NCA, week 3

We had class cancelled last week because of heat. It was 98 outside and who-knows-what inside. That week will get tacked onto the end so we won't miss anything.

Also, last week, she started up a limp. Worse when she woke up from a nap and it always worked out. I did lots of manipulations and felt for heat, but could not pinpoint it. From the way she limped, it appeared to be in her right front shoulder. Well, Tuesday morning she woke up limp-free. It was like she knew class was that night. I resolved to go ahead, but keep a close eye on her. Thru the course of the evening she never took a bad step and she woke up fine this morning as well. Who knows what she might have done to herself!!!

Class went well last night. Whitney and Buddy didn't make it, but Amanda and Skeeter did. Waste' was happy to see Skeeter - they're ol' buddies

We first worked on obstacle discrimination... the tunnel entrance next to the dogwalk... we did very badly with that... she would go into the tunnel and then come back out the entrance to go over the dogwalk! at one point she laid down in the tunnel and wouldn't come out. it was a loosing battle so we moved on to the next exercise.

That exercise was 2 jumps to either another tunnel or the teeter. they were not right next to each other so the handling was much easier. She did very well with that, both pushing and pulling. (pushing means sending her away from me, pulling is drawing her towards me).

After that exercise, we swapped sides w/Rosie's more advanced group. There we worked on weaves and pinwheels.

You can tell that she is getting more comfortable with the weaves... she increases in speed as she goes thru... kinda like "oh, I get it!"

We did the pinwheel 3 different ways... each time we approached from a tunnel... the 1st way was a post turn - I stand in the middle and send her over 3 jumps in a half circle. With that one, she drove wide over the second and had trouble making the third and brought a pole down. 2nd, I send her over 1 & 2 with a front cross to the 3rd. That brought her to the 3rd on a much better line. 3rd i did a rear cross between the tunnel and the 1st which sent her to the 2nd and I pulled her to the 3rd. This one involved less foot travel for me and shaved seconds off.

So, in all, it was a good night. We'll have another chance to work on the tunnel/dogwalk discrimination another time.