OK, so my start line plan kind of fizzled. At first I thought it looked OK. His ears came up for JUST a moment as I pushed into him to back up, then off we went. But, it seemed to kind of not work as the runs went on. Too much pressure? Perhaps. What I noticed, though, was I was too disconnected from the ingate to the start line. I need to do what I can to keep him focused on ME. He wants to go say hi to the ring crew, if possible, or just look stressed. So, what seemed to work best was to remove leash and GO! Keeping him connected, running to the line at the last minute, then tossing off the leash and GO.
Even in Relay where we ran second that worked OK. I could crouch and talk to him and keep him close and focused on me, then last second remove leash and go. Taking off the leash, then asking for the back up gave him JUST enough time to stress and leave me, go say HI to the ring crew which at this trial sometimes was RIGHT there at the line it seemed.
It was a tough trial, really. I was worried about trying the new start line behavior, I was worried about how he would be after his experience at Nationals. He actually was pretty good, event awesome at times, but then we had some major melt downs. Teeter was a big issue. He knocked a bar in jumpers, ...........gasp..........that's almost as bad as a scary teeter, maybe worse. But, he recovered quicker than ever, so that's cool. I made a video to show some of the contacts. He missed a DW contact and an a-frame contact (left him and took off ahead more than I would normally), but I am not surprised. This wasn't his most comfortable trial. And we seem to be in an "experimental" stage.
I am most pleased with how well and quickly he recovered from things. It was big learning experience for us. I was SO thankful for my awesome teammate who totally had no expectations and was completely supportive. Spur actually had some incredible moments, but had two E's and not many points in snooker or gamble, so we ended up dead last. My teammate E'd in standard, too, so I felt a lot better after that. LOL!!!
Here's my little video (*disregard the editing, my text didn't go where it should have. The slow mo DW was a miss. The slow mo a-frame a miss)-
I see here that the issue with the teeter is how heavy it is and how long it took to go down. I MUST put the weights back on my teeter and have him doing different weights again.
What Temperature Is Too Hot To Walk Dogs?
9 months ago
Bummer. I was really hoping his new startline would work! It's so hard to find that routine for the stressy dogs. I think I finally got it with the toller once I realized that having him focus on me with tugging or tricks right before going in just makes it so once I'm finally in the ring he is now able to look around at everything. *fingers crossed* that our last trial routine of crouching with him and having him watch at least one dog ahead of him allows him to look and feel more comfortable about the ring. But I know that would never work with the corgi as he needs to stay more connected with me.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like it was a good trial other than a few bobbles.