When I first started working on bonus lines, Belle didn't drive away from me very well. I thought we had overcome that problem, but apparently not. I used hoops on this course and compressed the 16-19 serpentine and tweaked everything else accordingly because I thought the serpentine would be almost impossible if the hoops were placed as indicated on the course map. (Using jumps would have been a better choice, but they are already being used in another course at the moment.) Well, when Belle and I had a go at it, I quickly discovered that driving down the line to the #4 tunnel was not in the cards. Belle expected a turn after #2, and no amount of shouting "go" or "tunnel" could convince her otherwise. Once we finally managed to get to the tunnel, the next problem was getting from 6 to 7. Even with jumps, I think the dog's natural line would be over the off-course #2 jump. We finally stumbled our way to the second half of the course, but Belle's confidence and energy were ebbing. For once, I'm glad that operator error kept me from preserving this fiasco on video. For sure we will be working driving to the tunnel over the next few days!
It is absolutely beautiful outside today, so I decided to set up the camera and video a little bit of work using the course I shared yesterday. Since the dogwalk was already there, I added it to my course as you will see in the video.
A word about my red merle, Dusty. He is a rescue that I adopted almost six years ago. He has always had a difficult time with head-checking. Possibly because I lacked the skill and timing to get my commands out fast enough. In the early days, this was noticeable even when he was jumping; now it shows up mostly when I send him to a tunnel. He has collided with the occasional sandbag when continuing to run at full speed while looking over his shoulder at me.
It took Dusty and me three calendar years to earn our EAC, and to date, he has only one Elite Chances Q. Partly this is because I no longer run him in trials very often. However, I will be running him this Saturday, so wish us luck. Sunday, he will run with his new best friend, David. Unlike me, David can actually run fast enough to keep up with Dusty, and Dusty really, really likes it. In fact, he was quite miffed the first time he heard David running his own dog at a trial. (He's gotten over that.)
I designed the course below so I could work on turning Belle off a straight line to a tunnel and to work on sending Dusty into a tunnel without head checking.
It can be used for speed laps as shown, with or without the bonus lines; for tunnel end discriminations (white #9 to black #1 or white #1); for tunnel/jump discriminations; and for wrap or tight work.
When I first started working on bonus lines, Belle didn't drive away from me very well. I thought we had overcome that problem, but apparently not. I used hoops on this course and compressed the 16-19 serpentine and tweaked everything else accordingly because I thought the serpentine would be almost impossible if the hoops were placed as indicated on the course map. (Using jumps would have been a better choice, but they are already being used in another course at the moment.)
