Friday
Friday is my day off from university, so I was able to fit some training in with Kim and Dylan. Actually, there are two things wrong with that sentence! I am supposed to use Fridays for catching up with reading and prep-work, so it’s not really a day off, and when I say “training” … well, I managed to do a bit of work in the yard with 1 jump, 1 cavaletti pole, and a tunnel.
I wanted to work on Kim’s directionals, tighter turns and her “out” command. We only did 5 mins or so on directionals because I thought she’d need a reminder, but she really didn’t. The same for her “out” command; we only spent a couple of minutes on it. Kim has always had a very strong out command, but I’ve hardly used it over the past couple of months (haven’t needed to!). It doesn’t seem to have mattered, she worked both her directionals and the outs great. She’s such a smart cookie! We spent a bit longer on wrapping the jump wing, since it’s a bit of an issue for us. It’s going to be one of the constants that we can always improve on I think. Unfortunately Kim always kicks into another gear at competitions, so although I might think she’s improving at home, she’s running twice as fast at shows and it always ruins my timing!
Dylan worked on gridwork and cavaletti mainly. One of the exercises we did last weekend was a circle of 7 jumps, unevenly spaced, and we ran the full circle twice, and Dyl had one or two poles down both times. I’m not sure whether he’s just dropping that cautious jumping style now that he’s getting more confident, misjudging his takeoffs, or whether it might have been the ground, which was very wet and slippy. It rained the whole time we were training, and the grass is still a bit thin at Wakefield. We were more successful today and didn’t get any poles down, so I practised some rear crosses too. Confessions time: for the first few attempts I couldn’t figure out why he was spinning after the jump, and then I realised I was giving him a “right” command to turn left. No wonder the poor boy is so confused!
Anyway, I was really pleased with both pooches today. Dylan is beginning to speed up and work confidently, which is nice. I’m not sure he’s ever going to be fast enough to win out of (for example) Grade 3, but he’s going to be a fantastic dog to run.
Flyball tomorrow morning, which should be fun! Unfortunately we had to pull Mollie out of training last week as she developed a limp, but she’s sound as a bell since Sunday and we’ll give her another shot this week. She was not best pleased! But she’s not as young as she used to be, and 2008 may be her last real year of competition, although if Mollie has any say in the matter she’d flyball until her legs dropped off.