NCA, week 4

We had our combined class last night and ran courses. Both advanced and novice dogs. The ring was set up with 'nested' courses - that means the placement of the obstacles does not change, but the order does - based on level. We ran a novice standard and novice jumpers with weaves.

The standard course was a vertical (1) to the dogwalk (2), a right hand turn to the weaves (3), left over a vertical (4) thru the left opening of a tunnel (5) to the a-frame (6), right u turn to a tunnel (7) that goes back under the a-frame, left to a vertical (8) and on to the teeter (9), another 2 verticals on a left-bending line (10 & 11), back over the dogwalk (12) to the table (13), then finish over 2 more verticals coming home (14 & 15)

we ran this one twice. first time thru I forgot to do a front cross to the weave and we got bamboozled. between 5 & 6 she got sucked into the tunnel instead of up the a-frame [note: the opposite problem that we had last week with a choice of tunnel or dogwalk]. after we managed the a-frame, she lost focus and started running toward other jumps, but i got her back to do an awesome 8-11. coming home over the dogwalk, she got away from me again... trying to go out the door to the cooler outside... got her back and did a super table and finish over 14 & 15.

2nd trip thru, we nailed our front cross between 2 & 3 and she got all 12 weaves. I got her eye coming out of 5, hit the a-frame and zipped thru 7. by the time we got to the teeter, i was getting pretty winded and couldn't get the words out, but she nailed it and the rest of the jumps while I just ran to keep up. Damn. I was really sucking air after that one! LOL

The JWW did not include any contact obstacles. It started out over 3 verticals (1,2,3) to the tunnel under the dog walk (4) to the weaves (5) and on to the right side of the tunnel (6), back to a vertical (7) sending us into a wicked pinwheel of 4 more verticals (on a circle) (8,9,10,11), back thru the 4 tunnel (12) and finish over the first 3 (13,14,15).

She did very well until after the #6 tunnel... I lost her to the teeter. She just stood at the apex looking back at me like... 'are u coming?'. After resuming, the pinwheel was not as daunting as it appeared and she nailed the #12 tunnel and finish.

It was great watching all the more advanced dogs run and the problems that they had to deal with too. It made me feel like there is hope for us! LOL