Let's Blow This Popsicle Stand!

At least that's how I felt this past weekend after 3 days of non-stop flurries, squalls & whiteouts! When it was over we were left with more than a foot of the white stuff to deal with. I was NOT ready for this reality. Bungee is doing too awesome in training and we have so much I want to do on the field to come to a hard stop now. I moped around through our newly necessary winter chores of shoveling & scraping & moving the last of our outdoor things inside for much of the morning.

As we slogged in & out of the basement, putting away the last pieces of equipment for the season, Coach John Wooden's famous words suddenly rang through my head:

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

Like music to my ears, I had an instant shift of thinking about all the things we can work on. So with that spirit we're now entering the holiday & winter season, brimming with ideas & lists and all sorts of things to work on at home, not the least of which is contacts & weaves, obedience and a great new list of tricks.

1st however on the "homework front" is weaves. So inspired I am by Susan's "Excellence in Weave Pole Training - Phase One" (click on the link to get this workbook, it launches tomorrow, Nov. 26) that I have decided to revamp Bungee's 2 X 2's almost from the beginning. That decision is based on one thing I have heard Susan say many times before about weave training, which is: "by the time the dog gets to 4 straight poles, they should never make a mistake again."

In years past I've wondered about that remark, scratching my head and thinking "yeah right", or "how the heck can someone do that". Still, when training at home, I've always worked toward that mark, but accepting perhaps 98% success, instead of 100%. It was while reading: "Excellence in Weave Pole Training" that the way to fill that 2% gap became clear. I suddenly realized EXACTLY what I skipped or touched on too lightly in Bungee's training and when.

While anyone who has seen Bungee weave, with her speed and clearly beautiful skill, might tell me I'm crazy; and for all the entries she can get, I know deep in my heart that there is one spot that I can send her from where she will miss the entry more often than hit it and I am not happy with that...never have been. However, I didn't discover this "hole" until we were moving up to 12 poles. I also know another entry I can send her to (which is from an arc below pole 12, where she must go all the way to the top end to pole 1 doing a U-turn into the space from 1 - 2 on a left-side approach. In this situation she will hit the entry but not bend enough to hit pole 3. At some point in the early foundation work of 2 poles, I missed providing her with the information she needed to work these 2 challenges out. Bungee is just too marvelously talented and awesome to give her anything less than 100% on her poles!

So we're off already having loads of fun & success with 2 poles again. With a foot of snow on the ground - what else have we got to do? I left 3 pieces of agility equipment outside: the contact training stairs, one set of 2 X 2's and one set of 6 poles. We'll use the poles outside every single day that we can. I plan to revive our circle work as well as all the "driving lines" business now needs some balancing out with our RZ (reinforcement zone). All the rest of the equipment is now inside and we're darned lucky to have such a nice place fixed up to train in as we do in our basement. The teeter or a plank between two tables is the only contact equipment I have room to put up, but I can do quite a lot with the space.

All of our regular agility classes are now re-located to the "Playdome" - an unheated coverall-type (vinyl roof fabric) barn building with dirt floor, that's used just for dog agility. We also have a new barn location to the north of us, (previously a horse barn) that I've not yet seen but will be getting to for training classes later this week. Speaking of which, time to sign off & head for class.

Still in a holding pattern for high speed. Cross your fingers for us!

Happy Training...It's About Love!