More Happy Hurdle fun

I fail at updating this blog with any regularity anymore. We played on another Happy Hurdle Day course on Friday, but apparently I forgot to post anything about it. I guess that's what happens when you work 17 overs over the weekend and attempt to get homework done, too. Only one more week left in this term! I am looking forward to starting new classes. This next week should be pretty simple and then I have a whole week off before the next term starts. Down time! Hooray! Oh wait, I should probably use that time to prepare more for my dog training classes. Oh well.

So. Happy Hurdle Day. Ann Croft posted this exercise on her Agility Coach Facebook page this past Wednesday and I thought it looked decently fun. There have been some lately that just make me go, "Ugh." I think it's obvious that I enjoy a challenge, but some stuff is just ugly (backside, wrap, wrap, backside, backside) and I know would not be motivating to my dogs. This particular course had enough forward movement interspersed with the fun stuff to keep everyone happy -- even Kaiser, who was, incidentally, the only dog who had two perfect trips and was done (video less than 3 minutes, score!).

This course did reveal Secret's biggest weakness -- obstacle commitment when my feet aren't moving. I stop, she stops. Errr, no hon, we have to fix that. We first struggled at jump 2 when I planted in preparation for taking off to the weaves. The expectation is for her to wrap the jump and myself, but Secret will often pull up short when my motion stops. I need to work on keeping my feet moving, but it wouldn't kill her to learn to follow through with obstacle commitment instead of lurching to a stop.... Coming back around to that jump for number 6 also caused her to pull up short a couple of times when I planted in preparation to move off in the other direction. I think she may have pulled up once at jump 11, which I JUST realized that I took from the wrong direction. Every time. GAHHHH. I hate it when I do that. Dratted international course maps with their numbers on every side.  ;o)

Kizzy did well, too, still jumping at 14". Just think how easy-breezy those 12" jumps will be for her when she has her next trial. Maybe I should put her at 8" at the NADAC trial to see how fast she goes. Ha.... Once again Kizzy needed a little refresher on the weaves before we got started. I think this is telling me that we should work on the weaves a bit more before her next trial...

It was so nice out this weekend. It would have been great weather to take the dogs swimming and I'm kind of bummed that we missed out on that opportunity. Hopefully we'll be able to squeeze in another trip to the river before it gets too cold out.

Speaking of cold (?) -- We are playing agility outdoors near Madison this weekend and the current forecast calls for a high of 59 degrees. The dogs are going to LOVE it.