Jumper Extraordinaire

Last night I took both girls to an open jumping/weaving class.  The instructor had a fun mini course set up with the goal of practicing lateral distance from the weaves plus a serpentine and a 180ish.  Gidget did fairly well doing her weaves without me right by her side.  It took a few tries though to be able to layer the pole.  Having some distance from the weaves allowed the handler to set up on the landing side of 3 to better handle 3-4-5.  The handling options there were: front cross after the weaves, post turn 3-4 and front cross after 5; front cross on the landing side of 3, post turn to 4, then front cross after 5; or get on the landing side of 3 in time to flip the dog over 4 then front cross 5.  A few of my classmates didn't do the front cross after 5 and rear crossed 6 instead.  That seemed less efficient and wasn't a great set up for the serpentine.  Gracie's part in this class was to practice weaving, she's having lots of trouble with her weaves which is hard for me to figure out since Gidget picked them up so easily.  The instructor said I should walk with my shoulders at a 45 degree angle to the the weaves, stay close and keep a finger low and pointing to the weaves to encourage her to stay in the poles.  Gracie also had a chance to practice the serpentine and 180ish set up, but I didn't want her to do too much jumping since she had a whole jumping class next.

Gracie's last advanced jumping class was last night.  We actually ran some small courses!  The all had challenges we've worked on through out the class.  We also introduced the dogs to the double and triple jumps.  The first course had a serpentine and a 270.  The instructor had us do a front cross after the 270 which I thought would certainly make me dizzy.  It turned out that I was turned enough before Gracie took jump 8 that I didn't have to turn much further to continue on and I didn't get dizzy, yay!  The second course had a 180 and a pinwheel.  Gracie did the pinwheel perfectly (which means my handling of it has improved!), I didn't even have to pass the line of jumps 5 and 7.  We did a rear cross in the last course, right before 3 to turn the dog to 4.  A lot of dogs had trouble with this, Gracie included, though she got it perfectly on our second try.  Just need to work on "left" and "right" in places besides home.  Jumps 5-9 in the last course were fun because we could pick up some speed on the curve.  Gracie didn't get to her fastest speed, but she definately enjoyed it.  She'll start beginner agility either tonight or next Thur.  Yay!  Happy agility!