From a Dog's Point of View

I set up Ann Croft's 4th of July Happy Hurdle Days exercise yesterday evening, and Belle and I tackled the blue course this morning.  I'm really glad when a course presents either a handling challenge or a training challenge for us to work on.

Right off the bat, I picked a poor way to handle #2, but I quickly realized the error of my ways and opted for one that made more sense.  However, for the weaves, I was firmly committed to remaining on the side away from the tunnel, and  I quickly discovered that Belle's understanding of the weave poles was not as complete as I thought.

To me and to most humans, the weaves are a single obstacle.  However, down at our dogs' eye level, especially when looking through them from the other side, they are a series of openings, and Belle chose to come through several of them to get to my side of the weaves.  She finally figured out she had to come around the first pole, but even then the entry wasn't easy for her since Mom's entire body was turned west (in relation to the course map) instead of east.  Belle did eventually nail the entry, but this is an entry that will have to be revisited in order to be maintained.