Closing in on the Goal

I set up an Elite Jumpers course today and tried the 15-point bonus.  I was expecting the send down the line to #5 to be the most difficult part of the course.  However, Belle's ability to drive away from me has really come a long way since last July, and she fairly flew down the line of jumps.

Unfortunately, I habitually stop and send with the BIG ARM.  Most of the time, I can get away with this in Elite Chances.  However, from behind the 15-point line stopping wrecks havoc  with my ability to communicate the course to Belle.  Supposedly, it that it takes about six weeks to break a habit or develop a new one.  If I'm vigilant, hopefully by mid-May I won't have to think about continuing to move because it will have become as natural to me as stopping is now.

Since it's quite chilly outside, I went out for four short sessions, and during the third session, a couple of times, it felt as if I had bounced off an invisible wall when I came to a stop.  If I can maintain that level of awareness, it will make re-training myself much easier.  Of course, I also have Belle to keep me on the straight and narrow.  When I keep moving smoothly while sending her, her path is sure and smooth.  When I stop inappropriately, there is a hesitation or loop in her path or she goes in the wrong direction.

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It came to me during the fourth session, that when practicing bonus-line handling, I should walk the course as if I were going to handle from behind the bonus line.  However, when it comes to actually running the course, my over-riding goal has to be remaining in motion.  If that means I go two feet or ten feet over the line, that's okay.  With practice I should be able to plan my path and gauge my speed and my stride with more and more accuracy and avoid crossing the bonus line.

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.  ~Author Unknown

A JWW Course from Bud Houston's Blog

Bud Houston posted an interesting JWW course designed by Lisa Selthofer on his blog yesterday.  I was curious to see if Belle and I could do this one, and she performed like a trooper.

Bud's thinking was that a very big lead out would be necessary to handle the jump after the tunnel for anyone whose dog normally runs faster than the handler.  Once I set up the course and walked it, I had to agree.  No way I would get a decent turn over that jump without the benefit of distance handling for the opening.  Additionally, without the benefit of cutting the yardage I had to run, Ed would have been calling for the rescue squad by the time we finished the weaves.

I lead out to about (0,50) on Bud's course map.  My position was just a little off when I turned Belle to the double, so I used an off-arm to keep her on course to the jump.  After that everything else went exceptionally well.

Since the jump after the tunnel is taken from the back side, I used the transferring of hands that I used yesterday and this morning on Dana Pike's course.  Dusty didn't care for it here any more than he did on the Standard course.  Additionally, we had several off-courses just getting to that jump.  Interestingly, once we got beyond that point, Dusty was a happy camper and the rest of the course went as well as it did for Belle.

Bud talked about the gratuitous dummy jumps.  For Belle they were a complete non-issue.  For my wild child, Dusty, they were definitely an option.  If it is warm enough tomorrow, I will break this course down into small chunks for Dusty and see if I can teach an old dog some new tricks.

A Follow-Up to Yesterday's Post

I also ran Dusty on yesterday's course.  When we got to the threadles, it wasn't pretty.  I was unable to move fast enough to do it the way Steve did, and when I tried handling it as I did with Belle, it resulted in all kinds of ugliness.  Basically, it was as if Dusty thought I were trying to fake him out.

There are several reasons I handled the threadles the way I did with Belle:

1.  There's no way I could keep moving and get the sequence correct.  When I move fast, my brain disengages and becomes consumed with the need for speed.  Subtlety and precision are out the window.

2.  If I expend a lot of energy on this section, I very simply won't have it later in the course where I might need it.

3.  It is easier for me to push through for a threadle.  This is probably due to a hole in the training I have as a handler.

4.  Lastly, and most importantly, by staying within a very small area while doing this complex sequence, I communicate to Belle that we are doing something complex and we are doing it here.  There is no wasted movement on my part and hopefully none on hers.

I tried to get Belle to slice the jumps with just enough angle that she could get into the gap and take the next jump from the same side as the previous jump.  Actually, I treated the whole sequence like a serpentine where some of the jumps are imaginary.

As I discovered with Dusty though, this is definitely a matter of training.  Dusty first has to realize that even though I'm not moving very much, I'm drawing him a very clear path to follow through this sequence.  He has to realize that he is following my arm and when I hand off leadership to my other arm, he just has to go with the flow.  

Although my body movements are subtle (or at least rather minimal), they support what my arms are saying.  The purpose of this exercise is not to get Dusty to ignore body cues in favor of arm and hand cues.  I'm trying to show him that sometimes I can provide a lot of information with my hands and arms.  Because Dusty does not understand this, he spins, goes wide, stops, whatever, and then my body gets out of sync with what my hands are doing and it is game over.

Here is video from our second effort at the threadle section today.  A couple of times Dusty by-passed the second jump after the tunnel because I was unable to indicate he was to come in toward me by taking the jump.  Getting to the landing side of this jump in time to do a pull of some sort is the biggest timing issue for me as handler.

Video Response to an Agility Nerd Video

Steve Schwarz, a/k/a The Agility Nerd, is a tremendous resource to those of us who train on our own.  He blogs at least once a week about a course he has either run or created, and he provides video.  The video I posted here of Belle and me is in response to a video Steve made from his January 11, 2011 class with Dana Pike Chamberlain.  The course map and details on how Steve ran the course, they are available on his blog.

I am definitely not as fleet a foot as Steve, so my handling depended upon being able to send Belle while I moved in to position for the tricky threadles.  I thought we did a pretty good job of them.  I was truly amazed that Belle realized which tunnel I wanted her to take after jump #10.  I didn't bother to move the one that was set up under the dogwalk, so she really had several choices.