Can't Won't Fail

This is what we worked on at training this week. It was fun! It was also not intended to be as difficult as it was; on paper, we thought it was pretty simple, but then we all tried it and suddenly it was not quite so easy.

Everybody initially ran it with the handler basically stationary at the top wing of 2, pushing out to 4 and then bringing the dog across your feet to 5 and then pulling back for 6 and wrapping the right wing of 6 to the weaves. This method? Did Not Work. Nobody managed to successfully pull their dog through the gap smoothly. The back of 2 was just way too tempting, and there was no good way for the handler to block it off clearly whilst stood on the bottom side of 5.

We all stood and frowned for a while, so Emma and Bailey went and did it perfectly so we all hated her for a while. Why would you want a Medium dog with amazing weave entries and 100% running contacts who can turn really tightly without losing any speed? We couldn’t fathom it either, but there you go.

The next attempt was to handle 1-2-3 the same way, but to step through the gap and front cross to flip the dog over 4 to 5. The back of 2 immediately stopped being tempting and none of the dogs took that one, but Dylan really struggled to turn wrap the left wing of 4, so we sacrificed a lot of speed to keep the turn tight.¹ (Emma and Bailey did it this way too, perfectly. We hated them some more). At this point, we also decided that flicking the dogs around the far wing of 6 was quicker when handling on the top side.

Cue lightbulb moment.

Third time lucky … 1-2 with the dog on the right, turn to pull them through to 3, front cross to take them over 4. Wrap the dog around the right wing of 4, bring them back alongide 4 and then flick them out for 5 and 6 and away. Everyone sees the light. It’s the longer way around, but it was so much faster and smoother.

No one had any problems with the weave entry, which was good!²

¹This is my fault. I have been trying to teach Dyl to wrap wings ala Silvia Trkman for months, and we fail. Dyl is afraid to turn his body mid-air in case he falls over (or even worse, knocks a pole). I’m working on it, I promise!
²I call these soft sided weave entries. Apparently they are also called flat weave entries?