Saturday was the day I had been practicing for and I knew that the challenges on Craig Josling's courses might be quite subtle. First up was JWW. Because I wanted Belle to run her fastest, I started out with her on my right. Unfortunately, I got ahead and my timing at the tunnel was very poor and almost forced her into the wrong end. I should have just lead out to the landing side of 2 and run to the tunnel with Belle on my right. Much less chance of me messing that up.
Having cued too early once on this course and getting away with it, I lost total presence of mind and out ran Belle by what seemed an eternity to the weave exit. I turned and faced her and ended up pulling her out. Bad handler; poor trainer :(
Now for the subtleties of the course. If the handler goes in deep to the tunnel and fails to get ahead of his dog, he will be forced to move in the direction of the unnumbered jump between 8 and 9 in order to not run into the wing of 9.
Next, if the handler is not far enough ahead of his dog going through the box for 11 to 12, his line into the box will drive his dog off-course to 19.
Lastly, tunnel 14 caused handlers problems both coming and going.
By comparison with the JWW course, the Standard course was pretty straightforward with no cleverly hidden potential off-courses. My plan for the opening was to send Belle over 3 to the tunnel and pick her up from the landing side of 5. However, after watching the runs before me, I realized that there was no good reason to use distance handling here, so I ran with her.
Almost everyone, including me, did a front cross or a blind cross between 9 and 10. Most did a second front cross between 11 and the table. I was hoping to achieve a tight wrap by cuing it with deceleration and a verbal "wrap." I should have also thrown in an offside arm to grab Belle as she took off. Something went wrong and Belle turned left upon landing. I think it may be because I moved back and a little bit to the left to signal the turn. Also if you look at the line from the 9/10 gap to where I ran for the post turn, it is trending left. This is a sequence I want to set up and try to run in as many different ways as I can think of.
Surprisingly, very few dogs took the wrong end of the tunnel after the A-frame. However, several did not pick the weaves as their next obstacle upon exiting the tunnel ;-)
In addition to working on Silvia Trkman's Handling I class, I also decided to try out Dawn Weaver's monthly online instruction series. Dawn has two different sets of exercises available, one for novice teams and one for more experienced teams. I took the plunge and sent my $26 across the seas for the first set of experienced exercises. The first set of exercises required a set of 12 weaves, two tunnels (actually one tunnel and a chute), and six jumps. (Each exercise includes four sequences.) You videotape your efforts and submit up to five minutes of you and your dog working on them by posting them to YouTube and sending Dawn the link. Dawn will then review your video and email you feedback plus a link to video of her running the sequences with her dog(s). (A terrific option is that if you are having a problem in training or in the ring, you can submit video of that instead of your efforts on that month's exercises and Dawn will give you feedback.)
The feedback I received was awesome. Since I train on my own, I can only improve or change what I realize needs improvement or changing. That can be a rather huge Catch 22. For instance, I didn't realize how many times I am late in completing my front crosses. I thought I was supposed to finish my rotation as Belle was in the air. Oops. That actually makes it late. I also never realized that I often backhand Belle into a rear cross while facing the wrong direction. Additionally, Dawn gave me some advice about my lead outs and my positioning relative to a jump that is to be wrapped. Very interesting stuff that took my several hours to digest
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Last February, I enrolled as an auditor in one of Silvia Trkman's online classes, Handling I. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the snow to melt, I was able to set up the first course and run the two exercises. Keep in mind, I had watched at least a dozen people tackle these courses before I had a chance to run them, and I was really excited. Unfortunately, I discovered I was not fast enough to get where I had to be for a couple of the moves, and Belle's distance skills did not include being sent to the back of a jump from 30 feet away. After knocking my head against a wall for a week or so, I put the course aside.
Last week, I was looking for something different after working on several of Craig Josling's AKC courses. I took a peek at the second set of exercises in Silvia's class and decided we could probably do those, so I set it up. I was thrilled that we did a fairly credible job with the two courses, but I decided it really would be nice to get some feedback. I contacted Silvia and she allowed me to pay the difference and become an online participant.
Silvia has a fantastic eye and does not try to make one solution fit every team. She is also fantastically prompt in responding to her students' posts! (I'll go out on a limb here and say that I suspect Silvia enjoys teaching almost as much as she loves training and running her dogs.)
This is my final video submission to Silvia for the second set of exercises. I wanted to share it with you because of the song I used for backing. (I almost never mute the original voice track in my videos, but today was excessively windy, and the voice track is useless.) "Without You" expresses so well how I feel about my wonderful little red dog. Unfortunately, the rights to the song that I dubbed in preclude YouTube from allowing the video to be shown in just about every country in the world. I swapped in one of YouTube's lame offerings which should allow my video to be seen. However, if you would like to hear the song I originally wanted to back this video, simply click on both videos below and mute mine. It isn't the Usher version, but these two guys do a very nice job of it.
A few days ago, I downloaded Course Designer 4 from the Clean Run website. I finally had a chance to play with it a little today. Below are images of the course I last blogged about in CRCD3 format, a frame shot from the video, and in CRCD4 format:
I really like the ability to change the angle of view in CRCD4. It helps to point out tricky spots that I have difficulty visualizing in two dimensions. On the down side, if the course isn't already in CRCD3 or 4, I have to manually input it before I can manipulate it. (The only reason I had already rendered the two Josling's courses in CRCD3 was because the original course map had the dog walk running at a slight angle, and it is much easier for me to set a course when the dog walk is either parallel or perpendicular to my fence.)
When doing an analysis, I can easily use a frame from the video to illustrate my point. Using Photo Shop, I can even alter the angle of view to some extent. However, if I want the course numbered in the photo, it involves a fair amount of extra work.
As with CRCD3, the viewer is a free download which you can use forever. After downloading the viewer, you have 30 days to play with the software before deciding whether you want or need the extra bells and whistles it provides for rendering your courses.
Saturday was the day I had been practicing for and I knew that the challenges on Craig Josling's courses might be quite subtle. First up was JWW. Because I wanted Belle to run her fastest, I started out with her on my right. Unfortunately, I got ahead and my timing at the tunnel was very poor and almost forced her into the wrong end. I should have just lead out to the landing side of 2 and run to the tunnel with Belle on my right. Much less chance of me messing that up.
