Hobbs and I have mostly been practicing on our own since the trial, and it has been going pretty well. Hobbs has been doing great with a teeter to get on every day, and I have started proofing his end position on it. A couple days ago I ran as fast as I could past him as he went over it and he still stopped with 2o2o! I am really proud and happy that he has come so far with the teeter. Now i wish I had a huge yard to fit all the contact obstacles in. Sadly, I don't.
Anyways, on Thursday night we went to practice with a bunch of Ogden people, and it was great! The first thing I did when we got there was send Hobbs over the teeter. Ours at home is very heavy and takes some effort from him to tip it, and it tips later than a light, competition one. Apparently, it also swings to the side a little as he goes over it, because this one didn't and he almost fell off the side lol. He stuck the landing though, got lots of pets and treats, and we quit while we were ahead. I didn't want to drill it, just show him that it was going to tip earlier and faster.
Most of the people there are running either Open or Excellent so that is the kind of course we were running. We did two little courses, and both had 12 weave poles in them....something Hobbs has never tried. The most I have sent him through was 8, and that was just twice, months ago.
The first course we did looked pretty easy:
**These are VERY rough estimates of the course, and may or may not have an extra jump in there somewhere.
The first part of the course went well, but Hobbs was a little hot and didn't want to sent away to the poles at all. So I went with him and the first time through he did 8 before popping out. I didn't react at all, just continued on with the course. The reason for this was that I didn't know what he was going to do with 12 poles, and didn't want to shut him down by taking him back to try it again. So I decided that he would be rewarded for doing any of them (within reason). the course turned out to be a little tricky from 11 to 12, because everyone forgot where they were going and went over 6 a second time. Hobbs and I did this 2 or three times but finally got it right.
On our second run through of this course, I decided to softly repeat "weave" when Hobbs was about half way through the poles. HE DID ALL 12 OF THEM!! I threw a huge party after them, fed him a handful of treats, and then promptly forgot AGAIN where I was going for the rest of the course. Lol, we got it the second time from #10 though.
Then we walked the second course:
I was pretty intimidated by this, especially because Hobbs patterns so easily that I thought he would just ignore me and plow into the closest end of the tunnel after 6 because that is what we did in the last course. I decided to keep him on my left the whole way to 7 and then kept him on the left again until 12 where I did a wrap/front cross to finish the course with him on my right. I went into it again not expecting anything from the 12 poles, but planing to repeat "weave" half way through. We got the whole course perfect including all 12 weave poles and #7!! I was very impressed with both Hobbs and myself. Hobbs didn't even almost run into me between 6 and 7!
The only thing I noticed during class was that Hobbs was really slow coming down the A-frame. I think his nails may need to be trimmed, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it, and it was also the first time he had been on a full height A-frame since the slat-less one at the ASCA trial. I wish I could get him on some equipment to try to get him to speed it up. I am not too worried about it though, it may have just been the heat.
It was great to get together with people to practice again, and I hope I can go most Thursdays when they get together.
