That went better than expected!

 

 It was a gorgeous weekend, but thanks to work obligations and then spending a great evening with my parents on Mother's Day, I wasn't able to take advantage of the lovely weather to play agility.  Thankfully Mother Nature cooperated and today was another beautiful (if warm) day.  It was over 80, that's all I know.  I broke out shorts and a tank top and it was just right.

Last week Steve at AgilityNerd posted a course on his Facebook page that rose a lot of eyebrows.  It was a Danish jumping course from a new online resource for courses:  http://www.agilitycourses.dk/index.php?c=324   Sadly, now that I look at it and see it's only a Level 3 (out of what, 5 or more?) I feel less superior.  lol

 The fuss was over using an "octagon drill" in an actual course.  The octagon is a great training tool, but kind of mind blowing for competition use.  Can you even imagine trying to walk a course with everyone milling out in the same small area the whole time?  Yeah, pretty miserable, I think.  Thankfully I don't have to share space with anyone at home and had it all to myself.  Walking it in person was far, far better than it appeared to be on paper.  I still figured we would struggle to avoid off course jumps, though.  The course is at the link I posted above, but I'll insert it here as well.

Once again Secret really impressed me.  The only error she made was a missed weave entry because I set her up too shallow for it.  I mean, look at that weave entry!  It's kind of wicked.  I probably cheated and shaped the entry more than I technically should have with both dogs, but we haven't done a lot of flat entries like that one.  I set them up for success by pulling them to me a bit and then rear crossing.  I did force in a front cross with Secret before the weaves on one try, but it was very awkward and uncomfortable.

The spacing from 10-11-12 was quite tight, just over 10' really, but Secret bounced it nicely the first few times.  She started throwing a short stride in there when she started getting tired.  Considering how warm it was I'm happy she kept playing at all.  :o)

The little man had another good practice as well, again with the jumps set at 12" (well, the first time I took him through I discovered very quickly that jump 7 never got bumped down from 22" -- whoops!!).  Kaiser is VERY VERY prone to taking off course obstacles when they are presented anywhere near his path, so I know I way over-handled him through this course.  That said, I'm still shocked that we got through as well as we did.  I was unable to rear cross the 7-8-9 sequence without an off course, but the front cross on the landing side of 7 worked well.  He cut behind once when I layered the jump between 14 & 15, but other than that he did super great!



I'm getting more comfortable with my new video editing software!  It has lots of nifty features that the old version didn't have and I can do lots of fun things with it.  I haven't even scraped the surface, really.  Fun, fun, fun!  I really need to move my music library onto the new home computer so that I don't have to keep fishing online for free music.  New music is good, though -- Yay for Glee, as they don't restrict on YouTube.  lol

 A gentleman from A-1 Glass in La Crosse came by the house today to measure for our new "in-the-glass" dog door to be installed in the patio window.  We went for the 12" x 24" model due to Luke's size.  It will be interesting to see what the dogs think of it.

Because the weather was nice this weekend, I propped the door open to give the dogs free access to the potty yard while I was at the shelter both days.  My parents still dropped in to check on them Saturday and then picked them up to take them to their house on Sunday so I could go straight up after work.  As such, this wasn't yet a true "all day" test, but I figured it was a good warm up for them.  So far we all seem to be okay with going potty in the small yard, but we will only poop there if forced and it causes a LOT of stress.  As in, blow up the insides stress.

Secret was asking to go out this weekend so I let her out -- with the gate closed, so she had to go in the small yard.  She was whining and started to dig at the bottom of the fence to find a way out.  I yelled at her and told her to go potty.  She did pee at that point, but then went back to trying to find a way out so that she could poo against the back fence line like usual.  I kept insisting that she go there and when she did she kind of exploded.  Lesson learned.  I'm hoping they learn to accept it sooner rather than later.  Although really I only care that the don't go in the house.  If they want to hold it all day until I get home they certainly may, but the hope is that if they have an emergency they will use the stinking little potty yard.  Time will tell, it's still brand new.

Luke had an emergency at 4 a.m. this morning (probably due to the bit of pork rib I fed him at my parent's house).  Someone, I'm guessing Luke, missed the turn into the gate and slammed into the fence, leaving a nice head impression in the wire....  Really hoping they catch on to this soon!  lol