Clever Jembe

Agility today:
Elliot
We did lots of handling work (using front crosses) - I need more confidence in him/we need to work on him doing turns with me at a distance so that I can move and get in the right positions for front cross. I also need to do more change of arm work just to really ingrain it in him. I also need to learn to MOVE - I like to stand and "admire my handiwork" as pen put it - ie when he has gone into the tunnel I stand and wait for him to appear out the other end before moving, i did improve on this though towards the end!! I also need to work on the jumps in a step shape with him working it as a straight line. We then did some weaves, starting on 4inches and after spending five minutes of him keep getting it wrong, once he got it right the once he got it right everytime bar i think once out of 20ish. We then moved them into 3inches and he got very confused and it took us lots of work, going back to 3 weaves and then four but then we couldn't get him to do six and he was just getting stressed and confused so we went back to 4inches and he did 6 of them right three times straight off!! Funny little dog. Tomorrow it will be contact work, backcrosses and weaves.

Jemma:
Well what can I say, what a little star. It was weaves we worked on today and wow, she got them wrong only twice out of over 30 I would of thought. She was brill, we went straight for doing 6, me recalling her, then recall over my shoulder from 5,4,3 then 2 then walking with her then me jogging then running with her. We then did bent tunnel, weaves and she was brilliant - once her excitement levels built up we found her problem, she got the entrance and exit every time but kept loosing her footing and missing the gap between 3 & 4. We then put the weaves as obstacle 15 in a course (after the tunnel), and the first time she lost her footing, the second time of doing the course however she did them perfectly (i hung back slightly) and then completed the course nicely too. We then put them after the cloth tunnel, as we hadn't done cloth tunnel weaves before we started doing just these two. To start she kept coming out of the tunnel and doing the jump she had in the course before, i then recalled her through the weaves from the tunnel exit - brill. I then tried recalling her through the tunnel and weaves - haha, bless her, she kept running round the tunnel and then doing the weaves perfectly, after she had done this about 5 times we took out the jump that was causing her the problem and I ran with her doing cloth tunnel, weaves and called her to me as she came out the tunnel and then sent her into weaves, just to straighten her up. This worked well so we then went on to do the course. She did the weaves really well but I did the same as with elliot and kept "admiring my handiwork" but once I stopped doing this we got round this course brilliantly. I was very proud of her today, I just hope she continues to go in this direction with her weaves :)