Tonight we ran through Exercise 4 out of the six posted. I liked the questions it asked and thought it would be fun -- and hello, it gives you a chance to throw in a Ketschker at jump 10!! Sweet!
In an attempt to keep the video shorter I didn't include the numerous failed attempts we had. Secret was just not getting the correct side of number six no matter how I directed from the left of it. After several attempts we did finally get it, but that would explain the extreme over-handling of that spot on the video. I'm trying to recall if I even handled it from the right with Secret.... I did this like an hour ago and it's already left my mind. lol I need sleep.
Secret did well with the threadle sequence from 9 to 10. I need to learn to follow through better with my sending cues, though, because she tends to stop short in front of the jump and jerk herself over.
The rest of the course flowed nicely for us and for some reason I kept throwing in a blind cross between 12 and 13. It worked, but in a trial situation I doubt I would want to take my eyes off her at that point. I left her behind at number 15 once and totally didn't support her line at all, so Secret went wide on that turn and took 14 on the way to the last jump -- lesson learned and we tightened up that turn nicely on the next go.
Kaiser was happy to jump 4" and did well if you don't count the several times he didn't go in the tunnel (???). The table was positioned directly behind the tunnel and someone has been getting a VERY HIGH reinforcement rate for the table lately, so I think he heard the "t" of Tunnel and decided I wanted him to do the table instead. He can be so quirky...
Kaiser did well with jump 6 (when I remembered to take the correct side of it, at least) but really struggled with the threadle. That was by far the hardest portion for him -- it's tricky coming off a three jump serpentine like that, you know! He ran the ending very nicely.
Luke even put in a respectable showing on this course. Maybe we are starting to come together a bit more with our timing on these tighter exercises. Not enough so that I think he'd ever enjoy running in USDAA, but at least we can have some fun with them in our back yard (where he is more than happy to jump 4").
We had a little excitement in our backyard this evening. I was just starting to pick poo from the yard when several birds started making a huge ruckus on the other side of the lawn. I looked over and Kaiser had his nose buried into the fence. I thought, "Oh darn, he found a baby bird." When I walked over to check it out, however, I discovered that he had cornered a vole! It was screaming at him and Kaiser just kept poking at it. I told him to stop playing with it and after it bit him on the nose (....poor Kaiser...) he did kill it. I honestly didn't want to deal with its disposal, so I told the dogs to take care of it.
I have since learned that voles apparently don't taste very good, which explains why the dogs just played with it for the next several minutes. Secret quickly claimed it as her own (greedy girl....) and kept mouthing at its feet and spitting it out. She acted like she would eat it eventually, so I left her to it while I cleaned up the yard. That is, until I looked over and saw her starting to roll on it. Sigh. You are so gross, Secret. At that point I went over to pick it up with my pooper scooper and discovered it covered in saliva. Lovely. But I guess I can't blame her if they taste as bad as people say.
Yay for killing a rodent that digs up my lawn, dogs! Keep up the good work!
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