Last night we had our final class. The set up was a full course (jumpers with DW) with multiple sends and recalls to be identified and then performed. I have been working on these with Lexi for the past few weeks. Clearly she hasn't mastered them, but she did not run one segment of course correctly. She cut behind us multiple times, failed to read our body language, etc... It was really frustrating. I expressed that I was frustrated because I felt that as handlers, we had broken a dog with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, I think our instructor agreed (not that Lexi was broken, but that she could be really good with the correct instruction.) She even said, "I really like her..and I don't normally like dogs other than my own". Sigh.
I asked her if she thought Lexi had improved over the 7 week course. She said yes. But, she said that she felt like we as handlers had improved more than Lexi has as far as getting her the correct information. I guess that's good. We can't teach her if we don't know what we're doing, so we'll have to keep working on it.
I'll post the "course map" with analysis another time.
I am attaching 2 videos from a segment some friends of mine are calling "How would you handle this?" My friend went to a Daisy Peel seminar, and was presented with some tough sequences.
Here is how I would handle them...
Apparently I misread both course maps, so here are the "actual" sequences, and how I would handle them.
"...I don't really like dogs other than my own." really?? Then why does she teach agility?
ReplyDeleteGuess I should have described this comment a bit better! She said it in the context of what she likes for her own dogs as far as drive, biddability, potential, etc...She was saying that she liked Lexi as far as her agility potential was even though she is not from any performance line (or the line of dogs that my instructor prefers).
ReplyDeleteThe point of the comment was that it was a compliment because our instructor has some of the best dogs out there, and she really likes what Lexi has. It's why I sometimes feel like I (as a green handler) am holding her back.