What a beautiful day it is outside. The sun is shining and there is no wind!!! I worked on the sixth exercise from Nancy Gyes' "Frame Fun" with Belle and Libby. Belle did really well today. I noticed while editing the video that I didn't reinforce her A-frame performance with a "yes." Although it didn't faze her in the least since I haven't used any NRM's while training the running A-frame, it still couldn't hurt to emphasize that she is doing a really good thing when she hits the yellow.
I also gave the sequence a go with Libby. You'll notice she's not as motivated as Belle so I had to resort to carrying around her special toy--a soccer ball. I haven't really done any serious running contact training with Libby, but she has had plenty of experience leaping over the yellow--she loves to fly. When we tried it the first time, I assumed she put in three strides on the downside and missed the yellow. However, the magic of slow-motion video showed me she clearly did the descent with one stride. I'm glad that I placed the stride regulator a little higher for Libby than I did for Belle. She came down exactly where she needed to in order to hit the yellow on her next stride.
I had decided last month to forgo working on a running dogwalk until the weather was warmer. However, I've been working indoors with a travel board to increase Belle's drive into a 2o2o position, and it seems to be working. Since a running dogwalk is much harder to train (IMHO) and because lots of USDAA courses really, really test the abilities of the handler whose dog does a running dogwalk, I may not re-attempt teaching Belle a running dogwalk.
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