Jumping, put it together - Thank You Nancy for a great day!

We had a very busy weekend. North Downs Show on Saturday and Training on Sunday with Nancy Hudson. I thought the weather is going to be worst on the weekend but Saturday wasn't too bad and first part of Sunday was actually sunny. The sun has been really helpful to me because I broke my glasses (arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!) when we arrived for the training day. I am not too bad for a short sighter but with glasses, it definitely help a lot. I train with Sizzle in the morning and with Saturn in the afternoon. I was actually very worried how I would train Sizzle without my glasses, I do not like to make a stupid handling, he is a very sensitive dog but everyone was very patient with me. Thanks.

my broken glasses

I was so much looking forward to this training day; Not only Nancy is a superb handler but she is a great instructor and great motivator too. I always enjoy my training day with her. She watched us and gave us advice on our weakest point and the way to improve them.

The Theme for this training day is "Jumping, put it together". This is purely a Jumping Training Day, so no contacts involve. I have noticed Sizzle prefers Agility to Jumping, I thinks he gets rewards on the contacts but not on the jumping, he definitely is faster in agility so this is a good day for him to learn some jumping skills. He was slow to start with, I do not know if he is still tired from Saturday (he looked tired and lie down on my camping chair most of the time, not like the energetic Sizzle) but he slowly pick up more speed, it could be the confidence grows?

Nancy set up 3 jumping courses; we spent more than an hour on the first course, we all did our first run the way we would run the course, then Nancy broke it down to a few small sequences to work on the hot spots. I like Nancy's teaching, she MAKES us try the way (handling) she wants us to run, afterall this is a training day and we have to learn something. I know my weak point, I am totally hopeless in pivot. I always put in a front cross instead of a pivot in competition but sometimes you have to do a pivot. This remind me of the Combined 6-7 Jumping course we ran on Saturday. My pivot with Saturn was horrible, he turned so wide because my handling was crap. I found myself station in the same spot waiting for him to turn. With pivot, the handler need to do the pivot as well as the dog but the handler do the pivot in the tiny spot. I think my body movement is very stiff, I am not agile to rotate.

I always have a problem with Saturn argues (he barks) with me when I send him to the tunnel. This only happened after he had the biopsy operation in July 2008. He used to be a tunnel vision dog before the op, he loves tunnel more than anything but not anymore. If you put a tunnel and a weave next to each other, he would choose the weave instead of the tunnel where many dogs will choose the tunnel. Nancy suggested I need to do a lot of sending into the tunnel with him. I am also weak at wrap the wing, with Saturn, my cue is always late and also I think I give him the wrong command. I used "back" for turning away from me, I used that a lot when I do a rear across and I realised I don't say "left" or "right" eventhough I teach them left and right, maybe I have to teach them left and right for wrap the wing? I recall a couple of weeks ago we went training with Nancy and Andy, Andy took the Jumping course, we did a sequence with directional commands, there is a wing wrap and rear across, I know Sizzle is stronger on the right turn, when we did the wing wrap, I told him "right" and he did that beautifully and came to the rear across, I told him "back", he turned the right way but wider, so Andy suggested I used the "right", I did that the second time and he actually wrap the wing. Now, it got me thinking ...

You see why I like training day, it really got me thinking ... I may not absorb immediately but I am thinking about it and look for the way I should improve.

here is a little video clip from yesterday, I only picked two sequences, I am not going to upload all, that will bored you:

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thank You Nancy for a great day!

Now, this is not training related but the storm has done some damaged to our garden. We had a fence down between us and our neighbour. I saw the broken fence on Saturday afternoon after we came back from North Downs show. Colin suggested we don't repair it just yet as the weather forecast for the week is more rain and wind. Luckily our dogs are so well behaved, they only stand in front of the gap to look through the neighbour's garden but has never cross the boundary. I am not too worry if they do, I know both our gardens are secure and they dogs won't be able to escape.

did you see the gap

closer look

the messy garden after the storm!!