AJAX part 2 - Sunday

SC qualifier first after a lot of waiting (could have had another hour in bed!)

Nice course - quite a lot of traps and focus needed. Lots of tunnels too! Very excited again in the queue but better than Friday - a work in progress. So my aim was to have a good wait, and not rush on the course and push him into knocking fences down.
Wait was fab jump jump pull off into tunnel. He started perfectly but I moved a fraction too soon as he took off for fence 2 and he clipped it. He did the pull off perfectly and into the tunnel, out and round and onver nect 3 fine, another pull off into tunnel and then run on to circle of jumps. Got them all but just clipped one when I looked on ahead to check where the tunnel was and he clipped another pole, got the tunnel to tunnel and the front cross and final line well.
So - didnt get the qualifier but did love his focus, attention, brilliant wait, and went exactly where I put him avoiding all the traps.

another long wait then jumping and agility walking together. Sigh.

Jumping I wanted to train the weaves which were approached at an angle from the long jump right at the end of the course, but due to the positioning of the fences it wasnt easy to start there. So I decided to do a nice loop, jump jump tunnel turn left, jump jump jump jump round back to tunnel then change of direction to long jump, 12 weaves and final jump. Not sure what went wrong but I wasnt focussed wasnt where I needed to be and wasnt really helping him! We muddled round - he got the weave entry but came out at pole 10 cos I was muppeting! Felt really bad as I let him down, but he had fun and didnt really care. Queued for this one for quite a while too.

Agility next - didnt get to put him back in van so wandered about a bit, then joined end of Maxi queue ~(about 10 dogs) as they announced the course walking for SC2 over lunch (thought this would give me time to do agility and then walk course). In agility I had decided to train contacts, but after the jumping changed my plan a little and left out the DW, and started on the weaves. So weave, jump right hand turn to Aframe then see saw and jump. Basically he did it perfectly. No issue with the weaves, no chance he was coming off the Aframe, I ran on past the see saw and he held position, and over jump. Very pleased with us both (I gave myself a talking too about not letting him do all the work before we went in!!!)

SC2 had now started! So cooled him off, popped him back in the van and came back to watch the SC small dogs and learn the course. Tricky start 2 jumps on a right bend to a 4th and tunnel to the left - all jumps were tight on 4-5 strides. There were two ways to run it. Lead out pivot between 2 and 3, or rear cross 4. The lead out pivot had to be timed perfectly or the dog would have a pole, but the rear cross gave a LONG run to the other end of the tunnel to get them out to the jump way out on the circle beyond the tunnel. SO... I opted for lead out pivot. He did an awesome wait as I ran out a long way. Released, timed the turn perfectly and he flew it leaving jumps up. This was where not walking the course let me down as I just hadnt realised how far it was out from the tunnel to the next jump and was out of position so he came out of tunnel and in towards me not the jump. Restarted but lost the flow and was now well out of position for the next tunnel and big run to next jump. He flew the finel line with a rear cross 2 from home though :) VERY pleased with the wait and lead out pivt and the rear cross. ESP since this was almost the identical start to the 2nd sc he ever did at Cheltenham and he just couldnt get the lead out pivit there at all. This time it was easy.

All in all pretty pleased with me and my boy. The queueing is a wor in progress, but it DID improve over the weekend and he did work out that barking and lunging in the queue was NOT what I wanted and not really acceptable. His instincts did sometimes overcome his mind though and he'd bark/lunge then suddenly sit and look at me "oopss sorry mum"

everything else about having Pip at a show is fab. He loves all the dogs, and people he meets, and is polite and respctful with dogs, off lead he is a pretty good boy and behaves as he should, he will go run and come back as I choose. He had a lovely collie run and play game with a collie called Toby we met there and was a true gentleman walking with Max who was more worried. He barely barked in the van, and was happy to sit by my feet when I ate lunch :)