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.
This is the first time Belle and I have attempted one of AnnCroft’s Happy Hurdle Day courses. I had a great time working on different options, but in the future, I will
be sure to work without bars until I have worked out my handling. No need to make Belle jump while I trying to
perfect different options.
My original plan was
to lead out to (30,5), run a short way with Belle and send her into the tunnel off my right. Then I'd do a BC between 4 and 5 and push
her over 5. The distance between 6 and 7
is quite great so a shoulder pull should be sufficient to pull her to the
correct side of 7 which puts me in a good position to execute a FC.
I had several options for 9 and 10. I could keep Belle on my left from 8 to 9, RC
9 and take Belle over 10 on my right. Or
I could do a FC between 8 and 9 and either do a post turn at 9 to keep Belle on
my right for 10 or do a BC or FX after 9 and send Belle over 10 from my left
side.
FC on LS of 13 to push Belle to the back side of 14 and
another FC to send her to the tunnel.
Then my grand plan was to do a totally unneeded Ketschker at 17 and dash to the finish.
My first reality check came when I discovered the first
tunnel entrance was not all that easy.I quickly discovered that trying to run with Belle on my right to the correct end of the tunnel was problematical at best. Running with her on my left was a much better option, but I had to make sure I had her attention or 4 became a very viable off-course option.
Doing a BC between 4 and 5 was successful about 50% of the time. I had to make sure I started moving as soon as Belle was in the tunnel. Additionally, I had to make sure I brought her to hand between 4 and 5 to avoid her taking 5 from the wrong side.
I pretty much just let Belle find her own way around 6 so I could position myself to handle 8-10. I did do one run where I tried to manage that turn but it put me too far behind to handle 8-10 efficiently.
The first video shows Belle and me working on different handling options. The second shows us running the course in its entirety.
