Weave Woes and Jumpers

We were at a trial this weekend- the last of the year and boy do we have things to work on.

Wicca was very pushy with her startlines all day Saturday and it got to the point that if she moved again I was going to take her off...and then of course she was perfect the rest of the weekend! :0)

She also had a horrible time with the weave poles...she missed every entry on Saturday, and for no good reason either. After talking it over with Sarah we decided that there had to be a more obvious consequence for when she blew past the entry- a down and a resend, or leave. I am happy to say that after a down and resend she was pretty careful. I think Wicca's problem is that she goes on Autopilot and when there is lots of speed she has a hard time using those braincells very effectively :o)

We also had some bar knocking- more than she has in a while. By the end of Saturday I was pretty frustrated at her. Steeplechase on Sunday was a good example of just how bad she was- Knocked the first bar- twice (we got a re-run) knocked the second bar after the frame and before a tunnel, tire, tunnel sequence. Where instead of taking the tunnel entrance I told her to she shot out 30 feet to the other one....After getting on her for it she was good though, and weaved beautifully.

On the plus side she had awesome contacts- even on the teeter and I really pushed her on them, so I was pretty happy about that. It is always such a good feeling when you see results at a trial.
And we had the most spectacular jumpers run ever. EVER. She didn't knock a single bar and I don't think I have ever ran so fast in my whole life. We ran it in 25seconds...the fastest time overall (winning us 7$ ) It was the last run of the day and to be honest I had little hope of qualifying as she had been so rotten all weekend. But somehow we pulled it together and it was pretty amazing.

So this winter we are doing three seminars, lots of training and hopefully we can keep improving as a team. I have a notebook that I write all of my training goals in and this winter the top five are:
1) Weave Poles
2) Jumping
3) Commitment (we've been having some problem with jump commitment, I need to take a look at my cues and find out why she is confused)
4) Distance/Discrimination (this is usually a really strong point with her, but I haven't worked specifically on that for a while)
5) and Startlines.....

I will keep you all posted :o)