April Trials

It's been a busy 5 days! On the weekend (April 21 & 22) we went to the Fionavar K9 trial in Olds. Baxter handled the traveling fine, it was really only a hour in the car hardly more than he'd spend if we were going around town.

First and for most, he got his AADC title and a new ribbon for our wall. I though it would be fun to collect title ribbons from the different clubs around here and so far we're 3 for 3! We had qualifying rounds in Advanced Standard, Advanced Snooker and Master Jumpers. I didn't like Snooker for the longest time, finding it very difficult to plan my own course. However, now I think it is one of my favorite games!

Since we've been out of classes for a while now I'm finding it a little more challenging to run the courses. We practice different handling drills at home, but not full courses and certainly not full courses at a masters level like we do in class. Since we've been in Starters/Advanced for 9 months now I've been lulled into complacency. Not worrying about how to handle the course and not really been paying attention to making sure I know where I am going since starters and advanced flow pretty nicely. Masters is a little more tricky!

I blew one of Baxter's Adv Standard runs on the weekend by flipping in a front cross where I shouldn't have and then consequently pushing him off the table - oops. Then in the second master jumpers run I handled a serp/push thru sequence badly resulting in a E and might have missed a jump completely if someone hadn't  pointed out to me that I was missing a backside jump while I walked the course. Time to make sure I have my head in the game.

Last night (April 25) we had Training Troop's Wee Wed Trial as well. I entered in Advanced Standard even though we just got the title and a Steeplechase. It's a good thing that we did just get the title, since we wouldn't have last night. Again he isn't hitting his weave entry. Steeplechase went better, he nailed a hard offside weave entry but then missed the next one and popped out on pole 10. Otherwise his speed and enthusiasm are better at Wet Creek than anywhere else. Aside from the weave issues the steeplechase run was gorgeous, he worked away from me, with obstacle commitment and ran very nicely. He's getting it, slowly but surely.

The plan of attack? I'm going to add more speed into our practices with weaves, working on hitting the entry at speed and not just at a trot or from a standstill. Working a sequence of obstacles before hitting the weaves as well, like in a trial. Possibly opening up that first 2x2 so that he can see where he needs to go. I'm also going to hit up various green spaces for training not just the front or back yard where we've been focusing on.