I Can't Think of a Title for this Post

On Wed. I took the girls to an open jumping class.  I used the given set up to work on tight front cross jump wraps and doing front crosses on a curve or straighter line.  Nothing terribly exciting, but some good practice.

Then it was regular class on Thur.  Gracie ran the black, blue and purple courses and Gidget ran the red course.  Gidget ran another course too, but I forgot to write it down and now can't remember the whole thing.  I'll go over the important parts of it later.

Black course: This course was pretty basic.  We just worked on an opposite arm cue and rear cross to get the dogs in the correct tunnel entrance at 9-10.

Blue course: I love serpentines!  I wouldn't say Gracie loves them yet, but she will.  I know Gidget does.  Our newer instructor suggested that I shouldn't use an opposite arm cue to bring my dog back into me at the second jump.  Might need that for a threadle someday (not that I'm likely to see a threadle in competition with my current dogs).  Our other instructor taught serpentines using that opposite arm cue, so it's habit for me now.  It did work for Gracie to not use it though.  The only other interesting spot in here was a front cross between 4 and 5.

Purple course: This was just a quick course to end the class with.  I had trouble getting Gracie to stay with me to jump 2, she loves that teeter!  I was concerned she wouldn't do the tire if I wasn't with her, she'd already had trouble with it that day.  So we lowered it a little and I set myself up for a lead out where I could see her through the tire.  That worked!  Nice jump through the tire and right to jump 2.  Jump 5 was actually rotated slightly for this course to make the serpentine entrance easier.  8-9 was sort of an advanced weave entry.  I just wanted Gracie to practice the weaves in the other direction so I didn't overly stress the entry, just set her up to succeed and she did!

Red course: The main focus of this course was 2-5.  What to do after the teeter was the biggest question that determined how the rest could be handled.  People tried post turning from the teeter to the jump then rear crossing the weaves.  Some tried front crossing after jump 3.  A front cross after the teeter then a front cross or flip after the weaves seemed to work best.  You just had to be careful after the teeter, to set yourself up for the cross where you wouldn't get stuck behind the jump.  With Gidget I ran a few steps with her and then crossed.  Had I done this with Gracie, I would have had her wait in "bottom" on the teeter while I set up and release her after I'd already crossed.  Not much else to the rest of the course, just a rear cross into the tunnel.  A lot of people (myself included) added their own 16 and let their dogs take the tunnel after the last numbered jump.  Our instructor told us we may have just caused ourselves trouble for the next course!  Uh oh!

Course I can't remember:  The challenge in this course was basically 9-10 from the black course, but it was done twice from both directions.  Our earlier mistake of adding a 16 to the red course did not effect our work here thankfully.  I knew Gidget had had issues with this in the past so I made extra sure to time my cues (name, opposite arm, and running slightly away from the wrong tunnel entrance) were time just right.  She got both weird tunnel entrances beautifully!  Now if only I could remember the rest of the course.  Happy agility!