Ketschker's turn

After reading about Ketschker's turns online I decided to give them a shot with our dogs.

First of all, the best way to describe a Ketschker is to say that it is a combination of a front cross followed by a blind cross.  You set it up by starting to front cross but you don't complete it and instead finish with a blind cross.  But, you don't actually switch sides of your dog.

Sounds confusing...it makes more sense to see it.

I had heard that it really benefits dogs with longer strides, which surprisingly is true of my Lexi.  It is said to make turns more efficient and to increase acceleration out of the turn.

Here were our first attempts with both dogs (suffice to say that we won't be using this with Bentley--but it was fun to try!):

April LCDA Trial

This time I made one video for each dog (not sure if that's better than 1 video per run?) so there are little comments before each one.

Here is Bentley's:


I was incredibly happy that he got a Steeplechase Q (it was ugly, but there was only one other dog that didn't get eliminated!), and a Masters Jumpers Q. He now only needs 1 more for his Jumpers Master. He also got 2 of 3 dogwalk contacts this weekend--wow! Of course the one he didn't get was the important one (Standard), but oh well. So proud. He finished the weekend with a Steeplechase Q, a Steeplechase Finals win (made $12!), a Masters Jumpers Q, and a Masters Pairs Q.

And here are Lexi's:

Lexi was great. Her attention and contacts deteriorated as the days went on, but I expected that. She still didn't miss a contact, so that's great. We can always go back to targets and holding her 2o2o in practice. She also had weave pole issues occasionally, but I expected that too. The only run that was truly ugly was her Steeplechase run, but I think it was just too much for her (wide turns, anyone?) She was such a good girl. She finished the weekend with two Starters Gamblers Qs, a Starters Standard Q, a Starters Pairs Q, and a Starters Jumpers Q.

Long time no update

It's been awhile...here's a quick recap:

Bentley still needs tons of contact work

Lexi still needs to learn to collect

Ha!

Anyways, here's a video of Lexi working some jump grids: