We have a yard!

We have a yard again!  A yard snow free and dry enough to train in!  Agility practice here we go!  WooHoo!

I signed up for an online 3 month long Big Distance course with an instructor I’ve worked with before in person at her seminars.  Lisa Schmit of In the Zone Agility.  She’s very well known in NADAC land for her bonus skills, training and work not only with her own dogs but also with students and helping people build their own big distance skills.  As the timing of her class seemed perfect for my yard being once again usable, I know Lisa’s approach and that her input has been helpful to me in the past, and the price of the class was right, I signed up.

Today we worked the Out Lesson 1

The out tunnel after the pinwheel gave me trouble.  I’m kind of stuck on how to build further. I know if I do that extra step push we’ll get it, the times I tried it without the extra step push there was confusion and the out tunnel didn’t happen.  I don’t really know which would be the best next stage for us. Do I keep doing that extra step push? Do I try to fade it? If I do keep doing it, how do I do it in a way that allows our distance to continue to grow?  And she’s not taking my out cue the times I was trying to cue it prior to the hoop, she was consistently coming through that hoop either already locked onto the closer tunnel entrance or cuing off my foot when I turned it too much to then switch to the hoop. How to build the response to the out and my cue timing so she’s taking that pinwheel hoop thinking about the correct tunnel entrance already.  I’m looking forward to Lisa’s feedback and continuing to think about how else I could have approached it, and working through the challenge.