Apr
20
Positive directions
So, things haven’t slowed down since AKC Nationals. Trip took the week off, but I did start shifting my focus to Ticket. The first thing I’m trying to work on is jumping. It’s not that she’s a “bad” jumper, she can just be careless when she gets very high, and she’s so fast that my handling is often late. I’m trying something new to try to help. She can do static and calm jumping exercises all day, but as soon as I add speed and handling, she will start dropping bars. So I’ve started stopping her when she drops a bar, and restarting the sequence. When she does it and keeps the bars up, big reward. I’m trying to be neutral and not make it any more of a correction then “you don’t get to keep going.” So far, it really seems to be helping. I can definitely see her THINKING about her jumping and paying attention to what she’s doing. And it seemed to help at the trial–she had 4/6 runs with no bars. I’m super proud of my thinking baby girl. It’s definitely the #1 fault we have, and I think if we can overcome that, we’ll have some serious progress. Most other things on my “list” to work on are much more nit-picky–tightening turns, rear cross work, etc.
At the Lake Charles trial, Trip ran FANTASTIC! She faulted both standard runs (?!), but she was SO FAST in JWW–just like my old Trip. I was happy with how she ran, and with her attitude in the ring. That’s going to continue to be my focus. Ticket got her first MX and MXF leg, as well as a Time to Beat leg. She was very close in both her JWW runs, and I was really proud of how she ran. Ticket has shows the next two weekends, and I’m hoping we might be able to eek out our first QQ. Tough, but it could happen. I’ll post video later this week.
This week will be a little tougher because I’ve been gone, so no training. I just finished my acupuncture certification, so it was worth it, but flying in Friday night and showing Saturday morning after no work all week is not the ideal way to get Ticket ready for a trial. 🙂 I suspect she will be a little full of herself, but will not doubt have a blast.
Happy trials–enjoy your dog this weekend!
