Better day

Today we had another run-through because of the nice weather.  And thank goodness--it was a much better day!  Again, I have no video, sorry!  I know it's no fun reading about a course, but I'm going to describe some of the good stuff anyways.

So the first run, Jonathan ran Bentley and it was ugly.  The beginning sequence was jump, straight to the dogwalk, and there was a tunnel RIGHT at the end of the dogwalk, but that wasn't obstacle three.  I think it confused Bentley and the first time he crept down the dogwalk and then jumped.  Jonathan put him back on it, and he jumped off.  I won't go into detail, but the rest wasn't much better.

The second run Bentley was tons better.  For some reason, I discovered that running slowly directly next to the dogwalk and watching him the whole way down seems to help.  And on this run, it did!  He got it the first try.  Of course I celebrated, and he took the tunnel, but who cares.  I was quite proud.  The rest of his run was beautiful.  So other than that off course, it was clean.  I was so pleased.

Lexi also did some great stuff.  We need to work on front crosses, she has tendency to cross behind us in a big loop, and then bark and run circles as we try to get her on the correct side.  I felt a little disappointed until I realized that we have not worked crosses in classes at all, so we aren't too far behind!  Her rear crosses are excellent, especially when it comes to an obstacle that she is very comfortable with (like contacts).  Her teeter is very nice as well, and she's gaining speed on the dogwalk.  She still needs to work on the tire and the chute (her least favorites) but she will do them after a try or two.

We also realized that Lexi gains a ton of speed during her run.  It's really hard to emulate in the backyard since the yard is so small.  So although Lexi never goes so fast that she misses something (like a tight turn) in the yard, she will do it in a bigger space.  It's something we'll need to set up and work on.  We've already started using a quiet "shhh" and slowing down to get her to slow down.