Springtime Jump Drills

Oh wait, it's not spring yet! You might think so by the look of my yard, though. :o) Yup, on February 27 I was able to set up a fun little jump drill in my dry, snow-free yard.

It may not last, unfortunately. The weather guessers cannot make up their minds, but it looks like something is coming our way. Originally it was forecast to dump up to a foot of snow on us, but the storm keeps tracking north and now they are saying 0-2" of snow. Hoping it stays to the zero end of the spectrum, but we'll see. Either way it won't last and we'll just end up with more mud again. Yay. Mud.

So with gloomy weather in the near future, I more or less figured I was required to do SOMETHING with the dogs last night. Considering several of my jumps are in the basement (along with my weaves, teeter & table), it doesn't exactly leave a whole lot of options.

Of course I considered bringing the broad jump out again, but ultimately I was lazy. So instead I just brought out a handful of jumps and laid them out randomly.

You know what's nice about training for a venue like USDAA vs. NADAC? You really don't have to worry and futz with spacing and angles at all. lol Just plunk down a jump pretty much anywhere and deal with it. Okay, okay, I jest. Sort of.

I really didn't give a whole lot of thought to the layout other than that I *didn't* want it to be all uniform and "NADAC-y". There were lots of fun things to play around with in this set-up and I'm very happy with how well Secret & Kaiser knocked it out (Luke thought it sucked, which makes me lean further towards not bothering to put him in the Veteran classes, as I just don't know that he would enjoy Masters courses).

We have a very, very weak area that we need to work on, however. Snooker skills. Specifically, going past or between obstacles without taking one. This is a completely foreign concept to both of them, as one of the core aspects of NADAC handling is, "Take whatever is in front of you." So we have homework to do, I guess. Early indications are that this won't be too difficult for Secret, but Kaiser really struggled with the idea last night. His little brain says, "Yes, I'm coming to you, let me take this jump on the way!"

Secret did all of her jump work at 22" and we actually were out there for quite a while and she never quit on me. Woot! Kaiser did all of his exercises at 12" and I didn't really see any jumping issues with him, so that is fantastic. Nonetheless, I'm sure he will be happy to be at 8" again this weekend at the NADAC trial.

Missy got her first tunnel introduction last night. I didn't expect it would be very difficult to get her through one, but she surprised me with just how eager she was with the whole experience. I think it was less than five minutes before she was going through the full 10' tunnel. When it came time to pack it up and put it back in the garage, I couldn't get her OUT of the tunnel! When I picked it up, she tried to jump in it! I think someone likes tunnels.

I'm trying to teach her to roll over and it's not going so well. Maybe you need to teach that before you teach them to spin. lol We'll keep trying. What other fun, easy to teach tricks impress adopters? The people who come into our shelter seem to just love dogs that do tricks and I think it's a bonding experience when a dog will do tricks for them -- so the more I can stuff into Missy the better. I suppose I should try speak next... That's a crowd pleaser.