Weave hoops

Today we tried weave hoops for the 1st time ever. I wanted to see what Stewie would do when he saw them. I used the 4 hoops that I have and gave it a try. He did really well and seems to get it right away, which is great, since we are still having trouble with the hoop serpentine.

We also did 3 great weavepoles today. The 2nd time I went about 8 feet past the 12th pole and just called him through them, he has either not done them in the past or done them really hesitantly, but today he flew right through them, Yeah Stewie.

Wed at club practice

We actually had a completely rain free club practice on Wednesday night, and Stewie and I ran a standard course and practiced our distance skills. We worked on sends to the dogwalk, laying a line of jumps, and had no problem with it. There was also a tunnel under the A frame that I sent him to and send him on out of the tunnel to another tunnel, also without a problem.
He did blow one dogwalk contact which is unusual at practice, usually he only does it at trials, so I had the opportunity to correct him for that.
All in all a good practice

3 Pines Video Link

I am testing out the video link that I will use on my blog to view the NADAC Champions in TN in September.
This footage is from a NADAC trial in Montana, enjoy

Hoops!

My son, Jim, made me 4 hoops, and we got to practice with them today in the backyard. I set up a curved tunnel at each end with the 4 hoops in a straight line in the middle. I figured we would work on some hoops at speed, and some sending practice also.

One of the problems I had noticed with Hoopers classes in NADAC was that Stewie seemed tentative going thru the hoopers and did not have his normal speed and drive thru them. I thought having them to practice every day and bring them to club practice a couple of times would really help for our next Hoopers course at our next trial NAE in August in Dummerston VT. Check out Northeast Agility Enthusiasts website if you are interested in coming to this trial!

The drill worked well and by the end of it Stewie seems to already be taking the Hoops more enthusiastly.

Tomorrow we will try Hoop serpentines, which we saw at our last trial and need to practice for sure!
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Club Practice this week

Here is the course map from this week's club practice. Sorry it is a bad scan. I worked on distance skills with Stewie on this course, trying to stay in the center of the course for the whole thing. Also we did put in a set of 12 weave poles instead of a set of 6. The spot we had trouble with in the beginning was after the A frame. I decided to send him to the two jumps after the A frame and then layer the a frame while he was weaving. This was a difficult move but I am trying to push the distance envelope during practices. It took us 3 tries but we did it and then Stewie got the weave entry and continued weaving like a champ! The rest of the course was pretty easy, after the weaves he continued on no problem to the next two jumps, the tunnel, jump and dog walk to finish. After our 3 run thru with this course, Stewie had it down pact, so we did it backward the next two times and then called it a night.