NADS UKA 25th March

I love how Pip is maturing at every show :)

Today he was much more settled around the rings, and although he did still have to bark at collies running a few times it was FAR better than the beginning of last weekend. We even queued for ourselves in decent sized queues and he was happy to play with me once we were near the front of the queue before 3 out of 4 rounds.

My aims for the weekend were
1. work on the queuing
2. practice my contacts as part of a course (rather than in isolation as I did last week)
3. weave entries
4. running jumping courses without rushing him and allowing him room to make the right choices.

1st up was beginners jumping. After walking it I identified 2 areas of challenge.
Perfect wait as I went out to between 2&3 (5 straight jumps slightly downhill) started well and jumped well but stumbled on landing after 4 and thus missed 5. Restarted fine and got the pull round.
First challenge was the weave entry - this was a 90 degree turn left from a run of 3 jumps uphill. It was a tight turn too. So plan was to hang back and turn shoulders once he had committed to the jump. This worked and he made the turn, but was just too wide to pick up the first pole and entered the 2nd. Restarted and got a perfect 12.
Second challenge was a front cross straight across a box. This I messed up by turning a bit too soon before he was committed to the jump, and dropping my arm - so he round the jump. Tried it again and got it right then finished the final tricky section with pulls through and change of direction perfectly.
Kay was watching and came over to say how good he was looking, and how much she liked what she was seeing - Thought that was really nice as I have never really spoken to her a lot and she isnt the sort to praise if she didnt believe what she was saying!

Next Gamblers. Decided to train the A frame contact, reward it with the tuggy, then leave him on the contact, release to jump, right turn to jump, right turn to weaves and practice the weave entry. Perfect A frame :) jumps were good - kept right out on my arm. But missed the weave entry again. started again without the jump and missed again even though I made sure to hang back. started again and worked him into the first pole and he started great but then for some reason missed a pole around 8 and carried on fine. sent him the the other way - perfect entry and weaves, came back and again missed the entry. but got it 2nd time and did 3 jumps to finish. SO... think I need to train my weaves a bit more esp entries.

Next up beginners agility. I was scoring for them so had the luxury of not queuing :)
This was a tugg e nuff qualifier AND built by Bridgitte, so after an initial walk and thinking hmmmm nice course, I had a rethink and looked for the challenges lol. It was a nice course but would be one to test my positioning and handling, so my plan for this round was to run the whole course working on not rushing Pip, and getting in the right place at the right time, holding all contacts for a count of 3 before releasing. The nature of the course meant it would test our contacts as I would have to run on to get in position. There was also an interesting entry to 6 weaves but at this point I was thinking not to make a big fuss about weaves until I had done some more training as he can lose confidence if he makes mistakes a lot on something.
So start - perfect wait. Was tyre to seesaw as the start, which was test in itself, but Mr Pip did it fine and held the seesaw perfectly even though I ran on past to the next jump wing. Released him to 3 jumps across a box uphill to a tunnel, I had to cut across once he was committed to tunnel to front cross the Aframe. He flew over the A frame and slammed into a well held 2o2o, as I front crossed the jump he had to take. Told him he was a gooooooddd boy, held it and then released. He went round the circle of jumps wayyy out on my arm. Now the tricky weave entry. As he came round I either had to front cross the weaves (the option I chose but muffed the timing so he saw the weaves too late and missed the entry) or hang back on the turn and rear cross the weaves - risk here though was dog going too wide to make the entry as they came round the turn at speed. Put him back in the weaves and he got the entry, but missed a pole mid way up. I decided to carry on and work on it at home so we were E'd. so on uphill to a straight line through another box right out into the corner to a tight turn onto the DW, flew up it and again a lovely held contact, did lots of good boy and readyyyyyy then released to last jump. REALLY please with this round. I handled it well, he ran well and other than the weave entry he was clear and fast, but I kept up. Bridgitte commented later how nicely he ran and how much he has come on :) This round we just clicked and it felt magic.

Finally later in the day I popped him into a steeplechase NFC. there were 2 running at about the same time - 1 was a simple course that was cunningly designed to look hard. The other asked a few more questions but had some of those nice long runs I need to practice. Jackie and half his family and their owners came to watch so no pressure! Again queue jumped so I could go back to scoring :)
Had decided on this one to train the start. It was like the previous week, jump to tunnel, with hardly any room behind the first jump to set him up (He was almost sitting on the Scrimers feet just to be 3 strides from the jump!) To make it harder the tunnel curved round and the course came back round parallel to the first jump before turning away. As he has shown he likes lead out pivots so much I decided to really test us in this one and go out to the right parallel to the first jump and released him ahead to the tunnel and pick him up as he came out with me on the correct side. He was perfect and did it superbly, then 3 jumps up hill to tunnel - I cut across as soon as he was committed to the tunnel for a LONG run round the ring over 6 curving jumps to a tunnel. Out of the tunnel he had to drive to me not the jump in his sight line, so I called him as he came out of tunnel. However I made to big a thing of it and he took the correct jump but then came into me rather than staying out. I also dropped my arm. Restarted from the tunnel and said nothing and it worked prefectly, he went round the circle, back into the tunnel - this time straight ahead to 3 final jumps to finish. So VERY pleased with this round as it was nice and controlled and not rushed and both of us were happy.
Jackie was very pleased with us. She commented how much we have improved since she last saw us in the ring at Cheltenham in December when we were both rather wild! I kind of liked the fact that Jess was lying there watching her son run - though she nipped him when he tried to say hello lol.

Summary. Very good waits in all rounds, super contacts throughout, jumping was good - he didn't rattle a single pole which tells me I'm not rushing him, handling was on the whole good.

Training needs
- need to work more weaves entries in different ways and at speed teaching him to decel, also need to rattle him through some easy sets to regain his confidence and speed.
- need to revisit the box and some front cross timings for me.