We trialed on Saturday and hit 7 out of 8 contacts. The one we missed was a dog walk and we missed it because I was racing Belle to the finish line. She basically extended her stride so much that it carried her over the yellow. From what I saw on the video, all of the A-frames were two strides on the descent which put Belle's front feet way closer to the top of the yellow than I would like. I'm really hoping she will eventually change over to a one stride descent. The dog walk contacts, on the other hand, all looked pretty good with the one exception.
Yesterday, we took a break from agility, and I laid a track for Belle. She did really well, and followed a 500' track to its end in about two minutes flat. This morning though, we did our 10th running contact session. Our success rate was only 37%, but I was pleased anyway. I think that Belle is very likely to miss the contact if I am standing too far back and am not far enough to the side to place a bit of pressure on her line. Definitely one of the variables we will address once she is hitting the contact zone consistently.
I had the brilliant idea mid-way through this morning's session to record what I thought I saw Belle's feet do. Guess Susan Garrett has a point. I didn't do very well spotting which foot hit where. On the other hand, I didn't reward any attempts I should have and I didn't fail to reward any that I should have. (I did almost mistakenly say "yes" on one rep.) Hopefully, my eye will get better at spotting each foot, but even if it doesn't, apparently I do how I want the contact performance to look.
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