What's a Broad Jump?

We went to open weaves on Wed. night.  Nothing fancy, 12 poles, the A-frame, and a tunnel.  Both girls did well.  Gidget had to work on her A-frame contact a little, Gracie struggled some with her weaves.  Gidget weaved fast!  Life's been a little stressful lately and I haven't been training as much as I should, especially agility stuff at home.  Gotta get those 6 poles out tonight and give Gracie a good refresher.

Thur. was class as usual.  One course for both classes.  The chute was out for Gidget's class but not Gracie's.  Gracie ran the black and red courses (except 13) and Gidget ran the red, blue, and purple courses.  The broad jump was out and neither of the girls had seen it in quite a while.  Gidget remembered it no problem.  Gracie, on the other hand, needed a good refresher to get her to stop walking across it.  Silly girl.

Black course: The start is a little slow so the handler needs to keep moving a bit to get their dog moving, especially for slower dogs.  Front cross after 2.  The instructor wanted everyone to try a rear cross over 8, but it just wasn't working for me and Gracie.  I could get a front cross in after the weaves and make it work, so that's what we did.

Red course: It was a little tricky to get the dogs into 3.  I needed to lead out a bit and pull Gracie into me a bit.  Gidget handled it better, but I'm sure she benefited from me working with Gracie first.  Gracie followed a pull to the correct tunnel entrance just fine, Gidget struggled with it a bit, could have used a front cross.  Gidget also kept wanting to take the jump off to the side instead of coming with me to 10.  I needed to stop and call her to me before I could move again.  Gracie managed that part no problem.  Both girls did a lovely "right" rear cross from 11-12.

Blue course: Front cross after 5 and 8, otherwise pretty straight forward.

Purple course:  The chute was turned around for this course, our dogs have not learned to lift the chute and go through it backwards... though a few have tried.  2-3-4 is a tricky serpentine.  I wanted to handle it on one side, but didn't have my timing/spacing quite right.  I did see another team manage it though.  It worked best to do a front cross after 3 and send the dog around the pole that was there to 4 and rear cross the weaves.  Dog on the right the rest of the way ending with a rear cross into the tunnel.

No Thur. class for us next week unfortunately.  I didn't think we'd be able to do the open class Wed. either, but that has changed.  Then a CPE trial for both dogs next Sat.  Happy agility!