Power Paws - Long Way, Short Way: Exercise Two

Today, I ran Exercise Two with Belle and Dusty.

Since 2 to 3 is a 270, my preference was to stay in the box and try to produce as tight a line as possible by pulling my dog from 2 to 3.  After sending the dog over 4, I did a rear cross.  I finally tried a front cross between 3 and 4 with Dusty, and it worked quite well once I got my timing right.

I normally opt for the simplest handling solution, so I would probably never think to do a front cross here which is unfortunate.  When I went out a second time to work on this exercise, I realized I had to wait for Belle to pass me by in order to do a rear cross.  Rule of Thumb:  If you have to wait in order to do a rear cross, perhaps you should be doing a front cross.

I used four different handling combinations at 6 and 7:

1.  FX between 6 & 7 and a second FX to wrap the dog back into the gap.  This worked with Belle, but with Dusty it was not a very good choice.

2.  Send over 6 and move backward to threadle the dog over 7, and then move back again to threadle the dog to the tunnel.  (I.e., I had Belle and Dusty run across my feet to the tunnel.)

3.  FX between 6 & 7, and then RX 7, wrapping the dog left to the tunnel.  I felt this was a faster option than number 2 above.  The only problem was that I felt like was signaling the RX from a very strange position.

4.  Send over 6 and move backward to threadle the dog over 7 and execute a post turn to wrap him left to the tunnel.  Once I figured out how I had to move, this became my favorite way to handle 6-8.  I also think it was the fastest.




The threadle/post handling described in #4 above are in this video: