Practice 2013.01.27

Sunday morning I packed all the dogs in the car and drove to Herringløse to train with Carina and Channie on artificial turf. It's been ages since we've last had a chance to run a full course.

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The course we ran was originally designed by this year's Nordic Championship judge Ursula Hornung (obstacle 1-21) but Channie spiced it up a bit by adding 9 extra obstacle.

Fortunately we ran it in two parts:

  • Part 1: obstacle 1-20
  • Part 2: obstacle 21-30

The jumps were at 65 cm. I hardly ever jump my dogs at 65 cm in training as none of them are jumping that height in competition yet, so it was great practice for them. Zap had no problems jumping 65 cm and turned tight like always. To my surprise Poncho jumped very well at 65. He has previously been adding extra strides at this height, but he managed very well. He didn't turn as tight as he does at 60 cm, but he likes to jump wide and keep the speed in contrast to Zap who really digs the decelerations and accelerations.

I still need to work on Poncho's focus on the next obstacle especially on the dog walk. He likes to search for the next obstacle, raise his had and shorten his stride. This means the hit on the contact doesn't get as deep as I would like it to be.

Zap had no problems weaving. He hit the entries and didn't pop out one single time! Amazing what chiropractic treatments can do!

I had Sol with me as well so she could socialize with Channie and Carina's dogs. In the arena she kept calm and watched the other dogs run with a toy in her mouth. She played tug and we did some tricks as well while Zap and Poncho waited for their turn. But when I ran either Zap and Poncho Sol ended up screaming her head off! LOL. She is definitely every enthusiastic, but nevertheless a behavior that could need a bit of adjustment.