Distance and the International Course

A couple of days ago, the Agility Nerd posted this course designed by Eduard Bonet and some exercises that he designed that were inspired by Bonet's course.  (The original course was in meters and oriented in landscape format.  I took the liberty of orienting it so that corresponds with the angle I planned to shoot from.)

1-9 wasn't too bad for this old body, but from 9 to 18 there is an awful lot of running to be done.  Since I'm still working on a running DW, I wasn't about to stop Belle in a 2o2o so I catch up to her for the back side of 18.  That only left me with one option. I had to start running along the DW while Belle was traveling from the weaves to 16.  Since this sprint comes at the end of the run, I decided to send her to the broad jump and the chute, and then call her over 16 and do a post turn to the weaves.  The first time through, I forgot myself and ended up scooping her across my feet into the weaves.  It worked, but I think a FC followed by post turn would have been more efficient.  Other areas that could be improved:

3-4:  Do a post turn.  I finally decided the post turn was too boring for me, so I did a Ketschker.  The K was no faster, but at least I felt like I was doing something.

8:  Slow my stride sooner.  Belle went way deep because I was still showing extension in my stride.  Once I realized I had made this mistake, I was very good about showing collection soon enough for Belle to make a nice wrap at #8.

9:  Go to the tunnel with Belle so that I don't have to stand still or slow down to let her pass me on the way to the teeter.  This turned out to be an exceptionally bad idea.  If the handler is running, the logical obstacle from the dog's point of view becomes the weaves.  I also tried doing a FC on the landing side of the panel jump.  It certainly takes the weaves out of the picture, but it makes it a little more difficult to send Belle on to the chute and pick her up for the weaves.

The best approach for us was handling from the TOS side of the panel jump.  I just had to make sure to bring Belle into handler focus so she didn't have a loopy path to the teeter.

14:  Stop moving before she exits the chute.  Get her attention and move toward the weaves for my post turn.  Actually, an even bigger problem was that I never remembered to give her a verbal cue while she was still in the chute.

Here's the video of our first run, some efforts to improve a few sections, and our final run.