Transistioning to the real Dog Walk....

Tuesday evening I took apart the picnic table ensemble and put together the whole DW. I was noticing (as did Rosanne) that she was basically bouncing the table because of it's shorter length. This is a concern since we know she is not going to have a 1 hit cross plank once it is a 12'. So I added some more motion to the table set up, in one session, which went pretty good. Then I set up the whole dog walk. It's set at about 28". I did one session that evening after the private lesson I gave to Julie and Splash. I didn't tape that session, but it was very odd.

I tried to run her over the whole thing, just to see where we were. She trotted down the down plank! ARRRGGH!!! I tried it one more time, and she actually started to stop for a 2o/2o.....WHAT?????? So, I just finished the session with several back chaining reps just to get her driving back to the target. I ended it there...sigh!


Yesterday we did two sessions, which we did tape. They went much better than the day before and the second session went much better than the first.




I took Cheetah to class tonight and we had a dogwalk in the the sequence. The course had a 270 from the left off of the dog walk. I handled it the first time as a push, which meant that I had to bust it up to the front of the DW to get the FC in so I could have her on my left to push over the jump. It was perfect! The next time I kept her on my right, but the time I saved by sending her I was able to get to the end and blind off of the DW. It was also pretty good. I may have collected her up a bit, but not too much.

Over all I am very pleased with our progression and will continue to backchain some more today, and tomorrow before we head off to MADNESS trial. The good thing about this trial, is that it is Team only, so even if she faults the DW, it will not be the end of the world. I purposely did NOT enter Friday's GP and Steeplechase classes so I would not be tempted to handle her contacts too much...THAT was hard for me not to do. I am such and addict! I will keep you posted!