I also ran Belle on the Whatcom jumpers course. The first time through, I left the bars on the ground, and was really surprised at how far we got. I decided to put the bars up so the challenge would be a little closer to an actual course. Belle did really well, but I quickly found that the #15 jump was a very viable off-course both in the beginning and end of the course.
I learned that if you're going to layer a jump like this one, you have to consider how you're going to handle passing through a box where one of the side jumps is not very far from the dog's intended path.
1. Standing in the red area seems to be the worst handling choice, but even that can be overcome by issuing a quiet "out" command.
2. When handling from a distance, a good choice is to be to the right of the off-course jump as the dog comes through the box.
3. If running closer to the dog, running close to the off-course jump (but still layering it) seems to be enough information for the dog to continue from #2 to #3.
4. The absolute worst choice I made was to run toward the lower right of the course as Belle passed through the box for the closing.
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