ABA, week 4

what do most people do after a long, fun, camping weekend that leaves them sore and exhausted? certainly not work an extra hour for overtime then run home, grab the dog to go run around an agility course! that is why i am not most people, i guess.

class last night went well. Lynn, from the novice competition class, watched both Whitney & i to evaluate whether we are ready to move up or not. we ran a course first. according to Whitney this is the same course the 4Hers ran last weekend. so, the pressure was on to be better than the 4Hers! LOL

we started on a soft right bending line, from a vertical (1) to dogwalk (2) to tire (3), then a hard right (front pivot cross) to a vertical (4) on a -sortof- straight line to the triple bar (5) and on to the teeter (6). a 90 right turn to a vertical (7) which gave us a great entry into the weaves (8) and on toward the table (9), sit for a count of five and off to the a vertical (10) to tunnel (11), the a-frame (12) and finish over a vertical (13).

there were a couple of 'traps' in this course. after the tire (3) was a set of weave-o-matics on a straight line. waste' LOVES her w-o-m's!! so it was up to me to make sure she didn't get 'sucked' into them. i over-acted on my front pivot cross and got more of a u-turn than a hard right... then i got confused and she got confused and she started barking and i started laughing. Carrie said i only encouraged her misbehaving by laughing, but if you can't have fun doing this stuff, it's not worth doing. and i am a firm believer in laughing at yourself for your own mistakes - no need to get your panties in a bunch.

so, we straightened ourselves out and sent her over 4 & 5 and a 'go-out' to the teeter (that one made me nervous, but she nailed it ). she also nailed all 12 weaves and got jackpots all around.

after running our course we broke down to different groups and Christie worked w/us on some jump handling exercises. Waste' is so good about reading my body language that we did our threadles in and out w/out any incident - well, until our last try.

i put her in a sit-wait and led out, then called her to jump. she sat. i called again. she sat. i begged her to come. she sat. Christie made the comment... 'i think she's done for the evening'
LOL
she had made her point and we jumped just a couple more and quit for the evening. she was a pooped puppy.

we also got some great photos of her to apply for her ilp, but my card reader on my pc has pooped out. I'm looking at alternatives to getting them sent. bummer.