Novice Competition Handling Class 5

[omnipoodle]

This evening's agility class went so well!  I didn't want to go beforehand because I had just woken up from a nap, but I'm very glad I did.  Today I found out that A Click Above has course maps for every class that you can take home.  My reaction to this observation was this: D:  What a maroon I've been, drawing out all my courses!  But then when I got home with my handy-dandy course map, I can't make the scanner work.  Some CS graduate I am.  Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out later.  I'm not going to draw it out because no one reading this cares about the course except for me, and I have my copy right in front of me.

Course 1 was jump->dog walk->tunnel->tunnel->front cross->A frame->tunnel->jump->jump->front cross->jump->jump->12 weaves->jump->teeter->tire.  Faith and I skipped the teeter as usual.  We are so lame.  Notes for this course:

• Faith nailed both of her contacts--perfect dog walk and A frame.  I was really happy about the A frame!  We've been having trouble with that, and I figured what with two weeks since our last agility class she would be like, 2o2o, what is that?  But it was gorgeous.  
• The jump->jump->front cross->jump combo in the middle was good except that I waited too long to tell her about the front cross.  It was one of those where you do the front cross on the landing-side of the jump while your dog is on the taking-off side.  Because I was slow, she took the jump at an angle like a serpentine (totally logical) which prompted me to go, "Faith-Faith-Faith!" and which prompted Faith to take a really wide turn.  But she did it.
• We had problems with the weave poles.  It is a new set and the poles are a little further apart than we're used to.  Faith would start weaving and get into her rhythm and then around the eighth pole she'd be in totally the wrong place and decide the weaves must be over.  We tried them three times with no clean gos, and then I put her in two from the back and carried on.  Then after we'd done our course we tried them again and she was clean and we had a party.  They just feel a little different and weird to her.

Course 2 was tire->teeter->front cross->jump->jump->rear cross->6 weaves->jump->A frame->front cross->jump->tunnel->dog walk->FLIP maneuver that we've been having trouble with->tunnel->front cross->jump->front cross->jump.  Notes for this course:

• Faith again nailed her contacts.  We did the A frame on both the left and the right of me, so it wasn't a fluke before!  So happy about this.
• We did a rear cross to six weaves--the first time Faith got into them right but popped out.  We tried again and it was perfect.  My memory was refreshed with the interesting tidbit from Teeter and Weaves, which is that it is sometimes a bad idea to front cross to weaves with a green dog because your body temporarily blocks his vision of the poles.  And I learned a new tidbit, which is that if you are trialing in Novice it is a good idea to do six weaves sometimes, not just twelve, because otherwise a green dog might completely not see a mere six.
• We finally got that flip thing right!  What I did was first RELEASE Faith from her contact ("Okay!"), take a step forward while cuing the flip with my off hand and then step a little into her.

Next week is our last class.

In other news, yesterday Faith and I accompanied my mom and Kristen to Merrifield Nursery.  My mom and Kristen have this thing about gardening.  They're always buying plants.  I don't get it.  But I had a really fun time walking Faith around the store.  We did some rally practice.  It was another new place she hasn't been before, and she did a good job of being polite and attentive.