Practicing Some AKC

After a lot of deliberation, I sent off entries to two upcoming AKC agility trials.  The first is at the end of the month, and hopefully I can still get in.  The judge at that trial will be Craig Josling.  Since I haven't run any AKC courses in a long time, I decided to set up some recent courses designed by Mr. Josling.  This is the first:

I knew I need a long lead out in order to handle the sequence after the dog walk.  Unfortunately, I got so wound up in what followed the dog walk that I pulled Belle off the side of the dog walk.  She was in the yellow, but since both dogs came off the side of the dog walk at last Saturday's NADAC trial, it is definitely something I want to be aware of and avoid encouraging.

My plan was to remain in the gap between #3 and #5 and run with Belle on my left to the teeter.  On our first attempt, I neglected to get Belle's full attention as she came over #5 and she took the dog walk.  Whoops!  The second time, I made sure to bring Belle into handler focus, but when I watched the video, I saw that I was standing around waiting for Belle to clear #5 and make the turn to the teeter before moving.  On the third and last attempt, I made sure I was in motion and found myself putting in a front cross on the landing side of #5 and rear crossing the teeter.

The rest of the course was pretty straightforward.  The only mistake I made was moving toward the gap between #15 and #16 while Belle was still in the weaves.  The way I set up the course, that left #15 a little too much to chance for my tastes.  (I caught the mistake and corrected my path while Belle was still in the weaves.  The second time, I made a point of not making the same mistake.)