Sunday, June 24, 2012

Superfly!

Two weekend of agility trial (5 days) and we are still looking for that pesky last MX leg.   And we still have only two QQs, but are pushing close to 500 MACH points.  

Time is not an issue here.

However, we have been running much better, which means I have also been handling better. (perhaps not hard to do, but we'll take any improvements!) Usually just one little thing NQs us, but the rest of the run is usually really nice: fast, decent handling, right course.

What was amazing is the last 2 days I got a start line stay on Bo this weekend.  YEAH!!!!  They are not the "hold the stay for the 3 jump lead out", but they are him maintaining position while I stand up and even move a foot or two away!  I like this not because I need the lead out (I have learned to handle without it), but the self-control it entails in Bo makes the rest of the course run better.

Today we NQed standard because at weave pole #10 (of 12) he saw the sucker tunnel ahead of him, skipped the last poles and made a bee line for it.  I managed to call him off before he got in, then he had to go back and redo the weaves again (ALL 12 of them).  Then I had to call him off the sucker tunnel a second time to get a hard right turn onto the teeter.  Yesterday was another really hard STD course, that we only NQed because I was on the wrong side of the A Frame so he took the wrong end of the tunnel.  Even with the extra tunnel he as faster than any other dog in that class. 

But he was brilliant both saturday and sunday in JWW:  second place each day with 14 MACH points yesterday and 19 today.  Today's course had two long lines of jumps, that I sprinted down, counting on my dog to follow and take the jumps, which he did.

My reward is to go pull more weeds out of the lawn.