I’ll let you know how the pattern games with recorded audio goes.
Thanks so much!
Cindy
