Transports and other fun stuff

Today I picked up a couple of dogs being admitted to Border Collie Rescue of MN. I tend to get contacted when there are dogs in my neck of the woods and I'm always happy to give back when I can -- especially to the rescue that brought Secret to me!

This was a nice pair of dogs. They are farm dogs through and through and probably don't know a whole heck of a lot about much, but they are both super sweet. The girl, "Cheese" (in back) looks full border collie and the boy, "Basil," looks part English Shepherd to me, but who knows. It's unfortunate that their people couldn't keep them anymore, but I'm glad that they contacted BCRMN instead of dropping them at the shelter. For as nice as they both are, I have a feeling they will find homes very quickly!

We didn't do a whole heck of a lot else today, but I did get around to setting up the latest Happy Hurdle course this afternoon. Every now and then Ann Croft puts out courses that make my eyes bug out, but most of them tend to run very well. We had fun with this course today.

There was no real "pretty" way to get jump two for Secret. The backside wrap was very demotivating for her due to my lack of movement. One plan that I walked and then forgot to execute was to run her past the plane of 2 on the right side and do a blended cross to send her around the far wing, which would have been a longer path but would have provided a better/straighter shot into the tunnel.

Kaiser drives fine into such tight wraps (surprisingly enough), so he didn't find the beginning nearly as demotivating and I could handle it pretty much however.

The top of the course was the next "interesting" spot. Nothing ever seemed to run as smooth as I would have liked, but by far it felt best to run the dog past the top wing of jump 7 and front cross to show them the correct side of 7. I did pull each dog to the bottom a couple of times but it always felt awkward and more prone to having them ignore my come to hand signal and take the jump from the wrong side.

After that the course was pretty straight forward. I was reminded on several occasions that I need to continue to move and support the tight wraps or else Secret get sticky in front of the jumps.

Speaking of, I think I might need to get her into the chiropractor before our AKC trial in a couple of weeks. When we first started playing on this course Secret refused the first jump and went out of her way to the tunnel several times. That is peculiar behavior for her. She also didn't have the speediest weaves on the planet (well, until I got the Jolly Ball out later and then they were much improved), so I'm just thinking it might be worth it to take her in again. So much for saving money after visiting several times last month...

We have NADAC next weekend and I do not plan on entering Secret -- so I'll have to decide if I should take her in this week or next. Probably next, I suppose, so it's "fresher" before the trial. It will, after all, be her first time in Excellent and we want her feeling her best!  :o)