Jump Grids!

Okay, honestly I don't really even have that much to talk about today. I just thought this picture I caught of Secret was too cute not to share. Yawn! She was not in the mood to be photographed.

I actually meant to post this yesterday, but never got around to it. Obviously it's not of very high importance. :o)

I had a very short time period to work the dogs on Wednesday evening before leaving the house, but I managed to make the most of it! My main objective was to get Kaiser some time on the dog walk before our trial this weekend, but I wanted to do more than just that with Secret -- So I set up a jump grid.

I very, very briefly tried to introduce her to this right at the beginning of her agility training. This was before she really had any jump commitment installed whatsoever and it was, in general, a giant fail (even with really low jumps). Because of this, I wasn't really sure what to expect this time.

It went very well! I started her out at 16" jumps while I fiddled with the distance. Once I was satisfied with the spacing, I moved the line of four jumps up to 20" and she handled it with ease. I added a fifth jump set at 24" and made it a bigger bounce stride and she read the distance very well. Impressive!

The only thing I really noted is that she seems to land somewhat heavy on her front end. I think it would be advantageous to do more grid work to get her snapping up her front end a bit more -- Or maybe that's just a horse term.... At any rate, I think we've done a lot of work on jumping in extension and not so much work with jumping in collection, and that's where the heaviness in the grid came from. She managed to get through it well enough, though, so I think she will pick it up quickly.

Unfortunately, our training days at home are quickly coming to an end.... I am now seriously considering driving up to Ann Braue's training center in Eau Claire a couple of times per month for lessons. I haven't had any training in heaven knows how long, so it would be good for both of us!