Watching yesterday's video, I could see that even when Belle and I were successful, she still curved toward me before moving out to take the correct jump. I thought it was because I was not saying "out" until she was emerging from the tunnel. However, today I tried saying "out" earlier and earlier, and the result wasn't pretty.
On one of today's attempts with Dusty, I inadvertently put pressure on the line from #7 to #8 as he exited the tunnel, and he did jumps #7 and #8 perfectly--no head check, no bobble in his line. I realized what I did, but I had to give it some thought before I realized why it worked.
When I put pressure on the path from the tunnel to #7, I found myself moving toward "X" or standing still as the dogs exited the tunnel. This resulted in the dogs seeing me in a more or less recall position, while from my viewpoint, I was concentrating my efforts on pushing the dogs out to the "X." The direction in which I was moving was not really the direction I wanted them to take. Additionally, I was looking almost directly at them as they came out of the tunnel, and direct eye contact is an innate signal for handler focus, which is what I was getting, much to my dismay.
When I changed the direction of my push toward the green "Y," the dogs did not see a recall image--they saw me moving in the direction of the course and were able to move to the correct jump with little or no bobble in their line. I created a short video with Belle demonstrating the effect of facing the two different spots on the course.
I look forward to trying out this new technique on similar course challenges to see if it always works.
Wow, that was really interesting! Thanks for the insight!
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