Mid-January Update

Bungee's agility training is going really well. This week we're getting hit with a cold front called an "Alberta Clipper" that's driving temps down in to the -30's all week. Since most of our training takes place in unheated barns, all classes are canceled for the week until this extreme cold passes, I was relieved to hear that! I wasn't going to go in this cold anyway!

We've gotten a lot of training in lately, another reason I didn't mind missing a couple of days. In addition to our regular weekly group & private Tamsu agility classes, we've also enjoyed a series of "running clinics" and "box" workshops with Sarah Mairs on the weekends too. We haven't been keeping up with our obedience training lately, mainly due to agility conflicts, but we'll get back to it as soon as we can.

The "running clinics" are the most interesting to me, also possibly my least favorite, though I'm always glad we went. The "running clinic" courses are set up to emphasize acceleration for driving lines successfully and deceleration to turn accurately (or at all!), and they are also set up at master level and always quite challenging. They really force me to push myself to run better. They highlight my weaknesses in presenting good deceleration to Bungee for turning cues, and they highlight Bungee's inexperience in learning to take & drive lines, but we're both getting better all the time. I can see great teamwork developing between us and we really have a lot of fun. Bungee just loves the work so much, it makes it extra fun. The time of those classes just flies by much too fast.

Weave Poles
Bungee's weaving skills were so strong (perfect) with low level or normal class distractions, that at this point I am pushing Bungee pretty hard to make correct weaving as difficult as possible. Despite her extremely high toy drive, I have worked through toy distractions in & around the poles to the point that I can not create failure through toys. However I'm sure Susan could :-P (my default training question), which tells me I must think harder and perhaps employ a helper to assist with some moving toy distractions I cannot provide alone.

So since we hit a wall with toys, I moved on to the next big distraction I can work on alone: motion. We're doing really well in turning the distraction of motion and rough starts into smooth moves. It was a little surprising to see the effects of handling maneuvers on Bungee's weave pole skills. But it's awfully good information and just what I wanted to see! Much happier to find it out in training than on the trial field. We had a dynamite session on Sunday. We really gained a lot of ground.

That's how it's going with weaves, they just keep getting better and better and they were already great. I just keep challenging the skill, work through any weaknesses, and ultimately strengthening the skills. I guess that's what we do with every aspect of agility if I stop to think about it.

Contacts
Currently focusing on 2o2oNT skills for dog walk & teeter, still not sure what to do with the frame. I think I like Jenny's method for Ogin! wink/wink :-)) Back to nose touches, I backed up a bit at camp to get a stronger nose touch. Now contacts are coming much faster than before and are greatly improved and I like them again :-)

Crosses & Turns
We're still a little weak on rear crosses, and serps if they're quite far apart, but in all honesty she has not worked RC's nearly as much as front crosses, and ditto on the serps. Her 270 & 180 skills are nice.

Overall
Of course everything can be improved on, but I'm very proud of her and the work we've done so far. At 18 months she's running at par or better with almost all of the dogs in her classes & focus clinics, most being around 4 years old. The difference is she is not on the contacts yet, but I'm not worried. She'll be great on equipment once we get her contact picture together the way we want it, and we're working dillegently on that one now.

Stay warm everybody!

Happy Training...It's About Love!